You ever notice how paranoid people think other people are paranoid? Or how angry people think others are angry? Or perhaps the opposite, the person who wears rose colored glasses thinks everyone else is nice and benign. What is happening there? They are projecting. They see the world a certain way due to their character traits and so they assign those same traits to others actions. They can’t imagine others thinking differently, especially if they are narcissists who never bother to think about others.
Perhaps that’s why Trump thinks those who lost their lives defending America are losers and suckers. Because he can’t imagine people doing anything sacrificial unless they are those things. He certainly doesn’t see value in sacrifice or someone having sacrifice in his or her character. Instead he sees everything as win or lose. If you do something that can lead to you losing (or dying or getting captured in war) then you are a sucker. You let it happen to you because you weren’t thinking about yourself, and that is not the way he thinks. It’s always about him succeeding, getting away with something, escaping something. If he screws someone else in the process, a vendor back when he was a real estate developer, or a supposed ally now that he’s President, then he did what was smart for him and the other person got suckered.
So I ask you, are you a sucker? You are if you think he cares about you or your life. He doesn’t. He only cares about himself.
“If you are easily offended you are easily manipulated”. I heard our Pastor say this in his sermon this week and it resonated with me.
There are two parts to this quote, first the idea of being easily offended. It is what might currently be associated with ‘cancel culture’. You hear something you don’t like from someone, maybe a celebrity, maybe a politician, and you decide they are no longer worthy of your, or anyone else’s attention because what they did or said offended you so deeply. You might go so far as to say they need to be fired or disciplined in some way. This happens in our 24/7 environment of rage almost every day. Now, sometimes the person or company deserves the judgment and the consequence. Maybe they need to be fired because what they did was so egregious so as to deserve that. But often times we either are overreacting to the ‘sin’ or our judgment is based on incomplete information.
The other part of the quote is about being manipulated. Manipulation in this context means being persuaded to believe something or take some action that you don’t realize is based on incomplete or faulty information, or through appealing to an emotion or feeling that becomes more important than the truth about something.
The question becomes how these two are connected. If you are easily offended it often means you are looking for a reason to judge and may not wait to hear enough information to fairly judge. And if you are that primed to judge, you are primed to hear what a manipulator wants you to hear.
To use two recent examples from today’s headlines, first we have the case of the unwanted hysterectomies taking place in immigrant detention facilities. If the headline is, ‘Mass forced hysterectomies performed on immigrant women’ you might think one thing. If the headline is, ‘Whistle blower describes hearing about possible unwanted hysterectomies at detention center’ you might think another. If you were already upset about treatment of immigrants you could be quickly offended and ready to judge and the headline that heightens to infraction is the one you are likely to believe without checking to see if it is accurate.
Another example: You hear about a ‘riot’ in a major US city that happened after a protest. If the headline is ‘Major violence and rioting causes city to burn’ you might think one thing. If the headline is, ‘Car set on fire after peaceful protest’ you might think another. But if you were already upset at the protesters and their message you could be quickly offended and ready to judge and the headline that tells of more violence is the one you are likely to believe without checking to see if it is accurate.
What that means is we have to analyze and double check our information while withholding judgment. How do you double check the information? One is by being patient and letting the story play out. The other is by having multiple avenues of information coming to you. If you are only listening to Fox and Breitbart then you can trust you are not getting an accurate picture. If you are only listening to MSNBC and HuffPost then the same is true, you are not getting an accurate picture.
You can’t trust a single news outlet to feed you a well-balanced picture. It’s your responsibility to wait until there is sufficient evidence and to hear news from a variety of directions. It’s also your responsibility to not propagate information that is nothing more than gossip and innuendo without evidence. Both of those responsibilities are easier if you aren’t so easily offended and thus easily manipulated.
In the book ‘1984’ there were official sayings of the party in control, inscribed on the giant white pyramid at the Ministry of Truth. war is peace freedom is slavery ignorance is strength
This has always been used as an example of a scary dystopian future we in America might see in a place like Russia or China. But that is not how it’s turned out. Instead we are seeing it play out here in the US under Trump. If you doubt this to be true I would submit the words above as just the merest of slices of what he has said that is absurd and untrue in the extreme.
All you have to do is look through a collection of what he’s said over the past 4 years or more to see the truth. If you don’t see it, I think you might work for the ‘Ministry of Truth’.
A Woman in Summer, 2020A Memory of MineShe’s So UglyThe Hurricane DanceThe Vision and the WeightA Discussion with the GoddessThe Prayer and the SignThe Thinking SkyscraperThe Runner’s PrayerThe Sign in the DesertThe Artist KnowsTonguesCovid LandscapeThe Circular ThoughtShower Singing
This is my attempt to visualize what a portrait of a woman would be if you could see her inner self as the covid debacle and the BLM movement took hold of America in the first half of 2020. What would you look like as the year has progressed so far?
“So I had the weirdest dream, do you want to hear it? Ok, I was in the middle of a pandemic and then it turned into some sort of protest over a guy who couldn’t breathe and I tried to explain that they were both about not being able to breathe but all of a sudden I was in a fire and couldn’t breathe when a woman in a mask brought me to safety and I was surrounded by black people saying they couldn’t breathe and I was so scared I couldn’t breathe but they all smiled and said ‘just breathe’ and then I woke.”
I used to say both these things. Now I am older and wiser and don’t say them anymore. I don’t for at least two reasons. One, they weren’t (and aren’t) true and two, they didn’t (and don’t) help anything even if they were true.
So, why did I think they were true? Because I didn’t do anything immediately and concretely racist. I was consciously not racist as far as I could figure. I accepted people of any race as I met them in my work, my school, my church or anywhere else. If we got along it wasn’t because of race and if we didn’t get along it wasn’t because of race either. It was because of some other reason, some other compatibility. That proved I wasn’t racist, right? In my mind it did.
In the New Testament there is a passage where the Paul speaks of now seeing through a glass darkly but one day seeing face to face. That is how I feel about my understanding of race in America. I used to be so sure of my ‘non-racist’ lineage that I didn’t realize how little I really saw in that glass. But then, little by little, I experienced, listened, heard, read, thought, discussed, watched, wrote, created, and met. And, while sometimes I argued with myself and others about these things, I wasn’t so invested in my own opinion that I wasn’t able to eventually see some deeper realities.
Reality 1a – I cannot know the totality of the Person of Color experience. I should not pretend I do. Reality 1b – I can however, use my creativity to imagine if I was someone else what that experience might be like. It’s not total understanding, but it is a starting point for empathy and understanding. But it is just a starting point.
Reality 2a – I can admit I have both residual racism from my past and current racism from my present in me and not condemn myself for having either of those things. Reality 2b – I cannot however, live with this knowledge and not act to change it within myself and in others around me. If I don’t step up to do that then I am deserving of condemnation. At that moment I become complicit.
Reality 3a – Being ‘color blind’ is a virtue. We want to be color blind when we work, play, interact. We want to treat everyone as equals. Reality 3b – Being ‘color blind’ is NOT a virtue. It is akin to an ostrich putting its head in the sand, looking around and saying ‘everyone looks the same to me.’ They look the same because you aren’t in a position where you can see anyone at all, you are blind. We want to see color, because seeing color is a starting point for acknowledging the history of others and society. It isn’t enough of course, you can’t just see a person’s color and make a definitive judgment anymore than you can judge a person to be physically beautiful or handsome and then projecting that they must be good and wholesome. We all know that is not true. It is the same with color. It tells us something, but it doesn’t tell us everything.
Reality 4a – This is a river you can sit beside and watch flow by. It is unlikely to overflow its banks most days and as a result you can just witness it from a safe vantage point. You never have to dip your toe in, you can just watch. Even if it does overflow, chances are you can climb up the banks to your patio and still be safe, or so you think.
Reality 4b – This is a river that is asking you to step in. That step means risking getting swept away. It is dangerous and once you are in the flow you can’t get out at the same location you first dipped your toe in. It will tumble you through rapids that will bruise your ego and jostle your pre-conceived notions. It might even cause you to leave some friends or family behind for a while as you move to a new destination. It can be scary. But make no mistake, taking that trip down the river will change your life, and the lives of many others (of all races) for the better.
Like I said earlier, I see through a glass darkly at this point. I know my revelations are pathetically inadequate for some and at the same time they may be profound for someone else. Isn’t that the truth about this issue in general? Don’t we have to allow we are all somewhere unique? This person is on the bank of the river, fearful and angry. This other person is in the deep swirling water at the roughest part of the river and needs a hand. That’s why we need to be merciful and helpful to all in our efforts to understand and change, to move our nation and the world forward little by little.
First napkin i’ve drawn in many, many months. We moved from Oklahoma to Texas and pretty much all my art has been on hold for all of 2020 so far. But to be honest, I wasn’t drawing on napkins much in 2019 either, or 2018. But I have been drawing in my sketchbook regularly and that held more interest for me so that is where I focused my attention.
Anyway, I wasn’t planning on doing a napkin drawing but I was sitting at in my studio watching and contributing via zoom with our community group from our old church in Tulsa. The technology was a bit wonky that day and I got a bit bored so I picked up a napkin and just started drawing. We were talking about some serious issues within the church, primarily the role of women. Our community group is filled with strong, intelligent women who fight the good fight every day to have more equality for women in every area of church leadership and activity.
The truth is, if you are going to affect change in any institution, you are most likely going to do it from the inside, which means you have to pick your fights. Fight too much and your ability to influence diminishes. Fight too little and the status quo wins the day. It’s not an easy path for them (or the men who support them) and they understandably get frustrated often.
So, while I was listening to the discussion I thought of how hot potato (or button but a button was not as fun to draw) issues can only be held tight for so long, then you have to drop them, let them cool before you pick them up again. You aren’t giving up the fight, you are being strategic about when to fight.
After all, the goal is not to fight. The goal is to win. If you can win without a fight, great. But you are always ready to fight if you have to.
Until quite recently I was a Running Coach. One of the things I would often ask as we gathered for our group warm up was this: Why are we here? Of course there are many reasons and we would go through all of them over the course of a season. But one reason in particular stood out recently when I went out for a run, my first since the Coronavirus situation hit hard here in Oklahoma.
Why are we here? Because we want to be fit and ready for whatever life throws at us. I would say to my runners, ‘If a disaster strikes in some way in your life, do you want to be fit or unfit? The answer is, you want to be fit.’ Back then I was thinking about if you got sick, lost a job, had to move, had a natural disaster, got a divorce or something else. Now I think, what if you found yourself in the middle of a world-wide pandemic? The answer to the question is the same: we want to be fit. Not only to protect us from the disease, but to help us deal with the physical, mental and emotional issues that come up as we go through this period.
I thought about this in depth as I was running that day. I was running fast and enjoying it but it was getting a little tough and I was doubting whether I could finish the 6 miles at the same pace I was doing mile 1 & 2. Then I thought about all the training I had been doing over the course of the last many years. The truth was I was fit and ready to take on this challenge and there was no legitimate reason I couldn’t finish what I started. So I left my doubts behind and kept up my pace in spite of it getting harder and hurting more. And what happened? I got faster as the miles wore on, finishing with my fastest mile (7:44) and with a new personal record (PR) of 50:24 for the 10k distance .
Why did that happen? A few reasons. One, I am fit physically. Two, I have done seriously hard marathon races that I thought were going to flat out kill me, but they didn’t. Third, I know that when I start to think too far ahead I need to pull back and run the mile I am in. Anticipating what might happen up ahead, having a head filled with ‘what ifs’ is a danger. It can paralyze you so that you don’t push forward with what you know you can do.
Translate that into facing your personal coronavirus circumstances. Yes, the circumstances are harsh. It might be a scary inconvenience like it is to me (for the most part) or it might be an existential threat. But wherever you are on that spectrum you know one thing, you are fit and you are ready. You understand you can suffer a LOT and still make it through. You know that discipline is essential for the long run, and that is what we are in now, a very long run.
