Lists for the bad times
As people move through the various stages of grief, over what the U.S. did to itself this week, and speculation as to what it will do to the world next, there is no shortage of advice out there on how to do that.
"Sometimes, carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement." — Albert Camus
I may have chosen a good time for a blog rebrand. I got this domain years ago for a writing experiment that never happened. I do that every so often, let the caffeine enthusiasm take over and see where the journey goes. Using it for my daily driver blog only dawned on me a few weeks ago, perhaps the result of some gremlin in the subconscious who paid more attention to the bookies predictions than the poll takers. This may not be the last election post-mortem, but it will be the final pity party post. (Narrator: "It wasn't.")
As we enter Friday of The Bad Week, the dissapointed and despondent are gasping for new models of being and there's no shortage of advice givers out there offering it. A lot of people have rediscovered Timothy Snyder's classic from the last Trump term, On Tyranny. Published in 2017, it hasn't aged a day. I was re-reading parts on Wednesday as the results hit my American-living-in-GMT ears throughout the suitably dark and cloudy day, in the back garden over coffee, later on a buy, and then at a suitably under-populated SE London pub around dusk. It was the book for the day, and possibly the one for our times. But you've got to read the whole thing, people. Each short chapter starts with a rule for the new world and there are 20 of them in the thin volume, he calls it a pamphlet instead of a book, invoking the early pamphleteers of various revolutions past. When I was keen on this kind of manifesto self-publishing back between the mid '90s and early aughts, we would have called them 'zines. But people need to read the whole thing. So many people on the socials I still pay attention to are sharing screenshots of the first rule: "Do not obey in advance." We need to fast forward, we are beyond that now. You should be readying yourself for Rule 6: "Be wary of paramilitaries."
“Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” ― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
There is a proliferation of post-election advice for the distraught among us on how to process the new reality. A lot of it is rubbish, but I'm just not going to get into those, I'm not trying to start a fight here. Instead, here's some material that may or may not be worth your while, but is generally not bad, along with or followed by my own dubious takes...
For your mental wellbeing
This kind of content isn't generally my bag, I like practical physical work, it gives the placebo of momentum: where do we stack the sandbags this time? Okay. But we all absorb things, grieve and mentally gird ourselves in different ways, you do you.
Daniel Hunter
Daniel Hunter helps you find a hopeful future amid the detritus in that one. Reality can be a pain. But being reasonable about what you can do is a fairly powerful thing. Understanding that the colossal system you oppose is far greater than you yourself can tackle alone, there are several stops before despair. Find your corner in your part of the world and don't let the details bring you down.
Kelly Hayes
To me, we've been in the Trump era since 2016. We never left. Everything about the first term informed and coloured the Biden interregnum. Nothing substantial was done to ward of a second coming. But that's me getting blamey in a recommendation to read Kelly Hayes' post on getting beyond blame. This is another one for people who need to rebuild the mental and emotional fortitude. It's good advice. I still do have a blame post in me, but it will come out later, maybe next week. It will have charts and graphs. But we also have to get past that stuff.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is one of my favourite bloggers who has ever blogged a blog. Yes, I'm just an atheist goy who subscribes to Life is a Sacred Text newsletters. They're always educational and often fun, and hit the stories in what those youth pastors I had to endure as a kid called the "Old Testament" with a lot more pizzaz. I think The Day After post is another good example. Feel your feels, but don't just steep in them. "So if you’re angry, metabolize it into action."
Lesser advice for the bad times
I've seen a few other posts, threads and videos floating around on what to do next for the angry or sad progressive. We've entered the phase when people start posting about planning to leave the country and I saw a great 50-post thread on Mastodon that is a kind of reality check on that plan, though when I left the U.S. in 2006 I think I only did maybe half of that advice. I should do another post on that. Generally, running away from things —unless its certain death, imprisonment or some other caustic outcome — is just a problem amplifier. We live in a broken world, democracies and basic rights are in general decline all over the place. Choose your battle ground. It follows.
Anyway, I'm going to end this post with my own list of coping mechanisms. You can start these at any time, they require little preparation or mental gymnastics, minimal brooding, and will have nearly instant positive results.
- Get plenty of rest. Sleep like you may not get much again in the days and years ahead. No one deals well with shit when they're also exhausted. Sleep is resilience.
- Stay hydrated. I know a guy who does hostile environment training for journalists, all that stuff about kidnap situations, dealing with injuries, situational awareness in bad places, etc. One of his first rules is stay hydrated. As the situation gets worse, and tensions rise, especially anywhere hot, if you're dehydrated you're just going to make worse choices. Drink a good amount of water.
- Eat good food. By good food, I don't just mean healthy, but good tasting food. Enjoy food when you can. In miserable times people tend to treat themselves worse, and see base needs as just a means of survival. Don't give into that kind of thinking. Tasting things you like has a huge impact on your wellbeing and outlook, it's not to be under rated. Making it yourself is also efficient use of getting away from doom scrolling, getting in some aromatherapy and generally feeling better about things. Cook good food.
- Be useful in your community. Now that the basics are covered and you're rested, watered and fed, do something for folks, or with them. It can be local, or however you define the community you're in. Find on-ramps for doing things that are needed. When we're in a situation where the problem seems (because it is) huge, having a starting point is the hardest part. The trick to getting over it is to just start anywhere, one thing leads to another and so forth.
- Be nice to people around you. There is really nothing to add or explain here. We live in a stupidly transactional world, buck that trend and be unpredictably kind where there is no perceived payback. People wake up right now expecting some fresh new shit show. Expectation management is both a survival tactic and a depressant when reality constantly lives down to it. Zig where they expect everyone to zag.
