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News, Truth, and Meaning

March 6, 2013 //
1

‘News’ is a funny word.  It could seem to be a plural of ‘new’, but ‘new’ isn’t a noun.  There seems to be a tendency, too, to make assumptions about the noteworthiness of an event based on whether we characterize it as ‘news’, to the point of having an entire separate word to describe those as ‘newsworthy’. There are cultural expectations that adults will have some basic familiarity with ‘current events’, with the implication that failing to follow ‘the news’ results in being somehow less relevant, well-informed, or professionally viable.

It’s a trap.

Think it over with me for a moment…periodicals and televised programming centered around journalism and reporting of selected current events or culturally relevant topics are often looked upon with a higher than average level of credibility. Why is that? I mean…they are producing a product for profit, are they not? The truthfulness of the material they offer is not actually regulated or accredited, and the goal of gaining or maintaining viewership, ratings, or sales numbers is not at all the same as a goal of ‘providing factually accurate information’ – is it? What would ‘news’ look like if all the inflammatory language, the color, and the spin were removed? If unbiased, unemotional language were used to present facts simply, we would probably be less compelled to read or watch it. Words, once again, being used to control us. Words being used to persuade us to spend our time receiving input that may not have lasting value, but will assuredly rob us of our time, and potentially our comfort, peace of mind, and ability to manage stress. No one news ‘source’ (they are not sources, they are brokers at best. lol) has a monopoly on manipulating the public, because they all have the same actual goal – gain viewers/readers, gain ratings, make sales for advertisers.  Is there an untapped segment of the public out there? (Angry women? Single mothers? Those on the right? Those on the left?) The media will identify it, and someone will begin creating content to appeal to that group of people – to acquire them as regular consumers.  It’s not about information, and it is not about truth. It is about ‘the business win’.

Why do I care? Pretty simple – I’m working on learning to take care of me; to manage my stress level, treat myself well, and live a good life that has meaning and in which I can thrive as a being. As the 2012 US presidential election approached last year, I found myself regularly in a state of stress and near-panic over news articles. Unacceptable.  I wasn’t sure how to deal with it – some of the events in the news were even triggering my PTSD, resulting in lost sleep, panic, emotional volatility, nightmares, and a near-continuous state of severe stress that was making me ill, and severely unhappy.  I gotta admit, it gets depressing really quickly to read some heinous news report about a gang rape a world away, and find no comfort at all in local or regional reporting right here at home – because so many of the voices in the news sound suspiciously anti-woman to the point of being ‘pro rape’.  It was an ugly election, and I have a long list of human beings of both genders that I not only won’t ever vote for (no matter what their future achievements or stated values may be), I feel rather as if I can’t actually count on the culture I live in to value and support women, or treat them compassionately and fairly under any circumstances.  It became a very scary world to live in, pretty quickly.  Someone, somewhere, must think it is OK to deliver ‘news’ content that willfully and deliberately selects verbiage that stokes emotional turmoil, triggers anxiety, depression, and anger, and may be not only hurtful and confrontational, but also may not be true…just to get it seen, just to make money. Ick.  The horrors of reported news from December through January was enough for me. I don’t need to complicate things that are already hard on me by allowing content providers to manipulate my emotions.

I turned off the news.  I gave it a break, skimming only what I had to, avoiding the rest. I turned off feeds. I uninstalled applications from my devices. I started logging off and exiting and shutting down things I am not actively using at any given moment.  I feel better. lol. Every day that I don’t read a story where some over privileged idiot with too much power and not enough wisdom says something stupidly offensive and hurtful, I have done myself a favor. I made some choices about content, too. I revisited my settings on the two content providers I choose to continue with regularly – and discontinued all the political and business ‘news’, entertainment ‘news’, and any category that had become a regular source of stress. I am keeping content relating to mindfulness practices, health and fitness, food, and ‘good news’ where that is available. I skim the front page quickly – subject lines only – and move along.  (It may be relevant to something that Hugo Chavez died, that seems historical I suppose, but I am also quite certain that not one detail about that actually matters to me in my here and now.) Going any deeper seems to require, at some point, suspending any skepticism and ‘trusting’ news content providers to be truthful – and to trust that their sources have been similarly truthful.  I’m not actually willing to indulge in that level of trust, when it has become pretty clear that The Daily Show can be relied on more easily to be accurate than mainstream ‘news’ content providers. lol.

Are you taking a moment to feel some sympathy? Are you also taking a moment to feel a little smug that you are not so helplessly enthralled by ‘the media’? Before you go too far down that road, please just take a moment to think back on your past 6 months or so – did you make even one decision to take an action, or engage in a behavior, because of something you read/heard on the news? Did you repeat to someone else even one ‘fact’ that you read/heard on the news, without independently verifying it yourself? I don’t think saying more is necessary, and your choices are your own. 😉

I also don’t want to waste my time reading what someone else wrote about what they think about what someone even further removed experienced, or base all of my thinking and decision making on things I read or heard somewhere.  I want to have my own experiences, and I want to have time to do that.  I gained hours of time back by discontinuing the habit of reading the news, or Reddit, or forums about this or that topic of interest. Now I have time to talk. Time to feel. Time to touch and be touched. Time to explore my life and my choices for the future. Time to consider what matters to me. Time to treat myself well and heal old hurts.

I discovered I do not know how to read the news mindfully.  So…I stopped reading the news.  I haven’t missed it.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, women, Words

Authentic Faux

March 4, 2013 //
1

Some Monday thoughts and observations to get my week started…

It isn’t enough to think about ‘mindfulness’…it is necessary to do mindfulness to create a change to becoming mindful in my life. (I know, I know – some of the things I think, and say, seem incredibly obvious. They still hold some significance for me, and I find it helpful to see words, sometimes.)

One of the ugliest things I think I may have learned as a child was a quote my father often repeated to me…something on the order of “Sincerity – if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”  I find it attributed here and there to a variety of notables, paraphrased a couple ways, but the bottom line is, for me – that this particular quote, taught to a child as rote learning, has the potential to become the foundation of a lifetime – and lifestyle – of artifice, insincerity, lies, deceit and misdirection, spin, masks, frauds, and fakery of all sorts.  How big a step is it, really, from the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and white lies to living a personal fraud, or worse? I see a lot of cultures place value on ‘truth’ and ‘honesty’…so…how do we justify tolerating political lies, advertising lies, social lies, ‘harmless’ lies… any of it? I found myself thinking about it this morning, and thinking about a concept I am finding new value in… ‘being genuine’. (Remember everyone ‘getting real’ in the 90s? That seemed so promising…what happened to that? Did we learn to fake that, too?)

I had a wonderful – very genuine – moment with a partner last night that really moved me, filled my heart with warmth and love, and carried me aloft on wings through a night of gentle restful sleep and into a very sweet Monday morning of feeling calm and centered and…like myself. It wasn’t a grand moment. It wasn’t a moment to describe with superlatives, or put in a picture frame. It was just a sweet and comfortable, emotionally nourishing moment of very genuine affection and love. Genuine. Real. Honest. That it was what it was is precious and powerful in my memory this morning and I feel valued and encouraged to be me, to be mindful, to grow. But…it does have me thinking about the faux we embrace…fancy words we use to make things that aren’t real seem real, or aren’t pleasant seem a little more palatable. I am understanding now that this, too, is dishonest.

It got me thinking about something a little vain…my hair.  I still wear it long.  I color it now and again, and I used to color it often. I wasn’t specifically trying to slow the progress of time, or appear more youthful. It was more about looking like a certain vision of myself…and this morning, in the face of what is genuine, and truly valued, I find myself uncomfortably aware that ‘a certain vision of myself’ contained that kernel of dishonesty…because my hair, my genuine color, is part of who I am in my here and now… I don’t dislike the ‘natural color’ of my hair…grays and all…but in all fairness I don’t really know what that color might really look like, now. I haven’t worn my hair ‘natural’ in many years…except the top couple inches if I fall behind on re-coloring it. Then this morning I saw an article about ‘going gray’…and found myself quite awed by the beauty of women my own age, and older, gray locks and genuine smiles…  I, too, would like to be so radiant, so lovely, so genuine. In that moment that I spent admiring the mature loveliness of these beautiful adult women, I felt a new understanding begin to unfold in my ‘who am I?’ puzzle…’genuine’ is something I like. It is a quality I will embrace in life and love.

So…’who am I’ isn’t necessarily about who I want to be, who I am trying to be, who I would like someone else to see me as…it is more about who I am, right now, without limits, hesitation, misdirection, camouflage, walls, masks, or conditions. Just me. Right now. Gray hair and all. 😀 Seems so obvious, and so simple…

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Categories Anxiety, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Turning 50, women, Words

Words That Hurt

February 27, 2013 //
1

Words are powerful.  We even have words to dismiss the power of words (“sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me” is a good example). Words can hurt.  Words, in my experience, can be and often are used in ways that amount to abuse, even torture – ‘water-boarding the mind’.  I can give examples, from my own experiences in life. How about these:

  • You wretched, worthless child – god damn it,  can’t you do anything right?
  • F*ck, you’re stupid.
  • You’re a girl, you only have to be good at cooking and blowjobs.
  • I brought you into this world, I can take you out!
  • No one will ever love you like I do.
  • You can not survive without me.
  • You owe everything to me.
  • Without me you are nothing.
  • Well, some people have talent, I guess you have to do the best you can without it.

Words used to imply the threat of violence in the face of non-compliance…words used to punish, to damage, to confuse… we use words to communicate, but we also use words to control, and hurt each other. Words seem powerful indeed; they can deliver lasting damage without contact of any kind. And the more we hear the same words, the more believable the words seem to be. Eventually, slogans, phrases, ideas, even insults become internalized and part of ‘who we are’. Scary.

I know I’ve lashed out at people using words – mostly operating on a very harmful assumption that although hitting people is not ok, hurting them with words isn’t ‘violent’. Oh, but isn’t it?  Is the emotional pain we deal with as a byproduct of unhealthy relationships any less painful than any other sort of pain we feel? Is it easier or more difficult to heal? Something to think about… treating people well, by using language in an honest way, without the intent or will to cause harm, damage, punish, or control doesn’t cost anything, and immediately makes the world a better place for everyone.

Pursuing mindfulness is taking me some very interesting places as a thinking being.

A question for Wednesday – if you could choose a life free of guilt, worry, or resentment, would you?

I find myself inclined to immediately answer ‘yes!’  I admit, however, I have made a lot of choices that brought one or more of those my way pretty reliably.  Worry and guilt seem easiest to dispense with, from my perspective. Worry is about something that hasn’t, and may not, happen. Guilt is about something already in the past – and unnecessary when I am accountable for my actions, and willing to take ownership for mistakes. The resentment piece was where I started this morning – because I was very aware that I had none in that moment, and then… uncomfortably self-conscious that that seemed noteworthy! I found myself understanding how mindfulness could ease worry or guilt, and seriously puzzled by resentment in general.  Should resentment even exist if I ‘take care of me’? If I live honestly with my partners, communicating my needs clearly, and taking time to understand theirs? I have reached levels of resentment in prior relationships that aren’t even describable in a rational framework – because it makes no sense to have gotten to that point! Good choices, honest choices, and treating myself well – and compassionately – wouldn’t leave room for resentment, would it? Is there any moment of resentment that isn’t based on my own choices? Is resentment always self-inflicted? I have no answers, just something I plan to think about more. “Treating myself well” is beginning to look like a vista, not a challenge… and thinking more constructively about some things is having results I didn’t expect. Good ones. Artistic ones. Emotional ones.

Yesterday was a good day. The evening was hardly marred by feeling ill and being in physical pain; I stayed in-the-moment with that, which was a very new experience and quite different. I woke feeling better this morning.  Today seems like another good day… how much of this is me and how much is something other than me?  Do I have so much control over my experience, in fact, that good days come so easily when I don’t expect bad ones? More to think about… but for now, mindfully forward into Wednesday’s work.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words

Plotting a Happier Ven

February 23, 2013 //
2

Knowing we are each having our own experience (and I’m assuming you do know that, possibly accept and/or understand it, or are willing to participate in this moment with me by temporarily suspending your skepticism on this point…) it still hasn’t been easy to describe or even understand why some things hurt, however briefly, when upon rational examination they seem so reasonable. Take ‘feedback’ for example. (I’ll define that as a moment of verbal information offered from one individual to another regarding a specific shared experience or communication that the offered information addresses directly, either by way of a desired correction in verbiage, demeanor, or behavior, or to offer praise in support of specific verbiage, demeanor, or behavior. Sound reasonable? I’m hoping that definition excludes humor, and meanness… ) I sometimes take feedback very badly – and sometimes quite appreciatively and graciously (I know, I’ve been there. lol).  It’s got to be hard on people who care about me to find themselves facing tears over sometime really simple and well-intended. I’m very sure I’m right about that, because they also often seem very relieved and appreciative when it goes well.  I think I figured out something about the feedback thing I didn’t understand before… but, I am not sure I can easily describe what I think I understand.

How about a metaphor? If I am holding hands with my lover, and gently stroking the delicate skin of the inside of their wrist with my thumb, softly, sensuously, over and over… eventually, even though I love them, and even though initially it probably felt lovely, it becomes irritating (try it, don’t take my word for it). Likewise, if I am wounded or have an injury, touches, however gentle, to that source of pain will definitely hurt – even if the intention is not hurtful, and the touch itself, in some other place, would be welcome.  So… perhaps, some specific topics of feedback, or specific requests, delivered often enough over a lifetime eventually sting a bit, even if they are ‘right on the mark’ and quite properly needful, and even ‘welcomed’ once the sting is gone? Perhaps some feedback lands on old wounds that are not properly healed? Yep… I think that gets my point… but I don’t know what to properly do with this thought. (Other than ‘share it with the world via blog post’. lol) How do I hear and make use of good feedback without taking it personally or allowing it to pull at old wounds? I know I can’t reasonably expect my loved ones and friends to read my mind, or know what bits of long-standing pain and delicacy are lurking in my great unknown.  One more thing to think about.

I’m in a good place today. It’s a nice day at home, doing some housework, doing some homework, and hoping that each opportunity to share an experience with my partners is the sort that builds a memory worth hanging onto for a lifetime. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, Words

Painful Progress

February 22, 2013 //
5

Woke in a bad place, after a decent night’s sleep, that had followed another demonstration of my lack of social skill and saying it sucked doesn’t say enough. I am too fragile and volatile this morning to write fairly, meaningfully, and in a way that has lasting value for me to reflect on, myself. Today I will venture forth anxious, and doing my best to treat myself well… I really need me to be here for me, right now.

Maybe something more later. Be safe, World, and treat the people you meet with compassion and kindness; you can’t know the challenges they face, or suffering they feel, without asking, and listening… And you rarely seem to have the time, or sympathy, afterall you hurt, too.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words
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