Archive for June 2024
REACTING TO A DEPRESSING DEBATE
I wrote the following in response to a friend’s reply to yesterday’s blog entry. Having put time and effort into it, I thought I might as well post it here where more people might see it. “Yes, the debate was awful, and I was about to jump on the dump Biden wagon when two things happened. (1) A friend sent me a link to Lawrence O’Donnell on “The Last Word,” for June 28th. Indeed, an important pick-me-up. But more important I recognized that awful feeling of heaviness in the chest and remembered experiencing it a couple of times when I was teaching, and even also when I was doing private therapy. That awareness that I’d been a total flop –and deserved to flop. But then, after the initial “poor me” — “I was a failure; I’ve always been a failure; and I’ll always be a failure,” — and the appreciation of my husband’s futile efforts to say something encouraging, I decided to learn from it. And by my next lecture (or session) I was ready with a “brilliant” save. I’m encouraged to think that may happen by the next debate, and in between. I just wish I could be there when Biden practices for the next one, I would suggest he never respond to Trump. Listen attentively, then ignore, and answer the next question asked by the mediators. Maybe he could spike it occasionally with “I didn’t really understand your answer, but … ” before giving that good answer to highlight what he’s already accomplished and how he’ll move on.
But then, why would they listen to me?
A few days ago I promised to talk about handling my morning depression. I thought then that I was finally going to write every day in my blog. Obviously I didn’t succeed. (Remember, there’s a rule against saying “I failed.”) I’m not sure why I didn’t manage to get that done, but I have a few suggestions. Maybe I’m getting involved in too many things; maybe it’s because I’ve reached the “I need a nap NOW” age; maybe I’m engaging in that form of putting-things-off-until-tomorrow called “productive procrastination;” maybe I’m too involved in trying to write a good query letter to find an agent/publisher who’ll be interested in my manuscript On My Way Out: A Psychologist’s Personal Tale; maybe it’s because I do stupid things like watch the presidential debates.
But enough about me. Oh yeah, that’s supposed to be my theme for this blog. What do I do about the morning depression? Well, first off, two years of excellent therapy several decades ago gave me the awareness that the morning depression I experience is best called “situational depression.” And I’ve learned that there isn’t much I can control about the situation in this crazy world, so it helps to point my neurosis toward things I can do something about. That certainly shrinks the area of concern. Then I focus my attention and emotions on the tasks ahead. Obviously that gets me to focus on the present and the nice awareness that I am, indeed, on my way out. Also, the recognition that, as my daughter puts it, “My personal problems are first-world problems” and therefore, by definition, really blessings. How’s that for thought manipulation? By that time I’m ready for the biggy – opening up the well of gratitude, joy, humor, and love that flows because of all that other stuff I’ve mentioned. How could I feel anything else? So I open my door to join the interesting, often delightful people I’ll be connecting with. Okay, is it icky to say I focus on spreading joy and love? Well, so be it. That really is my goal. You’ll have to question the people around me to evaluate my success.
I had planned to write about how I handle the morning depression I mentioned a couple of days ago, but something else is demanding my attention. Something that makes no sense to me. How is it that people believe Jesus, an olive-skinned, semitic, Palestinian Jew who preached love and equality decided that white-skinned American men with roots in Northern Europe were superior to everyone else? And to die a terrible death to guide those very same men to Heaven if they would be violent enough to impose their rule over women, non-whites and Jews.
Just wonderin’
Actually it more often hits at night, but it does indeed drag down the morning. It’s the same old thing, really. I just can’t get over the cruelty of forcing children to be born into a world that, by definition, doesn’t want them. Which means, of course, that they spend their first nine months housed in a uterus washed in stress hormones or other toxic pressures. Their lives from then on are not, by definition, predictably healthy. What can be predicted is that society will be paying the price in eighteen years or so for the damage done by the circumstances of their lives – very likely poverty. And the sad thing is, folks will blame it on the individuals instead of the system that created the problem in the first place.
And yes, my heart aches for the agony of women forced to suffer any number of possible agonies at the behest of politicians who have little or no understanding of the complexity and potential complications of pregnancy and birth. And for their families suffering the consequences. Beyond that, it horrifies me to see the movement toward branding women as criminals should circumstances lead them to avoid inappropriate pregnancies.
Is all this a variant on animal husbandry?
For several weeks I’ve been reading sources on “How to write effective query letters,” preparing to search for an agent for my Mandala: A Jigsaw Puzzle of a Psychologist’s Life.(My original title was On My Way Out but too many people found that a downer though I haven’t reached for the door knob yet.) All agree the first sentence must grab the potential agent’s attention or it will go into the slush pile, so it’s important that I come up with a template to which others respond favorably. But the same opener is seen as a grabber by some and a turnoff by others. I’ve made many changes along the way, but I realized yesterday that I have to be careful to preserve my own voice. It kind of smacked me up the side of the head when a kind reviewer suggested I should fact check the dates. Since it’s my own life I’m talking about I realized I’d better be clear that I am correct about those dates.
Yes, having been born on the day the stock market crashed in 1929 I am indeed approaching the middle of my ninetieth decade. Yes, psychology has been in my life for pretty much seventy-seven years if we include the early years in college when I got hooked. Yes, I began my college teaching career when I was twenty-two and never really faded completely from my identity as a professor. Yes, during those years I did serve as department chair. It’s also true that my career in private practice overlapped the last of my academic years and culminated at the end of May, 2024, when I voluntarily gave up my license. It’s also true that I have published books on psychological stuff, sort of biblical stuff, and personal family memoir stuff. And I have two really neat adult children, one of each, and two adult grandchildren, also one of each. Now I’m pushing my down-to-earth story of life and times over the past seventy plus decades. Lots has happened, most of it evoking shared history with the [potential] reader.
For further validation you can check out my website at www.forgivenessoptions.com.
Thanks
I have a hard time understanding people who send me complaints about their tax dollars being used to free students of burdening debts but never complain about paying tax dollars to support the infrastructure on which the Billionaire businesses rely while managing to pay almost nothing in taxes.
To those who are upset about the thought of their tax money going to relieve other people’s student debt. After all, you honored your debts, why should you pay for someone else’s bad choice? Here’s why.
- Economics – money will be freed to enter the economy
- Family – People will be in a position to start a family – maybe buy a home.
- A Bill of Goods – Many suffering from too much debt compared to income were sold a bill of goods. It’s like taking a mortgage on a promised house that turns out to be nonexistent, or certainly far from worth what was paid for it.
- Confusion between correlation and causation. Yes, people with degrees generally make more money, but it’s not mostly that piece of paper that does it. It’s the influential people one meets on the way, or the ancillary learning one does through interacting with fellow students, or the specific training for traditional jobs that may or may turn out to be profitable as preferences change, or any number of things and experiences not enjoyed simply by passing enough exams to get that piece of paper.
- And here’s the one that’s really ironic. So often the people arguing against reducing the burden of the student loan – a fact that could facilitate starting a family – are the very ones pressing for increasing the population through increasing the birth rate, otherwise called “pro life” or “pro birthers?”
Remember, I spent a huge part of my career as a college professor. Just sayin.’
monagustafsonaffinito 