Battle Scars and Bloody Noses

Spoiler Alert: If you are a Trump supporter you may want to stop reading here. If you don't want to read a political post, please skip this one and come back on Saturday.

Wikipedia says that Brianna Wiest, the author of the meme up above is a twenty-eight year old "American writer and poet. She is best known for her prolific work on emotional intelligence. Her published works include the books 101 Essays to Change the Way You Think, The Truth About Everything, and The Human Element…”

I snatched the meme off Facebook and it spoke to me at a time when I was in a grumpy mood and dealing with a wee bit of depression that led me down a path I knew better than to set foot on, but I did it anyway. Yup, I engaged in an off-again, on-again all day Facebook debate with me on one side and five Trump supporters on the other side and by the end of the day we’d racked up over fifty comments back and forth. I was on a debate team in college, a second stringer, but I learned a lot, loved the process and the rules of engagement and for 3-4 years I was also a message board administrator on a website where I was in charge of giving members time-outs when angry exchanges got too hot and posting rules were broken. I debate fair and square and keep my cool as I did this time on Facebook. But Facebook doesn’t give time-outs and Trump supporters don’t care if they take their fights into the gutter with name calling and belittling those with opposing viewpoints and for that reason I rarely engage in political discussions on Facebook. That's to say I went into this slug-fest with my eyes wide open knowing I would become a pseudo punching bag but that doesn’t take the sting out of getting a bloody nose.

“Your Anger? It’s Telling You Where You Feel Powerless.” Oh, yes, Brianna, my anger is telling me I’m totally frustrated with the state of our nation and feeling as powerless as a dead kitten. We have a president who is incapable of empathy and compassion. He's incapable of bringing two sides of people together whether we're talking blacks and whites, Democrats and Republics, radicals and pacifists. He’s incapable of dealing with the Covid-19 epidemic or any other crisis that might come along.

“Your anxiety? It’s telling you that something in your life is off balance.” Oh, yes, Brianna, I am without words to express the sadness, fear and hopelessness I feel over what is going on in our nation right now. As if the pandemic wasn’t bad enough, now we have Trump sending unidentified troops into Portland uninvited and unwanted by the state or city governments. "Tyranny creeps up on a nation and we’re witnessing its beginning here and now," according to Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University who in 2017 wrote: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. “Be wary of paramilitaries, "he said in an interview this week. "In 2017 the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile Resistance fantasy, Now it’s happening."

“Your fear? It’s telling you what you care about.” Oh, yes, Brianna, I care about this country, about its future and I fear that Trump is going to get reelected or if he doesn't, he'll weaken our democracy by not giving us a peaceful transition of power for the first time in our history. Part of the debate I took part in today was about voter suppression which, of course, no one but me thought it was a problem for people of color but voting by mail in their minds was full of run-away abuse---setting the table for claims of a rigged election if Trump loses. It came up because we’d been on the topic of the Black Lives Matters. Trump supporters do not distinguish between protesters and rioters and, according to them, just saying “black lives matter” is racist. I brought up the parable of the shepherd who has 100 sheep and one goes missing. When the shepherd leaves the 99 to go looking for the lost sheep, the 99 sheep cry, "But what about us, don't we matter?" And the shepherd says, "Of course you matter but you're not ones in danger. The one is." I read that in a sermon delivered by a Catholic Priest who was explaining to his congregation why the church supports the Black Lives Matter Movement. I hope his telling of the parable got a better reception than mine did.

“Your apathy? It’s telling you where you’re overextended and burnt out.” Yes, Brianna, that sentence really spoke to me because I haven't done anything but the bare necessity of living for over a week, checked out on life, which I’m guessing is why I needed a good slug-fest today to make me check back in and feel like I was adding something to the pool besides the pee others were leaving. We have a do-or-die election coming up and that should challenge us all to help by calling out outright lies within our realms of existence. When I saw the nasty meme about Black Lives Matter that started the whole debate thread I just had to put on my bathing suit and wade into the muddy water.

“Your feelings aren’t random, they are messengers. And if you want to get anywhere, you need to be able to let them speak to you, and tell you what you really need.” Okay, Brianna, I let my feelings hang out here on my blog and I want to thank you for this ‘conversation.’ You are a breath of fresh air after my day of collecting battle scars and a bloody nose. ©

NOTE: The two memes in this post were shared on my great-niece's Facebook page. It's what she does. Sometimes its surreal to see them show up alternating with the hate filled, misinformation posts from the Trump supporters on my husband's side of the family. Another prolific poster always adds beautiful photos of enchanting cottages into the mix I see on my Facebook feed, and another shares recipes. I've been on a kick lately of posting humorous kitten memes. My favorite posts are photos of the youngest little people in my family. That's Facebook---a microcosm of the world at large. The good, bad and the ugly. True or not, I like to think of myself as a student of human nature which is why I don't unfriend the relatives who irritate the living stuffing out of me...just in case you were about to suggest that I do so.