vol 6 issue 1
Hello.
I kept meaning to come back, but I had nothing of value to say. I also had been through a fiery forge after all the things that befell me last year, and I needed to cool down from the burn.
Before I share some news, I would like to acknowledge the unexpected pleasure of seeing my readership grow while I was on hiatus; I often received notification of new subscribers, so welcome, and thank you and all the members of my audience for your interest and attention.
While I was away, I temporarily ran a small logistics company, took more of those MBA classes I told you about, learned how to drive commercial rigs (although I still have not taken my test), got a dog, started running deliveries for a florist (not knowing that would mean I would see a lot of dead people — most of my runs are to funerals!), retrieved my belongings from storage in Tennessee, moved into a rental alongside a cattle farm in Kentucky. Most important is that I quit listening to and reading any news media and thought a lot about how I have lived my life.
So much of my time on earth has been spent in reaction to, rather than in pursuit of something. And while I definitely made a few bold moves last year, and appreciated folks reassuring me of how brave I was, my failed marriage not only surfaced how I had been betrayed, it also was irrefutable evidence of how I had betrayed myself with an abject lack of bravery throughout my life: I had thought that marriage would be safer than being who I actually am.
That’s hard to admit, but c’mon girl, I tell myself, the end of the world as we know it has already begun, so cut the shit and get it together. Will I, you, any of us, be better off for not having told ourselves the truth about our lives as the apocalypse blooms?
If I am fit for purpose for anything, it’s about offering proof that people-pleasing will get you nowhere, except maybe, ironically, alone or even, in times like these, killed.
Now understanding how much of my precious life I have forked over to people who do not have my best interests at heart, while often hurting those who did, I feel an urgency about my actions I wasn’t attuned to previously.
Back to my point: I had nothing of value to say, so why keep writing? Now, I hear myself talk to you in my head, a sure sign I am back in my writerly way. I approach with caution, however. I don’t want to waste your time with inanities. I have been gifted, I guess, with some visions and insights I want to share, in hopes you will not regret having spent time contemplating them.
I also want to avoid telling you what to do.
Having unplugged from the media, I’ve come to understand just how prescriptive most news is. The headlines read like To Do lists anymore. They certainly are imperative, with an edge to them that I believe is intended to make us fear what might happen if we don’t read what they say. (Here’s a weird one, for example.)
First of all, I just don’t need to know “all the things”. I’d rather gather my own experience and observations about what is in front of me first, then maybe compare them to others’ data including what is reported in the media, but not necessarily.
When I have focused on what I was told was important, I now see how that led me away from what I actually valued, and certainly made me easier to manipulate once I was game for aligning with the proscribed ways. I wish I could get back a fraction of the hours of my life I wasted obsessing over whether I had obtained enough information on virtually any life topic, fearful I might get something wrong.
All that occurred to me recently while contemplating how differently I participate in conversations now compared with how I did in the past. Having gone “news- and media-less”, I find myself interacting with people more spontaneously; it feels more immediate and real. Without all the guidance, I am not aware of whatever “correct” way I am supposed to address or think of people and situations, so I don’t censor myself unless it is to be merciful, but no less honest.
So far, this has not proven catastrophic.
Another revelation: if the person I am speaking with is upset about things they have heard in the news, I cannot seem to match their emotional levels about those things. I am not numb. I am in control of my emotions and measure them according to what I actually know and experience, not what I am being “forced to feel”.
Since I also stay off social media, I am clueless and memeless. The sum of all this is that while in conversation, if I feel anything, it’s in direct response to what is unfolding in the moment.
I like that a lot better than the bot talk I formerly was exposed to before I quit the media. By “bot”, I mean the eerily similar ways that people who all listen to whatever they listen to end up sounding to one another, like they’ve been programmed. (Haven’t they?) How am I supposed to respond to a simulation?
This bot phenomenon is not a left or right thing either, so don’t think I am accusing either Trumpers or Lefties of outsourcing their thinking. It’s nondenominational, and it’s not everyone. I am encountering many thoughtful people these days and can appreciate them more than ever.
That said, to my dismay, I now reflect that the people most likely to sound like they all got the memo are back in Washington, where I spent a decade thinking it was among the happiest days of my life.
Instead, it was a time when I was the most afraid to say what I actually thought, I see now. I value my achievements there, and it was important — as well as sobering — for me to see up close how power works, but I do wonder how much time I wasted trying to slip between the ubiquitous pandering and still respect myself. In the end, I failed at the latter.
With the noisy news gone, I can cultivate silence, like a garden. It is fertile. What grows are deeper connections to what I am actually internally driven to care about rather than what I am instructed to care about. Most of what we’re told to care about is dumb. I don’t care about hardly any of it. Maybe deep down, you don’t either. And if you do, what can you really do about most of it except feel helpless that you really can’t do anything about most of it. That’s demoralizing.
What I do care about is community, the earth—the actual land itself, and the people who have stood by me throughout the shit. And most of all, truth and beauty.
Now that I am clear on what matters to me, I want to protect these things, and see them to the other side of the shit salad we are now being served and will continue to be made to endure into the immediate future. So, my own news is that I am transitioning to a new publication, which although will be tongue-in-cheek at times, is quite serious. It’s called Apocalypse Now-ish. I have created it but haven’t posted anything yet.
Humans are under threat from a handful of weirdoes whom I suspect are connected, and who are making a ham-fisted play for dominance over all the earth’s resources, including our human capacity for joy and creativity.
I can’t figure how to stop them, whoever they are, but I have seen clearly some skills we can develop and rely upon to protect us now and after the end is over and we can begin again, those of us still left standing. Because I do believe there will be life after all this gross nonsense that has passed for reality for too long, and that it will be possible for that life to be golden.
Apocalypse Now-ish not a prepper’s guide, because I am in no way an expert in anything of that sort, even if I take it ever more seriously. I can only offer suggestions based on my own observations of what is happening to the planet, and my painful reflections of how I have missed opportunities to love more, and what that cost and how it will be deadly as we spiral into more madness. You can take or leave any of it, as fits your own inner truths.
So, for now, please keep an eye on your email box for further announcements. And thank you for being here.
In the meantime, I wish you much birdsong and pleasant vistas. Meet my cow friends:
Peace,
Whitney
Hi dear W! So glad to hear from you again. xo
Thank you, you are inspiring. Good luck with your new path.