Something Stank. America is it you?

I learned a lot on social media today. Some say democracy is falling, some say a Civil War coming. I don’t know. Personally, I don’t think what is happening is defined yet. That might be because it feels like we are in the beginning stages of recognizing “it’s” happening and needing to do something about it. What the hell is that something? I ain’t here to figure that out. My degree is Community Counseling so I’m more interested in why “it’s” happening. So maybe when “it’s” done happening, things might be a little better. “It’s” complicated.

Never-mind my lack of knowledge, or Webster’s definitions of a Civil War, my brain automatically assumes two sides when thinking civil war. Are sides clearly defined? I know in your head you thought yes, but take a breath and think about it again. Are sides clearly defined? Is the Civil War Liberal vs Conservative, Black vs White, Blood vs Crips, Loud vs Quiet, Straight vs Gay? Or some other battle I’m leaving out? And all these battles are simultaneus. How do we know who’s on what team or which battle you’re fighting? How do you know who the enemy is in this war?

It seems that not everyone is fighting the same fight or know who the enemy is. For years, people have been preparing for an enemy that may or may not come. With so many people on social media, we feel like that enemy is getting closer…but is it?

Strap up, It’s only gonna get worse. Creating the monster that you’re not sure who or what is coming, just knowing that when they come you’ll be ready. And when anxiety of thinking that thing you are most afraid of is near, you get impatient and go find it before it finds you. The “It” may or may not know if it’s even in a fight with you, because they have their own fight to fight and it more than likely wasn’t with you. Next think you know you have a dude with a gun shooting up a church, school, or grocery store.

These arguments take place has been like watching 2 ships passing in the day time. I see you and what you’re wearing. I’m not caring about the direction you’re going, and the direction you came from. Not sure of the passengers on board, passengers left behind, ones you’re going to pick up, or yet to drop off. All while assuming you see where they came from and where they’re going by the little tread you see in the water. Not knowing what turns they took before it crossed your path. And not having the desire or need to stop and ask, while recognizing that you yourself had your own turns that brought you to that space at that time. See how difficult that was? In our world we are successfully navigating all this shit, to perfectly get close enough to say what I got to say without sticking around for the consequences. All the while preparing for the next ship I see coming and the process starts again. So now knowing all that is constantly going on, I made up my own term: chaotic complex soon to be shared trauma CCSTBT. (That isn’t real, just made that up because this stuff is ridiculous but real)

All of this confusion reminded me of Scarecrow from Batman Begins. Going around creating chaos out of a whisper. Tainting the air promoting chaos and panic into an already chaotic world.

America, why are you like this? Who hurt you?

As a result of your feelings being hurt, you have created systems, medicated your trauma, passed it on to others, and now struggling because we aren’t navigating the waters all as before, and you are running out of medicine to cover up our hurt.

Let me get to the point. America, I am diagnosing you with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The clinical non clinical explanation: Something bad happened to you, so you’ve created another identity (or more) that covers up the first one that happens to have a traumatic history that you’d rather forget.

Quick google search: Dissociative identity disorder, previously called multiple personality disorder, is usually a reaction to trauma as a way to help a person avoid bad memories. Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality identities. Each may have a unique name, personal history, and characteristics.

Dick Gregory once said:

“We think a illegitimate child is a child that don’t know where they daddy is. America is a illegitimate child because she has no mother….If I worked in a coal mine and a steel mill and I come here today and I put on a suit without taking a bath, you got a stench sitting up here with you. And what happened to America, we ain’t never cleaned up the filth for over 400 years. We just put a new suit on, and new dress on and wonder who’s stinkin. IT’S YOU the one that stinks.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKjlmQl58Ic&t=42s

How do you treat DID? Therapy. AMERICA, YOU NEED THERAPY. What got you so angry and anxious. Why were you really formed? What happened to you? It’s ok, it’s time to acknowledge that pain. But until you do, we’ll just continue to medicate ourselves, all while passing BS on to the next generations.

As a whole we need healing.

While everything seems to have gotten out of control, here are some things you can do right now to take a break from this mess while healing begins.

1. Get better at social media. Stop reading the comments. If you do read them, Stop writing the thing you believe most in this world as a response to what someone else believes most in this world.
2. Acknowledge our messed up history. It is ok to learn the truth about it. I was taught Christopher Columbus founded a place he’s never stepped foot onto. How Sway? And if you’re playing the, well it was his voyages game, be clear and say that. For the fun, when you’re done reading this, ask a couple random people if they know who Amerigo Vespucci is. That’s my polite example, not purposely hurt feelings for once.
3. Don’t comment on anybody’s post for a couple days and Google some things that make you happy. Trick the algorithm. I searched, in this order the other day, Deion Sanders, Clark Sister’s, Pivot Podcast, Indica, 85south Show. Now my timelines are full of positive messages through football, gospel music royalty, more sports talk and some funny conversation while being stuck on the couch having great thoughts I’ll forget tomorrow because I need a snack. Choose your happiness.
4. Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and they all stink. Depending on what they ate, they might be spewing some real bullshit. You don’t have to respond to it especially if you don’t know what they ate. Don’t forget, you don’t have to spew your BS either. We need a break.
5. VOTE. The power is shifting and THEY, whomever THEY are is scrambling. Putting on their new suit and dress over the same old stank and distracting us all. THEY’LL continue to lie, cheat and divide us all. Inform yourselves, then vote.

Until America is willing to treat the cause and not the symptoms, all of our disagreements are bound to grow and the world will continue to feel more and more chaotic. We’re in deep need of empathy. While we wait, and there is hostility, make sure your enemy is actually your enemy. America stinks right now, and putting deodorant over yesterday’s funk is not working (anymore). If you are benefitting from this stinky system and not ready for a change, get comfortable in this constant fight because gone are the days where hurt people sit back and just be hurt.

I’ll leave you with this from a 74 year old man I met on the track one day.

“Say me and you are on a safari and we’re being charged by some wild elephants a hundred yards away. But I’m focused on the fire ants on the ground right in front of us. You say, ‘fuck the ants, those elephants are coming’ but I still focus on and convince you to focus on the ants. Then we both die from fire ants and the elephants. That’s what it’s like living in this country.”

We can yell and scream the fire ants and elephants are coming forever. But it won’t matter as long as we are fighting each other about how close they are. That’s the hard part of being a counselor. Change can’t happen until the client is ready. The part we don’t talk about is things are still happening around you while we wait for the client to be ready. America, I think we’re almost ready.