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khadij-al-kubra · 3 years

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Storytelling, Fate & Happy Endings

I’m still processing last nights episode (CR C2 Ep140), and much like every critter I’m SUPER emotional about it. But something about last night’s events and how they played out really got to me, not just as a fan but also as a storyteller. And even the day after, i was actually crying (still am crying in fact) more than i did last night watching it happen. At first i thought it was because i’m a fairly new critter and this is my first time watching a campaign come to an end. But the more i think about it and process, the more i realize that’s not just it. This effected me as someone who deeply believes in the power of storytelling and how it can not only effect but reflect the world around us. And because I have to get them out of my head, here are my thoughts on why last nights episode was so important, not just for CR fans but also as a an important narrative for right now.

...Yeah that’s a bit vague, isn’t it? Okay, let me explain. If you’re willing to take the time to read fellow Critters, I greatly appreciate it in advance. ^__^

WARNING: Major spoilers for CR Campaign 2 Episode 140 ahead. Also it’s gonna get kind of meta. And long. Because i have a lot of thoughts & feels.

So I think it’s fair to say that, as much as we would’ve been devastated by any of the M9 perma-dying in the last battle, part of us wasn’t expecting them all to make it out of there alive. Not even the players, I think, despite how much they likely didn’t want that to happen. Just look at the half-resigned way Liam talks about Caleb in the last few Talks Machina episodes. Or how, in game, Jester was fully prepare to die trying to stop the city from coming back. And for a while there, it seemed like some of them might not survive.

But then they did. Despite so many crappy rolls throughout the night they stopped Lucien, set free all the souls trapped in Aeor, saved Exandria, and brought each other back from the dead. Not only that, but they also did the impossible: They saved Mollymauk. Their lost friend who had such a deep impact on all of them even after his death. The delightfully charming asshole who was so full of joy and life and who, despite how the world treated him, was happily determined to leave every place better than he found it. Moreover, they almost didn’t succeed! But then they did, all because of teamwork, love and one last minute ditch effort ‘what-the-hell-have-i-got-to-lose’ dice role that none of them saw coming. And now they get to go home together, truly as The Mighty NINE.

Just this once, everybody lived! We got a happy ending!

And that’s HUGE in game...but also think for a second how that reflects outside of game too. Do you realize what a story like that means to people, especially given the year from Hell we’ve all had?

Think about it. This past year the world has suffered. We’ve all been impacted by the pandemic in some way shape or form, either on small levels or large. Our world has been at war with a virus that effected everyone and everything: Our sense of safety. Our health. Our economy. Our families & friends. Our freedom. (in the sense of our ability to travel & just be in close proximity to people without fear, but i digress) Deeply imbedded social and systematic diseases have been brought further to light in the past year and a half largely because of this virus. Some of us have lost people we love. Hell, the pandemic even effected the way that the latter half of Campaign 2 played out because of social distancing protocols. If you further compare this to Campaign 2, the world of Exandria was caught in the middle of a war that started because of social & systematic corruptions that had been rooted in two opposing kingdoms for years. And so many suffered and died because of it.

Then the Mighty Nein comes in. This ragtag group of delightful assholes with nothing to lose; these flawed but inherently good at heart and deeply human adventurers, broken and lost in their own ways, trying to make a home and family for themselves in a world that took advantage of them or left them alone or said they weren’t good enough...and they changed things.

They grew. They fought back. They found moments of silliness and peace and joy and fun amidst all the strife and sometimes grief. Most of all, they tried. Sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of spite, sometimes even out of compassion, but mostly just out of love. And in the end, not only did they help people and stop a war for the sake of their loved ones, but they also saved their world from being destroyed by a rotted perversion of life from the past that threatened to consume everything they cared about. AND they STILL managed to bring everyone in their found family back to life. Does it erase the bad and sad things that happened to them? Hell no! But those things don’t negate the fact that in that moment, they made it out okay. That this was a victory and they won!

Think of what a story like that means to people right now.

I’m personally a pretty spiritual person, and much like our favorite clerics, I also believe in a higher power. But whether or not you also believe in a Divine being, the Universe or whatever, every D&D player believes in one thing: Fate. Luck. Call it what you will. But it was fate that made those dice rolls that saved everyone happen. It was fate that not only stopped Cognoza from returning, but also brought Jester and Caleb and Molly back to life, even when it seemed like it wouldn’t work. (and holy shit that gave me emotional whiplash!)

After everything they went through, both individually and together, the Mighty Nein defied the odd and demanded that Fate let them save their loved ones. They demanded that the world give them back their friend; That they deserved to have their happy ending & get to go home alive together. Just. This. Once.

As a writer, I know firsthand that there are some stories we find and create ourselves, but then there are stories that have a way of finding us. Sometimes a story or world or character from somewhere in the Aether will pop into our minds one day and say, ‘I need your voice to tell my story.’ Maybe this is just me getting carried away with the meta brain again. And like i said, i’m a spiritually inclined person, so I believe in things like Fate and a Divine Higher power writing out the stories of the Multiverse. If you’re reading this (and thank you for taking the time to do so) maybe you do too. Or maybe you don’t. Either way, if you’re a fellow critter, then you’re clearly a fan of good stories and/or playing Dungeons & Dragons. So you know how fate/dice roles have a big impact on the outcome of a story, regardless of how tightly written a setup the dungeon master makes. Given all that and how organically stories tend to play out in D&D, I genuinely believe that Matt Mercer and the whole CR Team were meant to be conduits for a story where the flawed heroes save the world AND all make it home alive.

And I think Fate knew that we needed last nights battle to end like this. After all the crap we’ve been through this past year, we needed this happy ending, deserved it even! Not just us critters, the CR team too. As much as we all like to joke that Campaign 2 was secretly scripted, we all know that’s not true. Yes, the setup storyline and world were brilliantly crafted by Matt, and the character roleplaying is beautifully acted out by the team. But the twists and turns, the direction it goes, and how the game plays out is all up to fated dice rolls just like any other game. And something, some kind of force of luck, some force of fate, some Universal Divine DM out there made the roles happen the way they did last night.

It gave us a happy ending.

I believe that this was meant to happen; now of all times with everything else going on in the world. Amidst all this darkness and rot, both in game and in the real world, in the end of it all there was light and life. A reminder that sometimes people do live. They do get second chances. They do find a new family or reunite with old ones. That sometimes the world can be saved for a time, and happy ending do still exist. Even if it’s not broadcasted on the daily news amidst tragedy reports, or even tragedies that don’t get reported (which sadly are a lot, but again i digress).

Because the thing is, like Beau said, no one else will probably know they were heroes. No one will know what the Mighty Nein sacrificed to save all of Exandria. But they don’t need to know that for it to still be true, for life to happen again, and for a found family of nine broken people who love each other to go home together safe. It doesn’t invalidate that the good things happened. That at least for today everyone was saved. That flawed people were still able to do good because they tried. That they left the world better than they found it and got their own small but satisfying happy ending. Even if only for now, because we don’t know what’s gonna happen next Thursday. We don’t know what the future will hold for the Nein or Exandria when the Campaign ends or even when (hopefully) some loose ends will be tied up in later oneshots. But neither that nor the bad and sad stuff that happened beforehand in the game and in the character’s lives invalidates the fact that tonight they won. They lived.

So why can’t that be true for us in the real world?

I said earlier that, as a writer, I believe in the power stories have to not only reflect but also shape our world. This story is an example of why, but especially this episode, and that’s why i was so euphoric about the outcome. It wasn’t just a game for me, and i’m sure for others too. It was a much needed reminder that happy endings can still happen in real life, just as much as they can in stories. Even when everything seems dark and corrupt and rotten and hopeless, we can still keep fighting. We can keep trying. We can make new families and start over and be heroes in our on little lives in small ways.

We can leave the world better than we found it.

And maybe, with hard work, imagination, luck and a little Divine intervention...we can also get the happy endings we deserve.

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marriedzukka · 2 years

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Hey there!! 🦝 💙 I’m back, as promised.

Buckle up! I got a lot of thoughts and feelings and I’m here to express ‘em:

There are some things that need to be processed in safe connection with another person. So it makes sense that now Zuko has both a safe connection, as well as having someone else helping with the day-to-day with Izumi, that there’s finally space to process all the grief. But, of course, the guy is gonna repress that shit as long as he can. That’s on brand.

Oh no, the grey hair existential crisis!! Just dye your hair purple and pretend you’re still young. Not that I’m speaking from experience. Not me. Nope. 👀

I mean, I totally get Azula being anxious about how fast they’re moving. I love how you show how difficult it is for them to break unhealthy patterns of communication, and that they’re really trying, and that they really do love each other!! Also, Azula healing through connecting with Jin and with her therapist is The Good Shit. 🤌

Sokka being like, “you can wake me up to talk, or maybe we could ‘do an activity together’?” Call this pick-up line “the old reliable.” 🙄🤣

When I first read the teapot situation I gasped SO hard, then immediately went into problem-solving mode and was thinking they could do some real cute kintsugi family craft together. But I also totally get the important lesson Izumi needs to learn that being sorry doesn’t fix everything. Especially now, knowing your niece’s plant story.

Sokka better be Flynn Rider for Halloween!! Zuko would never live it down.

Katara: “I didn’t say it was smart, but it’s a possibility.”

Me: *sucks teeth* Yikes! Reading this man for filth when he’s not even here!! 🤣🤣

Social worker Aang makes so much sense and it’s a thing I never knew I needed in my life.

The “Haven’t you done enough for me? Aren’t you sick of this yet?” line got me SO BAD. Shattered into 1 million pieces. 💔❤️‍🩹

I LOVE that you had Hakoda be super real with him here about his grief because that normalizes the hell out of what Zuko’s going through.

This argument after Mai’s phone call!! 👀 HOLY SHIT!! This is some very productive conflict, they definitely needed to have this conversation about Sokka feeling shut out. I love the dialogue!!

The flashback to 17-year-old Zuko and the cannon dialogue. I’m fucking WRECKED over here!!

Big Oof. We’re really in it now aren’t we? Because the avoiding and distracting was good for him, honestly, until he was ready to really feel all this. But when he was ready to feel it all he freaked out and postponed it for a few weeks which led to all the shutting out, feeling confused, lots of shame and guilt, etc. Like DAMN how do you write like this???? I’m so impressed and emotional and blown-the-fuck-away by the way this story unfolded because it’s SO REAL!! People really do this!!

Broken heart-itis is a phrase I will be using as part of my daily lexicon, I want you to know this.

I LOVE that Uncle did his own therapeutic letter writing to Lu Ten. 😭😭 You got Uncle helping Zuko with his grief even still. ❤️

“but when that happens, when the grief comes hungry, he’ll feed it and keep going.” I want to have this quote in my social worker office, would you be cool with that? I definitely won’t if you don’t want me to. I’ve got a bunch of quotes in there and I point them out whenever I have a client who I think would need to hear it because sometimes words… *gestures vaguely* they do be hard. And this one… damn. It perfectly illustrates how to feel your painful emotions without shame and without spiraling into thinking you’ve lost all the progress you’ve made. Again, I’m just… blown-the-fuck-away by this.

Ok. I think that about covers everything I was thinking. I’m high-key sad that this story is wrapping up because it’s been so fucking good. Having these updates to look forward to have been Real Enough to Get Me Through this pandemic nonsense, for sure. As always, much love to you and I hope you’re well and healthy and that you did well on the COVID test. 💙

- your most voracious and vocal fan, 🦝

HELLO FRIEND <3 my long and rambling answer is under the read more because I also have a lot to say 😍😍

this made my night lol thank you for sharing these reactions!! at the end of the day I'm writing for myself but theres no way I would've made it to this point without kind people such as yourself sharing your excitement and encouraging me along!! so THANK YOU!!

the grey hair existential crisis was inspired by the grey thats recently started peppering through my own hair lol. this story only takes place within the span of a year, so I needed a way to keep showing the big picture of time passing and that seemed like a good way to introduce it. plus it ties in nicely later when Z is thinking about what S would look like when they get older :')

on Azula- even though shes in the background I still wanted to show that shes been on her own path too, and Z is definitely a big part of that. I think she looks up to him so much even though she hates to admit that. also i was DYING to finally throw in some jinzula and not just hint at it, so that was fun.

I'm so glad you liked the katara/aang/toph scene! it's always tough writing roundtable conversations like that because there are so many distinct voices/viewpoints to keep track of and I'm always afraid that it gets clunky or confusing. But it was important to me to show S opening up to them and taking their advice. I think he was probably getting in his head too much worrying about Z and he really needed that reset with help from his family and friends.

I almost cut that hakoda scene because for a while I couldn't quite figure out where to place it and how to force the two of them together and have Z in a mindset where he would even think to ask about it. Originally the frog scene was the same, but when Z started to spiral, he got up and left on his own to take a break, and ran into Hakoda in the house. but no matter how many times I tried to make that work I hated every outcome. I dont know why but that whole scene out of this entire chapter was the most challenging to push through and figure out. But I didnt want to cut the Hakoda conversation bc I really wanted Z to try to get someone else's perspective, and I wanted to show that he's still developing relationships with characters other than S. But speaking of S, I realized that scene was a good opportunity to show that he WAS paying attention and realized that Z needed help and wasnt about to ask for it himself, so he stepped in.

also OOF the argument scene. I actually loved writing that, despite the angst. I knew going into this chapter that it really needed some conflict, and that Z's internal wrestling wouldnt be enough. it needed to reach a point where he couldn't deny it anymore and they needed to communicate with words. it was cathartic to write and hopefully cathartic for you read

broken heart-itis was also inspired by my niece lol- shes a big fan of doc mcstuffins and once gave me a check-up for my "headache-itis" and told me to "drink iced coffee, take naps, and sleep good" 😂 I was like...okay yes ma'am

I almost cut out Irohs letter too😳 can you tell I get in my own head too much??? I really liked trying to write in his voice though so I’m glad I kept it!

ALSO- you are totally welcome to use the quote, I would be honored!!! that's so sweet and amazing! I used to have a bunch of quotes in my office at my old social work job too, they were so helpful on those days when my brain was just like, No. Not Today.

anyway, I hope you've enjoyed reading my rambling response, I really could talk about this story all day lol. Hopefully you're cool with all this behind-the-scenes talk!!

OH AND I saw your second ask too, that means a lot :) That scene with sokka+izumi is so special to me and I'm so happy that people liked it and still think of it!!! 💙💙💙

ANYWAY THANK YOU raccoon <3 you made me smile today!!!!

#also yes!! my covid test was negative so im in the clear (for now) but thank you!!!#wild raccoon anon #💙💙💙#retgmt #answered #long post

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orionares · 3 years

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BTHB: Comatose- Part 2

A/N: Don’t have a title yet. Here’s part 2. =] -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She dreams of possibilities.

These possibilities had been buried in the back of her mind a decade ago into the category of ‘broken dreams’ when her partner had disappeared. The particular possibility crossing her mind is a new one, spurred by the day she had jogged away from him with her son in tow on a snowy afternoon.

Noah’s fifteen, tall and lanky with his reddish brown curls, standing with a group of teenagers in matching shirts, black pants and tap shoes. He grins ear to ear with his troop as parents in the audience cheer for an encore.

In this possibility, she’s standing in the second row, clapping and letting tears of pride run down her cheek. Her not-so-little boy has fought like hell for this moment. An arm wraps around her waist and pulls her close to the only person outside her son who has a piece of her heart.

"You did good."

She laughs at the compliment from her once again partner and rests her hand against his cheek. "We did good!”

Her once again partner’s blue eyes sparkle with admiration and love that she’d gone ten years without seeing. In this possibility, they move fluidly as they had before as partners but with a new level of intimacy.

“This isn’t real,” she whispers, barely audible over the cheering and his attention turned towards her son. She knows she shouldn’t lose herself in this possibility.

But this possibility is free of saving the world from predators, abandonment issues, lingering fears of the pandemic and pain. And she’s emotionally exhausted.

So maybe she can stay a while.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elliot’s woken by a kick to his chair leg.

Expecting Bell and a well needed cup of coffee, Elliot opens his eyes to a blonde haired, blue eyed woman looking extremely unimpressed at the sight of him. The woman had been in Olivia's office, leaving her likely to be one of her detectives.

"Get up," the blonde commands with a southern drawl. Rollins or Rowan, he guesses as her last name from a foggy memory, turns away from his makeshift cot and gives a lingering sad look towards the unconscious Olivia. She huffs out a breath and returns her attention back to Elliot, saying, “Let’s go for a walk.”

"Do I get a choice-" Elliot stops mid question at the I freaking dare you glare very similar to Olivia’s. Ignoring the sudden urge to smile in reminiscence, he coughs and swings his legs off the chair serving as the foot of his 'bed' and tweaks his question," What can I do for you, Detective…"

"Rollins, Amanda Rollins," she finishes. "First off, I don’t like you, Stabler. I don’t like how you up and disappeared without a word for a decade,” Amanda continues as she ignores Elliot’s pained expression. She notices Elliot's flinch at the mention of his disappearance. "Come on. I don't have a lot of time."

Elliot takes a beat to read Amanda- she holds onto a coffee tightly as its a lifeline, wears a grey sweater and black slacks with a small stain likely to be from a marker near her knee.

"Are you a parent?" Elliot probes. Standing elicits a yawn and a useless stretch to fight his tight, aching muscles.

Amanda's expression lightens briefly for the briefest moment. "Two girls. Captain's the godmother for both my girls. Let's head to the garden and chat. Come on.”

------------------------------------------------------

Manhattan is grey and unusually cool for a summer day in July. The hospital's garden has only a handful of visitors that scatter throughout the stone garden. Elliot instinctively scans every face he sees for any ties to Wheatley, even with Richard Wheatley sitting in a jail cell. Amanda leads the way to black steel bench and sits, giving him ample space to sit.

"So why’d you leave her?" Amanda asks as Elliot lowers himself onto the bench. She avoids his anxious look by eyeing the lukewarm coffee in her hands.

"It's complicated-"

Amanda scoffs before taking a sip of her coffee. She fidgets in her seat briefly before leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "That's bullshit."

Elliot runs a hand over the back of his neck and sighs. He replays bits and pieces of his conversation with Noah in his head whispers he fishes for the most diplomatic answer to say. Amanda narrows her eyes at the silence before snapping, "You broke her trust, you know that? My old partner, Nick Amaro, had to double our efforts to gain Olivia’s trust because of you!"

"I know, " he answers weakly. The weeks after landing in Rome are a blur, thanks to alcohol and sleepless nights. "I can't imagine. "

"No, you can't."

The silence that follows is thick between them. The blonde haired detective stares straight ahead with a small white dove statue surrounded by colorful peonies. She takes a long sip of her coffee and mutters, “She’s been through a lot in the last ten years- things that…”

Elliot flinches. Among the suspicious glances of the infamous rogue detective, he’s heard whispers and vague references of “with all she’s been through” whenever he’s been within arm’s reach of Olivia.

“Did something-” the question that’s been buried between his grief for Kathy and hatred for Richard Wheatley spills out, “-did- what happened?”

Amanda finally turns her head to meet Elliot’s eyes. He can read hesitancy in her eyes to trust the man that abandoned Olivia. He also reads a desire to either punch him in the face or shoot him that he’s seen from Fin, the young dark haired officer he met briefly in Olivia’s office, the ADA and oddly, Chief Garland.

“It isn’t my story to tell,” Amanda replies carefully. “There’s actually multiple stories but the big one is something you need to hear from her. Look, Stabler- I’ve only heard bits and pieces about you and Liv and I want to say that I trust her judgement.”

Elliot pushes past his mind already fervently making a plan to scour his ex-partner’s file once he’s back upstairs. A lone raindrops hits his cheek, warning a need to go inside and an end of their conversation. “I’m not going anywhere. I-I’m not- I can’t lose her again.”

Amanda rises to her feet and tosses her empty coffee cup into the black garbage bin next to the bench. With a quick glance to her cellphone screen, she sighs, “Stabler, don’t screw this up, ok?”

He unconsciously fidgets with his wedding ring and only nods in response. There's a never ending list of screw up he carries in the back of his mind where Olivia and Kathy sit.

Two women, lives affected by his indecision.

"Stabler?"

Elliot glances up to Amanda who hasn't moved from where she stands. She sighs before stating ,"William Lewis. He's the big one."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You got a good group of detectives," are the first words Elliot stammers fifteen minutes later once he's back alone with Olivia. "I met Amanda Rollins and she's tough. I like her."

He can imagine her nodding in acknowledgement at the comment with pride. Instead, the heart monitor continues to beep steadily. "She mentioned that things happened while I was gone, "he pauses as his guilt once more bubbles up," Bad Things."

Elliot lowers his head into his hand. "Liv, if I'm being honest, there's a selfish part of me that doesn't want to know. I want to live in a world where- I'm terrified of what I'll find."

Although he had never told her, the near rape at Seaview Corrections Facility had forever seared a permanent place in his mind. He's eternally great full for Fin's save but the could have's sitting in his mind, flaring up with every glance or comment by a suspect-

"I don't…." Elliot pulls his cellphone out of his jacket pocket and notices how much heavier the object feels. "William Lewis- did he try to kill you? Did he ra-"

He cant even finish the sentence before he chokes back a sob. "If he...I shouldn't have left!"

The image of her shifting in her seat, her brown eyes shifting from item to item in her surrounding in a tact to prepare herself comes to mind. Elliot reaches out to brush his hand against her right hand resting on her stomach in an unconscious attempt to comfort her.

And if he's honest- himself.

With two quick inhales, Elliot opens the NYPD database on his cellphone and maneuvers to case search. He sneaks another glass to her before typing William Lewis in the search bar. When a dark haired, empty-eyed man appears, Elliot flinches.

September 25, 2013

January 8, 2014

April 30th, 2014

"Christ," Elliot mutters.

Three different dates.

Three separate incidents.

Less than one year.

The detective readies himself to open the file before his guilt, now running rampant in his mind, flashes a memory of what he had been doing in September 2013.

Camogli.

He had finally slipped into some form of normalcy with his family and had gone to the quaint fishing town on the coast of Italy.

Elliot takes one more glance at his unconscious partner- ex-partner - and opens the file on William Lewis.

And cries.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She now dreams of Elliot in a jail cell.

He's sitting on a silver bench, leaning forward with an elbow on a bouncing knee. She can see his knuckles to be bloodied and torn and follows the trail of dried blood running up his arms to the bloodied dress blue shirt.

"El," she calls out. Her eyes droop even as she stands on four days of food and sleep deprivation. "You didn't-" the words spill out, "You didn't have to kill him."

There's an emptiness in his eyes that shares space with the lack of regret. "I had to. Lewis hurt you."

Wait- realization comes in dread. Elliot's never been arrested, she's never found him bloodied and bruised in this state and overall, when it comes to William, Lewis- he wasn't there.

She staggers back into the wall.

This isn't right- he wasn't this isn't a memory or a blissful possibility now that he's home.

No, this is 2013 and he's killed William Lewis.

No. This isn't right at all.

#bensler #olivia benson #elliot stabler #law and order svu #bad things bingo #bad things happen bingo

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songketalliance · 3 years

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Home is Not Here

“Months passed and moments are miss from being far away, home is not where my heart is or was; home is not where I currently am or am not. Home is not here. “

by ShaSha Cuadra

The well-known and overused phrase, “Home is where the heart is” has always been a point of fact to me. Vaguely simple but generally understood on a personal level, it’s not something you question at all. Which is why I’ve always deemed the country I originated from as nothing more than an extension of my roots and ancestral history, but never as my home. I knew where home is; I lived in Brunei all my life, so how can Philippines compare when yearly visits that don’t last more than a month or two ever be more than a checkpoint for me?

Universe says otherwise though, as it always proved to do so consistently through my life. 2020 happened, and I find myself unexpectedly stranded away from home. Stranded, yes, because despite having a roof over my head and food on the table to get by, emotionally I was distraught that I was force to stay where I was as the whole world went on a global lockdown. I shouldn’t have a reason to be upset as other might say when in comparison to others who have suffered more greatly, with losses more severe than simply being stranded.

A kind note from me to you: Don’t do this. Don’t invalidate your emotions just because it didn’t meet the criteria of how much you had to endure for it be deemed acceptable. Feelings are valid. But acknowledge that feelings aren’t facts either.

It was a straightforward, downward spiral of going through the 5 stages of grief that followed the next few months. Denial transitioning to Anger was easy; the reactive emotions gave something to burn through to live spitefully, cursing circumstances and the world’s idiocy. Bargaining became a point of desperation of wanting a form of normalcy to come back, of wanting to be back on familiar landmarks and faces. Depression felt like a long solitary winter; texts and calls of friends missing me and waiting for my return were pieces of warmth I held on to for days. But waking up every day in an unfamiliar room living in an unfamiliar house served as a stark reminder that I still wasn’t home.

In between the earlier stages, a lot of things happened at the same time. My grandmother passed on, my friends got married, my beloved cat died, my mental health deteriorated, a close friend stopped talking among other things, like the world breaking under the weight of the global pandemic. Like most people, I found 2020 surreal and a very trying year to get through. Not exactly the year we expected to open the new decade with but that’s what we ended up with.

I’m unsure when Acceptance arrived. Whether it settled in between the peaceful sleep I had one night or in the early mornings of when I took my first sip of the day, or in the strange calm composure I held on a video call with my friends. But it did came. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t still homesick. It didn’t meant I gave up on home and ever going back. It meant that I was finally acknowledging that this is the new normal.

Because acceptance ≠ resignation.

And in that frame of mind, I started to try to get to know Philippines a bit more during my long unplanned stay. Or at least, a very small part of it of where I live. True to Asian form, they love their communal gatherings. Be it a birthday party, a christening party, a Christmas party, a wake, a wedding reception, it’s overwhelming to say the least. Good thing to note is that I still dislike attending large gatherings, family or otherwise.

And like how Bruneians love their karaoke and Dangdut classics, Filipinos love their karaoke and rock ballads a little more. I have lost count how many impromptu karaoke sessions have been conducted weekly and while celebrations are nothing without them, it’s plain ridiculous how someone could fire up a karaoke box with 2 very large booming speakers just to sing the same Steelheart song over and over again just because they feel like it. I’m all for releasing stress and unwinding but karaoke that lasts all day long, starts at 6 am at times (yes, I am for real) and is loud enough to feel the house vibrating from the bass is beyond acceptable. I’d rather listen to Dangdut classics instead.

Where Brunei feels like a collective town who knows everyone or anyone and is related one way or the other to each other, the village where my mother’s family resides in emanates the same community familiarity. It’s oddly soothing in a way, even as I ironically struggle to understand the dialect but the sentiment is undeniably there. There is a sense of detachment between most of my cousins and I, and while I don’t deny that my lack of trying has a big part in it, I appreciate the ones who do try despite our language barrier. It’s in the little things really, and I’m still trying to navigate my way around it carefully but it’s something. I think I owe myself that little bit of effort to be aware of where I came from and where I could have grown up in.

I know home will still be there in Brunei. My friends will still be there, probably married or with kids or with a soaring career and business life. Home will still be bumbling along in its own way as I move forward with my own life. Even as things change, months passed and moments are miss from being far away, home is not where my heart is or was; home is not where I currently am or am not. Home is not here.

Home is here, in where I carry it with me.

by ShaSha Cuadra

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erinelezabeth920 · 4 years

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Love in the Time Of

Shame. Is the thing I want to talk about. Love in the time of shame.

I mean I don’t really want to talk about it. I’d really rather not actually, except that I have the sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one. Not by a long shot. So here we go. Last night I wanted to go to bed by 10pm, so I could get up early and go on a run BEFORE signing into Zoom at 7:45am to lead a yoga meditation class for my friends and family, BEFORE doing some reading of self-help books and solo meditation BEFORE I start trying to do an impossible job from my living room for an unclear number of hours per day with an attention span of basically zero to negative.

When I write this it sounds absurd. I know that. But brains are weird. Especially mine. Remember the anxiety based overfunctioning/ underfunctioning I talked about last time? Overfunctioning much? Anyway, that didn’t happen. We had finished a DnD session with my brother and college roommate, (my character is a rouge-gnome named Huckleberry Shake who has short purple hair, is really good at sneaking and lock picking, and carries a crossbow. I like to imagine a sort of cross between ‘Midsummer's Night Dream’ and Assassin’s Creed’.) Anyway, it was around 9:30 ish pm. It was also Cinco de Mayo, and we had picked up tacos from the neighborhood about a 15 minute drive south with a strong hispanic/ latinx population. The past couple weeks I’ve been referencing that line in ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ where they all pile into the pick up truck to go into town and go batshit crazy. “It always feels good to get away from camp, even for an hour!” Just to drive somewhere to pick up food feels like a crazy adventure these days.

I made us magaritas when I got back; they were bright blue because we had some kind of blue liquor that I can’t remember the name of. After DnD I wanted to watch some TV. I made myself another margarita and some popcorn, which is my quarantine coping crutch. I watched this trashy but great Netflix show about teenagers in North Carolina called Outer Banks. Except the episodes kept ending on cliff hangers (OMG he KILLED HIM?), so I kept watching. I painted my toenails purple, using packing peanuts to space them out. I was kind of proud of myself actually.

It was about midnight when I went to bed. I woke up with a small headache, a result of tequila and salty popcorn and poor quality sleep. I was going to go on a walk/ run and listen to the news. I didn’t. I snoozed the alarm about ten times. It was raining out. I led my yoga class and ate some sourdough toast. And here we are. The light is filtering through the apartment windows, as I sit on the couch in my sweat pants. The crazy thing is, I just feel SO much shame. And guilt. Guilt for having a headache, shame for not waking up early to do all these things I honestly don’t even need to do. I feel shame for not writing more often, shame when I look at the dishes that are dirty. Shame when I don’t go outside to go on a walk, exercise, or when I close my work laptop early to lie on the couch and scroll through my phone. I’ve been trying the past couple weeks to figure out this phenomena that seems to be happening to me, but also to other people I talk to. I feel okay for about 3 days, and then completely collapse. I just can’t do anything, flatline, but there doesn’t really seem to be a direct cause. It’s just like dropping on the roller coaster without warning. I was telling a friend the other day that on weekends, all I do is sleep. Usually I’m a very active person who has an almost clincally hard time sitting still. I haven’t felt like this, I told him, since I worked the hardest jobs in my life- full time wilderness therapy or residential treatment for children with Autism working 12 hour days. I work MAYBE six hours a day these days but probably more like four, broken up by lying on the couch watching documentaries and scrolling on my phone. So why am I SO DAMN EXHAUSTED?

I did some research the other week into chronic stress for a newsletter article I was writing for parents of my elementary school. Chronic stress is different than acute stress, I found, because it has no concrete beginning and end. It’s not like a car crash or a loved one dying. Instead (for those of us with the intense privelage not to be on the front lines- god bless if you are) it’s a constant low hum in the background through news headlines, grocery store lines and crossing the street when another person is coming your direction on the sidewalk. It’s a disruption of normality with no conceivable ending, sending our brains into a low key 24/7 flight or fight mode, draining us with tiny doses of adrenaline and uncertainty that build up over time. It’s not in the forefront, but it’s there in our tight shoulders, exhaustion, inattention, insomnia, short fuses and total lack of motivation. Until we can’t take it any more and crash, seemingly out of nowhere. And then the whole thing starts again.

As Brene Brown says, “We’ve hit our collective weary.” In one podcast episode she interviews a grief expert. He says, we are all grieving right now. Even if we don’t name it, we’re showing the symptoms. But instead of grieving the death of an individual (for most of us), we are grieving the lifestyles we’ve lost (work settings, close contact, friendships, normalcy). And grief exhausts us. BUT, because most of us aren’t experiencing acute grief (ie a loved one dying) we feel shame on TOP of that grief, that we shouldn’t be tired or inept when others have it SO much worse. It’s a meta emotion. Shame layered on grief like a terrible lasagna. How can we be justified in experiencing grief when all we do is sit on the couch and watch Netflix and eat snacks for hours a day? We’re not even in a wartime or something concrete that gives justification and purpose. Instead it’s just a vague, deep sense of disruption of life as we know it. But it’s just as real. I was walking on the beach at the time I listened to the podcast; when he said the words, “We are grieving the loss of the world as we knew it,” the sun was setting over the water. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

A few weeks ago, Andy cut my hair. When the pieces fell to the floor of our friend’s porch and the scissors snipped away larger chunks than I woud have liked, my stomach dropped. I started panicking. I felt like the world was ending. I don’t panic when I read the news, go to the grocery store in a mask, or even read the death toll. But when my hair fell to the ground around me in the gathering twilight, I absolutely lost it. I came home and sobbed. It was the first time I’d cried since the pandemic began, and it’s like it just all came out. I was so angry at Andy, and he felt so bad. I was a shell of a person for twelve hours. I cancelled morning yoga for the first time in six weeks, lamenting everyone would have look at me close up on a screen. I wanted to stay in bed forever, (until we fixed the haircut and it actually looked pretty good). But for a second there I was broken, and it was because of a goddamn haircut. I mean for Christ sakes, people are dying out there. It made me feel so petty and stupid. There’s a global pandemic happening, and I am distraught FROM MY HAIR?!

But that’s how grief works. We can’t look at the thing head on, it’s too much. A death toll is just numbers. Our brains seek to survive, to normalize, to adapt just to get through. So instead the trauma seeps into the corners, slowly creeping into our bodies and collective exhaustion until one little thing causes the world to come crashing down. The straw that breaks the camel’s back. And then we feel overwhelming shame for being so affected by something so little. For me, my lizard brain was honestly convinced I would never be attractive or happy again.

(ALSO to be fair we watched, ‘Little Women’ a few days later. In the movie there’s the scene where Jo cuts all her hair off to give her mother money to travel to their sick father in the war. She’s then pictured crying under the stairwell. “Is it mother?” her sister asks. “No,” she says, “It’s MY HAIR!”. "See?!” I said to Andy.)

The underlying theme here is shame. We’re ashamed of our emotions because they don’t seem justified. Comparative suffering. My suffering isn’t nearly as bad as others, therefore I should not feel this way. I’m ashamed of myself for eating snacks and worried I’m going to gain a bunch of weight. Then I’m ashamed for being ashamed instead of being body positive. I’m ashamed of myself for enjoying an evening with drinks (yes plural), popcorn, painting my toes and watching teenagers who are actually in their twenties look for buried treasure. Honestly, it sounds like a great night. And it was.

I just finished re-reading “The Four Agreements”, the Toltec wisdom book. The first agreement is “Be Impeccable With Your Word.” I assumed from the first time I read it, it meant “always tell the truth”. The reality though, is it means, our words have power. Especially our words about ourselves. Just this morning I entered my enchilada and margaritas from yesterday into my ‘Weight Watchers’ app and felt terrible. I told myself I was fat, lazy and useless. Which seems absurd when I write it out, but that’s the honest to goodness narrative inside my head. Being impeccable with our word means watching what we say to ourselves, because our words create a reality. We create our own cycles of shame.

Even at this moment, typing this, I feel ashamed that this piece of writing is so scattered. My English major brain is mad at me. Get it together Erin. Find a cohesive theme and stick to it. Get emotional, but not too emotional. Tell stories, but not too many stories. But writing at it’s best is vulnerability and transparency; and honestly right now it’s hard to hold on to any one thought for longer than a few seconds. And I’m pretty sure it’s not just me. Little pieces, scattered thoughts, just trying to put the puzzle together. (Oh and don’t even get me STARTED on puzzles... Andy is MUCH better than me at them, and, saving the face of our relationship, let’s just say that is another dangerous straw perched on the camel’s back through only the fault of my own...) Anyway, I think at this point, just find anything that makes you smile. Literally anything. I personally like Brad Leone’s Bon Appetite Youtube channel “It’s Alive.” He makes me laugh so much. The episode with him and Orville Peck making elote almost broke me. Find those things, hold on to them and be kind to yourself. It’s okay to feel less than. Just remember you’re not. We’ve collectively hit weary, the point in the race where you’ve been running for so long, but the finish line is so far away. It’s okay just to go one step at a time.

Paint your toes. Eat your popcorn. Drink your margaritas. Whatever we can do just to survive. One step at a time. You’re not alone.

And that’s love in the time of.

#mental health #coronavirus #quarantine #seattle

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groovesnjams · 4 years

Video

youtube

“Radical” by Amtrac ft. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs

MG:

I started this year feeling very fired up to write again. Confident. I’d realized of the long hiatus and infrequent bursts of heavy writing that, ok, that was grief. I think many people are keen to point out the way that grief can isolate what really matters as a potential positive to experiencing something devastating as though you will love the things you love a little bit more. But actually, everything was a little bit more. Uncertainty was also a little bit more. One of the things that really mattered was that I knew I didn’t know anything and I was going to stop prattling or shouting “NOT ME” at the void. My first instinct wasn’t openness, sharing, connection or community. It was self-preservation. Now, we are all feeling grief and I’ve sat with that jagged, timid shard of silence that engulfs and isolates me and I’m ready to let it pass. I do know grief.

I’ve accumulated this free-wheeling playlist of anything that’s caught my ear so far this year and though I’m usually keen to prune and manicure and always have my best-of playlist ready to share -- a resume -- I’ve resisted and let it be a shaggy mess that no one but me is interested in plowing. That was great, before. Now I wonder if I like any of these songs or if they abruptly hold no meaning or comfort and are just the last relics of some now gone era. It seems like the perfect time to interrogate “Radical” because as one of the first songs I added to this collection, my relationship with it has already changed a couple times and it can withstand the scrutiny. Initially, it was not much more than soothing EDM with an extremely boring and predictable rave vocal. Fine, but unlikely to come to much beyond its easiness. Then I realized the lyrics are maybe extremely Christian and not rave at all? Are the doors that close our mortal lives and the “real” ones that open the pearly gates? I can’t answer for certain and don’t want to know what the author intended. It’s vague enough that it serves a number of purposes and I like it for that. I appreciate the way it presents decision making as suffused with subdued calm. It’s a reminder of another way -- maybe a way that is so calm because it has faith in something it believes is good, maybe not -- and even if I can’t find that in myself at any given moment, it’s there.

DV:

This is Christian music because in 2020 “radical” is a word that only a youth pastor can utter this straight-faced. And more importantly I’m going to assume this is Christian music because “When these doors close/ Real ones open” evokes the end of C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, when he describes his fantasy land as “only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here” - where heaven is “more like the real thing” than the real thing ever was. I hated the sense of betrayal I got when I realized - later than I want to admit - that Narnia was selling me Christianity (and a whole mess of racism and sexism with it); I’ve never really connected these dots but it seems like a straight line from there to distrusting Christian music in general, in the way it tries to sneak some kind of ~message~ into seemingly-innocuous phrasings and half-dead slang. But I try to keep an open mind, even if we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and I can at least say that “Radical” isn’t borderline offensive like the Christian rock I listened to for The Singles Jukebox last week. But that’s the problem, in a way: “Radical” is not C.S. Lewis, whose ideas clearly remain formative even if I’d rather not admit it, but it’s not C.S. Lewis in part because it’s not taking any risks, not trying to be anything other than pleasant, not putting forth a message that couldn’t be read as a call to home repair as much as a better belief system. It’s Christian music because that’s how I’m hearing it, and I’m hearing it that way because it resonates with a book I read too often years ago, but it can barely stand for anything - even a hook - all on its own.

#music #radical #amtrac #totally enormous extinct dinosaurs #christian music?

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paraclete0407 · 3 years

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All the books I read in Korea, ‘Vita Nuova’ and ‘On Love.’ IDK why I became such a miniaturist later as well as pornographer. I literally realized today people love pornography, love isn’t too weak a word. It’s dear to them. It really warms some people’s hearts. I remember reading in a magazine from NY I don’t look at anymore how old men love it so much.

Sexual frankness was en vogue for a long time when I was a kid in the Bill Clinton era and everyone found it funny till they realized Clinton, Epstein, Dershowitz and pedophilia isn’t really funny. Later K-wave put a different spin on it since it’s so raw as if to say ‘I’m above this all and can say anything’ but it’s still violent and it trample’s people’s valid dignities and decorum.

I literally spent so long hung up on Houellebecq and regressed; ‘Elementary Particles’ is visionary if flawed but some part of me decided it was too sweeping so I concentrated on ‘Whatever / Extension of the Struggle’ and the figure of the lonely stranger girl in the nightclub, exemplar of a ‘sacrificed generation.’ I wrote so much impertinent fiction fascinated with these sacrificed girls without ever grasping that they have better options than to become object-lessons in the callousness of society. Timothy Keller’s ‘The Meaning of Marriage’ is revelatory as it reminds, the nightclub sexual liberation culture can be escaped not through Romantic individualism or self-esteem / -regard but remembering husband and wife are one flesh - it’s secure, invulnerable. I always thought about running away.

My family are mad at me and my dad still appears to want to know something about my inner life which I’m afraid is a lingering ghost or recapitulation of the now-decades-old Boomer-v-Millennial college culture thing where all these dads were like ‘drmdrmdrm free oral sex on campus?! - I hate my son let’s execute him and steal his co-ed friends.’ Chad Kultgen stuff but even more psychopathic, homicidal-suicidal. I didn’t even do that; I just heard about it in the magazine from NY I don’t read anymore because its whole message was, ‘I’m going to go on observing myself abusing myself and consuming myself and analyzing my consumption of experience forever as if nothing will ever change.’ People who never did the math on the pandemic and ‘water.’

I truly feel as if right now Saint Augustine of Hippo is watching over the whole world which, John Piper reminds us, was ‘cursed in hope.’ What is at the bottom of the pandemic, the sudden questioning of freedom, the openness to communism and totalitarianism, the ambivalence regarding all private life and private ownership and proprietary supply-chains and chains-of-care (such as ‘my child you leave him or her alone’ it does not take a village), if not the rediscovery of Original Sin, the tragic cursedness of sexuality or ‘woundedness’ of sexuality, that it was supposed to be great but it led to all this dejection and grief and actual permanent loss.

I remember many pieces of piano-music which I hoped to learn but in a way the most personal piece to me is Beethoven’s opus 109 / Sonata 31 final movement, ‘Gesangvoll mitt Innigster Empfindung.’ To me this is the ultimate statement on a couple’s tearing each other apart and ending where they began with the same beautiful yet vain regret. How many times do you have to punctuate the same sentiment? Just walk away; toward the new day.

‘After that I moved out of there.’ I really did give up on the details of man-woman love-relationships after 2011; I decided I would get a wife-in-a-box or just be single forever. There was a Korean girl I liked in 2010 who made me change my mind about Shanghai-Beijing-and/or-Harbin v. Seoul and I was friends with her friend too but said something really terrible that in retrospect prefigured my teaching-career’s failure as well. ‘She is a complicated woman 23.5 years of history.’ ‘I can simplify her.’

I was like some communist social engineer. I really flattened out my own character into an .XLS of sorts and believed I could do the same for others. Years later I regarded how Lee Sooman had studied robotics in America, became hung up on more non-religious non-Christian ‘special electric sauce’ books like Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Love of the Last Tycoon.’

I feel as if all of this is in some distant way, ‘mental North Koreanness.’ ‘Love is broken, people are fools, Dad hit Mom, Dad is a man-child, cannot face himself, doesn’t know his own intentions or motives, obsessed with being understood sans understanding, Mom was bricked in the head, the priest molested my sister, Ki Hyungdo, I will eliminate freedom with a colossal everlasting permeating Monolithic Ideology and give everyone precisely what is right for them.’

IDK whether I ought to say this but ‘Last Tycoon’ crystallizes and incipits(?) at Palm Springs International Airport which is a place where something happened to me. But North Koreanness appears almost totally Faustian, samurai-like in the worst sense.

IDK if I should say but someone I respect and admire and esteem immensely is the CEO of NKNews who supports food-sanctions (that at other times I think is a form of US state terrorism as well as diametrically anti-biblical) and I could almost understand in one way why America would choose to feed Soviets in the past but starve North Koreans b/c something truly went horribly wrong. During my last (intellectually) intimate love-relationship we touched on the Pyongyang Revival & why did all of that get blown away? It’s truly a testament to the power of Satan and the fragility of human purity and innocence.

There’s a novel someone else I really love was translating for free about ‘pleasure squads’ and these women being daughters of someone and I took this scholar to task for his ‘Japaneseness,’ his oneiricity, his vagueness, begging the question when he could actually answer with guns blazing. I get mad at Hwang Sokyong and want BR Myers to stomp Bruce Cumings for being a hippie as well as for constantly trying to correct American East Asia Studies when soon enough Western EAS won’t really matter because Asians are no longer yoked to traditional blinkered methods of scholarship or historiography. Like just give up, Asians are figuring themselves out and Western EAS is also highly mercenary and in many cases naively enamored of Confucianism, Maoism, platonistic messianic communism. Every scholar’s convinced he knows ‘the one thing other Westerners don’t know about China’ but a lot of it again comes down - I realize - to the same quality which makes me a mental North Korean; namely men being hung up on the little points that made them money, special, competitively edged.

Maybe it’s neither here or there. I’m time-traveling. The best book I saw recently before my life fell apart was ‘I Am Kim Jieun’ whose specificity astonished me. It was a mystic experience to look at, searing, black and white; I felt something similar when translating Ku Sang. I realize however that this ‘absolute specificity’ itself became an idol, to me - heart-idol, soul-idol - that exacerbated my intellectual belligerence and rendered me even more severely mentally North Korean than ever before. ‘David Johnston Global Offensive.’

Everyone I care about in any case seems to be dreaming of Saint Augustine of Hippo, this man who wanted his little wife, his happy students, caring Mom, silly but avoided Dad, son Adeodatus (’God-given’), but ended up rebelling against liberal education and realizing that infants are evil and depraved in many ways. Christianity today hesitating between a new engagement, a farewell to ‘cultural Christianity’ and ‘Christian nationalism,’ the question of freedom of religion or, as John MacArthur points out, acknowledging that religion and freedom are incompatible in the in the American secular understanding of the word ‘freedom.’ Freedom to die, freedom of death, perhaps a hundred million or more abortions. But was St. Augustine a quietist who turned his back on the world? Did he say go home? He was advising the Roman general Beliarius and provided an immortal pastoral reflection on traumatic sociohistorical upheaval in ‘City of God.’

I still feel wrapped up and flattened out. Today I remembered ‘The Teacher of Creative Writing’ which was my too-late apology to a former student for whom I wrote a good-but-not-great essay-letter and game good but not the best advice. I wanted to tell her Cambridge UK has fewer anti-Korean rapists than Harvard but I wish that I had simply talked about God. She turned up on FB a while back doing all these ‘luminous ampoule face-gel’ bed-pictures which Russian men commenting and stuff(?!). ‘Tis part of why I turned my back on institutional Christianity - to my very abiding regret - and started thinking in ‘Baudelarian’ terms again with songs like f(x)’s ‘Butterfly.’ ‘I want to get inside your twisted logic / white-faced mysterious you.’

I sigh. Thank God today kids maybe can get the specific wisdom they need from devices or something instead of wanting to believe in someone like me who as more of a image of a leader-teacher-priest than the real thing. I really am in more trouble than these kids who simply allowed themselves to be vulnerable, I feel. No less had I been more pertinacious and decisive and staid I might have had that room full of books in Itaewon with the spiral staircase instead of being so far away in a place where no one’s really interested or apt. Another matter of which I have been tragically slow to take cognizance is the inferiority of creativity and conceptualization to redemption and Resurrection. Today I guess AI can create almost anything but I keep trying to crack ‘Hope in Times of Fear’ and truly hold fast to the knowledge that I can weather what’s coming and give up whatever I will need to give up if I remember that I don’t have to keep inventing and scheming and imagining and surprising everyone. I keep hearing the word ‘Sadducee’ in my head. The methods of Christianity are available to all and everyone is talking about Thomas Jefferson doing vaccine-experiments and a guy whose slave’s name was ‘Onesimus’ though the NPR reporter didn’t know about St Paul and his spiritual family; but the lynchpin of Christianity is still the Resurrection and Yeonmi Park may have a point about America becoming mentally North Korean if the methods of Christianity are catholically and rigorously implemented without conviction in the mystery and miracle of Christ’s being ‘first born of the dead.’

I’m 100% certain at this point there are people who want to murder me but Yeonmi Park has a very big point to make and I’m concerned for her as well as her way of conveying the message. So many people think she’s a huge harlot and Kim Jong Il is a sympathetic anti-hero; they hate her for having a few million dollars. My dad’s furious at John MacArthur for having a net-worth of like 15 million dollars and a nice watch; Bill Gates still has like 70 billion or something and is bragging about saving lives while 100 million kids are backsliding into poverty, starvation, possible trafficking due to I used to be this way as well, always having good ideas then worsening them deliberately. I remember reading on Wikipedia how love-shyness destroys careers; of all the things to be ashamed of, true love, holy love, an augury of Eternity and immortality, recognition of the Imago Dei (Image of God) in the other. ‘Why hold your beloved friends and family fast when you can talk about spaceships to Venus?’

Covid and the people on the street 100% love Bill Gates. Everyone’s afraid of Christianity; they’re love-shy; they’ll always take the second-best thing..

The world is really mentally ill and I wish I were living on an airplane writing speeches for JD Vance 20hrs a day but JD Vance is a brand too dueling people about Tucker Carlson and I can’t message him on Twitter (’100 million kids? - that’s something but first establish yourself and pay your dues in the profession by writing a 1,000 page dissertation about Tucker Carlson’). I’m about 1.5 years too old to join the SJ (Society of Jesus / Jesuits) by my last investigation. I just wish I had given my best over the last year and a half instead of ‘tracking’ matters for so long and gathering so much evidence without replying or responding.

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nataliehegert · 3 years

Link

The other day I was sitting on my couch, idly thumbing through Instagram, a vague heaviness in the pit of my stomach bearing down on me. I was unhappy. The stress, loneliness, and disappointments of pandemic life compounded with feelings of anger, helplessness, and hopelessness. I scrolled for no other reason than my phone was in my hand. I was looking for nothing.

Then @lauraonsale appeared, from the shoulders up, bouncing absurdly through a still image of a field of flowers with a rainbow filter, singing with synthy vocals: “You R worthy, youuuuu R loving, you R wanted, yooooooooooo ar majique, NOT everybody deserves yooooooo.”

It was precisely the affirmation I needed at that moment. I laughed. My solar plexus felt lighter.

New-media artist Laura Hyunjhee Kim appears often in my feed, usually dancing in front of her couch, maybe holding a vegetable, or a houseplant, or a bottle of sanitizer, or some other prop. In one recent Instagram post with the caption “vibe check,” Kim had a pineapple propped up in bed in front of an open laptop. “Aww, are you feeling prickly today?” she asks it, like one would a roommate suffering from Zoom fatigue.

“This is a very American thing: ‘How are you doing?’ ‘Oh, I’m good.’ This is habitualized in the language,” Kim, who grew up in the Bay Area and spent time in Korea, relates to me on our recent Zoom call. “Because if you’re not ok, you’re making it awkward,” she adds. “You’re not fine. We’re not fine! And it’s ok to not be fine.”

Since 2018, Kim has been making work for an open-ended project entitled Living Lab, which “focuses on the body as a feelosophical medium.” Living Lab videos often emulate the language and aesthetics of the self-care, wellness, fitness, and mindfulness industries, with nods to the technological anxieties of the current moment, while elevating everyday actions and gestures to highly ritualized maneuvers. One recent video invites the viewer to engage in a “phone pre-touch plushy ritual” by squeezing and stroking a plush toy or pillow in order to create a “private secure connection” with your body before allowing “your phone to intimately access you.” In Hi-Feel Lo-Tech Workout (HFLTW): Relaxation and Recovery (2020), Kim enacts “a series of intentional and meaningful synergistic micro-movements” in collaboration with a cylindrical household object or foam roller—in her case, a disconnected Amazon Alexa device—to release muscle tension.

In the pandemic era, these Living Lab performances have taken on a new urgency. As group modes of fitness and wellness—say, going to a gym, yoga studio, or meditation group—became impossible, we increasingly turned to purveyors of wellness and fitness videos through social media and video conferencing platforms. Since 2020, the buzz of “self-care” is now bolstered by a burgeoning $450 billion market. Kim is wary of tech-driven, corporate ideals of wellness. “I’ve been very interested in self-care that cannot be capitalized,” she says, paraphrasing author adrienne maree brown that “the most anti-capitalist endeavor is to go back to your body.”

Early on in the pandemic, Kim uploaded A Virtual Lotioning Session, a video intended for play on a mobile device, which encouraged viewers to take part in what’s described as “an intimate yet public presentation of applying lotion to one’s own hand(s)” and to “treat yourself to an experience only you can feel.” “The vibe or energy of the whole piece was very inviting, but in the context of where we were, it was very lonely and sad,” remembers Kim. The public messaging at that time in the pandemic emphasized rigorous and frequent hand washing and no touching, handshakes, or hugs. The lotioning performance is one Kim finds herself returning to. “Even when you don’t have other people, you still have yourself,” she remarks.

A couple of years ago, Kim went through a near-death experience that profoundly changed her life. Ever since, she has been recovering and is still trying to re-inhabit her body, testing its limitations, and regaining her strengths both inside and out. “When the pandemic first hit, it was like the world was catching up with me,” she says:

For me, I think I’m still clawing out from trauma work and seeing how much I need to link to my body [as] a performance-based [artist]. How my body and psychology [have] changed has been really infecting a lot of my work. I want to be very cheesy, in a way. I want to examine sadness, grief, trauma, but it’s not something to be scared of; it’s something that can be celebrated as well. If we don’t learn from it we will always be trapped; it will be that thing that we’re running away from.

Kim, now a PhD in Intermedia Art, Writing, and Performance at the University of Colorado, Boulder, just finished a dissertation that discusses “feelosophy” and “radical discomfort.” “We have to feel discomfort—and sit with it comfortably—in order to mobilize ourselves,” she says. The experiences of the past year have shown how important and powerful feelings, emotions, and empathy are in the process of social change. Kim questions, “How can you feel comfortable when the world is going through shit?”

And the world has gone through some shit this past year: a global pandemic and mass loss of life, quarantines and closures, extreme weather events and the encroaching effects of climate change, protests against police brutality and systemic racism, an assault on the Capitol, and, just in the time between our conversation and my writing of this article, a mass shooting of young Asian women massage parlor workers in Atlanta. “In this past year, a lot of people’s realities got shattered,” Kim says, “in realizing their mortality, that anything could go away instantly.” In the upheaval, many of society’s systemic problems are now being exposed and examined, she points out, adding, “I think it’s honestly because we were in the pandemic and everybody is just feeling a certain amount of empathy and compassion and also feeling that we could die at any point. There have been a lot of moments of reality perspective-shifting throughout the year.”

Notably, much of the reality we are experiencing is mediated through what Kim calls “the rectangle”: our screens. “We say digital or analog, but I feel like we’re at this point where both of those are merging and infecting and changing and morphing what we see as real or not,” she says. For a long time, digital space appeared to us as an extension, supplement, or simulation of “real life,” but this is no longer the case, she argues. “Real” no longer means just our “physical touch-y space,” she suggests, but digital spaces are becoming “realer than real,” too. “Reality for me right now is very much something that constantly shifts,” she says. “It’s very personalized, whether it’s on a micro-level: you living your day-to-day, touching objects, physically interacting with things around you; or on a more conceptual level: the systems that you interact with, the ideologies you converse with, or what you’ve normalized by growing up a certain way.”

Kim’s work blends these realities by guiding us through a haptic experience—the feeling of lotion in your hands—presented via a handy digital medium—the “rectangle.” “I want art to be close,” she says. “It has to be part of my life; it has to be immediate.” In these “unreal” times, going back to the body—even if it’s through your phone—may be the affirmation we need. To sit with our grief, our discomfort, and then laugh into the glow of our screens.

Feature Posted on 4/30/2021, Printed in Southwest Contemporary, Vol 2, Summer 2021

#Highlights #in print #feature

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reekierevelator · 3 years

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A Visitor

A short story by Brian Bourner in times of covid

We had been in the grip of the covid-19 pandemic for well over a year but the new vaccines finally had it on the run. The country was opening up again. We were at last officially allowed to mingle freely. But the world had changed.

Radio and TV still talked endlessly of the problems faced by students who had missed out on education, of how domestic abuse cases had soared and mental health problems had multiplied. The light the pandemic had thrown on endemic problems of race and poverty constantly reverberated. People had reached a new appreciation of who were society’s real ‘key workers’ and knew they were undervalued and criminally underpaid. Floods, fires, and murders, still barely achieved a mention even in the local news.

Business practice had also changed radically. Companies like mine now saw no reason not to allow employees to continue to work from home. Like many other firms they were in the process of selling off their office building for conversion into much needed housing. Visual contact with other people via computer technology had become the normal mode of interaction. Lack of interpersonal social contact no longer singled you out as unusual in any way. The exotic video meetings and video phone calls of a couple of years ago had long since become boringly routine.

I had always been asthmatic and a brush with tuberculosis a few years back had hardly helped. The constant pandemic fear of infection had marked my psyche indelibly. For people like me, at high risk from the virus, shielding and self-isolating for months on end had become second nature, the new normal, and was psychologically imprinted. I lived like a medieval hermit in a cave, dependent on local villagers to bring me food. At thirty-seven I was otherwise self-sufficient, happy to live alone in isolation. The last thing I wanted was to risk infection from physical meetings with other people.

Occasionally new variations of the virus still cropped up here and there. Announcements of quarantine arrangements and local lockdowns had become mundane, barely newsworthy. Likewise, there were still deaths and hospitalisations, but not the thousands experienced at the pandemic’s height. Health was no longer top of the government’s agenda. Despite innumerable ‘long covid’ cases, and people suffering long-lasting psychological after-effects, the government’s focus had shifted inexorably back to the economy.

When the doorbell rang on Monday morning I was slaving over my laptop, just as I had been all morning, trying to complete a company report. I was still in my pyjamas. I still needed to wash and dress ahead of a video business meeting scheduled for 12.00 noon. But the doorbell was insistent. Angrily I threw open the front door expecting to find yet another box of groceries on the doorstep, or some hot food I’d forgotten I’d ordered, or even some parcel delivery man waiting for a signature.

Instead I found myself facing a woman dressed rather shabbily who was carrying a grubby old holdall. Initially shocked at the lack of face mask I remembered that things had moved on. Her mud-spattered black coat was buttoned to the top and flapped around a slender body. Though hairdressers had been open for a few weeks now she had clearly been unable to secure an appointment. Her frizzy auburn hair sprouted from her head like weeds. A long narrow face attempted a smile but her skin was lined and weather-beaten. She looked exhausted. Her dark eyes, set far back in her ruddy crumpled skin, bored into mine, pleading and watery. When she opened her mouth and said “Hello Martin” recognition slowly began to dawn.

Over the course of the pandemic I had virtually forgotten what manners and social niceties were appropriate for visitors. “Gina,” I spluttered in surprise, “how nice to see you.” I cautiously ushered her into my flat, squeezing myself against the wall in commemoration of the recently abolished two metre distancing rule.

“I’m sorry if I got you out of bed,” she said, entering the living room while I rushed to throw a dressing-gown over my pyjamas. And even before sitting down she launched into her tale of woe. “It really drove me crazy. I’ve never ever been stuck indoors for that long before. Shops, restaurants, pubs, galleries - all shut down; nothing to do and nowhere to go. Work all disrupted too; jobs furloughed or disappearing. Just watching endless murder dramas on TV, or reading books about murders, or listening to radio presenters I’d like to murder. Still, you look well. I knew I could rely on you.”

It was strange because in fact I had not seen Gina for three years, and it felt like far longer. I searched my brain for her surname and eventually came up with McLaughlan. We had met at Manifest Destiny, a large advertising and design practice. Though we were in different teams there our paths crossed occasionally. She never said much, only once or twice mentioning that she could only bear the work there because the building was almost entirely glass so that inside she almost felt she was outside.

From what I could remember she had mostly been attached to another colleague, Ruby Maguire. She seemed to trail around after Ruby a lot. And Ruby was someone else I had not seen for a three years, not since I’d left Manifest Destiny for an administrative post with Box Clever, the cardboard box manufacturer. It had proved a wise move. The firm had done great business during the pandemic. It had expanded and I had been promoted.

Gina told me she too had moved on from Manifest Destiny, not long after me. She had gone from billboard designs to helping organise and design outdoor film sets. It had entailed working freelance but sounded a lot more interesting than designing cardboard boxes. “But,” she went on quickly, “the pandemic killed it all off stone dead.” She turned towards me with an angry grimace. “And when the wok vanished the pandemic ate all my savings. No official help for the likes of me. I couldn’t even pay my rent. No more sleeping in my lovely sun room. I ended up in a cramped hostel. It was hellish.” The resentment and hatred in her tone was palpable. “It drove me demented. And when the hostels closed to prevent the virus spreading I tried sleeping on the floor of anyone who would let me. It was unbearable, often like being stuck in a cupboard. Sometimes I couldn’t find anywhere at all suitable and just lived rough, outdoors in all weathers, but at least not suffering, lost in some little, dark, unknown room.”

“Good grief Gina, that’s awful, I’m so sorry.” And having commiserated I told her that of course she was welcome to take a bath and stay the night. I rustled up a quick meal for her which she ate looking longingly out of the window. And later I dug out some spare pyjamas. When I showed her my tiny windowless spare room her face froze and she stood rooted to the spot. She looked about to turn, dismiss the offer and run away, but recovered herself in time to mutter vague words of thanks.

I showed her round the rest of the flat then raced to turn up just in time for my video conference. My hair was uncombed, I was still in my dressing gown. On screen my boss and our potential customer both wore worried frowns, obviously thinking I would have been as presentable wearing a large cardboard box.

Gina slept through the rest of the day.

After finishing the meeting, writing up notes, dressing, and grabbing a sandwich I phoned the old unit at Manifest Destiny. I hoped someone here could give me a bit of background since I barely knew anything about Gina.

“Hello, Manifest Destiny, Terry Ryland speaking.”

“Hi, it’s Martin Hislop here. I used to work at Manifest Destiny. I wonder if there’s anyone there who remembers Gina McLaughlan. She’s popped round to see me unexpectedly, obviously regards me as a friend, and might stay a day or two. I don’t want to seem a total socially inept idiot but I’m afraid I can’t remember anything about her. I don’t want to put my foot in it. Is there someone who could spare a few minutes to fill me in?”

“Well there’s me I suppose,” Terry replied noncommittally. “All the staff work from home now. It’s my turn to be the telephone exchange today. It’s a rota system. I can’t shout a question out across the office floor any more. I’d have to contact staff individually.”

“Well, do you remember Gina yourself?”

“Yes, I think so. Worked on billboards. She always kept close to Ruby. Ruby Maguire sort of looked after her. She had some kind of problem, couldn’t stand being indoors, got wound up with it. So Ruby would take her for regular breaks outside.”

“You mean she was claustrophobic?”

“Yes, that’s it, good worker but a little bit off her trolley. They called Ruby her mentor but she was more of an unofficial carer.”

I thanked Terry for talking to me and understood why my spare room had not seemed as attractive to Gina as I’d imagined. It would be much better if she stayed with someone who understood her condition, say Ruby.

It was later in the evening, just as I’d pulled out my mobile to search for Ruby Ellison’s contact details, that I heard Gina emerge from her room and rustle around in the kitchen. I was thinking that if she stayed a while I’d need to order more food and my expenses would increase when Gina slipped into the living room beside me.

“I was wondering,” I began brightly, “since my flat’s very small, why not ask Ruby Maguire if you can stay with her for a while?”

The suggestion generated no immediate response but her eyes narrowed and I caught a mean and suspicious glint.

She stared at me silently, her lips curling, and eventually muttered, “No, I’ll be happy enough here.” It came out as a sort of low growl as if she was daring me to argue.

I looked back at the phone screen. The search for Ruby Ellison had found dozens of references. But I was shocked to see they were all about Ruby’s death. Police were continuing to investigate the case of thirty-two year old office worker, Ruby Maguire, found dead in her flat. Apparently she had lain there for over a week until her manager had noticed she wasn’t bothering to log in for Zoom calls any more. The circumstances were suspicious. The police were requesting information on anyone seen entering or leaving Ruby’s flat in the week before her death. I looked up from the screen and blurted out “Heavens above, it seems Ruby has died!”

I was even more startled as Gina suddenly leaned over me, grabbed my phone and threw it at the wall. I was flabbergasted. I stared at her in shock.

“If you’re not happy about me staying on here, maybe you better leave yourself,” she said as if it was the most natural suggestion in the world, an entirely reasonable proposition. As normal as smashing mobile phones against walls. There was a manic undertone to her voice. Ignoring the question I jumped up and tried to brush past her. But she grabbed hold of the dressing gown I was still wearing and I saw the blade of my own kitchen knife flash in her hand.

Fortunately, I managed to twist myself around, allowing my dressing-gown to fall to the floor, and rushed out the living-room door as she came after me. I barely managed to reach my bedroom and slammed the door shut. The door had a lock and though I’d never used it before, I did then.

She was outside the door, fumbling with the handle and breathing quickly. ‘Ok, let’s get together,’ she panted. ‘Ruby always said you liked me. She said you only ignored me at work because relationships had to be kept on a professional footing.”

“Ruby was good to you,” I shouted. “Why did you do it?”

“Ruby tried to lock me up. All night in a tiny room. I was only allowed outdoors for one hour a day. She tried to blame the government, said it was a lock-in, a government ruling.”

“A lockdown, it was a lockdown.”

“She made me live in a room the size of a cupboard. Said it was all she had. Said I couldn’t go outside. We argued more and more. Struggled. Then she died. And I left.”

“And came here.”

“She said you were a good man, knew your address. I thought it would be different for us. We’d be good together. We could live together, sleep in the living room with the curtains open. But you want to lock me up in little room too. You’re just as bad as Ruby.”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” I yelled, and then the carving knife was thrust in through the door jamb.

The woman was delusional. God knows what had got into her. I opened my bedroom window and yelled “Help!” over and over at the top of my voice.

Fortunately, neighbours called the police. By the time they arrived Gina had escaped through the back door but the neighbours had spotted her leaving and the police soon picked her up.

I was still trembling, partly from the shock of the knife attack and partly from seeing several people occupy my flat for the first time in ages. I went over the details several times answering the police questions.

“It was unbelievable,” I kept repeating. “The woman seemed almost normal but she was clearly deranged. She came at me with a carving knife. You wouldn’t think a little thing like claustrophobia would be enough to tip you over the edge like that.”

One of the policemen commented matter-of-factly, “Oh yes, we’ve seen a lot of that kind of thing recently. Mental health problems. Old people’s dementia worsening till they’ve completely forgotten their relatives. A chap round the corner said life wasn’t worth living if he couldn’t meet his old cronies in the pub. Topped himself. The coronavirus, eh? It drives people mad.” Then to change the subject he asked “What’s your line of work?”

“Oh, at moment I’m designing cardboard boxes shaped like coffins. Natural burials. Environmentally sound. There’s been a big increase in demand recently.”

#COVID-19 #coronavirus #short story #Reekie Revelator #edinburgh #scotland

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laurelkrugerr · 4 years

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Stop Talking About Empathy, and Start Acting On It

July 13, 2020 15+ min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

During my last full-time job as an executive leader, my colleagues and I were asked to stand in front of the entire company and talk about which of the organization’s corporate values resonated with us the most. Our choices: self-awareness, positive energy, judgment, intellectual honesty, and empathy. These values, along with others like integrity, courage, passion, and fun, might look familiar. They’re the list of company values taped up in corner offices and corridors around the world, even if most employees never know they exist.

“Empathy,” said the woman two seats down from me. “Because people say I’m good at connecting with other people.” Several nods from the crowd of supportive employees. “Empathy,” said the guy next to her, one seat down from me. “I care about other people, and do my best to treat them as I want to be treated.” More nods, and a few spontaneous claps. “Intellectual honesty,” I said. “Because I’m pretty good at cutting through the bullshit.” I got a few smiles and nervous laughs but was mostly met with bewildered silence. I think I was supposed to say “empathy,” but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. As a branding and leadership executive, with a background as an academic psychologist, maybe I knew a little too much about what the word empathy means. Or, rather, how it can mean so many different things—yet absolutely nothing—at the same time.

For a word that didn’t exist in the English language until the 20th century, empathy has emerged as a linguistic superstar. Since 2004, Google searches for the word have risen steadily, with frequency more than doubling over the past decade alone. With the explosion of the global coronavirus pandemic—along with escalated racial tensions—empathy has embedded itself in the public discourse, often with reference to which political leaders have demonstrated it and which have not.

Outside the political ring, corporations, big and small, have become downright obsessed with empathy. Some leaders, like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, have a long track record of touting empathy as a central guiding force. “There is no way we are going to be able to succeed…if we don’t have a deep sense of empathy,” he has said. More recently, multiple news organizations heralded Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky as empathetic for the way in which he communicated staff layoffs due to COVID-19. “I have a deep feeling of love for all of you,” he wrote in an internal company memo. Leaders understand that this is good for business. A recent poll from Ipsos (on behalf of PepsiCo Beverages North America) reports that how brands respond to the coronavirus pandemic will impact shopping intentions of more than half of Americans, and that Americans see it as more important now for businesses “to demonstrate empathetic qualities.”

This all makes intuitive sense. Like puppies and rainbows, empathy is one of those things that seem like a pure, absolute positive. As professor Paul Bloom jokes in his book Against Empathy, “You can never be too rich or too thin…or too empathetic.” From my perspective, though, too much is lacking from this empathy discourse. As I felt when I stood in front of that room to talk about my favorite corporate value, I still don’t know exactly what everyone is talking about. Empathy sounds good, but how are we defining it? Empathy is ubiquitous, but are all businesses talking about the same thing? Does being an empathetic organization mean taking an action of some kind, or just having feelings?

In the corporate world, answers to these questions are hard to find. While empathy increasingly appears as a part of companies’ mission statements, hardly any define what they actually mean by it. The overriding assumption is that the word simply speaks for itself. (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.) The issue with companies touting empathetic messages is that while it’s easy to talk about doing good things for employees and customers, it is far more difficult to generate and sustain positive corporate behaviors. In the past, organizations might have gotten a pass, or even praise, for communicating empathetic messages internally and to the public. But set against the backdrop of uncertainty about the future of business, and of life in general, people are taking notice of how companies’ messages match up with their actions.

There is a tremendous amount of collective anxiety about what our individual futures hold. Some authors have pointed out that this particular period of time may be bringing up feelings of grief and trauma at scale. At a time when most of us are thinking about roughly the same things and having many of the same conversations, the concept of widespread empathy is imperative. So it is no surprise that businesses, as part of our cultural fabric, are striving to be part of the conversation. Most of them use social media channels to tell us that they care about us as employees and customers, and that they are there for all of us during times of crisis. But often those messages are unsubstantiated, and the intentions behind them are frequently muddied.

What is becoming clear is that the risk of companies simply talking about empathy without translating those words to measurable, tangible outcomes can result in catastrophe. Study after study has shown that employees, especially younger ones, will quit to work for companies that better align with their personal values. And, similarly, customers are more than happy to spend their money elsewhere, choosing to align with organizations that are willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Empathy might be one of the most popular topics of scientific inquiry of our time. Within the past decade, Google Scholar—which indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across formats and disciplines—gives nearly 600,000 citations for just the term empathy. Most of the academic curiosity around empathy focuses on exactly what it is and, correspondingly, how to measure it.

In their effort to make sense of the scientific characterization of empathy, social psychologist Judith Hall and research scientist Rachel Schwartz published an article in 2019 that analyzed the state of the concept across nearly 500 independent studies. What they concluded is that often the word empathy should be bypassed altogether because there is widespread disagreement about what it means. Instead, they argue, people should refer to what they are actually talking about, be it feeling another’s feelings, reading their emotional cues, caring about others’ distress, listening to their stories, or any of the other various elements that comprise the empathy laundry list. “Our point was not to find fault,” write Hall and Schwartz, “but to illustrate the many ways authors attempt to deal with a construct that is essentially intractable. The challenge to theoryis compounded by the fact that empathy is alternatively treated as a process, a trait, a capacity or competency, a response or reaction to observing another’s experiences, and interpersonal behavior itself.” In other words, the research overwhelmingly shows that it’s dangerous to assume that we know exactly what anyone is talking about when they talk about empathy.

The business world is hardly clarifying things. The word is applied liberally to what companies are saying and doing, especially as we all continue to grapple with the ambiguity that lies ahead.

Companies are blasting messages about caring about each other during uncertain times, with the common refrain that “we’re here for you” and that, above all, “we are in this together!” In response to the senseless police murder of George Floyd, along with many more, other companies are following similar templates to talk about how they “stand in solidarity,” “stand up against racism,” and “show support for the Black community.” In a viral tweet, video game writer Chris Franklin poked fun at the deep uniformity of brand messages:

“We at [Brand] are committed to fighting injustice by posting images to Twitter that express our commitment to fighting injustice. To that end, we offer this solemn white-on-black .jpeg that expresses vague solidarity with the Black community, but will quietly elide the specifics of what is wrong, what needs to change, or in what ways we will do anything about it…We hope this action encourages you to view [Brand] positively without, you know, expecting anything from us.”

Within a few minutes of spotting that tweet, I saw another from CBS telling me that they “stand in solidarity with our Black colleagues, creators, partners, and audiences and condemn all acts of racism, discrimination, and senseless acts of violence.” And another from Pixar letting me know that they “stand for inclusion.” Fantastic. But what does it mean?

Don’t get me wrong; some companies are doing more. Several organizations have committed to donating real money to fuel the fight against injustice. Walmart, as one example, announced that it will contribute $100 million over five years to create a new center for racial equity. Others, like Ben & Jerry’s, created useful resources for employees and consumers to get involved with political movements. This is progress. Still, the vast majority of organizations seem satisfied with lip service alone—and they do so at their own peril.

This is not the first time that corporations have found themselves in this position. The term greenwashing emerged in 1986, back when consumers first began gravitating toward environmentally friendly companies. The term described an organization that spends more time and money on marketing agency itself as eco-conscious than it actually works to minimize its environmental impact. Mega conglomerate Nestlé, for example, has faced wide-scale criticism—and a growing pile of expensive lawsuits—for contributing to human rights violations and global plastic pollution. Yet the company has spent millions marketing agency itself as creating positive impact and “shared value,” without sufficiently addressing its core business practices.

Similarly, we’re now seeing a version of this we can call kindwashing: It’s when an organization spends more time and money on marketing agency itself as empathetic than it does on minimizing practices that alienate or take advantage of employees and consumers. And in a strange way, the word empathy enables this because it is so ill-defined. If nobody can pin down exactly what the word means or what it looks like, then businesses don’t have to worry about managing employee or consumer expectations. Words and actions are left up to interpretation.

But people are watching, and a gulf is growing between corporate leaders and the people who make businesses run. For the past four years, the corporate benefits company Businessolver has released annual reports on the state of workplace empathy. Results from its 2019 study point to a notable trend: While 92 percent of CEOs say that their organizations are empathetic, only 72 percent of employees agree. Meanwhile, employees are clear about where their priorities lie: Ninety-three percent of employees are likely to stay with an empathetic employer, and 82 percent would consider leaving a job for a more empathetic organization.

Businessolver’s authors skirt around clear definitions of what they mean by empathy—it is, after all, such a slippery word. But employees are clearly recognizing the absence of it. Within the past year alone, several high-profile companies—from WeWork and Away to Outdoor Voices and Pinterest—have endured employee outrage and worker attrition due to unempathetic business practices that contribute to work environments that have frequently been described as toxic.

The message to organizational leaders is that they need to invest more care and effort to engage their employees. This makes good business sense because research shows that taking care of employees is a necessary precondition for building and sustaining a customer–first culture. This can’t happen until leaders commit to defining what empathy means to them, and how that leads to specific, observable actions.

This is what it means to stop kindwashing, and to start being kind.

Throughout the global pandemic and the escalating Black Lives Matter movement, we have heard from hundreds of companies expressing empathy across every known medium. For the most part, though, organizations are reacting—perhaps because they feel compelled to, but perhaps also because “empathy” (of any definition!) isn’t an honest part of their core. Without a clear understanding of who they are or why they exist, business leaders’ words will always ring hollow, and their operations will become disorganized and ad hoc. A crisis will only magnify those problems.

How does an organization fix this? It doesn’t react to the moment. It looks deeply inward.

Organizations need to build and install what I call a human operating system. In technology, an operating system (OS) supports basic functions that enable more complex tasks to happen. Without iOS or Android, we can’t play Candy Crush. Similarly, a human OS serves as the structural glue that encodes how values like empathy propagate through all organizational operations, from internal behaviors, processes, and communication to external messages and actions.

At the heart of a human OS is a core essence, a central idea. It’s what that company or person is about—and it’s critical for flawless execution at all levels, during a time of crisis or not. From that central idea, an operating system has space to grow. Building a human OS fortifies the connective thread from that core to an organization’s vision, mission, and values. This requires business leaders and their companies to commit to articulating a clear purpose and point of view that results in more than words in a presentation or on a corporate website.

After codifying these foundational elements, installing a human OS translates words into action, ensuring that every aspect of an organization’s efforts is synchronized and consistent. Just as a technology operating system controls every part of a computer, a human OS drives business actions holistically—from hiring and performance management evaluation to programs, offerings, services, thought leadership, partnerships, customer experiences, brand expression, and external communications. Building and installing a human OS is what allows businesses and their leaders to align what they say they’re going to do with what they actually do. This is a first step to putting a stop to kindwashing.

Organizations that talk about the concept of empathy typically do so because a senior leader in the company—usually the founder or the CEO—believes that caring about employees and customers is not mutually exclusive with making a profit. At the very least, that should be their ambition. So, a challenge to organizational leaders across companies of all sizes: If your HR or marketing agency team is going to express empathy as a company value, it is incumbent on a leader to model that behavior. This asks leaders to do the work of explicitly clarifying what empathy means to them, and then laying out specific actions that they’re going to take for employees and customers to demonstrate their commitment to those actions.

In a recent LinkedIn article, for instance, H&R Block’s president and CEO, Jeff Jones, responded to the Black Lives Matter movement on behalf of the senior leadership team, by pledging action. “This is much more than a moment—this is a movement,” he wrote, and promised, among other fixes, to expand the company’s hiring practices. I called him to ask about H&R Block’s process, and he said it begins with an honest review of where the company has gaps. “Filling those gaps means going deep on where the issues are,” he says, “and setting clear, specific goals by function. It’s not political; it’s about focusing on people, individuals.” That last part is key. Jones is demonstrating that the best way to model behavior is to do what most of us were taught back in first grade: Listen. No, really. Listen.

Carl Rogers and Richard Farson coined the term active listening in 1957, writing that “active listening is an important way to bring about changes in people…[it] brings about changes in peoples’ attitudes toward themselves and others; it also brings about changes in their basic values and personal philosophy.” Hearing someone is easy; active listening is hard work. It requires our full mental capacity, so active listening is as draining as it is rewarding. Yet at a time when companies are confused about how to behave, it is important to remember something so simple, so basic. Active listening means paying deep and close attention to how employees and customers are doing. It means taking the deliberate time to understand how they might be feeling, and why they might be feeling that way. This isn’t about investing shrinking budgets into big research studies. It’s about taking the time required to understand what problem empathy is trying to solve before jumping to a presumed solution.

When massive cultural moments take hold, brands are quick to react, respond, and post. There almost seems to be a hidden, driving belief that moving the fastest will win the grand prize of higher employee retention and deeper customer loyalty. That’s why we got all those “We’re here for you” emails from brands we hadn’t interacted with in years during the initial spread of COVID-19. The reality is that active listening requires deliberate time and effort. It means having difficult conversations with employees and customers. Intention, discussion, and commitment are all at the heart of what it means to engage in active listening for employees and consumers alike.

Not only that, but active listening is at the core of what it means to build, install, and activate a human OS for an organization or an organization’s leader. News across the past several months has left behind a trail of cautionary tales. One is of Elon Musk, who repeatedly made decisions against the will of his employees. In one case, he reopened a California Tesla factory in defiance of local health officials. He said employees weren’t obligated to return if they were uncomfortable, but two Tesla employees claimed they were fired when they chose not to return. Later, when Musk was uncharacteristically silent as the Black Lives Matter demonstrations began, Tesla employees threatened to stage a peaceful rally to commemorate Juneteenth. This prompted Musk to announce that Juneteenth “is henceforth considered a U.S. holiday at Tesla and SpaceX”—but unlike at major companies like Nike, Target, Adobe, Lyft, and Spotify, which simply gave employees the day off, Musk said his employees would have to take a vacation day to commemorate Juneteenth.

Musk is well-known for his eclectic views on a wide range of topics, but his actions as a leader are under scrutiny because he demonstrates a failure to listen—to healthcare experts, workers, and consumers. Musk may have conviction in his beliefs, but he’s holding on to an outdated OS that clashes with employer and customer values because he is not taking the time to understand what other people are feeling. Failure to do this may or may not impact Tesla’s financial performance, but it will result in more employees speaking out and leaving his companies for ones that better align to their personal values.

Compare Musk’s leadership style with that of Kenneth Chenault, who served as the CEO and chairman of American Express until 2018. He was said to consult often with his teams, asking questions like: “Who is listening to you? How many people respect you?” He applied a similar method toward listening to American Express customers, often organizing impromptu listening tours and engaging with customer service teams to better understand the quality of service and support that consumers would receive, and how to continually improve it. This is what allowed him to demonstrate kindness and care through measurable, observable, outcome-driven actions—and the company thrived during his 17-year tenure as the company’s leader.

Sometimes I reflect back on corporate life, and I think about that meeting where I was asked to explain my favorite company value. If I had been given the proper time to think about it, I might have answered differently instead of trying to make an unmemorable joke. I might have said “empathy.” Then, I might have gone on to say something like: “I’m going to say empathy because I think it’s really important. But I don’t know—because I’m not sure what we really mean when we say it. I wonder if this would be a good time for us to define what empathy means to us, and then discuss how we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to it.”

That response may not have earned much empathy from my colleagues. But at least it would have come from a good place.

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source http://www.scpie.org/stop-talking-about-empathy-and-start-acting-on-it/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/07/stop-talking-about-empathy-and-start.html

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killedbycorona · 4 years

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you really do not have to read my post or say anything -I need to say things. Maybe read the link. just stay inside please. and put up your protection before reading this if you can. This took 45 minutes to write and I don’t care if it means anything or not. I don’t have a blog. Be kind.

AHAH WOW THIS WORDS THIS REALLY EXACTLY MY EXPERIENCE WOW. I explained to my mom how when we went from zoom funeral to zoom shiva to zoom Passover to nothing, it didn’t feel complete or valid. She said, “of course not, you watched it over zoom.” Wow fuck I have not talked about this enough (two weeks of his passing today). I was in the funeral over zoom with others (I can’t remember the count). The day before, we had gone over writing his eulogy over Zoom. *I didn’t get to speak at my own father’s funeral because people wouldn’t be able to hear me over Zoom and they all had to be distanced and no one was going to bring a speaker.* I watched others bury my father and I did not get to. I took a screenshot that lives in the same camera roll as memes of a blurry video of his casket with his GD record on it, a trowel, our late cat’s paw print and other things that I couldn’t make out. The Zoom call ended and I was left in the dark away from my family. I tried FaceTiming everyone and started panicking. Luckily, my aunt had her phone and I called in. *I could not be alone with my father six feet under ground because I had to have someone hold the phone.* We hung up and everyone drove away and I can’t remember what I did after that.

My father, who survived 9/11 by taking the later train that morning to his job, two blocks away, died from this virus in three weeks. I’m grateful for our 19 extra years together.

I know many people are talking about the curve being flattened and going outside again. PLEASE DO NOT. Please, do not make the same mistakes we did. “What if he hadn’t gone to work that week like Harris suggested?””What if he wasn’t in a poorly insulated room and was moving more?””What if was in a different hospital?” We know nothing about this plague. We know no cure. We do not know who survived this round and gets it the next and won’t survive. Please, I don’t want any of you to experience this trauma that I am in and will be in for so so long. Maybe my frustration is misplaced. I feel incredibly angry and to see others risk themselves and others with no regard makes it so much worse. An US problem, not a ME problem. US. Take care of each other.

My mom said that when war starts, the first round of soldiers die first and eventually the war ends. My dad was that first round. I am so scared for all the feelings that will arise as I watch the world cure from this. I guess I really derailed and went off topic since this was about zoom funerals. Don’t worry, I’m finding someone to talk to about this. I know no anger will bring him back and I know I’m mixing that with anger towards irresponsible fools. Please don’t be irresponsible.

I keep trying to not backtrack it to who gave it to him because what is the use. I don’t understand my process so much. This article really triggered me. I was in this daze today of “my new reality is people are extra nice to me because they are sad in quarantine.” Nah, it’s because I’m a kid without their father’s guiding light through this pandemic and the rest of their life. I get it, he’s always with me. But he isn’t. Not in the same way and that needs to be acknowledged first or too. I keep saying “stay inside, no one deserves to go through what I’m going through.” ***I do not deserve what I’m going through. But I’m here.*** And I’m really pissed at god and the whole damn universe right about now and the cliches are hurting me to the same degree they’re helping me. I wish I wasn’t in this pain. I wish my dad didn’t die. I wish anyone understood but I’m not about to reach out to this stranger in south jersey who is in their own grief process. Everyone saying they’re bored in quarantine. God what I wouldn’t do to be just bored in quarantine. Even if I was fighting with him, I would take that. I was bedridden with depression for 7 months in 2016. I know what this is like AND I get to experience all the shit of this pandemic, too. I’m not excused of the boredom or fear or panic or helplessness or anything. I get it all! Woohoo!! My head hurts too much to scream. I ache all the time and the panic is right under the surface just waited to be poked at to come out. I don’t care about Facebook etiquette. I don’t care to be seen as brave or vulnerable or strong or any of these really nice things. I don’t feel brave for losing my dad??? Or brave for how I share my grief on the internet. If anything, I have underlying shame about the mess I’m being publicly. I guess I care about Facebook etiquette.

My dad is gone and I am a lost child who doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it. *I don’t want zoom with a therapist in the same room I had the zoom funeral in in the same room I sleep in.* I want to leave my container and be held and I don’t get that. I hate being a victim but I fucking am a victim to this horrible disgusting killing machine. The statistics look like some mindless game but they’re real. I see them and know he’s gone, but not the last person I’ll lose to it. I already lost another person to it a week later! I don’t let it out and there’s no way to let it out when you’re snowed in in a basement apartment and can’t be in a therapist’s office. I can’t go home -it’s unsafe to travel, I can’t be in his home without him there, I don’t know if the virus would kill me, too. I really want a cat. I’m happy he and Hutch are together because they really were the sweetest and most loving beings around. Every story of either of them has been positive. I hope to continue that legacy and if I give any reason to give you an ill memory of us, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

I am grieving completely sober. I’m feeling so much all at once and the one truth remains the same: I wish I could talk to him. He wouldn’t know what to say, but he’d be here and familiar and my parent and care in his most amazing special ever growing way. I don’t want to raise myself or do this without him. I don’t want to do this without him. I don’t want to do this.

Please stay safe. Please call or FaceTime whenever. I’ll most likely call back or be too anxious and tell you I need to get off the phone. Texting really doesn’t do much for me and I won’t reach out until I’m caught in a moment and even then I might not. Take initiative with me if you can. I wake up after 2pm and fall asleep between 4-6am. I have class some nights. Can’t do Wednesday’s between 5pm-9pm my time. Sorry my brain is rotting and frying and neurotic and stupid right now. Idk if anyone has the capacity to care to the degree of what I’m feeling. Community care - a different person to hold a little rock instead of one person to hold a mountain. I can pay someone to hold a boulder though.

Everything is wrong and you won’t fix that. But maybe you can walk by my side and not have to watch me carry this all on my shoulders. Maybe we can just find a moment to not be in this or be fully in this and have it not be this fucking awful or this lonely. Maybe we can go further than lightly touching the surface so delicately and vaguely and not bullshit it. I don’t know I need help some times and other times I’m fine until I’m poked. I was poked.

Ok this is long enough. I wish harry styles or frank ocean could distract me forever or take me to dinner so I can thank them and have a hello and goodbye with heroes the way I didn’t get to with dad. I wish I had a cat and my hair was white and eyes blue and I could waterbend and I could play records and drive a moped and travel the world and be in music videos and play music and perform and dance in a class and make art and get into floral design and celebrate mom’s big birthday which we’ve been talking about since October but is in June and do everything I never got to do with him here that he believed in me to able to do and wanting me to do. I wish I did it all then so he could see how fucking cool it was and I could show him pictures and have him judge whether to frame them or not. He was learning guitar. I wish I sang with him to him playing something sweet. I wish I took him to red rocks. I was going to take him to Harry Styles but for whatever reason, I bought no tickets for anything this year. Maybe I knew. He was going to see the Grateful Dead in August. There’s nothing fair about this and nothing I wouldn’t do to bring him back and life is cruel and doesn’t work like that. Life is really fucking cruel. I’ve done so much work and maybe it prepared me to be here but it really didn’t. What sort of punishment did I ask for. What did any of us do to have this bright man taken away. What if anything. Anyways, stay inside and have a good night. I’ll be understood one day I think. See you all on zoom.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/13/999348/covid-19-grief-zoom-funerals/

#posted on facebook #4.18.2029

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