My favorite blogger, Nezua at the Unapologetic Mexican, has written a beautiful essay on trauma, fear, and hope. and i wanted to link to it.
http://www.theunapologeticmexican.or...
I think this essay captures the moment we are experiencing perfectly.
all of it is here:
http://www.theunapologeticmexican.or...
my favorite parts are here:
• SWAY. We are afraid of it today. We've been traumatized of late. We've been pushed back in a cage. We've seen bombs fall and prisons jump up and families broke up and workers deported and reporters shot dead and secret agents outed and levees leveled and entire towns routed and we've been ruled by fear. We've been molested by a hunchy, sneaky, lying, sick imp and his clan, not even rulers by fair measure. And every piece and every part of the government—and us by association and acquiesence—has been tainted and corrupted. It has been a very demoralizing and fearful time, and our leaders have used their massive inequal share of power to keep us traumatized. Poking our wounds with sticks. Brandishing the blood-spattered weapons when we dare ask for water. Turning off the lights and telling us the house is about to cave in. For nearing ten long years, denied truth and a healing hand, we've been shackled in some sick gang's basement. Here for kicks, and to feed their sadistic temperaments. We are truly a nation of trauma victims, of PTSD sufferers. All yanked out of order and reason and quivering and furious.
And along comes a man promising good things. Speaks of a future, a healing, of sanity, safety, and kindness again. But he uses emotions, too. He uses uplifting emotions. He uses sway. And this scares many. They don't trust. We have seen the interior of our social brain and it is indistinguishable from that of a sheep. We know we can be led to terrible things, for we have been led so for almost a decade.
• THE YOUTH VOTE is a jazzy jazzy thing! Until it votes against what "wiser" folks know to be true. Don't be fooled "youth." Green and undeservedly cocky or dumbassed as you are half the time, another portion of the time you see what needs to be seen. So go with it.
• IT IS TRUE that people don't so much remember what you said to them, but how you made them feel while you were talking with them...
We consume and purchase and elect on personal and experiential and emotional issues more than anything else. No matter how much we bring in our reason. They are interdependent. And if that's how it is, maybe that's how it oughtta be. When people rise up it is because of deep passion. Not well reasoned theories or policies. Pasión, bebe. Rememer that. Nothing else inspires huge change. For or against, but passion both ways.
• CAN YOU SAY "Zeitgeist"? As I wrote, we've been terrorized for years now. Abused for years. Handled by the underside of our ugliest fears. The person who not only comes forth and talks but feels like Hope? And change? And a better America? It reminds me of 1990 or so when NIN and Nirvana and Alice in Chains got big. Pick one. Kurt Cobain had a wounded rage that frizzled on the edges of his powerful throaty scream. And they called him the voice of a generation. Because that was the feeling back then. And we've gone further. And odd as it is to compare Obama to Kurt Cobain, I see it as similar. You can't argue with Cobain's voice. It just speaks to you. It summed up a collective disdain and contempt and rage. We are at a different chapter, we are at a different age. We see a long line of power-trading scions and well-deserved despair, and we want to turn the page.
from the real despair Kurt gave voice to, to the real hope of Obama.
i want to see that new chapter. our country NEEDS that new chapter.