Jaye Viner's Blog - Posts Tagged "pandemic"
Transformative Hate: An Unlikely Exercise
My May newsletter goes out today and it feels dangerous. Granted, it doesn’t take much for me to feel like I’m trespassing the bounds of polite (female) society, but so much of pandemic rhetoric has been about good vibes. As though, we’re being asked to float around to Bob Marley in our heads (don’t worry, be happy).
To be honest, I’m tired of good vibes. (This is why I feel dangerous.) There are hugely important, dark, terrible things happening in our country and in the world. And to be honest, I don’t want my response to that darkness to be: take care of yourself, focus on what you can control, focus on the good in your life.
I’m conflating macro and micro perspectives here. And yes, many people need to learn to take time for themselves and be generous to their needs. So what I’m actually talking about is a social norm of feeling the pressure to be positive, to not be a downer.
My newsletter feels dangerous because in one of my #ExpandingBoundaries2021 exercises I suggest that you can write a poem focusing on gratitude where every line starts with “I’m grateful for…” OR you can write a poem where every line starts with “I hate when….”
screen shot of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow staring agahst at his hand.
Just typing the word ‘hate’ gives me a visceral body response. I’m not supposed to hate. Its ugly. It ruins the good vibes and grows ugliness like Jack Sparrow’s black spot.
But perhaps we could consider what we lose by having societal norms that push for positivity so much that we’re not allowed to hate? Bad people hate. The ‘other’ side hates.
But we’re better than that. The topic of my newsletter this month is the future of climate change and how hard it is for humans to appreciate the time scale of planetary change to see the catastrophe that is coming. I argue that if we’re going to mitigate that catastrophe, we’re going to have to allow for a little hate. Hate, I have decided instigates change. Hate is powerful.
If we’re not allowed to express hate, it not only devalues our feelings, it defangs the perception of true evil being perpetuated by the powerful at the expense of the not so powerful. By allowing myself to hate, I keep myself from being complacent. I don’t want to forget the deliberate actions of a very small portion of the world’s population who believe that making money is a moral obligation that stops for nothing.
I wrote both a gratitude poem and a hate poem this weekend. What I discovered is that when I write about gratitude, I think about small personal things: having a house, my cats, my spouse with his ‘real job’ that makes my ‘not real jobs’ possible.
But when I write about hate, I think about large things. Things that don’t directly affect my life, but they are being done seemingly with my consent because it is impossible for regular people to consent to capitalism. And I feel powerless. I am, actually quite powerless. This is a valid feeling.
My Hate Poem (The Climate Change Edition)
I hate when politicians claim they support clean energy but do nothing to limit investments or the profitability of the petroleum industry.
I hate when misinformation politicizes and divides an issue that will eventually impact everyone
I hate when companies greenwash their carbon footprint for the sake of good PR
I hate when I pull out my two bins on trash day and look down my street and see a line of driveways with only one bin.
I hate when women being assaulted is part of the expected costs of doing business.
I hate when people argue that cold temperatures mean climate change isn’t real.
I hate when I go to the store and produce can only be purchased in plastic packaging.
I hate when state police are hired by foreign companies to protect their interests against American citizens.
I hate when I ride my bike in the same place I rode as a child. Where once I screamed in terror cruising through grasshoppers sunning themselves that then flew into my face and got caught in my hair when I disturbed them. Now there are one or two the whole ride.
Remember that old fable about the frog slowly cooking to death in a pot of water? He never jumps out because the temperature rises so slowly? That’s life on this planet. What do you hate today? There’s plenty to choose from. Would you ruin the positive vibes of your social feed by sharing some of that rage with the world? Link your sources. Build a conversation.
To be honest, I’m tired of good vibes. (This is why I feel dangerous.) There are hugely important, dark, terrible things happening in our country and in the world. And to be honest, I don’t want my response to that darkness to be: take care of yourself, focus on what you can control, focus on the good in your life.
I’m conflating macro and micro perspectives here. And yes, many people need to learn to take time for themselves and be generous to their needs. So what I’m actually talking about is a social norm of feeling the pressure to be positive, to not be a downer.
My newsletter feels dangerous because in one of my #ExpandingBoundaries2021 exercises I suggest that you can write a poem focusing on gratitude where every line starts with “I’m grateful for…” OR you can write a poem where every line starts with “I hate when….”
screen shot of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow staring agahst at his hand.
Just typing the word ‘hate’ gives me a visceral body response. I’m not supposed to hate. Its ugly. It ruins the good vibes and grows ugliness like Jack Sparrow’s black spot.
But perhaps we could consider what we lose by having societal norms that push for positivity so much that we’re not allowed to hate? Bad people hate. The ‘other’ side hates.
But we’re better than that. The topic of my newsletter this month is the future of climate change and how hard it is for humans to appreciate the time scale of planetary change to see the catastrophe that is coming. I argue that if we’re going to mitigate that catastrophe, we’re going to have to allow for a little hate. Hate, I have decided instigates change. Hate is powerful.
If we’re not allowed to express hate, it not only devalues our feelings, it defangs the perception of true evil being perpetuated by the powerful at the expense of the not so powerful. By allowing myself to hate, I keep myself from being complacent. I don’t want to forget the deliberate actions of a very small portion of the world’s population who believe that making money is a moral obligation that stops for nothing.
I wrote both a gratitude poem and a hate poem this weekend. What I discovered is that when I write about gratitude, I think about small personal things: having a house, my cats, my spouse with his ‘real job’ that makes my ‘not real jobs’ possible.
But when I write about hate, I think about large things. Things that don’t directly affect my life, but they are being done seemingly with my consent because it is impossible for regular people to consent to capitalism. And I feel powerless. I am, actually quite powerless. This is a valid feeling.
My Hate Poem (The Climate Change Edition)
I hate when politicians claim they support clean energy but do nothing to limit investments or the profitability of the petroleum industry.
I hate when misinformation politicizes and divides an issue that will eventually impact everyone
I hate when companies greenwash their carbon footprint for the sake of good PR
I hate when I pull out my two bins on trash day and look down my street and see a line of driveways with only one bin.
I hate when women being assaulted is part of the expected costs of doing business.
I hate when people argue that cold temperatures mean climate change isn’t real.
I hate when I go to the store and produce can only be purchased in plastic packaging.
I hate when state police are hired by foreign companies to protect their interests against American citizens.
I hate when I ride my bike in the same place I rode as a child. Where once I screamed in terror cruising through grasshoppers sunning themselves that then flew into my face and got caught in my hair when I disturbed them. Now there are one or two the whole ride.
Remember that old fable about the frog slowly cooking to death in a pot of water? He never jumps out because the temperature rises so slowly? That’s life on this planet. What do you hate today? There’s plenty to choose from. Would you ruin the positive vibes of your social feed by sharing some of that rage with the world? Link your sources. Build a conversation.
Beyond Words: Music that Gives All the Feels
An excerpt from my June newsletter, which has reflections, links, and exercises to explore its emotional impact on our lives. Subscribe at my website https://www.jayeviner.com
Last week I went to Disneyworld by myself for fun. It was a strange, extremely impulsive and extravagant decision. I made it with two days notice, not stopping to doubt, not even asking myself why, now that it was finally safe to travel, was this the place I wanted to go?
Something I didn’t really understand until I was on my flight home already regretting I hadn’t found a way to make the trip longer. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t miss home. I hadn’t worn myself out as I expected. From this experience I learned two things that I am now using to try and understand what exactly made Disney so compelling.
The first is that I LOVE constructed realities. The artifice of themed restaurants, the rides that make movie worlds into a larger experience. The very idea that I climb on a boat and ride around in a circle in the dark watching animatronics float by for a movie I’ve never seen, is deeply satisfying.
The second thing (which perhaps I should’ve mentioned first) is the music. For me, music makes the lie of a constructed world feel real. I have been to Paris. Seeing little Paris at Epcot center is not impressive. But sitting in a fake Parisian theatre, singing along to Beauty and the Beast with a bunch of strangers in the dark, had me in tears. (I don’t even like Beauty and the Beast.)
Even as I’m crying, I feel a little cheated. Because feminist me is like, B&B is really terrible. And the anti-capitalist in me is like, Disney is responsible for lots of destruction for independent storytelling and rights abuses for authors. But I’m still crying. And I want to cry. I am sitting in that theater without any people within six feet and I realize I came to Disney specifically to be alone and to cry. To feel whatever I want and not have to explain it. I want to be part of this world no matter how problematic because it is not the world I’ve been living in for the past fifteen months full of death, and stupid people, and uncertainty.
Doubters could argue, Disney music works this way on me because I’m a child of a certain generation. Fair. But people also hardwired to embed emotion from music. I am particularly interested in the perfectly timed music cue adding another dimension to a moment whether it is my lived life or a film. We embed emotion when we tie songs or listening experiences to our personal lives at key moments.
But when we want to experience something bigger, to feel bigger, to be away from our responsibilities and doubts and fears, the only place to really experience that is through movies. And if movies aren’t making magic for you, as they continually fail me, I guess you go to a theme park. And you ignore the screaming children, and the heat, and the 6 dollar waters. In this constructed landscape you go somewhere else that isn’t a real place, it’s a feeling. Probably, its a feeling that doesn’t even have a name. And you look for moments that provide the perfect cue for you to make magic within yourself.
