Sunday, October 22, 2017

A Culture of Numbness

I find myself frustrated by other people lately, which is not a place I like to reside. Might sound funny, coming from an introvert, but I find I need to have some faith in other people in order to get through the day. I am happiest when I can believe the best about people, and humanity in general.

So I've been thinking about what is causing my frustration, because I don't want to just write people off, either specific people or humanity in general. I feel like that is the easy way out of the situation, and then it hit me. That's the problem. Everyone wants the easy way out of the situation so that they don't have to deal with anything, and this is what is driving me nuts.

Humans are a funny lot. For the most part, we all want to be accepted, we all want to be loved, and we all want to be happy. The thing is, life is not made up of tulips and butterflies and unicorns all of the time. Shitty things happen. We get sad. We get depressed. We feel worthless. Other people are mean to us. We let other people take our personal power because we forget that we have any personal power. And no, those are not fun experiences - trust me, I say this from experience, it is not fun to be sad or depressed or worthless or powerless. I completely understand the desire to want to feel something other than any of those things. I've been guilty of trying to find the easy way out of those feelings myself. I eat for comfort. I close myself up in my room and wall myself off from the world. I disengage. And I call it "self-care," but really, they are palliative measures. They don't actually fix anything, but they allow me to feel better in the short term, when what I really need to be doing is focusing on the long term. Fixing the problems, not putting band-aids on top of band-aids.

This sort of came to a head for me this weekend, when someone else's ineptitude and lack of common sense messed up a project I have been working on for about a month, and I am the one tasked with straightening out the situation. I came to a couple of very important conclusions about myself, which are going to sound stupid because they are things we've all known all along, but I think they are worth reiterating:

1. I am ridiculously smart.
2. I am ridiculously capable.

I know that I would have reacted to the situation in question by putting into use my problem solving skills, asking questions, and using logic to draw conclusions. Whereas the person who was in the situation defaulted to today's oh so popular attitude of "I can't even" and disengaged.

I don't want to disengage anymore.

I like feeling things, even crappy things, because it is the length and breadth of my emotional depth that proves I am alive.

Not to mention, I'm an actor. I need to have huge emotional depth.

So the things is this. I understand that there are people out there who have actual physical, emotional, or spiritual conditions that make "I can't even" a legitimate reason for them to not do things. For someone who is visually impaired, "I can't even see what you're referencing" is a perfectly legitimate statement. I get that. I'm not taking issue with that. For me, though, since I do not have such impairments, I'm going to stop using "I can't even." Because I can even. And I do even. And I choose to even. And I am also choosing to hold those who are capable of doing things, but are choosing to not do those things because they require a bit more effort than what said person is accustomed to, responsible for their non-actions.

I'm tired of "I can't even" being the popular battle cry of our nation. I would say "I can't even with I can't even," but that's not a true statement. I can deal with it. I am going to deal with it by not participating in the rampant disengagement, by choosing to live a life full of emotion instead of seeking a constant comfortable state of numbness, and by encouraging those who I know are capable to stay engaged by creating a safe and supportive environment wherein they can feel the good, the bad, and the ugly without judgement.

I can even.

Let's do this.