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Monday, July 20, 2015

Rainbows and Unicorns





     Several years back I wrote a piece called "Rainbow Heads". I shared my idea that some people (who will go unnamed due to a rule they created that says I'm not allowed to write about them), are living a perfect souffle life. Well, as with most every damn thing that occurs, it has come to full glorious circle. I have now been categorized as a "rainbow Nazi", a "middle aged privileged white woman being fed pablum" and a believer in unicorns. The people doing the sorting are not actual friends, just the indirect, waving across the pond kind on Facebook. So we don't really know one another, which is why it can be easy to take a human being and toss them in a box. The squared off descriptors were comments about a blog written by Chloe Ann King that skewers presenting the benefit of having a positive attitude to anyone who is poor, handicapped, without employment or living a life that is under serving them. I reference this same post in my previous piece "Hope and Possibility." Ms. King states that those who pass on the idea (Oprah, Deepak Chopra, Gala and the ilk), are making cash off humans struggling to survive. Going further, she says these same delusional individuals are singing a concerto with the rich and powerful, in an effort to keep the underclass underfoot. I'm assuming I would be considered a minion in this unicorn army since I frequently pass on "enlightenment pablum" through blogs, classes, coaching and Facebook. As for some of the comment adjectives, I'm a nearly all-white woman and rainbows suddenly began following me after I gave up disgruntled unhappiness, though none of them were associated with Adolf Hitler. 
     It is a combination of the rest of the assumptions I'm having a bit of a tantrum over (I'll get to unicorns later). I take particular issue with middle aged and pablum feeding. As a group, my fellow halfway minions are being maligned as no-doer's. Historically speaking some periods of great change have come about because of middle-aged women of all color. The right to vote was primarily due to this demographic. MADD not only saved lives but has transformed people's thinking on driving impaired. Wars have been ended, countless lives saved, raised and birthed by middle-aged women. It is arrogant (and young), to assume our nearly wrinkled army is no-doing away social change, let alone consuming copious amounts of "pablum" (an ancient, infrequently used word that's now mainly for barbs directed at stupid unfortunates). What I find most bothersome about the label of pablum ingesting, rainbow lover is the disdain that drips from the words as though they are defining someone or something that is stupid. Women have been called stupid for as long as there has been someone to point out that we are different from men. Unfortunately the denigration I am currently referring to is coming from other women, which seems to be a frequent activity of my female posse. It ranges from the idiot moms who believe in free range children to the dumb shits who stay married to a philanderer, (for God's sake can we all stop hurling tomatoes at people who think or behave differently?) The labelers further decree that the populace of women to which I belong are over-feeding on a steady diet of positive attitude at the expense of social change. They believe we are being used to keep working adults in middle to low or no income from coming together to create a better world. What if women who see endless possibility are actually holding a door open? What if change requires a positive attitude? What if noshing on rainbows is social change?
     The disparage-rs of positive thinking are pissed that our world is unequal. I'm pissed that it's unequal, that some of us are hungry, homeless and without hope. But as much as I want it, life does not have an equal sign. Living things are predisposed to want more of the pie than the other guy, lest they go hungry. This includes humans, squirrels, kudzu and cockroaches. In some sci-fi film this would be where someone turns the survival mechanism off to see what would happen. SPOILER ALERT...kudzu and cockroaches would win. Which means all human consumers of pie will need a coping skill for the vast inequity of life.

     Find a way to enjoy the pie. 

Whatever amount that exists, be it a crumb, 14 slices or the dreamed for taste. Ignoring that there is not an equal sign between birth and death is a waste of this experience. We are each pieces of the whole, living unique, fucked up, magical and awful times on this planet. Seeing ourselves as one of ALL can bring about a change in thinking, which can lead to a better way to live with ourselves and each other.
     10 years ago I had no historical reason to relate to what Oprah or Deepak Chopra said. They had wealth, which I had never experienced. Both claimed they had achieved happiness. I didn't even have an understanding for what that word meant. I'd have tossed someone like me into that multi-hued box alongside other judgment grenades like delusional, wacky, unhinged and not living in the real world. At that time I lived a miserable existence. My container was filled to the brim with physical pain, old traumas, loss, financial collapse and unhappiness. Having not come from privilege, rainbows or unicorns I didn't believe in those things, especially since most every aspect of my life was wretched. I only believed in gritty reality, the hardcore kind of mere survival. In other words I could have written the blog I referenced earlier. I eked out breaths in retaliation toward those who desired a world in which I did not exist. My anger knew no bounds. I raged at what I saw standing between me and the glitter filled life I craved. I hated anyone who was happy or had found happiness. There was only room for red hot rage. Glitter could not bloom in that box. There was no joy left to scrape from the sides, arriving at a point of literally feeding on myself. Physically this meant organs dropping to the wayside and deep soul denying depression. 
     At what was surely nearly the end point, far-fetched notions from a couple of "haves" reached into my "have not" cave to show me a way out. It took grueling, agonizing work lit by the unicorn brigade, for me to imagine happiness. Even then I doubted and coped my way out of awareness until another flashlight illuminated that what I imagined as good enough, was in fact a 2/3's life. I am currently digging up the other third because why not? Why not live a whole life? Why not achieve happiness? Why not believe that nothing is standing in my way but me? 
     I speak from experience when I say a positive attitude works. I don't offer this for others because I think it may work. It will work, it did work, it does work. I don't know if all those who speak of enlightenment believe in the message they are sending or if it is all show for ratings and money. It doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned. I'm not stupid, delusional or a minion of those looking to keep the miserable masses miserable. Instead I have come to my own conclusions as an explorer in this life adventure. 
  • I make my reality.
  • Believing something is impossible makes it impossible.
  • Hating brings hating.
  • Judgment brings judgment.
  • Letting go of impossibility, hate and judgment brings endless possibility, love and peaceful coexistence. 
  • Humans have the power with their beliefs and their thinking to create change in the world. 
  • Rainbows arrive to remind us that a storm has a beginning and an end.
As for unicorns, I have yet to meet one. But anything is possible.

***UPDATE*** 
As there has been renewed interest in this post from 2015, it is important to mention I have come to realize that at the time this was written, it was true... I was largely full of the aforementioned "pablum" and enlightenment indoctrination, and I no longer subscribe to much of what I wrote.

Since shortly after this post was written, I have spent much of the time in the dark end of things and cannot fathom "positive thinking" out of great hardship. Much of the time life is excruciating and instead of thinking positively about that, I am deeply sorry to those impacted by my "doing it wrong" wording related to thinking negatively about shitty experiences. I came across as preachy and silly and that was exactly how I was writing. I'm sorry for the words and ascribed beliefs in this post, and any others I have not gone back and updated to reflect this awareness. I'm sorry it took this long to update this post. I am working on keeping opinions about things I cannot possibly understand to myself...like other peope's experiences. 

With sincere regret,

eMMe 


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