Over the winter, I lost perspective. I did precisely what I warn against: I let other people — evil, agenda-driven, elitist, even downright moronic people — control my mind.
From the day of the Newtown shootings, I felt braced against some invisible force, as though I were trying to push back against something powerful but at the same time something not there. Something that had to be resisted, that would be resisted, but was too formless to resist.
Eventually, the force took shape, as we all knew it would: the media onslaught of lies, ignorance, and strident demands about firearms (and firearms owners); the gloating triumphalism of legislative control freaks who have a v*te and know how to use it.
But it still felt like trying to fight a malignant blob. You know what I mean. I suspect everyone in history who has fought the foul nothingness of tyranny knows what I mean.
I had no solutions. I felt helpless. This was made worse by the fact that part of my job, part of my being, is to find solutions, to rise above despair and cheer others on.
Eventually, I let this overwhelming sense of helplessness leak into even minor daily nuisances. Every little thing left me feeling as if life was spinning out of control. Here’s an almost embarrassing example.
I hate junk mail. Not so much the clutter in the snailbox, but the databases behind the clutter. I work hard to keep my life junk-mail free. But every few years, some well-meaning person who has my snailing address decides I simply must receive mailings from his favorite magazine/institute/think tank/lobbying group/or obnoxious, hysteria-promoting fundraising group. And of course, you can’t just be on one organization’s list. These outfits will sell you quicker than a pimp sells the hookers in his stable. Somebody put me on a list last Christmas, and just as I was already feeling frazzled, I started receiving two or three exclamation-filled fundraising pitches per day. And these days, with most outfits having gotten smart enough not to include postpaid envelopes, I couldn’t even have the cheap satisfaction of sending nastigrams back at them at their own expense.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to shove the envelopes down the throat of the unremembered person who decided that his priorities trumped my privacy. I wanted to do something to tell these databasing, junk-mailing, money-seeking, hysteria-mongering privacy invaders to get the hell out of my mailbox, my life, and my consciousness … and couldn’t do anything. Their priorities trumped mine.
Yes, that was waaaaaay too much energy to put into a minor nuisance — and a nuisance that will mostly go away again after another round of opt outs. (And returning to a more strict privacy of my address.)
But helplessness begets helplessness. And an attitude of fight-or-flight begets stupid, needless adrenaline rushes amid a perpetual state of low-level stress. And the stress carries over from one thing to another.
So as petty and overwrought as my reaction to junk mail was, it’s the kind of thing that happens when we lose perspective. For me it was junk mail. For somebody else it might be flipping out over a job setback or freaking out over money or (for some real hotheads) taking some minor political slight and turning it into internal warfare.
It’s all unproductive — but all typical of what happens when otherwise smart, capable people fall prey to fear.
I know better. You know better (and many of you have spent the last few months reminding me). But sometimes you get caught up in these things — despite what you know, despite the wisdom of your friends, despite the wisdom of your own heart.
—–
Last week I took a breather. And I use choose that word with care: breather.
I’m going to continue this in a day or two, but for the moment, I’d like to leave you with links to two interesting essays (that have to do with this subject in different, indirect ways). I don’t agree totally with either of these. And the second is a bit on the woo-woo side for folks hereabouts. But … well, both offer something worth thinking about for freedomistas and Freedom Outlaws.
The Jeffersonian Perspective: “Freedom, Liberty, Rights, and Their Limitations”
Calm Down Mind: “The Attitude Required for Inner Freedom”
The gun grabbers pulled me out of my apolitical reverie, too. Bottom line: nothing to do about it, until the bastards make it necessary for me to shoot them.
I’m glad you are feeling a little better.
your junk mail angst reminds me of a run in I had with the state a couple of years back. it was disquieting that I suffered surveillance, arrest and jailing. At some point I began to take heart – I was tying up prosecutors, judges, jailers, administrators, court reporters, bailiffs, and other court jesters by the dozens. Their wrath was wasted on me instead of another innocent man and rendered thereby harmless. By recieving junk mail and discarding it, you have taken it off the playing board, as surely as you destroyed it in the lairs of the sender.
I’ve tried a number of times “opting out” of junk mail, telemarketers and such like. It works somewhat, for a while, but if you ever order anything on line or by mail and are required to include a phone number… you are immediately back on the lists.
And I have been told many times (by people who should know) that you can’t opt out of most charity or political advertising, either by mail or phone. And that includes calls from “LEO” organizations seeking donations for whatever.
I just toss junk mail unopened, and most telemarket calls are now done via recording. They really think I’m going to call them? Big joke. I’ll listen to a live human for a minute most of the time, but as soon as I hear the delay and a recording start, I hang up.
Nobody has ANY obligation, whatsoever, to allow themselves to be imposed on this way.
It is good to hear you are feeling better. Sorry to hear that junk mail is still giving you the blues. I am not sure if this helps, but I have a different attitude toward junk mail I can share. First, I have gone to the http://donotmail.org/ sites which will reduce the amount somewhat. Still, there is no way to keep it all out, so I just have a recycle can at the door. Between the trip to the mail box to the front door, I have sorted out the important stuff from the junk. The junk gets a quick search for glossy-sheets, the rest becomes worm food. About once a week I take all the scraps of junk mail and just drop them into the vermiculture bin in the back yard with vegetable scraps. You know who LOVES junk mail? Red Wigglers! They eat through that stuff like in no time.
Junk mail is something that will always be around. I never act on it, because it just means more coming to me. My first real job at 13 was with a bulk mailing company stuffing envelops after school. A bunch of it was newsletters and things people wanted, but most of it was junk. I see it as creating jobs (printers, envelope manufactures, paper companies, mailing machinery companies, postal employees and laborers that stuff those envelopes). As much as I hate what they do, I just recognize that I would rather have them sending me junk than drawing unemployment and other government benefits.
Postage rates keep going up, and it seems “expensive”, but I just send my nephew a birthday card yesterday for 46 cents. To have someone come to door pick up the card, and deliver it to his door 2,200 miles away in 3-4 days is pretty neat. I can’t imagine what it would cost if those junk mailers were not keeping that system going.
Junk mail sucks, but there are ways to see it as being not such a horrible thing and not getting you down. 🙂
I should have anticipated that most of the comments on this post would be about junk mail and how to handle it. So just sayin’ — a) I mentioned my recent “junk mail encounter” only to show how bad attitude feeds on bad attitude and b) even when it comes to junk mail (which is NOT the important issue), my concern isn’t about crap in the mailbox; it’s about privacy.
The privacy issue is a much longer conversation 🙁 I work with software that is heavily favored by most of the really bad marketing companies (I think just about all of Katherine Albrecht’s Hall of Shame companies use it). I hear all about how they work, because they often show what they can do in industry trade shows. I’ve also talked with them personally and done on-site interviews. My take on it, there is no way to stay out of their databases. The only thing you can do is actively provide dis-information to them. I create profiles all the time where I am a senior citizen, female. I am every ethnic group, every age group, etc. It creates such a muddy record, that they will have a hard time with it.
The records they create about you have a reliability score. If you have a clean record of your demographics and buying habits you will get a high score and the record is easier to sell. If you work hard to have a muddy profile, they information on you, but can’t sell it because of the uncertainty.
With that wave of heavily-advertised mass shootings, I felt it coming. Here we go again.
Like you said: ‘must be resisted, will be resisted, too formless to resist.’ So how? It’s exhausting just to think about. At times like that I almost envy the people who vote and send pleading letters to would-be rulers and (apparently) then relax in the comforting notion that they’ve done their duty so now it’s time for the chains to sit lightly. It’s just the price of living in the land of the free, I imagine them thinking. Have another beer.
That’s probably not fair, but I don’t really care. At times like that (this) I often have to remind myself that I don’t care about any of that anymore, I can’t save the world and won’t try. It’s easier for me than for you, but it ain’t easy sometimes. Not when the anti-freedom children are chanting outside your window every minute. I tell myself I can’t keep them from taking another little piece of America, but I can keep them out of my head. Get on with life. Sometimes I’m lying to myself about that. I really hate these people. Sometimes I want to send the computer to the landfill: I just don’t want to watch it happen anymore. It’s like arguing with a cartoon image on a lump of play-doh, only this one has the power to ruin my life even more. What’s the point of watching? But I’m not quite that withdrawn from the world. Yet.
So yeah, I understand the frustration. It doesn’t get me as worked up as it used to, I used to get kinda crazy. But the frustration is still there.
As for junk mail: You know my solution to that. It wouldn’t work for most people, and especially not for somebody with an actual career.
Hang in there. These things pass.
“a bit on the woo-woo side” <- Funny.
That's also another way of saying it might cause your eyes to glaze over. I'm super resistance to eye glazing, but I found myself doing it.
I had to re-read your blog post after reading those two rather quickly. I'll have to let it soak in for awhile.
For what it's worth, I was glad to see you write, "I don’t agree totally with either of these."
Inner and outer. And oh was The Blob ever scary when I first saw it.
The old Blob is nothing like the new blob… yet it is. No?
A bit of levity.
One of the things that helps me maintain my inner freedom is picturing the Powers That Be as: (Take your pick.)
Wraith (Stargate Atlantis)
Nazgul (LOTR)
Goa’uld (Stargate SG1)
Reavers (Firefly)
Orcs (LOTR)
Cylons (Battlestar Galactica)
Then I picture the Sheeple (sorry to use that word, but it’s so descriptive) as their adoring worshippers.
That puts things into the proper perspective.
Then I listen to CalmRadio.com, drink chai tea, pet my dog, and hug my hubby. 🙂
Thanks to you and other wise folks, I am learning to diminish my frustration over the way of the world today, and enjoy my favorite things.
when ever a online site asks me for a phone number i just give them the local democrat office number …..then they can deal with the telemarketers
remeber to have the strength to resist that which can be changed .. and the patience to know that which cant be changed will soon change due to the ways of the world…..
and if that doesnt work then we always get the final vote 20 or 30 times before changing mags
Greetings, last time I received a mailing from one of those pro-prohibition groups, looking for a donation no less, I filled the postage paid envelope with HEAVY fender washers and mailed it back. Guy at the post office said it should cost them about FIVE BUCKS! That’ll learn ’em. “The world seems to be a crazy place because crazy people are running it”.
I can understand that “tornado” feeling. That dark place where it seems that “they” are winning and the more you fight the less ground you gain. The sheer audacity of society now a days; from laws to adding you to anything against your wishes.
I understand even though my triggers are different-yet-similar than yours. Mine started by an attempt at personal freedom, and my tornado-life lasted a lot longer than yours did. I have no magic advice other than to keep on keepin on. It’s a never ending wave of ridiculousness. For ultra sensitive people it’s a constant battle to keep your balance, because we see and feel things many others don’t. The nuances. Compounded by the fact that you are a leader, only adds to the whole swirling chaos of trying to stay on course.
I haven’t read the links yet, but I would have said to maybe not think so much and calm the mind – is a good start. Take a step back, as you have done. The forces will never go away, they may change shape, but they’re always gonna be there. You owe yourself first and foremost, no matter what, to fight for what you want in (and out of) life. Then you can go out an slay the dragon 😉
For years, I was able to maintain calm by repeating the trite saying:
Rule 1) Don’t sweat the little things.
Rule 2) They are all little things.
Today? There are big things going on in the world. What can I do to stop them from happening?
That is why I try to pound it into people’s minds, when it comes to politics — local local local! You want to effect change at a national level? Then make changes at the local levels. Run for school board, council member, mayor, planning & zoning commission, and etc. — or support those with similar beliefs to yours for those positions. If you don’t have money to give away (and who does, in this day and age?) then donate some time – stuff envelopes! (this is where I should probably duck).
In the end, all I can really do is take care of my little sphere of existence — my family and my business. But I have mentally prepared myself to walk away from my business if things get too out of hand.
You can do something effective about unwanted mail, if the mailer offer to sell you something. That is, if they offer a product or service for money, or even a prize or reward for a “donation.” It’s called a US Postal Service form 1500. Google it and learn to use it. You can declare any mail offering to sell you something as “sexually offensive” regardless of what is offered. The USPS must then deliver the mailer an order to stop contacting you. If the mailer violates it (after a waiting period and a warning) then they are in violation of a court order and can be jailed. It works. It reduced my mother’s junk mail (they love to prey on the old) from 40 pieces a week to less than one a month.
I like to pick through junk once in a while…
especially when it’s made out of steel, wood, old windows….
While form 1500 is an interesting way to annoy some of these companies–there is an easier thing to do (other than just trashing them, of course). Mark on the envelopes “Refused”, and cross thorugh your address, but don’t open them. The PO will return them to the sender. You might try putting “Deceased”, but that might cause problems with your regular mail that you want to receive. My husband loves to answer those calls we get wanting money. You can make up your own version of a “Joe’s Bar and Grill” or the local whorehouse spiel and just ramble on until they hang up. His favorite is the “Three Toed Tree Toad Society”. They usually give up by the time he gets to how much they want to doante!
By the way, if you want to read some really old newspapers for “perspective” on life then and now, go to http://fultonhistory.com/.
This guy, Tom Tryniski, a retired engineer no less, has digitized thousands of old newspapers as a hobby during fourteen years of retirement — it is free.
The video is from ReasonTV I think. Sure shows government waste too.
If it’s any comfort, the database behind all that junk mail is not as accurate as they’d like to think. If it was, I wouldn’t keep getting care packages from Similac.
Re the “woo woo” link. No convictions, no principles, no solid foundation for thinking anything? Wow… Not for this kid.
Sometimes re-watching ‘V for Vendetta’ can be a fine tonic.
Ditto on the ‘V for Vendetta’ thought, also re-reading “Hope” by Zelman and Smith.
Your description of how you’re feeling made me think of the ‘gumption trap’ defined in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” It’s the feeling of “Oh $hit, wtf am I doing this for, I’ll never get it right, somebody, anybody else could be doing this better, I’m not only wasting my time I’m making it worse.” Not quite what you were saying, but it struck me as close.
The gumption trap was one of the things that touched me personally reading that book. I *finally* learned that if I just sat back, took a couple of deep breaths and relaxed (not easy sometimes), I could continue with whatever it was that had stressed me out in the first place.
For what it’s worth, I’m in the middle of one of those times at present 🙂
Take care of yourself, Claire. Sending you peace.
Most of the tyranny we suffer under comes from our own minds. Also, a lot of depression boils down to chemicals in our blood. Somehow when I think about it that way, the load lightens some.
I wonder if this latest realization re: lack of privacy may snowball somehow in your mind and push you into leaving the U.S.
If you do leave, hopefully it is to a place where dried fruit is not “confiscated” by their postal service.
After reading the replies here, I picked up a copy of “V4V” out of the bargain bin at my nearest pharmacy. Just finished watching it for the first time.
Powerful film.
Natalie Portman was beautiful.
…even with a shaved head.
This is interesting. I don’t get to your site every day, Claire, and for that I apologize, but when I do something always zings me. Interestingly enough today it’s the “junk mail” thing.
I hate it too. But suddenly, just in the past few weeks (perhaps a month?) I’ve been getting junk mail at home from seemingly out of nowhere. Full blown magazines, ads for things I would never buy, and even suddenly I’m back on the lists of several credit card companies (though 2 years ago I completely got rid of all of them, paid off all my bills and started putting my money away for my “Dream” – our coming get-off-the-grid and out of the country cruise for a few years).
My friend (also a gun guy like me, works for a certain government, like me and is rather outspoken, like me) also got hit up with magazines. Strangely they are the same ones.
Perhaps this is a conspiracy to link us all together somehow? lol I don’t know, but I found it freaky.
My inner life often suffers at the hands of the outer life. Sometimes I can identify that ONE THING which is chapping my rear end, and do something about it, or not. The New Normal is not that appealing to me. When I’m about to be overpowered, or overwhelmed, I have a chat with my dogs (can they be compelled to testify?) which is kind of like the angry letter that should not actually be mailed. I like to re-read Austin Tappin Wright’s “Islandia” when I need real peace and perspective. I like to watch Lindsay Anderson’s “Oh, Lucky Man” when it’s helpful to know that other people have problems, too. And they somehow manage to survive. And I get to listen to Alan Price’s band, see ’em, too. I go on music jags if things are particularly bad, feeding Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Commander Cody, Donna the Buffalo, Richard Thompson, the Alman Brothers, Horselips, heck, even Steeleye Span through the needle or the laser, through the NAD and Equalizer, and into and then out of the Carver, which then tries to melt the pair of KRIX speakers, which in turn try to REND MY EARS which usually puts things in a new light… what was I saying? see, working already, yeah. hey, turn down the lights, would you?