“All my designs simplified
And all of my plans compromised”

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here – Porcupine Tree

I’ve been really struggling with my mental health recently because work has been on mass low morale and I’m home alone this week. Normally this would not be an issue but I feel like as the days get shorter and the year gets longer, the slow erosion of all that I wanted vs what happened is beginning to weigh me down.

On one hand it’s amusing and existential. I mean Donald Trump has just made the greatest political comeback in US history, we’re living through two major wars both of which are about to be significantly altered by Trump. You have snap elections in Germany and UK is trying desperately to pretend it did not call Trump a bozo. I guess every generation feels like they live in strangest of times, but I think given we are a product of the longest period of peace and prosperity makes me wonder how of this did we do to ourselves?

As a young-ish woman, I also struggled with Florida’s failed abortion ban which while has no personal impact on me, again makes me wonder why are we choosing to relinquish the long liberal world order. Is it because it’s failing us?

When I try and analyse this I am quickly distracted y the ever anxiety inducing “buzzzzzzz” of my Sauron-esque work phone that does not die or sleep. With every buzz it brings a never ending barrage of pointless work bits that one must drudge through partly to reap the benefits of a well paying job I have and the privileges it affords me

While I don’t get to complain about my rather comfortable salary, I am daily reminded of the price it extracts from me: mainly my physical and mental health. A despairing reminder of the entrapment those same privileges bring which are largely—as my therapist often reminds me—in my head.

But then I pompously wonder if it’s all connected? Is Trump and Starmer vestiges of the slow erosion at scale? As a society becomes riddled with malaise and sees its leaders get tired, despotic and rudderless, is anything that’s not the status quo just the best of a bad set of options? Or am I just having a bad day at work. A job that by all accounts I must quit or shut up about. A theme, silly reader you will come to be deeply familiar with.

Why do we create these little or grand stories we tell ourselves? I think it’s to largely justify getting out of bed in the morning. As a manic depressive person, I often struggle with that simple act and have spent decades developing support systems and mechanisms to fake my way through “expected” behavior. It makes me envy those who have religion. Faith always bring a sense of purpose, calm and really a relinquishing of pointless anxiety as religion exerts control and provides solace and comfort.

I have long rebelled against it, coming from a religious society, I have long fought the tropes that are meant to bind me: my gender, my race, my body type. But as I get older and wearier I also find I have space and respect for the tropes. Not in justifying the malicious deployment to box people, but that folks largely come at things out of ignorance rather than malice. And that which is unfamiliar is feared and therefore rebuked.

Anyway, maybe it’s the fact that I have not slept it three days that allows me to connect God, Trump and finance in one sweep. All I can do is continue to rebel without a cause in hope that I continue to find space for the other rebels.

Bisou Bisou

“

May it be the shadow’s call will fly away
May it be your journey on to light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun

”

May it Be – Enya