#221: Let's get political
I can’t watch the news.
I can’t watch the the two men hurling words at each other over the big table with the sceptre on it.
I can’t listen to the guffaws and hoorahs from the people on the benches in the big old room.
I can’t watch the news presenter with his sullen face announce dreariness.
I can’t listen to the slanging matches, the lies, the in-fighting, the hollow words.
I’ve coped for years with politics.
My defence mechanism began with a disillusion and feigned lack of interest.
I pretended not to care and didn't take an interest to avoid having to care at all.
I’d sling in a vote when something big came up, maybe I'd get a little interested for 3 months in the lead up to an election, when I felt a surge of agency, like I mattered.
In between fleeting voting interest, the coping mechanisms kicked in again. Disinterest, disengagement and disillusion.
“Don’t talk about religion or politics.” OK.
In recent years, I’ve become more aware of different social issues. I've made links from mental health upwards into systemic issues, it’s been harder not to care and my coping mechanisms of disinterest and disengagement have begun to fail.
I created another one that was channel my energy into something else. Take control of something and have impact where I can.
I used Sanctus and our mental health mission as another reason not to care.
I could ignore politics because I was busy on my mission trying to change things.
I created my own little bubble where I mattered, had purpose and agency.
Within my world, I was on my own mission. Even if the politics annoyed me or I cared about certain policies or decisions, I could deflect it all into “pick your battles, I’m winning mine”
The deep truth I’ve been avoiding for a long time is that I care. I really care.
When I watch the drama of politics play out, I feel fury. I feel white hot anger rise up inside me.
I feel insulted. I feel upset, I feel angry, I feel powerless.
These are big feelings and I’m not sure my coping strategies are working any more.
I believe it’s not just me that’s been coping. I believe many of us have.
I believe we all really really care about politics, especially when we say we don’t.
This stuff is our lives and it’s our families lives.
It’s our bank accounts and our mortgages and healthcare and our education and our bills and our jobs.
It’s our planet, communities and sense of identity, purpose and pride in where we are from. Our country. The land on which we live.
Even now I feel tempted to write “but don’t worry this newsletter won’t get political” - that’s what we’ve been saying to avoid these uncomfortable conversations isn’t it?
It’s always political though - what isn’t?
Politics is just beliefs and values and we all have them.
I’m genuinely not writing about any particular party, I’ve truly felt like this for years, whatever colour tie they wear.
This isn’t even a finger point at one person - it’s just the whole damn thing and it’s the culture in which our feelings towards politics get repressed and pushed down, because that’s how we’re coping.
What would happen if we just let it all out?
What would happen if when we felt almighty rage, we raged?
Or if we felt deep sadness, we cried?
Would that hurt too much to know that all we get is a vote in a few years?
Or would letting those feelings out lead to more options, more ways to contribute, more awareness, more conversations and more dialogue?
I have a feeling it would.
I feel like we all need to let ourselves get more political and share our feelings towards how politics makes us feel.
I know I do, perhaps this is my next coping strategy… but I feel like this one will get me somewhere.
Cheers,
James x
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Who am I?
Writer, founder, husband, always tanned.
Wannabe poet, imposter, taboo buster.
Thinker, philosopher, not a drinker
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