Sea of Rage

Years ago, back when writers blogged, I wrote for an online wellness magazine that had a very large audience. I’d usually write about the practical ways to apply yoga philosophy to daily life, which for me at the time included single motherhood, divorce, parenting, post-divorce dating, working, and somehow being present for all of it without dropping dead. Still not totally sure how I did that, but I’m here, so clearly I figured it out.

The editor and publishing team loved me because my posts tended to do well, which meant they got shared, which meant people saw the ads in the banners, which meant companies wanted to buy their ad space, which meant the magazine made money. This was, of course, before they started selling their own supplements and how-to courses and tickets to wellness summits that cost several thousand dollars. If I’d seen all that coming, I wouldn’t have been writing for them in the first place, but I digress. I wasn’t paid for my writing, but their reach was big enough that I accepted access to their subscribers as payment. They called me one of their Featured Experts, after all, and I had my own author page on their site with a photo, bio, and link-back to my own website.

I’d been writing for them for about two years when I had the idea for a piece about toxic positivity. I pitched it to the editor, she loved the idea, and I got to work. When I was done, I sent her the PDF of my essay -  “Why Being Positive Can Make You Sick” - and waited for her notes. It was about the toll it takes when people feel they have to force every experience into their gratitude column. This was around the time The Secret came out, and people were talking about manifesting and how your thoughts create your reality. If you had cancer, it was likely because you had unresolved anger - extremely compassionate and scientific stuff. There were memes flying everywhere with messages like - things don’t happen to you, they happen for you, and everything happens for a reason, and frankly, I was worried for people who might be suffering in that way that just guts you, seeing all this messaging and feeling even more alienated and full of despair.

Maybe this is the right place to interject that there are horrific, violent, unthinkable things that happen to good, kind-hearted people all the time. You already know this if you read the news. There are losses that are so knifing it’s hard to breathe, hard to figure out how to face another hour, let alone another day. Telling someone who is swimming in that kind of grief that it has happened for them and not to them, or that everything is unfolding perfectly and will all make sense one day, demonstrates a breathtaking lack of compassion and awareness, even if the intentions are good. Also, what might be comforting to one person might not be comforting to another, because we don’t all believe the same things, as you might have noticed (see any corner of the internet for verification).

I said all this in the essay - I said I believed when people offered these ideas, they were trying to be comforting, but there were better ways to help. Being with someone and letting them scream into the abyss while you hold onto them so they don’t feel completely untethered is sometimes the best thing you can do. Or showing up with a huge pot of stew and groceries for the week so they don’t have to think about that stuff - since they're already trying to understand how someone, somewhere, is at a checkout counter buying milk or toothpaste - while their entire world has just disintegrated. 

Not long after I sent the email, the editor wrote back. She asked how my kids were, how the studio was, and said she loved the essay, she had no notes or feedback. The piece would be out in the next issue. I wrote back, said I was pleased to hear it, asked after her family, and that was that. I considered us work friends. A few days later I got an email alert that my piece, “Why Being Positive Makes You Sick” was now live. I stared at the email. That wasn’t my title, my title was, “Why Being Positive Can Make You Sick”, can being the operative word. “It can make you sick,” I said to my three-year old, “not it will or does make you sick.” She just nodded at me like that was obvious.

My stomach sank. I clicked on the link, and there it was, and there were already thirty-five comments. They had just published it, and comments usually took a while, so I had a feeling something was up. Sure enough, people were extremely upset with me for suggesting that being positive makes you sick. Many of them told me they’d be dead if not for their positive outlook, and I should go fuck myself, and what kind of yoga teacher was I, anyway? Not one of the comments was positive, which was ironic, but felt terrible. And it was clear to me that not one of them had read the essay, they’d just seen the title, gotten furious, and unleashed their rage.

I sent an email to the editor, saying that somehow the title had been changed and it was creating quite an uproar, and could she please update it? She wrote back and said it wasn’t an accident, the title was something she’d changed on purpose because it was more provocative, and any engagement was good engagement. I took a few minutes to calm down. This was the first time I’d been attacked online, so I was having an adrenaline rush with the accompanying shaking hands and racing heart, and didn’t want to write back to her until I felt a little calmer.

I checked the article again, and there were twice as many comments and they were twice as bad. This did not calm me. I took a screenshot of some of the more fiery ones, and wrote back. I felt certain once she saw what was happening, she’d step in. I said the new title really changed the meaning, I was being personally attacked, and clearly no one was even reading the article. She did not respond.

I started replying to comments. I assured people if they read the piece, they’d see that of course I believe a positive and hopeful outlook has a huge impact on how you feel, how life feels, and how people interact with you when you’re going through the day. I said I was talking about toxic positivity, and how it was okay, and even necessary, to let yourself feel heartbreak if you were heartbroken, or rage if you were enraged, or despair if you were grieving. That spiritual bypassing and an insistence that everything has to be shoe-horned into the Thank You for This Experience List was making people ill. I answered each person individually, and by name, but I didn’t have all day, and the comments kept coming. I had two little kids and a full teaching schedule and a preschool drop-off to make, so I had to walk away for a while.

Tiny chubby arms around your neck help a lot when internet strangers are calling you awful names, but I was struggling. This went on for days, people kept reading the title and piling on. I responded to each comment, til the early hours of the morning when the screen blurred and I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. There were a few who did go back and read the essay and comment back, and every one of them asked why I’d used that title, since it was very misleading. 

I think it was day three and about 195 comments later that I finally replied - and just to one person - that the title had been changed, and shared my original title. Multiple people then responded under my reply, shocked to learn that sometimes (often) writers don’t have creative control over every aspect of what they write, unless they’re publishing their own work. Then that conversation happened for a while. Eventually it all died down and life went on, but the magazine never asked me to write a piece again.

I guess I had broken some unspoken law, that I was supposed to take it on the chin as though I’d come up with the title myself. A new expert replaced me, I was expendable. It wasn’t the only place where I was writing, so I turned my attention to other endeavors, but was left to assume that defending yourself is not allowed in a situation like that. It was the first, but certainly not the last time I was attacked online. These days I have a much thicker skin, and a lot less time to defend myself. I also don’t need everyone to like me, which is a relief. 

We all know that when you scream at someone on the internet for saying something that offends you, it’s easy to forget there’s actually a human being on the other end of your attack, someone who might not have meant what you thought they meant, or someone who was raised with a whole different set of beliefs, but is still a human being, nonetheless. Maybe a single mom with two kids to take care of and bills to pay, who is just hanging on, or a man who grew up on the other side of the country or the world in a completely different set of circumstances than you.

Maybe you don’t have to call them a fucking idiot, or decide they belong in the “them” category, meaning, not us, them. The entire world is sorting itself into those categories more and more by the day. You’re either with us - you believe what we believe and express it in the prescribed ways - or you're with them, in which case you are dehumanized to me and I can say and do whatever I want because you don’t deserve to share this planet or breathe clean air or have access to drinkable water or a decent education or healthcare or love or consideration of any kind. You can just fuck right off and keep fucking off. I hope this makes it clear how utterly untenable it is to exist this way. 

Around the time I was told to go fuck myself.

There are a lot of mornings when I get up and get my kids out the door, make myself a cup of coffee (two, actually) which is a little ritual for me, and sit down to start the day. I used to start the day by reading the news, but I have learned the very excruciating way that if I begin with the news, it’s likely I am going to fall into a pit of despair and be of no use to anyone. To say that we are in a very sad state if world news is enough to make us all wonder if we’re living in some kind of messed up simulation - is quite an understatement, but here we are. These days, I read the news after I’ve done whatever creative work I need to do. Then I read, because I do want to be informed, I do think bearing witness matters, and I do think taking action is a must if you want to wake up one day and read better news.

I have always been of the mind that if someone has beliefs that differ from mine, but they aren’t doing any harm to me or anyone else, it’s none of my business. I have always been of the mind that if someone has beliefs that differ from mine, but they are harmful to me, people I love, or anyone who has less power than I do in the scheme of things, then my job is to get loud.

By getting loud, I mean doing something productive, taking some kind of meaningful action that might actually help someone. For example, calling my representatives, writing an email, going to a march, making a donation, or volunteering. Or having a conversation with someone in my life, face-to-face, about a topic that matters to me, especially if they feel differently about it. Obviously, it also means voting, and doing whatever I can to make sure everyone can vote, because even that right is under attack these days. What it does not include is screaming at people who disagree with me, or calling them names, because that does not save lives, it does not change minds, it just adds to the enormous sea of rage we are already swimming in. Some people are drowning in it.  

Photo by Nsey Benajah on Unsplash

I posted something on instagram today and turned off comments because I don’t have the energy for hate right now. The hate is making us sick, I know I’m not alone in feeling that way. What I posted was not inflammatory, but these days social media is one thriving state of collective fight or flight. There are “block lists” for people not performing their activism in the prescribed ways, and I am sure that’s saving lots of lives. Now, even your activism is under attack if you don’t do it the right way. You’re wrong if you’re quiet and you’re wrong if you’re loud, but not loud enough, or not loud in the way someone who has decided they are the decider, thinks you should be loud. Maybe we should police each other out of existence. Meanwhile, here in this country, we have a madman running for office again, a wildly compromised Supreme Court, and a dearth of objective journalism. The checks and balances we had have been eroded, and calling people names isn’t going to save us. Deciding to burn the whole thing down because it’s irrevocably broken is the surest way to make the news we’re reading even worse. The only thing that will save us as far as I can tell, is recognizing and accepting we are going to have to learn how to share this planet, and how to work together toward a common goal, even if the goal is simply to exist. 

I had coffee with my son this morning, and I told him when I was a kid, I had the sense the adults had it together. That turned out not to be true, but I got to grow up with some assurance that things were under control “out there.” Those people in business attire talking through the television on the evening news, those people written about in the paper, that amorphous group of grown-ups in the background who sounded something like the teacher in Charlie Brown - I had the sense that they were smart and capable, even if I didn’t know what was going on.

Today? All our kids are on social media watching the same horrifying things we are, and they are not confused. The adults have long ago lost the thread. What a scary time to be a kid, watching the grown ups act like unhinged bullies. We are living during the most inane and insane timeline in history, where adults scream and call names while the world is on fire, and it is exhausting and painful and heartbreaking and embarrassing. Truly, it’s a mortifying time to be an adult right now, even if you’re doing everything in your power to make things better. History will not look back on us kindly, assuming there’s a history to look back on. 

If you, like me, would like things to be better, the one thing I would say is don’t be part of raising the rage quotient, and see if there are places where you are othering people. That is a different thing than vehemently and wholeheartedly disagreeing with people. Peace, patience, steadiness, compassion, tolerance and understanding come from inside. If you don’t cultivate those qualities, you can’t extend them to yourself or anyone else, and that’s the stuff we need, to figure out how we move forward together. Taking a little time to calm your nervous system is not selfish, it’s a gift you give to everyone you encounter. If you have been feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, start there. It’s tough to have hope right now, but it’s the only way to go. 

If you’d like to meet me in real time to talk about rage, hate, othering people and the tremendous cost of it all, I’ll be here 5/24/24 at 11:15am PST, or you can wait for the Come As You Are podcast version. Thank you for being here.