What Makes Me Happy

 Tasty food digesting well

Waking naturally from sleep

Sweet-smelling flowers

Technicolor sunsets (I’ve heard of sunrises; rarely seen ‘em)

Accomplishing something, nearly anything

I wish I could say that good news makes me happy, but I’m too cynical to believe that most good news won’t be almost immediately overtaken or countered

Sometimes good developments in something I’m watching or reading can touch me, but not often

Once in a while, I remember the generosity of a friend or some glorious achievement of my past

And in between the moments of happiness, I settle for being content

 

Trump News Trumps Again

 

Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving. Because his Apprentice show had given him an undeserved reputation for business savvy (which is belied by his many bankruptcies and fraud convictions) and because he was so entertaining, TV stations rushed to give him millions of dollars worth of free coverage during his candidacy. That, plus racism in reaction to the Obama presidency and misogyny towards Hillary, not to mention Russian hacking of the DNC and Jim Comey’s blather about the Hillary’s email investigation while remaining silent about investigating Russia’s involvement in the Trump campaign, all saddled this country with a dictator wanna-be who is bringing us to the brink of civil war.

His superpower has been to commit crimes, insults, offenses, and horrors so constantly that nobody has the time or energy to investigate and prosecute him for any single one of them. It’s like fighter planes of old that ejected a cloud of metallic chaff to muddy up the skies as camouflage. His superpower, plus the dubious doctrine of absolute presidential immunity, has protected him so far from criminal prosecutions worth decades of prison and millions of dollars in fines.

Now that he is out of office, The Big Lie notwithstanding, he is as subject to prosecution as every other citizen. Even Senator Mitch McConnell has said so.

Last weekend, President Biden achieved passage in the Senate of landmark legislation to address climate change, health care, and the deficit. We should have had a few days at least to bask in this achievement, but no. Instead, all the news channels spent the day covering the fact that the Department of Justice obtained a search warrant and seized more boxes of government documents, including highly classified ones, from Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. The DOJ did this quietly, but T himself complained publicly about the search. At least the San Francisco Chronicle put news of the search on page 8, which is all that most Trump news deserves.

Now, T is the subject of so many federal and state criminal investigations that it was not immediately clear which of his many crimes the judge who issued the warrant found probable cause to believe he had committed. It seems to have been his many failures to keep public records safe and private, and his failure to deliver boxes of them when requested, and even subpoenaed, by the National Archives after his term.

I hate news about Trump. When his voice comes across my TV, I leap to mash the mute button. But this news about the search and its results makes me very happy. I rejoice at signs that he may finally be held accountable for some of his many offenses. While president, he believed that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5^th Avenue with impunity. Now that he’s a private citizen, it’s time for him to pay for his crimes.

Not the least of which are refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election, pressuring states where he lost to ‘find’ votes for him, choosing slates of fake electors and sending their names to Congress, and firing up a mob of armed supporters and sending them to the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power to the validly elected President.

That occasion, January 6 of 2021, also trumped good news that we should have been enjoying for weeks. On January 5, Georgia elected two Democratic senators, giving the Democrats the slimmest possible majority in the Senate, and kicking Mitch McConnell out of the majority leader’s seat. This victory has enabled the passage of much-needed pieces of legislation, including the “Inflation Reduction Act,” the ‘once in a generation overhaul of climate and healthcare policy’ that we should be celebrating this week. Instead, we are transfixed with this investigation of T’s cavalier (at best; possibly even corrupt) treatment of public records and classified documents (which, incidentally, has probably harmed our national security far more than any of Hillary Clinton’s alleged missteps with email).

So, yeah, the DOJ has never searched the home of a former president before, but we have never before had a former president who has so far gotten away with so much crime and wrongdoing.

My Theory of Personal Change

 

Question: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Answer: Just one. But the bulb has to want to be changed.

 Many times in my life I have tried to give up a bad habit or form a new one. And many times I have failed. Thus, for most of my life, my theory of personal change was that I didn’t. At least, not permanently.

 Then I started the Noom program for weight loss about a year and a half ago. They used the system of SMART goals; goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. I had tried to formulate and reach SMART goals in the past, without success.  I now realize that I hadn‘t chosen goals that were attainable by me.

 This brings me back to the psychiatrist and the light bulb. If the bulb doesn’t want to change, it won’t. Over the years, I have discovered that my decisions are based on the deliberations of my internal committee: its members currently include my inner couch potato, the introvert who prefers books to people, the hunter-gatherer who enjoys walking the neighborhood and bagging bits of food in between picking off chores, etc.

 If I try to achieve a goal that isn’t supported by at least a majority of the voices on the committee, it ain’t gonna happen. So, attainable means not only physically and logistically doable, but also acceptable to a majority of my committee members. My members get sad when I am deprived of pleasures, so it really helps if a goal is intrinsically somewhat rewarding.

 Thus, when I came to choose my first goal for Noom, I chose to add a piece of fruit to every meal. Since I enjoy fruit, I would look forward to each meal. This added to my nutrition without depriving me of anything I enjoyed. The idea of a diet in which I could never eat any particular food makes me sad, and would never be attainable. But adding a fresh, tasty, nutritious item several times a day improved my outlook and energy, and made it easier to choose suitable goals going forward.

 Approaching two years on Noom, I am so close to my initial, somewhat conservative, goal weight that I’m considering whether I should adopt another goal weight that is 10 or 20 pounds lower. However, I don’t so much work with particular goals any more. I have developed a set of customary meals that keep me within my calorie budget while providing a constant flow of small pleasures. And when I get a yen for a particular baddie, like donuts or ice cream, I can indulge in reasonable portions without major regain or guilt.

 Thus, making small life changes that don’t outrage members of my committee works for me. Slow but steady is effective, and – more to the point – a way of life I can live with.

 

 

Coping with 2.0

 Here we go again. Again the thrill of a well-qualified woman running for president is squashed by the victory of a horrible man.

And this time promises to be worse than the time before. We know more about his complete corruption and proud vindictiveness. Our resistance the first time around helped keep him in check, as did the utter incompetence of him and his pals. This time their experience better equips them to bring their nightmarish plans to life. Moreover, there are fewer of the guardrails that constrained them last time.

So it’s time for the resistance to pull together again. Time for us to join the organization of our choice, get back into signing petitions, phoning our Congresspeople, and attending meetings and demonstrations. Our efforts will help us cope with these times, and also help us to pay as little attention as possible to the lies, venom, and outrages he spews every time his mouth opens. Instead, let’s save our energy for finding one or more issues we care about, finding out what hostile actions the administration is taking about them, and fighting against those actions as best we can.

As the old saying goes, this is a marathon, not a sprint. And we start out traumatized by the election. Our hopes were dashed; our fears are growing; and so grows our rage at corrupt people and fools who believe their lies and vote against their own interests. We gaze in horror at responses to his encouragement of bigotry and misogyny, including domestic terrorism.

I am a female, Jewish lesbian, and life under his administration has been awful on all three counts, and is likely to get worse. I was gutted by the demise of Roe v. Wade, and am dreading further legislation curbing the rights of women, queer folks, and Jews. Not to mention people of color and undocumented immigrants, and the parts of our economy that depend on them.

My own trauma and dread I try to address by limiting the amount of political news I consume. I don’t want to waste my outrage and fear responding to some of his crowd-pleasing bon mots that don’t change anything. As Rachel Maddow tells us, ignore what they say, but watch what they do. My goal is to tune into the least amount of news that keeps me aware of major threats concerning my chosen issues.

Marinating in a stew of outrage and dread is not good for anyone. I have noticed that the lingering post-election trauma has made my friends and me more easily triggered by relatively small things. For example, I got outraged last week by a fellow student who kept sharing in class when it wasn’t his turn.

Coping with this fraught time will look different for each of us. For me, I seek to find many things to enjoy each day, in the hope that I’ll be more able to endure whatever comes. Also, I need to be distracted now and then, so I don’t obsess over past outrages or coming horrors. But at the same time, I need to do the work of resistance to the extent of my ability. As Rabbi Tarfon said, more or less, it is not up to us to complete the task, but we can’t just give up either.

 

Hope on the Horizon

How is it that I, a proud pessimist, have the slightest tinge of hope for America’s future? Mostly because tens of thousands of people are marching peacefully, here and abroad, against obvious and entrenched racial injustice—day after day after day. Military leaders balk at treating peaceful protesters as the enemy. Pressure builds for the powers that be to address that injustice. And inroads are being made.

Statues honoring slaveholders and Confederate leaders are being removed, from the American South as far away as England. NASCAR and the military are retiring the Confederate battle flag, which is a symbol promoting segregation. Police departments are banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants, encouraging police to monitor each other’s compliance with new standards, and having their budgets redistributed away from military weapons and training towards supporting their communities for better health, education, and prosperity. For example, there is a movement to stop armed police from responding to situations that really call for community mediation, mental health professionals, or social workers.

I like to think that the triple blows of the pandemic, economic collapse, and social unrest have so undermined America’s unfounded belief in our strength and exceptionalism that increasing numbers of us are willing to acknowledge that we are flawed and need to change.

If Mitt Romney can march and chant “Black Lives Matter,” maybe we can hope that others will locate their moral compass and their backbone, and will be open to constructive change.

A Strange Contentment

A Strange Contentment

My emotions have been a mystery to me for most of my life. This usually bothers me only when they’re uncomfortable, because I want to understand how I’m feeling so I can do something to make myself feel better. Without that insight, I cultivate responses that can help me regardless of the specifics, usually distraction or self-comfort.

I recently noticed that my good feelings are often equally mysterious. I get this ripple of something pleasant in my chest, and notice it with baffled appreciation. I try to remember what preceded the ripple and inspect it for clues about its cause.

Sometimes I’ve just paused one activity, taken a deep breath, and turned to something else. Sometimes I’ve just figured something out or accomplished something. 

Sometimes I have a sense that my digestion is working smoothly, for a change, and my internal chemistry is in a relatively good state. Lately, I’ve been noticing this pleasant 

ripple of feeling when I get up from the throne, which also suggests a happy digestive system.

Sometimes, I can just remember the happy little ripple and feel its echo, completely divorced from anything in my environment or any particular thought. This is a lovely ability to have, and makes me smile, which is itself both a response to and a cause of happiness.

For so long I have been my own worst enemy, with an inner critic frequently beating me up and eroding my self-esteem. Maybe I’m discovering a new member of my internal committee, one who is simply happy here and now. I will call her my happy camper, and hope for her frequent attendance.

Where Do I Belong?

Where do I belong? A question of many facets. First, the literal. Where I belong these days is in my home or outdoors wearing a mask and at least six feet away from everyone else.

This question is usually asking, with whom do I belong. Where do I fit in? With whom do I have something in common? Who are the people I care for? Who are the people who care for me?

Whom did I find while engaging in common interests? Who came together with me around a common identity? Who continue to get together because we like each other, and because our get-togethers get us out of our homes and into the presence of other human beings?

Do I belong in the synagogue where I’m a dues-paying member but hardly ever attend services and no longer work in any committee? I have synagogue friends from 30 years ago, but haven’t more than greeted in passing for the last decade.

Where else might I belong? On this planet? In my skin? At the places on the internet frequented by like-minded people?

Turning it around, who belongs with me? For whom do I make a welcoming space? To whom do I give the benefit of the doubt?

So many questions and even more answers, because every moment is different and my mood varies along with my self-esteem and my willingness to even conceive of myself as belonging on this planet at all. But the relationship between self-esteem and belonging is circular: I need to feel vaguely good about myself to foist my presence on anyone else, but if I haven’t spent time interacting with anyone else I start to wonder if I actually exist.

To accept and justify the gift of my existence, I feel the need to be doing something to improve others’ lives. I take the most responsibility for my friends and other members of the intersecting communities to which I belong: lesbians, seniors, writers, liberals, San Franciscans, etc.

Anyway, in this time of sheltering in place, one of the most helpful things I can do for myself and others is to reach out and have conversations with my friends. To recognize the other as a person worthy of being listened to, to share my similar feelings and affirm that we’re both human. When I’m down, I can share that with someone who is also down and be comforted by our common humanity. Or I can share with someone who is less down, and maybe begin to hope that a better mood might come around to me in due course.

And I remind myself to listen to friends who call me or share in a Zoomed meeting, not just to reassure us of our common humanity, but also to notice any particular need that I can help with.

Dana Vinicoff