Finding pleasant stories is becoming increasingly difficult
Storytime holds an honored and sacred place in the bedtime routine of millions of small children, including ours. Little man prefers reading his own story now, given that he’s reading at a higher level than twenty percent of American adults. Baby girl, however, prefers having me tell her a story. Not read her a story, mind you. Again, she could read stories herself if that’s what she wanted. Instead, she prefers, demands actually, that I tell her a story every night at bedtime. She won’t go to bed quietly without it.
I have to admit that finding a story that’s sufficiently easy to tell within a reasonable time frame every night is difficult. Some nights, her stories are extremely short, especially when her behavior hasn’t exactly been top notch. Other times, I just start off down a path with a character and see where it takes us. She really doesn’t mind as long as I make a couple of funny voices along the way. For her, it’s not just the story, it’s spending the last few minutes of the day with Daddy, something that is important to a six-year-old.
While I can easily enough make up stories to amuse the Tipster, however, finding stories that I can use here is considerably more difficult. I refuse to be yet another post-truth writer who just makes up bullshit without citing any references. I take seriously what we put online even if no one else does. Finding topics that are lighthearted, though, is becoming extremely difficult.
When I’m telling stories to the little one, it is important to keep them light and simple so as to not introduce anything that might become a nightmare. When I look through the headlines every morning, though, nightmares seem inescapable! Is this how our dystopia begins?
The Nightmare of a Factless World
Before I go off on a tangent here, let me request that if you have not read yesterday’s main article on challenging belief systems, please go and do so now. That article is infinitely more important than this one and has more of the qualities of our normal Sunday morning sermon. Please, I beg you, read and share that article before this one.
The stories I encounter on a daily basis come from a variety of sources, most of which are at least moderately journalistic at their foundation. Typically, the most important stories are listed at the top of a page, like a newspaper, with lighter fare and amusements coming further down the page, or at the back of the magazine. If nothing else, there’s always Reuter’s Oddly Enough section which finds those stories that are a little quirky and unusual. Reuter’s is having difficulting finding those stories, too, though.
Perhaps part of the problem here is the assertion by some that “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, of facts,” I’m not kidding. That quote comes from a paid CNN contributor talking with NPR’s Diane Rehm. You can read that totally depressing story in the Washington Post. If there is one thing that we have discovered in the past few months it is that approximately 46% of the US population believes a story based on the emotion it triggers rather than the credibility of its information. What that ultimately means is that everything one sees in print or reads on Twitter is now a fairy tale. Nothing is actually true. Everything is make-believe and one can just add to the story as though we were all participating in a giant work of fan fiction.
Unfortunately, the fairy tale we are creating is one full of nightmare-inciting characters and situations. Our minds can’t believe any of this is true and the more we try to make sense of any of it the more we find ourselves screaming out in terror.
When one of the children has a nightmare, they come running for a comforting hug. We have no one to give us that reassurance, though, because there is no one we can trust and there is no waking from this nightmare. We are stuck.
What Are We Talking About?
Tossing and turning and not sleeping at night seems to be plaguing more of us than usual. At the beginning of this year, I would get up at 4:00 AM and almost feel as though I had the Internet to myself. All my friends and associates on this continent were asleep. My middle son, the Marine, would be finishing up his day in Okinawa and we might chat back and forth a bit, or I might engage in brief conversation with an acquaintance in Europe. The whole setup was nice and quiet, making for a reasonably quiet start to my morning.
Today, however, there were three “live” streams taking place in my Facebook newsfeed. I left a comment on someone’s post and was surprised to receive an almost instant reply. The number of people I see complaining of insomnia has risen from maybe one or two a week to four or five every day. This is all anecdotal, mind you. There’s no science behind my observation so it is entirely possible that the finite size of my study group is producing a false result. Still, there’s no question in my mind that there are more nightmares in our world now than there are lullabies.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist and a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient who has been called “the most prominent” of a “procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature” At least, that’s what it says on her Wikipedia page. I don’t know her personally. She also is an occasional contributor to The New Yorker. In her most recent opinion piece for that publication, she writes:
Now is the time to resist the slightest extension in the boundaries of what is right and just. Now is the time to speak up and to wear as a badge of honor the opprobrium of bigots. Now is the time to confront the weak core at the heart of America’s addiction to optimism; it allows too little room for resilience, and too much for fragility. Hazy visions of “healing” and “not becoming the hate we hate” sound dangerously like appeasement. The responsibility to forge unity belongs not to the denigrated but to the denigrators. The premise for empathy has to be equal humanity; it is an injustice to demand that the maligned identify with those who question their humanity.
Something tells me Ms. Adichie is experiencing the nightmares, too. We want them to end. Yet, each morning when the alarm goes off we find that they continue.
We need better stories
The stories I’m reading this morning are only fueling the well-stoked fire of my ongoing nightmare. Generally, I find the words of Stephen Hawking to be somewhat comforting. He tends to have a rather positive outlook toward the future. This morning, however, I’m reading a recent article of his where he says:
… we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent.
A bit later he goes on to write:
… we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.
Dr. Hawking makes a noble attempt at ending the article on a positive “we can do it” kind of note, but this nightmare has stripped me of any faith that humanity can pull its collective head from its pompous and oversized ass. Sure, we can improve our world, but I’m not seeing sufficient desire to actually do so.
Last week (I’m just now getting around to reading it) Ian Buruma declared that we are at the end of the Anglo-American order. He goes to great lengths (translation: it’s a long read) to show just exactly how the US and UK are no longer fit to lead the rest of the world as they have done in the past. He writes:
The self-flattering notion that the Western victors of World War II are special, braver and freer than any other people, that the United States is the greatest nation in the history of man, that Great Britain—the country that stood alone against Hitler—is superior to any European let alone non-European country has not only led to some ill-conceived wars but also helps to paper over the inequalities built into Anglo-American capitalism. The notion of natural superiority, of the sheer luck of being born an American or a Briton, gave a sense of entitlement to people who, in terms of education or prosperity, were stuck in the lower ranks of society.
We’ve lost our grasp on what is real versus what is fantasy. We’ve become so accustomed to making shit up as we go, flying by the seat of our pants so-to-speak, that we think there are no facts because we’re too consumed with the fiction to recognize the reality when it is encountered. We have grabbed hold of the nightmare as though it were an amusement park roller coaster, screaming at the downward spirals and then laughing at ourselves as we prepare to plunge even deeper into the infinity of despair.
I don’t know about you, but I need a break from the nightmare. The stress has become noticeable. Kat has mentioned more than once this past week that I’m snapping at the children, yelling and screaming at the drop of a hat. Granted, I’m a grumpy old man on the best of days, but the stress of this continual nightmare, and the worry that we might never wake up, is removing any sense of pleasantness I might have.
We need better stories. We need stories that are not just fluff but genuinely good news about improvements to the overall human condition. I’m saying that while hoping it’s not too late, that the nightmare hasn’t completely taken over.
We need a break. I fear what happens if this nightmare of a story continues. None of us may be able to sleep ever again.
Tuesday Morning Update: 11/12/24
This Tuesday morning starts with a pretty decent frost outside. When I took the dogs out at 5:45, the air temperature was 36 degrees (Fahrenheit), cold enough to don gloves and remind myself that a hat is never a bad idea. Some of the neighbors’ trees are completely bare while ours still stubbornly holds on, waiting for a sub-freezing frost. This is the type of November I remember, the kind that makes me comfortable as the heater kicks on, reminding me of how privileged I am to not be out chopping wood. I’m not good at chopping wood. We would surely freeze to death if we relied on such.
Neither child said anything about school yesterday beyond, “It was okay.” We all remember those days when it seemed as though we weren’t learning anything, don’t we? Yet, at least for some of us, more information leaked into our brains than we realized. I’m assuming the same still happens on even the most boring of days.
Being a Girl Dad is still baffling me, though. Tipper came in, barely spoke, and then disappeared for the rest of the day. I didn’t see her again until this morning. She was dressed and on her way out the door, fifteen minutes earlier than necessary, when I stopped her and reminded her that we love her. The result was an eye roll and a half-hearted, “Love you, too,” as she headed for the door. I worry that there’s an eating disorder at play, but I have no way yet of proving it. The fridge is full of leftovers so the kids were free to choose whatever they wanted for dinner. I’m not sure Tipper ever came out of her room. Everything I read tells me this is a difficult and tumultuous time for teenage girls, but I’m not getting any usable advice. I love this child more than she can imagine. And I worry.
Kat did go to the salon for a little while. She took clients that weren’t especially difficult, and even that proved taxing. By the time she got back home, everything about her demeanor showed complete exhaustion. She’ll take today off, thankfully. I worry about Kat more than I do Tipper. She pushes herself too hard. She’s done that since she was 16. I don’t think she knows how to exist without pushing herself hard. I’m trusting that she’s listening more carefully to her body right now,
Fuck. An alert from my bank just informed me that an annual renewal I’d forgotten just came out. $104, gone, just like that, leaving a deficit of -$28. I can probably move things around and cover this one, but there are still $96 and $45 bills that can’t be avoided coming up before my check hits. Fortunately, the fridge and freezer are full of food. We’re doing okay there. The utilities are caught up. G’s birthday is this month, though, and the holidays are looking quite lean. Something else to worry about.
There’s a guest opinion piece in this morning’s New York Times with the title, “If You’re Sure How the Next Four Years Will Play Out, I Promise: You’re Wrong.” The author’s primary thesis is that we cannot predict the future with all its twists and turns. We all have to admit that he’s correct in such a statement. However, the issue I would take is that there are markers that indicate what is most likely to happen next. Those markers are what fuel our worries about the future. We’re not just guessing in the dark.
What are some of those markers? Let’s start with California Gov. Gavin Newsom will spend part of the week in DC as he tries to Trump-proof state policies. Gov. Newsom remembers the issues California faced the last time this felon was president. He’s rushing to see if there is any protection to be found in federal law. The problem is that any “help” the state receives now is most likely to be rolled back quickly by the new administration. They did this last time and there’s no reason to believe that it won’t happen again.
Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico. Relationships with our Southern neighbor didn’t go well under the first administration. This time around, however, Mexico has a new leftist president, The felon doesn’t have a good record when it comes to dealing with people who are too progressive for his taste. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has proven to be a tough, stand-your-ground stalwart, especially as she moved to completely upset that country’s court system. With the felon’s promise of mass deportations, the two leaders are likely to bump heads early and the outcome is not likely to be pretty.
Next up: Economics. A headline in this morning’s Times reads Europe Braces for Trump: ‘Worst Economic Nightmare Has Come True’. Think this is just fear-mongering? Already this morning, Global shares mostly declined, shrugging off Wall Street’s rally. Don’t trust what you see happening on Wall Street at the moment. The increases there are fueled by promises of tax breaks for the rich. The rest of the world, however, is not so enthused. The felon’s promises of severe tariffs, for which US citizens ultimately pay, thus setting off another round of inflation, have the rest of the world concerned about a global financial meltdown, similar to what we saw in 2008, thanks to Bush’s failed economic policies. Again, this could happen quite quickly once numbnuts is in office. Economies are global.
Then, there’s the immigration issue. Again, referencing this morning’s Times, which seems to have a better handle on domestic issues than other sources at the moment, Michelle Goldberg warns “If You Thought Trump Wasn’t Serious, Look at His First Appointments.” She points toward the same issues brought up in another article, “Trump Hires Show His Intent To Carry Out Immigration Crackdown.” What it all comes down to is Tom Holman and Stephen Miller, both of whom have a deep-seated hatred for immigrants. Holman has already said that “No one’s off the table in the next administration,” and yesterday confirmed that workplace raids would resume. Miller has said that Trump would cancel the temporary protected status of thousands of Afghans who fled here after the Taliban’s takeover. This is also the jackass who is in favor of using the National Guard to arrest migrants en masse. Want to see our national economy crumble? Take away all immigrants. The effect will be immediate.
With markers like that, how can we not worry? And to make matters worse, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is warning that the presidential transition team “is already breaking the law.” Sen. Warren would know because she wrote the applicable law! If there were any sign of the incoming corruption, this is it, written in neon and flashing brightly against a dark sky.
So, while we may not be able to accurately predict the exact events of the coming administration, we can predict the effects of those events and it is not going to be good. Even the people who voted for him, many thinking that his campaign rhetoric was hyperbole, are going to suffer. There’s no escaping the negative results of his plans. Our only hope is that the idiot suffers a heart attack or stroke that renders him ‘unable to fulfill the duties of his office.’ Perhaps a President Vance would gut current appointments and replace them with a more moderate selection. Or not. Again, we can’t see the future.
Not everything in the world is negative. I’m thrilled to report that 13 monkeys are still on the loose in South Carolina. Researchers have only been able to capture the majority because they were still in groups. The remaining escapees are more likely to be venturing out on their own. I wish them (the monkeys) the best.
Beyoncé and her legacy will be the subject of a new course at Yale. Of course, to take the class you have to actually be admitted as a student to Yale. Good luck with that. Still, the fact that the class exists is enough to rile right-wing nut jobs and that makes me happy.
Oh, this is fun: The UK has a deer problem. The current estimated deer population now tops two million. That’s a problem for a relatively small island nation. Complicating matters is that gun ownership in the country is extremely rare and difficult to obtain. While the government’s “solution” is to try and convince the people who eat the most bland food in the world that venison is good, no one has said who’s going to actually hunt down all those deer. Trust me, once a few are killed, the rest will go into hiding.
Oh, the big news locally is the conviction of Richard Allen on all counts related to the murders of two teenage girls. This conviction has taken forever as both the prosecution and defense have fucked around with evidence and judges for too many years before ever going to trial. Will there be an appeal? Oh yeah. Allen’s wife was heard saying on her way out of the courthouse, “This is far from over.” With all the pre-trial stupidity that went on, there’s plenty of likely ground for it to be overturned, and if that happens the prosecution is almost certain to appeal the appeal. I’ll probably be dead before a final verdict is ever reached.
Saks Fifth Avenue’s holiday light display in Manhattan is changing up this season. One of the seasonal thrills of living in New York this time of year, besides the big tree at Rockefeller Center, is “window shopping” the holidays at Manhattan’s biggest stores. Saks is celebrating its 100th anniversary by lighting the whole building, not just the windows. Unfortunately, my broke ass can’t be there to take pictures. Perhaps someone (looking at you, Joe Lombardo), can slip over and take some photos for us. I’m sure it is a marvelous sight to behold.
Is that enough to distract us from the horrors that are about to unfold? Momentarily, perhaps, but reality still lingers in the back of our minds no matter how much colorful joy we try to put upfront. For now, I’ll eat breakfast and take my meds like a good boy, then probably take a nap because that’s what I do best now. I slept from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM yesterday. I even missed my 2:00 alarm. I don’t enjoy this cancerous existence at all.
But hey, the coffee’s hot.
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