At first I was afraid…
When people think of MLK Jr’s quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” they might believe that progress is continuous, ever on the upswing. Thusly:
Perceived increase in justice over time
Those people have forgotten their histories.
I believe the arc of the moral universe does bend toward justice. Or, the evolution of the anglo-American existence bends towards progress. Are they one in the same? Not for me to decide. But the graph of progress is for me to decide, and that graph looks like this:
Evolution of American thought and culture
And where are we, currently?
Welp! Here we are…
Doing better than we have in the past, but not as well as we’ll do in the future. And between now and then I believe it’s going to get worse. Not incredibly worse, but worse just the same.
So how do we survive? I have some ideas.
Put down your phone. These little computers we carry with us are designed to grab and keep our attention. It’s a losing battle. As an example: Meta, Facebook’s parent company, spent $42.209 billion (Billion!) on research and development through September of 20241. And while some of that R&D was spent on code platforms and that sort of thing, a not insignificant portion was spent to find new and improved ways to keep you glued to your phone. And that plus all the other R&D spending by Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and every other little company icon you have on your home screen means it’s incredibly hard to put the thing away. Or to use it for just one thing. So what can you do? Make it unfun. I use the accessibility setting to set my phone’s display to grayscale. Nothing like seeing a sea of drab, gray icons to put you off scrolling for a while.
Stop with the speculating and worry. Putting down the phone will help. And being conscious of how news now works will help, too. On August 5, 2024, after the Nikkei index dropped 12%, headlines at the Wall Street Journal all had a similar flavor: “Is This 1987 All Over Again? What’s Driving the Market Meltdown?” My first thought? Headlines like this! Journalism has become irresponsible as the desperate need for attention (read: online ad revenue) means grabbing people’s eyeballs (see above) is much more important than delivering anything resembling researched journalism. Add to that the slate of billionaire owners of many American newspapers, and you have a bevy of publications whose motivations are worthy of a little side eye. I’m not saying eschew these outlets altogether, but take a second to read the first couple paragraphs at least2.
Pick a thing. It’s easy to get lost in the jumble of it all. World events, domestic turmoil, the price of eggs (up nearly 30% between August 2023 and August 20243), average interest rates, whether or not someone is going to vandalize your car based on your bumper stickers, and etc. and etc. and etc. Add to that jumble the jumble’s own desperate need to keep you stuck inside it, and it’s tough to get any kind of breathing room. So you gotta pick something. Something you can do and that you can control. I picked art and food. Art because I believe we need to nourish our souls and food because we need to nourish our bodies. I give $20 a month each to the Gainesville Fine Arts Association and to the Food4Kids backpack program. The first because they’ve been nice to me and I like the gallery, the second because Alachua county has a 20% poverty rate, which means that if you meet five people during the day in Alachua county, then one of those people is probably living below the poverty line. And that means their kids are never quite certain where their next meal is coming from. I can’t abide that kind of uncertainty. And so I give to the program that supplements school food with weekend food, which should help some families to better themselves overall. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.
More and more we’re encouraged towards unconscious behavior by a giant machine that’s spent billions (at least) of dollars to make us consume. I don’t know how many times I’ve lay down to sleep, decided to check TikTok “for just a second” and then spent 60 minutes scrolling and refreshing TikTok. How many ads do I see during that time? Couldn’t tell you. But they’re there. And that’s the overt technique. The covert technique is designed to make you feel shitty. Or afraid. Or uncertain. Or unsatisfied. Or many of the myriad emotions you can relieve (temporarily) through purchases.
So...yeah. Things are tough. And they are designed to seem tougher. Take a breath, square your shoulders. Think, I see you... And know that like Gloria Gaynor before you, you will survive.
That is all. (for now)
-GT
