I want to believe I can sort it all out.

Read enough. Follow enough threads. Demonstrate enough curiosity about geo-politics, economics, media, technology—and eventually the whole picture will resolve into something coherent. A story I can hold in my head. I keep pulling threads, hoping the next one will be the one that ties everything together.

Recently I pulled a thread about civilizational collapse. With all the talk of American decline and authoritarian resurgence, I got curious: what actually happened when the last great hegemony disappeared? What was life like after Rome fell? I expected the revisionist take: “it wasn’t that bad, actually; what you learned in school is mostly myth.” That seems to be how these investigations go lately.

I never got there. Something else hijacked my attention.

If you like movies, and enjoy testing your memory, check out “Framed”. You’re shown a still frame, and you guess what movie it’s from. If you get it wrong, another frame comes up. You get six tries (frames).

It’s designed to look best on a phone, and only takes a minute or two (unless you agonize over your guesses). It’s perfect for those little corners of your day when you want a quick mental break, without going down a rabbit hole.

There’s only one movie per day, with each new one coming out at midnight. It’s fun to involve your friends—either collaborating, or competing for the fewest guesses. Hit me up if you want to compare notes!

There have been a few house flies in my office and kitchen in the last few weeks. They fly at my face, or land on my hands. I rage. I’ve been killing them with rolled up magazines.

Then, it crossed my mind that these little beasts are probably amazing. Sure enough, a researcher in North Carolina spent a couple years painstakingly capturing slo-mo footage of flies he found in his area, and it’s captivating! Some points that grabbed me:

• Flies all have a set of gyroscopic wings behind their main wings.
• Many of the flies stick their front legs out in front of their head, in the Superman pose!
• The are many categories of flies of which only a fraction have been scientifically described.
• The larvae that get airborne with no legs or wings. Pop!

Just try watching this video without getting to the end.

There are people that care about me, and certainly people who I’ve annoyed—often those are the same people. Is it ok that we talk about each other when we’re not together?

I like to talk about people I know. It helps me process my own thoughts. To digest interactions.

This came up in a recent New York Times opinion feature titled “The Virtues of Being Bad”. On the topic of “Gossip”:

If you’re reading this and are among our loved ones, know that your personal life is a regular topic of discussion in our house: your marriage, your divorce, your childhood, your parenthood, your transgression that one time in college. It mostly comes from a place of sincere interest and care: Loving you makes me want to tell stories about you.

This resonated with me. I talk about people I care about. Conversely, I can imagine people talk about me when I’m not around. And I like to think I’m ok with that.

They should be able to rehash our interactions outside of my hearing. To be clear: I don’t ever want to hear what they’re saying about me. That might be the worst, and those conversations are private. But when done thoughtfully, they can be an important part of healthy, involved relationships.

I often talk about a person when I have an unpleasant feeling about something they’ve said or done, and that feeling is out of line with how I want to feel about that person. Talking about it lets me express and examine my initial basic, unwanted feelings, move toward integrating the episode, and eventually crystalize the language I will use to talk to the person.

The conversations I have about other people are usually a kind of rehearsal, and the point arrives when I will tell them what I’ve been saying in their absence. To my mind, this is key. When I notice that I’ve mentioned the same point about someone in private several times, I know I need to bring it to them.

I choose to believe that how someone speaks about me—or to me—in my presence reflects their true regard for our relationship. What they say about me in my absence is none of my business. They’ll come to me once they know what they want to say.

What do you do when someone you care about is involved in a conflict?

For most of my life, I thought the right thing to do was to identify some middle ground and stand there. I felt like it was my job to understand all parties, and then explain them to one another. At times I even thought this might be my “superpower”. People I respected told me they admired my ability to “translate”. This applied to friendships, and board meetings.

This strategy felt so “right”. I felt like I had empathy, for everyone. I felt like I had a deep respect for the subjectivity of everyone’s experience. My idealistic view was that if we could just understand each other’s perspectives, conflict would end in hugs and tearful reconciliation.

I no longer believe in this strategy. In fact, I’m now skeptical of “neutrality”. My instinct to “stay neutral” was wrong.

When someone is in pain, they need to know I’m on their side. Staying “neutral” helps no one. The only purpose it serves is to help me feel like I’m outside a conflict. To feel like everyone is my friend. To keep everything, and risk nothing. I’ve found it to be a kind of rationalized selfishness.

I came across an article, “Neutrality is Invalidation”. Something came in to focus for me.

We may make the mistake of thinking we need to stay “neutral,” but in doing so, we betray those who need and deserve to be seen, heard, and supported. 

I found that insightful in the interpersonal realm. But the article was written in 2020, and in that context, also explores the issue of “neutrality” at the societal level.

Answering Black Lives Matter with “All Lives Matter” is another example of a defense. It may seem inclusive, and no one could argue with its basic truth, but it’s the sort of argument we make when we haven’t carefully considered the problem. We’ve failed to take another person’s perspective. It’s clearly invalidating. “All lives” are obviously not at risk for police violence.

Similarly, on a cultural level, if we, as White people, aren’t compassionately connected to our own varied stories of invalidation, we can’t imagine the more extreme experiences of the oppressed, and we won’t be able to connect with those who are raging against our society’s abuses. 

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(Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash)