Dichotomies are killing us

I'm just going to come out and say it: there are more options for faith than fundementalist or atheist. Gay or straight. Healthy or not. Smart or not. Democrat or Republican. Good or bad. Rich or poor. Normal or damaged.

I try to avoid news, because it's depressing, slanted, sensationalistic and whatever else, but it seems like everything everywhere is telling me that there's only two options for everything. Either you're all the way on one side, or you're all the way on the other, and that's just stupid. It sets up an antagonism that doesn't need to be there, and makes everyone feel like they have to strive to be one side or the other, when the better option is usually closer to the middle.

I hate to tell the One-Option-Only-ists, but there's middle-of-the-road Christianity, and there's Agnosticism, and there's any number of other choices between fundie and atheist. There are people who sometimes fall for the opposite of their usual orientation, and people who have no preference, and people who have specific requirements for attraction that don't depend on gender. There are people who are works in progress, and health, especially, is a constantly-moving target, something always in flux. There are people who are very smart in one way and not at all in another, and there are people who know a lot and test poorly, and people who have other scales entirely that they value. There are political affiliations that aren't the Two Big Parties, and that's what it's supposed to be like. There are people who strive to be better than they are, and those who don't know yet that they can be, and those who consider themselves very ethical inside their particular worlds, regardless of how the rest of society sees them. There are still middle class people out there, and people who don't buy into the class thing at all, and people who are on their way up or down, and people who don't really care one way or the other.

And there is no such thing as Normal. It's a false ideal.

The point is that people trying to fit one side or the other, more often than anyone wants to believe, wind up lopping off or denying or hiding large portions of what matters to them and who they are, which destroys all attempts at personal authenticity and self-knowledge. In fact, it makes even attempting authenticity an issue and a struggle that keeps people from even trying.

Worse, it sets up a world where everyone is always at war and no one is trying to find peace, and that gets amplified into a culture that butts heads with everyone and can't meet in the middle, into a culture where people never learn to get along with others, where children grow up radiacals and reinforce the separation that isn't necessary and is actually damaging everything.

I'm doing my best to stay in the gray areas in between.

How about you?

Musing: Do I have to trade not being depressed for being well-informed?

I'm under stress* and that probably makes me more likely to be depressive anyway, and also to be jaded and pessimistic, but I keep running up against this question. Watching and reading the news gives me panic attacks and stomach aches--I don't need to know the exact details of how crappy the world situation is to understand that it's crappy. But when I outright avoid the news for my own sanity, I miss the important world events that everyone is talking about, the things that actually do apply to me in some way other than just, say, making me horrified to be human.

And have you noticed, the people who are the best informed are also usually bitter--or angry all the time over everything--or half-crazy with drastic ideas on how to fix it? I don't want to be any of those things, and I have a tendency to at least the last one already, and it's a bad space for my mind to be in.

So I'm left with this: am i obligated to sacrifice mental balance to know what's going on around me? Because that's what the whole news system feels like it's telling me--if I'm happy, it's just because I didn't know that there was this new genocide, this new environmental collapse sign, this new political threat.

And I don't buy that. I don't think the purpose of the news is to scare people, though that seems to be exactly what they're aiming to do these days. I don't think I should have to daily consume exactly what I know will drive me off the wall when I'm already barely keeping it together with my own life. I don't think that internalizing someone else's biases is good for me.

But when I don't, it's like I've missed out on a huge chunk of the country's shared consciousness.

How do you solve this problem?



*We're moving. Again. And the babysitting hours are getting longer, which makes them harder. And I still have very little income and less and less in my bank account. And I'm getting over a cold. And I'm coming up on the deadline for my next fifty pages.

musings: the life i want

I have been very busy of late, probably over-busy based on how hard it is to stay asleep and how much difficulty I'm having just sitting down to read the books I need to read. But I'm starting to figure out more of what I want out of life.

For one, first and foremost, I've discovered that I don't care if I have to have arm surgery later on: writing is definitely all I want to do. I mean, I want to eke out time to craft and make and redecorate, I want to have the money to travel and see new things and not get left behind when friends invite me places because I just can't afford them, but I want it all to be because I'm writing. I made a list the other day of all the books I have lined up in my head, waiting to be written. There were twelve just off the top of my head, and that's not even counting sequels and half-thought-out probably-novels, or Wolfe and Raven which informed me that now it wants to be a webseries (10 x 6 minute episodes, probably four seasons).

I want a house somewhere with weather I like and enough land to plant several gardens where roses will grow. And cannas. And lillies. And lilacs. And a big ol' victorian-style greenhouse where I can grow oranges and lemons and let them out into the sun in the summer like they do in Italian Villas. I want a house I can stay in, where I can plant my poor sickly pine tree in the ground and know that I'll still be living there so he can thrive. Where I can have / get kids and plant a tree for each of them, too, and start a forest dedicated to my family.

I want to decorate from Ikea and Urban Outfitters, yes, but I also want to find beautiful antiques that people don't know the value of-- a velvet fainting couch, a canopied bed (especially if it's a Chinese wedding bed!), an old wash-basin stand. I want to gather trinkets and art pieces from everywhere I've been and display them properly. I want a house full of color and eclectic wonderfulness. My sister once described my bedroom as a treasure-box, said there was always something more to look at; I want a whole house like that.

I'm not terribly picky about who lives in the house with me. I don't necessarily need a husband, and even if I get one, he would have to be very special for me to want to live with him. I'm getting far too indipendent and unusual in my advancing age.

I think I want a writing cottage. I want my books and my desk and my working computer to be somewhere separated from the house, a little beautiful thing that's only for me, where I can hole up when deadlines are tight and I need the separation from distractions.

I think I want to dance. And I want space to dance in. I might even want an audience. I definitely want classes.

I want to never have to learn how to drive. Which means I want a big-girl bike that can get my longer distances with a lot less trouble and uncertainty. I love my baby-bike, but it's just too slow and too rickety for the long haul.

I want to carry my babies on my back and plant my own food and live somewhere where the cats can go in and out as they please without having to worry about cars and dogs and diseases. I want to make my own furniture and do it well and love doing it. I want to publish more than one book a year, every year, until I die or I go mad, and even then still have seven or ten or twenty books written and waiting, started, planned out, that others can finish and publish. I want my house to always be surrounded by nature and full of people I love, talented, opinionated, beautiful, glamourous, wonderful people who laugh and cook and drink wine and home-made ales. I want to raise kids in that atmosphere. I want to change the world just a little bit. I want to be famous enough to never have to be poor again. I want to give back to the community with a scholarship and maybe some community funding, like a garden project or something. I want to start a school and save a publisher and edit anthologies. I want to visit friends who live far away, and maybe sometimes live far away myself, but always have this one beautiful house to come home to.

And you know what? Sometimes, I feel like I'm getting there.