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ACUTE ATTITUDE ILLNESS AND SURVIVAL OF OUR SPIRITS

Updated: Oct 29


I found an article in a recent online Journal of the American Medical Association that I thought was entitled "ACUTE ATTITUDE ILLNESS", but on second look, it was in fact entitled: "Acute Altitude Illness".


I was amused by the obvious mistake. I didn't read on because my main themes here are music and poetry. Those do not usually encompass or cause severe migraine headaches, nausea, sleepiness, and worse as often happens when we journey to elevations of 10,000 feet and above (assuming we don't normally reside that high up).


What did pop to mind when I first realized my mistake, were the migraine headaches, nausea, sleeplessness, hopelessness, and worse I've been especially suffering for the past few months due to our political situation: acute attitude illness to be sure!


Those maladies and more started around 2015 or 2016 from the quite evident and ginormous tsunami of anger in individuals, the community, the country, and the world. I noted and became curious about anger expressed online and in person. Whoopie Goldberg on "The View" TV show on October 28, noted that "everyone is walking down the street pissed all the time".


During the pandemic there were few CHP and police officers out and about enforcing traffic laws on the streets and highways when anger and law-breaking were and remain noteworthy in dangerous, out-of-control driving. Then there were unredressed threats of harm and even death to many political officials just doing their job the best they could, and to anyone simply speaking their mind about almost any topic.


Recently I admitted to myself and a number of others (and herein) that I don't recognize a country I have lived and thrived in as a woman of 80 years of age, and that now I feel like an alien living in an alien land. Where did my country go?


Anger, hostility to "others", and vengeance were and are exemplified, amplified, and authorized in politics and actually, anywhere anytime for anyone who might be so inclined and needing to blame others, by the words and actions of "Number 45 and Would-be Number 47", that is, by our American Anti-Humanist-in-Chief.


Judged by the litany of comments that are posted after my favorite rational political blogs, many of us are suffering depression from our newish Society of Maximum Anger. Most of my friends are self-defined humanists, feminists, and pro-feminist male supporters who admit that we are living in a state of deepening depression. Je l'admit. Indeed, I've been suffering physical fall-out in my gut and spirit that goes far beyond common malaise.  (Check out the unlikely humanist, pro-feminist Tennessee Brando's amazing blogs including his October 28 blog on "soft ball questions" for No. 45 by Joe Rogan, and the "golden opportunity that he missed").


Of those who consistently use "war words" and express anger, irrationality, and who "other" others including immigrants, few seem to realize what a writer in The Marginalian said --cogent words that are worth considering carefully:


"The dual awareness of our improbable life and our inevitable death is what allows us to animate the interlude with love and beauty, with poems and fairy tales and poems, with general relativity and Nina Simone. It is what puts into perspective just how fleeting and vacant and self-embittering all of our angers and blames and resentments are in the end — what beckons us, instead, to “leave something of sweetness and substance in the mouth of the world.”


Now there's an idea for you: to "leave something of sweetness and substance" behind us when we go. In order to do that, we must quit with the war words and anger.


The beautiful Nina, whom I have loved since the 1960s when she came to national popularity and my attention, says it well in her song, "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free". I tear up every time I watch her sing it in the powerful video above, which I hope you watch, too. She concludes by wishing that you:


"Be transformed by the renewing of your mind...."


In these darkened political times I wish the same for you -- and for me. I want -- no need -- this depression to end!


And of course, I hope you vote (voted) as I did for our next President and Vice President, the rational pair of adults among us: Harris and Walz.


Then maybe we can get back to renewing our mind, feeling free, and making and enjoying music again.

***

TIRED WE BE (unpub. poem)


Tired we be, our dying breed

that quickly fades to grey

and rues the things our parents did

though they be far away.


Midst anger and the vengeance

that stalks the world at large,

endangering souls with vain impunity

that foretells of a coming purge,


Some things are clear for our salvation

and solace for jangled souls:

we must hold tightly to like-minded friends

who speak out for weak or bold,


And cherish the values as born in us

with credit to those now passed,

set aside small differences and bigger egos

to reaffirm what lasts:


Good wills, intentions, and earnest efforts,

the grief and struggles all fear

as shown by those resonating with

the music that we hear,


And support in love what they do

but mostly who they are,

kind souls brought here, we know not why

nor should we ever fear.

###

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