As my mom keeps pointing out, it’s pretty strange that people say “Happy Memorial Day.” Nonetheless, I’m sending lots of love and gratitude to anyone taking today to mourn a loved one who served our country (or to mourn anyone, really).
It’s been a surreal day. Last Memorial Day I was getting surgery on my foot, we were still under rigid lockdown, and George Floyd was killed. Today, I feel like the entire South was having one big cookout. Figuring out how to process the year between these two holidays feels...overwhelming. But I am trying because the tensions are starting to feel too great. The tension between our national unmasking and the continued crisis in other parts of the world. Between the incredible losses so many people I care about are still processing or in the midst of, and all of the “gifts of the pandemic,” which are real, too.
Everything is weird, is what I’m trying to say. I also drove all day and traffic was tight. I’m extra tired. I hope this week’s newsletter is even moderately decently edited.
I can’t stop thinking about: the shoulds
I finally started listening to Oprah’s “Super Soul” podcast! My first episode was with Oprah and Martha Beck discussing the central idea of Beck’s The Way of Integrity: most of the mental anguish that we bring upon ourselves is due to fighting the truth. This could be a known truth from the outside world or our own internal truth.
To demonstrate the premise, Beck invited Oprah to test if something in her life was in tension with her truth. “Tell me three things you are planning to do tomorrow,” Beck said. Oprah said she would be conducting an interview, having a movie night with Stedman, and taking a walk. “What do you feel in your body?” Beck asked. The interview made her feel calm; she was looking forward to it. The movie night, however, brought immediate physical tension. The reason? Stedman always falls asleep, which Oprah finds maddening. She feels a duty to stay awake because of all of the hard work put into the film’s creation. Because she feels this way, she resents Stedman and Gayle and everyone else who sleeps through movies.
Beck tried to show Oprah her underlying should, the tyranny to a belief that made her insist upon this ritual. At one point, movie night was purely about spending time with Stedman. But now it provided her with little comfort, led to resentment, and probably ruined the movie as well. All because of her belief that everyone should respect movies the way she does.
Shoulds are powerful.
I spent much of my own Saturday fighting several of my deeply held shoulds, including two biggies:
I shouldn’t work after hours or on weekends
I should be sociable
On the surface, those don’t sound unreasonable. That’s where shoulds get their power, though; they are reasonable. But they’re also based on flawed or outdated information.
When I found myself burned out and isolated years ago, I had to retrain myself to put physical and time boundaries around work. I created cues to stop working and demanded that I stick to them: start cooking or go to dinner by 7 pm; have a glass of wine to signal the end of the day; do not open my laptop late at night or on the weekend no matter what.
These are good, reasonable boundaries... except that since I no longer suffer that level of burnout, I don’t necessarily need to be so rigid. But I can’t let go of these rituals, which creates chaos when I want to work on a side project or do a little work at night. Why can’t I let go? These boundaries serve an even bigger core should that I hold: that life shouldn’t be all about work. There’s a natural tension between this very strong should and the reality that I actually really like working. Note that this does not mean I always like my 9-5! Work means lots of things. I love working towards goals I’m passionate about and working to improve our world. Do I want to burn out again? Never. But burnout and working when I want to are two different things.
When it comes to being sociable, I often undervalue my own preferences and don’t listen to my reasonable feelings about social engagements. I have several strong beliefs and shoulds about being sociable: I must seek out social opportunities; being sociable is the desired state; I should fight my attempts to pass on a social engagement because that’s just me hiding.
Well, if the past year has taught me anything, it’s that I actually do know what social things I want to do and which ones I don’t. I also know who I want to see more of and who I don’t. But because I have a deep, core belief about a preference for solitude being a negative thing, I keep forcing myself to do things I know I don’t want to do.
It all goes back to the same things we’ve been talking about in this newsletter. Trusting your feelings about a thing, and then not fighting with yourself for having those feelings. They may not be what other people think you should feel or do, and sometimes that itself is the cause of the tension. Or, it may just mean that you’re not who you thought you wanted others to think you are.
At the end of the episode, Oprah vowed that movie nights would be much different going forward. But, Beck seemed to be encouraging her to see about canceling the movie nights altogether. I know how hard it is to cancel a ritual, but I also seek the freedom that comes once you do.
Says the woman still editing this newsletter at midnight and fighting with herself for “working” so late 🙃.
I had a great week on the internet
Laughing
Diddy re-emerged (well, re-emerged in my life, not in life overall) on Throwback Thursday with some shade towards all the boys J.Lo has ever loved. It was wonderfully petty. Also, while on his IG, I could not help but notice that he has perhaps never looked better??
Cracker Barrel was trending on Twitter yesterday and it was really, really worth it. “One wrong move and you for sale” 😭
Angry
National Parks Should Belong to Native Americans (The Atlantic). I listened to this instead of reading it and was blown away.
Samaria Rice Has No Desire to Be a 'Mother of the Movement' (The Cut). My favorite read of the week.
ICYMI: The New York Times has a great interactive feature on the Tulsa Massacre: What the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed.
I'm Tired of Trying to Educate White People About Anti-Asian Racism (Time). Such a wonderful read. The author says that she was out buying safety whistles for herself and her daughters when she finally let herself feel her anger and weariness.
A New Study Shows Us the Single Biggest Motivation for the Jan. 6 Rioters | Amanpour and Company (video). They were shocked that fear of the “great replacement” of whites by people of color in the US was the biggest motivator for riot participation on January 6th. I was...not shocked.
Covered Eyes, Broken Hearts, So Much to Lose: The Hypocrisy of Texas’ Latest Abortion Ban (The Remix). Eesha Pandit’s latest on what “pro-life” does and doesn’t mean in Texas and everywhere.
Applauding
I am eagerly waiting for this to go Naomi Osaka’s way. Everyone saying “it’s part of the sport” is confusing me because saying certain painful things are “just part of X thing” is something I’m running out of room for: Naomi Osaka Won't Do Interviews at the French Open for a Very Good Reason (Self) and Naomi Osaka Quits the French Open After News Conference Dispute (NYTimes).
I love it that Hillary Clinton is a clap-backer on Twitter:
A good day for life on Earth (Heated Substack). Just read it!
On the pandemic
I loved this article on why getting “back into society” is just so unappealing. It’s not because of fear or shrinking into the smallest, homebodiest version of ourselves; it’s because it’s the end of a “grace period,” a time when everyone got to just do the best they actually could at that moment, even if that best was falling apart. I’m Not Scared to Reenter Society. I’m Just Not Sure I Want To (The Atlantic)
Opinion | Covid's Increasing Spread Is a Global Threat (New York Times). A look at why there may be more COVID deaths globally if even now, when we have vaccines, we don’t do something fast about vaccine access. And yet, here in the US, we’re in the incentive phase of getting people to take the shot: Ohio’s vaccine lottery is a winner no matter what (Vox).
The Sudden Rise of the Coronavirus Lab-Leak Theory (New Yorker). Here’s a good read for anyone wanting to get their head wrapped around the timeline for the COVID lab-leak theory.
See ya next week, lovelies
Next week’s newsletter might be a little sparse; I’m having a medical procedure later this week and if I’m still loopy over the weekend then y’all might just get a lot of screenshots. Don’t worry, you’ll love them.
Take good care of yourself. And I know HBO Max is expensive out here on these streets so FIND A WAY to access it for at least seven hours and get into Mare of Easttown. The limited series ended last night and I’m already about to re-watch it next week.
Stay safe
<3
Sam