Insight from a Psychotherapist: Can I get a hit?
It’s not great news when a country is bombed by another, whatever the provocation or result. There were outraged headlines coming out of all orifices this week at the news that the US had bombed Syria.
As someone who does not wake up to a Security Briefing, I’m not going to sum up the reasons why that happened. I don’t know why our military felt this was the best course of action, but here we are, outraged.
Trump plans to run again in 2024. Outraged.
A conservative white woman is outraged by the existence of racial sensitivity education. A liberal, white woman is #outraged by the lack of it.
There are myriad reasons to be outraged this week. And yet, the world has not stopped. We still go to work. We still engage in activities that go against medical advice. We still love our families. We still crave touch. But we are so angry while we do it.
We are, it seems, collectively jonesing for the surge of adrenaline anger brings. Trump on mute has made our dopamine levels dangerously low..we need that hit..of…what is it, exactly? Righteousness? Knowing it all-ness? Rain-er on the parade-er by-proxy?
I have lost acumen over this year of quarantine. Those of us with the safety and luxury of time (at home) have absorbed so much content and are utterly convinced that our bias is the one pure vision. And yet, here we are, mixing it up in the world, with a bunch of assholes who dont follow the rules we do, who don’t care about our needs, who don’t care about anything; except how they are going to feed their kids, or their egos.
Is Gwyneth Paltrow qualified to give nutritional advice? No, but don’t comment on the very real illness of Orthorexia or the wrath of nutritional ‘Instagram Experts’ will rain upon you.
While we are catering to the outliers, opining from extreme positions, I fear we will land, inevitably, nowhere new; unable to please everyone with the inelegant compromise (all great changes rest and are built upon), we will accept indignant complacency.
I’m not looking for perfection in this crazy world but some rational, considered nuance would sure give me a hit of the oxytocin I desperately crave.
