Since the 45th President of the United States took office I have been in an almost constant state of outrage about the conduct of the US government. In fact, I'm not sure "almost' is appropriate. Every day it is something new, there's no time to process yesterday's outrage, today's outrage from this administration and their congressional enablers simply displaces yesterday's incident from my attention. There's never time to come to terms with any of it.
Outrage is not really an emotion. Fear is an emotion, sadness is an emotion, joy is an emotion. These things are directly experienced. Outrage requires thinking. Fear is felt in my chest, sadness in my throat, joy in my belly. These are direct experiences I'm sure I've been having since before I could speak or think in words.
Outrage requires the violation of a norm or a principal; some rule has to be broken. One can be sad or angry because they didn't receive a phone call from a loved one on some random day. Not receiving a call on your birthday, or on some anniversary, or when you've experienced some tragic loss, sparks outrage. The rhetorical calling card of outrage is "how could they.....?"
Outrage is also a defense, a way to obscure from one's view a deeper, more painful emotion. If one stays in outrage, one stays confused. To take the phone call example, the last time I was outraged someone didn't make a call, underneath my outrage was much more painful information about the state of the relationship in question. The fact that I did not receive this call was an important signal, something I needed to know, but I didn't see that until my outrage had time to settle.
There's been no time for my outrage about the 45th President to settle. Until this sesshin.
This sesshin last weekend my first since Obama was President.
Sesshin practice requires silence, and part of the silence required is a temporary cessation of contact with any news media. My phone gets powered down, there's no TV, no newspapers, and no radio from start until finish. That might not have been enough by itself, but since I was spending about 16 hours a day in some form of meditation my mind quickly settled and revealed to me what all this outrage about the conduct of my government was obscuring from my view.
I am heartbroken. I am utterly, completely and devastatingly heartbroken over what has happened to my country. I grew up with Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr and witnessing the advent of Medicare, civil rights legislation and moon-shots. When I was young the US was a beacon of hope for all the world's people, not just our citizens. We had a lot of problems, many things needed fixing, but the overall arc of American progress was towards compassion, wisdom and generosity for all of humanity.
Now the United States government is a risk to world security. Now it's a place that the less fortunate fear. As incredibly impossible to me as it sounds, I am truly considering permanent immigration to an English-speaking democracy with a national health system. What I discovered this weekend is that what is motivating me isn't outrage. I'm not rage-quitting the US because I am disappointed my candidate didn't win in 2016. It's much deeper than that. I am so, so heartbroken.
I haven't lost faith in the American people. The people in this country are the same wise, compassionate and generous people who have made me so proud over my lifetime to count myself among them. Three million more of those people voted for the person who did not take office in 2016.
I have lost faith in what our system of government has become. I truly fear these wise, compassionate and generous people I have been so proud to live among my entire life have lost control of their government. The people in this country want things they can't get their government to even attempt to act upon. They want DACA immigrants protected, they want sensible gun legislation, they want everyone to have health care and make enough money to live on. This government can't deliver any of that.
So, I'm heartbroken. I fear the American experiment is over after a two-hundred and fifty year run. It will take some time to dismantle, but the process is underway. Like my friends who have been dealing with the pain of divorce, I fear that I am going to have to leave. Not because I wanted this, not because this is what I had planned, but because I honestly fear my differences are irreconcilable.
I was wondering about this because I generally don't take huge, life-altering decisions out of anger. I have been unable to talk myself out of my desire to live somewhere else in the same way that I'm always able to talk myself out of rage-quitting a job or withdrawing from a personal relationship in anger.
This is the value of zen practice for me. Sitting and staring at a wall without the exposure to today's outrage from the government cleared the smoke.
I'm still not sure I'm going to do it. I have a lot of information to gather first and it's going to take some time to do that. I don't know what the right thing is.
I do know the answer will come.
