Dear Diary Moment 3/20/2020:
Throughout my process in which I have either been engaged with, or fully immersed, in culture and the creative act (in my teens, I thought it my manifest destiny to become a rockstar), I have tended to get some of the best advice from sources outside of the cultural high end. For instance, the best advice I ever got on the creative act actually came from an interview of a famous cook. As he pointed out: the main ingredient of a good cook (excuse the pun (is a good taster. And how could that not apply to the creative act no matter what medium?
But the one that haunts me now seems relevant to the very surreal situation we find ourselves in now. Like most people, I have gone through some really shitty phases. And with those phases always came a tendency to try to assert my will, to find some scheme that could make things work for me when the forces described by chaotics seemed to be working against me. And it always ended the same: me surrendering to the situation (of letting go of the wheel (or what Alan Watts simply referred to as “letting go” in a Taoist sense. Sometimes the only way out is through; right?
But for all my effort, what finally set me on the right path was a documentary about people trapped in snow storms. Social scientists did a study on it and came up with a survivor MO. It comprised of an individual that looked at their situation and didn’t waste energy on assigning blame. It was an individual that looked at their situation and determined that it really didn’t matter whose fault it was. All they needed to know was that they were in a situation that they had to deal with and that if they just kept trudging forward, one way or the other, it would pass.
And this is why Trump’s attempts to make COVID-19 a “Chinese disease” are not only misguided but counter-productive. Sure: it started in China. But the scientific narrative is that a group of cold viruses found each other, felt that itch, had an orgy and made a baby. And even less productive is this idea of punishing everyday Asians for it. I think that drunk guy on a bus harassing an Asian woman should redirect his energy. He should go to China, get as drunk as he was in the video, and take his issues up with the authoritarian regime that participated in the cover-up that actually did participate in the situation we are dealing with. I mean even if that poor young lady was Chinese (even if she was from China), she would have been as much a victim of the cover-up as we are.
Once again: sometimes the only way out is through. And one way or the other we will get beyond it. Leave the blame for the historians.