Get a grip!

This is a hard post to write. I keep coming back to it, wanting to say something, to vent some feelings, but then hesitating because it feels too self-indulgent. This blog is usually focused on externalities, not so much on inner feelings, but these are not normal times.

Simple truth is, I’ve not been doing too good these past few days.

The realization came during the week when one of my team leads talked about their regular team check-in that day. One of the team mentioned having difficulty sleeping. The events in America dragged up memories of personal experience of racial abuse. In talking it through, other members of the team opened up and shared their own stories. It turned out every single one of them, in one way or another, was struggling to process what is going on in the world at the moment, especially in the US.

At the team leads level, we wondered how much more distress was lying hidden beneath the surface among ourselves and our colleagues. In discussing the emotional impact of extraordinary stories, one after another, day after day, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion.

And I realized, I’m not okay.

That feeling of being overwhelmed and helpless persists. It reawakens with every new story of someone somewhere getting hurt or abused. I am fortunate that it’s not affecting my sleep - yet - but I struggle to focus on anything productive during my waking hours, and tears are never far from the surface.

I am struggling with anguish at the scenes of violence, both on the mob and the individual level. I despair at the peaceful protests turning ugly, often through deliberate instigation of people who have no interest in the protestors’ message. And I am brimming over with anger at the attempts by the powerful to bully a population into submission.

The world has gone mad.

Underlying that is a long-held fury at the systemic abuse of power the 1% “haves” wield over the 99% by the open manipulation of levers of power in their favor, whether it’s passing legislation that favors their rich donors, healthcare and other benefits they award themselves while denying others the same, gerrymandering and manipulating election practices to hamper voting by those they don’t want to have a voice, and a host of other dirty tricks.

This is a bubble that has been waiting to burst.

There is no excuse for the many acts we’ve seen the police commit over the past week.

Equally, there is no excuse for rioting and looting.

Then again, there is no excuse for the deeply-entrenched attitude that the color of a person’s skin entitles one person to set themselves above another. That is the real pandemic that bedevils the world.