Fighting with strangers on the internet

You may have sensed some rage in my last blog, which I find myself not always knowing what to do with. It feels heavy and painful sometimes. But sometimes it feels righteous. It feels like I’m supposed to be angry. I justify the anger and say I’m using it for activism, but I know that’s not always true.

Last week, I was not well. I’m always behind on work because even though I’ve been working on my discipline and habits for what feels like my whole life, I just say yes to too much and think I can do more in a day than I can. So I’m used to always playing catch up. But this week I’m extra buried because last week, I was trapped in a prison cell of my own creation.

It was made of social media posts and stories, endless comment threads, facebook groups with communal angst only helping to fuel my rage, and as much as I told myself to stop, to take a break, I didn’t. My fingers kept scrolling and the fireball kept building inside of me.

I do find it curious that Trump voters (I was going to keep it vague and say something more diplomatic like “those who have opposing views to me,” but let’s go ahead and call a spade a spade) who never posted about politics throughout the campaign all of a sudden felt a relief and were celebrating the win of a convicted felon. Like if you were too shy to post encouraging people to vote during the campaign, why are you suddenly so courageous to admit whose side you are on? Seeing those posts was just a lot of salt on a very deep wound. If you voted in secret, go ahead and celebrate in secret too. And don’t say things like “let’s just agree to disagree,” because this is not a Dodgers game.

Anyway the communal anger along with the public gloating along with the certainty that I am alone in my family in my views ignited my ever present pilot light. If the other side is suddenly emboldened, then so was I. Anything I saw last week from friends or strangers, I responded to. I never comment on public posts, but last week I did. I joined even more facebook groups. I just kept fanning that flame.

Eventually I commented on someone’s post about white nationalism and proceeded to get into a fight with a complete stranger about racism and lies about economy and when I realized that this chick had to have the last word, I just blocked her. It did make me laugh, though, because she assumed that I was a “pudgy white dude.” I cracked up actually, and then I caught myself. What the hell was I doing? Who the hell was I letting myself become? I am not a keyboard warrior. I usually scroll IG for a few minutes throughout the week, but I rarely engage, unless it’s to say congratulations to an acquaintance who had a baby. I was not well. Inside Out 2 is such an accurate portrayal of anxiety taking over, but in my case anger runs the show.

A few days later, I deactivated my ig account and deleted facebook from my phone. It wasn’t helping anyone for me to be voicing my opinion; the dude already won. And it definitely wasn’t helping me.

Instead, I am using that anger to activate to organize and to make friends in my neighborhood. I jumped at the opportunity to host an event with SURJ. The other rabbit hole I’ve been going down is studying how the church has been involved either directly or indirectly over the past 400 years in overt and systemic racism, misogyny, and homophobia and it’s not pretty but also not surprising. It’s just an ugly confirmation of things you already know. But coming from a church background it does make me feel like the roots beneath the ground I walk on are rotten, and I question what I can do to restore them.

I attended a shadow workshop with The Tools group, where they guide you through how to get in touch with your shadow, the part of you that makes you ashamed or shy or want to hide, but really needs to be let out. So I’ve been working with my shadow, who is a child Becca, sometimes holding her stuffed bunny, Susie, and sometimes holding a pink basket full of papers. Sometimes she’s quiet. Sometimes she’s talkative. But most of the time she doesn’t know how to express herself. She loves to dream and she has a big imagination, but she feels stuck. Or wait, is that grown up Becca that feels stuck? My shadow is a bit of a mess, but like with her pink basket that she brought to her 3rd grade classroom to collect her schoolwork, she has always been looking for ways to do things better, to try to be more organized even when it’s unnatural. She has always felt a great sense of responsibility for people and making a difference in the world. But how will she do it?

So I’m organizing. I used to lead Bible studies, now I’ll lead social justice groups. I used to travel on mission trips to hear stories of foreigners. Now, I’ll listen to my neighbors. In my social media vortex, I did see a good call to action: for the next 4 years and forever, radically take care of yourself, radically take care of people, and radically take care of the planet. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to try to funnel this hot energy into my business so I can start creating more passive income and not be so tied down to daily administrative tasks, so I have more money and more time to give to the causes and people I care about. And in my limited free time, however I can, I’ll volunteer, organize groups, and facilitate productive action toward a brighter future.

I hope my shadow will come out more, because she has a lot to give to the world. And together, I hope we can start restoring the roots beneath me, so generations after me will know the glory of creation - and not the glory of the white american church.