Farm to Table Anxiety
As I laid in a bath attempting to meditate for the first time in the new year, I found no more focus than I’d had the day before, on New Years Eve. I’ve been an on again-off again meditator. It made sense that I still sucked at it.
Today was different though. Not because I was improving. Or because I was warm and cozy in a bath during my attempt.
My new years resolutions were to write everyday and to move out of the United States. Writing this made me 1 for 1 on days. 364 more days to vacate the country. Knowing I’m inching closer to being gone from the everlasting train-wreck that is American society brings me comfort.
Part of the reason I suck so much at meditation is due to years of trauma. Basically all of my years. If it wasn’t trauma of my own doing, there was always some family bullshit happening. Then, the national trauma we have experienced so much over the last 27 years.
I already overthink overthinking to begin with. Enduring 9/11, the OKC bombing, endless wars, literally thousands of mass shootings, a pandemic, the impending fall of our democracy, and the complete collapse of a formerly United States are exactly the mindfucks necessary to never allow one’s brain to fully be at ease.
I recently was looking to purchase noise-cancelling headphones. Ultimately, I decided not to buy anything at all. What if the best noise-cancelling technology worked too well and I didn’t hear the gunshots in whatever store I was shopping in?
That may sound ridiculous, do remember though, I’ve endured my own trauma. Two parents that did their best to kill me from newborn-on triggered a constant fight or flight mechanism. My mom had seizures when we’d drive down the road. My mind doesn’t take a break from keeping my body alive.
Furthermore, you might think, you’re paranoid, Dave! Consider this — there were 470 mass shootings in the US last year. Roughly 1.3 per day. That doesn’t mean the chances of one occurring where I am are likely, but I’ll bet a grocery store full of shoppers in Boulder last year bet the same thing. White America. This sort of thing doesn’t happen here. Until it does.
With seemingly incessant danger looming at all times, you really can’t let your guard down in the US. And if, let’s say you’re a worker in an Amazon factory in Kentucky, for example, you can’t ignore tornado warnings that your employer demands you work through, leaving 6 people dead.
Recently, the CDC’s guidelines for the Omicron variant of Covid changed in favor of protecting the economy, at the risk of workers (especially those in healthcare), because heaven forbid we have a healthy populace at the economy’s expense. During said pandemic billionaires wealth grew monumentally, while worker’s wages stagnated. Workers deemed essential saw their hours raised along with their risk for death. Few got much more than pat-on-the-back praise and a gift certificate for a free meal.
When I bring up to most co-Americans these issues with our current way of life, the response is usually, “yeah, well things are going to get bad everywhere.” This sort of logic is bewildering. Yet, we’re so heavily propagandized that we can think our way around any incredibly terrifying stat. Switzerland is ranked 4th in guns per 100 people (behind the US as number 1, of course), yet the US’s murder rate is 250 times higher than that of Switzerland!
Iceland would be another great example. Often considered the happiest country in the world. Any guess why? They have nine political parties to serve the interests of many groups, rather than a two party system for 330,000,000 people. Oh, and the US’s murder rate is 12,996 times higher than Iceland’s.
Over the years, the US has become so broken that the income gap disparity now is higher than that of pre-revolutionary France circa 1789. And probably the only thing that will stop this trend is a revolution. Until then, I intend to relocate my body and my well-being to a country that doesn’t have a trauma entree everyday.
