Un-hinged

There seems to be a lot of it going around!

So. I live on a busy street in Toronto, Canada's largest city.

It can be noisy, what with cars & streetcars & whatnot (quite a lot of whatnot!?).

City life. What can I say??

One thing that's been making me feel un-hinged lately is Leaf Blower Guy.

He's this fellow who lives across the street from me who comes out with his leaf-blower to blow dirt & leaves off the sidewalk in front of his building … & in a pretty wide swath around it.

He used to do this once a day.

But he's up to twice a day lately.

I’m not making this up!

Ai-yi-yi.

The whiney noise of that little leaf-blower machine seems to make me feel un-hinged.

For the record, Leaf Blower Guy used to just use a broom & sweep. The sweeping was ... quaint?? If a little odd.

The leaf blower is not quaint.

Anyway.

I realize that this man is probably a bit … um, mentally unwell??

& perhaps keeping the sidewalk in front of his building squeaky clean is helping him to remain somewhat sane.

I'm trying to be kind about it, you see.

I don't always feel kind.

Sometimes I fear he's going to drive me over some kind of line into ... I don't know.

Outright insanity? A serious case of the heebie-jeebies??

In which case it would be easy to see that being un-hinged

is contagious. His case is helping add to my case.

So.

I'm kind of determined to remain hinged. Vaguely hinged, at any rate.

Now, this was happening long pre-U.S. election.

A season of quite a bit of un-hinged rhetoric - especially on the part of the U.S. mainstream media - to whom I do not directly pay attention. I'm a big fan of Matt Taibbi & Walter Kirn, though, & their twice-weekly 'America This Week' shows. They will often show some live mainstream TV stuff on-screen briefly - e.g. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC - & others - to show us all what these characters are on about. The vitriol that's been pouring out of the mouths of these commentators - for months & months, I guess now, (arguably years) has been wayyyyy over the top. One might almost suspect them of deliberate efforts to incite violence. I’m not kidding! It’s very extreme.

So I do believe a pretty significant amount of un-hingement, if you will (un-hingedness?) has been aided & abetted by these folks. Very deliberately, obviously.

And we're hearing of some pretty over-the-top commentary / crazy behaviour post-Trump election win.

Thankfully, we know that courage is contagious.

And yay for that!

But this un-hingement stuff can definitely be too.

Clearly.

So.

If we're personally committed to remaining on this side of hinged vs. un-hinged, we have to find some things that help ground us. Right?

I need to find a way to not let Leaf Blower Guy drive me up the wall. Please know that he is not the only source of irritating noise around here! Construction noises. Neighbours who talk loud or make inexplicable loud noises overhead or who have loud fights. Cars & trucks, car alarms, horns honking, streetcars, sirens. Machines that go Beep Beep Beep over & over & over again - one time recently so relentlessly that I had to escape my neighourhood for a couple of hours or lose my shit altogether. Also for the record? Mr. LB is not the only one wielding one of these noxious devices in my neighbourhood in recent times. Just the most, shall we say, stubbornly frequent one. And?? When I’m in a good frame of mind, I just shut out most of the cacophony. It’s when I’m feeling anxious or unwell that it all adds up to just too damn much. And Leaf Blower Guy? He is just about more than I can take.

How to not let Leaf Blower Guy make me go nuts?

I'm working on it.

I've decided to see it as a spiritual test.

Which I’m absolutely 100% determined to pass!

So I'll keep working away at that.

Meanwhile.

Lorie Ladd is a person I never encountered until the Covid era.

She does stuff on Facebook, Instagram & maybe other social media places.

I often find her words helpful.

Calming.

One time recently, in a very short "reel" on Facebook, she said it feels to her right now as though it’s like we're all a fish in a fish bowl, and something/someone is shaking the bowl.

Making it pretty darn hard to maintain our equilibrium!

We all have to find things that help us deal with this.

Habits. Strategies.

Limiting our news/social media consumption is definitely a good start. I'm not really excellent at this (& subscribe to a ton of great Substackers), 'cos I'm kind of addicted to knowing what's going on.

But I do grab myself by the scruff of the neck sometimes & walk away from the bloody computer. (I am not a "smart" phone person, blessedly. Having one of those devices constantly at my fingertips would've sent me to the looney bin long ago!)

So I take walks. Read novels. Etc. Etc.

We can all find our own ways, right?

Solitude no doubt helps - except that most of us probably don't get enough of that. If you don't, please carve out some ways you can get some more! And then take a long walk on a regular basis, say. Long solitary walks are a grand, grand thing. Good for both body & soul. I mean it!

*******

It's damn hard being a fish in a fish bowl that's being shaken!

Holding onto our sanity is an important task. Possibly our most important challenge right now.

Good luck with it, dear Reader.

We're counting on you!!

Janet

p.s. it likely helps to know/remind ourselves it's really not our job to convince the world - or even our dearest loved ones - to believe all the things we believe. To share all our views & opinions about this, that & the other thing. And also to know that simply being kind will take us a long way in this life. Nobody's right all the time, & nobody's wrong all the time, either! And, it is not necessary for us to agree with even the folks we admire & respect the very most, on every topic! Listening is important. Calm conversations can be downright miraculous - as well as very healing. And if a friend is un-hinged, post-U.S. election? It may be a sound idea to give that person a wide berth for a while. Until you reach a point of readiness in being able to listen to them vent their grief, pain & frustration. Without letting it "trigger" your own well of fish-being-shaken-in-the-fishbowl feelings. I'm doing that myself right now, just for the record. Standing back a bit. Giving this one person I know a bit of breathing space. Still! I know this advice likely arrives too late for some of you. Sorry about that! May I also add that I have “snoozed” some F-book “friends” who are a bit … loud right now in their lamentions. Just - once again - trying hard to preserve my own precious, precarious mental health.

p.p.s. a couple of quotations have sprung to mind:

“Wisdom has two parts: (1) having a lot to say; (2) not saying it.” – Sign spotted on a church billboard ** note to self, note to self, note to self

“Do you have the patience to wait ‘til your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving ‘til the right action arises by itself?” – Lao-tzu

“…the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less OK for now need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes. You sit with people, she said, you bring them juice and graham crackers.” From Traveling Mercies – Some Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott

p.p.p.s. I enjoyed Heather (Heying) & Brett (Weinstein)’s just-post-election-night chat on their Dark Horse podcast. Calm. Reasonable. It’s got some sound advice in it. Here:

Maybe this item will help?