Let Us Digest
A note on taking time to process.
Do you remember that scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000, starring Jim Carrey) when the Grinch goes down to Whoville and everyone is so excited for him to try their food? He is partied around while handfuls of bright, sugary mush are shoved into his mouth, with little consideration of his actual experience. He bites at the hands feeding him, saying “Is that all you got??” The Whos continue bringing spoonfuls to his mouth until he cries out and shakes his head in protest. Someone plugs his nose so that his mouth is forced to open, and the nonconsensual feeding continues.
This scene made me uncomfortable as a child, partly because seeing people’s discomfort in movies made me distressed regardless of what was happening. But this one really stuck out to me as off-putting, and I began to feel dread when I knew it was coming during re-watches. Seeing it again now, I find it disturbing. This scene is violent and nauseating. We are watching the Grinch be tortured with over-feeding until he becomes bloated and sick. The bodily discomfort it evokes is strange and familiar. The hands and faces feeding him are cheery, laughing, and excited. They are using his body to satisfy their fantasies, and it is gross.
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The constant information, news, and reaction dump we are endlessly subjected to reminds me of this scene in The Grinch. There is that sense of sickening dread. Being force-fed does not allow proper time for digestion. It doesn’t give us the ability to listen to our bodies and hearts as they take in what has been given, because the next thing is already here. It’s as if our technology has opened a funnel in our brains that is constantly being filled, and none of us gets to control what’s being poured inside. There are precious few avenues to slow down the flow, and it’s near-impossible to fully turn it off.
What would happen if we took a week before saying anything public about our feelings related to any major breaking news? Even a week seems too soon, but a week from now we’ll have witnessed at least 50 other history-altering or distressing events take place. Not long ago, breaking news wasn’t accessible within an hour of an event. Our sense of time has been mangled from linearity into chaos1 - the present is immediately the past and the future is immediately fatal. Everyone has a reaction to share, and then there is a wave of reactions to the reactions. Before we know it, we are inundated with reactions to the reactions of the next horrible news before we can fully process what we witnessed three days ago. Our collective trauma has created a constant state of reactivity to everything we read and see. And, if you don’t have a reaction, you’re seen as a problem for not being engaged.
As someone with complex PTSD, I recognize a life that is lived in reactivity. A constant feeling of being on-edge, waiting for the next bad thing to happen, waiting to prove our intrusive thoughts are correct, finding any shred of evidence to point to and say, See? There it is. It is dissociated and terrifying. I live with a feeling of anticipation that something terrible is going to happen to me every day, but that isn’t only due to present events. I am still digesting the events of my life. I am processing the cycles of abuse I have endured that cause me to feel like something terrible is about to happen to me. And until I do that, I cannot make fatal what-if predictions about strangers hurting me.
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What is the difference between being prepared and being reactive? This is a question I have been especially struggling with since my most recent panic attack. The answer is found in what is driving our decisions and thoughts. Is it fear that drives our fingers to type out the awful things coming to us? Is it a sense of being grounded and purposeful? Is it influenced by more than what someone else has typed out as an immediate reaction?
We, the people at the center of empire, have the space to slow down, unplug, and process. This isn’t just about processing the events around us, but the events in our pasts as well. It is helpful to the collective when we turn inward to understand where our reactions come from. Working to heal our own hurt, fears, and trauma cycles will always benefit the whole. It clears our mind and re-centers us in what is real. It allows us to better connect with each other. It reminds us that taking pause to get our bearings is an act of bravery.
Once we begin to process the past, we can better stand up to face what’s ahead, clear-headed and having already survived.
Even linear time is a colonial mangling of what was once understood as cyclical.
Thank you for this reminder, Aris. I too have been greatly moderating my intake of news and returning to my longer term purpose as a writer and podcaster. Taking a breath helps me in the moment, and I have recently been doing adult art book coloring to music as a form of meditation. That and connection to my family all are helpful to me.
You don't need to have PTSD to be confused in this malstrom of news. It eats our common sense to be bombarded 24/7. And at the same time try to congest it plus your own life's events. You are pointing one of this times biggest problems out, and you do it very exact and fine.