The Calm Before the Storm(s), part 2

Issue #3.9 ~ December 9th, 2024

Uncomfortably Numb

The somewhat eerie pre-election calm that I wrote about in the last issue of TLBR has given way to an even more chilling post-election numbness afflicting many of us who were such hopeful supporters of the Harris-Walz campaign. During those final pre-election weeks, we could at least attribute that strange calmness to the very real (so it seemed at the time) possibility that they would not only prevail in the popular and electoral counts, but more importantly, prevail in the inevitable court challenges that a losing Trump campaign would surely mount.

Now, one month and one week since Election Day, that eerie pre-election calm has morphed into a gloomy pre-inauguration dread. Before the election, it was possible to hope that the storms we foresaw might spend themselves out at sea and never reach the shoreline. After the election, it’s impossible to avoid seeing that the brutal storm of vengeful political upheaval Trump has long been threatening is firmly on course to make landfall in Washington D.C. on Monday, January 20th, 2025.

So once again, we find ourselves in a calm before the storm(s), only this time the calm is eerily surreal. As we outwardly smile our way though the traditional year-end holidays - enjoying our Thanksgiving dinners, exchanging our Christmas greetings and gifts, gathering for our New Year’s Eve celebrations - inwardly we shudder at the prospect of the Project 2025 proposals actually being put into practice, and at the vast amount of future human suffering those proposals portend.

Buddhism’s “first noble truth” - which I prefer to describe more simply as Buddhism’s essential core teaching - declares unequivocally, “There is suffering”. We are already living in a time of great global suffering, and that would still be the case even if Harris-Walz had defeated Trump-Vance. All that’s different now is that any hopes we might have held for American-led international cooperative initiatives toward reducing that suffering would seem to have perished with the triumph of Trump’s “America First” war cry.

The secular Buddhist tradition to which I subscribe cautions us to pay very close attention to how we find ourselves reacting to the suffering that inevitably arises all around us. Harking back to Stephen Covey’s invaluable distinction between reacting thoughtlessly and responding wisely, secular Buddhism cites another Stephen’s invaluable distinction - namely, Stephen Batchelor’s contrasting of the negative force of “reactivity” that naturally arises from our experiences of suffering with the positive ideal of “embracing life fully” - a wholehearted acceptance of everything which constitutes life, a non-reactive embracing of both the suffering and the joy.

Batchelor asserts that only by embracing life fully are we able to let go of our reactivity, and it’s only by letting go of reactivity that we are able to respond wisely to the situation in which we find ourselves. Bringing this insight to bear on the current political situation, we need to first “embrace” - in the sense of understanding and recognizing - the fact that Trump will be the president as of January 20th, 2025. Secondly, we need to recognize and let go (as much as possible) of our reactive responses, whether they be depression, despair, anxiety, fear, anger, or some combination of them. Then, and only then, will we be ready to enter upon some kind of wise action in response to the coming storms.

What such wise action might look like will almost certainly vary greatly from individual to individual, depending on each of our unique life situations (age, state of health, family relationships, work circumstances, friend networks, etc.). But one thing, I think, is unlikely to vary - whatever any of us chooses to do by way of wise action, it will definitely make a difference, even if that difference is undetectable in the short-term.

The task that lies ahead of us can only be achieved through a long-term collective effort, but it will be sustained by countless individuals making their own undetectable short-term contributions to the larger effort.

No matter what natural reactions are arising in any of us today, each of us can, if we so choose, commit to letting go of them as much as possible in the remaining month or so of this eerily surreal calm, so as to undertake whatever wise actions we are capable of when the storm(s) that are surely coming do in fact arrive.

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This is the final issue of the year for TLBR. For the rest of the month, I’ll be switching my focus toward the year-end holiday events coming up in the weeks ahead, and away from the political events looming in the year ahead. Extending to all of you my best wishes for friendship and peace of mind, both now and throughout the new year. See you all with a new issue of TLBR in January.

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“AfterWords”

• This brief essay, “How Not to Fall Into Despair”, appeared in The New York Times over the Thanksgiving Day weekend. While its author does not identify himself as a Buddhist, its words are steeped in Buddhism’s wisdom. If you, like so many others of us, have been struggling with feelings of despair in these post-election days, it’s well worth reading in its entirety. Here are two excerpts …

  “Finding meaning and maintaining hope despite inevitable pain, loss and suffering is a crucial life skill. In 1949, the Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl coined the term ‘tragic optimism’ [which emerges] out of the three tragedies that everyone faces. The first tragedy is pain, because we are made of flesh and bone. The second is guilt, because we have the freedom to make choices and thus feel responsible when things don’t go our way. The third is loss, because we must face the reality that everything we cherish is impermanent, including our own lives. Tragic optimism means acknowledging, accepting and even expecting that life will contain hardship and hurt, then doing everything we can to move forward with a positive attitude anyway. It recognizes that one cannot be happy by trying to be happy all the time, or worse yet, assuming we ought to be. Rather, tragic optimism holds space for the full range of human experience and emotion, giving us permission to feel happiness and sadness, hope and fear, loss and possibility — sometimes in the same day, and even in the same hour.”

  “Wise hope and wise action ask us to accept a situation and see it clearly for what it is, and then muster the strength, courage and resolve to focus on what we can control. Recognizing that we maintain agency fuels hope, and maintaining hope reminds us that we have agency. Resilience comes down to a few core factors: leaning into community, being kind to yourself, finding small routines to support your mental health, allowing yourself to feel sadness and loss and yet maintain hope at the same time.”

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