My Inner Shrew

Edited to add: this turns into a rant at the end. Avoid if you're not in the mood.

Back in the 90s (a lot of my posts start with that), getting in touch with your “inner child” was a thing. A huge thing. There were books and seminars and people talked about it with their therapist and then told you more than you ever wanted to know about having play dates with their inner child, the pure innocent being that supposedly lives deep inside us, covered over by the cares and responsibilities of adulthood.

It was helpful — maybe even life-changing — for a lot of people, even some people I knew. But it never worked for me. I was in therapy at the time, so I remember doing a quasi-hypnosis thing with my therapist, and I remember going to a "Find Your Inner Child" workship one Saturday, and I'm pretty sure I read at least one book, to no avail. I never got in touch with anything that resembled a sweet, luminous inner child. 

Then a couple of weeks ago I think I figured out why: it’s because my inner child isn’t pure and innocent, she’s as mad as a hornet trapped in a window. I was thinking about a couple of things that happened when I was four or five—not anything out of the ordinary for 1965, just how it felt to exist in my family in the world at that time— and my younger self's voice sounded in my head with perfect clarity: These people don’t know what THE FUCK they are doing. 

“These people” being my parents, and “fuck” being a word that of course I wouldn’t have known when I was four (it was not a word that was said casually in 1965), but somehow that inner self scooped the word out of my adult brain as the best way to describe how she felt. 

My parents had good intentions. They were not bad parents, especially not for the times. But they were incapable of seeing my need to be something other than what they expected me to be, and they were definitely not going to protect me from the expectations of our southern Baptist subculture.

They weren't even aware there was a problem. In their minds, and in the minds of at least a few Sunday School teachers, girl scout leaders, and other kids' moms, when I didn't fit in, the problem was me. 

Oddly, finding that enraged little knot of confused child shaking her fist at the universe has felt as freeing as I imagine the other sort of inner child would feel. I'm sure there are those who would say I just haven't dug deep enough yet; and maybe they're right-- maybe somewhere further down inside me is a pure innocent little angel. Or maybe some of us are just born to be little shits and I should own it.

OK, I said little shits because it made me laugh, but of course I wasn't really a little shit, or at least not any more often than most kids. I was just already a jaded mini-adult by the time I was five, and I couldn't foresee any chance things would ever change. I gave in early and often; I did not try to resist.

Maybe the reason this has come up is because for the past several months I have been so angry. So angry. Angry that we might end up with that conman as president again, angry that our guy didn't step aside for someone new, angry that the world is so fucked up right now, angry that there is so much hatred and spite in the air.

Most of us just want peace and safety for ourselves and our loved ones and a reasonable amount of prosperity and why is that so hard? Why are the people who are in power so determined to stay there that they will lie and propagandize and sell their own souls, no matter what it does to the rest of us? Why are the people in economic power, the billionaires who create our economy without having any sort of mandate to do so, scooping hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars, out of our economy as their compensation for some weird biz school concept like "being willing to take on risk" and stagnating the wages of everyone else because anyone can be a secretary/plumber/custodian? 

Have they ever even looked around? OF COURSE not just anyone can be a good secretary. We have receipts that prove not just anyone can be a good plumber. Not just anyone can be good at cleaning a bathroom or replacing a transmission or flipping burgers.

How did we get this weird idea that the people at the top of the economic food chain deserve to be paid as much as possible, AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, and the people at the bottom are just shit out of luck because .... ? I don't even know why. Maybe because to acknowledge that the burger flipper deserves dignity and respect and a reasonable living would mean that those people at the top wouldn't be able to win at the uniquely American game of Cutthroat Competitive Greed, a game that becomes more terrifying and more world-destroying for the rest of us every day. 

I'm starting to rant. No, I'm well into a rant. It just makes me so fucking angry. I heard a young athlete, probably 25 or 26, who has already made his first millions because he is very good at what he does, say in an interview, "I believe in capitalism, I'm going to make as much money as I can," and I thought, that is not what capitalism means-- except in our country, where self-centered, no-holds-barred greed has somehow come to be known as capitalism, and the phrase "but we can make money" is an excuse for anything and everything. 

Somewhere along the way we managed to let caring for our fellow human beings and community involvement and just plain and simple kindness become optional, the thing that seems silly and delusional, while lining our pockets is what really matters. I'm just sick of all of it, and of the people who look at you like you're a naive idiot if you push back.

Well, believe it or not, this post was originally supposed to end with some positive, hopeful commentary about something that I can't even remember anymore. I guess I got a little carried away.

Related: check out this story about an enormous study that found that venting doesn't reduce anger. But I think I do feel a little better, so maybe they're wrong. I suppose I'd better go back and add a rant warning at the top of the post. Have a good weekend. Do something that the "capitalists" would think was stupid.