I went to get a flu shot and signed up online to schedule it because I’m a millennial and no I will not “just show up.” The online system asked if I wanted to be on the Texas Immunization Registry and something in my bones felt a familiar wave of “AHH sheeet.”
I’ve never been squeamish with my data. 23 & Me, Facebook, my OBGYN – share it. Take it. God bless. I’ve been on the other side of “evil marketing” and we just want to target you with ads you’ll ignore. IMO if we have more data the ads get better and more relevant, but yes I hear your arguments about the algorithms and echo chambers and all that – you’re not wrong, I’m just saying that they’re getting all our data without our consent anyway. If you use your phone or Google anything ever, you’re toast. It’s done. The little consent prompts are for show. Our data is the tax we pay to participate in the attention and information economy.
The flu shot registry gave me pause though.
I felt the same pause when I went to register for an Oct 7th community event.
That pause said: “Do I really want to be on a ‘list of Jews?'”
I consented to it anyway because I don’t know. I refuse to let fear win! Which is dumb because sometimes fear should win and is there to protect you from being a dumbass. It’s hard to know when fear shows up with good reason and when it’s being a little b. Since fear is a bunch of physiological reactions in your mind and nervous system, it is not skilled at distinguishing between real and imagined threats (my email inbox for example – NOT A REAL THREAT. List of Jews, probably warranted fear. My nervous system treats them both the same. The system is flawed but it’s what we got.)
I am afraid that my medical information can and will be used against me. 23&Me told me I was something like 99% Ashkenazi Jew. I say “something like” because I deleted the data, or tried to, as that’s not something I’d love on the record if we’re gonna trip over the fascism scale to the side where they hate Jews (spoiler alert: it’s both sides). But then again if they’re gonna come at me, I mean…I’m under no illusions that that data is actually deleted. Plus hey I’m writing you about it on the interwebs, along with many other mentions of my Jewishness, so. Here, have my data. Confirm it’s in my veins. If that means something to you about my character, well, then you’re bad at science. And you’ll kill me anyway so.
(Listen, if we don’t laugh we’ll cry and though crying is therapeutic and healthy I’m not finding it all that useful for getting through my day.)
A year ago this week, I wrote about my experience in the wake of the Oct 7 kidnappings and promptly moved us to different topics and have been pop-corning all over with this newsletter ever since. Life got heavy, for me for sure, but from what I hear from you, it got heavy on your end, too.
I’m not proud to share that I feel almost nothing reflecting on Oct 7th. My life has been so entirely self-consumed with my own drama that world affairs feel distant and irrelevant. They’re not. But my drug of choice is cognitive dissonance otherwise there’s no way to get through the day. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m saying it’s what happened. [Read: Still Here, Still Tired, Too Tired, Enjoying Yourself While The World Burns, and Exist.]
This business in the Middle East is not going to end well, ok? Not for any of us. It never does. It gets worse before it gets better and rarely gets better. What’s happening in Europe and on campuses is next-level 1939 sh*t. Likewise, the obsession in America with guns and making school curriculums about Jesus (no disrespect, I love Jesus, but not the version Texas is selling), the problems in our jail systems and with childcare and the medical system and domestic violence, it’s all just – if you want to make a difference, I recommend getting off social media and getting involved locally. Do something on the ground. Something you think is not important or “too small to matter.”
That’s where you’ll see real change in a time when the hate train has already left the station.
(And let me be clear: IT HAS LEFT THE STATION)
That in the last year we have been unable to distinguish those who represent freedom from those who terrorize, murder, rape, and kill their own. DARVO is strong. The accusations of genocide, the brainwashing of the left, the blatant antisemitism, the absolutely terrifying reasons the right supports Israel (y’all, it’s not always a good reason. it’s mostly the wrong reason), the death threats. It’s all still there.
We want our leaders to say something profound. To give us hope. Give us something we can dig our teeth into so we can ground and go back to our quotidian lives without that existential noise fluttering about in the background. I get it. I live with that sound so I empathize with the desire to lower the volume on it, quash it with some certainty, sprinkle in some God words for Rosh Hashanah (I’ll explain below), and be on your way.
Questions of, “How can this happen?!” and “Why?” are for existential debates when we are all safe. We can have them in a few years after books are published on the topic and we take a few college-level courses from those who spent time picking up the shrapnel from the dead and making sense of it all. But you can’t. You cannot make sense of what doesn’t make sense.
There is no good reason for any of this. If you’re looking for one, you won’t find it. We can explain some things socioeconomically, some psychologically, and certainly a lot here, you can learn the history, you can talk to witnesses and survivors and editors and journalists, and you should. But hate is hate. And trying to make sense of things that do not make sense will cost you years of your life.
I’ve spent most of my life trying to make sense of things that do not make sense. Obsession and preoccupation with WHY and HOW COULD. and BUT NO REALLY WHY. What’s the point?! What did we do?! How could this be!?
Life has a way of challenging our conceptions of a just world and we need that life lie (that “things work out”) if we’re going to keep living. Accepting that some people just do bad things and there isn’t a good reason, there is never a good reason (even if we DO understand it) makes life a bit more palatable. It doesn’t take away the pain. The pain is still there and it will always be there. But you can (and should) keep living.
Some things are senseless and cruel and there is no greater meaning or purpose. They just are.
This week was Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year where culturally Jewish folks flock to temple to gossip about people they haven’t seen in a year and determine whether or not “Susan has let herself go, wow.” Religiously, though, on Rosh Hashana, God opens up his Book of Life (tbd on what this is or why) and writes your name. Then he signs his signature on Yom Kippur (next week, when we’re all supposed to atone our sins). Unclear how you qualify or not for this list but in general, as I said before, I am not a fan of giant lists of Jews so I try to abstain from whatever God is up to this week and focus on the part of the holiday that asks for self-reflection.
Who were you this year? What is different now? What is not? Are we still doing the fixed mindset thing or did you expand? What did you change your mind about? Did you also grow numb to the world and persist on a diet of cognitive dissonance and Siete Chips? Are we gonna change anything or just talk about it? Where you at?
Right now, where I’m at: I choose to write you. Last week, I chose to pop off on someone (it wasn’t effective, but I did feel better). Tonight, I (hope I) choose to be a present parent after a rough weekend. This morning, I chose not to engage in doomscrolling. Later, when I feel the most existential dread (because it’s always at bedtime UGHHHH), when the pain of a father’s abandonment of his child overwhelms both my daughter and me, when the reality of what’s happening in the world starts to seep into my conscious awareness, I will choose not to scroll Hinge in search for that elusive dopamine hit, but instead sit with my kiddo and together feel the collective grief and terror of the unknown.
I don’t know why bad things happen. I have some ideas. Mostly, I know that I am here and you are here and in this moment we are safe. If you’re reading this you have access to the internet and a device. That’s pretty incredible. And you’re presumably not dead. Which is likewise, incredible.
The important thing is even if you feel pain, suffering, sadness, rage, fear, and dread, they’re all welcome here too. They can hang out with us. And we’ll all lay in bed together and go to sleep.
Tomorrow will be a different day and a new opportunity to make different choices.
I choose life.
I hope you do too.
Le Chaim and Shana Tova,
Margo
