Feeling Stuck in Someone Else’s Nightmare: The Dangers of a Would-Be Leader at War with Himself, and Us

Lately, I often feel like I’m stuck in DT’s mind and can’t find a way out. It’s horrifyingly unpleasant, a daytime nightmare. Then I step back and breathe, momentarily at peace again.

 

We all create a world in our mind. Our world. Each person’s perception is slightly different from anyone else’s⎼ the depth of color, what we focus on and ignore, what we listen to and hear, what we respond to or bury. What a scene calls to in our memory.

 

We all, to varying degrees, shape the physical and social world around us to fit our way of perceiving it. In a way, whatever we see is us. We perceive and experience what our senses and brain make possible for us to sense.  We never see or hear exactly what another person sees or hears; or what a dog or a bat sees and hears.

 

And the moment-by-moment play-by-play that most of us hear in our minds is unique to us yet shares so much with the experience of others. But we can learn to step away from the recording. We can enjoy and be fascinated by, maybe even love, what eludes our play-by-play; we can welcome what is bigger or other than what we’ve ever perceived before.

 

But not DT. He seems to be one of the very few who feel they must control, manipulate, fabricate everyone and everything until other people only walk, talk, and appear as they would dress them. Only a very few feel they can’t feel secure, maybe can’t breathe unless there’s no one or nothing but themselves in their world shaping it. They’re just too ignorant about controlling themselves they try to make up for it by controlling others.

 

For example, look at DT’s response to the killing of Charlie Kirk. In a way, this murder was both awful and a perfect opportunity for him and his sycophants. It provided a chance to fertilize the delusion, hate, and division they’ve been growing for years, for lying about and demonizing “the left,” which in their definition is anyone who opposes their lust to turn this nation into a racist dictatorship they control.

 

Charlie Kirk was an outspoken conservative activist. Oliver Willis, writing for Daily Kos, said it seems many have been forgotten that he was also “a bigot, misogynist, and a racist who regularly excused the very sort of gun violence that ended his life.” Kirk said, in 2023, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment.” Did he mean to excuse 47,000 killed by guns in 2023 alone? How about 27 killed in 2012 in Sandy Hook Elementary School or 19 killed in Robb Elementary School in 2022? What about 47 school shootings so far this year?

 

Kirk’s killer, Tyler Robinson, comes from a Republican, Mormon, church-going family. He has no criminal record. He turned himself in to police after being encouraged to do so by his parents and a retired police officer who knew his family through their church. He even took responsibility for the vile murder on his social media platform, saying “im sorry for all of this.” He was dating his roommate, a transgender person, and the revelation of this relationship set up a tsunami of speculations, lies, and distortions led by DT himself.

 

Instead of using this awful event to bring people together in the face of violent death, DT used it to manipulate a violent reaction against Democrats, LGBTQ+, immigrants, and his opponents. “The radicals on the right are radical because they don’t want to see crime…” he said. This ignores the fact that for the last 40 years especially, most politically motivated violence came from the right. “The radicals on the left are the problem – they want men in in women’s sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders…”

 

He said…

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

If You’re Not In Control, Who Is?

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘control’? The word ‘control’ can be very ambiguous and slippery. For example, in an English class about ten years ago, a student asked me what I thought was most important to learn. I asked if she meant in school or in life in general. She said both. I replied that there could be several answers to that question. The first thoughts that came to mind were how to love, and then how to pay attention and learn from my own experiences. Then I thought of being able to control or be the master of my self. I asked her what she thought. Instead of answering directly, she responded to my answers. She liked the first but disliked the second.

 

I asked her, “When you hear ‘master of the self,’ what did you hear?”

 

She replied something like: “I hear the word ‘control.’ I hear someone telling me to ‘be in control’ or ‘get yourself together, be more acceptable, fit in. Put up a front. Not let the real me out.’”

 

Another student added, “Being in control is manipulation. My parents do that.’”

 

Another added, “It is fake. So why be in control?”

 

This surprised me and shook me a bit. “If you’re not in control,” I asked, “who is? Or who would you want in control?”

 

One response was “Why be in control?” These students did not want to be the “master” or even in control. “Master” sounded too much like a movie—pompous, or too S&M, joked one student.

 

I can understand not liking the connotation of control as in “control freak” or manipulating, falsifying, or oppressing others. But someone in control is someone who is an authority. An ‘author’ is an originator, the source, the creator of one’s own actions. One student stated that being in control meant speaking and acting their own truth. Many of us agreed with this perspective.

 

In a similar conversation in a Psych class, some students argued against “controlling” the expression of anger. They said to not express anger was oppressive and made it worse. I then asked how they felt when someone got angry at them.

 

“I felt awful.”

 

“Did you feel oppressed,“ I asked?

 

“I felt assaulted, actually. The anger frightened me.”

 

“It inflamed my own anger,” added another student.

 

“So how successful was directly expressing anger in diminishing it?”

 

“Not very.”

 

After a moment of silence, I went on. “Anger can be useful at times, however. But is there a choice other than unconstrained expression of anger and repression?” Students said there was, which we then talked about. To decide what action to take, you do one thing and not another and, thus, you exercise control.

 

There are strains in our culture that mistakenly link throwing off oppression and opposing falsity, with unchecked expression of emotion. That believes freedom is the same as unrestrained action, and the quantity of choices one has is more important than the quality. This view of freedom undermines the sense that each of us has the right and responsibility not only to act when necessary, for our own safety and principles, but to do our best to make our actions appropriate, and serve the well-being, not only of ourselves but others.

 

“Would you be free if you acted on every thought you had? What would happen if you openly acted on every emotion you experienced?” Some joked it would be a relief, different—until they thought about bullying, assaults, road rage, etc. It became clear to students how oppressive the situation would be if they acted on every thought—and how dangerous

 

Even though the testing culture in many schools is making such meaningful discussions more difficult, I think it needs to be done in whatever way teachers can do it, especially after the election. The President models one result of not exercising self-control, and being thoughtless or not caring of how one’s actions affect others. (These discussions might also reveal students who need one-on-one attention.)

 

We all bear a great responsibility to figure out, as best we can, how we, together, shape the fate of the planet and future generations. To do that, we need to study our self and others, to learn how to hear our own interior dialogues, feelings, and sensations, and be a conscious author of who we are. Who do you want in control, a conscious, aware you, or someone else?

 

**Photo by Kathy Morris.