How to cope with mass corruption and disillusionment

It’s pretty amazing, when we look back at the people who seemed a bit “unhinged” to us, just 5-10 years ago — and many are now proving to be exactly the opposite.

To say it is overwhelming is a massive understatement.

When we first perceive an idea, or series of ideas, that seemed implausible to us for the entirety of our lives, we will, quite naturally, feel overwhelmed. So, what’s wrong with that? Well, when we are overwhelmed, we need to take a step back to regain some perspective.

But some ideas are so overwhelming, that perspective doesn’t help. When this occurs, we can do one of two things: step back even further, so far back that we can’t even see the thing we are trying to gain perspective on, or we can live with the discomfort, be patient enough to allow our brains to catch up with these revelations, as they will, quite naturally, in time. For a while we have to live with the uncertainty that the sudden exposure to a massive amount of new data creates.

When new ideas are revealed to us, that are so opposed to what we have been taught, and we allow ourselves to appease a panic response, the panic will tell us to run from this challenge, so far and so fast, we may never return. This isn’t fair, actually. Each human being has a responsibility, as a member of a community of human beings, to consider the needs of the “pack,” so to speak. If every human chose to run away from problems, we wouldn’t exist. So, clearly, we are a species that possesses the capacity to manage exposure to new data, no matter how overwhelming. Our existence today, and the fact that I am typing this, proves it.

We just need to take some time to grasp the new information, and if we panic, we remove our own chance to comtemplate and process.

If we allow this time, we will begin to realize that we have been living alongside these revelations since the beginning of humanity. That this data is only new to us on a conscious level, but has actually been present on many subconscious levels since birth. The new information didn’t become complex overnight, and we aren’t the first generation to have to cope with an overwhelming exposure to new data, very suddenly.

The internet complicates this to a degree, of course, but, I’m certain previous generations dealt with the same degree of shock and overwhelm, relative to their context, as we are now. The Plague, Spanish Inquisition, Great Enlightenment, Jamestown, Salem Witch Trials, Revolutionary War, Civil War, Industrial Revolution, World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, Communism, Rwandan genocide, Mersk Submarine, 9/11, and so many more. Yet we are still here.

We can’t control the people in positions of power, especially when we realize how widespread the corruption is, and has been for such a long time. So, maybe this is good for us. At some point we must surrender to false notions of control, in order to cope. When we let go of a need to control, we also free ourselves from the notion that we must fix all of these problems, or that we even can. These problems don’t get fixed. All we need to remember, is that WE exist. Good people, also, exist, and have endured. Humans have adapted, survived, and even thrived in times of great strife and corruption.

One might argue that we, the more mentally and emotionally secure humans, are the reason humanity has thrived, rather than assigning so much power to the fearful, insecure forces that have recently been revealed to us.

We just can’t manage massive problems in the way we manage smaller, more simplistic ones. We can’t catch the bee with a glass as it crawls up the wall, put a piece of cardboard in front of the glass, and release it outside. We do it a different way. We have to do this a different way. A proactive and creative way. We don’t place the emphasis on the negative forces. We keep an eye on them, of course, at all times, but we can decide to appreciate the impact we make, in every way, on others, within our own sphere of influence. The cashier at a store, the customer we serve, the guy who picks up the garbage every week, the maintenance worker we pass in the morning, the cleaners, the security guards, the customer service rep, the manager, the bus driver, the cop, the guy that held the door for you, or let you enter the building first, your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, friends, siblings, our parents, and most for all, our children. Be kind, so that when others walk away from any interaction with you, they feel a little lighter, a bit happier.

Also, tell the truth, and if people don’t want to hear it, let them walk away angry, knowing, at least the seed was planted. You planted a seed. It’s necessary to push back, because people need to be able to run into themselves, to learn important lessons, and when we don’t allow ourselves to be the wall they run up against, we do a disservice to the person they will run into next time.

What if that next person also decides, that it isn’t their job to teach this person a lesson? Maybe it actually IS, in a way, our job to help to teach these people “lessons”, through our honest reactions to their behavior. If we don’t, they will be empowered by our weakness, and we will have left this responsibility in the hands of the next person they encounter, and the one after that, until the person never runs up against any opposition. What will they become? A criminal? An abuser? A politician? We do a disservice to humanity, to ourselves, and to the person causing the problem, whenever we decide we are somehow entitled to manipulate these brilliant, embedded, profound systems within our biology, which have been so effective in our evolution for hundreds of thousands of years, simply to appease a moment of personal discomfort.