Deep Shit Happens
When we perceive it we can let it guide us.
The title of this post was an idea someone gave me for a bumpersticker, a long time ago. I never made that sticker, but I love the phrase. It combines the familiar cultural memes ‘shit happens’ and ‘deep shit’ in a humorous way. And it’s true. Deep shit does happen.
How strangely appropriate that the woman who was murdered in cold blood by an agent of this barbaric administration a few days ago was named ‘Good.’ Good was murdered. Do these masked men think they are playing a video game in which there are no cosmic consequences to murdering people? When they lie in bed at night do they hear their soul whispering, what the f**k are you doing, you fool? Are you willing to throw away your birthright for a mess of pottage?
A lot of shit has been happening lately. The deep shit is not obvious on the surface, but it’s happening too. The surface shit can’t be ignored. Even if no-one is shooting you in the face, the ugliness of what is happening, the ugliness of the bald-faced lies, the cruelty and corruption, the ugliness of people with no discernible integrity, who seem to revel in hurting others, is an assault on our senses.
Deep shit is awakened when our senses and our spirits are so assaulted that we have to respond, not necessarily in an overt way, but in a facing reality way, and facing ourselves way.
It brings up for me, and probably for you too, a big question. What am I supposed to be doing? How do I register my dissent? What can I do to counteract these grave deviations from human decency that I find so upsetting? Is the situation so dire that all I can do is give up my life as I know it and join the resistance? Or can I just go about my business without feeling that it is my job to directly confront darkness?
There are times and places when one has no choice but to be part of the problem or part of the solution. There was a time in Nazi Germany, and in many other places too, when to be complacent and go about your normal life, while all around you people were being kidnapped and murdered, was to be part of the problem.
We are not yet at such an extreme place. There is still room for many of us to uphold the values we want to protect and protest the acts we abhor without being arrested and killed.
In times like these, it is more important than ever to clarify and adhere to a different set of values than the ones we resist. We do that by living.
Anything you are doing with love and creativity is contributing to the understanding of deep shit—to the understanding of what matters, and not only that. To the understanding of what works. What works is the deepest shit there is.
I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t struggle with what, as an artist, it means to reflect one’s own time, as Nina Simone expresses in this clip.
Here’s what I would say. There are times when you need to hide people in the annex. There are times when you need to go out into the street with hundreds and thousands of other people to add to the numbers of those protesting what must be protested. There are times when you must do what is dangerous, because it is more dangerous not to. And there are also times when the most helpful thing you can do is embody the qualities and activities of a good life, a life that is kind, thoughtful, creative and joyful.
Write, cook, paint, knit, garden, visit with friends, help your family, help your friends, help people who are not yet your friends, study, read, look at birds, grieve when you need to, fix things, go for long walks, meditate, keep it real. Because if we are fighting, this is what we are fighting for. We are not fighting for domination. We are fighting for justice, for sanity, for kindness, for intelligence and awareness, for humility and evolution. We are fighting for pleasure and happiness and joy.
We are not even fighting; not really. Sometimes people must be stopped from doing what they are doing. When a baby is about to put a fork into an electrical outlet, you must stop that baby. When grown up baby-men are putting metaphorical forks into metaphorical electric outlets, they must be stopped, if at all possible.
And we must prepare for what comes next. What is most foolish about the MAGA slogan is the word 'again.' There is no again. There is only ahead. What comes next must include a recognition of all that we have accepted as normal and okay that has led to this time of dysfunction. More on this later.
We are not going to go from a misbegotten administration to a perfect world; we will need to embrace deep shit, and move towards greater awareness, greater understanding, and greater responsibility for our presence on this planet. To speed things up, please make as much art and love as you can, every day.
Still meaningful… why the desire for domination is a game for fools:
Brava, Janina, beautifully expressed