Who am I this time?
The fairies.
The fairies? What fairies? I’m already lost.
The fairies. We’ve all seen childhood movies and commercials in which a sweet little fairy, fully equipped with the requisite magic wand, flies through the air. One flick of that magic wand and a closed bud fully opens as a flower. Another flick, and the incipient garden, just below, suddenly turns into a cornucopia of produce. Wow! All the while, sweet, calming music is accompanying the little fairy’s journey into magic wand-dom.
Frankly, it’s all a bit too saccharine for me. Just so upbeat! Lovely fantasy, but in the real world, forget it. OK, I’ll even admit, on occasion, watching a little fairy’s cinematic progress is a tad gag-worthy. (And where the heck do they retail magic wands, anyway??)
Speaking truth, however, in my heart-of-hearts, I’m one of them; the goodness-spreading fairies, that is. How embarrassing! Just cue my prior references to “saccharine” and “gag-worthy. (A bit of head-hanging here…)
No, no, no! Wand-spreading goodness stuff is really a bunch of bologna. Right?? (They still make bologna?)
Whoa, disbelief suddenly reasserts itself?
What happened?
Sigh. A dose of reality…
While scrolling on a nearby, large, multi-neighborhood listserv, I was caught in the maelstrom of an unfettered digital attack frenzy, the focus of which was a friend of mine. Like most of us in today’s digital world, I’ve witnessed these toxic online frenzies but never one with a focus on someone I cared about. Digital postings, red in tooth and claw. I felt entangled and triggered by the angry whirlwind of untested judgments. Ready to seize the largest rock I could find to save my cave-mate from all those saber-tooth tigers. Saber tooth tigers? Cave-mate? Wait, where am I? Or, even more appropriately, “when” am I?
You mean, it really isn’t 10,000 years ago, with an environs filled by saber tooth tigers prowling for prey? Oh, yeah, I guess it isn’t. It’s the 21st century with digital barbs flying, always on the lookout for prey. (Wait, isn’t that the same?)
I don’t want to forget my self-professed good fairy energy, though. Yes, but in truth, equally present in me, and us, and most importantly, in our thousands-of-years-old brain mechanisms, is the fight-flight survival response. SABER TOOTH TIGER! Throw those rocks! Attack that Saber Tooth Tiger en masse.
But wait, there’s a hitch, saber tooth tigers don’t roam anymore. They don’t even exist. Yet, it appears our eons-old, reactive fight-flight survival mechanisms, are still in high gear, 24/7. Except, absent saber tooth tigers, there is a vast online plain where digital attack seems to be a daily occurrence. (Might I say “OUCH” here?) I certainly watched my own triggers rev up during the online frenzy described earlier. Was not proud of my impulses. However, I’ve been working, doggedly, with my fight-flight triggers for many years and am often able to disengage before the grenade leaves my typing fingers. (Did you notice I used the word “often” rather than always? Still human, here.)
Enough with the moralizing about our digital 24/7 fight-flight dysfunction. Both darkness and light live within me. My fight-flight reactivity online, and my wand-holding good fairy, wanting the best for all of us. Who will I be today? I’m rooting for my fairy…
Thinking of all the issues we scroll past until they are our issues. Thanks for a way to think about our own energy and how best to use it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Gail!!! A magic wand as an honorific. I don’t think I could ask for more! Happy heart – filled writing.