I finished work about an hour ago, which means I closed my email app and continued to sit in my new home office, the small spare room in the two bedroom place my partner Tom and I moved into a few weeks ago. People talk a lot about “work-life balance” and “keeping work and life separate.” I’m very into that as well, which is why I walked to the liquor store between finishing work and sitting down in the exact same spot to write this.
I picked up a new brand of Australian hard seltzer, because I am a sucker for dumb shit that reminds me of home. It’s ok, but not as good as the real stuff. (Thankfully, we’re getting White Claw here soon. I look forward to paying $20 for it.)
I don’t really consider myself an ex-pat, but I guess that’s what I am after more than two years here. I wasn’t ever very pat to begin with, to be honest, but I think we all absorb some level of the psychosis known as “American exceptionalism” growing up in the Best Country In The World.
Most people I knew growing up were liberals, and we believed that there was a “right” way to Be a Patriot. We didn’t buy into all that flag waving nonsense, but we still were Proud to Be American (but you know, because of free speech, not all the wars). We knew that real patriotism meant believing in our institutions, the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the “radical experiment” of democracy, all that Hamilton bullshit.
Whoops!
It’s impossible these days to not think constantly about how much America sucks. I sometimes feel like a New Atheist for patriotism, constantly running around pointing at the COVID deaths and the food bank lines and unemployment numbers like, look! This was there all along! How didn’t you see it?! I don’t know what the point is. I guess I just love to be right.
(Ok this hard seltzer is actually pretty gross. Please accept my asylum request.)
I’m not sure when I went from “America is basically ok” to “America sucks, actually,” but it was probably around the time I started thinking about how many people we put in prison. It’s true that America is exceptional, but not in the ways we think we are. Living abroad, one of my favorite party tricks is to tell people just how bad things are in the States. Our awful minimum wage, our lack of any mandated paid leave, let’s not even get started on voting rights.
In the last few months, this has all started feeling a lot worse. My colleagues stare at me through Zoom with perplexed concern when I say how many cases we have per day, much like the stunned people in this disturbing New York Times video.
Our idea of what this country is became disconnected from the reality so long ago. The map has thoroughly subsumed the territory. It’s like chimps and humans, different branches of an evolutionary tree, separated by millions of years of mutations and adaptations that seemed logical at the time. We can’t even communicate with what’s left behind.
Other thoughts:
I can’t stop shitting on the New York Times. I am part of the problem. But jfc stop using “anarchist” as shorthand for “bad.” Anarchists are some of the most generous and productive people in this godforsaken world. I’ve written about anarchists doing good shit in the past, and I’d really like to do so more in the future, as they need a serious rebranding. At least people are into mutual aid now (which is, to be clear, an anarchist thing).
The next time I see someone try to say that Jews are indigenous to Israel and therefore it is “colonialist” to be anti-Zionist I’m going to need someone to shoot me with a tranquilizer dart.
If you want to feel good inside go watch the extremely lovely show Love on the Spectrum on Netflix, it is one of the most heartwarming things I have seen in a long time.
This is my first “real” newsletter and it may or may not resemble things I do in the future. I have no idea! I’m trying things out. I may have a bit of a snarky tone in this one but in the future I might be more woo woo or serious or sad or something. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it!