Late stage capitalism is NOT. YOUR. FAULT. Don’t take it personally.

In the news today:

— Alice Munro’s daughter calls her out for staying with her husband, even after knowing that he abused her daughter.

— Trump orders his zombies to strategically backpedal parts of the Project 2025 doctrine so as not to scare voters (and to bring in the undecideds to his camp), and no one of any power or importance is paying attention.

— the Democratic Party is chasing its tail, again, and squandering whatever time or efficacy they might have still had.

— the GOP a candidate for Governor in North Carolina just gave a fiery sermon in which he clearly and blatantly endorsed political violence (“Some folks need killing.”) and far too many Americans even batted an eye.

There is no more room for maturity, nuance or even kindness in this country anymore.

It has been inculcated and insinuated and threatened out of the fiber of this country over the last ten years and there is no way to bring it back right now.

Apparently, the only way forward is to “fight.”

But fight whom? And how?

*********

What I need to be reminded of, every day and sometimes several times a day, is that depression does not operate in a vacuum.

Sure, there may be some chemical impulse involved; our bodies are holistic systems and chemical impulses can inform, and be informed by physical and emotional stimuli.

They can, however, also be informed by social and political stimuli.

And this is what reminds me that my depression is not my fault.

Let me say that again, a little louder for those in the cheap seats:

MY DEPRESSION IS NOT MY FAULT.

I did not create it, and I do not feed it. It is not an inherent character flaw, though some want desperately for me to think that it is. My depression does not exist in a vacuum, separate and apart from everything else that exists in the world.

That is why I need to be reminded that to be depressed in this world today is to be aware, is to be shackled to a system that benefits from keeping me depressed and benefits from making me think it is all my fault. The grand myth of capitalism is that my state of existence can be changed if I pull myself up by my bootstraps, save some money each payday, stay hydrated and stay healthy so I can work endless hours a week for someone else, and in so doing I can stay housed and secure.

That is a lie. 

And I know it’s a lie because of how much goddamed money is spent every day on advertising to try and convince me that coloring inside the lines will get me ahead, if not today then someday.

Not gonna happen. The game is rigged.

Depression and capitalism have a direct connection. Depression and capitalism are flip sides of the same coin. The difference between me and someone who is not depressed, who is always healthy and secure and comfortable, may be as simple as the fact that he and I are not working with the same coin. 

Because in capitalism, we can’t. For a wealthy capitalist to be healthy, safe and secure, many others must be unhealthy, unsafe, and insecure. The condition of the former relies on keeping the latter in a state of dependence on the system that keeps them down. There are two ways to escape this dependency: accruing  enough wealth to avoid it, or dying. The people who own and operate the system do not care if you die. But if you accrue too much wealthy quickly, they will get nervous, because with enough wealth and influence you can change things, and the powers that be do not want anyone to change anything.

To be depressed is to be aware that the game is rigged, and to understand how and why you are on the short end of the stick.

What’s the cure for such depression?

Well, meds may help, if only to keep you on killing yourself or someone else. And counseling as an adjunct to that may be useful as well, though if you want to see meaningful change then the counselor isn’t the right person to talk to. And if you can access these things without breaking your bank, do it. Because we need for the aware people to stay alive and be aware and say something. For real change to happen, the depressed person needs to call bullshit on the whole system in any way possible, and to take actions of any size to gnaw away at the machinery to help bring it down.

Write.

Draw. 

Sing and dance. 

Take incriminating videos of the systems at work, and share them widely.

Play with children and keep them as far away from the machinery as you can, while they’re young enough to form healthy memories that can inform their adult choices. 

Share your excess with others who are in need. 

Don’t be afraid to engage in a little petty theft if you’re up against the wall and your next meal depends on it. The capitalists will tell you that when you steal, you’re stealing from the store employees, but you’re not. You’re stealing from the capitalists, who steal from their employees anyway no matter how “honest” you are on a given day. So if you must steal to avoid starving, don’t feel guilty about it. You’re starving because someone far more powerful than you wants you to. They benefit from your having less of everything you need to survive, and to thrive.

Pool your resources with others so each of you can live on less. Find a job where you can earn just what you need to to keep body and soul together, and if you can get away with working less than full time, do it. Time isn’t money; you can always make more money but you cannot make more time. Every part-time worker who chooses to remain part-time is stealing their time back from capitalism and spending it in other, more human-scale and beneficial ways. 

Remember that we will all die someday, each of us. Embrace your mortality so it might inform how you will live each day. Capitalists thrive on our fear of death, and use all their powers to convince us that living forever is the more desirable option. It’s also a lie. We can take back our death and own it for ourselves. It won’t prevent my death but it will be real and it will be my death, and no one can take that from me.

Every now and then, things will get hard. The owners of the systems will win, and you will suffer.

But nothing lasts forever, not even suffering. The pendulum swings both ways. I try to remind myself of this whenever I can so that I don’t go off the deep end. I try to remind myself that my depression is not my fault, and it’s not of my making.

Suffering does not preclude or prevent art, joy or love. (In some ways, these things may be intensified by the experiences of suffering, but I am not the scholar who can facilitate an in-depth discussion of that point. As always, Your Mileage May Vary.)

The conditions that caused it happened long before I was born. Sadly, they will exist after I die. So my life will have to be a series of little rebellions every day. The best I can hope for is that someone else will see what I am doing, and choose to follow suit in their own distinctive ways.

It’s not ideal, but it’s the best I can hope for, and on my best days it’s a pretty good best.

(P. S. Dear Mom and Dad — please don’t be mad at me. You didn’t know. You couldn’t know at the time. I believe that if you did know you would have tried to do something. I hope that if there’s a glimmer of your knowing left anywhere in the universe you’ll be proud of me. I love you.)

Memento mori.

A friend posted on Facebook today, “ I can't believe this is happening. How is this happening? How is this happening? HOW IS THIS HAPPENING!?!”

And I was inspired to respond to him privately.

But upon later reflection, I decided to share what I wrote here. Because it actually makes a lot of sense for a lot of people, especially those of us who are approaching or in retirement age. Because what is happening is very likely unstoppable by average citizens. I’m not going to call the general election in July, but I am going to say that unless the Democrats pick someone else RIGHT NOW and do a hard sell, things are going to go south. 

And if they do go south, there is nothing I or you or any other ordinary person in this country can do to prevent that. 

*******

I stopped pondering escape long ago. I have neither the means to escape anywhere (not even out of state), nor the robust health to storm the barricades.

Instead, I have been pondering my mortality.

It’s not entirely bleak.

Of course, no one wants to die. But we all must die.

I leave no children behind, and more of my years are behind me than ahead.

(Don’t worry, I’m not considering suicide. I still love my life.)

I’m just having significant conversations with death and not shying away from them.

I recognized very long ago that I simply do not have the power, status or money to change what is happening in a significantly meaningful way.

So I am focusing on smaller pieces of meaning and moments much closer to the present. 

And that is probably the best I can do.

******

I shared this response with my friend, who until now had been exhorting everyone he knew to hang in and fight. But tonight, he admitted, after reading my response, that he was coming to a similar conclusion. I felt sad for him, and for all of us. Especially for those of us old enough to remember how life used to be.

Those of us who’ve lived long enough to remember when democracy meant something, when America was still a nation where most people tried to get along because behaving badly was still an embarrassment and behaving violently was still a crime. We kept our cruelest thoughts to ourselves when we got old enough to understand that this was how adults were supposed to behave, because getting along with our neighbors was still a worthy pursuit for most of us — we will remember what that was like.

Today, opinions and behaviors we once saw as marginal, fringe, have become the norm and have entered the mainstream. Elected officials have given their constituents permission to say and do horrible, awful, evil things to anyone they might disagree with, in the name of creating a more homogenous American society, and anyone who doesn’t fit the new norm — white, straight and conservative Christian — doesn’t matter. If you go after someone who doesn’t belong, you will not be punished, and you may even be called a hero by the people in charge. The  lives of those who aren’t part of the now-ruling majority no longer matter to the majority, whose protected status has been assured by powerful interests who stand to benefit by having their constituents as compliant, enthusiastic sheep — and heavily armed sheep at that.

The pendulum swings both ways.

When I was a kid, it swung one way. As I enter my later years, the pendulum is now swinging the other way. And it will likely not swing back in my lifetime. 

So what is left is memento mori. 

Remember that you must die.

What is the purpose of such a reminder in times like these?

I believe it helps to clarify not only what I can and cannot do, but what’s really important in the here and now. What’s in front of me. What I can touch and feel right now. Who matters and who I can be in this moment. 

If we’re lucky, we may impart something of that to someone younger than we are, someone who will be around after we are gone. We can impart what we can, and hope that some of it sticks. That it sticks long enough for those younger people to grow up, get stronger, acquaint whatever will pass for power and influence in their prime, and maybe slow down the pendulum and nudge it in the other direction. It won’t happen in my lifetime, and maybe not in their lifetime, but it could happen somewhere down the line. Maybe “could” will have to be enough. 

I won’t live to see it. This change took a long time to come about and it will take a long time to dismantle. But knowing that it is possible is enough. If I cannot die peacefully when the time comes, I hope this knowledge will allow me to die at peace. I’m grateful to be old enough to understand the difference.

“Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.” — Anita Diamant, The Red Tent.