Heartbreak

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

The first time I saw it I was four and they told me the dinosaurs were dead, and no, none of them survived. Not even the ones that were hiding palm trees. No, they're dead.

The next time I wasn't much older, and Jim Henson passed away. Pneumonia, they said. He decided not to get treatment. Almost like a suicide.

I saw it in my best friend on the playground. We were making a thousand cranes to wish for peace and one misshapen paper bird had been found outside. We crumpled it up for our pretend compost project, and she cried and screamed to get it out and fix it, because her brother was in Iraq.

And then the parade of "not good enough" and "not dedicated enough" and "you can do better than this" that is the school system, not a single moment of heartbreak but a long, slow, grinding process, wearing down the vertebrae one by one.

The deaths of not my loved ones but the loved ones of those close to me hurt. They knocked me down and stole my lunch money and my last shreds of faith in an omnipotent and sympathetic deity. But these weren't moments of heartbreak, not really.

The next time I felt real heartbreak I was seventeen. It was 2000, and I watched helpless as the politics of my parents and my town and the adults I cared about and those of my peers were steamrolled by a Supreme Court ruling and a coordinated effort to fuck the polls.

After that, it was the Tuesday morning I slept in and came downstairs to find my father crying.

I wrapped myself in a cocoon of apathy and meandered through life for the better part of a decade, til I found the courage to love again.

And we tried.

And the young Iranian couple showed up on the Daily Show, saying hello to Jon Stewart from the heart of Tehran, green wristbands waving. It had been filmed a week before. There was no way of knowing if they had been in the protests, if they had been captured, or tortured, or killed.

Heartbreak is when your daughter asks if she can trust the government, and you know the answer is no and there's no way you can fix it before it becomes her generation's problem.


Heartbreak isn't about a person. Heartbreak is when you see the terrible in the world -- not the Horror, just the normal, run of the mill "this is the way the world is" terrible -- and see that there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot be there. You cannot help those people. You cannot affect the things that affect you. And sometimes I'm not heartbroken.

But right now I am.

[Doktor Howl]

And then the parade of "not good enough" and "not dedicated enough" and "you can do better than this" that is the school system, not a single moment of heartbreak but a long, slow, grinding process, wearing down the vertebrae one by one.

This is what we Doktors refer to as "compliance training".  At no time can anyone ever quite satisfy the system...Though occasional kids ARE allowed to appear as if they do, leading to beatings in the schoolyard, which is the method by which they teach children to help keep their peers in line.

It's designed to break your heart, the same way annual reviews are designed to break your heart and keep you smouldering in anger, the same way bank loans and retirement are designed to mesh so well.

You are told in school that if you don't slave away, the fnords will eat you when you get out of school.

You are told at work that if you don't slave away, the fnords will eat you when you retire.

When you retire, the fnords eat you anyway.

All of this is intentional, so that you SHUT UP.  Nose to the grindstone, kid.  Work hard, SHUT UP, worry all the time, SHUT UP, sweat the mortgage and the car note and the kids' dental work and SHUT UP. 

It is in fact how cogs are made.

Welcome to the gearbox. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't remember who now, but I think it was my friend Space Ninja who told me about an experiment that was done with cattle and deer. The deer were pastured by day and stabled at night, and fed grain and hay twice daily, while the cattle were put in a large foraging area of low-density woodland mixed with meadow, and left to fend for themselves.

Within a single generation, the deer were slow, placid, and docile, while the cattle were agile, wily, and wary.

[Doktor Howl]

I don't remember who now, but I think it was my friend Space Ninja who told me about an experiment that was done with cattle and deer. The deer were pastured by day and stabled at night, and fed grain and hay twice daily, while the cattle were put in a large foraging area of low-density woodland mixed with meadow, and left to fend for themselves.

Within a single generation, the deer were slow, placid, and docile, while the cattle were agile, wily, and wary.

Can we start a new thread and link to something about that?

Because we've been breeding the brains out of sheep and cows for thousands of years.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't remember who now, but I think it was my friend Space Ninja who told me about an experiment that was done with cattle and deer. The deer were pastured by day and stabled at night, and fed grain and hay twice daily, while the cattle were put in a large foraging area of low-density woodland mixed with meadow, and left to fend for themselves.

Within a single generation, the deer were slow, placid, and docile, while the cattle were agile, wily, and wary.

Can we start a new thread and link to something about that?

Because we've been breeding the brains out of sheep and cows for thousands of years.

I couldn't find anything when I searched, but both the OP and your response made me think of it... even if it's not true, it seems like a fitting allegory.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

The thing that kills me about the "WAKE UP SHEEPLE" crowd is that they don't see the Heartbreak, all they see is the Compliance. I can't just forget all these things I carry around with me, can't just drop the weight like a suitcase, it's a part of me. Every time I let myself fall in love with the world again, this is what she does to me. To everyone. And some people smile and take it with an "everything happens for a reason" and masochistic pride, and some people close up, and some just circle the wagons so the only things they dare love are those they can directly control.

They're yelling at me to get out of the Cave and see things as they really are, and I keep trying to explain to them that I've seen the way up there and I'm not actually confused about where I am but my leg is broken and I can't make the trip. Not yet, anyway.

[Doktor Howl]

The thing that kills me about the "WAKE UP SHEEPLE" crowd is that they don't see the Heartbreak, all they see is the Compliance.

Nobody ever said that becoming aware of your situation and surroundings would be easy or painless.

I can't just forget all these things I carry around with me, can't just drop the weight like a suitcase, it's a part of me. Every time I let myself fall in love with the world again, this is what she does to me. To everyone. And some people smile and take it with an "everything happens for a reason" and masochistic pride, and some people close up, and some just circle the wagons so the only things they dare love are those they can directly control.

They're yelling at me to get out of the Cave and see things as they really are, and I keep trying to explain to them that I've seen the way up there and I'm not actually confused about where I am but my leg is broken and I can't make the trip. Not yet, anyway.

This is what reinventing yourself is all about.  On the other hand, I saw some pretty brutal shit fairly early in life, so I tend to be a little on the callous side and might not be the best judge of these sorts of things.

[Doktor Howl]

I guess a better way of saying it is this:  Desensitization isn't a good thing, but you have to develop some if you're going to exist in 21st century America.  There's too much information, and most of it is awful shit.  If you don't desensitize to some degree, you'll just roll up in a fetal position and stay there.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

I guess a better way of saying it is this:  Desensitization isn't a good thing, but you have to develop some if you're going to exist in 21st century America.  There's too much information, and most of it is awful shit.  If you don't desensitize to some degree, you'll just roll up in a fetal position and stay there.

Pretty much that right there. A shrink put me on a news fast for a while and it felt fucking amazing, but at the same time I wasn't contributing anything on a larger scale, just functioning as a human being with minimal damage.

[Doktor Howl]

I guess a better way of saying it is this:  Desensitization isn't a good thing, but you have to develop some if you're going to exist in 21st century America.  There's too much information, and most of it is awful shit.  If you don't desensitize to some degree, you'll just roll up in a fetal position and stay there.

Pretty much that right there. A shrink put me on a news fast for a while and it felt fucking amazing, but at the same time I wasn't contributing anything on a larger scale, just functioning as a human being with minimal damage.

We have some old sayings here:

"Sometimes I laugh until I can't stop screaming."

"The Horrible Truth."

"Laugh until your guts bleed."

Basically, they're just more ways of coping with an overload of signal, much of which, as I say, is distressing.  There's a reason I'm a misanthrope, after all.

[navkat]

Wow. Yeah, I understand the feeling of not being able to make the trip. I'm tired.

[Reginald Ret]

I guess a better way of saying it is this:  Desensitization isn't a good thing, but you have to develop some if you're going to exist in 21st century America.  There's too much information, and most of it is awful shit.  If you don't desensitize to some degree, you'll just roll up in a fetal position and stay there.

Pretty much that right there. A shrink put me on a news fast for a while and it felt fucking amazing, but at the same time I wasn't contributing anything on a larger scale, just functioning as a human being with minimal damage.

Watching the news and keeping up with current affairs doesn't help you contribute anything, improving your local surroundings does.
Now that i think about it current affairs is a misnomer,

Noun   1.   affairs - matters of personal concern

There is rarely anything going on in other countries that is a matter of personal concern, yet you are expected to spend half an hour a day learning about it? Fuck the news and the ass it rode in on.
Too Much Information is bad for you, so be selective about the info you let into your brain. By all means, watch the news every once in a while if you wish, but don't make it part of your daily pattern.
Remember the first rule of toxicology: Everything is poisonous. It is merely a matter of dosage.

[Doktor Howl]

I guess a better way of saying it is this:  Desensitization isn't a good thing, but you have to develop some if you're going to exist in 21st century America.  There's too much information, and most of it is awful shit.  If you don't desensitize to some degree, you'll just roll up in a fetal position and stay there.

Pretty much that right there. A shrink put me on a news fast for a while and it felt fucking amazing, but at the same time I wasn't contributing anything on a larger scale, just functioning as a human being with minimal damage.

Watching the news and keeping up with current affairs doesn't help you contribute anything, improving your local surroundings does.
Now that i think about it current affairs is a misnomer,

Noun   1.   affairs - matters of personal concern

There is rarely anything going on in other countries that is a matter of personal concern, yet you are expected to spend half an hour a day learning about it? Fuck the news and the ass it rode in on.
Too Much Information is bad for you, so be selective about the info you let into your brain. By all means, watch the news every once in a while if you wish, but don't make it part of your daily pattern.
Remember the first rule of toxicology: Everything is poisonous. It is merely a matter of dosage.

[East Coast Hustle]

I guess a better way of saying it is this:  Desensitization isn't a good thing, but you have to develop some if you're going to exist in 21st century America.  There's too much information, and most of it is awful shit.  If you don't desensitize to some degree, you'll just roll up in a fetal position and stay there.

Pretty much that right there. A shrink put me on a news fast for a while and it felt fucking amazing, but at the same time I wasn't contributing anything on a larger scale, just functioning as a human being with minimal damage.

Watching the news and keeping up with current affairs doesn't help you contribute anything, improving your local surroundings does.
Now that i think about it current affairs is a misnomer,

Noun   1.   affairs - matters of personal concern

There is rarely anything going on in other countries that is a matter of personal concern, yet you are expected to spend half an hour a day learning about it? Fuck the news and the ass it rode in on.
Too Much Information is bad for you, so be selective about the info you let into your brain. By all means, watch the news every once in a while if you wish, but don't make it part of your daily pattern.
Remember the first rule of toxicology: Everything is poisonous. It is merely a matter of dosage.

Fuck yes. This.

[Don Coyote]

That probably explains why I've been having headaches this past week. Too much shit in my head.