The Relentless Pursuit of Joy

My husband, Jonny, is a bit clairvoyant. He has described having a Voice of the Universe in his head that speaks to him sometimes, and it’s rarely wrong. The voice often takes the form of a prankster in a bowler hat, leaning against a doorjamb, casually eating a sandwich while delivering warnings of treacherous things to come in a dry, sardonic tone. (I am embellishing much of this from my imaginative impressions of what Jonny has actually said to me.) I call his psychic inner voice the Universal Sandwich Man.

On Tuesday evening, as we sat together on a video call watching the election results trickle in, I asked Jonny what the Universal Sandwich Man had to say about our chances of inaugurating President Kamala Harris in January.

He flinched and said, “…I think he’s gonna win.”

I told him I would happily trade the whole idea of him being psychic if he could just be wrong this one time, and he said he would, too. We spent the next few hours praying for the demise of Jonny’s psychic status.

I hate that he’s still psychic. I hate the Universal Sandwich Man.

Choke on your sandwich, Sandwich Man.

The last time Trump won against a well-qualified, bad-ass woman, I was consumed with rage. I spent the month after the election fury-stomping my way through the streets of New York City, gnashing my teeth and howling silently — and sometimes not silently — every time I saw evidence of the orange man’s real estate holdings in Manhattan or his fucking golf clubs or those awful tourists in their dumb red hats taking pictures outside his godforsaken tower. I wanted to punch every Trump voter in the face. How could they? How could they choose a man who brags about assaulting women over a FUCKING WOMAN who would have run circles around him in that job? HOW?!

The rage was permeating my existence and ruining my sleep. My mental health was in shambles. It was unsustainable. I needed to channel it into something productive, something that could lower the temperature of the flames inside me and help me understand what I hated, so that I could stop hating it and start working to fix it.

I ended up making a podcast called Make America Relate Again. I spent the first half of 2017 finding women who had voted for Trump and recording conversations about why we each voted the way we did, with the goal of mutual understanding. No persuading, no convincing — just understanding. These were compassionate, respectful conversations about politics with people who voted in a way that made me want to punch them in the face.

I am happy to report I punched zero Trump voters, in the face or elsewhere. For the record, none of them deserved such violent treatment. They were all lovely people.

The experience taught me many things about the reasons people think — and vote — the way they do, and one day I’ll write about it in more detail. For now, I’ll just say that making the podcast succeeded in deflating my hatred and rage.

But it deepened my despair.

I learned that the folks who voted for Trump weren’t just bad or stupid people I could easily dismiss. I learned that facts really and truly don’t seem to matter to most people, for all sorts of reasons, from poorly developed critical thinking skills to an information universe that makes it easy to spread lies to large groups of people. I learned that being thoughtful, well-informed, tuned in to credible news sources and able to tell the difference between those and the un-credible ones is a gift that most people just don’t have natural access to, and it’s not entirely their fault. I learned that many people vote for emotional reasons, rather than a well-researched comparison of policy positions or a nuanced understanding of why, for example, the price of eggs has gone up.

I became consumed with despair, and because of that, I was unable to keep making the podcast. I was unable to create much of anything, for years after. The opposite of creativity is depression.

I can’t afford to do that again. The work we have ahead of us now is even more daunting than it was in 2016.

In the face of this unconscionable repeat of the 2016 election — except worse because this time he actually won the popular vote, except worse because this time we knew what we were getting, except worse because now he’s become truly unhinged and bent on revenge, except worse because now he will surround himself with obedient loyalists and there will be no John Kellys to function as checks on his crazy, except worse because now he knows exactly how to change all the rules to hold on to power indefinitely — I am not experiencing rage, and while despair is doing its wily best to sink hooks into my psyche, I have not given in. I will not give in.

This time, a hot air balloon of hope refuses to stop rising inside of me, and the word emblazoned in twenty foot tall letters across its rainbow expanse is JOY.

Okay, okay, I get it. If you’re on the Compassion-and-Decency side of the political aisle, joy seems far away right now. You’re grieving, you’re angry, you’re bewildered, you’re most of all afraid. I am all of that, too. After all, our country, with full knowledge of what a disgusting human being Trump is — knowing he is a rapist, a felon, and an egotistical liar of bloated, Kaiju proportions — still elected him over a woman of substance and principal who has more thoughtfulness and decency in her smile lines than he has in his whole extended family. This is infuriating. This is maddening. This is confusing and we have a right to our grief.

But grief and confusion paralyze us if we sit with them for too long. They make the couch and screen and comfort food look far more doable than the Rolling Up of Sleeves and Getting to Work. And rage can be galvanizing, but it can also cause unfocused lashing out that does more harm than good. If there was ever a time we needed to take a cue from the hardest working woman in America, it’s right now. We must remain joyful, and we must not give up.

I’m not saying you must be joyful all the time, or even most of the time. Unless you’re Eckhart Tolle-level enlightened, that’s probably not possible. But some of the time? You can do that. We must feed ourselves a steady diet of reliable joy, or we won’t get through this moment without irrevocable damage to our souls.

Since the election, I have enjoyed twice daily cuddle sessions with my sweet new kitten, Crowley, who is incredibly demanding when it come to snuggles. I have hiked with a hilarious, sweet new friend in a beautiful place. I have eaten delicious food. I have checked on and been checked on by dozens of kind friends. I have sung my feelings, I have exercised and exorcised my grief and anger, I have bathed in the sun and taken solace in the encouragement of the leaders and artists I respect. I have witnessed the grief of my loved ones and responded with love, comfort and humor. I wrote this essay, and the process of writing it has helped me crystallize exactly what my resistance will look like.

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Joy. Gratitude. Compassion. Love. These were the lyrics to the chorus of the last song I released as Samia XI, “Change the World,” and they remain my guiding pillars today. Animals, nature, connection with others, pleasurable sensory experiences like food and sex and music — these are all reliable sources of joy. Feeling joy increases your capacity for gratitude, compassion, and love. We will get through this by BATHING IN JOY, my sweet little pinecones!

I value compassion, kindness and empathy. I value the thoughtful, loving stewardship of our beautiful planet. I value human rights and equality for all. And because I value those things, I have an obligation to not fall into despair (and therefore become ineffective). I have an obligation to not be consumed by rage (and therefore become hateful and hurtful toward those who voted against my values, giving them more reason to reject what I stand for). If I fill myself up with rage and let it rule the way I communicate and interact with others, or if I fall into despair and let it paralyze me, I am betraying my own values.

I have a responsibility to remain joyful and grateful, because that’s the only way I’ll be able to keep fighting for what I know in my soul is right. When I am joyful, I have energy to fight the good fight. And that fight cannot be about casting blame or aspersions, or putting people down for making a decision that I feel is deeply wrong. Pointing fingers doesn’t change people’s minds. It just makes them dig their heels in. Polarization increases polarization. We need to call people in, as civil rights activist Loretta Ross has been reminding us for years.

Joy gives us sustainable energy. When we are regularly experiencing joy, we are able to connect with others, even people whose opinions and ideas are anathema to our own. When we cultivate a daily sense of gratitude, we are able to write the letters to our representatives, to make the calls, to join the marches, to engage in the hard conversations with our Trumpy uncles. We need to do this work with kindness and compassion, or all our efforts will backfire.

So what people, places, and activities bring you joy, and can you make that part of your day today? Can you make them at least a small part of every day?

I promise I will relentlessly pursue joy so that I can remain an active, engaged citizen, so that I can keep on fighting for freedom for all, so that I can be effective and productive in service of the values I hold dear.

What about you?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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