I spent this afternoon clearing my kitchen drain. Not the nice bit under the sink. The length from the outside wall to the cess pit. Yes, I have a cess pit. I live in the countryside.
My horrorshow featured a sturdy set of drain rods - every woman should have one - and the Karcher 5. Mostly, it involved my arm and hand pulling out a large rock-like deposit of undigested dishwasher tablets. (WHY?)
Lying flat on the gravel, I got to thinking about sclerotic arteries and the build-up of plaque that reduces blood flow to the organs and tissues. This drain could be me. I cheered up briefly when I recalled I had been on the Peloton today. Cheer was short-lived, alas, as I inched further down my disgusting drain, only to sink myself in a dark rumination on bilge. Bilge is the name for the lowest-lying part of a ship’s hull, plus the foul water and pollutants that collect there. Bilge water, I thought. Social media, I thought.
Then I remembered it was time to write my Substack column.
I decided to restart my Substack when Trump became President. Hadn’t Steve Bannon said that the way to deal with opposition is not to bother with rational arguments or debate, or even to acknowledge that their is another point of view? Just ‘flood the zone with shit’ Misinformation is key. Volume matters. Overwhelming us every day with bilge. Mostly, folks just want to get on with their lives. Now we are handcuffed to Trump TV. Sometimes it’s Greenland, other times it’s DEI, then it’s Musk with a chainsaw, now it’s tariffs. It’s impossible to keep up, and anyway, it’s effluent. All of this is sprayed around by the pressure hose of social media. X - I am talking to YOU. ME (we’re just a platform)TA, I’m talking to you too. But hey, if we weren’t buying into it all, with our uploads and over-sharing, those ‘platforms’ would be nothing.
There is so much shit flooding the zone. Important, then, to keep personal pathways clear, to swill it out, sluice it away, not get clogged, not get blocked, not stink of their crap. If you have been on a boat, you’ll know that if the bilge isn’t drained off regularly, it will eventually pour into the engine and destroy it.
I decided to come back online and use what’s best about social media - connectivity -to try to create a small space that isn’t about flooding the zone with shit. I think that’s all we can do, each of us, in different ways, private and public. To stand against manufactured chaos. To refuse and to reject their methods. To remind each other we’re not crazy.
First, you have to keep your brain out of the drain. Don’t feed on garbage. You’re not a fly or a rat. Get your news from trusted sources, and where you are uncertain, dig deeper. Lift your nose above the negative. The intention of flooding the zone with shit is to make everything dirty. Then, we become cynical - there’s no-one to trust. Then we become passive. It’s too much. There’s nothing we can do. Then we wonder… can’t beat ‘em? Maybe join ‘em? Maybe they are right - we live in Hell, only ‘they’ will save us. Price worth paying?
It’s a rule of life that we are affected by the bad more than the good. Psychologists claim we need 4 good things to outweigh 1 bad thing. That might not be true for you - it isn’t true for me, but your feel-good ratio is unlikely to be 50-50. And it’s certainly true that one bad thing can ruin an otherwise decent day. So, if the shit-stuff is flying down the chute, we will have to hold onto the good stuff, the deeper good stuff, that isn’t a daily-basis-event. What to do when you feel up to your neck in turds?
It’s useful to keep in mind that a lot of the shit-show is universal and general - it’s designed to distress and depress everyone. To keep people fearful and angry. Yes, it can turn personal, when you lose your job or your home, and I am not downplaying that. What I am saying is that ‘flooding the zone’ is the clue. Everyone, everywhere, all the time. Gaslight. Paralyse. Bully.
What’s good in your life is not universal or general. It’s particular and private. It’s yours. Not theirs. We have to live in the world as it is, but we have a secret weapon - and it’s as simple as who we are. Not faceless. Not a unit. Not data. Not someone else. You.
To remember we are loved and that we are able to love. To remember our friends. To stand in the rays of what we are reading. To read to reinforce the life of the mind and the steady beating of the heart. To be glad we can think clearly, and that there are interesting things worth thinking about. The places we have been and seen. The fact that we are here, now, with a chance to set an example, to be who we say we are. And the simple pleasures of fresh coffee in the morning. A glass of cold water. Your goofy dog. A kiss.
The good things we give and receive.
There are other ways of flooding the zone. The way the sun does. The way music does. The way happiness does, right through your body.
We can flood the zone with light.
people filling the streets, in cities and small towns, is another kind of flooding the zone
Oranges are not the only fruit.