you do not have to consent to being flooded

resisting muzzle velocity

image by Elliott J. Brown

The other day, I was texting with a friend about how we were holding up. I described my looping thoughts, insomnia, scattered focus, deep existential spirals. A feeling of just being utterly flattened. You already know what I mean.

I get it babe, she replied. I get depressed, too. She recommended that I buy a SAD lamp.

I don’t often think of myself as a depressed person; anxiety is the mind state I work to cope with the most. But the two can be an emoji handshake. After meeting with my psychiatrist, she reminded me that depression presents differently for everyone. As we talked, I realized there are several neon flashing signs that all is not well. The other day, I pumped some body oil onto my hands and then stuck them under the faucet and rinsed it off. I laughed out loud when I realized what I did, at least. I forgot to add the milk to a batch of matcha butter mochi and ended up with a hard, dry loaf. One morning, I put my nose oil on my face and my face serum in my nose. I got on a train going in the wrong direction, not once but twice! Like I boarded the train, realized it was uptown when I needed downtown, got off, and then got back on. The eggs, as the kids say, are fully scrambled.

Later that day, I got a newsletter from The Ink, where Anand brought up the idea of flooding the zone. That the overwhelm we feel is the point, a political strategy to overload people with so much alarming information and sudden changes that our ability to process, to keep up, to function is compromised. It is aided and abetted by the non-stop notifications on our phones of each new development and announcement from this administration, and the subsequent and non-stop processing that happens across our social platforms in the aftermath. The driving principle behind it all is that if you’re constantly being consumed by a new outrage, you can’t look closely at the last one, or three, or dozen, etc. You get so exhausted that you numb out. You open a different app. You look away.

Anand reminded us that we do not have to live at their pace. We can resist the accelerationism of our time. Paul Virilio, French theorist, labeled the way speed defines our modern era calling it dromology; also suggesting that what moves faster can, and often will, dominate what moves slower. But we do not have to consent to being flooded. Anand continues: “Do not participate in the fragmenting of your attention so far and so wide that you cannot prioritize, you cannot see bigger patterns, you cannot identify the merely unwise policies from the flagrantly illegal and unconstitutional ones.”

Ezra Klein went a bit further on a recent podcast episode, insisting that we see beyond the militaristic tactics of overwhelm — which Steve Bannon once described as muzzle velocity — into the reality of 47, which is that “the projection of strength obscures the reality of weakness.” Bars.

Being emotionally flooded can cause a stress response that triggers fight or flight. I’m realizing more and more that when it comes to the news, I tend to fawn or freeze (the other, lesser known survival responses that can occur when someone experiences a perceived threat). I feel immobile, I feel suppressed, I feel like the volume has been turned all the way down on my own brain and body, making it difficult to discern what is actually happening below the surface. It has made me more prone to bouts of crying and flaring, volatile emotional responses. It has made me mask myself to myself, as my sweet friend Lise recently pointed out. It’s wild to be working on a book about dissociation for five+ years and *still* not recognize it when it happens to me.

I’ve been dipping into Chris Hayes’ writing on attention and browsing through a book on the history of our understanding of attention to try and put this moment into a larger context. There’s an argument that our devices and corporations are stealing our mind/time, which I agree with. The second volume is making a more complicated argument about whether attention is something we can even quantify. But everyone agrees: We need to relearn how to attune our presence to what matters to us.

To be attentive is to be able to hold on to what needs to be held. This resonates with something Isa, a lovely astrologer that I just met, recently told me. Venus just entered Aries, softening the constellation’s grim determination. It’s a time to think about dissolving (versus breaking down) and absorbing (versus trying to hold it all), and just holding the self for a bit while the rest comes into focus. Because it will. And we can do it on our time and our terms.

Here are some of the ways I’m working on being more attentive: Joining creative collectives, making buddies at the gym, mentoring incarcerated writers through the Minnesota Prison Writer’s Workshop, learning about building a food forest in Crown Heights and supporting the Trans Journalists Association to connect with my peers doing the good work to uncover what this administration has in store for the most vulnerable among us.

come see about me

Feb 20 at Lincoln Center with Rebecca Carroll, Raquel Willis, Kimberly Drew, Tressie McMillan Cottom

the juicy bits

The SAD lamp that I got as a gift (thank you Mom!)

Laughing meditations with LAARAJI, a true miracle worker. In person in NYC & free online

A pot likker martini (you can always swap out the gin for a botanical substitute, or seltzer)

King Doechii credited sobriety for her Grammy win!

Kripalu’s Black History Month offerings

Chelsea (from Selling Sunset) has a great recipe for chicken soup

Two of my brilliant friends have new books coming out! Eve is a freaky babyfaced genius and her next book on the racism built into the American school system is essential; Angela Flourney is grace and elegance embodied and her much-awaited new book is as gorgeous as the cover by Mickalene Thomas.

Prince’s estate has officially blocked the rest of the world from being able to experience Ezra Edelman’s incredibly complex, layered and phenomenal film on the musician. A blow to creatives everywhere.

Brittney Howard has a new hardcore band called Kumite - and it is SIIIIICK

This Dazed Digital mix is perfect for dancing around the house

Meta workers quietly replace the tampons in the men’s rooms

I recently served Noreen’s mint tea with cardamom and fennel to a friend who dropped by the house and it was a huge, huge, hit. Highly recommend <3

As always, thank you for reading and being with me.

A portion of this week’s paid subscribers will go towards Food Fight, a mutual aid fund providing meals for the people living in the Bushwick Jefferson migrant shelter.