#159 - Living With Guilt

America has a hazing problem.

From fraternities to sports teams, year after year there are reports of terrifying behavior happening amongst peers, often resulting in tragedy.

The tragedies that make the news are those who couldn't live with the suffering, but we rarely talk about those that do.

In sororities, it's common to make the sophomores responsible for the more abhorrent parts of hazing rituals. They went through it the year before, so they're able to exercise their shame and embarrassment of what was done through osmosis as they hand it down to the next.

But the more insidious reason is because it makes them immediately complicit. They can no longer be public about what was done to them, because they've now perpetuated the abuse against others.

Sororities and Fraternities are known for high drinking rates. And sure, it's college and it's American binge drinking culture and its rape culture and it's–

But is there any possibility that its also a suppression of the gnarly combination of shame & guilt?

Sports teams are caught all the time. The coaching staff is complicit and often even encouraging of it. Northwestern got caught last year, but the school has tried to sweep it under the rug.

The thing about cultures of silence, is that they hide other forms of abuse. Locker rooms should be safe environments, so it's really weird that we just accept the idea that the most toxic forms of rape culture are being cemented in those rooms.

Not that being fat in a girls locker room was a picnic! Women and girls can be just as torturous, it's just far more likely that theirs will be psychological instead of physical. Reports from girls who have whistle blown about hazing at sororities often describe literal torture tactics. But even at the schools with "fun" rituals, they cause immense stress for the pledges. Lack of sleep can be deadly and for college students often is.

The thing about sports abuse, is that we don't care about it as long as it results in wins. I was appalled when I saw the Netflix documentary about the Florida Gators – and that's the footage they were happy to share with the documentarians.

It's a horror show.

But by making people complicit in the worst aspects of humanity, we silence them.

It's an omertà-based society.

Americans are made complicit in the worst parts of humanity every day. I think that's why a lot of people have been so silent about the genocide that's being undertaken.

We've been hazed into acceptance, we've been made guilty by association, and we've been paralyzed into submission.

People keep talking about how hard it will be to protest under Trump, as if we haven't seen some of the most horrific free speech suppression in the last few months on college campuses under a Democratic administration.

They don't want us to complain. And for years, they've been able to paint the narrative themselves. We're now connected to first hand accounts online and no longer shielded from the horrific reality of what bombs do.

The destruction they cause.

The fallout. The bodies. The whistle blown.

The unknowable levels of grief.

And I sit and I cry and I what–vote? Pay my taxes which disproportionately pay for the stupid fucking military?

Maybe we wouldn't need to be the "worlds most lethal force" if everyone wasn't rightfully fucking angry with us about what America does to the rest of the world.

And it's so hard to talk about it because this feels like the least important part of it all, right? In many ways, it is.

But feelings do matter because that's what everything is based on. Propaganda doesn't appeal through fact – we're persuaded by stories and our understanding. The traditional media is failing to give us the full picture. They parrot lines from war criminals – a term that has been heavily trivialized in recent years because we keep (rightfully) pointing out that every American President, is, in fact, a war criminal, but it gets said as a trite joke so often that the weight of the impact has eroded.

Talking about it becomes imperative because it is difficult. It's terrible to find out that someone I care for has a lack of empathy for others, that they're persuadable in ways that I cannot undo alone, but that's why you must engage. We cannot continue to live in our own truths and not invite people to share them.

I email my senators, my representatives, my governor, but I don't come on here and spew my anger to an audience–not because I don't think it's a topic of utmost importance but because I think posting anything normally trivializes it and I can't bear the guilt of continuing to exist and create during this time being made more apparent.

I don't think anyone right now is doing a Great Job of living with themselves. I just see pain and fear and actions that clearly come from a place of scarcity. Everyone is so ashamed, so afraid of being embarrassed, that we have molded ourselves into somewhat impenetrable people out of self-protection.

I'm really not knocking it, I think it makes more sense than we care to admit.

We have been witnessing a genocide for over a year. There have been natural disasters that have affected every part of the country – everyone has been pretty directly touched by devastation since 2020 and no one in leadership positions is taking their responsibility seriously enough.

If these are the results of "tireless efforts" we gotta tag in some new people or a new plan because these results suck. There aren't words for how sick I feel, for how sad I am. Numbing feels like most people's response to the impending doom that feels like it's accelerating from all sides.

It's 80 degrees in New York City today. It's October 22.

Our bodies know it's weird. Just like the animals get real tetchy before earthquakes, we know in our bones that this isn't right or normal.

My mother mentioned buying furniture in 20 year cycles and I realized I literally can't imagine what the world will look or feel like in 20 years.

No wonder the kids are numbing out on screens, we keep telling them there is no viable future so why would they invest themselves into anything?

(Also I think they're being raised by a generation of parents in various stages of denial and burnout with little communal support and that's bad too!)

We didn't used to have this level of access.

They stopped showing the bodies during Vietnam. We know how the disassociation is supposed to work, but in the internet age we are all connected in ways inconceivable just two generations ago.

International calls used to cost money.

The future happened really fast and our bodies are struggling to catch up with the impact of direct unfiltered information of the fallout of the decisions of the american military.

I'm struggling, but I still want to write and be honest about how bad everything feels. I don't think it has to be this way, I think humanity has more good than bad, but I'm really not doing well with the epiphanies of the past year and there's nowhere appropriate to really process it so. Here we are.

The last thing I would ever want to do is be glib or trivial about what is happening in Gaza. Palestinians have bared so much suffering and I refuse to let it be in vain and I hope that there is a brighter future for all of them, immediately.

My guilt means so little in the face of their suffering. And that keeps people quiet and unable to express their agony. And I refuse to do that just because my country has made me complicit and therefore expects me to be shamed into silence.

It has been a tough decade for America. Obama's presidency was the last time anything felt "normal" and we've watched the democratic party slip further and further right in attempts for those in power to soothe their wounds over the terrible decisions they made with the power they had. And the republicans are worse and much more disgusting with how they manipulate culture to suit their means, but I believed in the Democrats being good people – and it was really nice to have something to believe in.

I believe in us, in organizers, in people who come together to support each other in times of crisis and drive hours out of their way to bring clothes and food and blankets and generators.

We show up for each other. We should harbor no illusions that our government is coming to save us. Flood victims aren't given money, they're given loans. Funding makes no sense because we've been expectation-set into believing that funding the military outweighs every other need no matter what.

And now we've seen how that money is spent.

There is no going back. And we're going to have to be honest in order to make tomorrow better than today.

Victims can become perpetrators. No one is excused. I refuse to be complicit in a culture of shame and silence.

Speak up.

Be the whistleblower.

Hold someones hand in order to make them stronger in their conviction, because none of us like to be alone.