Anthropology Politics Psychodrama

Her Restless Mind

October 6, 2020 by David 76 Comments

Time for another visit to the pages of Scary Mommy, a publication for progressive mothers, and where Ms Christine Organ has a problem:

For years, I’ve known that I have trouble sitting still, that I find projects and things to fret over. I need to literally schedule time to binge watch TV, and I multitask like a freaking boss. What I don’t know is how to let my mind and body rest.

You see, leisurely uses of time, including “lounging about on a rainy Saturday afternoon,” are fraught with mental hazards:

When I do something enjoyable – with no other “productive” purpose – I feel guilty… I’ve always thought that this is just how I’m wired (and maybe it is), but there’s something else at play too,

Happily, Ms Organ has fathomed the cause of her agitation and sorrow:

I suffer from internalised capitalism – and you probably do too.

Ms Organ, an “author and storyteller,” and user of Xanax, hints, almost coyly, at her own political leanings:

I’m on the democratic socialist end of the spectrum.

Then teases us some more:

Let me be very clear: I intentionally shun the “capitalist” lifestyle. My husband and I choose to spend our money traveling and donating to causes we believe in rather than “stuff.” We live in a small house in desperate need of updates, and share one car between the two of us. I feel comfortable with the choices we’re making and the life we’re living.

Um, okay. Perhaps this is where the applause is expected to go. What with all the heroism, selflessly declared. Sadly, this leaves less time for an elaboration of Ms Organ’s central claim – the supposedly corrupting woe of “internalised capitalism” – beyond an unremarkable statement:

I don’t want my self-worth to be attached to productivity anymore. I want to be able to rest, and to have fun.

And a warning that,

bigger-better-more isn’t the key to happiness.

Not much to chew on, really. Exactly why Ms Organ’s inability to sit still or lounge on a sofa should be blamed on a modern market economy, as opposed to, well, almost anything else – say, “a small house in desperate need of updates,” or her aforementioned shunning of a “capitalist” lifestyle, or just being a tad neurotic – remains somewhat unclear. The nearest we get to an argument is a quote from “expert relationship manager” and “exponential impact generator” Vicki Davis, who uses the word “we” an awful lot, and tells her readers,

We are bad at working AND self-care because we have been conditioned to equate our value as human beings by how much we produce. This stems from the internalisation of capitalism.

And,

Billionaires have convinced workers to look down on people who are not productive.

Yes, I know. These are assertions more than an argument, but still. Baby steps. Perhaps we’re to assume that binge-watching TV would obviously be easier in a loftier, more socialist environment, in which comfort and “self-care” always come first.

We do, however, get this:

There are also roots in white supremacy.

But of course. It’s a go-to destination, and terribly in right now.

Alas, on this matter, too, evidence is elusive. Instead, we get a link to the Radical Therapy Centre, which offers its clients “anarchist therapy,” along with “radical love, radical softness.” The Centre, the goals of which include the abolition of prison, is a creation of Ms Sonalee Rashatwar, an “Instagram therapist” and woman of surreal girth who denounces “intentional weight loss.” Ms Rashatwar’s rhetorical contortions have been mentioned here before. Among which, her claim that dieting is a form of “sexual violence” based on “Nazi science,” and that her own health problems, including high blood pressure, are the result of “weight stigma” and “white supremacy,” and nothing whatsoever to do with her enthusiasm for doughnuts, consumed in wholesale quantities.

 

Elsewhere in Scary Mommy, I found another of Ms Organ’s contributions to human advancement:

How to Cope When a Family Member Says They’re Voting for Trump.

In which we learn that said discovery – that a family member’s political views diverge from one’s own – is a traumatic experience:

the realisation is, quite simply, devastating. Horrifying. Confusing. Embarrassing. Maddening. Demoralising.

On account of “all the terror” that Mr Trump “has and is raining down on us,” being, as he is, a “monster.” A Demon King. Planning to vote for Mr Trump over Mr Biden is, it turns out, an inexcusable sin, a basis for “anger and heartbreak,” and, inevitably, hyperventilation:

It is about life and death. It is about democracy versus fascism.

And any failure to endorse this estimation, any demurral at all,

is a complete and total mindfuck. And it’s exhausting.

Lest you think I’m cherry-picking, this goes on for some time:

Let me be very clear, just because someone is family, they do not get a free pass to treat you like crap or mess with your emotional and mental wellbeing. “But they’re family” isn’t a reason to give someone total access to your life and jeopardise your wellbeing.

Faced with the unspeakable horror of differing opinions, the sheer violation of it, the way to ensure one’s “emotional survival” is, we’re told, to block dissenters on Facebook and to “surround yourself with people who are on the same page as you.” We’re also told that this rather emphatic intolerance of political deviation is actually a good thing, “a sign that you care very deeply about building a better country and world.”

So. As I said. Ms Organ has a problem.

 

Update, via the comments:

Sk60 shares a screengrab of more ladies distressed by the existence of Donald Trump, with the words “same energy.”

Well, quite. It’s almost like some kind of Quatermass horror story, in which much of the population has spontaneously become deranged, possessed by a compulsive, competitive narcissism, in which breathless overstatement is a kind of status. “We’re being emotionally abused,” says one of the pretend-hysterics, an enthusiast of the hashtag “resist.” But like Ms Organ, they’re abusing themselves. Or pleasuring themselves, depending on how you look at it.

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