People Who Are More Prone to Believing in Conspiracies

I read an article in Scientific American about how people who feel more anxiety and alienation are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.  If that's true then our society will become increasingly more prone to them, since the trends of both are rising, especially with all the self-quarantines happening.   

Based on personal experience, I can say it's generally true for the people I know.  My mother and wife have felt a lot of anxiety in recent years, and they seem to have become more susceptible to them.  My aunt felt a lot of both in the past, and she was really into them, but not so much anymore.  Nobody was more into them than my father, who didn't appear to feel anxiety but definitely felt alienated.  The reverse generally rings true for the more stable people I know. My other aunt and her partner don't believe in them- two of the most relaxed and communal people in my life.  Neither does my boss, who does feel a little of these feeling sometimes, but not to the same extent of the others.  

As someone who felt a lot of anxiety and alienation in the past, and who was more prone to conspiracies during the same period, I can tell you why this is happening.  It's because people need a scapegoat when they try to rationalize why the world doesn't make sense, why they're being ignored, why bad things keep happening to them.  Their ego can't handle not understanding why they're alienated and nothing seems to work out for them, so they invent something to explain it.  For example: candid government intervention in their lives, seeking to subvert them at every opportunity.

George Floyd, An Objective View

 

        It was truly shocking to witness on video what took place in Minneapolis this week.  A black man named George Lloyd was arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to pay for some items at a local store.  It's not clear whether he knew the bill was counterfeit or not, but the clerk at the store who called the police stated he refused to return the items he'd purchased, and that he appeared heavily drunk.

       On security camera he only slightly appeared to resist arrest.  To me he looked angry and intoxicated while protesting as the officers escorted him to their vehicle.  When they got there, Lloyd appeared to fall down on his own, startling the officers.  Two more came to help in addition to the two who were already trying to arrest him.

      Next came the disturbing cell phone footage of these officers holding him down.  It's not clear what transpired in the minutes between this footage and the previous one.  But Lloyd was on the other side of the car this time, with one officer holding him down with his foot on his neck!  Lloyd, gasping for breath, said many times he couldn't breathe, begging for his life.  He begged the officer to let him up so he could get in the car, but the officer continued to put pressure on his neck while the others guarded the area against onlookers, many who were growing agitated by the officer not letting up.  It took about nine minutes for an ambulance to arrive (who called the ambulance- police or a spectator?).  It was only then that the officer finally released his foot from the man's neck.  Yet it was clearly too late; by then Lloyd had to be dragged onto a stretcher, where he was pronounced dead by medics shortly after.

        The event has sparked outrage across the country, nowhere more than in Minneapolis, where the precinct these cops worked at was on set on fire last night.  All four had been summarily fired, and this morning the officer who killed Lloyd was arrested on charges of murder.
       I'm not sure how much this has to do with race as it does with a familiar story that transcends it.  I've heard so many stories of innocent people being tortured and murdered unfairly.  Human cruelty is endless it seems.  RIP to George Lloyd, Sylvia Likens, et al; all the kind souls who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, tortured and killed for no other apparent reason than bigotry, jealousy, or any other vices.
       Now there are riots in all the major cities, during a pandemic of all things...  America going up in flames and phlegm.  One of the low points in U.S. history.

The Old Poem I Found

 

        I'm not sure if I've already written about this.  A couple years ago I was shopping for used books at the St. Vincent Dupaul across the street from where I lived in Kenmore.  There I stumbled upon the least expected book I already had: The Fall of 2002 Northwest Celebration of Young Poets collection, which featured the first poem I ever wrote for submission.  The poem was "Cry of the Wind", something I'd written in a bad state to help me get over the loss of my romantic interest at the time, Sandra.  The remarkable thing about this is I wrote my first published poem in one sitting, without any editing.  It was simply typed up and submitted online, taking about 30 minutes from start to finish.  It's probably the greatest achievement of my life so far, other than becoming a father; certainly career-wise. 

        To find that book 15 years later in a shop ready for sale, where someone could potentially spend their cold hard cash on something I'd written, was a monumental feeling- a true sign of something I could be successful at.   In hindsight that event should have been my calling.  Alas, I was too bogged down by depression and uncertainty to realize the opportunity when it spat on my shoes.  I should have studied English in college, not those dead-end sciences.  It would have helped me hone my writing skills at an earlier time, making me a better writer and perhaps even more prolific than I am today.  Oh well, the past can never be reconstructed, and that's probably a good thing. 

The Healing Waters

And this is the song that breaks the fist, 
Burns the pledge, surrenders the honor,  
Reaches deep into the well for a remedy, 
Unlocking a stained prison of injustice, 
Fairness bleached by a hopeless cause. 
It rattles the cage, dilutes the medium, 
Pours through the open cracks, 
A feeling, a remembrance, a fleeting thought, 
Once stifled by pain, wrapped in cold omens 
What the past reassembled, distantly calling 
From under an iceberg of strength. 
 
To yield is divine, to permit the passage 
From stern embers afire to cosmic tear dust, 
Vomits the cavity forth, casting demons 
Terrifying out of the pit, through the navel, 
Glowing fiercely as they ascend the pendulum, 
Clawing up the windpipe, howling as they breach, 
Melting the stubborn pain into plasma, 
Drumming in waves through the mind,  
Thoughts of pity exhaling them through 
The rusted gates of the optical fortress. 
 
Gush, gush, you sickly ghosts, 
Exorcise these sentences from within, 
Cleanse me of the impurities once withstood, 
Break free my soul in bondage, that it may heal 
The heart, relax the nerves, suture the scars, 
That I may release them from my body,  
Into the cloudy sphere of toxins withdrawn,   
Bleeding every last morsel of utopian trauma,  
Rainfall of pearls beating on a shadowy curtain,  
Storms put to rest by the music of sadness. 

Blue Lightning

    Words cannot express how much I love you.
    Lightning struck over the polished houses, the twilit road rose up to meet me.  A dark cat scurried off into the bushes, someone's blue room echoed the flashy gloom.  My evening constitutional was interrupted by a silent blast out of the sky, materializing some electric mirror that was gilded by pain.  The revelation hit me like a zap from the seraphic continuum, that you were sent to help me recover what I'd lost.
    When you were born my brother left me, the only man left in my life.  Now there's only you.  It's as if he'd relayed a baton to you, a baton I've seen change hands too many times in my short life.  He would have been asked to be my best man if I had to ask anyone; that's why we didn't have a traditional wedding.  Something in my bones told me he'd say no.  If you left me like he did, my heart would break again, like it has so many times.  If you were like him I could still forgive you, as I forgave him.  You're just a part of the eternal mirror that reflects my soul, displaces those who don't love me with those who do.  And you do love me, just as he did, whether you'll know it in the future or not.  But he does not love me anymore, and one day you may not either.  I can't bear to imagine why; what it is I do or say that makes them run away.  There has never been a stable man in my life, not one whose been by my side going all the way back through childhood.  I had one once, but he forgot me.  Now I grow up with you instead of him, and you're everything he was before the rift.  You remind me of him so much, my baby boy.  The way your face lights up a room; all the energy and vitality you possess; the sweet noises you make when you're trying to impress me; your stubborn persistence.  He is like a child who never grew up, but hopefully you will.  It's another cruel twist of fate the Gods have given me, that my baby brother who I loved so much would turn from me just after my son was born.  May you never know the pain he has given me, or the pain his father gave me, or the pain his father gave him.  Fathers hold up the mirrors that their sons are reflected in, even if they aren't from the same one.  That mirror doesn't always have to reflect the past or the future.  For once I would like it to reflect the present, to keep you here in my arms through all the mad sorrows that beat my body blue, like the lightning that struck my mind in two.
    I saw an exhibition today, a series of four paintings by Thomas Cole, called The Voyage of Life.   You were the joyful child, as I once was, watched over by your grandma, the guardian angel.  She watches over us both, though you wouldn't know it.  Your mother is the angel too: even me for that matter.  You will grow up in a wondrous garden of earthly delights, America's Eden- the fruitful vales of the west.  New things will appear as magical as they ever will on this river of peace and safety.  We'll steer you down it, as far as we can, through the meadows of spring and into the mountains of summer, where you'll scale the peaks of ambition, seeking love, approval, achievement, and all the other yearnings of man.  We'll still be with you, but you'll steer the boat on your own as we watch from the shore, marking every move you make through the frontier of idealism.  When you're older a terrible storm will come, which came for me when I was quite young.  My journey through the summer of youth hardly existed, as I went straight from childhood to adulthood without a moment to spare.  I hope your journey will be different, that when you reach the autumn of mid-life, you'll have enjoyed the stage of youth that I never had.  The storm will toss and turn your boat as you struggle to maintain control.  The river will narrow, bringing you to your knees, making you pray to the universe for a break from the struggle, for survival through the murky shadows.  You will grip your boat with every ounce of strength you possess, fighting the elements against throwing you into the hostile rapids.  Finally, in old age the river comes to the open sea, where the water is calm and the wind stops blowing.  Here your angels will return to you, inviting you up to the beautiful light that parted the storm.  You'll relent with winter's cold surrender, feeling gratitude for having survived the tumult of your sins, shaking your head at your mistakes and cherishing those fonder memories of brighter days.  That's where we'll be, child, waiting for you at the end of the river, with an antidote for your pain and a halo for your head.