Emotional Backbone
Late-night flights and new conversations.
On airplanes, usually above the Indian Ocean, I gain perspective. Twenty years ago the scene on the seats next to me looked different. Staring eyes darting toward me, my curious eyes looking back. A couple of Australian tourists or a few Japanese travelers dotted the plane. And now young migrants criss-cross nations barely noticing a freckly blue-eyed girl like myself, in a sea of better-dressed hipster locals with suaver hair and slicker sunglasses. I love feeling small.
I write on planes; my thoughts pour out as I reflect on my home country and the plight of nomads and migrants and their journeys over the centuries.
It dawns on me on a recent flight that America is great, but it’s not what everybody needs.
The animating narrative/zeitgeist/life force is one of intense, fierce struggle for solo survival and independence, and people are exhausted.
I’m talking about people who’ve squeezed every inch out of what is possible for their surviving and thriving and yet still come up short in the quest for satisfaction. Not everyone feels this way, but some of you do, and that’s ok. I’ve realized, contrary to our historical mantras, that America is not for everyone.
People have gotten so caught up in the projection of America that they’ve stopped evaluating for themselves if it’s what they really want.
Are you in perpetual startup mode and get high on the thrill of intense pressure and constantly living on the edge of survival? Great, America might be for you.
Do you want to feel restful in your body and enjoy a cup of coffee without feeling constantly judged about every aspect of your being and performance? Then America might not be for you. Guess where is? A lot of other places.
One of the things that has struck me about living back in South Asia is how completely out of my league I am, as so many Americans are, when we go abroad...a simple example being how multilingual much of the world is in comparison to an average American. It recently occurred to me the incredible cognitive flexibility and agility (and ensuing empathy) one has to employ in order to converse and switch back and forth between languages...indeed an underrated aspect of “the good life” that many Americans don’t know much about.
Speaking of criss-crossing the planet, my conversation with Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid is now up (follow us over on YT!), and this week is busy with three more live conversations: tonight on Monday 11/17 at 8pm PST The Free Press Senior Editor Peter Savodnik joins me to talk about his personal and professional evolution as an international reporter. Then On Wednesday 11/19 at 9am EST his Gen Z colleague River Page joins me to talk all things TikTok, Evangelicals, voting blue in a red state, and more. And Thursday 11/20 at 9am EST, Deepest Beliefs Lab director and OSU endowed chair in social psychology Kurt Gray, author of Outraged, joins me to discuss misinformation, social psychology, and tension and repair in America. I hope you can join us; I have free gift links for Wednesday and Thursday if you want to grab those.
Finally, if you haven’t yet read Trust Your Mind: Embracing Nuance in a World of Self-Silencing, I encourage you to do so. It’s my new book baby and it will give much-needed context for these discussions. In the book I explore heightening our tolerance for tension, getting better at debate and disagreement, and developing what I call an “emotional backbone.”
From the Himalayas,
Jenara
Watching this now and was floored that no reference was made to HOW the Gaza war actually came to be. No mention of Jewish experiences in Israel or in the U.S. (and around the world), not mention of the crimes of jihadism and it’s toxic read. Not quite enough to refer to “authoritarianism” in his grandmother’s Egypt.
Instead of speaking about hypocrisy and non-hypocrisy, perhaps speak about the undermining of democracy by both the far right and the far left? (And how antisemtism plays a huge role in the normalization of that.)
It really was a level of chutzpah for him to refer to October 7th as life-changing for him while intentionally omitting any mention of the depraved atrocities of that day committed by Jihadist/radicalized/genocidal antisemitic Gazans against Israelis and other nationals in Israel.
It’s fascinating how that day also changed the overwhelming number of Jews on the planet - most especially daily those of us who have always been progressive and Zionist and who remain so, if not more so than ever in the face of the astonishing and gleeful blind spot when it comes to us. Call it hypocrisy, double-speak, whatever, but rationalizing Jew-hatred, in speech, intimidation, violence, action and erasure whether as cosplay terrorists on campuses or feigning a moral righteousness - it reels of fascism.
When he mentions Qatar but forget to mention how it houses and funds jihadists elites (and with filthy oil money, no less) … it’s hard to take seriously much of anything else he says.
When there is no mention of the suffering of innocent Yemenis, Sudanese, Nigerians, Egyptians, Lebanese, IRanians, Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Indians - and most especially women and LGBTQIA - but his world changed when a tiny nation defends itself against the very maniacs who have committed atrocities in those places and who are hell bent on killing every Jew in the world? Push-leez.
This is how and where elitism and privilege have become no different on the left from the right.