Cynicism and consumerism

A friend recently shared this article: Cynicism is Boring

Excerpt:

This was my comment / meditation, inspired in part by a recent road trip.

I think cynicism is also a result of individualistic consumer culture and well, privilege. People can afford (literally) to judge and dismiss others because they assume they can buy their way out of their problems on their own. If you don’t assume this you may well look at the people around you differently.

I just came back from a “glamping” trip with the kids. We went with friends, but since my husband wasn’t able to come I did all the driving on my own. My friend did the bookings and I had only a vague idea where I was going. I turned on my phone GPS and off I went. I didn’t worry much at all on the main highways or even through the rural farmland. But the last hour took me through a remote area with very sparse habitation and almost empty roads. Each turn brought the exact same scenery.

 I realized I was completely dependent at that point on my car and the GPS, and what would I do if either failed. Physically I was dependent on a machine and taking orders from a robot. Everything turned out ok, but I did question my choices during that drive.  I also felt very humble when I contemplated being lost and/or the car breaking down and having to hike through the hot sun to a rural household, admit some mistake and ask the inhabitants for help. Their politics, personal opinions, or even how “nice” they were would not be at all in my control. It would not matter in the least that I have two university degrees (unless to help me appreciate the narrative potential of the situation).

It’s made me think, that’s for sure.

(For a couple photos of my trip, check out my other blog.)

Self control or lack of

A couple of days ago I wrote up a shopping list. Right at the top were:

• Wine
• Instant coffee

For reasons that I don’t really understand, I bought everything on the list but forgot those two things. I thought about going back for them another day, but I still haven’t.

Instant coffee is my treat of choice after my morning shower on weekdays. I actually prefer it to regular coffee if I’m the only one drinking coffee: less dishes to wash, and weaker so less likely to make me feel sick later. But still familiar and tasty and comfortingly hot. Yes, I am the complete opposite of a coffee snob. On weekends when my husband is home in the mornings, we will make and share a pot of coffee (also a routine I look forward to). 

A daily glass of wine has become a habit since last spring when Covid-19 and work from home impacted society. Although I was certainly not constantly miserable, the breakdown in routines and loss of other fun activities made that glass of wine with dinner a welcome treat. It helped me relax and structure my day. It was never excessive, but my alcohol consumption changed from an occasional treat to an expectation that I planned around (if there was no wine in the house, I felt deprived.) Those statistics you probably have seen about increased alcohol consumption during Covid-19 ? I was one of them.

I blogged a couple of weeks ago on psychiatric medications and issues of dependency. I have had the matter of wine drinking in the back of my mind since. I didn’t write about it specifically, but alcohol dependence was also discussed in the podcast. This is often how I change my mind about things, or start to change it: I’ll hear or read something that gives me a bit of doubt or challenges an assumption in an interesting way. In this case the reminder was to consider what might be becoming a dependency. I don’t think wine is a serious dependency. But still, I would rather deal with it before it is one, and I want to know that I can choose to live without it.

Plus, at least for now, society is more open, there are more opportunities, more chances for experiences, and at the same time more serious questions to consider. I believe that I should not be dulling my wits and perceptions, but sharpening them.

The verdict?

Instant coffee is a go, and the supply will be replaced. But I’m taking an indefinite break from wine, unless I’m out at a restaurant, or at someone’s house, in which case I will have it as a treat.

But of course I’m not going to pretend I am forgoing all pleasures. I’ve indulged myself in other ways. I love Naot shoes and just bought a super comfy pair. I have bought one or two new pieces of clothing recently (supporting local small business, lol) and two necklaces on Etsy. I would rather have these things right now than wine every day. I suppose if I was truly self controlled I wouldn’t be buying more consumer goods at all, but at least I’ve made more of a conscious choice. Self expression, including through fashion feels more positive than making myself fuzzy headed, anyway.

Here’s to a summer of beauty and happiness, in so far as such things can be grasped!

Rainbows

I have journaled or blogged for most of my life, but the motivations for doing so have varied over the years. My current blogging space/identity was created in 2013 when my husband and I had been trying (and failing) to have children for about a year and a half. I recognized this as a major life crisis and took steps to deal with it, one of which was connecting with the infertility blogging community via my other blog (now restricted to private readership). It was a significant part of my life until the past two or three years. 

I interacted with a variety of people in this community over the 5 to 7 years I was most active, and they resolved in one way or another, most by having a baby (-ies) but sometimes without doing so. I don’t follow many people anymore, but there’s a few I read, including one who who was not able to have children despite years of trying multiple strategies.  Recently she wrote a blog about reframing the concept of a “rainbow baby”. A rainbow baby is a baby who is born after pregnancy loss or the death of an infant (sadly both of these things often happen to mothers who have difficulty conceiving, though they can happen to those who don’t as well.)  However, Finding a Different Path discusses what a rainbow looks like for those who did not have any children in the end. She quotes a recent book:

Sometimes a rainbow is a child, and sometimes it's the renewal of vows, a career milestone, a new sense of self, the ability to self-love.

I started thinking about this with relation to my own story. I never lost a pregnancy to my knowledge (if I ever did it was very early, before I even knew). And I did in the end have two children, though not without many years of anxiety and uncertainty. 

My “rainbow”, as my friend defines it, would be living my life without the relentless focus on my body and biology. During the years we were trying to conceive, I was so focused on the physical possibility of having a baby that it became very difficult to envision any kind of life outside of that, even the life with children that I was trying to achieve!

I see in hindsight that this was a very materialist focus. My body and what it could and couldn’t do was the most important influence on how I saw myself in relation to the world. One of the few ways I pushed back against this was by refusing to unequivocally label myself “infertile.” My blog name, for example, is an Irish word that means “fertile”. But overall I would say I was the most cynical, atheistic, and materialistic in this phase of my life that I have ever been. Never completely so, but tending toward that way more so than not.

 Particularly before the conception of my eldest daughter, I was very focused on “means to an end.” I did not want to do anything unethical, but neither did I want to think too deeply about any issue beyond the fulfillment of my desires. If other people that appeared decent were doing something to conceive, whether that was IVF or egg/sperm donation or IUI, then that was reason enough for me to consider it.  Did I know there were aspects of all these actions that were complicated? Yes. Did I want to look too closely at any of those issues? No. 

But my point is not really about specific assisted reproductive techniques. It is more about my overall focus. Even when we were not using ART (and ultimately no form of ART got me pregnant) I defined success in terms of processes in my body and the degree to which I could submit them to my will. The fact that most of the time I couldn’t get my body to do what I wanted didn’t stop me from trying or from seeing it as a somewhat faulty machine, for the most part. Where there was disappointment or sadness, it was also not too difficult to find ways to blame others: infertile/sub fertile people and our challenges are often misunderstood or overlooked by the people around us. This is true, but fixating on this also blurred out the ways that I myself was adding to my own unhappiness. 

What shocked me out of this mindset? Honestly, it was the conception and birth of my children, especially my eldest daughter. AJ was conceived, bizarrely and unexpectedly, following our one and only IVF cycle, which was canceled midway because my body did not respond to the powerful drugs that were pumped into it. A emotional rollercoaster followed, where I had bleeding and believed I was losing the pregnancy, but ultimately didn’t. My world shattered. One message emerged starkly from the chaos:

YOU. ARE. NOT. IN. CONTROL.

Although a baby is a joyful event, this is not an uncomplicated joyful message to receive. Other than my two amazing small humans, my life is now about learning to live with this knowledge. If I’m not in control, what is? How do I negotiate with it? How do I steer over choppy waters in strong winds? What would life be like if I stopped mainly viewing my children as results of a biological process and more as gifts of grace? Obviously they are both, but which story is closest to the truth of who and what they are? I would have to say “grace,” especially as I move away from the obsessive process of trying to conceive and towards a desire to understand life as a meaningful whole.

After the storm, a rainbow. And a whole new road to take.