Author’s note: I’m about to do something I just yesterday(?) said I wasn’t going to, and for that I apologize; this, however, is a moment in time wherein a lot of dots connected mentally and I felt this important enough to proceed.
A Nation of Invalidation
I was lying in Corpse Pose, at the end of morning yoga, when it hit me. Another epiphany moment, but this one was more like an accumulation of epiphany moments. I imagine a mathematician who finally gets to put every element into an equation has a similar feeling to what I experienced lying there. The instructor is telling us to empty our minds, not think of anything at all – “pashol nahui” – whereas mentally I was writing this at the speed of thought. Everything was falling into place. My recent writings about America; my artistic reflections about: validation, anger, and loneliness; my thoughts just yesterday about yearning for: direction, and purpose, and value; it all hit me at once. We are just not a nation of invalidation, but we were a nation built on invalidation.
One of the issues I’m still truly learning how to tackle is my sense of self-worth, and how that relates to other people. To that end, validation and more importantly the lack thereof is a central issue that has been a reoccurring theme for ages and in virtually every environment: friends, family, career, partners, peers, et al. Whether this take the form of lack of reciprocity, their lack of initiative, lack of interest in me or my work, it all feels the same to me – an invalidation of me as a person as an entity of sufficient worth. I’m not asking to be a dominant, all encompassing, draining figure, no – entity of sufficient worth. I feel in life any successes I have had are all in spite of something, rather because of something. I did well in school in spite of the education system, I did well in the art community despite the hatred of my peers, and the apathy of everyone close to me, etc. No one should have ‘in spite of’ be their main/sole success story.
To anyone who cared enough, this was: a) already known, and b) where the story ended. However, I was, for whatever reason, reflecting on some of my other writing pieces and things begin to click. I just recently wrote about how difficult it is to be positive around many people. I described the ‘misery loves company’ idea and gave a mental picture of a gravity well of negativity. Really, those people are invalidating your efforts, and then you by being closed and dismissive. However, that’s a small scale to be reflecting on; it is still damaging, but we need to think bigger.
I was thinking of some of my other pieces, like my Black Panther piece. While that piece is ultimately a celebratory piece about a culture I don’t belong to, it got me thinking about how segments of America still have a deep-seated Racism problem. What is Racism if not invalidating an entire swath of the population? We also have a deep-seated Sexism problem. Similarly, what is Sexism if not invalidating an entire swath of the population? We have a deep-seated Christian problem, in that non-Christians are invalidated just by being non-Christian. Add Homophobia while you’re at it. The Racism, Sexism, Christian, etc., problems have all killed people, recently; turn on the news, it might have happened today and the Onion might have had to update the same article they’ve had for ages now.
I think on all this and I go further and further back and it goes to the very beginnings of the country. While our ‘Founding Fathers’ had good ideas, and made things pretty clear in that the problems we have now, in theory, shouldn’t be problems, they didn’t comprise the entire country. Colonists who, themselves, likely felt invalidated in their homelands came here and in turn imposed the reason they were unwelcome upon the new world. It is 2018, and segments of America still refuse to admit the Civil War was fought because of Slavery – the ultimate form of Invalidation. America still generally acts like the land was unpopulated when we decided, unilaterally, to spread white people across it and do with it what we like. We still give a holiday to a man who never set foot on Mainland America (Columbus Day), and the place he did say hi to was decimated by a hurricane and some people then tried to invalidate their American status.
I can’t ever know for sure, but perhaps on some levels I put on the uniform and fought for validation: from my family, for everyone and anyone, and from myself. Regrettably, instead I was a part of a machine that destroyed an entire region of lives and many of the same people who fit the bill above, who are fine with tear gassing children at our border or imprisoning them near it, are also fine with whatever: cultures, languages, families, homes, etc., that were wiped off the map. There is no validation in any of that, no value assigned to anyone as human beings. Just a lot of ‘F@#$ you, I got mine.’
Now for the good news. Yes, there is good news! Like all epoch shifts, era shifts, it is never pleasant nor immediate. The Industrial Revolution brought about a plethora of things great for humanity but there were villains who abused it as well, so too in this Internet Age (whatever it will be officially called someday) it is a net positive. The walls are closing in on the small-minded, and the rest of us get to see not only are we not alone – we all feel it at points in time – but there are more of us than them. Sources are more varied, and fact-checking is near instantaneous. Love comes from unexpected places, at times when we need it most. We get to see our progress in almost real-time: new scientific breakthroughs, human achievements in other countries, everyday heroes doing everyday things, and other moments that keep or restore our faith in one another.
We have a massive invalidation problem, that spans a large chunk of the nation; the roots of which are as old as the country itself. However, one only needs look at people my age and younger to see significant change already. In large numbers, we have been interconnected and borderless from a young age. We knew people by strange, funny, or meaningful names on a screen. There was no: ‘black,’ ‘white,’ ‘gay,’ ‘straight,’ etc., beyond who you wanted to be, or said you were. It mattered who you were infinitely more than what you looked like, and to that end I have had a number of friends come and go of which I have never actually seen. Dr. King’s ‘Content of Character’ is more real with us than our parents and grandparents. We also are better with judging factual information, and critical thought is so sorely needed in America.
Are we some panacea that is going to solve all the country’s problems in two generations? Of course not, but I look at what the internet as a whole has done to people and it makes me smile. We are able to validate larger and larger percentages of the populations as people with worth and value. We are able to break past mistake cycles little by little. When things like the Net Neutrality disaster happened, a literal governmental invalidation of almost everyone who participated, that memory doesn’t just fade anymore – it serves as fuel for action.
I look forward with optimism, knowing it will be a frustrating series of fights as we transition from one age into another. While I will still try to decipher the code of how to obtain validation in my life, I have a better understanding in that regards I am not alone. There are an unfortunately ludicrous number of people in our country looking for the same thing, looking to be an entity of sufficient worth judged by the content of their character. I look forward with optimism, knowing in my heart while we were built on invalidation, we fought over invalidation, we will one day no longer have invalidation be a core tenet of what it means to be American in the eyes of history.