{"id":26810,"date":"2018-11-30T12:50:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T17:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anchorwind.net\/2\/?p=26810"},"modified":"2025-01-22T12:12:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T17:12:23","slug":"a-nation-of-invalidation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anchorwind.net\/2\/a-nation-of-invalidation\/","title":{"rendered":"A Nation of Invalidation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author’s note:\u00a0 I’m about to do something I just yesterday(?) said I wasn’t going to, and for that I apologize;\u00a0 this, however, is a moment in time wherein a lot of dots connected mentally and I felt this important enough to proceed.<\/p>\n

A Nation of Invalidation<\/p>\n

I was lying in Corpse Pose<\/em>, at the end of morning yoga, when it hit me.\u00a0 Another epiphany moment,\u00a0 but this one was more like an accumulation of epiphany moments. \u00a0\u00a0I imagine a mathematician who finally gets to put every element into an equation has a similar feeling to what I experienced lying there.\u00a0\u00a0 The instructor is telling us to empty our minds, not think of anything at all – “pashol nahui” – <\/em>\u00a0whereas mentally I was writing this at the speed of thought.\u00a0 Everything was falling into place.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My recent writings about America; my artistic reflections about: validation, anger, and loneliness;\u00a0 my thoughts just yesterday about yearning for: direction, and purpose, and value;\u00a0 it all hit me at once.\u00a0\u00a0 We are just not a nation of invalidation, but we were a nation built on invalidation.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To that end,\u00a0 validation and more importantly the lack thereof is a central issue that has been a reoccurring theme for ages and in virtually every environment:\u00a0 friends, family, career, partners, peers, et al.\u00a0\u00a0 Whether this take the form of lack of reciprocity,\u00a0 their lack of initiative,\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I’m not asking to be a dominant, all encompassing, draining figure,\u00a0 no – entity of sufficient worth.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I feel in life any successes I have had are all in spite of something, rather because of something.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I did well in school in spite of the education system, \u00a0I did well in the art community despite the hatred of my peers, and the apathy of everyone close to me, etc.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No one should have ‘in spite of’ be their main\/sole success story.<\/p>\n

To anyone who cared enough,\u00a0 this was: a) already known, and b) where the story ended.\u00a0 \u00a0However,\u00a0 I was, for whatever reason,\u00a0 reflecting on some of my other writing pieces and things begin to click.\u00a0 I just recently wrote about how difficult it is to be positive around many people.\u00a0 I described the ‘misery loves company’ idea and gave a mental picture of a gravity well of negativity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Really,\u00a0 those people are invalidating your efforts, and then you by being closed and dismissive.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However,\u00a0 that’s a small scale to be reflecting on;\u00a0 it is still damaging,\u00a0 but we need to think bigger.<\/p>\n

I was thinking of some of my other pieces, like my Black Panther piece.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While that piece is ultimately a celebratory piece about a culture I don’t belong to,\u00a0 it got me thinking about how segments of America still have a deep-seated Racism problem.\u00a0 What is Racism if not invalidating an entire swath of the population?\u00a0\u00a0 We also have a deep-seated Sexism problem.\u00a0\u00a0 Similarly, what is Sexism if not invalidating an entire swath of the population?\u00a0 We have a deep-seated Christian problem,\u00a0 in that non-Christians are invalidated just by being non-Christian.\u00a0 Add Homophobia while you’re at it. The Racism, Sexism, Christian, etc., problems have all killed people,\u00a0 recently;\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I think on all this and I go further and further back and it goes to the very beginnings of the country.\u00a0\u00a0 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,\u00a0 they didn’t comprise the entire country.\u00a0\u00a0 Colonists who, themselves,\u00a0 likely felt invalidated in their homelands came here and in turn imposed the reason they were unwelcome upon the new world.\u00a0\u00a0 It is 2018, and segments of America still refuse to admit the Civil War was fought because of Slavery – the ultimate form of Invalidation.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I can’t ever know for sure,\u00a0 but perhaps on some levels I put on the uniform and fought for validation:\u00a0 from my family,\u00a0 for everyone and anyone,\u00a0 and from myself.\u00a0\u00a0 Regrettably, \u00a0instead 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,\u00a0 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. \u00a0\u00a0There is no validation in any of that,\u00a0 no value assigned to anyone as human beings.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Just a lot of ‘F@#$ you, I got mine.’<\/p>\n

Now for the good news.\u00a0 Yes,\u00a0 there is good news!\u00a0\u00a0 Like all epoch shifts,\u00a0 era shifts,\u00a0 it is never pleasant nor immediate.\u00a0\u00a0 The Industrial Revolution brought about a plethora of things great for humanity but there were villains who abused it as well,\u00a0\u00a0 so too in this Internet Age (whatever it will be officially called someday)\u00a0 it is a net positive.\u00a0\u00a0 The walls are closing in on the small-minded,\u00a0 and the rest of us get to see not only are we not alone – we all<\/em> feel it at points in time – but there are more of us than them.\u00a0 Sources are more varied, and fact-checking is near instantaneous.\u00a0 Love comes from unexpected places, at times when we need it most.\u00a0 We get to see our progress in almost real-time:\u00a0 new scientific breakthroughs,\u00a0 human achievements in other countries,\u00a0 everyday heroes doing everyday things,\u00a0 and other moments that keep or restore our faith in one another.<\/p>\n

We have a massive invalidation problem, that spans a large chunk of the nation;\u00a0 the roots of which are as old as the country itself.\u00a0\u00a0 However,\u00a0 one only needs look at people my age and younger to see significant change already.\u00a0\u00a0 In large numbers,\u00a0 we have been interconnected and borderless from a young age.\u00a0\u00a0 We knew people by strange, funny, or meaningful names on a screen.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There was no: \u00a0‘black,’ ‘white,’ ‘gay,’ ‘straight,’ etc., beyond who you wanted to be, or said you were.\u00a0\u00a0 It mattered who you were infinitely more than what you looked like,\u00a0 and to that end I have had a number of friends come and go of which I have never actually seen.\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. King’s ‘Content of Character’ is more real with us than our parents and grandparents.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We also are better with judging factual information,\u00a0 and critical thought is so sorely needed in America.<\/p>\n

Are we some panacea that is going to solve all the country’s problems in two generations?\u00a0 Of course not,\u00a0 but I look at what the internet as a whole has done to people and it makes me smile.\u00a0 We are able to validate larger and larger percentages of the populations as people with worth and value.\u00a0\u00a0 We are able to break past mistake cycles little by little.\u00a0 When things like the Net Neutrality disaster happened,\u00a0 a literal governmental invalidation of almost everyone who participated,\u00a0 that memory doesn’t just fade anymore – it serves as fuel for action.<\/p>\n

I look forward with optimism, knowing it will be a frustrating series of fights as we transition from one age into another.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While I will still try to decipher the code of how to obtain validation in my life,\u00a0 I have a better understanding in that regards I am not alone.\u00a0\u00a0 There are an unfortunately ludicrous number of people in our country looking for the same thing,\u00a0 looking to be an entity of sufficient worth judged by the content of their character.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I look forward with optimism, knowing in my heart while we were built on invalidation,\u00a0 we fought over invalidation,\u00a0 we will one day no longer have invalidation be a core tenet of what it means to be American in the eyes of history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author’s note:\u00a0 I’m about to do something I just yesterday(?) said I wasn’t going to, and for that I apologize;\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[270,166,168],"class_list":["post-26810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-considered-thoughts","tag-270","tag-desperation","tag-hope"],"yoast_head":"\nA Nation of Invalidation - Anchorwind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Nation of Invalidation: thoughts on my personal struggles, how it relates to a bigger picture - and a newfound understanding of hope. 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