Processing…

How do you feel about the past four years?  What do you think all of the changes that have happened during the pandemic have transformed your life?  What effects do you think technology has permanently imprinted on you? Society as a whole?  Are you down with oat milk?  Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 4?  Ethnically sensitive emojis?

Yeah, I don’t know.

There is nothing more important than processing new information for a healthy and sane mind.  Period.  It seems ridiculous that has to be stated but we live in a culture of hourly updates and rapid-fire shifts of positions that processing is often sped up or avoided entirely.  We pretend we have absorbed something, whether we understand it or not, and feel free to comment on it, even though we’re not sure how we feel.

Or, if we feel anything about it at all.

There is no alternative to processing experiences or new information.  You can speed up a computer’s processing speed because it is essentially a calculator with a lot to do.  The human mind has to negotiate so much more. It’s impossible to know what effect the last four years had on you or your family or where it will take us.  There’s historical precedent to consider with a slew of unique events as well.  It’s trauma, but unlike any trauma any of us have felt before.  The pandemic’s legacy will have an equal amount of questions.  What is the new normal?  What does our completely inept reaction say about us?  Is it accurate to say we are mostly stupid and inconsiderate, or are we scared little mice who think we are all brave lions?  Should I have just used an animal metaphor?

Again, I don’t know.  I haven’t fully processed it.  Neither have you.

Processing is slow and measured.  It is for the wise.  It is for smart people.  However, it is also one of those things that can help you appear smart or maybe get a little smarter. Because no one knows these answers, including you, simply admitting the truth is a form of being a smarty-farty: “I don’t know.  Not sure yet.  I don’t think anyone knows.  We won’t know for quite a while how this all shakes out.  What am I, a fortune teller?  Get out of my face!”

The consequences of not processing are severe.  Not processing World War I led to World War II. Not processing Vietnam and Watergate led to an age of division and regression of social advancements.  Whoa?  Did I just stumble on that?  When we don’t process trauma and grief, death and shame, our mistakes and crimes, we lean conservative?  If we forget that life is full of change and opportunities for growth, we look to hollow aphorisms and icons instead of looking at each other as human beings?  Could red and blue simply be boiled down to those who grow and those who refuse to grow?   Don’t know.  Haven’t processed it all yet.

I think a giant leap forward would be to eliminate all comment sections on the internet.  I understand it’s a marketing ploy to get people involved with a product or a site or feel that their opinion matters.  Which it doesn’t.  The section implies that you have an opinion to share and I just don’t think we can handle that.  We prefer to have something to say rather than know what we’re saying, and that’s batshit crazy.

It’s your right as a human being to process all of this.  Take all the time you need.