New President, Who Dis?
Aquarius season is upon us, and it comes with new leadership. I don’t have any profound words for this power transfer that haven’t already been written. All I'll say is that Wednesday's inauguration was a beacon of hope in this pandemic nightmare.
I rode that high until this weekend, but now I’m feeling uneasy. We’ve had Bernie memes for days, but everything else is quiet.
Too quiet.
For years the next greatest disaster was always around the corner. Every day the president would come out with something more outlandish, and, after awhile, we became desensitized to his tantrums and abrasive tweets.
Actually we got hooked on them. The world religiously tuned in to the freak show that was American politics: assault allegations, World War 3, veterans are losers, drink bleach…. We were living with our assailant through our screens.
Now we’ve gone cold turkey.
Trump is off Twitter, out of the white house, and back in Florida with the Tiger King legacy. My newsfeed has never been so empty.
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This new era of leadership came in like a tranquilizer. The theatrics of inauguration day were exactly what we needed to usher out the old and lull us back to calm. It was a PR stunt for positivity and a symbolic graduation into normalcy.
When Trump was sworn in I cried. This year I galloped around my apartment and shopped for jewel-toned trench coats. This is the reality I want to exist in.
The days after inauguration have been slow. It’s eery, but also freeing. This is the cadence of politics we should be used to. How quickly we forget that government work is meant to be boring most of the time.
Let’s not forget that Joe himself is bland. That’s part of the charm. If there’s one word I'm hoping defines this next year, it’s bland.
We don't need a dictator, we need a leader. No one does their best work when they're being yelled at. Real change is born from inspiration. We make progress in having the agency to present new ideas and feeling encouraged to do.
Setting the stage is more important than being in the spotlight.
Presiding is more important than being the president.
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I'm Blue, Da Ba Dee Da Ba Di
Two days before inauguration was Blue Monday. Blue Monday, or the third Monday of January, is commonly cited as the saddest day of the year. It’s cold, it’s dark, and the Christmas bills are hitting at full force.
This year we had the added panic of what Trump might do with the nuclear codes on his way out.
Logically there’s no real way to measure the sadness of a day. No research has ever shown that this Monday is particularly horrible compared to all the other horrible Mondays.
Hilariously, the man who created the day had a “formula” he used as proof of its validity: [W+(D-d)]xTQ/MxNA. It might look legitimate, but none of these values are actually measurable. Q, for example, is the time since you gave up on your New Year's resolution.
It might be safe to assume we all stopped on January 4th, but, at the end of the day, that's still an assumption.
In fact, Blue Monday has been debunked as a PR stunt used to sell vacations. Research shows that people book more trips when they're miserable, so promoting an ultra-sad day makes sound marketing sense.
Over time the myth of the "saddest day of the year" became a twisted kind of holiday that we've come to know and dread. Psychologists in particular dislike Blue Monday as it trivializes clinical depression and blames the causes on outside forces. Sometimes you're just sad and no day is to blame.
Garfield, for example, hates all Mondays independent of the time of year. It's rooted inside himself and not based on any formula.
Another issue is that Blue Monday ends up being prescriptive. It asserts that everyone should be sad because the day is objectively sad. It's manifesting misery.
When you’re told a day is the saddest day of the year, it’s no wonder you feel sadder on that day. When a president bombards you with bad news, it’s hard not to feel like the world is bad.
The bigger challenge is not letting those directions alter your whole outlook. Is it possible to only feel sad when you're told to be sad and not a second longer? Probably not. We've been conditioned over the last four years to expect intensity. Our world has built up a filter of impending doom.
It's only been four days, and I'm not reacclimatized to this lighter news cycle. I keep waiting for the sky to fall. Surely we can't actually be done with Trump's antics.
Jeff Tiedrich says it best:
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How SAD
Whether fake or not, no one is arguing that the third Monday in January is the happiest day of the year. Generally we can chalk that up to the weather, but there's also the very real presence of Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD affects about 2-3% of the Canadian population, though this year that number only stands to rise.
The main cause of SAD is lack of sunlight. Without Mr. Golden Sun, our brains have a harder time producing serotonin and melatonin. Basically our biological clock can’t handle living in the winter.
In normal times we have outlets to push through the bleaker months. Outdoor sports keep us basking in whatever sun we can, and our social lives help us through the rest.
This year we have no choice but to stay inside. I'm willing to bet that many of you have had the winter hit a little harder than usual. Some of us may have opted for our weighted blankets over outdoor fun anyway, but that's not the case for everyone. Kids, for instance, are at a way higher risk than usual of developing SAD during the pandemic.
Even better news, this week Canadians ranked third in the world for levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Based on this study approximately 26% of our population has been struggling through lockdown. Yikes.
The US ranked first, of course. 33% of them are having a rough go, and, considering the year they had, no one is shocked. As their neighbours we felt the effects of their stress along with the added bonus of Canadian winters.
In researching how to fight SAD, the most common treatment is standing in front of a sun lamp. As much as it tickles me to imagine our entire population crouching around like lizards, it doesn’t seem like a practical cure. I guess you could set up your home office like an aquarium in an attempt to bring back some joy. It can't look any worse than the fake Zoom backgrounds we're all forced to compliment in meetings...
If the lizard life 'aint for you, there's still hope. One psychologist asserts that people can have milder symptoms if they've established strong routines before the winter season comes in full force. Going to bed at the same time, taking a walk every day, sticking to hobbies etc. Routine is a powerful drug.
These habits are also key in managing the pandemic. Structure brings purpose, and creating my own has been the only way to wrap my head around being stuck at home. With this new presidency I'm just hoping my routines won't continually be disrupted by white supremacy news stories...
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Just Keep Swimming
A study on depression compared zebra fish that had regular exercise to those that didn’t. Scientists created resistance tunnels for groups of fish to be “aerobically challenged” for an hour a day over six weeks.
I mean that's pretty damn cute.
Unsurprisingly, the athletic fish showed fewer anxious behaviours at the end of the study than the inactive batch. The lesson is that we can’t control what happens around us, we can’t control our SAD, and we can’t immediately fix the disruption left in the wake of Trump. We can, however, find routines. An hour a day was all it took for the zebra fish, and that seems like a decent place to start.
In a different study, zebra fish left in total isolation exhibited even stronger signs of anxiety than their counterparts. They thrashed around and head-butted like middle-aged men at a Soundgarden concert. Or, a more on the nose example, like all of us during the tenth month of lockdown.
Quarantine is testing our limits. Without structure and engagement, it's tough to keep our anxieties in check. Of course there's a distinction between stimulation and bombardment. We need routines, direction, and consistency in our lives, and in our politics. A chaotic leader can only ever breed chaos.
These zebra fish show us that moving forward is the only way forward through uncertainty, through anxiety, and through aerobically challenging tunnels. Under new leadership, I see the potential for the world to flourish. Not because Joe Biden is the best or most inspiring president, but because he knows he’s not. He’s ready to take a back seat for Kamala’s moments, to listen, to advise, and to inspire simply by not shutting down other people's ideas.
He can lead and not dictate.
To me Joe is the embodiment of stability. He’s run for president three times and finally reached his goal at age 78. It's a heart warming story about perseverance and sticking to your goals. The election was really an updated version of the tortoise and the hare. In the end, consistency run the race.
We need structure, routines, and predictability in every aspect of our lives. Whether to get to the end of the winter, toward our goals, or through our mental health challenges, we can all use the same mantra:
Just keep swimming.
If it works for zebra fish, I'll give it a go.
