Re: The (large, generous, thankful) “space” we need to inhabit when dining with others on this Thanksgiving Day

Just imagine: millions of folks across this great and shining land dining with others whom they either rarely see or see all the time, with whom they may have longstanding histories, including loves, grudges, all sorts of icky stuff that is disgorging up from the individual, group, and collective unconscious during this storied Saturn/Pluto conjunction era . . . Imagine us all dining together the traditional Thanksgiving foods; please pass the butter, the mashed potatoes, the green beans with onions; here, have a fresh piece of breast meat. . . no, I’d rather have a wing. What? Yes, I like to gnaw on the bones. (That would be me.)

So far, it seems terrific, very traditional, everybody gathered round sharing both meal and yearly gratitude. Except. . . oops . . . somebody suddenly says, to me, or to another who has ideologically flown the coop, “I just can’t believe that you support Trump!”

Yep. All bets are off. Suddenly, silence descends upon the room. How will I respond?

I suggest that, in order to prepare myself for the inevitability, I read slowly and carefully again all the way through Martin Geddes latest newsletter. A brilliant, and dense overview of the kind of multilevel analysis we need to even begin to comprehend how difficult it is to understand even where we ourselves “are coming from,” much less to reach across the various strong divides that have siloed each of us into his or her own reality bubble, especially during the past few years.

The Perception Problem: How Do You Define Reality?

My housemate Camden says he’s noticed that everyone he talks with, no matter what their ideological point of view, is adamant that they are correct! Yes. True. I consider myself among them, even though I theoretically do want to keep my mind continuously open to expanding perspectives, any one of which might suddenly reframe and thus re-value every (tentative) “conclusion” I’d previously entertained. Meanwhile, please enjoy the following. No matter what your perspective, this is funny. Right? Well, only if you grok memes, and trolling, of which Trump is, hands down, the Master.

 

And check out these two. LOL.

Yeah. Hey everyone, let’s have a wonderful time, okay? Laugh. See through our various personas and the silly, cemented on, conceptual helmets we all insist on wearing. They weigh us down.

There we are, sitting round the table, each of us with an invisible conceptual helmet, and scared of what might come next!

Because we know it’s not over.

Because we know it’s only just begun.

But wait a minute. What’s “it”???!!??

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

About Ann Kreilkamp

PhD Philosophy, 1972. Rogue philosopher ever since.
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