The following post is a synthesis of two different sources: Amy Sukwan’s latest stare at the light as it pierces your soul and never flinch post, and a dialogue I had right here on sagehana.substack.com.
(And I guess you could throw Dr. Malone’s Plato’s Cave post in there as well. Linked below.)
This is a process called convergence, and it’s probably one of the ways that I lose people in the communication process, but that’s a whole other topic for another day!
Amy slays me as few ever have.
She just reduces me to a small child wandering around unattended in a deserted shitty shopping strip looking for a lollipop on the ground. With a crappy little coin operated pony ride covered in graffiti and loud silence.
Amy pumps out matter of fact human frailty stories that literally make me nauseous to read, because it is all so pedestrian and so real, so accessible… like a movie, or a dream except the dream is real and you can never wake up.
The other conversation involves two friends.
Let’s call one of the friends, “Diana”, and she recounts her dialogue and then I respond.
Diana: I was listening to an interview with the biologist Robert Sapolsky. He stated that humans are capable of great evil and harm and mistreatment of others. But they also (sometimes the same ones) are capable of loving actions.
I think most people like to think of themselves as decent good people. Due to censorship, most people are not aware of the suffering that our Covid policies are causing.
In the 1960's I was also not aware of the suffering caused by U.S. racist policies. I used to think my black friends or my housekeeper was exaggerating because I didn't suffer the same mistreatment. A lot of times people like to "blame the victim" in order to deny that they themselves could ever be the victim. So if a woman were sexually assaulted--she was asking for it. If anything bad happened to you--maybe it was your fault.
I think it's common to want to live in a safe world where the government has our best interests at heart, the medical authorities design treatments and policies to help us, we just have to believe in the mainstream narrative and avoid conspiracy theorists.
These beliefs can cause the other person to behave in thoughtlessly cruel ways.
When I told one friend I was going to refuse vaccination, she warned me, "Well, you're just going to have to accept the consequences."
WHY WHY do I have to accept 2nd class citizenship because I'm asserting my right to medical freedom? It's because the unvaccinated are scapegoated for the utter failure of the vaccine program.
The anger of the people for the failure of their medical system to protect them and offer them safe prevention and treatment gets diverted into blaming some third party so they won't have to recognize the failure of their parental authorities.
Sage: Your "accept the consequences" friend is a proxy for pretty much every person that I have been arguing with since I was a small child.
Diana: And that friend actually likes me. She didn't see herself as rejecting me. Just warning me that I was taking an indefensible position.
Sage: Suspicion is that at some point, friend will come to resent you in a Tall Poppy sort of spirit way.
Diana: Who is Tall Poppy?
My friend gets angry at me if I contradict her idea that it's dangerous for her daughter to get covid and cause her mother to lose work by having to remain home in quarantine.
She blames her unvaccinated ex son in law for the infection. I assured her that most likely the infection would be quickly over since children don't get highly sick from Covid. This turned out to be true, but my friend didn't reconsider her opinions.
She is quite fearful of covid, and I judge our friendship not to survive a dialog where we could each share our opinions and respect each other. So I don't talk about vaccines. Eventually my friends treat me affectionately because I'm not confronting them.
I wonder if I'm behaving ethically in avoiding a direct challenge to their opinions which might result in a threat to their health. But they wouldn't accept my advice anyway.
Sage: "The tall poppy syndrome is a cultural phenomenon in which people hold back, criticise, or sabotage those who have or are believed to have achieved notable success in one or more aspects of life, particularly intellectual or cultural wealth—"cutting down the tall poppy." It describes a draw towards mediocrity and conformity.
Commonly in Australia and New Zealand, "cutting down the tall poppy" is used to describe those who deliberately put down another for their success and achievements.
In Japan, a similar common expression is "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down".
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Your pal is a solidly mediocre color between the lines citizen.
Her premises all rely on accepting what is fed her and saying, "Delicious."
You are progressing, or if you prefer, moving out of Plato's cave. This can be highly threatening and "uppity" to a good order follower.
—Diana:
Your description of "the tall poppy" is quite fascinating.
I didn't share my success or achievements with my friend.
She is a part time artist--but retired now and not able to work partly due to arthritis. She is a friend and colleague of my brother who is also an artist. She is smart, warm-hearted, has liberal ideas wants feminist freedom for the women in Afghanistan, hopes for the freedom to get abortions.
In general, I agree with her vision of equal rights for the world. Just that I don't think our government is going about it in an effective way. Who are we to inflict our goodness (democratic way of life) by regime change on most 3rd world countries we can dominate?
Sage: Okay. My comparison is not a linear direct reading of the definition.
It is an extrapolation of you using your mind and your spirit to entertain and search for truths which Mediocre Pal is not interested in, and in fact, is threatened by.
(Hence the need to avoid the discussion so as to avoid severing the relationship.)
Make sense?
It's not cut and paste, "Well Diana is successful!" analogy, it's more, "Well Ms. Fancy Diana is looking further under the rock and anyway, safe and effective and unvaccinated are dangerous, and blah, blah, blah...."
This is the person who accepts the branding of the word, "Vaccine", then does a little pattern recognition exercise, 'well golly vaccines are good, ergo, these vaccines are good'.
This is a person that will not entertain questions of branding, of taxonomy, but WILL likely look to a Gleaming Talking Head for direction and go admonish Spiritual Tall Poppy Diana to cool her fact finding jets....or else.
Diana: Oooh Sage, I adore your reply it's really making me think.
You do me too much credit. I did not search for truths so much as have them thrust upon me. I suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome and high anxiety.
In attempts to get treated by the medical profession I was repeatedly diagnosed as "hysterical female" needing treatment with anti depressants--which does little to solve my problems. "Don't automatically trust doctors" becomes part of my DNA.
Although I continually hope for better. Gary Null warns me not to take flu vaccines--they are worthless. Could it be that mRNA vaccines are also worthless? I am riddled with physical symptoms that cannot be understood or diagnosed.
All drugs offered seem to cause side effects and do nothing. Gradually I become disenchanted with all drugs--including mRNA vaccines because in my experience taking a drug causes my body to collapse and feel even worse.
Maybe this narrative of utter sickness that results in fear of vaccination causes most of my friends to have some pity for me. I'm not a threat to grandma--I am a grandma who is threatened by a possible bad side effect of vaccination.
They nearly all seem to understand this and give me a pass. Which doesn't happen here from NYC authorities because our governor refuses to honor medical exemptions (and later is refusing religious exemptions as well.
In summary: I love this place sometimes.
Thank you, Diana for an extremely rewarding and thoughtful dialogue, and thank you Amy for shredding my soul and making me nauseous tonight as I cook dinner.
https://ko-fi.com/sagehanaproductions64182
“Thank you for your concern. I don’t discuss my body.”
That was my standard response at work when I came off of FMLA.
I also don’t give any indication of why I call in sick if ever I do call in sick.
And, frankly, I don’t discuss anyone else’s body, at work or in private. As soon as people start discussing their or others’ ailments, symptoms, etc., I walk away or I change the subject.
I will throw a little “Hope you/they feel better” empathy in there and that’s it.
None of my business.
My two dreams we last night and the night before. I have been setting an intention for spirit guidance my father very commonly comes into these. In the first dream it was a villa, like a fancy house of interconnected little houses with a separate stairwell and guesthouse and balcony, sort of a faded yellow. It was like the type of place that you would rent out for a real big extended family event for a week, except it was faded, and the white plastered swimming pool had no water in it. My Dad was upstairs in this separate guest bedroom watching the Twilight Zone on an old TV. My sister in law Tiona (also dead) came up to me, talking about an old faded RV in the driveway. She was really excited about fixing it up and taking trips with the family and wanted to know when my RV was going to be finished. Then a friend pulled up, honking his horn, and everybody left except me my father and my daughter. She wanted to play in the empty pool I told her to fill up a little bright blue and punk inflatable kiddie pool inside it. She left the hose on and I realized the entire big pool was filled up. The dream ended with me turning off the hose, worried about how angry my Dad would be when he saw the water bill. Second dream we were having a birthday party for my older daughter in some type of convention center. My Dad wanted me to get a cake and supplies and also some old family movies on VHS tapes from a shop inside the place. The halls were grey and faded wood. My husband came with me into the shop, but I was worried about the cost I didn't have very much money left. The Hispanic shop owner told me he was going to give me a discount because he'd accidentally erased some of the VHS tapes. I had enough money, but kept on giving him the wrong amount (too much) and he gave some back to me twice. I left carrying a faded pink birthday cake for my daughter and heard my father's voice at the end. "You've got to do something." He said. He seemed to be aware that this birthday party was sad and dark, but was saying make the most of it, just try...