Category — Uncategorized

Remember back in 2018 when people were discussing activism burnout?  I think I burned out somewhere in that last big fight to keep Planned Parenthood around.  During that time (and still today), it felt like there was this enormous wall constructed entirely out of men who were making choices about body parts they do not own… and the lack of sense in it made me so tired.  Men making legislation that affects uteruses?  That’s like kangaroos making laws for koala bears about the consumption of the koala’s eucalyptus leaves.

I feel sad as I watch the midterm elections roll towards us.  I want to be doing more, and certainly my friends are doing their part; going out and getting people registered to vote and helping candidates.  I want to be doing more, but it’s as if I’m politically cocooning.  I am so disheartened with our system.

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There’s a new book out that’s looking at the ethical repercussions for all of our decisions.  I was looking for information on it because I’m working on a project on conscious consumerism, and I found that article.  I agree that our individual actions barely make a dent in the face of capitalism, and that every purchase we make has a positive and negative impact on the world at large (read the article for some really interesting examples), though I still stand by the belief that some purchases actually are better than others.  And while my single purchase won’t make a big difference, if everyone made similar choices, we actually could sway industries, one product at a time.

I mean, we can see this with Kevin Spacey’s new movie that made $126 on opening weekend.  That’s it.  $126.  Because people didn’t financially support his movie and instead decided en masse to see either no movie or a different movie.  See, it didn’t change the whole industry, but we coincidentally worked together to not support Spacey’s work and maybe he won’t get another film in the future.

But it wasn’t the information about the book and purchases that snuck under my skin from that article.  It was this:

Your passport determines more than just access—it means you are the beneficiary, albeit abstractly, of actions you may not approve. Most of us, wherever we live, are funding wars or policies we disagree with. We can’t help but do wrong.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t vote in these lawmakers; if you actively chose a different candidate.  You are complicit in the current government’s actions because you pay taxes which funds the good and the bad.  Even if you personally agree with your government, if there is another group in your country who disagrees with the government, you are harming them simply by voting in lawmakers who serve your needs.  All the people unhappy under Obama count, even if I was happy under Obama.

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Where does this leave me?  Gathering energy to get in there and do something before the election.  To not look too hard at the news or my Facebook feed or the spaces that drain my hope.  To make the best decisions I can and move forward.

That’s all any of us can do.

And the smallest step?  Buy Elisa Camahort Page’s (yes, that one, from BlogHer) new book on how to be an activist.  I trust that she has steps I can take to get back on track because she is awesome.  (And I’m sure the other two writers are, too.)

We finally got to see Hamilton, and it was a great night.  It’s a fantastic, well-written play, and we got to see it in DC, just a few blocks away from the Treasury they’re singing about.  I mean, we’re in the capital, and they’re singing about establishing the capital.  So that part was magical.  Plus, my sister-in-law had a baby shower the day before next to Yorktown, so, really, literally traveled Hamilton’s route (except that we stopped in DC instead of continuing to NY).

It was a wonderful cast, and the costumes and dancing were impressive.  I cried like my heart was breaking in half when Philip died.  Our seats were great; everyone around us was happy.  Overall, an exceptional theater experience.

But you already knew all of that because everyone says that.  Because it’s true.

A while back, we had an opportunity to see it in New York with the original cast, but the tickets were going to be around $500 per person.  PER PERSON.  The kids wanted to see it, and we wanted them to see it, but I couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea of paying that kind of money to see a play.  So as we were watching the play this week, I asked myself how would I have felt if I had purchased $2000 worth of tickets to see a performance of this play.  And the answer is that I would have felt sick about it.  Was it good?  Sure.  But it wasn’t $2000 good.

It wasn’t even $900 good, which was the cost of other seats in the theater.  We got $99 seats, thanks to our friends who gave us their tickets at cost.  $99 is still A LOT for an evening of entertainment, but it wasn’t appreciably different from the $65 – $80 I paid for Broadway tickets 15 years ago.  So $65 seats inflated to $99 seats, and $80 tickets more than doubled to $225.

And people will pay it.  Every single seat in the theater was taken, and the seats sold out within minutes.

Hamilton was an incredible opportunity to hook the next generation of theater-goers, and I’m sure that it grabbed some kids along the way; maybe ones that lucked out and got the lottery seats plus a few who paid full price.

But the vast majority of those people won’t see another play this year.  They may not see another play ever.

It is expensive to create a show,* but when it costs $2471.50 to experience art (It’s $2471.50 for a family of four to see The Cursed Child** on Broadway or $879.50 if you purchase seats in the back of the theater), you have to ask who is the show for?  The elite?  The people willing to carry credit card debt in exchange for a night of entertainment?

The lottery seats in the front row are a nice Band-aid to a much bigger problem.  I can wrap my brain around the concept of a queue and needing to wait three years to get my turn to see a show.  There are only so many seats in a theater.  But the cost?  The New York production of Hamilton is making over $600,000 in profit per week (it’s grossing $1.9 million per week).  It’s keeping $31.2 million per year after paying its actors and crew.  Doesn’t that feel… off?  Especially when you think about how much the traveling shows are making, too?

As we were walking out of the theater, I thought about all the people who wrote on the walls at Elephant House that JK Rowling made them fall in love with reading.  Her books created the next generation of readers.  Would that have been the case if she had seen the popularity of her books and tripled the price just because people would pay?  Granted, you can borrow a book from the library but you can’t borrow a theater seat.  But you know what I mean.  Would we still feel good about buying Harry Potter if after book three when the public frenzy was cemented, she raised the cost to $60 per book?  If she split the last book into two books, making you pay $120 to read the end of the story?

Lin-Manuel Miranda created a great play.  And he deserves big bucks for that hard work.  Most shows are not Hamilton, and you need the Hamiltons of this world to pay for the smaller shows that don’t turn a profit.  Though I’m not sure that $31.2 million is trickling down to any of those struggling shows.

But those numbers above give me pause.  I hate the idea that people will be one-and-done with theater after they’ve ticked off going to Hamilton.  I want the show to be a door that people walk through into a world of going to theater all the time.  But how can they do that when the cost of going is that high?

* Believe me, I know the general costs of putting on a show.  My husband and many of our friends work in theater.  I have gotten to sit through many a budget discussion.

** There are so many shows priced like Hamilton now.  The Cursed Child requires you to purchase two tickets to see the whole play. The least expensive option is $190 per person and the prices goes up to $588 per person for good seats. There’s a $29 service fee for each ticket and a $3.50 processing fee, bringing the total to $2471.50 for a family of four.

We are horrible at predicting how another person thinks or feels.

That’s science.

No, I mean, that’s actually science.  Israeli and American scientists conducted 25 experiments to see how well we could walk a mile in another person’s shoes, and it turns out that we suck, hardcore.  We’re not really imagining the world as that person experiences the world.  We’re imagining how WE would experience the world if we were that person.

We’re not even good at this when we’re married to the person:

The researchers wanted to see if people who had some meaningful information about each other—like spouses—could make accurate judgments about the other’s reactions to jokes, opinions, videos, and more. It turned out that neither spouses nor strangers nor friends tended to make accurate judgments when “taking another’s perspective.”

It turns out that the number one way to understand another person is not to imagine their life but to ask them their thoughts or feelings.  You need to hear their words to understand.

The final experiment confirmed that getting another person’s perspective directly, through conversation, increased the accuracy of subjects’ predictions, while simply “taking” another’s perspective did not. This was true for partners, friends, and strangers alike.

Luckily, people volunteer their perspective all the time on blog posts.  And if you do have a question, there is always the comment section or an email.

Of course, what this also means is that you can’t use a single experience to stand in place for everyone else’s experience.  I can’t read one parenting blog and understand all parents or read one blog from someone living in New York and think that I know all New Yorkers.  One person can’t stand in place for the whole.  But they’re a door into a world, and if you listen hard enough, you don’t have to assume.  You just need to keep practicing “perspective getting.”

Maybe that is the definitive answer to yesterday’s post: “In order to understand what your spouse prefers—don’t try to guess, ask.”  Maybe that should be the case all around.

I recently read a piece on how we don’t ask enough questions.

Having the ability to ask a question appears to be a uniquely human trait, one that saves us time and energy as we gather resources and information. It also allows us to develop empathy for others and create bonds of trust, even among strangers. Indeed, people who ask more questions are seen as more likable.

It goes on to talk about the best way to ask questions and the best types of questions for various situations.

BUT…

…that infertility lens.

All I could think about were posts I’ve read lately where the person was upset to be asked whether they have children.  The question sucks, especially when you’ve been asked it a dozen times, but the alternative sort of sucks, too: people not being curious about other people.

Asking questions is one way to draw closer to a person.  I just had a conversation with a person where I asked question after question after question… and the person asked zero questions back.  I walked away knowing a great deal about what was happening in their world, and they walked away knowing nothing about what was going on in mine.  A missed opportunity?

How can anyone know what sort of questions I want to answer until they start asking them?

I’ve realized that questions don’t bother me as much as statements.  Questions, I figure, are conversation starters.  They’re trying to find a way in, and I’m happy that they’re trying, so I’ll put up with the clumsy ones.  But statements — telling me how I feel — those are the ones that get under my skin.  “Twins,” someone remarked recently.  “You must have felt so relieved to be done in one shot.”

“No,” I said back.  “There was going to be a third, but we weren’t successful.”

A question leaves open possibilities.  A statement feels like a closed door.

I don’t know.  I’ve been thinking about this since reading the article about questions; about whether questions help more or hurt more.  About whether we’d really be happy if we were never asked prying questions.  If I inadvertently ask prying questions.

No good answers; just a lot of food for thought.

Summer is winding down, and I’m in the deep end of the melancholy month.  That’s how I think of August.  I didn’t mind going back to school as a kid, and I liked it as a teacher, but I’ve started to dread August since the twins started school.  Once school begins, the year starts moving towards its conclusion; another grade complete.

This one, once again, comes with a transition.  It is — believe it or not — their final year of middle school.  When I started this blog, they were still drinking bottles.  Now they’re a few years from getting their driver’s license.  How did this happen?

This year we need to figure out what we’re doing for high school.  We have a bunch of options open right now, and we’ll take the fall to shut the door on some and apply to others.  I don’t believe there’s any single, “right” options — they’ll all be great and they’ll all be lacking.  That’s just the way things are.  Nothing is perfect, but you can make most situations fit your wants and needs.  Plus, you can’t really know if something is a good choice until you’ve lived it.  Thinking you can predict otherwise prior to the experience is a recipe for missing actuality in favour of a story we’re telling ourselves.

I really am in the deep end of the melancholy month.

We still have time.  We still have plenty of episodes of Dirk Gently to watch together.  We still have tickets to see Hamilton.  (Not our doing; we just have the most awesome friends, ever.)  We still have to get ice cream a few more times.  We still have a French packet to finish and books to read and a photo album to make.  We still have a few more things to tuck into this month before it ends.

But it never feels like enough time.