hu cares | the day of magical thinking

As I sat on the couch watching MSNBC on election night, I worried I might be jinxing things. The last time I watched live election coverage was 2016, and that turned into a bad time. In addition, I was trying to get through Jazmine Hughes’s New Yorker piece about Alpha Kappa Alpha, Kamala Harris’s sorority. I knew if I didn’t finish it that night, I might not want to the next day.

I finished it, and unfortunately, I was right. I jinxed it. If only I’d insisted we turn off the TV, if I’d read something else, maybe this would all be different.

Over the last day, I’ve learned I’m not the only one retracing my steps right now. C and M, the gracious hosts with whom I watched returns, said they maybe should’ve kicked me out; they’d watched the 2016 election results with house guests and worried that maybe they shouldn’t do that again. Another friend said she watched this year’s results come in with the exact same people in the exact same place she did in 2016. A friend who’d sent me a photo of her kiddo in a Kamala t-shirt on election day texted again the next day: “Sorry it didn’t work :(”

Magical thinking is a common coping mechanism in the face of grief and anxiety. If only I had done things the right way, things could’ve been better. In a way, it’s logical as a sort of self-preservation. If you can figure out what you did wrong, you can avoid doing it again. It’s also perhaps comforting to think we have some power over our circumstances. I’d rather take responsibility for my own actions and vow to do better next time (especially when the action is something as easy as “don’t watch live coverage on election night”) than reckon with the fact that our country has again elected a lying rapist who has openly vowed to dismantle key aspects of our democracy.

I have a feeling that those of us whose first impulse is magical thinking are also the type of people to blame ourselves first when anything goes wrong. Meanwhile, the type of person with whom the blame lies will never take responsibility. Herein lies the problem.

I would be lying if I said I felt hopeful right now. But there are some things I hope, despite all this:

1. That we do not lose our humanity.

2. That we do not turn inward, but towards one another.

3. That we be thoughtful about what we say and to whom. Many feel generally distraught and fragile right now, but some people face more immediate threats in the wake of this new administration than others. If you want to vent or process, I suggest thinking carefully about who you’re talking with and where they might be coming from.

4. That we remember that the internet is not real life. I want to stay informed but I also want to remain skeptical; misinformation is rampant. Touching grass has also helped, though that can only do so much.

5. That we continue to find joy where we can, because that is key to everything, really.

Unsolicited recommendations

Speaking of joy, some things I have really enjoyed lately:

• The subreddit r/somnigastronomy, where people describe the strange foods that appear in their dreams. A recent favorite is the Banantula:

  

• My friend Eva Holland’s Defector profile of Lael Wilcox and her new record-setting around-the-world ride.

• Reese’s animal crackers, available at Costco. Dan warned me not to get them, but I had to. They are dangerous.

• Leah Sottile
  and Ryan Haas’s new podcast Hush. It tells the story of Jesse Johnson, a man who was incarcerated for 25 years after being wrongfully convicted of murder, and examines how local police work and the criminal justice system perpetuated this gross injustice.

• honk:

  

Lately

• I happened to be in Boston the week before the election, and dropped in at the Yes on Question 4 rally at the Massachusetts State House, where I saw Eliza Dushku speak, followed by Bessel van der Kolk. You can read my dispatch over at The Microdose. (In case you were wondering, Question 4 did not pass.)

• Also in The Microdose, one of my favorite interviews lately: Jay Olson, a psychologist and magician who used his magic skills to design in which participants were convinced through the power of suggestion that they’d taken a psychedelic, when they’d really taken an inert pill. Illusions, Michael!

• The Open Notebook’s second edition of The Craft of Science Writing was released on election day! Grab your copy here. I’m honored to have a couple pieces in the book alongside some really stellar journalists.

• If you’re attending ScienceWriters this weekend in Raleigh, please say hi! And come to The Open Notebook’s book launch on Sunday evening at 6pm in North Hallway, which is apparently actually part of a room and not a hallway? Everyone is welcome, but only those who signed up to attend the event via the official conference registration site will receive a free drink ticket.

Thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves. If you haven’t yet subscribed and would like to, click this button, which I always include at the end so that Substack doesn’t yell at me when I hit publish on my posts.