run thoughts: trump and bezos as doro; u.s. military as the world's largest social welfare program
03 Aug 2022have you ever been running and had a thought come in so hard it stopped youin your tracks? well, today i was running and catching up on podcasts and i had two of those moments, one spurred by one of the two shows i was listening to. these thoughts probably need more fleshing out but i’m going to just leave them here remembering that done is better is than perfect.
thought one: trump and bezos as doro
preface: this isn’t a unique thought. i’m just resonating really hard with what adrienne maree brown (amb) shared.
in the question section of episode 5 of wild seed on octavia’s parables, amb offered an interpretation of doro. (sidenote: if you haven’t read the patternmaster series, i strongly recommend it. wild seed is probably my favorite science fiction book of all time). doro is a traumatized 13 year old child who dissociates and has never had any therapy or support in dealing with that. whatever happened in his transition was SO intense that he dissociated so hard he killed his whole family and potentially everyone around him for the next 50 years.
:exploding head emoji:
that framing shook me to my core. SO TRUE. doro kills people in the process of his dissociation.
then she went on to say that these billionaires and many other folks who are running the world are essentially doros. they are traumatized children who have a lot of power and no support to deal with their trauma.
in the same episode she wasked a question: does having context about abusers allow you to create more space for them in your mind/heart? (i’m paraphrasing).
oof.
the military as the world’s largest social welfare program
preface: this one actually is a unique thought.
listening to an episode of coaching real leaders, how do i transition out of my career, a thought dawned on me as i listened to the coachee explain his life. what if the u.s. military is a giant, very strategic, welfare program?
the guest explained how he moved 24 times before age 18. he shared how, at a young age, he observed significant violence to the ones he loved. he explained how those two things created in him a desire for stability and to protect those he cared about. and he explained how the military was a perfect match for that.
so as i heard that, i thought about:
- the overwhelming youngness of the u.s. military. (did you know the military doesn’t share statistics about the average age of folks at enlistment? i wonder why… other data here)
- how the military provides a sense of stability for people coming from unstable homes
- how the military provides economic resources for people coming from poor communities and without much other opportunity for economic security
- how many people in the military join in order to “serve and protect”
- how many soldiers realize after they’re finished with combat tours that they actually aren’t serving and protecting
- how the u.s. government has routinely and consistently under-funded care for soldiers after they’ve returned from combat
i could go on with this list but i need to shift my attention back to work.
so yea. some thoughts. incomplete but juicy.
words / writing / post-processing
547w / 14min / 6min