Thinking about January 6, 2021

​What's taught to kids as "history" and heroism matters. The people who broke into the Capitol clearly believe they are heroic patriots and their model is clearly the narrow, conventional, white warrior based story that was taught in school to most of us as kids. Some people don't ever get a wider perspective, maybe because of social/cultural isolation, spiritual disconnect (I'm not talking about religion), ongoing economic trauma and egoic personality worship that our culture breeds. We end up with people breaking into (escorted into?) the US Capitol, rummaging around, having their way with their Confederate Flags. I believe they believe what they're doing is right. I'm not saying they're lying, I'm saying they're lost.
Why do we have a mega narcissist running our country? Maybe because we have a narcissistic orientation that's been taught and modeled to kids for generations that idealizes civil war to uphold white supremacy, and maybe because impoverished egos will defend their own impoverishment to the death. Put a gold-plated idol/idiot with a loud and ignorant microphoned voice in front of them and they will draw energy from their childhood trauma and their patriotism taught to them by their broken spirited ball sports coach who taught them US History back in high school... and all the decades of white-male warrior patriot worship Hollywood movies... all the continual focus on war and weapons and enemies and killing and destroying and hate...
Anyone from our conventional culture who breaks through the veneer and wants to reorient to our common humanity and refocus to a better possible story gets turned into the enemy in the eyes of those who are still lost in it. It was trained into all of us over a certain age. NPR reported that the average age of the Trump mob that broke into the Capitol is around 40. I don't know how that was calculated but it means many of these patriots are from the older generations. Many are my cohorts, people I could have sat next to in US History class, learning about white men wars.
Our culture IS changing, thank goodness. This is a dying value set, all this focus on war. How sad and ignorant we've been, teaching generations of innocent children to believe that patriotism and belonging means separation, destruction and hatred of others. THAT is childhood trauma. Unhealed, that's what creates monsters. So, many of us have been doing the hard work to face this trauma in our own bodies and to learn how to reconnect and rediscover our wholeness as human beings with a birthright to freedom. Freedom is not about war, it's about inner peace that reaches out and helps and tells the truth.