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It’s the replacement of the impulse for change or progress—something proactive—with the impulse to make someone feel humiliated and ashamed—something reactive, and corrosive. A sort of brief story:
A few years ago my sister was in the ICU, after being in a hit and run. She wouldn’t make it, which we didn’t know at the time, but things weren’t looking good. It had been about two weeks of her in an induced coma with no progress. One night we went out to dinner.
We tried to parallel park but the spot was too small; I tapped the bumper of the car in front of me. No damage, just “Yeah this is too small.” But I saw a spot a few cars away I had missed, so we parked there.
When we came back from dinner, we saw a note on the windshield. It said “Next time you do a hit and run, make sure no one sees you.” It felt like I had been punched in the gut. What could this possibly be referring to? It seemed like some kind of sick joke.
After a moment it dawned on me. I walked fifteen feet back to the car whose bumper I had tapped—sure enough there was a note there, too. It read: “Some asshole hit your car and drove off” and provided our license plate...
...which wasn’t hard to get because we had parked fifteen feet away. My wife and I were stunned. What on earth was going on? I checked; there was no damage to the car. The words “next time you do a hit and run” were still echoing in my head. Who could ever be so callous?
We look up and were in front of a hipster tattoo parlor. We went in and ask if they left the notes and they smugly say, “yeah.” Clearly they had been patting themselves on the back for apprehending these criminals.
Very shaken, we tried to explain that it wasn’t a hit and run, that we bumped their bumper while parking and then re-parked—which they insisted was the same as hitting the car, leading me to exclaim, “that’s why it’s called a bumper!”
Why would we have parked fifteen feet away if we thought we had committed a hit and run? Etc etc. None of it made sense but they weren’t having it. They had convinced themselves they were the heroes and we were the villains.
Finally, exasperated, we said, “Look, just so you know, if we seem really shaken up, it’s because my sister is currently in a coma because she was in a hit and run. She might not make it.” One of the staff cut me off: “Then you should know how serious this is.”
...
We were speechless. Slapped in the face. We left, shaken, numb with anger and disbelief, realizing that nothing, nothing would reach these people. For days we walked around in shock with this added weight of anger and resentment.
Now here’s why I’m telling all of this. I realized, in the days that followed, that the reason I couldn’t let go of this awful event was that I desperately wanted these people to feel BAD. I wanted them to feel appropriately ashamed. I needed them to acknowledge their fault.
But that wasn’t going to happen! They were assholes! I mean, if no part of them in that encounter said, yikes, maybe we overreacted—if they actually compared a car bumper to my sister—then nothing would ever, ever get through to them.
More importantly, the more I craved them feeling as bad as I felt they should feel, the more power they had over me. The more that event added to an already dire and unspeakably difficult time. I had to let go because that way offered no hope, no healing, and I needed both.
I still think about that tattoo parlor and those people fairly frequently. And I still feel the urge to make them feel BAD for what they did. But I had to learn to let go of that impulse. It would only lead me further into misery.
And that’s the danger of fixating on humiliating Trump. He can’t be. He won’t be. It may be briefly cathartic for you, but it will change nothing. He will never give you that. You can’t let that obsession drive you, because he has already won. Fix your heart or die.
Also the Lincoln project sucks.
An addendum I should have perhaps included for narrative closure: we left a new note on the car we bumped saying “Hi, we bumped your bumper. We don’t see any damage, but if you see anything wrong please call us.”
We never heard from them.
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