Nobody wants to be uncomfortable. If we all had our druthers, everything would feel just right all the time.<\/p>\n
That, of course, is not possible. It wouldn\u2019t be possible in utopia, assuming humans ever manage to develop a utopia. Even in a world where things are fair and systems work, people will still misunderstand each other or fall in love with someone who doesn\u2019t love them back or disagree on the best way to deal with a problem.<\/p>\n
Besides, even if we manage to survive and thrive and shift things so that climate change doesn\u2019t do too much harm, the weather\u2019s still going to be awful a good bit of the time.<\/p>\n
Plus people are still going to get sick and die. We may figure out how to live longer, but I don\u2019t think immortality is in the cards.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re nowhere near utopia at this point, so there\u2019s a lot of discomfort in our world.<\/p>\n
Of course, there are things so awful that the word discomfort lacks all meaning: war, other violence, disasters, hunger, brutal authoritarian governments, a whole raft of diseases that could be treated or prevented, but aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Some of those awful things are happening to people nearby. People are living on the streets \u2013 pitching tents on a concrete sidewalk \u2013 because they have no place to live. They are sick but can\u2019t afford to go to the doctor. Their kids don\u2019t have enough to eat.<\/p>\n
They are worse than uncomfortable, but their presence should make those of us who are getting by very uncomfortable. <\/p>\n
But of course, as I said before, no one wants to be uncomfortable. We look away, we pretend it\u2019s not happening. Some people go so far as to encourage brutal policies against refugees or the homeless, working themselves into a state of righteous anger \u2013 \u201cThey brought it on themselves\u201d \u2013 so that they don\u2019t have to feel uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, people who have the means to insulate themselves from a lot of the problems in the world never get very far outside of their comfort zone.<\/p>\n
I have since childhood been made uncomfortable by my awareness that I have so much more than others. This has been true even when I\u2019ve been flat broke, because even when I was broke, I had some resources.<\/p>\n
These days I\u2019m made aware on a constant basis of the inequities and evil in our world, inequities that I don\u2019t face, except, of course, as a woman in a world that favors men (and certain kinds of men at that).<\/p>\n
And since I\u2019m no longer a young woman, the overturning of Roe v. Wade<\/i> \u2013 a touchstone from my youth \u2013 doesn\u2019t affect me directly. Angers me, yes. Reminds me that some don\u2019t consider me a real human being, yes. Not being able to do more about this travesty makes me uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I want to advocate that people defy this taking away of the basic right of women to control their own bodies, but it makes me uncomfortable to say \u201cresist\u201d to the pregnant and their doctors, the people who will go to jail or worse to fight this injustice. It is not my risk to take.<\/p>\n
Even the things I\u2019m proud of in my family heritage make me uncomfortable these days. I come from a long line of strong pioneer women on both sides of my family, which means that my ancestors were part of the destruction of much of the indigenous way of life.<\/p>\n
And while I\u2019ve abhorred racism my whole life, was raised to think it was wrong, I keep discovering things I should have known before.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s climate change. As with many of the other issues, it\u2019s hitting the people least responsible for it first.<\/p>\n
Where I live, the most obvious symbol of climate change is smoke from wildfires. We are able to afford devices that will help keep us comfortable the next time that happens. Many people around here are not.<\/p>\n
All this is combined with the knowledge that I can fix very little of what\u2019s wrong out there and that I never feel like I am doing enough.<\/p>\n
I am always uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think this is a bad thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nobody wants to be uncomfortable. If we all had our druthers, everything would feel just right all the time. That, of course, is not possible. It wouldn\u2019t be possible in utopia, assuming humans ever manage to develop a utopia. Even in a world where things are fair and systems work, people will still misunderstand each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,17],"tags":[541],"class_list":["post-2151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-experiences","category-rants","tag-uncomfortable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2151"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2153,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151\/revisions\/2153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}