Has something ever shifted for you in a way you didn’t expect? Today I want to share one of those moments. I’ll be describing how I came to look at Trump differently. It has to do with politics, but my intention is not to argue about opinions. It’s to describe how mindfulness can interrupt our automatic reactions and reveal more layers.
We’re talking here about fairly subtle layers of meaning, not dramatic political shifts. I was opposed to Trump, and I still am. This is not a conversion story. What I want to describe is how my sense of him as a person has shifted, and how it puts politics within a different context.
Let me tell you what happened.
It started with me being very upset about the Iran war, on so many levels. At the very end of the day when he was about to annihilate a civilization, Trump decided that he had already won. He literally said that he had achieved “regime change,” and that Iran’s new leadership was “reasonable.”
After wasting tens of billions and unleashing misery on the world, he turned on a dime and went into full gaslighting mode.
I felt outrage. A lot of restless energy inside with no place for it to go. I wanted to find a way to channel it. And so I thought about turning it into creative energy, finding words and pictures to create a meme.
Putting something in the form of a meme is a useful exercise because it forces you to simplify an idea to its essence. The notion I wanted to express was that, for all its scariness, Trump’s bluster was mostly pathetic. It reminded me of when the Wizard of Oz was revealed to be a little man behind the big shadow.
I came up with the notion of using a photo where he looks scary, and juxtaposing it with the text: “Scary does not mean powerful.” I searched for photographs that would show an angry, snarling Trump. I chose one and worked with it to create the meme. Then I looked at the result. I noticed that, in the process of paying attention to the design, something had shifted in the way I had been looking at Trump’s picture.
I want to describe what shifted.
It has to do with what happens when we pay attention. We usually don’t. And there’s a reason for it.
We live in a world so saturated with images that we don’t actually look at them very much. We glance at them briefly and take for granted that the first meaning to emerge from that glance is what the photo means. In other words, we treat images as symbols, shortcuts for expressing simple meanings, just as words do.
This is how language works. We need symbols to communicate some version of what we mean that is good enough to allow for connection. But something happens when that default mode of taking images or words at face value is interrupted.
Think about how different it is for you to look at a painting or photograph in a museum compared to looking at the myriad pictures you’re exposed to in life. Or when you listen to a piece of music instead of hearing it as background noise. Or when you listen to poetry.
Something similar happens in mindful conversation. We don’t rush to react to what another person said; we take a moment to absorb it and notice how it resonates with us. We can then respond instead of merely reacting.
At such moments, we move beyond the immediate, stereotypical meaning to see something else: the complexity that was hiding in plain sight. Being mindful means going beyond autopilot. It means engaging with the complexities of life.
And so, back to my story. Let me tell you what was happening as I was looking differently at the meme I had been working on.
I now had a sense that there was something more to the picture of Trump than I had first perceived.
Yes, it was a picture of an angry man, a man closed off to anything but his own grievances. I could still see the tightness in the muscles of his face. But now, that tightness felt to me like a way to block difficult feelings. I had a sense of somebody at the edge of tears. Somebody trying to seal off any access to sadness and the fears that lie underneath.
In other words: a human being dealing with human vulnerability the only way that this particular human being knows how to deal with vulnerability, which is to dissociate from it.
In that moment, I felt the presence of Fred Trump, the mean man who turned his oldest son into a desperate alcoholic and shaped his second son into a hungry ghost on an endless bender for power and adulation. Of course, before Fred Trump, there was Grandpa Trump who had done a number on Fred. And, before that, a whole chain of cause and effect leading to this moment.
Vulnerability
Vulnerability is a big part of the human condition. Like all living beings, we are exposed to all kinds of dangers as well as the inevitability of death. Unlike other animals, we have concepts for that. And this is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being able to conceptualize vulnerability places us above it, so to speak. On the other hand, it is a constant put-down: we are all-too aware of our frailty.
I think of vulnerability as a good way to translate the Buddhist concept of dukkha. A better way than the usual translation, suffering, as in: life involves suffering. Dukkha refers to the dissatisfactions that are part and parcel of being human.
I can understand how someone who has lived Trump’s life would find it even harder than most to accept vulnerability, as it would trigger a painful reminder of his essential weakness.
Having compassion for Trump’s suffering does not in any way mean condoning his behavior or even accepting it. I feel just as committed as before to being part of the resistance to the Mad King.
What we can do.
If anything, compassion may strengthen that resolve, because now there is an added dimension to it.
Seeing the current insanity as related to dukkha and vulnerability, and putting it within the context of a chain of cause and effect, frees the issue from a Manichean frame. We’re not talking about Good vs Evil. Psychopaths and sociopaths are not the evil spawn of some immaculate conception. They are part of the vast process of the world being the world.
Of course, we need to oppose them. We also need to do our best to change the ecosystem to mitigate their effect. I do not believe that we can eradicate dukkha from the world. But, if somebody helps a Grandpa Trump be a little more grounded, this will help his son Fred to be a little less mean, and in turn will help his son Donald be a little happier… and the world a lot happier.
Reflecting
And now, I’m taking a moment to reflect on the process I described.
Mindfulness doesn’t mean being above the ups and downs of life. It doesn’t mean being neutral or passive. It involves seeing clearly what is happening, even when what we see is uncomfortable. Among other things, it may remind us how little power we have. But the promise of it is that it can change the quality of our engagement with the world. We are in a better position to direct our efforts where they may be productive, instead of tilting at windmills.
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