Note: This was a quick note I wrote in my private side journal (because I still have those!). I wasn't going to post it, it was just a rushed splurge of thoughts, but after reading it back it didn't seem as scatty and vapid as I thought. So here it is.
I was inspired by Jacob Gellar talking about therapy apps. At about 15mins into his video, I realised that he was talking about mental health and stuff, and it was weird that I hadn’t really noticed. It was just another great video from Jacob, a good thinker and someone I like watching for their interesting insights, wide breadth of interests, and great writing.
When I clocked it, ie. when I got that state of awareness of what he was talking about from a viewpoint outside of my own, I realised how nice it is that we’ve come so far that you could watch a video where someone reviews therapy apps, openly talking about their experiences of depression and anxiety as if they’re just everyday relatable things that everyone feels. Which they are!
But for a long time, and even now, talking about mental health in-person still has a kind of atmospheric tone, not quite a stigma, but a presence that’s definitely noticeable. Personally I’m open to chatting about it as casually as one might chat about a random phone app, but being a person who does that IRL, and has done so their whole life, I’ve felt that vibe it gives off. It’s much less now than it ever has been, but it’s still there. We don’t quite know how to respond yet. But videos like Jacob’s helps.
ANYWAY: The point I was gonna make is that, it’s quite a progressive idea, isn’t it? That got me thinking about how people who would politically align themselves with the left get to have all this progress, chances for self development, more empathy, greater understandings… while the right is stuck behind, wailing about how fast things are moving because they refuse, or simply don’t have the capacity, to move forward.
Aside: I’m speaking from first hand experience here. This is a topic I’ve tried to write a long form piece on for years, and tried again to recently; a reflection of a particular friend of mine who embodies all the alt-right tropes you might have only heard about. It’s real, these people exist outside of any digital bubbles, and they’re just as impressionable and obsessed with right-wing talking points as you’d think, to the point that it’s legitimately boring talking to them, as any topic inevitable diverges to ideas of left vs. right, tolerance vs. rejection, novelty vs. the familiar, etc.
So that gap is only gonna get wider, between progress and heel digging. Although, once something is widespread enough, it can become mainstream, which splits the right into the hardcore dinosaurs, who end up living on the fringes; and those newer conservatives who have accepted, or perhaps more likely, grown up with, mainstream ideas that were once just progressive hopes.
It’s weird to think about it like that, realising that all the progress we’ve made as people happened despite those with conservative mindsets, not because of them. Half of an entire species stroppily dragging themselves behind; the other half progressing regardless.