Everything I Feared About China Was Wrong

Everything I Feared About China Was Wrong

When my husband’s friend invited us to his wedding in Chongqing, China, I was hesitant to RSVP in the affirmative. It was far and plane tickets were expensive, but mainly I was anxious. China’s government is scary, right? I’d read plenty of news reports about government corruption and the lack of due process, not to mention the Uygur genocide. I’ve long followed the career of Chinese dissident artist, Ai Weiwei, [https://heretichereafter.substack.com/p/crying-at-pike-place?utm_source=publication-search] and was horrified at his arrest for making art criticizing the government’s response to the Great Sichuan Earthquake. [https://publicdelivery.org/ai-weiwei-remembering-haus-der-kunst-muenchen-2009/] Even discounting my probably irrational fear of disappearing into a Chinese prison, I worried about more mundane things: government surveillance, unsafe drinking water, a language barrier Duolingo couldn’t even, and I did I mention squat toilets? While my husband and I have been lucky enough to travel extensively in Europe, China felt like quite a leap. Some family members privately nudged us to skip the wedding, or at least leave our kids safely behind in the U.S. Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. My anxiety was not unique. In his book, Travel as a Political Act [https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9781631217630], Europe guide and certified baddie Rick Steves notes that when people left for a trip, we used to say things like “bon voyage” and “have a good trip.” Post 9/11, we’re more likely to say things like “be safe”—as if to imply that the world is more dangerous than ever, when the truth is, a person is over 30,000 times more likely to die in a car accident than in a terrorist attack. [https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-terrorism-statistics-every-american-needs-to-hear/5382818] You’re probably safer walking in a foreign city than you are driving around your hometown. Despite my fears, the Millennial #YOLOs got the better of me. We booked the tickets. In the meantime, I tried to calm my anxiety by panic buying travel gear. As I prepared, I thought about Scott Samuelson’s framing of the three ways of dealing with pointless suffering: fix it, face it, or forget it [https://heretichereafter.substack.com/p/is-there-an-upside-to-suffering?utm_source=publication-search]. I wondered if these approaches applied to fear: you can deny your feelings (forget it), you can try to learn more to alleviate your fear (fix it), or you can simply accept your fear (face it.) In my usual fashion, I opted for a combination of fix it/face it. On the research front, there was little information for American tourists visiting Chongqing. While it’s a city of 30 million people, most tourists tend to be Chinese tour groups visiting old communist sites. YouTube was my main source of info, but even American vloggers’ takes felt somewhat dystopian as video after video proclaimed, “I love how there are cameras absolutely everywhere, it’s SO SAFE!” A friend who had traveled to China confirmed some eerie “coincidences” that led her to the conviction she was being surveilled during her trip. My husband and I prepared as best we could, scrubbing our phones of sensitive information, packing portable soap and toilet paper, reminding our kids to drink only the bottled water the hotel provided. And then there was nothing to do but face my fears. And? China was totally different than I expected. As I dined, shopped, and visited a kitschy theme park, I was reminded: people are people everywhere. It’s easy to get hung up on culture clashes, but our commonalities are much greater than our differences. No matter where I’ve traveled to, I’ve met people who are excited to share their culture and food, people who will stop to help a clueless tourist find her way. There was the proprietress of a noodle stand who spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make sure I understood the different spice levels of a dish, and a bunch of excited kids at a theme park who wanted to chat with us in English. At our friend’s wedding, Chinese uncles plied us with alcohol, and hotpot waitresses babysat us as we failed to comprehend proper cooking times. During times of political strife, Americans often stoke each others’ fear of traveling. We imagine whole countries of people who hate us. We joke about sewing Canadian flag patches to our backpacks or think we need to introduce ourselves by apologizing for our president. But in my experience, people generally understand that we are not our government. In turn, we ought to remember that others are not their government, either. These person-to-person connections are what makes travel, as Rick Steves puts it, “a political act.” It’s a lot harder to vote to bomb a country once you’ve met its people. Travel puts us in touch with all of our wonderful commonalities: desire for beauty, for safety, for community, for reverence. And still travel offers novelty and surprise! Here are some things in China that surprised me: * -people offering my 13 -year-old son alcohol (repeatedly!) * -many people asking to take our photos because white people were exciting * -all the bathrooms had toilet paper! (but yes, most were squat toilets [https://www.speakingofchina.com/china-articles/toilets-china-learned-love-squat-toilet/]) * -an abundance of high-protein snacks * -a Chinese drag queen performance at the theme park * -taxis driving wherever they felt like (ditto motorcycles on the sidewalks) * -Don’t speak Chinese? You can get pretty far just pointing and nodding, Google Translate also worked in a pinch. BONUS MATERIALS: * -looking for more travel inspo? I loved this post [https://substack.com/@skylarrenslow/p-196514291] by friend of the Stack, Skylar Renslow [https://substack.com/profile/10505007-skylar-renslow] * -this comedian [https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVI76AhkiLR/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==] parses cultural differences to hilarious results * Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe [https://heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How to Make Friends with Fear

Maybe you’re thinking to yourself: why would I want to do that? Maybe that phrasing strikes you as odd. Don’t we want to get rid of fear? It’s not only an unpleasant feeling, it’s one that we judge ourselves for. We want to see ourselves as brave, so we try to ignore or resist feeling fear. The trouble is, the more you try to resist an emotion, the stronger it gets. Our bodies were designed to keep us alive, not happy, so the more you try to push away your fear, the stronger it will become. The trick, then, is recognizing and accepting our fear. But…how? Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The Four T’s of Snakebites Growing up in Western Montana, part of being in the outdoors was preparing for encounters with wildlife such as grizzly bears, mountain lions, and snakes. As a camp counselor, I took classes in wilderness first aid, where I asked many questions about snake bites, being VERY SCARED of stepping on a rattler enroute to the bath house in the middle of the night. The instructor laughed at my questions. “You want to know what to watch out for so you don’t get bit by a snake? Let me tell you.” He pivoted towards the white board and wrote: “AVOID: * trailer parks * tank tops * testosterone * tequila” His assessment was rather classist (#notalltrailerparks) but the point was that most people who get bit by snakes are those who deliberately mess with snakes. Their innate fear had been lessened by peer pressure and/or alcohol. The results were predictable. Fear is a powerful emotion that exists deep in the most primitive part of our brains. It’s the same part of your brain that makes you jerk your hand away from a hot stove. The response is designed to be quick, bypassing the logical, slow part of our brain. The truth is: we need fear. Tigers vs. Trump But what if the thing you fear isn’t a wild animal hidden in the grass, but something slow, vague, and chronic, like the erosion of our democracy by a wannabe dictator? You can’t physically jump away from fear like that. Such modern-day fears can be overwhelming and leave you feeling powerless, which is, honestly, the goal of Trump’s whole “flood the zone” strategy. In their book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking Stress Cycle [https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9781984818324], Emily and Amelia Nagoski take this kind of chronic stress and break down what our bodies need to recover from it. They point out that our bodies don’t know the difference between a tiger hiding in the grass and your boss yelling at you. In either scenario, our “stress cycle” is activated and we need to complete it by doing things like: * moving our bodies * venting to a loved one * restoring a sense of physical safety Fear Isn’t a Virtue During the pandemic, I spent a lot of time talking through my fears with my EMDR therapist. It felt like our country was on the brink and I had no faith in the Trump administration to adequately deal with the many problems we were facing. My therapist pushed back, “How is this affecting your life?” Every time I brought up death rates or product shortages or civil unrest, she asked me to refocus on myself. And I had to admit, my family were healthy, I had what I needed, my neighborhood was safe. Sure, it was a pain in the ass that my kids weren’t in school, but all in all, we were very lucky. Sometimes Liberals fall into the trap of thinking that fear is virtuous. “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention,” is a common refrain. But caring about a problem and letting it dominate your emotional life are two very different things. It’s a privileged take to say that I can choose to tap in and out of problems that others are facing chronically, but it’s also a means of survival. We are not useful allies if we are overwhelmed and unable to handle ourselves. The bottom line is: everyone needs safety and rest. Lightning Round! So, we need to identify and accept fear. We need to calm our bodies. We need to let ourselves recognize safety. But what if we can’t stop ruminating? Here’s a grab bag of other tricks I’ve learned to let go of fear. * Stick with statistics. What are the odds of that thing you’re fearing actually happening? Whenever parents in my neighborhood start freaking out about imaginary child abductions, I remind them that, statistically, the odds of your child being kidnapped by a stranger is about 1 in 1,000,000 [https://letgrow.org/child-kidnapping-risk/]. Your child is more likely to become president, so maybe focus on preparing them for that. * Look for “thinking traps.” This one comes courtesy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Check your fear for one of the following misbeliefs: * Label intrusive thoughts. When you’re driving, do you ever have the sudden fear that an oncoming car is going to swerve into your lane? Congratulations, that’s an intrusive thought, which is a fun feature of some anxiety disorders! When I envision a grim scenario like this, I’ve learned to just say “that’s an intrusive thought, not reality,” and then let it go. * Remember that, to your body, fear and excitement are the same. This is an especially good strategy for stage fright. When I used to get scared before a storytelling show, I’d remind myself that the adrenaline flooding my system was helping time feel slower and sharpening my senses, which would aid my performance. * Personify your fear. Just like in Inside Out! Thank it for keeping you safe, but ask it to step back for now. * Make a “God Jar” for things you can’t control. Whenever you’re anxious about some outcome you can’t control, write it on a slip of paper and put it in a container. Once it’s in the container, you’re not allowed to worry about it anymore. (And no, you don’t have to use the G-word if that’s triggering.) Read through the slips once or twice a year and marvel at all the things you used to worry about that don’t actually matter to you anymore! Have you ever used one of these tricks to deal with fear? How did it go? Are there are other tricks we should know about? As always, I love to hear from you in the comments, via DM, or email! Did you find this post helpful? Help others find it by clicking the “heart” button and/or sharing it with a friend. BONUS MATERIALS: * this 2-minute explainer on the stress cycle [https://youtu.be/CyppUSV1FN0?si=1Cuy8PW4Q3wzv8AA] * JUST WATCH THIS, YOU’LL THANK ME [https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX-BRp1TI2k/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==] Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe [https://heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

What Will People Think?

Early in my blogging career, I pitched my first-ever interview. I wanted to ask a local butcher about ethical meat buying. In emails, he seemed eager for the exposure. I don’t know if he checked out my itty-bitty blog before agreeing, what I do know is that I walked in with my notebook, recorder, and my toddler son in a stroller, the butcher took one look at us and doubled over laughing. I’m not exaggerating—he laughed at me for an uncomfortably long time. Long enough for my patient smile to fall off my face. Long enough for a thousand doubts to swirl through my mind: who was I to call myself a writer when I couldn’t even afford a babysitter? I was a fraud and a failure and just a mom. Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. In that moment, all I wanted was to turn around and wheel my stroller back out the door. Being laughed at is, I believe, a universal fear that drives many of our decisions. It’s why public speaking is so scary and why picking out new clothes or a haircut can feel dire. Deeper than that, fear of being laughed at is the reason many of us avoid pursuing things we’re passionate about. We don’t want to look like idiots or weirdos. We don’t want to be gossiped about or excluded from the group. You want to do…what? Getting laughed at during my first professional interview was what came to mind as I watched the documentary Maintenance Artist at Seattle International Film Festival this past weekend. The film explores the career of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, a visual artist who, upon entering motherhood, pivoted from sculpture to developing the idea of “maintenance art”—reframing acts like cleaning and care work as art. The documentary traces Ukeles’ evolution from invisible housewife to the creation of her Manifesto for Maintenance Art [https://queensmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Ukeles-Manifesto-for-Maintenance-Art-1969.pdf], which ties in the personal, professional, and environmental importance of maintenance. In documenting these overlooked forms of work, Ukeles elevates them to something worthy of notice and praise. In order to make these artworks, Ukeles had to risk being laughed out of the New York art scene. As you can see in the clip above, at first, many of her collaborators did not take her seriously. She had to be the first believer in her own work. What would you do if you were not afraid to fail? It’s cliche to ask, but how many of us hold ourselves back out of fear? The Stoics, as always, have a bit of advice here. They break the world into two categories: things you can control and things you can’t. And they squarely locate “reputation” in the category of things outside one’s control. When this fear arises, they advise refocusing on something you can control, like your own actions. In the immortal words of Marcus Aurelius: haters gonna hate. That day in the butcher’s shop, I fended off the urge to flee. Instead, I calmly waited for my interview subject to get ahold of himself. Finally, he stopped laughing. Then we went into his office and I conducted the interview. My son was quietly absorbed in his toy and did not disrupt the interview, as I knew he wouldn’t. At home, I wrote up my article and shared the link with the butcher, who thanked me profusely. He never broached his awkward laughter, but I hoped as he bragged about the interview on his social media, he learned his lesson. Here’s the thing with trying something new: you never know where it will lead. I couldn’t have known that that first, embarrassing interview would eventually lead to me writing articles for local and national publications, or to a career as an author. It’s terrifying to stick your neck out. People might laugh at you, they might ask, “Who the hell does she think she is?” But here’s what I know: you can survive it. And the more you’re able to overcome the low opinions of others, the more your confidence will grow, until the idea of being laughed at isn’t so scary anymore. Is there anything that fear is holding you back from doing? What would it look like if you failed? What about if you succeeded? Imagine you’re 90 years old, would you regret trying or not trying more? BONUS MATERIALS: * in case you want to geek out more about Ukeles [https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mierle-laderman-ukeles]. (She’s also discussed in Angela Garbes’ excellent Essential Labor [https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9780062937377]) * this glorious anthem of losers who try hard [https://youtu.be/m_JI5cqakIU?si=4eavkS6-n9kB-DC8]! Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe [https://heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Confessions of a Scaredy-Cat

Here’s the thing no one warns you about healing: once you stop numbing all your feelings and start facing yourself, you’ll be confronted with a lot of ugliness. You think you’re a nice person? Look, here are all your petty resentments! Pretty sure you’re capable? Here are all your failures and shortcomings! Think you’re rational? Behold your bizarre late-night fears! I speak from personal experience. As I’ve worked towards mindfulness, I’ve noticed how much fear dominates my thinking. Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Here’s a shortlist of things that scare me: murderers, climate change, whether my kids will have economic opportunities, Manfluencers, military drones, my husband getting hit by a car while he’s cycling, AI replacing jobs, AI replacing MY job, school shootings, scary noises in the middle of the night, professional failure, war, raising sons who grow up to be Manfluencers, getting diabetes, raccoons, losing my kids on public transit, the US becoming a theocracy, my parents dying, losing the right to vote, my neighbors being harassed and/or deported, things never getting better. And, yeah, I probably shouldn’t be surprised; during my tenure in therapy, I received a litany of fear-related diagnoses: everything from post-partum anxiety to Generalized Anxiety Disorder, though those were before my eventual C-PTSD diagnosis, which made more sense of things. In the last 20 years, I’ve worked hard to tamp down my anxiety. So when mindfulness dredges up even more fear it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. I just thought I was better, ya know? It’s so hard to know what a normal level of fear is. If I feel safe walking home by myself at night and my neighbor doesn’t, am I foolish or is she paranoid? But I know it’s not just me. We live in an age of fear: if it’s not our sensationalized media ecosystem (everything from TV news to social media), it’s rampant consumerism that says buying more stuff is the only thing that can save us. And even if you manage to dodge all that, there’s our whole government chaos operation run by Fearmonger in Chief, Donald Trump. Is Iran about to nuke us? Are our streets being overrun by violent gang members? Every week there is some new threat which only Trump can save us from. All this is for a purpose: fear is the ultimate tool for manipulation. As the historian Anne Applebaum shows, authoritarians (and wannabes) try to consolidate power by creating a culture of fear. Just like those Fox News commercials selling gold bars and emergency disaster kits, Trump sells us vague doom that only he can rescue us from. How do we opt out? How can we notice when we are being manipulated and resist it? I want to be a reasonable person unswayed by fearful rhetoric, but it’s easier said than done. It’s embarrassing to admit how much of my inner monologue is fear. Nobody wants to be a scaredy-cat. So, this month, I want to look at fear. Here are some questions I have: * is it possible to be less afraid? How? * how do we carry on living in what feels like a constant state of emergency? * do Exvangelicals experience more fear post-faith deconstruction? * how do we sort out appropriate vs. inappropriate fear? * why does fear feel so bad? * can we make friends with our fear? * how do we avoid being paralyzed by fear? Are you, too, a scaredy-cat? What tips, tricks, or recommendations do you have for handling fear? As always, I love to hear from you in the comments or via email or DM. BONUS MATERIALS: * this overview [https://www.philosopheasy.com/p/the-psychology-of-totalitarian-control] of Anne Applebaum’s Psychology of Totalitarian Control is a great starting point * my brain every time someone says “face your fears” [https://youtu.be/brzZQBSVMX0?si=NpRN1msvU6i-Sm34] Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe [https://heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Sacred Power of an Off-Key Beatles Song

“There are no unsacred places. There are only sacred places and desecrated places.” -Wendell Berry A few years ago, I was hanging out with a friend who’s an Episcopal priest, when the topic of wedding music came up. I told her that I’d walked down the aisle to The Beatles’ “And I Love Her,” played by my brother, Karl, on acoustic guitar. My friend explained that, in the Episcopal church, “only sacred music is allowed,” so no Beatles for weddings. I wondered if she was right. Ought I have marched down the aisle to Bach or Vivaldi? Indeed, the switch from organ prelude to my brother’s acoustic and his off-key singing was a bit jarring! Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Still, her response rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was because I’d ingested enough bad Christian art (Christian contemporary music, Kirk Cameron movies, THOMAS KINCADE [https://heretichereafter.substack.com/p/overcoming-the-false-self?utm_source=publication-search]) to last me a lifetime. The problem with this sort of Christian “art” is that the artists feel the need to clobber the viewers over the head with The Message. There’s no nuance, no subtlety, and certainly nothing that could offend the delicate sensibilities of the largely Evangelical audience. (You’ll never hear someone swear in a Christian movie, for instance.) Thomas Kincade aside, this division between sacred and nonsacred art offends me as an artist. The point of art (be it visual art, film, literature, music or the humble Substack) is to reveal capital-T Truth. In my opinion, the primary measure of artistic success is how effectively Truth is revealed, if at all. The idea that art has to be explicitly about God or Jesus for it to be sacred strikes me as absurd. Why should the church (or anyone, really) gatekeep what others find transcendent? This argument about The Beatles is what came to mind when I read the above Wendell Berry quote last week. Whereas I was raised to believe that certain places, times, and things were holy (i.e. the sanctuary, communion wine, etc.) Berry challenges us to find holiness in the ordinary places and things around us, something echoed in the work of Father Richard Rohr, who writes [https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9780593238783]: “Over time, we move beyond a dualistic view of God being ‘up there’ while we are ‘down here’ to a vision where God is up there, down here, in others, and within ourselves, all at the same time…In taking this view, we start to see that all things are sacred, including the masks we wear, the shadows we seek to hide, the wounds we carry, and the parts of ourselves we consider profane. Every thing is sacred.” The truth is, sometimes I get wrapped up in my own cosmic significance. I want to save the world and create great art and be capital-I Important. But mostly my life is not these things. Mostly I am washing dishes and making meals and chaperoning field trips. It’s not prestigious or even paid, not seen as having much purpose in the grand scheme of things. Can I find sacredness in such work? Thinking back to Karl’s performance on my wedding day, it was so many things: jarring, off-key, sincere, lovely. I remember standing in the narthex, vibrating with nerves because Holy shit I am 22 years old and going to promise to do WHAT for the REST OF MY LIFE?!?!?!? I was totally spiraling. And then my brother’s voice crackled over the PA system. And it was so goofy and sweet and I remembered who and where I was and who was around me and what I was doing. I took a deep breath, my dad squeezed my hand, and the church doors opened. In that moment, my brother and The Beatles grounded me. And that’s sacred, too. The more I explore my spiritual practice, the more I see that the challenge is not in finding right answers, in parsing this or that doctrine, the challenge is in unlearning the artificial divisions created by labels and striving to see God in all people, places, and things. Even The Beatles, even bad singing. Even myself. Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe [https://heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]