Dear Peach: Political Anxiety, How to Tell Your Friend They Stink, and Re-Inventing Yourself

dear peach is the advice column, accepting mail at peachbellini444@gmail.com. some letters have been edited for clarity. i’ve also given you a pseudonym if you did not give one to yourself, because i have one and i didn’t want you to feel lonely. you can write to peach at any time using the email above.

Dear Peach,

I think I am a fairly optimistic person. When I do start to spiral I have always tried to focus on realistic steps I can take to fix the issues at hand rather than hyperfixate on all the worst case scenarios. However, this strategy has seemed truly impossible lately. At every turn and social media scroll I am surrounded by evidence of the earths and human kind's end and while I know throwing up my arms isn't the answer, and neither is trying to tackle every world issue by myself, I feel like I have sunk into a pit of helpless despair!

With the most depressing presidential election around the corner I have never felt more hopeless and cynical. My faith is draining and I am lost in the feeling that every action I make is meaningless and the end of democracy, human rights, the world, and whatever else is inevitable. Staying informed and participating in activism leads me to discover 100 new irreversible horrors of the world that appear to be unfixable. How do I stay active in the activism I deeply care about when even the best outcomes I'm fighting for are still so far from what's truly needed? How do I keep myself from living in a spiral of dread and throwing up my arms? I want to be a part of change, and I feel it is my duty as someone with great social privileges to do so, but I struggle to find the strength to face our depressing reality and know what steps to take. Peach please help, how does a girl in this economy step off the ledge of existential dread?

Best,

Mango Mojito

Dear Mango Mojito,

In college, I volunteered at a men’s prison once a week. We lead “restorative circles” in the basement. Before the men entered the room, a guard would come in. “You press this button,” he would say, pointing to a large, red spot on the wall “if you ever feel unsafe, and we will come in here and handle it,” then he snapped, “like that.” Despite the fact that the men who attended our circles were in the upper echelon of superior prison behavior, I was warned thoroughly before each visit: these are dangerous criminals.

I was frightened to be at the prison and would sometimes miss my train home even as I stood on the platform while it pulled into the station, staring blankly at the tracks. My fear had nothing to do with the “dangerous” men I had been warned about. Those were the men I sat with as they cried about their teenage daughters becoming more distant over the phone, men who reminded me of my father and of my own humanity. My fear was almost retroactive, a shuddering realization of specific details that I had been ignorant of, realities that belonged to a world I had been living in all my life.

It’s one thing to know that we keep millions of people in prison, and it’s quite another to witness the real horror of that fact in person. It’s difficult to ignore the truth once you look around at the world: there is no real reason, only an accident of birth, that I am not in the same position. I grew up white and in the United States. I smoked weed and shoplifted like many of those men who are now behind bars. I was once a child like those in Gaza that I see through my screen, a child who loved my parents and had no control, but who did not live or die through a genocide, who was shielded such that I had no absolutely no concept of what that kind of loss could even mean. The pure circumstance of the world is heartbreaking and overwhelming, and has resulted in a similar feeling for me as it has for you — a manic scrambling to do everything possible to make the world better, and a simultaneous paralysis in the knowledge that so much beyond us must occur for real change to happen.

I certainly do not have the answers here. I have regrets about the ways in which I’ve been active or inactive in the sphere of advocacy throughout my life. I think that if you are a relatively comfortable person living in the West that you can always be doing more, should always be looking for ways to make that possible, should try as best you can to not let your own guilt and fear eclipse your knowledge that a better world is something you can help build. I also believe that being realistic in the knowledge of our own limits doesn’t have to be paralyzing if we don’t let it.

I say this as a lifelong resident of the internet and a doom-scrolling addict. In my experience, I’ve never felt more alone, scared, and useless as when my political involvement was limited to the internet. I spent my teenage years viciously attacking people online and being a digital hall monitor for moral purity. This is not to say that I don’t think the internet has a place in social justice — it absolutely does and must — or that pressure should not be put on the rich and powerful to use their influence accordingly. But I also think that it works in the best interests of the rich and powerful to see us limit ourselves to the scope of what we are able to do online. To believe that we all now live in the internet, that these clips of war and violence exist only within our phones, and that therefore the only helpful action we can take is one that can be done through a screen.

There’s the big work, like spreading digital campaigns of awareness or attending a rally, to which we can contribute as tiny pieces of a larger organism. And then there’s the small work, like volunteering at your local food distribution organization or setting aside money to donate to on-the-ground organizations, to which we can contribute as a large piece of a smaller organism. We will need both to reach the future we want to see, but it’s difficult to keep going without knowing that the things we do are materially contributing to that future.

A lot of mutual aid organizations depend on just a few people who regularly show up and dedicate their time as well as a revolving group of less-involved individuals. Being a person who can commit to a once-a-week volunteer shift can change the way that a group is able to organize its resources. It can change the way a neighborhood is able to access free produce. It can change the way that you connect to your community, and, yes, the way you feel about the future of the world.

And while we can always prepare for the future, we cannot predict it. It’s difficult not to resign ourselves to a world that seems perpetually descending into fascism, but that is a resignation that happens mostly with a degree of comfort. When I look at images of Palestinians holding religious services amidst the ruins of a mosque, I cannot bring myself to believe that things are beyond hope. Working towards a better world can be overwhelming and scary, but it is the work we must do. We cannot do everything. But we can always do something.

Love,

Peach

Dear Peach,

I've found sacred friendship with a beloved new person in my city. We rejoice in each other's humor, style, and tastes... but unfortunately I cannot rejoice in one aspect of her company: her scent. I feel timid in addressing this but most times when she's over, the smell of her feet / body odor is distracting and a lil stinky. I love her very much and feel cruel about addressing this aspect of our relationship with her... is this unfair of me? Is someone's smell too personal to expect them to change by opening up about it? Is it even my place to? 

Hoping I'm not a total bitch and morally reprehensible for saying any of this,

Heartbreaker Ninny