I find it interesting that suddenly, as a society, we all have our drawers in a knot over cancel culture. The Left uses cancel culture as a means of testing progressive ideological purity and the Right uses it as a reason to whine and as a weapon to beat the Left with. Benjamin Wallace-Wells wrote an article entitled, “Cancel Culture Is Not a Movement,” that was posted on the New Yorker site on March 11 of this year. He writes, “When politicians or commentators talk about ‘cancel culture,’ they are typically speaking of a fear that even ordinary people who express ideas that are politically incorrect will be publicly shamed—that social media has enabled a universal speech surveillance, and that people and institutions are now self-policing, out of fear of it.” Basically our version of Orwell’s Thought Police.

Wikipedia defines cancel culture as, “Cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to have been "cancelled". In other words, banishment and exile.

Gay men are well aware of this phenomena. Gay men have been practicing cancel culture forever – and doing so in broad daylight so it isn’t new to us. Cancel culture, behaving as if someone or something does not exist and/or does not have the right to exist. If you are not pretty enough, don’t have a good enough body, have the wrong skin color, are too old, not wearing the proper trendy clothes, etc., you are toast.

Picture yourself out walking through the mall, let’s say, and a nice looking gay guy walks into your line of vision. They clock you looking at them. If you are not someone they find attractive, they will look away from you using a gesture I have come to call the “Neck Snap,” in which they turn their head, thus averting their eyes, away from you with such suddenness and ferocity, it is a wonder it doesn’t give them cervical damage. And they get to pretend you don’t even exist and, thus, get to avoid having to acknowledge you as a living, breathing presence on Earth. What would be nice would be if we learned to at least acknowledge one another.

As powerful as words are, words do not create reality. Yes, there are a lot of hurtful, condescending, demeaning pejorative phrases out there. And I have no issue with it being politically incorrect to use them, as well as morally wrong in many instances. That said, political correctness has been in use for a while now and those words or attitudes are still around. Banning words doesn’t fix the underlying problem. And if someone calls me a faggot or a pansy or says I am light in the loafers, well, sticks and stones may break my bones but you can kiss my ass. Doesn’t mean I want you banished from society. Just stay away from me. Your bad behavior is a reflection of you on you and has nothing to do with me. What I need to know is what has made you think and feel and act this way. What would be great would be if we started to ask people what led them to beliefs or opinions we find politically and/or morally incorrect and seek to understand.

It is the underlying issues of why the bad behaviors continue, in spite of political correctness, that need addressing. Yes, human history is chock-full of atrocious behavior that needs to be faced and dealt with but dealt with in the sense of what we are going to do moving forward. Rather than cancelling, I think on-going public reproach and shaming of people or groups is way more effective than banning or ostracism. Personally, I would like to see the return of public stocks and pillories. Now, I wouldn’t let the public physically harm those thus confined. I simply want them to be publicly shamed for their bad behavior. Dunce caps would be fine. Making someone stand on the courthouse steps holding a sign that says, “I haven’t mastered three syllable words yet,” works for me. You get the idea. As a friend of mine says, “If you don’t know how to act decently, we’ll show you how to act.” Problem is that those we judge as being in need of being confined to the public stocks and pillories no doubt feel the same way about us.

We live in a world where we all decry the lack of civility and decency and the shamelessness run riot though our society. Banishing, ostracizing, excommunication, exile, cancelling, doesn’t make the problem go away. The only thing that goes away, at least for a while, is the particular offender or group of offenders. It was Joseph N. Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army, in his confrontation with McCarthy in hearings before McCarthy’s Senate subcommittee, in which he famously asked McCarthy "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" This was widely seen as a turning point against McCarthyism. (Wikipedia) The problem here is we all no longer seem to have a consensus on what constitutes decency.

Cancelling is a form of smiting. Very Old Testament. We end up judging those we deem or who have proven themselves as being beyond redemption, thus the need to banish. Does not the Judeo-Christian ethic teach us in the Bible about mercy and compassion over judgment? Mercy is taught in the Quran. Buddhism teaches compassion and mercy. You get my point. Now, yes, there are those in our history who seem by their acts and/or beliefs to be beyond redemption. And certainly, for some, redemption would be a long, hard road. But who among us, at some point in our life, has not needed compassion and at least the possibility of and chance at redemption? But, here again, those we judge and condemn as either needing redemption or being beyond redemption no doubt think we are as equally a lost cause.

Rather than cancelling, ostracizing, banishing, public shaming, exiling, etc., how about we learn to talk with one another again rather than at one another? We do still have the facility as thinking/feeling humans to create safe spaces in which we can begin to communicate rather than cancel. We can ask one another - How did you get here? What propelled you on your journey to these beliefs and actions? - We don’t have to agree with what we hear but at least we can begin to understand and in that understanding, odds are we will begin to once again find some common ground.

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

The world is changing. That becomes more and more apparent with every passing day. Whether you embrace and welcome the changes that are afoot or are horrified by what you see in the news, there is no getting around the fact that nothing has been the same recently.

Have you stopped to take a minute to really assess and sit with how all of this is affecting you? The times maybe a changin’ but, if you aren’t yet aware of it, so are you. For many people, they are finding that the things, people, places, ways of doing and being that they have held onto tenaciously for years no longer work for them as they once did. It maybe something as seemingly silly as you have eaten Cheerios every morning of your life for the last however many years and you woke up one morning and one more bowl of Cheerios just wasn’t going to cut it. And you were surprised.

It may be something more substantial like you no longer find your job or your work fulfilling as they once were. You may find yourself moving away from friends or relatives with whom you have been close because the relationship no longer nurtures or comforts you. And you are surprised.

Technology has changed so much of the way in which we relate to one another. And you are suddenly surprised at the effects it is having on the way you feel about or relate to others. And you are surprised.

Finding a job used to be an easy thing but the world has changed and making sense of the “new rules” of job hunting may seem alien or unfair or incomprehensible. Healthcare has changed. The way we get our news has changed. The way politics works has changed. The feeling of being in charge or in control of our lives has changed. And we are surprised.

The problem is that most people don’t like surprises - even the positive surprises, much less the surprises that are unwelcome.

Many of us have constructed our lives based on our past and what has worked for us successfully in the past. Others of us have constructed our lives as a defense against that past, trying to ensure that our future is nothing like our past. We cling to the rituals of our life that we have composed, hoping to stay safe and happy and successful. If we just focus on our job or make sure we have date night once a week with the spousal unit or talk to friends every other day or take our vitamins or make sure we do our oil change on the car every 3000 miles without fail, things will be fine. But as 2017 draws to a close, many of us are beginning to realize that the things that used to work for us aren’t working anymore. And we are surprised.

What in your life is starting to feel confining to you? What no longer gives you the feeling of freedom or the feeling of safety or the feeling of hope that it used to? What no longer makes you happy that always used to do the trick? Where is your routine breaking down or no longer serving you? How are you coping with the “new normal” when you aren’t even sure what the new normal is? What are you doing with the feelings of unease that have started creeping in from under the floorboards? How are you answering the questions – Am I still OK? Is life still OK? Are the important relationships in my life still OK? Are my routines and rituals still OK? And what are you doing if the answer is, “No,”? As the world around you gives you less solid things to hold onto, as old ways of doing things no longer work, what can you hold onto? How are you dealing with the surprising fact that you find yourself surprised, in not downright astonished? WTF? Right?

The first step is to recognize that maybe somethings really don’t work for you anymore. “But I always . . .” Honestly recognize that maybe some of the beliefs you have held about this or that in your life no longer serve you. Maybe they never did. Maybe they are beliefs that were given to you by parents or friends or family, school, job, society, the media, whomever. What beliefs do you find being called into question by you? Sometimes just that recognition can be enough to free you from old and outmoded beliefs and let you look at life with fresh eyes. Beliefs affect attitudes. How have you found that suddenly some of your attitudes toward people, places, things, have shifted or changed or even done a 180 degree turn? An example of this might be that with all of the uncertainty in the world, with all of the confusion and doubt you find that your normally sunny disposition has become ever so slightly, or maybe not so slightly, cynical? How are you feeling about that? Surprised? Confused? Uncertain?

What we think and how we feel are directly impacted by our beliefs and the attitudes we carry and rely on. Maybe, given the craziness out there in the world, thinking and feeling is more than I can deal with right now. I’ve got too much to do to stop and worry about what I am thinking and feeling. I just need to get everything done and then maybe I will look at my feelings about whatever or what I think about this or that. The problem here would be that the thoughts and feelings are there anyway. That is a process hard-wired into us humans and so what we think and what we feel is always there, whether we pay conscious attention to it or not. Do you find you are having new or different ways of thinking about things? When you look at your life, when you look at the world, have your feelings about things changed from their usually reliable position?

What about decisions and choices? Decisions precede the action of choice. I’ve made the decision to go on a diet. “Yep. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna loose that ten pounds.” OK, but have you made the choice to stop buying ice cream every week at the store? Have you made the choice to try eating fruit when you want something sweet? A silly example but you get the point. How have your decisions and choices changed? I have several friends who several years ago would never ever ever have considered owning a gun. But in the world they currently find themselves in, not feeling safe in their homes, they’ve decided that they need a gun and made the choice to buy one, as example. I know people who have made the decision to start keeping people at arm’s length or have started avoiding people when they can. They just don’t want to be bothered anymore. What decisions and choices have you made recently that surprised you? That were “out of character” for you?

Recognition of what doesn’t work anymore. Recognition of how you find yourself changing in relationship to yourself, your life and the people and places and things in it – and these changes are not necessarily negative. You may have made some really good changes but you still feel more unmoored than you’d like to be.

Recognition of how you find yourself changing in a world that seems to be losing it mind. And with the recognition then comes the acknowledgment that, ‘Yeah, that’s where I am right now. For good or for ill, that’s where I am right now. Doesn’t mean I have to stay here but I need to acknowledge that this is where I am right now with this belief or this attitude or my thoughts and feelings or my decision and choices.” Maybe I just don’t feel I have the same amount to give to other people anymore. Maybe I don’t want to spend the time investing in this person or that hobby or that job anymore. Maybe I don’t want anymore Cheerios for breakfast. I need to acknowledge that this is where I am at the moment That acknowledgment doesn’t mean that I will stay frozen or stuck here. I can choose to move beyond where I am whenever I am ready.

Then I need to forgive the fact that I may or may not like the changes that I find are happening within me or within my life or within my world. I need to forgive the fact that through no apparent fault of my own I find myself where I am. Forgive the fact that somethings no longer serve you like they used to – be it in whatever area or arena of life you are finding these changes. And then, finally, decide what the next step is. If the changes are going to keep coming, what kind of changes would I like to see based on where I am now? How do I move forward? How do I incorporate the changes in myself and in my life? I don’t need to decide my entire future right now, just what is the next step – however big or small that step might be?

Give all of that time. Things are changing. I am changing. The world is changing. How do I begin to cope, to deal with all of that? All of the above is a good first step.

But beyond that, how do I deal with how surprised I am by all of this? "Well, I’m just too damned depressed by the whole thing to deal with it." Maybe you are. There are ways to deal with depression so that you don’t get buried under its weight. If you are dealing with depression, get help. None of us is supposed to be so self-reliant that we never need to ask for some help or guidance.

Maybe you find yourself just so shocked by it all that you have no idea where to turn. No, not the faux shock that we read about every day in the news or in social media. That kind of, “I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked that this or that is happening,” usually followed by hand-wringing and false piety about the way things “should” be. No. But we all have had a great deal to deal with – politics and the governance of our country has gone off the rails. There have been horrendously destructive fires and hurricanes and droughts. There have been mass shootings in places where people thought they would be safe like churches and schools. There has been a lot to be truly shocked at. OK. Where in your small corner of the world can you regroup and begin to handle your shock at the world or your shock at some of the changes you find happening? You can’t do it all at once. Do it the same way you’d eat an elephant – one bite at a time.

Suppose you find yourself slipping into being judgmental about everyone and everything? When judgment comes up, ask yourself is this really the way you want to be? What will being judgmental accomplish besides freezing you in place, unable to process or deal with anything because you have erected your judgment in front of you like a shield? What will judgment do except encourage you to want to punish those whom you have decided deserve to be harshly judged?

If you find yourself feeling alienated from the people in your life, from those who you love and care about or you find the surprises of what is going on in life making you fearful and wanting to shut down or you feel that you are alone against a world that no longer bears resemblance to the world you thought you knew, return to step one: Recognize that that is where you are and acknowledge that the thoughts and feelings and decisions and choices and beliefs and attitudes I am encountering are mine. I am angry. I am shocked. I am fearful. I feel alienated and alone. I am feeling judgmental. I can’t cope with any more surprises. Then forgive the fact that that is where I am right now and acknowledge that in that recognition, I can do something about it. And then go out beginning to deal with the fallout from the surprises life has been bringing you.

These are tough times but they can be successfully navigated. Ask for help when you need it from friends, family, business associates, professionals, whomever. Go within and take care of yourself. Nurture yourself. Look for answers within yourself. Life will always bring surprises and sometimes they will be welcome and sometimes they won’t. And it won’t always be easy. But there are places to start and remember, you are not alone.

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling and life coaching services in Atlanta for the LGBT community. Also available by Skype. If you have questions, comments or want to find out about our services, please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com