Caught up on the executive orders? Got your cheap eggs yet? Found just the right balance of pharma, therapy, meditation, etc., to deal with all this?

Yeah, me neither. But I’m working on it.

In last week’s blog post, I shared my two-prong strategy for staying sane in the New Age of Trump:

1. I will devote myself to living my life as it is.
2. I will try to devote precisely the right level of attention to Trumpworld: not an iota less than necessary to detect oncoming threats/needs for action, not an iota more than it warrants.

What I’d forgotten to consider was Trump’s strategy of flooding the public square with so much chaos you can’t take it in. At 9:00, say, you read an article on an executive order, and it links to another executive order, and another, and by the time you’re done it’s noon and you’re overwhelmed. I’ve thought about limiting myself only to news about the Trump trans bans,* but even those are flowing thick and fast.**

As before, I’ve been working with all this in zazen (basically, Zen meditation). Last night, it dawned on me that I’m trying too hard with #2—the attention to Trumpworld—and ignoring #1.

So I’m making a shift: less Trump, more devoting myself to my life as it is.

I feel myself breathe easier every time I think about that. Moreover, living my life as it is involves my fundamental vocation: to tend sentient beings so they blossom. This vocation brings me bliss, and it can’t be bad for others either.

In a subtle way, living my own life is also an act of non-binary resistance. My life as it is includes me as I am: a non-binary person, living my non-binary life. My vocation has a non-binary cast to it because it’s my vocation.
​
So how have you navigated the past two weeks? Feel free to share if you like. In the meantime, I’ve got a poem to revise.
 
 
*Talk about fun words to see and say. Try it. Trans bans. Transbans. Trumpytransbans. In times like these, comedy is mandatory.
**In case you’re counting…oh my goodness, I can’t even summarize all the executive orders that target trans people. Here’s a link to one of Erin Reed’s recent posts. She’s a respected trans journalist writing about trans issues. She’ll clue you in.

​Ever since November 9, 2016—the first time the American electoral system slapped me in the face—I’ve been working with various ways of living in Trumpworld. A lot of it has felt like driving an exquisitely sensitive car: ease up on the fury just a little, give my latest thoughts a little more gas by posting them to my blog, let thoughts go, ignore this but not that, news blackouts/brownouts.

Things have changed since then.

For one, I’m now nine years into my Zen practice, which involves (for me, among other things) working with my emotions. A useful thing. For another, an executive order from yesterday effectively rendered me and many loved ones “not real” as far as American government is concerned.** A bad thing. This enrages me.

Yesterday I worked with that rage in zazen, and a new way of approaching the next four years arose.

1. I will devote myself to living my life as it is—tending it, and other people, so they blossom.
2. I will try to devote precisely the right level of attention to Trumpworld: not an iota less than necessary to detect oncoming threats/needs for action, not an iota more than it warrants.

This will not be easy. I have heard Zen teachers speak of life’s stiffest challenges as rich opportunities to practice. The next four years, it follows, will be one hell of an opportunity.

That’s all I’ve got so far. We’ll see how it works. What about you?
 
*Or the next eight, or 12, or whatever. Trumpworld might outlive Trump.
**Yes, the executive order refers specifically to transgender. But if you think Trumpworld will distinguish between transgender (including my trans friends) and non-binary (me), think again.