Extinction Bursts, the Election, and Writing
Yesterday, reading comments about the American election on another site, I came across the idea of Extinction Bursts. Yes, I know now it’s a common idea, but that was the first time I’d heard it, and I took enormous comfort from it. It’s the idea that, right before you change a long time habit, your brain does everything it can to blow up your path:
Extinction Burst: a predictable and common blast of defiance from the recesses of a brain denied familiar rewards.
The example used in the essay on You’re Not So Smart, is the mad craving you have for chocolate and french fries when you go on a diet. It’s not just that fattening food tastes good, it’s that your brain is used to that reward in your life and will start fighting you to get it. Another example from the site: If somebody uses an elevator every day at work, and one day it stops working, that person will stand there pushing the button over and over again before he gives up and takes the stairs. I would imagine that if it were a special elevator that not everybody can take, if everybody else has to use the stairs, then that guy would be pushing that button a lot longer because people like him do not take the stairs. That’s for Other people. He’d be pushing the button and screaming about unfairness for hours.
That, said one of the commenters I read, is what’s happening in America. White men are no longer the Master Race, and Donald Trump is just their Extinction Burst. They’re pushing buttons on a elevator that no longer works for them. They’re gonna have to take the stairs like everybody else. And here’s the good news:
“If you are ready for the extinction burst and prepared, you can weather the storm and watch it pass. You can watch the bad behavior go extinct, forever, and only see again as a fossil in photographs from previous epochs in your life, part of a previous you.”
The essay is talking about bad habits not white entitlement, of course, but the absolute paroxysm of rage in Trump supporters seems to me to fall squarely into this concept. And I think in a lot of ways, the anti-Hillary stuff is in there, too. I know people have real reasons for not liking her, but the big one seems to be that she’s been in government for over thirty years and she’s done stuff they don’t like. Now try to imagine a female outsider running for President, the way Trump is running. She’d never have made it past a primary. Now try to imagine anybody in public life for more than thirty years who hasn’t done things that people don’t like. There’s the box the Extinction Burst has put Clinton in, but thank god she’s been busting out of boxes her whole life. The only reason Hillary is going to win is because, as Saturday Night Live put it, she’s made of steel, and it was honed in the crucible of thirty years of political hell. So much of the crap she puts up with–“She should smile more,” “She wants the Presidency too much,” “Her husband is a cheater”–is all dog whistling for “What’s a woman doing up there?” It’s an extinction burst, the last spewing of vitriol before America rolls over and gets used to a female President the way it got used to a black President (whose favorable rating right now is really good and climbing fast).
The problem with the extinction burst is that you have to wait it out, and the more strongly your brain believes you deserve that reward, the bigger tantrum it’s going to throw until you give in. This election is white America’s tantrum, and it’s going to take a while to play out, but even so, looked at that way, it’s a really positive thing: Hillary is slaughtering Trump in the polls and the Republican dog whistling is putting them out of business.
What does this have to do with writing? It’s so much easier not to write, that I’m beginning to wonder if writer’s block isn’t just a very long extinction burst. I hate the old “just sit down and write” because in truth, that doesn’t always work for me in the beginning. But once I get to the place I am now, not writing is just my brain saying, “Don’t do it. It’ll be hard and you’ll forget the people in your life and become obsessed with the story, and you won’t sleep at night, and then it’ll all be crap anyway. Have a cookie and crochet something.” I’m thinking of having my brain say that in Donald Trump’s voice, hovering behind me while the Jaws music plays. Because that guy, I’d punch.
But the big thing is, I feel better about America. If we’re violent, racist asshats, then everything I believe about my country is a lie. If this is just an extinction burst from the Old Guard–Joe Arpaio is fifteen points behind his Democratic challenger and he’s in line for a jail sentence for contempt, the least of his crimes, so up yours, Old Guard–then it’s a brand new day coming and I can’t wait until January to see a great, strong woman take that oath of office.
And then, god willing, she’ll appoint a young, lesbian, Wiccan woman of color to the Supreme Court. I’m really tired of old, Catholic white guys determining what I can do with my body and my government.
In the meantime, I have to go tell my Trump brain to fuck off and get back to work.
Edited to add: Cate just linked to a Cracked essay that may be the smartest thing I’ve read about the election:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons...
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