You Need to Calm Down: Dear all of US,

I’ve become a huge T. Swift fan. That’s a lie, obviously. She isn’t from England and/or Ireland. But the fact is that I was on my way to therapy, concerned that the driver was a bit late. When this song came on. It topped the hour of the driver’s station. Suddenly, and to my continued surprise, I found myself listening to the song on the radio. I had an idea that it was Taylor Swift only from reading about her lyrics, and sure ’nuff.

If you live under a rock like me, then enjoy the song and video here.

OK. So obviously this is about a certain Individual, we’ll call him Individual #1. The video added a colorful depiction of all sorts of folks doing their thing and just being happy. And the end has a pro-LGBTQ rights message. It was fun. I hadn’t seen the video before. But I’d seen headlines, the pictures of the dress and knew that there was some controversy over the entire thing.

So. Then my brain shattered as I had a terrific brainstorm in the back of the Uber. Everybody. You need to calm down. I need to calm down. So do you. And your mother. And your cousin Frank. (No offense, Frank. You’re calm.) Even the song and the dress became a big deal between pro and anti-gay and LGBTQ rights groups, and some simply criticized her for cashing in on Pride Month.

Let me tell you something. You need to calm down. It’s a damn pop song. And artists want to make money, LGBTQ or not. I couldn’t rock that dress, but she can. It’s cool. So you need to calm down. But so do I. I just gave several minutes of my life to typing the above sentences.

Enter the need to make more of an effort at being calm and doing your thing, despite the haters. Yes, The Hater in Chief, but also all of them. And quit hating on others and yourself. Just, calm down.

It may seem silly, but I found it cathartic to hear this woman slice into Individual #1 without apologies. And if that upsets you, then you need to calm down.

Wistfully pining for the death of Prime Minister Thatcher in Margaret on the Guillotine, by Morrissey happened. Biggie wrote a song in which he brags about robbing “pregnant bitches.” Um, John Lennon posed naked with his wife in bed. You realize that’s how they get attention right? Courting controversy. Famous people like attention.

Anyhow, this tune is dead basic pop. But its spirit and message is the response to the world and life that I have been searching for. I did anger, and depression, and I’m just over who said what on social media today. Blah, blah, blah. Life has become The Walking Dead, and someone needs to stab it in the brain. It just became too awful, too convoluted, too unbelievable, and just too painful to sit through any longer. It needs to stop.

Or I need to change the channel. I need to calm down. I’m just going to stay chill and focused on me, while you do your thing, and we’ll see how this turns out. It’s like feeding Tribbles. The more you feed a relationship tribble, the worse you’ll look and feel when all that tribble drama comes tumbling down on your head. When I am thinking about the Picard trailer, the more likely I’ll compare relationships to tribbles. See?

We all know the rainbow, glitter, star-studded video — or the rainbow dress — reflects nothing in reality. No one’s experience of life is that simple. If I could just calm down, I wouldn’t still require therapy or medication to help me work through and/on myself. But there is a nifty, gestalt, zen, Bob Newhart about “You need to calm down.”

We’re all like the guy in the joke who beats his head against a wall because it feels so good when he stops. We need to calm down. And, it is a wise-assed swipe at people who don’t help. Because, on top of the horrifying absurdity of life, do we need unhelpful people? They need to calm down or be out of my life.

The magnificent American, Carl Sandburg declared in his epic poem The People, Yes. “Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.” I don’t know if that day will ever arrive, but these days, everyone is enraged and looking for a Casus Belli. And when you look for trouble, or violence, or war you usually find it.

Why go looking in the first place? Do you wear orange to a bar named Tir Na Nog on St. Patrick’s Day? And yet we have actual citizens calling for the deaths of — or actually have killed — other citizens. Over what? You need to calm down. Now. Nobody should die or be hurt or commit suicide because you can’t control yourself. Because you need that much attention. I don’t have it for you anymore.

There are those who will misread everything I wrote above as an attack. Like tile yields in a strategy game, they see the world through lenses of interest. I can’t help that. But I can stop seeing the world through their eyes. Let me show you the world through my eyes! I could worry about what my abusive ex is up to. I could communicate with him. But I’m not gonna. I don’t care. So, you know what? I got 99 problems, but that guy ain’t one. I need to calm down, and he wouldn’t help.

So, yeah, that’s the tale of my Taylor Swift related revelation in the back of an Uber. ” You need to calm down.” We all need to calm down. Down the line. Et al. Every single one of US. Because if we are all miserable in our private or personal lives, we’ll continue to cross new Rubicons on the social front. And the public strife works to make us terrible/miserable human beings. We cannot sustain relationships in this way, nor can we reestablish our nearly broken public trust in government and laws and morals. I promise to calm down if you do. You know, give peace a chance. 😉

✌💚🖖

-J.Lakis

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