The Cognitive Dissonance of Now

We are all now navigating an inherent tension as a collective. It’s a tension many of us who documented or studied issues of social inequality, environmental justice or conflict dwelled within for decades. And seeing everyone now trying to process the cognitive dissonance necessary to not lose our minds in our current societal reality is a state I always knew was possible, but hoped we’d never see at scale.

What’s worse is I don’t believe many citizens have taken the time or harbor the ability to see what’s been dwelling beneath the shiny veneer of capitalism all these years. Our current system was built by leveraging human suffering; genocide, exploitation, extraction and empire. Until now, we’ve been able to mostly ignore the inequalities because those in power took great pains to cover the truth, lest we all opt out en mass.

But now the robber barons hold the reins of power in our government, have purchased the stupidest and greediest politicians possible and have created their own version of technofeudalism, the veneer of normalcy is gone. 

Why bother hiding the truth anymore?

The population is now fully entrenched in two camps— the under-capitalized labor being destroyed one late bill and one tariff at a time and the privileged 10% or so are able to ignore what’s happening in the streets because capital insulates them and that type of security allows them to carry on as normal. The third camp, the oligarchs, don’t even need to participate in society at all, beyond maintaining the systems of extraction that have shifted our wealth into their narcissistic hands at scale. Let them eat cake is the reining philosophy and its no longer a meme. It’s just reality. 

I’m not faulting those of us in these two camps. I float in between both depending on multiple factors; some by choice, some by force. I am privileged because I’ve accumulated earned knowledge and specialized skills over the years that allows me to float between these camps. At the moment, I’m in the “oh fuck, another bill” camp, but I’m transitioning to the “Phew, I can afford that $6 espresso shot now” camp. That transition is underway and I am grateful for the ability to still find opportunity in such a desolate labor market. 

But I’m under no illusion that it could all evaporate tomorrow. Every opportunity, every beautiful change, every nail biting risk— all of it could end tomorrow. We are all prisoners to the whims of a malignant narcissistic leader with dementia, hell bent on destroying literally every ounce of humanity and beauty in our world. Simply because he can and the delusional voices in his head justify his actions. But that’s an essay for another day. 

The element I want to explore here, dear reader, is the tension of this perpetual cognitive dissonance we are all holding due to the socio-economic transition underway.

We are barreling towards a post-capitalistic world, a post-extractive economy and we have absolutely no fucking idea what that will actually encompass. But we can feel the intensity of this motion careening towards the abyss, even if many of us cannot name it. That’s the tension we are all navigating, and many do not harbor the mental models to process it. 

We know the groceries we’re buying were not grown in our local community and we understand the petrol and pesticides required to produce and deliver this food to our stores.  We also see the empty shelves in that store and know our system of agriculture is not sustainable. But most of us do not have the luxury of options. We must choose the lesser of these evils and try to calm the tension of this truth every time we buy groceries to feed our families. 

We know the politician with a “D” next to their name on the ballot takes money from lobbyists that support genocide, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and a whole host of other oligarchic tendencies and we know this D will choose their own stock portfolios and their own egos over our health care premiums, our neighbors right to live without fear of deportation and our children’s ability to breath air free from pollution. But we still must vote. We must choose the lesser of these evils and try to process the dis-ease such unjust decisions causes in our hearts. 

We know the unmarked SUV trolling our neighborhood is looking to kidnap our neighbors as they walk their children to school but we are powerless to stop the presence of that SUV and the specter of a kidnapping that ends in deportation, torture or even death. We still pay taxes that fund this reality. We sit and watch 80 year old politicians in the halls of congress wring their hands and say there’s nothing to be done while our neighbors live with the terror of death in the backseat of an SUV at the hands of an ignorant racist who needed to make a little extra money rounding up the humans who seek nothing but a better life and make our country the beautiful melting pot it used to be. An ignorant racist who most likely stormed the halls of our hallowed government, back when we still had the illusion that it mattered, spread feces on the wall and then were pardoned by that malignant narcissist. A full circle moment for the worst among us, yet we must watch it all unfold. Powerless to change the cruelty of it all. 

We know that almost half of the country voted for these realities and more. More than half of the country, many of our family, relations and neighbors voted for the absolute destruction of our day to day lives because they were emboldened to lean into their own racism, hatred and ignorance. Empowered and supported by those broligarchs seeking to separate the population and build their technofeudalistic future. 

We must watch farmers beg for socialism because they voted for fascism. We must bear witness to partners begging for mercy as their brown spouses are deported, not acknowledging they voted for facism because they thought their whiteness would save them. We must watch as people beg for relief as medicine and groceries skyrocket, knowing full well they voted for hatred and suffering— they just thought their white skin would protect them and “others” would suffer. 

And perhaps one of the hardest aspects of this cognitive dissonance we all must carry now is pretending that everything is normal, that everything will work out in the end, so we can continue doing the things that make us feel human. I love the work I do. I love the productivity and creativity I get to deploy for my clients and for the productions my studio brings to life. And in order to keep doing this work, I must embrace the dissonance of everything above. 

I must tap into my well of experience and do strategic outputs knowing that at the same time, the unmarked SUV is pulling up to a park across town trying to kidnap humanity at scale. I must tap into the words of hope to craft messages for my mission-driven clients while a farmer a few towns over begs for relief as his land is bought for pennies on the dollar by the politicians he voted for. I must embrace the muse to bring a narrative to life while my neighbor two buildings over is choosing between the medicine that keeps his heart beating and the electricity that allows him to cook his dinner, filled with regret for the ballot he cast last November. 

Holding all of this tension, acknowledging this perpetual cognitive dissonance requires a great capacity to hold space for joy and sorrow, hope and terror, acceptance and defiance, resignation and rage, tears and laughter. Holding this tension also forces one to place boundaries on their own empathy so as not to suffocate under the weight of such suffering at scale.

We are ALL being forced to embrace the depth of emotions many have never worked with openly. All of the emotions brewing beneath the surface of our reality are testing our humanity right now. And many cannot hold this tension without breaking. The common phrase we see on bumper stickers and memes now holds true for ALL of us — Everyone is struggling with something we know nothing about, choose kindness. 

If you’re still with me, take a moment and just sit with your own cognitive dissonance and acknowledge the reality of it all. We must give light to the spectrum of emotions we are navigating in our Now or they will eat us alive, from the inside out. 

And if you’ve never processed the cognitive dissonance necessary to navigate late stage capitalism, please dive deeper into what was written in this essay and find your own mechanisms of processing such intense emotions.

Bypassing is not an option in our Now.

We can’t ignore the pain of our neighbors and the evil of our politicians. We have to hold these truths, bear witness to the impacts on humanity and work with our fellow humans to fix the trauma of it all. Or we will never step past this current state of destruction into the possibilities that a post-extractive society harbor. 

For that is the reward at the end of this destruction, whether we live long enough to witness it or we simply fight like hell so our children can live in a just and equitable tomorrow. If we bypass the pain of this tension, we’ll fail to cultivate the ability to say “never again” and lay the foundation for tomorrow that rectifies the pain and evil of the colonizers that brought us to our collective Now.

I created these images in 2018 while documenting the protests in DC against the family separation policies of the last time these fascists took power.

If this resonates, pass it on. I believe it’s time we start talking about the emotional impacts of the ongoing trauma of our Now. Before it’s too late.

Signals & Seeds is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Or, if this article resonated, buy me a coffee (or a few) by leaving a gift here.