PREVIOUS DAY

Kelly Corrigan interviews Angela Duckworth on her book Grit. She's nonstop bouncy. Insists that optimists succeed more often, and that it's better to characterize setbacks as local--now, this time, yet--instead of global--"I always fail". I believe her. But, but...

She talks as if optimism and defeatism are the only two positions, ignoring that some defeats are due to others out to squash you, deny your existence... kill you.

Failing to recognize enemies, or that strangers can BE enemies for no personal reason, just rob, crush or scapegoat you for their own gain or pleasure, does NOT serve an individual well. Any more than prejudice serves society well.

As my personal experience just doesn't fit Grit's view of adversity as a mere problem to be solved with persistence. Real enemies (whether human or systemic) who learn, counterattack, lie and cheat to keep you down, demand that you face evil and name it.

THAT DAY

Read The Gifts That Bind Us by Carolyn O'Donoghue. Small-town Irish witches face persecution from a well-funded Christian movement targeting witches and gays. They're slow to realize their persecutors aren't just fundies but sorcerers clouding minds to take power--feeding off their victims and followers. Creepy on two levels, personal and political--it triggers some flashbacks to school bullying I faced, and plays on my fears for democracy. Some organizations are too big for individuals to fight alone.

The book fleshes out my objection yesterday to Angela Duckworth's optimism. To beat well-organized, well-funded evil, you need more than grit; you need your own organization--and to face the true scale and goals of those you're up against.

My housemates call me in to watch Steve Martin's comedy/mystery series Only Murders in the Building. But it too turns grim--during a blackout, inside the maze of bootlegger passages in this old residential hotel, a killer stalks Lucy, who hides in terror...

Tonight she may escape the predators. But I seem unable to.

THAT NIGHT

I'm on foot in flat dry savanna. Approach and retreat from various wild animals. I'm testing my sense they aren't evaluating your size or armament so much as study your confidence or fear. If you flee them, they assume you know best--you're prey. If you stalk them, they assume you hunt their species routinely. If you skirt them & observe but don't back off, they figure you're neither prey nor predator.

Test it with many animals, and it works. Even with lions.

And then I meet a huge, lone cat that assumes I'm prey--because everyone's prey to a Siberian tiger. Biggest, meanest cat on the planet.

No matter. There it is--padding toward me.

No gun, no spear, not even a stick. Nothing to bluff with but grit. And that just failed.

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