There It Is, That Funny Feeling
Breathe, pause, and take a moment to reset. We need to work together more than ever. Can we?
The Teardown
Wednesday :: November 6th, 2024 :: Approx. 5 min read
👋 Hi, this is Chris with another issue of The Teardown. In every issue, I cover how we interact with technology that powers our day-to-day lives.
Today is a departure from my normal schedule and content. I’m sharing a short story about this (2024) election result compared to 2016. There’s a sprinkle of technology within the post.
Expect a normal longer post tomorrow.
Bo Burnham’s That Funny Feeling lyrics seem relevant today (excerpt):
The backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun
There it is again, that funny feeling
That funny feeling
There it is again, that funny feeling
That funny feeling
Do you have that funny feeling today?
You thought the election result was inevitable. You’re shocked beyond belief. You're apoplectic. I’ve exchanged messages with friends all morning, some within groups full of Republican voters, some the opposite. Few of them have much balance, a clear representation of the national state of affairs.
Bo Burnham’s song is playing in my head over and over right now.
There it is, again, that funny feeling. The feeling that overwhelmed my day in 2016.
I was in New Zealand, enjoying my honeymoon with my wife. We stayed in Kaikoura on Tuesday, November 8th, election day and night. Our evening unfolded in a Michelin-starred restaurant occupied by other travelers like us, some from other areas of New Zealand, and other areas of the world. We were two obvious Americans with our accents.
My savory dinner hardly seemed important. Whatever I discussed with my wife was irrelevant. The TV and our phones wrapped around our eyes and ears. We ingested results in disbelief, thinking and asking did that just happen?
I recall several people saying “sorry” to us. “Good luck” too. Those exchanges were strange, almost as if, instead, close family members passed away hours before.
We flew back to the United States several days later to experience the country soon to be wrapped around the size-is-not-a-problem finger of a bold new president. And here we are, 8 years later, in a familiar position. I should fly back to New Zealand now.
The word reset resonates now more than ever. We need to reset our expectations and try harder to derive robust informed data-backed views of how things should work. Better understand arguments for and against immigration policy. Better understand the impact of tariffs. The list goes on. So much of what you find on the internet is, well, junk. Junk doesn’t deserve an incubation spot in your brain.
And to be more informed, we probably need to talk with each other without hitting the panic button, without boiling over in anger, and without losing sight of different opinions. I learn best from talking (in-person, phone) with people who aren’t like me.
We also need to stop shouting within various social media echo chambers. We all know it. Every one of those companies prefers you remain inflamed (if you are). You’re more engaged that way. They make more money by fostering that state of existence.
Do you want healthy debate? Do it in person.
Get involved in something tangible in real life. No more online communities.
Put your resources to work. I’m already partially and will be more involved in my town’s ongoing struggle with weather-related problems. Various areas of town flood during heavy rain and especially when hurricane remnants pass over aging infrastructure.
We won’t solve those problems by picking sides, throwing stones, and tossing napalm over NextDoor side by side with posts about leaves, cats, and yard sales.
We need to work together, despite differing views, economic realities, and available resources. And, let’s do that town by town, city-by-city, at the county, state, and federal level, too.
Otherwise, expect more of this outcome.