Tribe — March 3, 2023

John Agliata

9 months ago

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
‘Full Stop’ 🛑
Needles 💉
Business Lessons 🧑‍💼

Here’s something I learned about myself today: One way to ensure that I will debate you on a topic until I give my last breath or until you are huddled in a corner in a fetal position is to end the statement of your opinion to me with “Full stop.”

Saying “full stop” after you give your opinion about an issue is the adultish equivalent of taking your ball and going home because you disagreed with your basketball-playing friend on whether there was a foul or not.

Except it’s even more juvenile.

Why? Well, whether you fouled me or not is often a legitimate point of disagreement. That’s why real games have referees for us to yell at. But when you say “Full stop” after saying your opinion about something, you are showing an off-the-charts levels of arrogance, as if the words you’ve just uttered are someone so undebatebly accurate that there is absolutely no room for disagreement.

And please, notice I didn’t say “full stop” at the end of the last paragraph. Why? Because you are more than welcomed to make a counterargument to my opinion. That’s called “discourse,” and so, so fucking many of us in this country have forgotten how to do that.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t full-stop moments. Murdering innocent people is bad. Full stop. Molesting children is bad. Full stop. The Boston Red Sox are evil. Full stop.

Here’s what brought about my new learning today: I’m a member of a Facebook group for a specific thing. It doesn’t matter what that thing is for the point of this story. In a post to this group today, I jokingly said that all of us in said group who are bonded in our common experience should be called the “Tribe of …”

To which some twit responded “I don’t mean to be that person …” (which, incidentally, is a dead giveaway that the person is, in fact, about to be “that person”) … “but …” (told ya!) … “the tribe thing doesn’t sit well for me as I am not native and don’t want to appropriate a culture that isn’t mine.”

And she is more than entitled to have that opinion! I will never force her to say the word “tribe” or be part of anything associated with a “tribe.” That she believes me saying we as a group should be called a tribe is cultural appropriation of those who were here well before we discovered they were here is completely fine!

It’s the second twit (isn’t it always?) who said the full-stop thing when she put forward that the reason we shouldn’t say “tribe” is because it’s an antiquated term that must be left in the past, “Full stop.”

Game on, motherfucker.

I love that people have opinions. I have a lot of them. Most of mine are at least minimally researched. For example, did you know that word “tribe” was not, in fact, started with the Native Americans? Do you know that, in fact, the word “tribe” was a word white people gave to groups of Native Americans as we stumbled and bumbled our way through trying to understand who these people were who lived so differently from us “civilized” folk? Thus, I completely understand why no one should ever say a Native American person is a part of a certain tribe.

Further, do you know that the word “tribe” was appropriated from the Latin “tribus,” which was tied to classical and biblical images? Do you know that the word “tribus” was used by the ancient Romans to denote segments of their own populations (for example, groups, you fucking moron!), as well as the Celtic and Germanic societies with which many 19th- and early 20th-century Europeans and American identified?

And thus, do you know that I, as a person of Italian descent, am appropriating the word tribe … from my own fucking ancestors!

So no, you don’t get to say “full stop” when you give an opinion, especially when that opinion is, at best, uneducated. Sure, I will give you as much freedom as you want to state your opinion. I’m 100% fine with anyone who agrees with that opinion. Go for it. Be my guest.

But no one really has the right to tell another person that the debate is done on a macro level just because they’ve put some words out there.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to chill out with some great music from a hip-hop group I like.

tribe called quest

A Tribe Called Quest

This morning, I spent a half an hour with some needles stuck in me. It was the best half hour of my week so far.

I’d never tried acupuncture before, but as I’ve evolved into a more woo-woo person who has seen success with medical treatments we here in Muricah call “alternative” (READ: Hated by insurance companies because they actually cure what ails ya’), my mind has opened to a lot of different things.

My journey with Longhaul COVID has not been fun. This sets it apart, of course, from all those other people whose Longhaul COVID journeys were given to them as a hidden ride at Disney World.

I’ve managed (through alternative therapies) to beat back most of the issues that one person from China caused me, but something that remains is joint pain in my hands. This started during my first bout of COVID in late 2020 with an achy left thumb and has evolved into total hand pain that ranges from “meh” to “my GOD that hurts.”

Whether this is 100% Longhaul COVID-related or the result of making a career typing for 30-plus years now is up for debate. I just want it to feel better, and I’m not inclined to take whatever drug some doc says will help.

Please, please, please do not think that means that I am against Western medicine. I’m not. It definitely has its place, and I’m appreciative of it. To me, however, it’s a piece of the puzzle, along with the things pharmaceutical companies and their insurance industry bitches call “alternative.”

And so.

That’s why I found myself getting stuck with needles in my feet, legs, arms, hands, chest, neck and head this morning. Then, I was left to lay there for 30 minutes.

It was blissful. I came away feeling so energetic and serene (despite what the whole “Full stop” rant might indicate), so creative and expressive. I just felt great. Not just my hands, either!

I’m not sure what acupuncture is supposed to do in these areas, and I allow for the fact that the benefit could have been from me finally slowing down and doing nothing for a half-hour, which is something that hasn’t happened much this week. But it sure seems to me that the acupuncture did something. And for that, I am grateful.

acupuncture

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