I’m feeling for Kanye West right now. I’m feeling for a man who suffers from the same mental health disorder that I do but I have a few, precious people in my life who help me be accountable, who help me through manic episodes and potentially stop me from making some pretty major mistakes. I’m guessing he doesn’t. For Kanye, he has the world watching, judging, laughing and pitying him. His most recent manic episode at his rally has been broadcast around the world, it was heartbreaking to see him fall apart without the support he most clearly needs. It is true that when you are manic you are highly creative, unstoppable, intensely motivated, do lots of crazy stuff, some things great, some not so great and you don’t bother with sleep. If you are Kanye, you run for President. Despite having no qualifications whatsoever, the mania makes you believe that it is possible. He is kind of right too, I mean Trump got elected, we never thought that would have happened. That is why Kanye calls it his superpower, because sometimes that is exactly what it feels like. But at his rally, we saw a man lost in his mania and pivoting rapidly towards the unbearable slump and depression that follows an intense manic episode. That is the price we pay for these moments of extreme highs, what goes up must come down and come down we do. When you come down, you realise all the crazy things you did whilst manic and if you’re like me, you panic and cancel things and have immense guilt and fear about all the money wasted, projects started and neglected, people picked up and dumped, major life decisions made and you simply can’t move. You cry, you have remorse, regret, you literally hate yourself. Until the next high. I’m not sure what the people around Kanye are doing for him, I can imagine he is very hard to try and help, he is like an out of control freight train. I hope he gets the support he needs; I hope he steps back and takes the time to heal. I hope he cancels his twitter account. I hope he drops out of the Presidential race. I hope he backs out of the spotlight but I highly doubt it. In the meantime, please understand that Bipolar is a mental illness, not a joke, not a meme. If you can’t be kind. Step back, you are just being harmful. Peace.
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I have to say I had never heard of this version of the ever popular Monopoly until recently when the TVC started making the rounds again on social media. If you missed it, here it is.
The idea of this game from what I believe, (I have not played it) is to empower girls and women. Female players get more money from the bank than men to start with and collect more than their male opponents as they pass go. You don’t buy property but rather inventions made or co made by women (conveniently excluding the disregarded original inventor of Monopoly, Elizabeth Magie.) This is the complete opposite of what happens in the workplace and women are asking for equal pay for equal work, not more money than our male counterparts. I think it’s pretty lame to suggest that for women to get ahead or to remain ahead if treated with equality, we would require head starts. But it gets worse. According to Megan Garber (who has actually played the silly game) in her article, “I played Ms Monopoly so you don’t have to.” “We dutifully follow the directions: Roll the dice, move forward, buy, pay, repeat. Andrew lands on Community Chest. This is what his card says: “You see the newest superhero movie with a female lead, and it’s awesome! COLLECT $50. If you’re a man, COLLECT $100.” Wait, what? He gets rewarded for sitting through a super hero movie with a female lead? I’m already confused. Mixed messaging much? And you gotta love the perky Ms Monopoly thrusting a hip out on the centre of the board, is she sassy? Defiant? Quirky? Independent? Is that what a successful ‘Ms’ looks like? I’m in two minds, I wonder if I would buy it for my daughter if it interested her. The gimmick of it might intrigue her for 2 minutes then it would offer no more value than the original game. The thing is, women don’t start out with more money than men, we get paid less and a lot of women end up with little or no super. Things are better than they once were but we are not there yet. I think I would rather she picks up a book, like the awesome Rebel Girls series to learn about women and their accomplishments. Not given some bullshit drivel which seems to patronisingly “support” women’s accomplishments. What do you think? Peace |
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