The inquisitive one traveled to London. It was going to be an exciting adventure!

While in a crowded street market, the inquisitive one saw some postcards. “I could send these to my nephew and niece!” thought the inquisitive one, as a bunch of people jostled into the back, shoulders, and butt. When the inquisitive one went to pay for the postcards, there was a terrible realization: the credit cards, cash, phone, and passport were all missing!

Instinctively, and in a panic, the inquisitive one ran to that timelessly universal haven for inquisitive types, the public library. Frantically, the inquisitive one Googled what to do when lose passport England USA help! and scanned through some websites. Next, the inquisitive one logged into the email account and composed a message.

Here it must be noted that, due to shock and anxiety, the inquisitive one had been stricken with a psychological disorder! The inquisitive one could no longer distinguish fact from fiction, information from misinformation! Furthermore, the inquisitive one could no longer recall a single rule of spelling, grammar, or word usage! Consequently, the email read as follows:

Not knowing whom to put on the To: line, the inquisitive one sent it to every contact in the address book. Then the inquisitive one waited for a reply.

But no one replied! The inquisitive one kept checking the email for hours, but then, night fell. The library closed. The inquisitive one was forced to scrounge through trash bags for food and sleep in an alley.

The next day, the inquisitive one fell in with a band of drug dealers. But the inquisitive one, having no talent for sales, was not able to make any money. As the days passed, the inquisitive one started to despair of ever again eating something that didn’t come from a garbage bag. But then a fellow drug dealer invited the inquisitive one to, along with him, ditch the drug dealers and join a band of political agitators: which the inquisitive one gladly did.

This was a better situation because the political agitators took tea and crumpet breaks 15 or 20 times daily, which filled the belly nicely. These political agitators were pro-Brexit, or anti-Brexit, or anyway they had a very specific stance regarding Brexit. However, due to their use of incomprehensible words such as queue, quid, lift, and mummy dear, the inquisitive one was not able to determine what precisely that stance was.

Anyway, a few days after that, Fortune smiled even more happily on the inquisitive one: someone replied to the email! The inquisitive one collected $10,000 using the bank information sent by a (wonderfully kindhearted!) acquaintance, whom the inquisitive one vaguely remembered having met a couple of decades previously. Oddly, though, at the U.S. Embassy, the inquisitive one learned that, contrary to what the Internet very clearly stated, such a large sum of money was not required.

While the U.S. Embassy was working on issuing a new passport, the inquisitive one (with wonderfully kindhearted generosity!) gave the remainder of the cash, as well as the bank information, to the good drug-dealer-turned-political-agitator friend.

This friend, the inquisitive one had been astonished to learn, was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark! Well, or maybe he was Charles, Prince of Wales. In all honesty, the accents in this city were so thick that the inquisitive one could hardly understand a word anyone said. Or was he a Nigerian prince? In any case, he was a prince, but he had fallen on hard times and lost his throne. He promised to return all the money, and significantly more, to the (wonderfully kindhearted!) decades-old acquaintance of the inquisitive one, and to give the (wonderfully kindhearted!) inquisitive one a sizable pile of precious stones and jewels, once his throne was properly restored. And it surely would be restored within the next few days, due to the temporary loan of the money in the account!

The inquisitive one, strangely and sadly, lost contact with the prince at that point. But the very next day, the U.S. Embassy issued the inquisitive one a new passport! While the inquisitive one was not able to recover the lost credit cards, cash, or phone, the issuance of the new passport was a truly wondrous occurrence: and the inquisitive one’s anxiety faded away. Knowledge of spelling, grammar, and word usage returned. Also recovered was psychological sanity, including the ability to understand what was real; what was possible but unlikely; and what was rabid delusion.

MORAL: Health is better than wealth; and it’s easier, as they say in the wisest countries, to pass a needle through a camel’s eye, Amen.

Today I’d like to share with you an example of the importance of getting the words right. The language we use is immensely consequential in not just how we think about real-world issues, but also how we handle those issues as a society: how much money is allocated, what kind of care people receive, and other important effects.

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., exposes the faulty language we use surrounding trauma, and then he makes a fascinating argument for a change in the language—with a corresponding change in people’s decisions and actions.

(Note that this blog post is a brief synopsis of and commentary on a long and complicated expostulation. I encourage you to read The Body Keeps the Score to understand and appreciate Dr. van der Kolk’s full evidence and argument.)

Dr. van der Kolk argues that, over the past century or so, there has been a cover-up surrounding the scientifically demonstrated fact that abused children experience detrimental psychological effects. Moreover, he explains, these detrimental psychological effects are not random; there is what he calls a “consistent profile,” which he describes in detail. Not all abused children exhibit the same symptoms (just as, for example, people can experience different symptoms despite being infected by the same virus). However, such children have commonalities such as trouble regulating emotions, trouble concentrating, trouble getting along with others, sleep disturbances, unexplained pain, and doing things like rocking and cutting to relieve tension.

But, Dr. van der Kolk laments, there is no established diagnosis for this consistent profile. Instead, children are being given multiple diagnoses that describe symptoms, not the underlying cause. For instance, many children are being labeled as having “oppositional defiant disorder” or “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder.” As a result, children who desperately need care that addresses trauma are instead receiving care that addresses bad behavior. Such care, since it does not focus on the core problem, does not come close to resolving the core problem.

How did we get ourselves into this predicament of language? Why has there been a cover-up surrounding childhood trauma? Dr. van der Kolk takes us back to the time of Sigmund Freud:

“In 1896 Freud boldly claimed that ‘the ultimate cause of hysteria is always the seduction of the child by an adult.’ Then, faced with his own evidence of an epidemic of abuse in the best families of Vienna—one, he noted, that would implicate his own father—he quickly began to retreat. Psychoanalysis shifted to an emphasis on unconscious wishes and fantasies, though Freud occasionally kept acknowledging the reality of sexual abuse.”

It’s a hard topic. It’s not a great issue to talk about, politically speaking. What would you rather give a public speech on, child abuse or unconscious wishes?

But Dr. van der Kolk gives the reader hope with his historical analysis of another kind of trauma, today known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. When governments came to realize that fighting in WWI caused “shell shock,” they worked to hide this fact. Publicizing shell shock would cost money (soldiers experiencing it would need treatment and disability pay) and destabilize the war effort (governments wanted to encourage men to enlist, not emphasize war’s dangers). So WWI veterans were not treated for shell shock. Neither were WWII veterans. The politics during the Vietnam War era, however, were different; and a new diagnosis, PTSD, entered the books and the lexicon. Along with this new language to describe a medical condition came new awareness, treatments, and funding.

There was another huge benefit of the language change. As it turned out, veterans were not the only ones who had this medical condition:

“The adoption of the PTSD diagnosis by the DSM III in 1980 led to extensive scientific studies and to the development of effective treatments, which turned out to be relevant not only to combat veterans but also to victims of a range of traumatic events, including rape, assault, and motor vehicle accidents.”

Dr. van der Kolk argues that we are overdue for a language change in the realm of child abuse. He proposes the term Developmental Trauma Disorder. I am not a doctor and cannot comment on his suggestion with authority. However, I can comment with authority that I have read over and over about falsehoods told for political purposes. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of the fake news. If there is a problem and a solution, let’s name the problem in plain language and implement the solution. Covering up the problem and addressing symptoms never works over the long term. The doctor says it best:

“You would not want to have your appendix removed when you are suffering from a kidney stone, and you would not want to have somebody labeled as ‘oppositional’ when, in fact, his behavior is rooted in an attempt to protect himself against real danger.”

Do you fight for truth in language . . . despite the risk that someone will label you as “oppositional”?

“You should be ashamed!”

It’s common to hear outraged people say or type these words. The underlying postulate of the expression is as follows: someone who has wronged someone else should feel bad about him- or herself, and this bad self-feeling will spur them into acting more altruistically next time.

According to Brené Brown, research shows that this postulate is false. Feeling ashamed does not help a person become more altruistic. It’s quite possible, she explains, that guilty feelings will lead to positive behavioral changes—but shame is of no use in that regard. In her recent book Dare to Lead, Brown very simply explains the difference between guilt and shame:

In other words, feeling guilt is making a negative judgment about certain actions you have taken in the past, while feeling shame is making a negative judgment about yourself as a person. The difference is huge. In the first instance, you have the freedom to make better choices in the future, because the judgment is strictly about the past. In the second instance, you are not likely to start behaving differently, since you believe you are permanently, irredeemably bad.

Things get even more interesting when Brown shares the outcomes that research has found to be associated with each of these emotions:

“While shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying, guilt is negatively correlated with these outcomes.”

So in order for someone’s behavior to change—whether that’s someone else or yourself—the answer is to feel guilt (if applicable), never shame. I have been testing this on myself since I first read about it in Brown’s 2012 book Daring Greatly. Previous to that time, I had been walking around the planet feeling shameful for being alive. Literally! It’s astonishing what can happen when, anytime you notice yourself feeling ashamed, you ask yourself whether you should actually be feeling guilt—or whether you’re just beating down on yourself unnecessarily. Either way, I find that it’s helpful to bat away that wretched shameful feeling, give yourself a pat on the back for trying (even if you just failed!), and think about what you might do better next time.

In this passage, Brown takes things a step further and points out that people in power who seem shameless are likely actually shameful—and that therein lies the problem:

“In our political chaos, people throw around the word shameless when they see someone make a self-serving or unethical decision, . . . attributing unconscionable behavior to a lack of shame. This is wrong and dangerous. Shame isn’t the cure, it’s the cause. Don’t let what looks like a bloated ego and narcissism fool you into thinking there’s a lack of shame. Shame and fear are almost always driving that unethical behavior.”

Let’s watch out for the use of the word shame, both on the Internet and in the streets. And let’s watch out for the feeling of shame in our hearts. These things are not needed here on earth. Sometimes we make mistakes. But we are not bad people. We’re just trying to find our way.

Conjure up the feeling of guilt: what does it feel like? Conjure up the feeling of shame: what does it feel like? Can you inwardly sense the difference?

It was 4am, and the inquisitive one was walking in the darkness and looking up at the stars. The inquisitive one had been inspired to do such a thing as a result of having just read the very short poem When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman. But then suddenly, while looking up at the stars, the inquisitive one fell into a hole!

“Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Sadly, unlike Aesop’s fabled astronomer, the inquisitive one had small hope of anyone hearing these cries. You see, it was Black Friday. Everyone who usually made a habit of wandering around the outskirts of the city at 4am was, at that point, inside Wal-Buy, Best Mart, or JCNickel—either that, or waiting in line for the doors of those establishments to open. (The inquisitive one wasn’t sure which, having spent the previous few hours perusing poetry instead of store ads.)

Nonetheless, refusing to give up hope entirely, the inquisitive one kept hollering and calling out.

“Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a turkey, who was as usual boycotting everything having to do with the holiday season, heard the cries.

“Help you? After what you did yesterday to my cousin? Fat chance!” said the turkey, and paraded off.

“Oh no! Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a Libertarian Party member, who was exercising the freedom that comes of choosing not to jostle within crowds, heard the cries.

“Me, help? Help yourself!” said the Libertarian Party member, and chose to walk somewhere else.

“Oh no! Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a Republican, whose family budget did not allow for frivolous spending that season, heard the cries.

“I would call 911, but funding for that service has been cut, in order to balance the budget,” said the Republican, and stepped into a waiting limo.

“Oh no! Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a Green Party member, who was boycotting everything made of or wrapped in plastic, plus everything transported to a store by means of fossil fuels, heard the cries.

“This must be a sinkhole caused by bad environmental policies! Don’t worry, I’ll stage a hunger strike at the White House. We’ll have this problem solved within four years!” said the Green Party member, and pedaled off toward Washington.

“Oh no! Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a Democrat, who was waiting until Small Business Saturday to do the season’s shopping, heard the cries.

“I feel so bad for you! How could this have happened? Ahhhh!” said the Democrat, and collapsed into a fit of tears and wails that were so loud, and so long lasting, that the inquisitive one could not make any cries heard above the racket.

The inquisitive one had just about given up hope when dawn broke, the sun peeked out from where it had been hiding, and light spilled into the hole. Suddenly, the inquisitive one saw the solution. It was so obvious, though, that it would be heartless of me to write, in all bluntness, the details of the particular means of escape; and so, out of deference to the poor inquisitive one, who asked me to keep the whole thing as quiet as I could (without, that is, my giving up my profession entirely), I will merely note that our hero made it safely out of the hole.

It was then that the inquisitive one walked back home in the sunshine, thinking about the moral of the story.

So many of us spend so much time consuming media about national and international politics, and yet it’s often difficult to apply the abstract concepts and faraway events we hear and read about to the concrete details and local happenings of our personal lives.

But then, sometimes things get personal.

While browsing through my fave local indie bookstore, I noticed a pretty novel on display. Its cover had a pink-and-blue, rose-and-streamers-like pattern, overlaid with two circles indicating two awards won. I bent it open and read these two powerhouse opening sentences:

“Isma was going to miss her flight. The ticket wouldn’t be refunded, because the airline took no responsibility for passengers who arrived at the airport three hours ahead of the departure time and were escorted to an interrogation room.”

What a lovely use of language; and this loveliness continues throughout Kamila Shamsie’s novel Home Fire. And what a beautiful opening setup for a novel about a British Muslim family torn apart by national and international affairs. Politics can’t get any more personal than finding oneself in an interrogation room. And this is only the first of a series of increasingly harrowing scenes in which politics crash into the lives of Shamsie’s characters.

In what ways have politics been personal for you?