In Conclusion, We Need More Art

Art—paintings, literature, cinema, etc.—is a place where we can suspend our own personal world as the only reality and submit to another one...

Hannah and her husband reupholstering a chair. Image courtesy of Bliss Katherine.

In the last few months, my husband and I have started going to couples therapy. We were fortunate in that our therapist offered us a discount due to our income and is trained in psychoanalysis, which is something that I had specifically wanted.

I had latched onto psychoanalysis as a form of therapy especially dedicated to uncovering root motivations, which, as a writer—always with many characters in my mind—was something that deeply interested me. My particular personality is also less interested in making goals or targeting progress, which some therapy, and rightfully so, brings more attention to. But I often feel that if I just understood something, then that would be a solution in itself, however gray and vulnerable such a solution might be.

For the first few sessions, I couldn’t help feeling like I was on the show “Couples Therapy” with Dr. Orna Guralnik, a show that my husband and I love. But as I have grown more comfortable, it has simply felt like an extension of our marriage, as if our marriage has expanded to include another room on Wednesdays from 10 to 11 a.m.

Recently, due to what I’d like to temporarily umbrella under the category of “the news,” the idea of patriarchy has made its way into these sessions as though there’s a foreign element among us—an idea out in the world that neither of us has much control of, but is intertwined in our relationship all the same. In many ways, the fact that this foreign element is in our room is my fault.

I don’t enjoy discussing publicly the ideas of patriarchy, or even feminism. That’s partially because I prefer exploring these kinds of ideas in the realm of fiction, where they are often more firmly rooted in characters, within the framework of relationships. It’s also because I have friends and family on all sides of the political spectrum.

I grew up in the redwoods of Santa Cruz, CA—a hippie/surfer/outdoorsy enclave, that is mostly liberal—but my husband is from the midwest, as is my mother—and I lived in Ohio for five years after graduating from college.

Because of the different places I’ve lived, I have people in my life who talk about feminism as an aspirational ideology, as well as those who’ve never used the term feminist in front of me without the descriptor “crazy.”

I want to understand all sides. I want to understand everything, even if it doesn’t make sense. It’s likely the writer in me: I want to know about the realities of others and how they live, how they think, what they believe. But knowing many different types of people is confusing at times, even disorienting. It can create a sense of division even within myself.

At the time in which I write this, President Trump has a rating of 47% approval and 48% disapproval. Never in recent history has the approval rating been so low, disapproval so high, and the nation so engagedly divided in the first few weeks of a presidency, besides President Trump’s previous term.¹

Recently, on the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Joe Rogan spoke with Mark Zuckerberg, one of the many leaders from Silicon Valley who went to President Trump’s inauguration. Their conversation was considered controversial because of Zuckerberg’s comments about the general culture being “neutered” and “emasculated,” despite the general culture being largely run by men.

Indeed, what struck me most about this conversation was its language. When discussing their fitness training, which includes jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts, Rogan quipped, “It’s good to know that you can kill people.” Jiu-jitsu originated as a survival technique and most martial arts widely consider survival as victory in combat, not murder. But this does not seem to be the case for Rogan, or Zuckerberg, who also noted that he was excited for Trump’s years in office because “he just wants America to win.”

A metaphor could be made out of the fact that President Trump has declared only two sexes in existence according to the federal government. America has always been more comfortable with ideas being black or white, masculine or feminine, in winning or losing.

President Trump is perhaps simply running the country like all of his other endeavors: as a business. Gray areas, places where productivity, money, or power is not the goal, are being eliminated, as is anyone not paying their dues. Meta has already agreed to pay Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 federal lawsuit alleging First Amendment violations.²

In order to write I must go to a very “gray” state of mind. It’s a place where possibility must have more than one option, a place largely without winners or losers. Gray is made up of multiple wavelengths—while other colors require only one—and is considered a neutral point from which all other colors are perceived. When I write, my characters—whatever their political party might be—are neither good nor bad—or any one thing. This is what I really believe, about all people. We are multidimensional, and impossible to pin down.

However, like many, I have felt pigeonholed and claustrophobic through recent current events. So, after reading a slew of political articles, and listening to the Zuckerberg interview, I went on a rant about patriarchy as my husband was quietly working at our dining table. Not because I have a problem with Zuckerberg and Rogan’s discussion—I think they should be able to talk about whatever they want—but because I’m scared of one culture predominantly running the country.

In therapy, my husband and I talked about how I hurt his feelings when I walked into the room and started complaining about men; he didn’t immediately understand that I was not including him in my general outpouring of negative emotions surrounding his sex. I apologized and admitted that I wasn’t thinking about him at all as I had mumbled aloud to myself, which made him cry. He was both relieved to know that I wasn’t mad at him as well as very sad in realizing that he had misread the situation. It made him wonder how many past conversations he’d misinterpreted, and not just with me.

We also talked about how scared I had been feeling lately. No solution was reached, but as we grew to understand each other’s perspectives we grew more comfortable in the gray area our differing perspectives created. We felt the intimacy of knowing one another and that was enough.

The language of business and politics has always been binary, even war-like. Perhaps it is language that is failing us now. There are Trump supporters I know who speak out against feminism while being stay-at-home dads and full-time working mothers, living what many would consider feminist lifestyles.

My only hypothesis at the moment is that we need more art. Art—paintings, literature, cinema, etc.—is a place where we can suspend our own personal world as the only reality and submit to another one, maybe even multiple, potentially creating greater space wherein we can understand one another. Mystery, in my opinion, is not our enemy, but our only way forward.

Hannah in Santa Cruz, CA.

1. The New York Times, "Trump's Federal Funding Freeze Sparks Controversy," January 29, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/29/us/trump-federal-freeze-funding-news.

2. Bobby Allyn, "Meta Agrees to Pay Trump $25 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over Facebook and Instagram Suspensions," NPR, January 29, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/01/29/nx-s1-5279570/meta-trump-settlement-facebook-instagram-suspensions.