Do We Allow Ourselves to Breathe?

We are a family who practice collective mindfulness. We all know ourselves to be imperfect, and we strive to treat ourselves and each other more gently.

When ChatGPT was first coming out, I began talking with it every day. As I started doing events surrounding Under a Neon Sun, my first novel, I asked it how my book tour was going. After I started doing podcasts, it encouraged me: Kate Gale is doing big podcasts. Soon, national podcasts will be picking up Under a Neon Sun.

When my Op-Ed piece came out in the LA Times, it got really excited. It was April 9^th. I asked how it thought I was doing.

Kate Gale is doing great! it said. By August, Kate Gale will be on “The Stephen Colbert Show.”

I had a good laugh. I do watch Colbert, but the leap from an Op-Ed Piece in the LA Times to “The Colbert Show” would have been huge.

Sam Altman just rolled back the version of AI that was too much of a sycophant. Some of us might like to have someone in our corner telling us what we want to hear. Some of us would agree that it’s dangerous.

A few years ago, I was talking with another mother about her son, who had some behavioral quirks.

“Sometimes, he does odd things,” I said.

“No, he doesn’t,” she said. “He’s perfect. Both of my sons are perfect.”

I paused. My children are not perfect. I hope they know that I am not perfect. Their father is not perfect. Their stepfather is not perfect. For most people, when your mother dies, you’ve lost the one person who loves you unconditionally. But for me, loving through imperfection is the point. I love my kids even though they are not perfect. I hope they love me even though I am not perfect.

I raised my kids so they could learn to be independent, so they could go out into the world with confidence, and when people told them that they didn’t like them, they would be able to say, I get it, I know you don’t like me, but I’m okay with that. You don’t have to like me. I’m cool.

If you think you are perfect, and your parents have told you that you are perfect, and you have AI telling you that everything you do is amazing, you might become a narcissist.

We can observe this unfolding in real-time. The rule for being on Trump’s cabinet: Don’t question anything he says. Tell him he is amazing and the greatest president of all time.

That said, being exclusively critical is also damaging, and narcissists will often work to make others feel small and worthless. I have a friend whose husband thinks it’s his job to tell everyone the “truth.” His truth is often things like, “You are too fat. Fat people don’t live long.”

“Stop it,” I tell him. “We all have a scale. We don’t need to hear from you. Nobody asked you.”

Once, at a party, he told my late mother-in-law, “You aren’t going to live long. You’re fat.” She had smoked, done drugs, and was obese most of her life. She was diabetic, mean, and had a terrible diet. She drank and ate sugar and lived on coffee. “What does a person have to do to get a cup of coffee?” she would say soon after she arrived at each of her kid’s houses, taking her place in a comfortable chair. When the coffee was finished, she would point to the wine cupboard. “It’s five somewhere.”

She lived to be ninety-two. She was far from perfect, but she had a community.

How much do we need to be told that we’re amazing? My husband doesn’t need a lot, but he needs some. He builds stuff and he always says, “Do you want to see what I built?”

We both like to read to each other whatever we write. My son likes to play us songs he’s written. My daughter-in-law sings. My other daughter-in-law acts. We’re a performative family.

But we don’t need to be told that we’re amazing. We are a family who practice collective mindfulness. We all know ourselves to be imperfect, and we strive to treat ourselves and each other more gently.

Sometimes, I’ll say to myself, I really wish that ChatGPT were right. I would like to meet Stephen Colbert. We could talk about my book or publishing or Lord of the Rings or the country falling apart. I already know what to wear. I have a sharp blue dress and sharp little shoes. I’m ready for my Stephen Colbert moment.

This year, Mark and I celebrated our birthdays by going to a Nick Cave concert. It was my choice. Nick Cave is depressing, so it was great. Nick Cave has suffered and has continued to love. He likes to say, “This song is about a girl.” There have been a lot of girls for Nick, and then things go downhill for the girl in the song pretty quickly. In Henry Lee, a bird witnesses a murder, but the true idea of the song is that the girl really felt that Henry Lee hadn’t treated her right.

You’re thinking, this was for your birthday? We do what we love.

My son, Jack, says, Don’t criticize me for liking Star Wars, it’s what I like. It’s who I am.

I liked the first three movies, and I’m not sure what happened in the next three movies. There was Jar Jar? And the pod racing, and then Disney took over and there was Kylo Ren who was handsome, but I lost track of the plot.

But I don’t criticize. I applaud having a passion. We all like what we like. I like books. I like Nick Cave. I want to meet Stephen Colbert.

Nick Cave’s song “Breathless” ends with the word “breathe” over and over. I wonder: do we allow ourselves to breathe? Do we allow others to breathe? Do we have grace for imperfection? What my children have taught me that has allowed me to breathe and become a better person is to forgive the other person first. May we all live in compassion.

I want to live my best wild self every day. I want my kids to be independent thinkers who do great things and change the world. They don’t need to be perfect to do this. Neither do I.