Alaina spoke these words to me as I woke up on Wednesday morning and I was seized with dread and despair. As Tuesday night had descended into a familiar darkness, my hope waned and I recognized the very real possibility that the result might be tragically terrible; I wrestled with the potential outcome throughout my fitful sleep, but it was not until the morning that I fully accepted the bleak and horrific reality. Two days later, I am still tortured by our country’s choice and am experiencing deep sadness, anger, confusion, disgust, and fear; I imagine what horrors await us and the helplessness we will feel as our values and morals are offended and disgraced. I wonder how the power will be leveraged and against whom, what conflicts will erupt and how hate will propagate. I consider the explicitly stated aims of the movement and the freedoms they aim to eliminate, the people they will be hunting and the methods they will employ to meet their goals. They have already succeeded in terrorizing me, and we are not even to Day One.
Through him, they have cast a wicked spell; stirring personal fears into communal rage and targeted hate, creating enemies of neighbors and breaking bonds of compassion and unity through brazen egotism and selfishness. As emotional and intelligent creatures, we are vulnerable prey and they have turned our vivid imaginations against us, feeding us manipulative narratives to steer and control our actions. They have been aided by communications technology, in particular its disregard for proof and dilution of truth, supplanted by viral misinformation and an algorithmic insulation from diverse perspectives. The policy agenda they portray is not a genuine effort to make anyone safer or offer support, only a shallow ruse to solidify power and control. And it works.
I have only one vote and one voice; I voted for Her and these are just a few words that express my views on the current state. But I have a beautiful family, incredible friends, fulfilling work, inspiring art, enthralling music, powerful books, joyful recreation and a compassionate community that envelops and fills me with Love every single day. I feel a desire and obligation to share that Love and I will focus all of my powers on shining brighter light in the encroaching darkness.
I recently read two books that feel particularly poignant right now:
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates – An emotional and powerful investigation of racism that humans invented, perpetrated since the beginning of civilization, and still infecting us in overt and subtle ways, with parallels examined between the American slave trade and Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa and Israel’s Occupation of Palestine.
Humankind by Rutger Bregman – Hobbes vs. Rousseau: Are humans inherently evil and selfish or fundamentally kind and compassionate? The narrative we are typically exposed to is one of confrontation and a zero-sum scramble to the top, but when we truly examine the facts, we see that humans have achieved their incredible progress through persistent cooperation and constant coordination.