These days, I feel I’m in a tug of war between my life bubble on one side, and national and international events on the other. The knot slips to one side of the elusive middle line, and then to the other. My goal is to maintain myself squarely on the centre line, equidistant from both polarities. How to enhance the lives of people I know and love, in even the smallest way, andat the same time keep my eye on the wider world picture? Honestly, I’m not sure.
For now, my energy focuses on understanding. I read a lot in general, much of it provocative, maybe even esoteric, in some circles. Gems abound in those pages, gems that can be shared. That might be one contribution to the health of the community. Ideas. And different ideas. For people to read, consider, and integrate (or not). Not just “ words, words, words, ” empty, thoughtless and insincere, that provoked that response from Hamlet to his so-called university friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But perceptive, insightful comments and stark conclusions from thorough, well-documented and clear journalists and authors. Words that stick.
Here are a few quotations from my recent explorations. All the books are fabulous and life-changing, should you want to dig into the actual document.
Ryan Holiday, in Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue(2018, p. 294), reminds us of our duty as citizens.
"If you want to have a different world, it is on you to make it so. It will not be easy to do it—it may even require things that you are reluctant to consider. It always has. Moreover, that is your obligation if you are called to a higher task. To to what it takes, to see it through."
Jennifer Walsh, in The Return of History: Conflict, Migration, and Geopolitics in the Twenty-First Century( 2016, p. 297), analyzes threats facing the world as we knew it.
"If we want that deeper transformation, we have to initiate it ourselves. This is what the history of the twentieth century revealed: individuals stepping up to draw attention to injustice, to demand greater equality of participation, and to stand up for fairness. And they did so knowing that their demands would likely involve some personal sacrifice."
Isabel Wilkerson in Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020, p. 16) has created a enlightening analogy to explain why citizens in the 21st century are bound to promises made to indigenous peoples and people of colour and travesties inflicted on those populations centuries before.
"We in the developed world are like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil is unstable loam and rock, heaving and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waved away for decades, centuries even. Many people rightly say, “I had nothing to do with how this all started. I have nothing to do with the sins of the past. My ancestors never attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves.” And yes. Not one of us was there when this house was built. Our immediate ancestors may have had nothing to do with it, but here we are, the current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation. We are the
heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now. And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands.
"Unaddressed, the ruptures and diagonal cracks will not fix themselves. The toxins will not go away but, rather, will spread, leach, and mutate, as they already have. When people live in an old house, they come to adjust to the idiosyncrasies and outright dangers skulking in an old structure. They put buckets under a wet ceiling, prop up groaning floors, learn to step over that rotting wood tread in the staircase. The awkward becomes acceptable, and the unacceptable becomes merely inconvénient. Live with it long enough, and the unthinkable becomes normal. Exposed over the generations, we learn to believe that the incomprehensible is the way that life is supposed to be."
Deb Caletti, in A Heart in a Body in the World (2020, p. 26 and p. 252), on change, or the lack of it.
“ ‘It is what it is, ’ Anabelle tells herself. It’s a phrase she often finds comforting. It reminds her to accept the truth rather than struggle against it. But now, it sort of pisses her off. Sometimes what is is something that shouldn’t be. It should never have been. It only is because of messed-up reasons going back messed-up generations, old reasons, reasons that don’t jibe with this world today. Sometimes an is should have been gone long, long ago, and needs to be—immediately and forcefully and without a minute to lose—changed.
She is more than pissed off. Actually, it fills her with fury, the way people can protest and shout and write letters and yet, the is stays an is, and bad, bad stuff can still happen and happen and happen. There are no words for this. It’s unbelievable. It is a travesty. It is a communal mark of shame. ”
“People plus people plus anger is how things can change.”
