This—gestures wildly at everything—was not on my bucket list
Nope. Navigating life under a fascist authoritarian regime was not part of any life plan I envisioned.
What is on my bucket list?
The US Open (check)
Wimbledon (check)
The French Open
The Australian Open
Seeing the Yankees play in the post-season
While I was busy vision boarding and manifesting like Oprah and Deepak Chopra told me (okay jk, spiritual bypassing is not my thing), someone was waking the indifferent and apathetic from their slumbers, stoking their ire and turning them into an army of hate.
When exactly did we bifurcate so treacherously?
When did we point our vehicles in opposite directions and drive off with the other in our rear view?
It was southern president Carter who called the populace out for its apathy. Maybe he was right. Or maybe folks were just tired. Of activism. Of losing or making only the tiniest gains. Of pushback. Of recession. Of fabricated crises. Or maybe they were so thrilled at the new possibilities of almost constant escape—wall-to-wall television and whole new categories of drugs—that the pattern of neglecting huge parts of our lives was set into motion.
Maybe it was the user-friendly capitalism of Neoliberalism that caught us in this trap. The no-downside approach to growth. The there-are-no-consequences-if-we-close-our-eyes-to-them progressivism.
I tend to notice that many of our problems as individuals in a society come from non-assimilated innovations. Improvements, new technologies, new ideas that we haven’t properly thought out, integrated into our selves, communities or systems or vetted against our core values. With the great benefits, they bring new demands, both foreseen and unforeseen.
We’re experiencing this with AI rn. A big new shiny nest of possibilities that is also a nest of traps. And instead of like, oh, I don’t know, talking about it as a culture, it’s being implemented around us without our consent. Traps are springing one by one and the response, instead of oh, I don’t know, talking about it as a culture, is anger, more anger, confusion, delusion, fear and litigation.
If you and your partner are going to buy a car, you talk about it, right? You research, you state your preferences, you narrow down possibilities. You compare prices and features and arrive at a choice that feels like it improves your life while also fitting into your life.
The same would go with a house or what graduate program to choose or whether an empty lot should be a community garden or park or affordable housing. In this case, ideally, communities work with businesses and vendors and there’s dialogue around what works best for the most people. Values are brought in at a basic level, as well as positive community development.
True, we’re not great at this in the physical world. But we don’t do it at all in the somewhat invisible world of technology. We look at implications after the fact. We don’t ask what it costs us in resources, in humanity, in time, in development. Any cost-benefit analysis tends to downplay impact, focusing on profit while ignoring sustainability, effects on the health and wellbeing of communities and individuals or the human costs of assimilating this new development into our lives.
A dishwasher saves time and water. Huzzah! But when I don’t wash dishes by hand, I lose that valuable time where my brain gets to just rest. Think no thoughts or new thoughts. Work out something subconsciously that’s been weighing on me. That’s a cost for me. One that I’m usually willing to accept. But sometimes I’m going to take the time and the water to wash some dishes.
When I work on a document in revision mode, it gets marked up in a variety of colors with comment boxes and formatting tags. When the document is approved, I have to go into the review menu and accept the changes. Individually or all at once. It’s a chance to say, yes, this is what we want it to say. Yes, this is the version we want to publish.
This step provides agency over the document. Assures that I am on the same page with my collaborators. Shows that there were conversations around meaning and ideas and creating something that communicated clearly.
It’s the very opposite of the agree or opt-out culture that now seems to be a feature and not a bug in our lives. As if where we intersect is no longer a conversation or a negotiation or a collaboration, but simply an on/off switch. A power button. A standoff.
So here we are. Unwilling and unskilled at sharing and parsing our differences. At a flashpoint of pervasive conflict. A clash of ideologies we couldn’t defuse because if we’re honest, we didn’t really even try.
We didn’t work to listen. We listened to convince. As a nation. And far beyond our own borders.
If you know any passive-aggressive type folks or systems, then you know it’s only so long before one side or another blows up.
We are in the middle of an explosion that feels like an invisible field of land mines leftover from so many other wars. Wars that could have been conversations.
The kinds of conversations that prevent othering. The kinds of conversations that increase empathy. The kinds of conversations that center our humanity and community care.
While I want to say they are them and they are bad. I have to say they are also us and if they are bad, then so are we. And if we are good, then possibly, maybe, they are, too. Though I’m having a lot of trouble lately with that last bit.
And maybe all of this is incorrect. Based on assumptions about humanity that are untrue. Perhaps they are all supremacists of the constructs of whiteness and masculinity who get their kicks from squashing other humans underfoot. Perhaps there are just as many truly awful people as their are inherently good ones. Or more.
Thinking through all of this is a maze of potholes and pitfalls. Feeling through it is even harder. It’s wildly uncomfortable to think that we are co-creators of this situation. Yet I can’t escape the idea that in some way, we must be. And I don’t mean by asserting our rights or working toward equality or claiming visibility or working toward collective liberation. We get to do all those things. I just feel like maybe we missed a step somewhere. Left some folks behind or didn’t include them.
No, I don’t mean we should be hugging folks who are predators and inviting them into our circles of safety. But this feels like some kind of showdown of anima and animus. Of light side and shadow side. Aren’t we told that integrating the shadow, befriending it, is the way forward as individuals? How do we do this in community? As a nation? As a species?
There’s that iconic image of the flower in the gun barrel. Maybe we start with the people holding the weapons. The pawns in their game. I sense many of them don’t want to be doing what they are being ordered to do.
I wish you safety. I wish you calm. I wish you all your rights as a human.
Be careful out there. Stay mindful. Stay flexible. Stay agile. Please consider wearing goggles and a mask and a helmet when choosing to be in large crowds of folks with something to say.
Friends, Fam, Co-creators:
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