Author Archives: Alice T4

Neo-Optimism

Anyone who pays attention to the world has got to despair.  Our dominant culture admires violence and promotes greed. We see where these values have gotten us.

I wouldn’t trust anybody who hasn’t felt that despair. Hope comes later, if it comes at all. If the world has not struck you with horror, you haven’t looked at the way it is.

If we continue on our path of greed and violence, our species clearly will not survive. The imbalance of power between the few who benefit and the many who suffer seems overwhelming. No hero has arisen who can bring about real change. We have plenty of information, but no answers.

In our greed and short-sightedness, we have used the resources of earth as though they are infinite. Our species devours everything in its path. We destroy the wild creatures and flora of the earth. We suck the earth’s juices and then crunch its bones. The losses mount exponentially.

If all we ever did was destroy, our species would not deserve to survive. In fact we could not have survived this far.  Without kindness and caring, no human would live past infancy. Loving is so much in the background of our lives that we hardly even notice it. We must remember that love – or perhaps we should think of it as common decency – is also part of ordinary human behavior, and, even in our current diseased society, it is the largest part.

We should also remember that we have changed our paths countless times, all over the world and in every era. We are finding our way through a wilderness of the spirit, and no one has been this way before.

We have always used our ingenuity to cope with changing environments. We can live under the sea and in outer space. We share ways to cope. We invent. We imagine. We merge our individual imaginings with others and make them reality.

This is the challenge: to imagine a world in which humanity can thrive, and to make it happen. We don’t seem likely to rise to this challenge. Yet the unlikely often happens.

Fresh currents continue to bubble up through the festering swamp of our culture. In recent years there have been the Occupy movement, climate change marches, peace vigils, “Black Lives Matter” die-ins, rallies for democracy and free speech. The organizers think they are fighting separate battles. But when we begin to recognize that our battlefields may be separate but our war is the same, we will find allies we never expected. We will find that we are much stronger than we thought.

That is when we will begin to be dangerous. That is why the dominant culture insists that we compete with one another, each cause fighting all the others for members, media attention, and money. Once we begin to cooperate instead, the powers that be will become the powers that used to be.

The only possible real revolution is nonviolent revolution. No other kind of movement can bring real change. Violence isn’t change. Violence is just more of the same damned thing. Nor can revolution bring change if it harms the innocent, because injustice is also more of the same damned thing. Peace and justice: now that would be a true revolution.

So go ahead and despair. Things are pretty dark right now.  Just try not to take it so personally. It isn’t you. It’s all of us. Your despair is a sign that deep inside you, a hero is waiting to be born.

The despair you feel is only natural, and you have a right to feel it, for exactly as long as you need to. Then get over it. Look for reasons to keep going and you will find them, in art, in nature, in children, in the people you love. Don’t turn away from the world because it is ugly and cruel. Keep moving, because it is also beautiful, and everything we love is in danger.

We have a lot of work to do. You have a part in this work, a part no one else can play.  We need you, exactly you, with your terrible history and your broken heart. Despair is one step on the path forward. You will like the next one better. Stick around, so you can take it.

After you realize the odds are against our survival, and after you give up hope that we can beat the forces that keep us on the path to destruction, you might one day realize that the game is not over yet. You will no longer be an optimist who thinks all will be well. You will be a neo-optimist, who has gone through despair and come out the other side understanding that all will most likely be lost. You will know this species is the darkest of dark horses. And you will bet on that horse to win.

Neighbors bringing food

We see feel-good stories at the end of our news broadcasts, right after they have scared the crap out of us. But the news has come home, good as well as bad.

We have neighbors and friends who are sick. When we leave our home, we walk large circles around other people, hoping we don’t get sick too. We use Zoom instead of hugging. We lay in supplies, trying not to be piggy about it.

And the friend down the street who has gotten the virus? We make soup and use our gloved hands to drop a container of it on her porch. We made enough to freeze, just in case.

Where we are

Are you a “non-essential worker”? Then slow down. Give yourself a break. Unless you’re a healthcare professional, now is not a time to rush.

For the worst reason, we have a chance to stop what we’ve been doing. We needed to stop doing some things anyway. Let’s take advantage of this opportunity.

We’ve stopped doing work that did not need to be done. We’ve stopped driving to jobs we can do at home. We’ve stopped hopping all over the planet like fleas on a dog. We’ve stopped thinking money is the most important thing.

Once we make ourselves and loved ones as safe as possible, let’s try to get over the panic. We stay at home. We wait. We are, as the Buddhists say, sitting with our fear.

When we sit with our fear long enough, it will begin to fade. Then we will be able to think.

Thank You

We are grateful for many people right now. Grocery store stockers, postal clerks, truck drivers, couriers, restaurant workers, farmers, doctors and nurses, police and fire people…It’s a long list. These are today’s heroes. They keep our civilization going.

To the people who maintain our internet, our electricity and heat, and our tap water: thank you! To news staffers, late night comics working without a live audience, techs at their stations, road repair crews, government contact persons: thank you so much!

And to all neighbors, friends, and family who are missing the presence of others like crazy, thank you too, for staying inside and dealing with the loneliness somehow. You are keeping us all as safe as possible. May you be well. This situation is temporary. I hope our gratitude is permanent.

The Trouble with Skittles

Remember when Donald Trump Jr. compared Syrian refugees to Skittles? He asked if you would eat a handful of the candies if you knew a few among them would kill you. He considered this a good reason for the US to refuse to admit any of those desperate people.

I thought that was disgusting. Then I saw some Skittles commercials. Looks like disgusting is just how they play the game.

In one ad, a boy seems to have broken out in zits; only the pimples are Skittles. A girl demonstrates her affection by picking Skittles off his face and eating them. She in turn breaks out in Skittles, smiling fondly.

In another ad, a dread-locked Black man in a Rasta cap milks a giraffe, which is nibbling on a rainbow. The “milk” streams down between his legs, turning into Skittles. You see him from the back. It looks like he’s pissing. Meanwhile, he laughs a big deep phony laugh, like this is the most fun thing ever.

I can’t even list the ways I find this offensive. But whoever designed these ads made them disgusting on purpose. After all, they want us to buy a product that is nearly all sugar. It rots our teeth, makes us fat, and increases our risk of diabetes. The whole enterprise is disgusting.

I wish the US would welcome people who are fleeing war, poverty, or gang violence. We could absorb them into the body politic with few if any bad side effects. In other words, in every possible way, they are not like Skittles.

We are this Web

We are the sum of our minds.

This new creature, Humanity, is a collective, as all complex organisms are collectives of smaller beings. Most life is collaboration.

We think that because our bodies are separate, our minds are too. But they’re not. They leak. They spread. The ripples of our thoughts rock the world.

Imagine there’s a thin bright line between you and a person you’re close to. Now imagine that person moves. The line connecting you moves with them.

Imagine there’s a line like that between you and every person you meet. The line stretches but never disappears so long as both of you exist.

Imagine the world as a web of these lines, these human connections. That is who we are. That web. That net.