What you post matters

[pat_k]

9. Please, no apologies!

Heartbreaking and horrifying things are happening so it is impossible not to "doom" post.

For me, though, finding ways to keep hope alive; to keep looking for the wins, to keep finding little things I can actually DO that could make a difference, is both a matter of self-preservation -- at least preservation of my own sanity -- and a matter of saying "f-u" to the trumpublicans; a matter of saying "I WILL NOT ALLOW YOUR FIREHOSE OF HORRORS AND HEARTBREAK CRUSH ME INTO HOPELESS IMMOBILITY!

And if one of my fellow travelers in resistance is despairing, I'm gonna take my shot at injecting hope because I KNOW that if we lose heart in this; if we allow these fucks -- these people who are hellbent on corrupting shared vales and destroying hard won progress -- to sap enough of us of energy with their onslaught, we won't have the collective will, collective energy, and and collective creativity to send them all to the dustbin of history!

So, my personal "keep hope alive" project is a critical part of "doing my little bit of good."

I tried to put suggestions in my OP that help me stay on track-- questions I ask myself, things I try to consider. I hope some of these suggestions help others too (see, there it is again, hope, it's all I've got).

That said, it is impossible to be human and not fall into despair sometimes at what we are up against.

And that is why we need each other. It is impossible to keep hope alive in isolation. It is far from enough, but I make a point of connecting with people who are DOING SOMETHING. Action, and seeing others in action, breeds hope, and hope breeds action. A delightful and essential virtuous cycle. Just making sure I am in a few zoom or in-person meetings with good people every month gives me a real, tangible, sense of the level of shared outrage that is sparking ACTION.

That is one way I make sure there are more examples of people in my "world" who are DOING SOMETHING than people who are "standing around kicking rocks."

Yeah, sure, perhaps there are more people "kicking rocks" than not in the grand scheme of things, and yes, if true, that is heartbreaking. But I know that I can choose to create my personal little piece of the world. As long as I make a conscious effort to keep moving, keep working to inspire others, I know I'm helping to change that balance. And I know how critical it is to do so. And if enough others change that balance a little bit too, I know we will be unstoppable.

When I talk about doing "little bits of good" (as in the Mandela quote) I know how small my "bits" are, and sometimes feel like I'm "doing nothing," but by just going about daily my business, having little conservations, I feel I've accomplished some worthwhile things.

One little story. I'm an old fart who was seriously burnt out with tech consulting so I started a little dog walking business. One of my clients is a millennial -- probably late 20's early 30's but these days everyone under 45 looks like a kid to me. Anyway, when anybody asks "how are you," I usually answer something like "fine," except for the whole world gone mad thing. If the response is puzzlement, I follow up a "you know, insane budget for ICE passed" or "...criminal attack on Iran" or whatever is most salient to me at that moment.) Anyway, I've ended up having great conversations with all my clients at one time or another. I know which ones sort of pull back from "politics talk" and I've felt out the ones that clearly are looking to vent, or are despairing. So, back to my millennial, I ended up getting a meal with her. She was so demoralized with debt, life, and the fact that "everyone" her age was "doing nothing" and that she was "doing nothing" because she was just so damn depressed and heartbroken with it all. We had a great lunch. Ended up talking hours. I felt pretty good because she seemed to walk away with more hope and some practical ideas I thought she might actually follow up on.

The next day, she called and asked if she gathered up some of her friends, would I be willing to meet with them. She wanted them to get the injection of hope too. I was incredibly surprised, but told her I would be delighted.

And so she gathered up a few incredibly cynical, stressed, hopeless millennial friends and we had a meet and drinks. I'm not sure how successful I was in raising spirits and inspiring action, but I walked away feeling pretty good about that experience too.

And in subsequent conversations with that client, I've gotten bits of news that confirmed my sense that I'd "done a bit of good." What started as a little "how are you" exchange turned into something. A person who was feeling completely hopeless and immobilized herself -- hopelessness that was compounded by the idea of how hopeless and immobilized "everyone my age is" had found some hope, was finding her way to being more active, and had friends doing the same.

How many people did I possibly effect? I don't know. One for sure, my client, and perhaps four or five of her friends. Not much in the grand scheme of things, but I choose to believe the activating effects of hope spread faster than despair because connecting and doing is rewarding in a very deep way. And it is productive. As my partner Dusty (RIP) used to say, "We don't need a movement, more of us just need to MOVE."

Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to convey a several things. To summarize:

1. "Doom" posting is unavoidable when terrible things are happening, so no need to apologize.

2. Despair saps energy in a way that crushes the will to act to do something about those terrible things.

3. In light of 1 and 2, if we want to change things for the better, it is CRITICAL to develop, and convey, a realistic, clear-eyed view of the terrible things happening while simultaneously finding as many ways as we can possibly come up with to keep hope and action alive in ourselves, and to figure out ways to help others do the same.

4. Against the onslaught of horrors and heartbreaks, it takes serious intention and effort to find ways to keep hope alive in ourselves, and serious intention and effort to develop habits that enable us to sustain a positive feedback loop of hope and action for the long haul. And if we are to successfully send them to the dust bin of history, we MUST stay in this for the LONG HAUL.

5. It takes serious effort intention and effort to find ways to counter despair and inspire hope in others. And in an infinitely interconnected social media environment, that includes recognizing that WHAT WE POST MATTERS. A LOT. I tried to include some of the "tips" that work for me on this front in the OP. For example, avoiding over-generalizations, avoiding pronouncements that trumpublicans are somehow all powerful or unstoppable, avoiding pronouncements that people are powerless against the power of vast wealth (all of which are simply NOT TURE), spreading the word about successes, posting "calls to action" or other concrete steps a person could do RIGHT NOW that can make a difference, asking ourselves questions before we post, and so on.

6. It is critical to understand how essential hope and action are to our collective chances of transforming this nation for the better . I think when someone really "gets" how essential that is, it can motivate them to put in the required effort.

For a little list of my personal "go tos" for keeping my own hope alive and identifying specific acts of resistance I can do or efforts I can support, see this post: Please, DO NOT fall victim to immobilizing hopelessness. If you do, you are doing exactly what their firehose of shit intends.

I'll close with a personal note. My heart breaks to hear you were a victim of abuse. I imagine the deep rage you feel at the failure to hold perpetrators -- perpetrators that ARE NAMED in documents held by law enforcement agencies -- is overwhelming. My mother was a long time victim of abuse as a small child (an uncle who lived with her family for a period and a janitor at her Catholic school). I struggle with incredible shame that is conveyed by some sort of "osmosis" between mother and child, so I think I have an inkling of the kind of pain survivors must well ... survive. It may not help, but my heart goes out to you.