I haven't been writing real stuff online much lately. Not just in recent weeks but really for the last few months. I talked about this a little bit in a recent substack post here…
Partly there's been too much to say. Partly I haven't known exactly what to say. Partly I needed to get some things clarified in my life so I could be more effective in the work I see as important in the world.
Partly I got way too worn down and needed some healing and recovery time.
Partly we had a new war start that is so complicated and ugly as war is. The tragedy is everywhere and it's infiltrated this space as well. As it should.
Partly the overwhelm makes it hard to even figure out where to start. Which repeats what I already said, but speaks again to the challenge of writing about any of it.
I'm finding my own grounding... over the past few months but also just over the last few days where I shut the phone off and hid out from the world a little bit.
I want to come into the new, fresh and also likely fraught election year with some grounding and some focus. So I'm following my own damn process. Not everyone likes it when I go silent and hide out. That's okay. I intend to do more over the next few days.
It's okay for each of us to have our own process for health and healing and sanity and focus.
🌐⛩️📈 We're going to have to take very seriously what we each need to do to get or to stay grounded and focused as the intensity of this country and this planet ramp up.
One of the things I'm going to do is to speak more clearly about this era. This moment. 🕜
⚡ The cognitive dissonance about living on quickly changing planet and a destabilizing country while our media and our daily lives often don't reflect the unfolding chaos is a problem.
I think we all need to better acknowledge what's going on around us as we go about the day-to-day and as we prep for the long fights and the big changes.
I think we need to practice using our emotion to fight fights. I think we need to practice using our voices. I think we need to get out our moral courage and put it front and center. I think we need to talk about the vision we want for our lives and our future and our people and our country.
I think we need to find our own strength and work with it and help each other do the same.
I think we're going to need to get out of our comfort zones for what's coming.
There's a lot of casual talk about collapse and destabilization and other funky stuff going on up in this country. Like if we act casual about it maybe it won't be so bad... or maybe if we act like we're cool with it it won't happen.
Yet there's not a damn thing about what's happening here that's casual. Or cool.
It's freaking dangerous and we need to stop pretending like it's not.
Civilization, a healthy society, government, and institutions are needed to keep millions of people alive and functioning well. Collapse is not casual, and we could be being much more serious about mitigating it and going a different direction.
We need these big pieces of civilization to work, and they are all going to be under spectacular pressure in the coming months and years.
It will be a much bigger mess if certain people get into power who just want to hold on to money, resources, and power as everything intensifies.
One of the biggest benefits of democratic government is that it takes care of millions of humans. It's supposed to do it more effectively than any other government approach than we've come up with so far here on Earth.
🧱 If government crumbles or gets corrupted, millions of humans will be in really huge trouble.
Like we should be talking about that. It's not cool. It's not casual. It's a very real threat.
We spend a lot of time talking about why it's important to protect democracy but we don't spend a lot of time talking about the humanity that democracy protects.
I think we need to.
I think we need to humanize it. I think we need to tell the real stories. I think we need to talk about the very real risks. I think we need to talk about the stuff that terrifies us.
Because it's not imaginary. The risks out there are very real.
🖤🌿 So for what it's worth, do what you need to do to get focused and grounded during this liminal space of holiday time and winter in the US.
Take some time to think about all of the crazy stuff that could unfold this next year. And then maybe think about what you need to do to get ready for it. What's not in place. What's realistic to put into place. Or what kinds of changes you could make to be better ready to roll with stuff.
We're better able to handle chaos and fast changing circumstances if we can be more adaptable and flexible. Those things are going to be huge assets in the coming time.
🧰 But we're also going to need to be able to take care of ourselves and the people around us. Emotionally and practically. Having some tools for doing that will be essential.
And not everyone's going to be able to do this stuff. We're not all in a position to have or to put in place deeper resilience... for all kinds of reasons. It's another reason we're going to need to help each other out.
The people fighting for the status quo are fighting for individualism and old structures of who has power and who matters.
❤️ Yet the way humans work best is in community. In collectives. Together. Not as a bunch of hippies in idealistic utopian communes... but in very real communities that function together and feed each other and care for each other and educate each other and provide health care and that center humans.
This isn't new. It goes back into millenia. Our ancestors thrived better when they took care of each other. Together.
When I talk about making shifts this is what I'm talking about. Centering humans. Putting our humanity first. Centering community.
We truly are stronger together.
What I think we can do way more of is to act like it. To do it. To live it. To take it to new levels. To blow it up and make it huge, in positive sparkly good shiny amazing ways.
Coming into the new year, I will be writing a whole lot more. I've spent time getting my own self grounded, and doing some healing.
But I intend to do more than write. I intend to help make some of these changes in this country for real in the real world. There are options for that and I'm iterating again (Take #347) with others to be able to do some of this in the real world. So we'll see what happens.
As much as we're going to need adaptability and flexibility for all that is coming, we're also going to need persistence. And a willingness to keep on trying even when something doesn't work.
🍻🍾 Here's wishing you a good holiday weekend as we make this transition into a really huge and spectacular year in possibly very many ways.
Take care, be well, and try not to get dead.
We need us.
❤️