Healing Myself to Heal the World

Hyperbole of course, but it's all I can do sometimes to tell myself these simple words when I feel...hopeless...helpless...useless...but I know I just have to keep going. Keep. Fucking. Going.

A purple dandy for you

I have written and rewritten this piece probably 15 times. I am struggling to find the correct part of me to share these feelings with the world in the “right” way…which is an absolutely idiotic way of thinking probably, but it’s where I am right now. I am anxious as fuck about my writing. But I need to write. I wish I could share some well written essay laying out answers to the problems that plague our world, but all I have is my humanness to share.

My heart is broken. It isn’t about me. My heart is still broken though. Everyday my human heart breaks a million times for the babies, for Sonya Massey, for Breanna Taylor, for George Floyd, for the kids at schools, for the garment workers in Ghana, for the endless slew of human exploitation that is responsible for the very privilege that allows me to sit here writing this stream of consciousness. Both the lists of names of lives stolen, as well as of pathetic excuses to why is becoming is getting harder to ignore. It is so fucking obvious that everything about this world is absolutely and arguably totally fucked up. I will argue that it isn’t “total” and we will fight this, but I understand the feeling of totality.

A message I keep seeing both in the world, as well as in myself, is to connect. Really connect. With the Earth, myself, my family, my community. So I am listening. Especially my community. I have been connecting deeply with as many people as I can. The farmers, the artists, the parents, old people, young people. People who are different from me. I have been especially connecting to people who are different from me. Where I am living that means embracing groups like the Amish. I hope I don't sound like an absolute cunt saying that, but yes, the opposite of me is Amish. I will admit that I held some harsh prejudices about them. Back in school for an ethics course I did a presentation on the Amish community and the, well, controversy surrounding them. I am here to say: I eat my words. I am releasing my judgements. I am done playing fucking God with peoples morality. I did one half-assed project on the culture, who am I to slander the good name of the entire Amish community.

What I am saying is: I am being a fucking neighbor, to all my neighbors. The ones with the “Trump” flags and the ones with the pistols strapped to their sides at the gas station. Being a neighbor to them means I am not passing judgement, I am giving patience. I may have the same skin color as many of them, but they recognize I am different, too. I can see it. Please, don’t misconstrue this as some sort of comparison to racial divides. I am not being that deep. I was the bad guy in this. I was the one who would have walked into that gas station and rolled my eyes at the man with the gun. I still feel the same way I do about guns. I will never walk around with one and I will vote for no one else to every chance I have. I don’t need to be rude though. I don’t need to…judge.

Maybe I am oversimplifying tragedy and this is just some selfish way I am coping and I am lying to myself that I am making a difference, but my heart feels better. My heart feels a lot better since I slowed down. Since I started looking inward and outward at once. I started to zoom out to find my drive and then to zoom in to my community to create a change. In doing so I think I have really opened some minds. Mine included. The thing is…the whole world seems to be built based on bullshit. And lies. It is so deeply rooted that I don’t know who is “good” anymore. I am certain my ancestors were probably shit, I am actually afraid to look into it. I am white, I have a grandfather who was a judge. Who knows what I will find. I am just trying to say we have some radical and drastic work to do. I have some radical and drastic work to do. I recognize my place and I think I may have found a small way to help. Perhaps this is dumb. I feel like a translator. Like I am helping both sides of this immense coin see that…we’ve all been fucking lied to.

Looking deeper than surface level into literally any problem in this world leads you to one thing: money. “Follow the money and see where it goes”..is Hamilton out in 2024? The general population is all wanting one thing, to exist. The 1% all wants one thing: money. They will abolish our existence to get what they want. I am not seeing how there is any option other than drastic change in our world dynamic. Let’s be real: this is war now.

Humans aren’t exactly known for downgrading when it comes to weaponry, we never went back to muskets. So what we are bearing witnessing to is war, is life. Unless we actually change the world. Reading the descriptions of the weapons being used against humans, children, right now is like living in a science fiction. But it is fucking real. It is truly beyond my comprehension and I am ashamed of that. I am ashamed because I cannot imagine the thing doing the killing and people are being killed. We need to fucking stop. We need to fucking grow.

Grow beyond money. Grow beyond violence. Beyond borders. Beyond ignoring the fact that we are fucking human, we have limits. No one can own all the cars, write all the songs. Have all the money. No one country gets to pick everyones religion. Not one fucking person gets to decide what happens to your body. They tell us that it is “human nature” to do these terrible things and be violent. I disagree. I think it is human nature to be kind, to build community, to cooperate and collaborate to progress forward. These are lessons in the fucking kid’s books at the library, how are they also the lessons the members of the world’s parliaments need?

We have the food for everyone to have food. We have the money for everyone to have clothes and shelter. We have enough resources in this world for everyone to exist. A certain group of people just doesn’t want us to know we have that power. Americans are arguably some of the most powerful when it comes to ability to influence. While flawed our democracy allows for voting and, barring what would be some insanely depressing election fraud, it allows us to really make a difference with our elections. The reason a lot of Americans vote like idiots, is because they aren’t getting it. The systems are written so poorly that they don’t make sense. Things like student loans were designed to allow schools to make more money off of people, children, seeking an education. Then they jammed it down are throats that it is necessary, then they made it necessary, but it really wasn’t. It’s asinine when you begin to look even the slightest bit below surface level.

How? How did we give up our power? How did we let people convince us that our worth is nothing? I don’t have answer, perhaps if I continue to write and muse I will stumble across one or two.

Maybe I am living in a dream world…I don’t care. I need to live, so I choose to do so in a dream world where me sharing vegetables with my neighbors and eating the sweet honey from the wildflowers of my township will some how make some sort of ripple that will help somebody, somewhere make a big difference. I am planting seeds of growth in small town America. I am starting to find new ways to share the ideas that the world has been waiting for us to catch up on. I know, I know, it isn’t going to save the world. In the grand scheme it doesn’t matter.

It matters to me though, and I hope it matters to you, my amazing 11 subscribers. That feels huge. I am crying writing it. It has inspired me to do a kindness tomorrow to share with you all. I hope you do the same.

Zucc-pocalypse continues