Hope Writer Challenge - Reimagine

The last topic for the @hopewriters writing challenge is Reimagine (#hopewriterlife)

Ah yes, reimagine.  What can I say?  Of course I imagined 2020 differently.

We all did.  We all of us had a rhythm and a plan for our lives that didn't involve being stuck indoors and suddenly conducting our business and entire social calendar through a video chat.

I've watched people struggle putting desks together on their own in order to try to accommodate a home office.  I've heard people ask for prayers as they set up Google classrooms for kindergartners saying "God is my only tech support".  None of us imagined the world this way, or were prepared for it when it came.

So when I reimagine 2020, I naturally start by thinking about my original plans.  I think about the way I had mundane plans for doctor visits and a few weekend plans to see friends.  And I begin to question if my plans haven't changed for the better in some ways.

I'm more aware of and focused on my neighborhood. It's becoming a community again. And I have been able to help address some needs there I might not otherwise been aware of.

And as I think about how I want this year to progress, I've been thinking about what goals, writing or otherwise, I want to accomplish.  The conclusion I've reached is that I want to be more bold.  I need to stop prepping, stop organizing the supplies and just do it.  I am skilled enough.  I am ready.  Whatever isn't perfect I'll edit and work on once I've sat down and accomplished some things.

That is my goal, to put into action some bolder plans than I might not have imagined myself doing at the start of this year.  The world has paused for a moment and I've used that pause to reflect on what I really want to achieve.  To reflect on what I really want the future to look like for myself and our world.  I hope you can all step out into a bolder better 2020 as well.  The future is what we make of it, let's make it a good one, a bold one, a better one. 

Hope Writer Challenge - Reconnect

For the sixth day of @hopewriters writing challenge (#hopewriterlife) the prompt was Reconnect.

I Reconnect is an incredibly important theme this year. As we reimagine how our 2020 will look in the future or what it may have been in a different version of itself, reconnecting is at the core of it.

As we all entered lockdown, with very different flavors and inflections based on where we lived, we all had to reimagine connection.  In isolation connection is more important than ever.  But we had to reimagine it and how to reconnect.

I have personally found myself reconnecting with old friends that live far away.  I love them dearly, but the distance often keeps our lives rather separate.  Now that all communication and connection is digital it seems easier to reconnect with friends from out of state.  It's just as easy to get an out of town friend on zoom as it is to get your close neighbor on a zoom call.

With less outside activities demanding our time, there is less competition for our focus, and more time to schedule for friends.  Time zones seem to matter less when you're in all day.  And while I don't want or expect my friends to keep their schedules open indefinitely, it has been a lovely change to reconnect with good old friends at this time.

Some of our built up rhythm will carry with us into the rest of the year even as restrictions lift.  In part because we have reimagined how we connect with one another already.  My friends and I have started a quarantine book club.  When we go back to our outside activities we may not be able to zoom call each other all the time as we have been regularly.  But we will keep up our digital bookclub.

Sometimes all you need for reconnection is a start.  As we strive to reclaim a sense of normalcy we find ourselves not just imagining, but also reinventing the way we connect.  And I think that having put so much time into reconnecting we have enriched the days and months to come, whatever they may hold.

So, find ways to reconnect in a positive way.  Call someone you care about, tell someone how special they are to you.  Have a phone or zoom call with people you miss.  Enrich the rest of your 2020 with positive and meaningful reconnections. 

Hope Writer Challenge - Rest

Originally written on May 15th, for the @hopewriters writing challenge the prompt was Rest.

Reimagining 2020 for the #hopewriterlife challenge with the theme Rest almost felt comical for a moment.  We are all stuck indoors, we have plenty of rest.  But the more I think about it the less I feel that's true.  We have plenty of time in isolation, but it is restful?

It has definitely not all been restful for me.  I've had long anxious nights that never seemed to end and some days have been full of nervous pacing.  Fearing for the safety of myself, my family and friends has not made me feel as though I've enjoyed a long rest these last few months.

I have also been taking the time to do more art and writing and that has been rejuvenating for me.  But that can also be work.  Creative endeavors have always been a dilemma in that way.  I need the creative thing to unwind, but then I also most rest from it.  It's rather like the dilemma of a cat's life.

Cats spend most of the day napping, which is such exhausting work that they must then spend the majority of the night napping too.  I find that I am completed to both create, or write, and then to consume voraciously someone else's creations and writing.  I need to see pretty things and read pretty words to fill my well up before I can go back to writing.

In other words I often need a rest from my restful activities much the way I think we all need a rest from our isolation and inactivity.  This weekend I'm cooking up new ways for me to change my routine and break my isolation without disobeying the rules.

If you could reimagine 2020 with more rest, what would it look like for you?

Now, in light of recent unrest and troubling conversations, remember that however worthy the cause and fight, you must also rest.  You cannot wear yourself out.  You must rest, and that involves being kind enough to yourself to give yourself a mental break.  Of course you are sad and angry, you are human and it's good that you feel for the plight of your fellow man, but staying unrelentingly angry and sad for weeks at a time is injurious to your health.  Give yourself permission to rest, to not watch the newsfeeds for a day, to not engage in difficult conversations for a day, to breathe deeply and remember that having breath is a gift.  Come back to the fight tomorrow with more rest and more strength.

Hope Writer Challenge - Restore

Today's prompt for the @hopewriters writing challenge is Restore. #hopewriterlife

I cannot tell you how words and stories may restore other people. I can only speak to my experience. I can only tell you what words do for me.

Sometimes the world is too much and the messages of doubt and fear and inadequacy overwhelm me. They begin to reinforce those intensely negative thoughts my inner critic tells me when I'm not paying too much attention. This inter critic is insidious, it won't engage when I answer back with logic because it knows it has nothing to say.

But it whispers dark fears in my ear when I am not on my guard. And sometimes it's blows land and I'm left reeling, wondering if it's right. That is the moment words are the most critical. I have to find the right ones to join my cause. Recruit the write poetry and friends to stand with me as I prepare for battle.
And for me, I must always do battle on paper. I must write.

You see, the critic thrives on emotion and in the dark corners of your mind where logic can't illuminate it and it can loom shadowy and unopposed. If I drag that inter critic into the light and put it on paper it doesn't stand a chance. The arguments don't hold up. Spoken in dark whispers, "you are worthless" or "you're unnecessary" can be weighty and can coil around you and feel inescapable. Such sentiments prey upon your emotions.

When you put those critiques on paper and engage with the ideas, it takes a little of the weight and sting out of them. So for every dark emotional thought that I'm worthless, that I'll never be a writer and my work is rubbish, that I'm a terrible person (the worst in fact); I make the effort to find at least one argument against them. I do help people and many people rely on me for support. I am capable of many things. And even if I wasn't, every human has worth. I may not be published yet, but I'm not quitting. I am a writer and no writer is perfect, that's what drafts and editing are for. I'm not a terrible person. I'm certainly not the worst ever. Historical examples of worse people abound. And I do what I can. I'm only human but I'm not a bad one. I'm kind of a decent person actually.

Just like that the tide of emotional darkness turns. In the battle for my mind, I drag my opponents into the light and expose their poison and trickery. I defeat them with carefully planned logic and words. Healthier words, truer words, more positive words.

Half the battle is knowing that you're in it and the other half is perseverance. You do not restore yourself in an instant with a flick of your wrist like magic. Restoration is a process, a journey, a series of determined actions.

For me it is important to change the story whenever I feel overwhelmed and belittled. If I feel obligated to attend a party that will be challenging for me because certain attendees make me feel small; I change the story. I look at myself and say "you have a choice. You are choosing to attend this party because you are larger than fear. You are the Queen and you have magnanimously decided to allow your enemies to attend. Pay them no attention." I might still be anxious, but making a conscious choice to turn the story around makes me feel less trapped by circumstances. I feel less small.

Remember that your life is greatly shaped and altered by the story you craft for yourself. Do not let it be created entirely by the critic who's views are false. Make sure you combat it with truth and hope. If you struggle to find the right words, augment your story with poetry that touches your soul. You can borrow someone else's words to help lift your wings.

You are the hero of your own story. No, you cannot change what has come before but you always have a chance to decide what happens next. You can pick yourself up and go about the important process of restoring yourself, put yourself back together with hope, words and perseverance.

So find good words. 

Find great words. 

Write your own words and don't ever accept defeat. 

Imagine a better future and fight for it.

Hope Writer Challenge - Remember

Today for @hopewriters writing challenge #hopewriterlife the topic is Remember.

When we talk about remembering it is important to keep in mind that memory is not perfect. It is perfectly possible to forget something that felt momentous at the time whereas seemingly insignificant things can linger for years to come.

I find that it is almost more important to record the little things that happen. The small moments that mean so much in life because life is not a straight forward journey. For me, I'm making sure to record the little things that surprise me during this time of global pandemic. I want to remember in years to come the things that made me smile in the midst of tragedy, the moments of friendship that lightened my load and encouraged me. I want to record for posterity the things that surprised me during this time and the things that I learned.

I used this double photo (in a spinning double sided frame) for today's image because I feel it represents life both in its journey and its singular strength and beauty. There are things I wish I could forget about this time, burdens I do not wish to bear. This frame sits on my desk to remind me that life is a journey much like a spiral staircase. It's as much about going sideways and around as it is about going up. Progress in life is often accomplished by going many steps sideways before you go forward.

On the other side is a photo of two buildings from two very different ages, both beautiful. It is straight lines and reflections. These buildings tell me that strength and beauty look different in different times. Every age of your life holds a different piece of your truth. Your strength and beauty grows and changes with time reflecting your progress, your journey. You are no less strong or beautiful for having different shapes and emphases in different ages of your life. Even as you reinvent yourself, it is built upon your old strength, just as the older building is reflected in the windows of the newer one.

May this remind you, as it does me, that even if you're different from the other buildings, you are still beautiful. You are still strong. You just need to keep following your own lines. Be your own building, for that is where your strength and beauty lies. 

Remember that and it will help you through the tough days when all your steps go sideways and you cannot see the end of the winding stairs. 

Remember too, that even when nobody around you looks like you, you are strong and beautiful and that your steps will wind upwards slowly even when you can't see it.

Hope Writer Challenge - Reach

An enormous Italian Renaissance style sunset over my house for the #hopewriterlife, writing challenge for @hopewriters about Reach.

Reimagine 2020 with an Idea of Writing Reach and Change

Italian Renaissance Style Sunset over San Diego

The moment I begin to reimagine this year I start by imagining it without cornonavirus.  My very next thoughts are of comparison, reflecting on the deep differences we see between now and the years we've known of late.  So, for me to reimagine this year with the themes of writing and reach in mind I must compare my present with the recent past.

Writing for me has always been something I must do on occasion when I can't sleep.  My mind runs mad with stories or turns of phrase that demand to be recorded.  Sometimes writing is how I process my world and thoughts, and it's the only thing that keeps me from falling to bits.  All of this is to say that writing had been a deeply internal process for me and reaching any sort of audience with my writing has been a rather new thought.

Only in this last year I stated to notice that there is a part of me that wants to be seen and heard with my writing.  And as much as it scares me to bare pieces of my soul to the world thus, there has been a nagging thought that it is selfish of me to keep these pretty turns of phrase and hopeful midnight musings to myself.

I don't exactly have grand dreams of reaching an audience for myself.  There's a large part of me that's still frightened to be seen.  But when I think of the purpose of my writing, especially now, I think it is my purpose, my duty, to offer help with words in any way I can.

In these strange times I've been writing again, for a data center company of all places; offering hope that people and communities can and will take care of one another in these days of doubt and fear.  In this unlikely place, I have found the opportunity to bring messages of the way that our infrastructure connects us, instead of focusing on our distance.

That is not to say that I don't feel fear and doubt myself.  I too have been overwhelmed. I have had my share of anxious nights.  I have cried for myself and those around me, feeling our losses and our hardships keenly.  I simply choose, whenever I feel such emotions, to seek out stories that acknowledge pain and still uplift.

I have in my search found hope in the strangest places.  I have found large companies using their considerable Reach to send messages of hope, connection and perseverance.  I have seen neighbors help one another, offering the help and services they can.  I have seen people donating food and masks and supplies where they can.  I have seen people writing letters to friends and holding video chats to check in with one another.  I have been invited to free painting classes and seen many strangers advertise free counseling and tutoring during this time.  We are all offering what we can.

And it may not be seen as a lot by the eyes of the outside world, but together when we all offer what we can to anyone we can help, we all make the difference.  My reach my not be large.  The five masks I helped make may not be enough.  And the words I can offer may not be groundbreaking.  But together, that is where we have magic.

For the reach of one person is small, but with many hands and more helpers we can reach so much further. If I can help one person who can then help two more, together we can make all the difference. Doing our bit is all we can do. Even as we may feel isolated and alone, even as we feel powerless, if we find one way to help someone else shoulder the burden of this time we are doing our bit. And together we can change the world. 

Together our reach is infinite and we are unstoppable.

I wrote this on May 12th and I think it's more true than ever.  As I reread it this week knowing what turmoil we are in trying to address the blatant racism and tragedy we have all seen it only rings more true.  Individually we may be small, and our reach unimportant.  But together, with all of us doing one small thing, we can make the world a better place.  Together our reach is infinite and we are truly unstoppable.

Hope Writer Challenge - Reimagine 2020 - Rewrite

Hope Writer's hosted an Instagram writing challenge to reimagine 2020.  The challenge had a different topic every day for a week. And the first day's topic was Rewrite.  I wrote about all of this on Instagram on my profile @madderhattery, but I'd like to repost the writing here because I think we need more words of hope these days.

Reimagine 2020 - Rewrites

Spring Blossoms in Chicago - photo by The Madder Hatter

As part of the Hope Writer's challenge I'm talking about Rewrites today.

As much as we may wish to change the things that have already happened, we cannot.  What we can do is take this unprecedented turn of affairs, this global pandemic, and use it to rewrite our lives.

Everywhere I look I see neighbors meeting and growing closer during this new distance.  Being stuck at home has forced us to look closer at our communities and see the very real things going on in our own backyards.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in the rhythm of our daily lives that we don't ask ourselves if it's the right rhythm.  This forced pause has caused us to look inward.  We can't run from our thoughts and doubts when they are the only company we keep.  So I think it's time we face them.

It's time to take the giant blank slate of our future and reimagine it.  How often have you heard someone shout down your dreams because they couldn't ever be?  It's just the way the world is.  Yet, here we are living in a world nobody had imagined.  It tells you something; some of the largest most unavoidable things about modern life are entirely arbitrary.  And not only can we change them, we can change a lot of them all at once in the course of a few weeks.

So take up your life and examine it.  Listen in the quiet for what you've always known you wanted and use this pause to start fighting for it.  The future can be rewritten, no matter what course it was on before.  Take a moment to learn from your fear and anger what it is your heart really wants.

Don't put off that project, career change, or dream.  Start down that path today.  Nobody can say what the future will bring, but it certainly won't hold the things you didn't bother to fight for.

You are the author of your future.  Pick up your pen today and remember that coming together (even when that means staying apart), is what makes us stronger.  Remember that there is always something you can do to help both yourself and someone else.  And remember that every single one of us will help shape the future.   So make it a good one.   Make it a beautiful one.  Make it a loving, accepting and hopeful one.  Join me and rewrite a better future for all of us.

A Whole Tree of Spring Blossoms in Chicago photo by the Madder Hatter 

I wrote those words about the global pandemic just a few weeks ago, but I think they take on new relevance now considering the racism and injustice we've all seen this last week.  Even reconsidering it all I want to leave you with the same words.  

Join me and rewrite a better future for all of us.

Making Art When Your Heart is Broken

There is a beautiful quote by Shane L. Koyczan:

"If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces." Shane L. Koyczan

When my heart is broken that's what I try to do.  I try to pick up the pieces and bravely find beauty.  I turn my sadness, my brokenness, my trauma into art.  I write of darkness and hope.  I write of crying and grieving.  I write of carrying on even if that means sitting down to cry.  

I have recently realized that part of this need to create art with my brokenness is because I have far too many feelings to leave them bottled up inside.  They well up, they overwhelm and then they overflow into what I do.  

This is Strach the Opossum, he is currently reading the Highly Sensitive Person and some Poetry by W.E. Henley and doing a bit of journaling.

I'm reading a book called The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D.  In it she has some very interesting research that talks about sensitive people.  Roughly 20% of the population is sensitive.  It is a real, measurable and scientifically proven trait.  And yes, we do feel everything more deeply.  This has to do, in short, with mirror neurons.  The way that mirror neurons work is that if you watch someone else kick a soccer ball your brain will have activity in the same area that moves the leg etc.  Because even just watching someone else do something, your brain processes the movements and so forth, so you feel a tiny fraction of what they are doing or feeling.  

They've done lots of research that I won't bore you with here, that proves that highly sensitive people have much more activity in their mirror neurons.  What does that mean?  That means that when you tell us a sad story, we empathize much more deeply than 80% of the population.  We really do feel it more.  You can read more about her book and blogs on the Highly Sensitive Person Website.

What that means for me is I feel everything so intensely that it often overflows or overwhelms me.  In the last few weeks I've been struggling to re-contextualize many of the struggles I've had all my life with this new knowledge that I'm not just "weak" or "too sensitive", that I'm actually processing and feeling more than 80% of my fellow men.  So, I'm frequently up crying about a story that someone has told me, hours after they've forgotten it.  I have trouble sleeping during this time of intense injustice and death.  I fear for the lives of everyone struggling with the unseen menace of Covid-19 and the insidious disease of Racism.  And I feel it all so very deeply that I can't sleep.  

So, I must do something. I often carry the burdens of other people's sadness long after it's healthy for me to do so.  I wrote about a person I met only once and couldn't stop thinking about in my post The Loneliness of a Stranger.  Often I feel sad for people I can't help.  I worry about people I'll never see again.  And I sometimes catch myself feeling glum about abandoned objects.  I personify them and feel sad for their loneliness.  It's too much.  So I write.  I write about the sadness and I write about hope.

I've written multiple posts about the heart and the heaviness that can live there.  I've written The Heart is the Final Frontier, and When a Glass Heart Shatters, and Mending a Heart of Glass.  In those I talk of hardships and how I dealt with them, the way I grieved and my new theory that it takes nine months to rebuild and repair a heart and I think it's no coincidence that it's the same amount of time it takes to create a brand new heart.

I've written of hardships but also of hope, of love and support.  I wrote about rekindling broken dreams in Stars in the Darkness.  

I make art with my heartbreak.  If it helps one person feel less alone it was worth sharing.  If it is only read by me, but it allows me to sleep, it's worth writing.  

And lately I've decided to try to make more positive beautiful things to fill the world with joy.  Don't get me wrong, I'll still write about sadness and darkness.  I think toxic positivity is a blight.  It denies us the true depth of feelings and the ability to heal through grief and sitting with and working through our sadness.  You cannot just plaster a smile on some things and pretend you don't need to feel.  It's not healthy or productive.  But that being said, while I do need to cry and grieve, and talk about my sorrows, I always want there to be hope.  Just like I wrote poetically about the journey through happiness, depression and back in Winter Without Happiness.  I still talk about the darkness, but I don't leave it there, I try to always end with hope.

So, of late, I have been trying to fill the world with hope and joy and beauty.  I'm trying to take my fears and my anxieties and acknowledge them but gently put them to the side and make beautiful things anyway.  I've been trying to write a book and it's hard and I'm nervous about not being good enough.  What if I don't do the story justice?  What if I write it poorly?  What if I don't portray my characters fairly?  What if I really don't have any idea what I'm doing and it all fails horribly?  

This is my writing buddy, the opossum named Strach.  He looks capable doesn't he?

If you had to characterize my inner fears and nature as an animal, I'm an opossum.  I'm a terrified baby opossum, with my mouth open swaying back and forth from terror.  About to pass out from fright.  It's not pretty.  It's pathetic really (in a melodramatic and slightly comical way).  So I ordered myself a tiny plush opossum friend to sit beside my computer when I try to write.  I've named him Strach, the Czech word for fear.  Whenever I get nervous I look at Strach and I pet him nicely, talking to him softly with compassion, and I reassure him and my fears, and then I keep writing. 

And this is so common for all creatives to have crippling doubts and horrible unspoken fears of unworthiness.  I've been trying to address this inner fear, this inner critic, this inner doubter with calm logic.  Because these overwhelming fears don't hold up with logic.  What if I can't do justice to the story?  Then I will make edits until I do.  What if I write it poorly?  I will learn to write better through practice and I'll make edits.  What if I don't portray my characters fairly?  I'll have readers help tell me how they feel and I'll write a second draft.  What if I really don't have any idea what I'm doing and it all fails horribly?  I can only fail if I stop trying.  I'll learn what I don't currently know and keep working on it til it works.  I like to address these because there's usually a secret fear under those that comes out last.  For instance, it'll go something like.  What if I'll never be good enough?  Or, I don't know anything!  And you feel so much better if you say, I am good enough to try and I'll keep learning til I get there.  Or, I know lots of things!  And I can always learn more.

So, I'm trying to gently set aside fear and anxiety and hurt and write of hope and beauty.  I'm trying to make art with all the broken pieces of my heart.  

And if it takes me an entire lifetime of creating beautiful things to make up for the pain and sorrow I've witnessed, then it will be a life well lived.  

Present Privileges, How History Impacts Current Oppression and How we Must Act

Perhaps it is unwise, perhaps my voice and opinions are irrelevant or unnecessary to the conversation at large.  I, however, cannot listen to that.  I am compelled to speak.

So, if you don't want to hear my opinions, you are free, welcome and encouraged to move along elsewhere and do what you will without listening.

I want to start by addressing the fact that many people are saying everything I feel much more eloquently.  But I have two pieces I'd like to share that I haven't seen being talked about with quite as much detail as I think it deserves.  First Privilege and second a bit of history from a historian.

Privilege as an Idea - How to sit with it and think about it productively

We have all heard a lot of talk about the word Privilege.  It makes people uncomfortable for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes they feel convicted, guilty, shamed because they know they are privileged people and have seen wrongs they have done nothing to correct.  Maybe they feel guilty because they know that they have seen injustice and they have turned their heads and walked past.

Sometimes the idea of privilege makes people feel uncomfortable because they feel as though it invalidates their own daily struggles.  Not everyone has a voice.  Many people feel the lack of agency and voice keenly, even if it comes from a different sort of hardship or oppression with which they struggle than the very visible racism we are talking about today.

Sometimes the idea of privilege makes people feel uncomfortable because they do not like the idea of benefiting from the suffering of others.  That's a good thing.  Sit with that feeling.  Think about it and figure out a way that you can help create change, and help alleviate suffering.

Now I wanted to address a few things about this.  Privilege comes in all forms and everyone has at least a tiny bit of privilege that another person might not have.  You might be male and have the privilege of benefiting from a system and a culture that does not objectify you and tolerate your harassment.  Of course it is possible for men to be harassed too, but I have not met a woman yet who has not had at least one very scary experience with harassment and fear for her safety because she is a woman.

Examine your feelings

The point I'm trying to make is that we should examine our feelings and see where they are coming from.  See what they are telling us about our fears and our thoughts.  See what actions your feelings are demanding you take to satisfy them.

And then take a minute and think about what your present privileges are in this life.  And think about what a present duty is for that privilege.  I got this idea from Danielle Coke on her lovely, informative and inspiring Instagram page @ohhappydani.  You should check it out for yourself.

Here is a picture of her examples of how to think about her privileges and what duties she feels come from those privileges.

This is on @ohhappydani's Instagram profile.  You can find this video under her permanent highlight called Privilege.

Her examples of privileges that she has, and the duties as a result of those privileges are as follows:

1. Having the ability to stay home ---- duty to stay home and protect those who cannot stay home
2. Socioeconomic privilege  --------- duty to donate to causes and organizations

I think this is a really important point.  Privilege is anything that you a blessed with, and you should be aware that you are lucky to have it, and think of how to use it for the good of your community and society.

So, I'd like to take a moment to talk about my Present Privileges, what they are, how I feel about them, and what I feel are my duties that come along with them.  I am, perhaps more aware than most, that some privileges are fleeting.  Socioeconomic privilege being one of the most transitory things in my life.  So, bear in mind I'm talking about the privileges I currently have.

I am privileged with:

Being a person with very light coloured skin.  

I know this means I don't normally experience the sort of racism people of colour face daily.  I only say normally because I have been in situations where I faced daily hardships as a result of my skin color, but it is not currently my situation and I realize that this very fact is a privilege.

Now, if I'm allowed my feelings about my skin, I will tell you about them.  I feel irritated by my skin colour.  I think dark skin tones are beautiful, and I've personally always wished I were a darker skin tone myself.  I hate burning in the sun in under five minutes.  And in the summer when the bugs come out on cool nights I resent being so luminescently pale that I attract them like a light source.  I always thought darker skin tones were more practical for these reasons.

I feel that it is my duty, as someone who benefits from this privilege to use my voice to correct oppression and racism of people without this privilege.

I currently have socioeconomic privilege.

I have just recently acquired a part time job that allows me to work remotely.  This has been good for me mentally and health wise.  I am currently struggling with Lyme disease and have a compromised immune system.  So, the ability to work from home was a great benefit to me even before Covid-19 happened.  It allowed me to work when I needed and attend doctor's visits and schedule my life as my health required.

After lockdown in Southern California started I felt incredibly lucky that I had the ability to work from home while I was compromised.

My duty as someone with socioeconomic privilege at this time in the country is to support those who are suffering.  I have helped support local businesses, restaurants and donated to causes I believe will help people who do not have the privilege of a job and economic stability at this moment.

I currently have the ability to stay home.

As I mentioned above I am lucky enough to have found a part time job that allows me to stay at home during this lockdown.

I feel my luck, I assure you.  I was unemployed for the last six months and ill on top of that.  I feel lucky to be able to work from home and pay my bills.

My duty is to stay home as much as possible to protect those who cannot.  To wear a mask in public when I must go out and to limit my trips outside to save our community from increased exposure and danger.

I have the means to make masks

I have the fabric, sewing machine and skills to make my own masks that fit properly on my face.

I realize that not everyone has this privilege so it is my duty to help where I can.  With the help of my mother, who did most of the work, because my hands hurt with Lyme Disease, helped to make masks for two local food banks, whose volunteers risked their own safety to feed the community.  We have helped make masks for the friends and family who need masks and cannot make them.

I have more than enough food

It is my duty to help provide for those who do not have the money or food that they need.  I cannot, right now, volunteer my time.  But I have donated food and masks to local food banks because that is what I can do.

I have friends and family who love and support me

I feel it is my duty to pass on the love and support that I am freely given to others.  When I can I perform what acts of service I am able to offer.  I offer words of love and encouragement when and where I can.  I listen to other people's pains, fears, and hopes for a better future and I do what I can to alleviate their suffering and help with their dreams.

I have a gift for writing (at least I think so on some days)

I believe it is my duty to share words of hope with the world.  I believe it is my duty to stand up for Truth, Equality, Justice and Hope.  I believe it is my duty to fight racism, injustice and lies about the futility of efforts to create change.  Change is difficult, yes.  Change is painfully slow.  But change can be made out of the tiniest pieces of hope.  Change comes when millions and millions of people do just the one thing that they can.  For me I think it is writing about the Truth and writing about the struggle for Justice and hope.  Most of all, I think we need to maintain hope even in the face of extremely difficult battles.

I think Lizzo had a post that stated this beautifully on her Instagram account.

I found this on Lizzo's Instragram page, and it seems to have originally been a tweet by the eloquent @Lindss_tastic

We need all of the different jobs to bring about a lasting change in our system.  You do not need to personally do all of them.  You only need to do what you can, just your one bit.  We need the people who are loud and the people who are quiet, those who are hard and those who are soft.  We need those willing to stand firm, and those who help pick up the pieces and soothe the broken when it's all gotten to be too much.  We need all of these functions in society and in our causes.  

Do not feel that you have failed your fellow countrymen and citizens if you must stay home during this time.  There are other ways to help, including signing petitions, helping to talk to the people you can manage to reach (even from home) and surviving to take the fight onwards to another battle on another day.

I have the gift of insight into our past

I am an over-educated historian.  I have two degrees in history that do not make it easier for me to find jobs.  But I do have a window into past struggles because of this.  It's both a blessing and a curse.  

Sometimes it is a burden to me, to see things ramping up to replay themselves in all the old familiar ways.  One very obscure example is that during the reign of Peter the Great in Russia (roughly around 1698) decided that he wanted everyone to be clean shaven like the rest of Europe.  So he tried to force everyone to shave with a beard tax, fining them if they didn't.  There were beard revolts.  It sounds weird but it's all too true.  You can read about why Peter the Great did this here.  And you can get an overview about the beard tax here.  Why did I bring this up?  Because a few years ago I saw an article where they were planning to forcibly demand Tajik men shave to stop radicalization.  I wrote about it in a this post here.  I talked about how stupid it is to try to force men to shave in an attempt to keep them from radicalizing.  Another article and I, both agreed that it would probably have the opposite results, forcing someone to shave might radicalize an otherwise peaceful man.  Just like it did in Russia with the beard revolts.

Anyway, it gives unique and sometimes burdensome insight to see things replaying themselves in ways that I know will lead to unrest and violence.  And it is hard to watch.  But sometimes it gives me a view into why things are the way they are.

So, if you'll permit me to talk about the history behind oppression, I have a few things I haven't seen talked about yet and I think need saying.

Why We Need to Seriously Consider the Cycles of History and Systemic Oppression Today

Now, I know that things have changed from the 1700's and the 1800's.  I'm a historian, believe me, I know what has changed.  But allow me to point out a few things.  I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty about what privileges they do have.  I'm just going to point out that some cycles are almost impossible to overcome as an individual.  What I am trying to say is that our system has failed our citizens.

There has been a lot of talk about crime and desperation in the last few days.  I would like to address where this crime stems from in a broad historical manner.

Consider that after black people were freed from slavery they had no land, no money, no education and no possibilities.  They were essentially displaced refugees and they faced blatant and widespread violent racism.  How were they to better themselves with everything against them?

Now let us say that we have moved forward in time.  People have moved into cities where jobs are more prevalent and there may be hope for more opportunities.  Black people still have to fight poverty, and unemployment because of racism.  This means they are less able to attain degrees in higher education and higher paying jobs even when they have degrees.  They will experience a life of more unemployment and lower paying jobs on average.  Financial desperation is one of the main motivators for crime.  Rises in unemployment correlates with rises in crime.

Consider the words of Thomas Moore in Utopia:
“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”

Our system is set up to make thieves and then punish them.  In cities where crime and gangs abound and minorities struggle to survive we have failed our fellow men.  We have failed to educate them.  We have failed to give them jobs and a way forward.  We have failed to keep them from the corruption of violent gangs, and we have failed to give them safety without them falling into the ugly patterns of gang life to survive.  We failed them.  They turned to the only things that could give them economic and physical safety in their neighborhoods, crime and gangs.

We have systematically created thieves and we are now punishing them for trying to survive in a world we created that only left them one option.  We make thieves and then punish them.  Of course we aren't calling them thieves in the media.  We are calling them "criminals".  But we made them that way.

And now it is our duty to recognize the in-congruence of this terrible behavior on our part to look at the outcome we allowed and to blame it for its own existence.  How dare you be angry and desperate and unlawful?  How dare you be a criminal!  We must understand that we do not have to excuse the crime, to excuse the "criminal" that we have created by our own inaction.

Of course it is not right to hurt other innocent people, or harm their businesses.  But as we know many of the people who are starting off the rioting and looting are not actually the protesters.  Even so, we do not have to agree with the crime, to be sympathetic to the plight of those causing it.  In many ways we have given them no options.  As an individual you may not have done anything wrong, but as a society we are all to blame.  This injustice, this racism, this cycle of creation and punishment must stop.  And we must all stand up and stop it today.

Action is the Only Way Forward

I implore you.  I beg you.  Act in a positive way.  You can make a difference and you can choose to make a positive impact.

I have sympathy with those who are angry and those who feel they have no other way of being heard.  But I beg you, as an individual to be involved in long-lasting change.

Violence and large scale protests are going to generate awareness.  But if you do not act to help enact laws and change, all of this will be a flash in the pan.

And we cannot allow these injustices to continue. We cannot allow police brutality.  We cannot allow racism.  We cannot allow the continuance of cycles of oppression and hardship that create and then punish thieves.

YOU, just you alone, can make a difference.  You can sign petitions and vote.  You can speak up, and volunteer.  You can march, and you can change minds.  You can effect change.  And I beg of you that it will be positive.

Stay angry, but act positively.

Let your righteous anger guide you to act.  Sign a petition to demand justice for George Floyd.  There are plenty of other ways to act.

I will share the words of Barack Obama which rather eloquently state that we need to understand and sympathize with the legitimate frustration, but also we need to act, vote, and create change.

Here is Obama's Instagram post in photos:

Barack Obama's Instagram post

Barack Obama's Instagram post

He has several helpful links on his website if you want to check that out here.  We must act.  You don't have to join a protest or demonstration.  You can do research and speak from an informed place.  Starting with credible sources that lay out facts like this article from the The New York Times on the facts of the last 9 minutes of George Floyd's Life.  You can vote, you can sign petitions.  You can join the Innocence Project to reform the criminal justice system or Black Lives Matter to fight racist policies head on through petitions or support of other kinds.

And now, I want to make one more plea, for patience with those who don't yet see.  I am not saying it's your job to educate them, or talk to them, or change them.  I am not even asking you to listen to them if you cannot handle that.  I am just asking you, in your anger, your justified anger, to not say or do anything that will alienate others, even those in the wrong.

I know that's asking a lot in the face of such tragedy and injustice, in the wake of a history of long centuries of oppression.  But to change our society we must bring everyone with us.  You don't have to change them, but one of us must.

So I ask you the question I asked on my last post about injustice and communication.

Is there still room among the Woke for those who are just awakening?  

Think long and hard about that before you answer.  I beg you not to doom our future with a self-fulfilling prophecy to a world that cannot change, a world full of eyes that cannot open.  

Again, I do not say this because I think it is every person's job to educate everyone they see who is walking on the wrong path.  It is not your responsibility to correct everything and educate everyone.  I am simply asking everyone to reflect before they speak.  Or walk away and do not engage these people.  I'm begging you not to make worse enemies out of people who have not yet seen the light, but need to.  If you cannot deal with them with patience and forbearance walk away, do not engage.

I'm begging everyone to act not solely upon an emotional reaction, but thoughtfully and in a way that will encourage, and firmly demand change, lasting change in our society.  Sometimes it requires more patience than you should be asked to exhibit in the face of injustice.  Sometimes it simply requires compassion for those who are in the wrong but also emotional and feeling attacked.

Is that fair?  No.

But we must make an effort, all of us together, or we will never change as a whole.  I'm not even asking that you personally do these terribly difficult things.  Just remember that someone must.  Someone must help educate the ignorant, must gently stand firm in the face of ugliness and make room for someone who is not yet on the right path to start to come towards it.  We must.  We cannot afford to have a society where we do not bring all people along with us.

We cannot allow people to remain ignorant, and uneducated in these areas.  Is it your job to educate them?  No.  But I beg you, if you cannot do this work, of patiently facing ignorance and biases, do not make it harder for the person that follows who must.  Because for the sake of our society, someone must do this work.  I beg you not to further embitter someone with heated words spoken in the moment.  Walk away.  And leave room for someone else to stand in the gap and educate calmly, to patiently address wrong ideas and irrational, emotional fears.

Remember that we are in this fight for the long haul.  And we must win.  So we must find a way to make room amongst the Woke for those who have just begun to awaken.