On the future of 2017

We are now officially five days into the new year. Some, at the time of this posting, will already be in the sixth day depending on the time zone.

This means that we are inevitably closer to the time Barack Obama will say goodbye to eight years in office and we usher in president elect Donald Trump for four. Social media, news outlets, popular publications. None, no matter which end of the political spectrum they tend toward, have withheld comment on this transition.

I have watched as friendships dissolved and families divided. I have watched as memes launched barbs at those Americans expressing their emotions to the change that was affected on election night 2016. Through all of this I have remained silent. I have felt that my opinions and my voice will not change the millions who are saying the same or different than what I myself would say. There are better things I need to be doing with my time than trying to write argumentative reply novels on Facebook or watch as more and more people refuse yet to see the point.

However. Voices exist for us to use them and as J.K. Rowling once wrote through the voice of a well loved character, "Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic." I will attempt to briefly exhaust some of my magic on a platform I have been blessed to have with this website.

At this point in American politics I consider myself to be somewhat apolitical. The bipartisan system is broken. If anything has been proven in this election then I dare say it is exactly that. Conservatives in power seem largely to be social dinosaurs, stuck in an archaic past, and hellbent on trying to revive a certain binary ideal that has never fit the entirety of the American people. Democrats seem to miss the point of keeping governmental powers in check by putting more of it back into the states instead of creating a large, centralized, federal system (feared most by the founding fathers of this nation's birth). Voters, maybe not for the first time in history but at least most notably in recent times, have changed affiliations in ballot boxes and electors have gone faithless.

The body politic of this nation have felt disaffected and their concerns largely ignored by the system which has stilted us into two distinct groups which do not wholly represent us. In my own opinion this is why Donald Trump can soon call himself President of the United States.

I am not here to argue for one political party or the other, to tell you that you should have voted another way, or to try to convince you that your point of view is right or wrong. I am a writer. I write best what I can see, and through the lens of my understanding, render this vision in written word.

People are frightened. They don't know if their entire lives are about to uprooted by the very governments who are supposed to lead and protect them. They don't know if they will still have their full & equal rights when the day dawns tomorrow. People don't know if the ones they called friend, or passed every day on campus to classes, will suddenly feel empowered to diminish the very safety they did not ever think to question was at risk.

These threats are very real. If you don't believe that this is true then you haven't been paying attention. The President elect has used divisive and vitriolic rhetoric to propel his way to the top and continues to belittle and demean any who disagree with him. Coupled with Mike Pence and the republican controlled House and Senate, there is little that would stop destructive policies from turning fears into headlines and hard learned realities.

In my own memory under the sitting Presidents of the past 26 years there hasn't been one coming into office that has made his own people fear for these things. This is the danger that is being felt. To this, I say what Melissa Etheridge said in one of her powerful songs. "Our power ends exactly where our fear begins."

Now more than ever is the time to keep close your clan; those in your life who are beacons of light. Those who are sources of strength and inspiration. Those who spread positivity instead of fear, bile, or divisive witticisms. Now more than ever is the time to be discerning. Use your skills as critical thinkers and readers. Don't listen to sound bites or clips by major media looking to sway you to their opinion. Be vigilant about your convictions. Put words to actions and never stop putting kindness to use.

We are stewards of our own communities and only we can be held accountable for how others are treated in our daily lives. If you want to help? Make it unacceptable for an act of aggression to go unaddressed. Make giving and safety the norm. Reach out a hand to those suffering in your neighborhood. Maybe then they will feel heard. Maybe then they will feel cared for. Maybe then we can actually start to bridge the divide.

Most importantly, use your skills. I mean whatever skills you have. In V for Vendetta, Evey Hammond quoted her father in saying, "Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up." If you're a writer, use your voice. Use your platforms. Use your editing and prose skills. If you are a data entry clerk use your skills as a typist. If you are a party planner use your imaginative mind. Use your talents. Use your time. Give of these things not only to your community but to the organizations that are doing work you believe in. If an organization doesn't exist that you see a need for then use your skills as a Type A planner to bring one into being.

My point is this: though the government in power may at any time wish to make you feel powerless you are never without your own inexhaustible source of it. You are a free democratic republic. In history, some forms of government have had habits of trying to bully, alienate, or otherwise terrorize groups of it's own people -- such as with monarchs like Bloody Mary and her persecution of Protestants or rigid tyrants like King George who refused to hear the needs of his people -- and as history has taught us, despotic rulers have had habits of losing heads to their people.

In this context one thing is clear. We will survive. That is one of the fundamental truths of the human existence. Our necessarily myopic view of the times may seem dire but we are a pebble in the bedrock of history. It's only time. 

Let's make the best of it by making the best of ourselves.

As Ellen Degeneres says, "Be kind to one another."

Grey