The tough talking leaders and the people walking with AR-15s are cowards. Dangerous cowards, but cowards nonetheless.
The world is filled with snowflakes. They are raging angry fearful and often well-armed cowards.
How cowardly are they? They are afraid of trans people. They are afraid of homosexuals. They are afraid of Mexicans. They are afraid of liberals. They are afraid of nearly every kind of harmless person, people who are just trying to live their lives, people who are often victimized, and are rarely victimizers.
These cowards see enemies everywhere. But if they want to see their actual enemies, they should look in the mirror. And they should look at the people they regard as their heroes and friends.
They vote against unions — empowering the ultra-rich to rip them off without any opposition. They vote for unlimited access to guns — even for insane people, for blind people, for people who have threatened to kill other people. They vote to promote oil and gas and coal.
And, they win. They get their wishes. So they collect less money for more work, lose their jobs, get shot and then watch their homes and loved ones suffer in brutal heat, washed away in storms, struggle with poverty.
They never learn from experience. They are asleep. And they rage at people who are “woke.”
Engage With People, But Not With Stupidity
Even though they are cruel and angry and dangerous and have basically lost their minds, I know that there are real people inside those damaged human shells. I will not seek them out, but when I run into such people, I try to re-energize the humanity inside, no matter how deeply it’s buried.
I don’t wrestle with this task; I know it’s difficult and perhaps impossible. But I do it — almost instinctively — because our common humanity is a gift that should be cherished. And nurtured.
So, I ignore the hostility and offer kindness. I’ll hold a door. Or offer to help lift something. Or whatever seems relevant at the time. Maybe I’ll just smile and say “lovely day!”
I won’t discuss their ideology or my own ideas about life and morality. I’ll just DO the right things. Not preach.
I think that, more than any words we say, setting an example with our behavior is the most powerful thing we do. WE can exhibit bravery, kindness, imagination. We can feed the best qualities in ourselves and in others. And we can starve the worst with inattention.
We Don’t Know What Kind of Ability or Character Lies Dormant Underneath
I know that J.D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, is a fear-mongering opportunist. But I imagined that, instead of losing themselves in rage and fear, that “hillbillies” became wrapped up in their creative abilities. They put beautiful things into the world, working with their hands, using their skills.
I wrote a story called Hillbilly Renaissance.
I think that, to save the world, to make it a better place, to make ourselves better people, we need to exercise our imaginations. We need to imagine what people can do — ourselves and others — that could make a positive difference.
Fiction and the arts are not simply escapism or an indulgence. They are essential to a meaningful life, and they are now even essential to survival. We live in a world where people cannot imagine a world without oil and oil is killing us RIGHT NOW. We are in a world where people can easily imagine the apocalypse, but not the end of the economic system that lionizes greed.
So imagination and the arts are NOT an impractical indulgence.
Our Own Bitterness and Fear
Sadly, those of us who are aware of the crises we face, the climate disaster, the endemic cruelty, the division between people over the trivial, the violence — we, too, are subject to bitterness and fear.
We need to fight our own inclinations to strike out at our enemies, real or perceived. That should not be our focus, because that will simply perpetuate the existing pattern. That will end with doom for all of us, people on both sides of the dispute.
We SHOULD disrupt that pattern — both by exhibiting a radical kindness, and with an uncompromising disobedience towards evil behavior, evil institutions, evil actions.
I remember young students putting daisies in the gun barrels of Soviet tanks that invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. That’s a perfect example of bravery and radical kindness and disruption of bad patterns.
If we can learn to do that, others will notice and join. And we can defeat the climate crisis, we can defeat fear and hatred, we can defeat every form of evil, and we can build a beautiful world.
Failure to try is unthinkable. We must do this.
Please follow me on Medium. Check out the websites A Climate Declaration and EarthRebirth Team. Also, see my podcast called 5 Minutes to Save the Earth.
