June 27th, 2024
This year, and for the past month specifically, it’s been hard for me to write stuff.
Not my fiction stuff. That stuff is going strong. I’m in my vampire era and loving it.
No, I’m talking about the real stuff I write here on the internet. I’m not treading water; I’m doggy paddling out here.
It’s not a lack of ideas; I think of at least three things I want to write about every day. It’s the fact that most of these ideas feel negative in nature, like I don’t have any solutions or cute and hopeful takes on them, and the last thing I want to do is contribute to that overwhelmingly dark vibe right now.
So today I just want to share two sentences I can’t get out of my head.
The first was said by Jon Stewart a few weeks ago on his show. While righteously raving (that’s kind of his thing), he distilled this particular rant into the perfect thought:
“We are all living in one reality.”
He said this in response to the common refrain that, in our country today, Americans are “living in two separate realities.”
That just isn’t the truth. Facts do exist. Things have actually happened and things will continue to actually happen. There are things that happen where it doesn’t matter whether or not you believed they happened; they happened regardless.
That is the one reality. And we get duped by the dumbest tricks.
Remember in high school, when that one guy promised everyone free snacks from the vending machines but only if they voted for him to be class president?
And remember how we voted for him, and then we still had to pay for our snacks, because we were idiots and had no idea how vending machines work?
It was actually a good lesson to learn then; we were kids and our brains weren’t fully formed yet.
But this exact scenario is happening in real-life adult politics right now and real-life adults (I met a man in his sixties last week who legitimately believes his candidate is going to eliminate all taxes on my earned income and wrote as much) believe this, against all logic, reason and, frankly, sanity.
What the fuck happened? How have we not collectively evolved to outsmart the high school schemer?
There is only one reality.
And if we can’t all get on this singular existential track, society, democracy, and humanity is going to jump off the rails, explode and extinguish themselves.
I said something earlier about not wanting to be negative (sorry!) so I’ll share the second sentence now, by one of my favorite writers, Brian Klaas:
“We control nothing, but influence everything.”
There is nothing more important to me than these six words when it comes to living a meaningful life.
It means that while I can’t make anything happen, I can create change, big and small, outside myself and within, and have a positive effect on this world. Always.
Years ago, I got a letter in the mail and it kind of messed me up; honestly, in hindsight, it hurt me a lot more than I thought then. It changed the way I see certain aspects of life, especially the modern political landscape.
A few weeks ago, the same person who sent me that letter shot me a text that said they had changed their mind. I was (and still am) in shock, but in the most wondrous, awestruck way.
I’ve long been an advocate for people’s ability to change (hello, look at me, used to be a huge piece of shit and now I am a much smaller piece of shit); it is one of the few elements of existence that I would sincerely consider a miracle. I don’t know what small series of ripples conspired to change this person’s mind, or whether I had anything to do with it, but seeing influence in action can be devastating, or the most beautiful thing you’ve ever experienced, often consecutively.
So what am I trying to say? I don’t know, I guess this:
Tomorrow isn’t fucked, because we haven’t tried tomorrow yet.
I’m in no way alone when I express that some days I wake up and immediately want to go back to sleep, because I just can’t. I can’t with people, I can’t with systems, I can’t exist in the world the way I want to.
But just like I can influence someone to feel better or think better, I get influenced, too. And the only way I can receive those life-changing ripples that turn into mighty, life-affirming waves is by grabbing my board, setting it in the water, and getting out there.
The Den 