i have nothing & everything to say
literally from my notes app this week as i try to not wallow
there is no perpetual growth. there is no moral arc of the universe. we are not predestined to go anywhere. there is no guarantee that things get better. there is no linear path. there is no teleological story. history is never over.
there is no black and white. there are no heroes and there are no villains. there are only people, who are complicated and unknowable and often hurt and will often hurt others.
the interpersonal and the political do not exist separately. we do not exist separately from the systems and institutions and communities we grew up in. it is hard to see the water we swim in, but it is there.
identity does not directly translate into a specific ideology or politics. peoples’ lived experience is a valuable resource. no one person’s experience can universalize as the truth. not everything can be quantified. not everything should be quantified. there is no objective pure truth, no matter how much we want there to be. being emotional does not inherently make you wrong or irrational.
everything is complicated. multiple truths exist simultaneously and constantly and it’s hard to hold onto them and try to move forward. there is no defined “forward.” the center of our ideologies (yes everyone has some form of one, whether they explicitly acknowledge or develop it or not) should always be caring for other people. social problems should be tackled because people are worthy of love and life, not because they are interesting as thought experiments or only if the solutions are profitable.
“everything is complicated” is true but shouldn’t be used to dismiss, deny, undermine, or excuse.
being a person and making meaning out of all the wreckage and chaos and beauty is hard enough as is.
violence and punishment are very powerful impulses, calcified in our political and social systems. but it doesn’t have to be this way. nothing has to be this way. care is also a natural instinct. we can do better.
there is no figured out, there is only figuring out.
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some of what i’m saying is about the recent mass shootings, some of it is about other stuff. i believe everything above but i also recognize that it is vague, and every time someone says we need “to take action” and “do the work” i am desperate for them to tell me what they mean, step-by-step. i get it. “i’m just a random 24-year-old!” i want to scream.
i have to remind myself that it’s a lot of different things and people have different roles and that playing the long game means a long time before things come to fruition. i have to remind myself that anger is not sustainable and self-care is valuable, but also that turning inward and insulating myself from the struggle and the pain is ultimately somewhat selfish and self-defeating even when the short-term numbing is nice. a lot of the things above are obvious to know but extremely challenging to internalize. i have to read the words above and try to evaluate my own opinions and choices accordingly. i have to always know that i can do better, but that doesn’t mean today i am failing. we can be grateful and genuine and skeptical and demand better.
mariame kaba writes that hope is a discipline, that hope is a radical act. sometimes it feels both radical and like the only way. and i have to remind myself that this is not a solitary pursuit. don’t attack me if this is inaccurate bird information, but i like to think of us all as little magpies, seeing the little shiny things other people share with us and taking them back to our nests. i am made up of the little habits, idiosyncracies, phrases, thoughts, ideas, and other gifts that other people provide me. i am slow and small and so are you. but we are trying!
there is no figured out, there is only figuring out.
sorry the throughlines to this are missing a little bit. respond to this email and tell me about it. i will leave you with three pieces of media i’ve consumed to help me get through this week. hope it’s a shiny thing for some of y’all to pick up.
“Caring Is All We Seem Able To Do” by Tressie McMillan Cottom
“This is What Happens When You Live Under Minority Rule” by Anne Helen Petersen
“A Conversation With Ada Limón, in Six Poems” from the Ezra Klein Show
"the interpersonal and the political do not exist separately. we do not exist separately from the systems and institutions and communities we grew up in. it is hard to see the water we swim in, but it is there."
This is what I think of when people say they don't like politics, or urge us not to get political, etc. It doesn't help it's usually coming from someone who is white and largely insulated from a degree of politics that others must reckon with every moment of every day.
And for what it's worth, I have a magpie tattoo on my left shoulder.