Am I not alarmed? Do you share your alarm with your kids as they jump through the snow going to the bus stop? Do you bring it up when you finally get a quiet moment over coffee with your wife? Alarms are ringing all day long listening to NPR, reading the Times ( how dangerously incompetent Trump is proving to be) and Journal (great conservative thinkers welcome the second coming). Alarms going off between my earbuds listening to podcasts, watching Vice news, and talking to neighbors. David Remnick in the New Yorker tries to find a way in (http://www.newyorker.com/…/news…/preserve-protect-and-defend).
Mostly I just want to live my life in peace. I want to be healthy. I want to be loving. I want to dream. I want good things for everyone and am willing to work for freedom and equality and fairness. But what if things start to line up that scare the shit out of us? Do we tamp those thoughts, delete that darkness from our daily social feeds? I read Charles Blow in the Times not because I want to - but because I have to.
Alarms light the fuse, but I cannot live my life worried and depressed. I have to live my life in search of joy. It is how I am wired. The challenge is to be alarmed and moving forward at the same time, that is where we are right now. Despite how foolish this past election was, I still have to be political. I have to speak out and try even harder to listen really intently to understand how we are all still connected. I still have to care. We ARE all still connected. We also understand even more knowing how fragile everything we have is.
Everything is personal. The best stuff is local. VERY local. Like eye to eye, and heart to heart.