Strong back, soft front.
Am I doing enough?
Am I enough?

Once again I find myself alarmed and agitated, wondering how we got here. One week in and it feels exponentially worse than last time. Some would argue that all politicians are equally nefarious and selfish, equally devoid of character. I suppose that is possible, but I just don’t think so. Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush, and Barack Obama stand out to me as role models, men of character and integrity. Not so the person in office now.

Executive acts this past week have served what I believe to be their intended purpose, stoking unrest and outrage, churning anxiety, division, alienation, and escalating susceptibility to fear and rage-based behavior, inclulding violence. I believe some of the most sweeping acts will be successfully challenged and modified, if not stalled, but at what cost to the system? What of the workers who suddenly lost their jobs? What of the scientific and medical researchers whose funding may not exist anymore, and the patients whose very survival or mortality may hang on that funding? And all while real and present problems loom at impasse after impasse because our elected officials refuse to negotiate like mature, reasonable adults? How did we get here? How did we choose these people to ‘lead’ us? End rant.

How will our daily lives feel the impact of this administration? I wonder how racism, misogyny, and dehumanization will cascade again en masse from the precedents that this POTUS sets? He validates, encourages, and exemplifies the most derisive of human behavior and relationship.
How did we get here?

Once again I find myself asking, “What can I do, I’m just one person?” Somehow this week, treating people all along the political spectrum with respect, asking open and honest questions, holding the benefit of the doubt, resisting outrage in favor of calm and curious exploration of diverse perspectives, and withholding judgment just don’t feel like enough. And yet there is so much to advocate for, so much to resist, so much happening every day, it’s overwhelming. Where would I even start? And I think that’s the point, right? Submission by way of learned helplessness.

I had the good fortune of two incredibly insightful and enlightening conversations this weekend. I was invited to articulate my Why, my purpose, and explore my Whats. I talk to people. I write. My favorite and most effective forum is one on one, and I also do well speaking to large, live, interactive audiences. I am an integrator of ideas, an innate mediator, a ‘boundary spanner.’ Normally that feels exceptional and more than enough, I realize as I write this. But today it feels small, inconsequential, puny.
But maybe that is not the sensation to heed.

Connection across difference is exactly what we need right now, all of us, elected leaders and all. We have lost this capacity and skill at a collective level, it seems. So if I can retain it, then it’s actually a big deal. If I can exemplify and amplify it, be the connection and do it every chance I get (which is any given human encounter), then I am making a difference. Me, one of seven billion.

What if I could modify, even a little, the mindset and behavior of just two people in their encounters with people who disagree? And each of them two more? What if each of my Braver Angels friends could do the same? What if even a fraction of Mónica Guzmán‘s readers also had this impact? That’s exponential growth–a movement–of connection across difference.

Ok I feel better now. DIY pep talk via blogging! I can keep doing what I’m doing. Talking, writing, Healing Through Connection is my domain, literally and figuratively. Abortion, equity work, gender policy, healthcare, and intellectual freedom are all issues I care deeply about. I can find ways to support initiatives and leaders in those spaces ad hoc. But my own work, my personal activism, lies principally in person to person relationship, which applies in all other domains more than most people realize. I can raise that awareness and help folks acquire and hone those intra- and interpersonal skills that may, one day, steer us toward electing legislators who also practice successfully. Meanwhile, we could heal friendships and family ties wounded by political divergence. How hopeful.

So, dear reader, what is your brand of personal activism?