I started this blog in January 2020. More posts have been written in the midst of a global pandemic than not - a unique journey in social depravation and intense loneliness.
There's a defeat in the air. Our political structures and systems will fail us. Nature is louder, and Chaos topples over our feeble and aggrandizing order. I wonder if if we'll ever build systems with this Chaos in mind? I wonder what worlds we can build then.
I wonder if we’ll ever build systems with this Chaos in mind? I wonder what worlds we can build then.
There’s an apathy in the waters. Colonial and imperialist imprints are projected on the hearts of Black, Indigenous, and Brown people the world over. I’m driving about my city and billboards indicate that ‘Anti-Asian Racism is Not Acceptable’ on the one hand and then our government teaches that “acceptance can come less easily because newcomers bring new and unfamiliar faiths and practices” on the other. The hypocrisy is deadly.
I’m reorienting my world view because of this great intermission.
My father died to cancer.
Another whimsy of nature is how our bodies are structured – weaknesses and all.
There’s too much to process.
Maybe I’m naïve - maybe acts of hope need a small measure of silliness. But, I’m learning that the reorientation I’m asked to do is one of redirecting my internal posture. What this blog has ultimately detailed is a progression of spiritual vulnerability through an unparalleled time. My politics, my artistic creations, my writing, my advocacy, my relationships, my self-talk, my disposition can only be fulfilling if I make a dance out of the whiplashes of life. And damn, isn’t dancing alone in front of a crowd the most vulnerable idea. Silly even. So, if you’re reading this, maybe you want permission to bend toward this silliness. Maybe we can grant each other that permission.
My politics, my artistic creations, my writing, my advocacy, my relationships, my self-talk, my disposition can only be fulfilling if I make a dance out of the whiplashes of life.
I think what matters more than the politics is that we, fundamentally, cultivate a gentle restraint against cynicism.
That is the silly dancing.
It is as if we are holding the hands of our small child-selves and promising them a better tomorrow in our dance. Because it is in the act, in the ritual, of that promise that we ultimately reap a better tomorrow.
Singing slaves knew this. Matriarchs speaking languages thinned out to genocide know this. You know this because despite the subjugation of nature’s whimsy and the cruel politics of men, you read this tiny blog, yearning for a shared affirmation of hope. I know this because although I'm consumed by restless grief, I write this none the less.
Let's dance, for if we dissolve into the deception of cynicism, then we ensure its outcome. Tomorrow is unmade, it’s none of my business.
Tomorrow is unmade, it's none of my business.
Instead, we have an opportunity to submit to the contours of love, here and now. No, it doesn’t make things less shitty. It doesn’t bring back the dead and it doesn’t restore our vitality. But my anxieties, our anxieties, are uniquely universal and if the strong reach of history and stories tell us anything, it's that all things pass. And it turns out, they pass more gently in the soft hands of hope.
Naïve, naïve, naïve, I know.
But cynicism is not maturity – it is simply an act of faith in the opposite direction. So, if you don’t know tomorrow, and I don’t know tomorrow, then we’re all just placing our faith in something.
I feel like I'm repeating myself in this blog. Maybe that's the point of ritual.
I'll put my faith in silly, stupid, vulnerable, naked, tear-soaked dancing.
