I've not posted in a really long time because I've been intensely busy with everything going on in the world.
I've done a couple interviews, launched a city peer mental health "hotline," am helping to co-create a new social enterprise, and have more similar in the works. I've also started dating someone, which takes up what little time is left over after all the productivity.
I did want to check-in though to let everyone know I'm fine. No protest or COVID19 related woes in my personal life. I do have friends in various levels of involvement with both (protesting and/or doctors/nurses) but thankfully no one I know has lost their life to killer cops or other viruses.
Processing A World in Turmoil
There's been a lot to emotionally process lately. It seems our entire civilization is on fire. I'm ready for phoenix rising time, but we can't jump ahead to that, can we? We are the ones who have to do the work of bridging the worlds as we help create the new one.
Our own healing process is a part of that. Until we let ourselves feel the pain, sadness, rage, disappointment, and pure weariness evoked when facing the horror of the status quo, we aren't emotionally strong enough to face the work of changing it.
There's a lot of pain in the way our society has brutalized and dehumanized us all. More so for blacks in America because we were brought here as slaves and the country has never wanted to share its bounty with us. If we can't be exploited outright by those in power, it has always wanted us dead. But that way of relating to all those who aren't wealthy has been growing more and more with each passing year. As the saying goes, "We're all niggers now."
Yet it is still much more dangerous to be black in America than to simply be a poor person of any other race, save Native American. (They actually get the worst of it, though little publicized.)
I'm torn between the desire to move someplace else and just wash my hands of this hateful, objectifying, exploitative place versus staying and fighting for what it might be.
Can America actually live up to its own hype?
Am I meant to be a part of that happening?
Well the global pandemic and all the lockdowns in different countries have forced me to stay for at least this stage of the struggle to define who we will functionally be, not just in rhetoric. Once they lift, I'll have to decide then whether this place is worth fighting for. Maybe, fuck 'em because they don't deserve me. Maybe focus on those I can benefit regardless of all else. We'll see which I go with.
I'm glad that my new boyfriend is also global. He has a university teaching position that allows him to live pretty much anywhere with a good internet connection, and also has a non-profit he founded and runs that's in Africa. It's in a country that was not on my list of possible service project locations, but it still makes it more likely we can make our relationship work even if I decide to leave the US.
Day by day, I'm just dealing with processing all the emotions swirling that day, and trying to be of use where I can. Maybe I can buy a poor parent some groceries or send gas money to someone stranded with no cash. (Thank god for Cash app.) Maybe I can have a conversation with someone who needs some encouragement. Maybe I can take my mother for a walk to get her out of the house. Maybe I can inspire someone with an interview that also challenges them to be better, which is always the intention of their spirit.
Through all the tears, dancing, checking current events, and sleeping until noon, I keep coming back to the center of my being who knows that all truly is well.
We are above all of this, and yet deeply embodied in it.
We are this, and so much more.
Grieve that, weave that, and allow yourself to be with that.
I think this really does turn out all right.
(All text and images (except the AT logo) are by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for HIVE.)
This and this and this. I feel like keeping our own shit together and holding a place for others is one of the most positive and productive things we can do right now.
You can do that from anywhere. You don’t need to feel guilty about not being in the think of it, it’s all about where you can generate the most energy and then using that energy in ways that feel right to you.
I do wish I could connect more to black and native communities in my home country right now but Being in Japan and not feeling a strong enough pull to anywhere else and not actually being able to leave means there is something for me to do here and learning to channel my energy and then practicing that to higher and higher degrees of “oh yeah!” Seems to be it!
It does get a little frustrating feeling that so much is happening non twitter and Facebook and wanting to connect with all the people I know on those platforms but having the algorithms work against me but that just pushes me to focus more on working with what’s in front of me, hive, Japanese students who want to know what’s going on in the rest of the world and who want to learn to express themselves better, and my own health and creativity which I’ve never given the full respect it deserves.
Congratulations on finding someone! And if you end up in Africa that’s actually the next place on my list, I feel a strong desire to connect with the new wave creativity that seems to have started coming out of Africa recently and creating an equal relationship rather than that rotten old colonial one the west has had with the people of the continent. I have to admit it’s a bit intimidating but the friends I make here make it a much stronger pull.
Which countries?
So nice to hear from you, brother. And yes, doing the work of education right where you are is a huge thing. This is really a global issue, since the race issues in America really are a manifestation of the capitalist extraction and dehumanization system afflicting the entire world the last few hundreds years.
In Africa I've been drawn to Rwanda, Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania, but my new beau's NPO is in Sierra Leone. So time will tell. Right now no one can really go anywhere with the pandemic, so no rush to decide. I would love to meet you in 3D one of these days, perhaps in Africa. Love you.
So far Ethiopia Uganda South Africa and Nigeria are calling me, the first because the food and culture, the second for IRL friends and music, the third for a growing arts scene and the fourth because of Hive and all the friends I’ve made, but if I go to Africa I’ll definitely go wherever you are if I can!
since the race issues in America really are a manifestation of the capitalist extraction and dehumanization
You are aware that most slave purchases were off the black indigenous people OF Africa?
An inconvenient truth, but truth non the less.
I'll add this here.
Change starts with truth.
I see precious little of it coming form the Soros employees,(blm and antifa) - just low IQ, reactionary, nothingness.
Thanks for reminding me that Hive is where all the smart people are.
LOL! At least we're real people over here, not bots and spammers run rampant.
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