The Everlasting Tides of Life

When you think about it, life is a lot like the rhythm of the ocean.  We don’t want to believe so, as conscious and cognitive beings, but it is the truth.  Life has its ups and downs, like the tides.  When are at its highest, we’re riding the waves and gliding with ease, like we were born to succeed at whatever task we were currently working on.  It doesn’t matter how big the wave is, because it feels wonderful either way when we crush it and don’t feel any resistance.

But when life gets us down, when we’re caught in the middle of a treacherous current and the undertow is threatening to pull is down under the waves as we struggle for the surface, what then?  Where do we go from there?

It’s been a while since I have written any sort of blog post, but I have had this on my mind.  Quite a bit in the last five months, as the world attempted to manage their way through this pandemic, while some tragically failed (*cough* United States).  It goes without saying that this should be a wake up call, for everyone.

The planet is suffering, if that wasn’t clear by things like this year’s forecast for hurricanes or the record level temperatures that places around the world are seeing.  Or even worse, the continuing state of the melting ice caps.  Global warming isn’t a hoax, for those of you who still want to reject science.  The logic behind that is the same person who tries to tell me that 1+1 somehow equals 3 because of some metaphorical reason for the equation not being exact.  Keep trying that logic and watch what your children or grandchildren inherit when they enter this beautiful but dying world because you were so caught up on being right, you failed to actually attempt to solve the problem.

Then there’s the bipartisanship on everything happening in the United States.  It’s unavoidable to listen to people complain about “them dems” or “those republicans” because it is happening nearly everywhere in the United States.  While other nations came together to fight an invisible virus, the US decided to do what it has learned to do: play the blame game and point fingers, because that really solves everything.  Honestly, did we not forget that those “damn dems” or “that republican” happens to be the very same neighbor who brought us over cherry pie when we lost our dog, or helped us by letting us borrow their mower when our battery failed on ours?  It is not about the political party of thy neighbor, but the genetic make up.  At the end of the day, we are all one group: HUMAN.

The one underlying word that keeps replaying in my head as I have grappled with the state of the world, especially my home country, is this: COMPASSION.  Where have we lost it, my friends?  Where has our compassion for our fellow man, animal, etc gone?  Have we lost all sense of right and wrong in the midst of this?  We get so caught up in how we can’t get haircuts, but fail to realize that chopping our own hair or getting the signature quarantine buzz works just fine, because at the end of the day, does your style of haircut really decide whether or not your body is still functioning at normal capacity?  We get so lost up in debates like who will lead our country better when we realize there’s really no leader at all right now.  Every state is kind of just flying by the seat of their pants.  I mean, come on: one of the state governor’s literally used a connection he had via his wife to South Korea to get supplies for his state because President Trump was not allocating any resources that they needed.  Let that sink in.  Because regardless of how you feel about the President, that speaks VOLUMES.

And then there’s the wake up call for many that our race relations in the US are actually terrible, and have been for all of our history.  To be quite honest, they have always been terrible for people of color and immigrants, and our current President hasn’t made that any easier.  If anything, he has reversed what previous administrations worked so hard to accomplish to push the United States forward.  In a world where a counterfeit bill call prompts officers to keep their knee placed on a black man long enough to kill him, can you blame people of color and minorities for being so worried for their lives?  I can never say I understand how it feels, but I can say this: it is unacceptable and as a person who has experienced privilege all my life for reasons I cannot control, using my voice (as well as every other person who experiences privilege out there can do) is the best weapon we have to vocalize the struggles that others are facing, so that change actually happens.  Black lives matter, always have and always will, and until they do, arguments like “all lives matter” are irrelevant and not helpful in the least.

The world we live in is going through a revolution, of many sorts.  My words are spoken with passion which can be construed for anger, because part of me is angered by how much we have to grow.  However, the anger for all the changes that our society needs to undergo catalyzes hope within me.  If we, as a planet, come together and recognize the areas where we need to be better and we take actions towards bettering our world, then the future is not dim, dark, and depressing to imagine.  We don’t have to live in the world many scientists and historians are predicting for us.  We really don’t, and the moment we realize we control our future, the moment we actually can take intentional actions that make a difference.

People often think that their small actions as individuals don’t do much for the world, but there’s a saying that I often have to remind myself of too:

“We can choose to be affected by the world or we can choose to affect the world.”

We have a choice–every single day–on how we act, how we perceive our realities, and how we choose to make a difference, if we decide to at all.  We can choose compassion, or we can choose to build walls around ourselves and isolate.  So, what will you choose?