If you follow me on social media, you know it’s been a rough few days.
My post was borne of exhaustion, frustration, rage… but most of all, despair. I’ve been pushing to make The Night Light a space for hopefulness in a world that sometimes can feel beyond saving, and it’s not working as well or as fast as I need it to. Not to keep it sustainable, to pay my bills so I can persevere. So many of the posts that were most popular were about the political fights and cultural shouting matches of the day: brought with my perspective and tone, granted, but not really breaking the kind of ground I came here to break.
It’s all so damn depressing. And this week, it caught up with me.
In a way, it’s fortunate that I took this time off from the live stream: my heart and my spirit needed to stop running in top gear long enough to see the damage it was doing. Now I have a much clearer sense of what’s wrong, and of what to do about it.
This episode was spontaneous, mainly because my mind was so frazzled I couldn’t clear it enough to write my feelings out. I tend to be sharper extemporaneously anyway, and it felt like a truer expression of my rough feelings than a carefully manicured essay. I welcome your thoughts on what I shared; it’ll help me figure out what this program means to you, and what it should become. I think we have an amazing opportunity to do good for so many people who’ve understandably checked out. But now is the time. Our window for making a difference is closing fast.
Despair doesn’t have to have the last word. But what should we say?
FROM MY HEART: Democracy In Despair