Into the maelstrom

Cover of the book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad. It has a red background and an image of child (likely a girl) facing away from us, holding flowers in their left hand, petals falling on the ground. Their right hand is raised up in the air, reaching towards a missile that’s coming straight down at them.

Y’all. This world is…something else. I am still moved to tears on a regular basis about what we (the US as well as other countries) are doing in the name of…what? Capitalism? I don’t understand, honestly, how people can continue to act as if nothing is happening. I am doing all the things I know how to do in terms of boycotting and avoiding companies. I am speaking up whenever and where ever I can. And yet I still feel…hopeless. And ridiculous as I try to make videos and write stories for children.

This week I read One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad. It’s a deeply personal look at the ongoing crisis in Gaza and the way we, as part of Western civilization are managing – whether we are complicit, witnessing or actively looking away. It was a tough read.

And yet, it’s not all dark. He writes about things people are doing, boycotting and walking away from jobs, students denouncing their universities and others refusing to participate with their dollars in other ways. He writes about the responses of those in power – their shock and dismissiveness. Here’s a quote:

“The idea that walking away is childish and unproductive is predicated on the inability to imagine anything but a walking away from, never a walking away toward—never that there might exist another destination. The walking away is not nihilism, it’s not cynicism, it’s not doing nothing—it’s a form of engagement more honest, more soul-affirming, than anything the system was ever prepared to offer.”

Even as I continue to participate in the ways I have been, I am going to shift my own language away from the things I’m resisting. From now on I want to focus on the things I’m turning towards, smaller businesses, local community and building stronger interpersonal networks. I’m turning towards the arts and whatever joy and understanding I can muster. What are the ideas you are turning towards in this maelstrom?

Image is of a lightning storm at night – it’s dark and cloudy and the lightning looks pink.