Working On A Quirky Graph

I’ve taken time away from social media, actually pretty much any media this last month. I’m sure I’m not the only one to step away from the deluge of horror story after horror story, but I’m beginning to feel slightly guilty. There are others out there fighting the good fight, railing against machines left and right, and I have been selfishly naval gazing, my focus drilled down to the house, the job and the ability to pay my bills for the next year or four.

I reached out to a friend I haven’t heard from in a while, to check in and gossip a bit, and somewhere in our conversation they spoke about precautions their family was taking in response to the anti immigration rhetoric rising through the states. Speaking to my stylist while they were washing the gray out of my hair, they were reminiscing about the 80s and how friends of theirs would be thrown in jail for kissing someone of the same sex, or even holding their hand, and that LGBTQ spaces were regularly raided. We both took a minute and weakly joked that we were too old to go out and hang with the younger crowds any longer. In the back of my mind, however, I keep wondering what rights we are getting ready to lose, what moral hits we are taking as a people while hate runs rampant through the government.

I saw a movie so very many years ago with James Stewart about pre world war 2 Germany and the effects the hateful politics had on a family with a country on the brink. I haven’t seen the movie in decades, but suddenly I can remember sitting on the couch in my parents house, just as confused as I am now about how people can take hate and twist it into something noble, uncomprehending how churches and heads of state either seemingly welcomed the devil or turned a blind eye to the repercussions of bending to evil.

And here I sit, wringing my hands for not doing enough and yet not certain how and what to risk without losing myself in the process. It seems I will need to wade back into the interwebs sooner than later to see what options I have to stand up for decency and still have a place to land.

A long while ago, a musician proclaimed that we didn’t start the fire. He wasn’t talking about my generation, he was referencing the Boomers. Perhaps, however, it is time we took some cues from the past to fight against an uncertain future.

Oh look. A lighter….