community or how i rationalize the events of today

So tonight I drove down the highway of lost villages (which I recently found out is the name of 122 in my part of Central MA), every once in a while glancing up at the grin of the moon... and found myself trying to resolve the very real, in my face, joy of coming back from a local author’s book launch and the surreal, but frustratingly futilizing news of today’s Supreme Court decision.

I rather enjoy the calmer attitude that has settled into my psyche of late.  Not that I am not incensed by racism, the oblivion of privilege, and the ignorance of cable news angst… but I am learning to speak my frustration with less hysteria.  Or at least trying.  And then of course, news breaks today that campaign finance reform is pretty much dead and the oligarchy of theory is pretty much confirmed.  And the anger comes with my sense of powerlessness… but also the hasty reactions and condemnations and… very little determination of action.  My blood pressure rose and the itch to post a snarky, irreverent comment on Facebook had to be tempered.

So let’s write a blog instead.

Today does beg the question… how can we possibly act?  With no money?  Or apparently now, power?  Those with money have the power and the rest of us can’t stop how they ruin our lives and take away our freedom… which apparently runs the gamut from guns to abortion to the ability to help the poor or choose to spend money on junk food.  Whatever it is, we don’t have it and are helpless to make our lives good.

But is that true?  I ask myself that after going to a book event tonight at my workplace… a museum of art… where I collided with co-workers and fellow Worcester writers and an author who crafted a compelling story of life in a town across the river from Liverpool.  I was riveted to his description of World Wars and depressions and labor riots and epidemics.  But, yeah, this guy published a book and …That. Is. Joy.

It came after an hour of my own creativity… forcing myself out of the death swamp of writer’s apathy.  So not only did I have the high of triumph… but the shared high of another writer’s accomplishment.  I encounter this all the time with the WWC.  Even if I see them once or twice a year… even if they voted for Scott Brown… I feel that connection.  I see their humanity.  And I know the world, my little world in which I live, is full of good people.

But I could come home and go back to the internet – I don’t have cable, so that isn’t an option – and feel bad about people.  People I don’t see or know or with whom I lack any connection.  Because all I hear is how they have a poor work ethic or lack of morals or have been brainwashed or want to steal that freedom… because, of course, they aren’t me and look different or like squirrels or guns or something that I find disgusting.  Why bother to look for that connection?  The blue screen will tell me what is.  The blue screen will always be there.  It won’t be silent when I need noise.  It won’t ignore me when I’m lonely.  The blue screen will tell me what I want to hear.  And if I don’t want to hear it, it lets me block whatever is hard to reconcile with my perception from that blue screen.

Convenient.

Not connection.

I have a hard fast rule at my supper clubs about gossip.  I don’t like people talking smack about people who aren’t present.  Or, for that matter, present.  But at least presence offers the chance for a defense ploy.  An answer to dissolve the hasty judgment.  A three dimensional reality to show that the one polarizing difference is actually not the defining element of a person’s identity.  What is three dimensional about Facebook or cell phones or any communicating through a blue screen?  How do you connect with someone and understand their humanity, their hurt, their desire to be a good person if all you know of them is through the narrow vision of the internet?  How is that better than gossip?

I’m going to tell you something.  I like people better when I talk to them, when I listen, when they listen and hear with respect in return.  And then… then I feel good about my community.  Even the tedious hours spent going line by line through a town budget.  I see the humanity… and all that political hysteria to which I get myself worked up… meh.

So here’s a thought, world.  We can’t compete with the Kochs and the Waltons (though I do urge you to boycott Georgia Pacific, Dixie, and Walmart).  But we can shut off the media they buy.  We can turn to our neighbor.  We can look at them, see what gives them joy, what breaks their heart.  We can relearn how to listen and see people for people.  Not a sound bite that wins a vote.  

We can all go outside and look up at the moon tonight and see it smiling at us.