Neighbor, I’ve been brought low today. Can’t say what brought it on, specifically, besieged as we are by moral injury upon moral injury. But I fell into the well— almost as if I were moving through the world like a phantasm: there to witness the horrors and unable to stop it with the not unsubstantial force of my middle-aged body.
This era of move fast and break s**t is a very clever way to mask an uncivil war upon one’s neighbors— refusing both decency and the a basic acknowledgement that all human beings are deserving of dignity and a commitment to do no harm.
These men move fast not because they are confident but because they are scared.
They want you and I to feel as if power rushes past us, and we are never fast enough to latch on and slow it all down. They want you overwhelmed so you think their race into wreckage is a form of power when, in truth, they run fast to flee their obvious illegitimacy.
If you listen to their version of the story, the damage is already done. They have all the power. They are unstoppable and untoppable.
I beg to f*****g differ.
Know this: these men are telling us a specific story of power, and their reign depends on us believing in that story. As a powerful ally reminded me today: power needs collective belief to remain powerful. And thus the brutality comes in to inspire fear— which says “pay attention.” Indeed, I recall the weak man once say to a reporter that he wanted “his people” to snap to attention just like Kim Jung Un’s people. But that’s the funny thing about emotion— a weak man cannot harness it. We do.
Our fear may indeed tell us to pay attention, but it doesn’t tell us what to notice— it doesn’t force what we make of our observations. And what we notice, if we actually pay attention, is that this man is not powerful.
Power doesn’t require force, because it is backed up with a collective belief in power.
This is a weak man who has stepped way the hell out of his lane, and he’s trying to scare us and con us into remaining in power. These are a band of criminals, weak and weasely men, who have forgotten themselves.
Do remember that every lie is a confession: the weak man requires your belief to become a strong man— and we do not believe in him, and neither do many of the individuals who claim to have voted for him.
They need us to believe that their story of power is the only story that exists. They need you to forget yourselves, to forget your power.
I have been asked to remind you who you are— and who we are, together.
So if you’ve been brought low, may our elders’ story find you and take root.
Be a good neighbor and pass the message on.
