the obituary of innocence says do not comply

This was going to be a handwritten entry in my journal, but I think it will cause more beneficial ripples if I put it here. The blogging format will unavoidably alter what I say and how I say it, but that might not be a bad thing. Maybe I’ll know for sure 20 years from now.

Today I woke up to the worst political news I could’ve received to start the day: the predicted win of the presidential election by Donald Trump.

Again.

I say “again,” and yet, this feels worse than when it happened in 2016. Back then, in the Before Times, plenty of us predicted that he was a fascist at heart*, but there wasn’t obvious enough evidence to convict him in the court of opinion.

Since then, he has been convicted in actual courts of law: 34 felony counts and a liability for “sexual abuse” which only avoided being called “rape” because of how New York law defines the word. Furthermore, there is evidence that he has lied or made misleading statements 30,573 times — and that was just during his presidency. An average of nearly 21 lies or misleading statements to the world per day over the course of 4 years. He has also promised “to be a dictator” — and sure, he said “on Day One” of his second presidency, but if you believe he’ll stop on Day Two or Day Ten or Day 1,461…then, at best, I can only describe you as “naive.”

Trump has shown the world over and over again who he is: a philandering control-freak criminal who hates anyone who isn’t male, hates anyone who isn’t wealthy, hates anyone who isn’t white, hates anyone who isn’t hateful and bigoted. Until this morning, I had assumed that the people who either celebrated him or at least held their noses and voted for him simply didn’t believe him every time he has proudly shown us all exactly who he is: a creature of fear, hatred, greed, and violence.

Now, several hours into knowing that over half the country vote for him, I realize my own naiveté.

Reality is that over half the country is either far more desperately ignorant than I ever realized…or they like him for exactly who he is because he is exactly who they are, too.

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THE LAST SHREDS OF COURTNEY’S INNOCENCE ARE DEAD IN OKLAHOMA
Formerly Youthful Optimism Succumbs During Rescue Attempt
Resistance to Anarcho-Socialism in Doubt
RELIGIOUS FRIENDS AND FAMILY ORDER FLAGS AT HALF-STAFF

OKLAHOMA CITY, Ok., Nov. 6—Courtney’s Innocence, that which allowed her to continue thinking the best of her fellow US-Americans and giving the majority of them the benefit of the doubt, died late yesterday during a major attempt undertaken to rescue the nation from a massive fascistic influence.

The exact age of Courtney’s Innocence is unknown, as it had been shredded to near-unrecognizability during previous such rescue attempts and has been difficult to locate over the past half-decade. One fundamentalist acquaintance quipped, “I thought that old thing had kicked the bucket years ago.”

Reaction from concerned family and friends has been uniformly aghast. Known as the source of Courtney’s alter-ego, Eternal Optimist Woman, Courtney’s Innocence had been beloved by those who once knew her best. “We just can’t believe it,” said one religion-affiliated group. “Her Innocence always seemed so vibrant, so full of life. How could she just let it die like that?”

Others who knew Innocence less well simply shrugged. “We’re always sorry to hear somebody is dead. It’s a damn shame.”

A private memorial service lasting an indefinite period of time will be held in Courtney’s Heart in all locations.

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For what feels like the hundredth time over the past thirty years, I hereby share this beautiful quote from sci-fi author Spider Robinson:

Shared pain is lessened; share joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy.

It’s known as “The Law of Conservation of Pain and Joy” or “Callahan’s Law” (named after a main character in Robinson’s stories). This morning on the way to school, I shared it with my devastated, furious, empathetic, highly sensitive twelve-year-old daughter, who said, “Mama, I’m scared of him. I’m scared of Trump.”

Would that her dad and I could be raising her in an era where none of this were happening. (“But that is not for us to decide….”)

I told my frightened, creative, intelligent child that our task now is to be gentle with ourselves (or our Selves, if you prefer); to practice relentless kindness toward others; to lessen pain by speaking it aloud; and to increase joy by sharing it with each other without fail. I told her that we must not fear (for “fear is the mind-killer”), and we must not hate — because if we hate and fear and despair…if we lessen joy and increase pain…we are giving him and his ilk exactly what they want.

And we must not give them what they want. We must not submit. We must not comply.

We must rebel. And at its core, rebellion against such as Trump looks like fierce, uncompromising kindness, joy, and love.

This kindness and love manifests in many ways.

At all the times, kindness and love mean helping the helpless, caring for the poor and oppressed, doing whatever is needed for the less fortunate in order to preserve health, sanity, and safety.

Sometimes, kindness and love means punching Nazis. Because punching Nazis is the only thing that protects the most vulnerable from Nazis. And protecting the vulnerable always takes priority over placating the Nazis with compromise. You can’t create a safe space for Nazis, because a safe space for Nazis means a deadly space for everyone else. Do not comply, and do not compromise.

Now. Here’s where things are gonna get a little dicey. I’m going to try to explain why I believe this is happening.

Somewhere deep inside of us, every single one of us knows — and I mean KNOWS — that there is something wrong with the world. Something is missing. In the fabric of the universe itself, there is a gap. A tear. A rip. A void. Call it an abyss or a not-at-oneness or a lack, it’s there.

And it has always, always been there. It’s nothing new. The Industrial Revolution didn’t cause it. Modernism and post-modernism didn’t cause it. Slavery, genocide, hatred, oppression, misogyny, misandry, bigotry, none of those caused it.

It is part of the innate composition of all that has ever existed, all that exists now, and all that will ever exist.

And as a species, we humans are terrified of it.

Entire books and series of books already exist that discuss this; indeed, before the end of the year, I myself am hoping to publish a tome that addresses some of it from a layfolk perspective. So I won’t recap it all here. (If you’d like some already-published reading recs, let me know.) But what’s most pertinent for me this afternoon in this blog post in my dusty, forgotten corner of the internet is the fact that all of these people who voted for Trump…especially all of the people who like Trump because they are like Trump…they are all living in utter (sometimes completely unconscious) terror.

They fear the lack gap rip void abyss so fundamentally, they will do everything they can think of to fill it. And when a fascist-dictator-to-be promises them “I can fix it,” they latch onto him like sinners to a savior.

And that’s it. In a rotten, crumbling nutshell, that’s it.

Except that’s not it.

(And here’s the dicey part that nobody’s going to like.)

Remember when I said that as a species we’re terrified of the lack?

We who voted for Kamala Harris are part of the species.

We who voted for Harris are terrified of the lack, too.

We who voted for Harris were also hoping that she’d “fix it.” Oh, maybe we acknowledged flaws in her platform and her policies, sure. Maybe we held our noses and voted for her. Maybe we knew for sure that she and the Democratic Party are actually conservative, nowhere near as left as would benefit the most vulnerable among us.

But still, we voted for her because we believed she was the better choice. We voted for her because we thought she was the only viable choice. We voted for her because we believed that her minimum of four years in office would bring about positive change.

And it was all our own way of trying to close the gap, heal the rift, mend the rip, fill the lack. At least a little.

We might not feel or be anything that Trump feels or is, not anything that his staunchest supporters feel or are. But we do feel the Lack, we do feel the fear of it, and we do latch on to what we think will save us.

In that way, We are just like Them.

So what do we do?

Kindness. Joy. Compassion. Empathy. Love. These must rule the day, or we comply with entropy and irretrievably decay. If we embrace the Reality:

• that Lack is part of the fabric of the universe
• that Lack is innate to our world
• that our lives and our very selves are characterized by Something Is Missing
• and that nothing we do or accomplish can ever fill that gap (and yes, “this “nothing” includes greed, gurus, and gods),

then, perhaps, we can grow into a species that fears in a healthy way instead of being ruled by it. Perhaps we can come to see that in effect, we truly are all the same — and we can grow into a species that knows something of how to love.

Be gentle with yourselves and others, my dears. Mourn what you need to, for however long you need to…but don’t stay away too long. We need you.