Not Surprised

I am not surprised. That is why I am not as upset as so many of my fellow Americans.

I am not surprised.
I am not surprised.
I am not surprised.

I am sad, I am broken-hearted, but no, this is not on any level surprising to me. 

So I will not spend much time on sadness, anger or fear. I cannot. It would be dishonest. 

What I will spend my time doing is figuring out what I can do better. How I can be of more help. How I can stand up for more of the people who need it, reach out to the people who feel marginalized, and stand up to the people who are manipulating the American people into voting against their own best interest.

Because that is what has happened. We have been lied to, and the lies, though they are different, come from the same source and for the same reason. To divide us. And I am turning that shit OFF. I am no longer interested in what the politicians and the news anchors have to say about people all over the world, including the ones in my backyard. They have fed us lies to divide us, and it has worked. We are officially divided.

And that is why I am not spending any time wallowing. Because I have too much to do. I am not giving my government the benefit of the doubt. They have abused my trust for far too long and I have been a fool to believe it. My taxes go to subsidize corporations which (I mean who, they are people now) do not pay their taxes and to pay for wars which will end up killing innocent people all over the world. All the while I am being told to fear them. And really, I should; my government has been oppressing, killing and exploiting these people for generations.

I am going to be vigilant, tenacious, unyielding. Because though it pains me to admit it, the US Government is not by the people, for the people, and it hasn't been for a very long time. This election is just another in a series of embarrassing events that I am responsible for in some way because I have been sitting by and watching. I have also been funding this entity of destruction, and that is going to end here. The government uses my tax dollars to do awful, horrifying things. I subsidize horror. This government will no longer get my money because the people in charge are doing everything they can to destroy the planet and its people in the name of profit. I am committing to non-participation until this ends. I am done. 

But that alone is not enough. Because the other part of this, the whole reason this has come to pass, is that we are losing the ability to relate to each other. Instead of reaching out to people who we fear are too different from us, we are recoiling. Instead of asking people questions about why they are voting for candidates who espouse values which are violent, hateful and threatening to people all over the world, we are judging them, just as they are judging us for what we vote for. We are allowing the same machine that tells us to doubt ourselves, to convince us that we must fear and hate people who are not like us. IT IS THE SAME MACHINE.

I try and convey this as often as possible; the machine wants you to doubt yourself. You are more profitable when you do so. The machine also wants you to doubt and fear other people for the very same fucking reason. YOU ARE MORE PROFITABLE. The machine I speak of is the system which depends upon you to believe that you need more to be happy. This is the machine that feeds you the bullshit that you are not enough. 

I could go on, but I am trying to save time here. We need to understand that we are being manipulated into hating each other for profit, and it is up to us to put a stop to it. The only way to beat the machine is to starve the machine.
Because the reality is that we are all being fed the same shit, and we must now soundly reject it and engage in society. Turn off the TV, get off your couch, and get out into the world. Prove the machine wrong. 

There are many people looking into how to escape from America, many people who claim to be disappointed in the American people. I am not, and I will not. I will not leave this country because I love it, and because I love it, I vow to make it better. I vow to make it better by being better. I am no more disappointed in the American people than I am in myself when I do shitty things, and believe me, I do shitty things. But I am not giving up on myself, and I am not giving up on them. If I do, I have lost. We have lost. 

I am not excusing hateful behavior. I am not excusing violence, nor am I trying to rationalize what is happening. I am saying we have the power to put a stop to this bullshit, and it is time we do. And we do this by talking to people who are not like us. We do this by reaching out and giving people the benefit of the doubt. We do this by being vigilant when we are afraid, to rise above those fears and speak to the strange foreign people anyway. 

I am hoping that this is the thing that will finally inspire us to behave in a more American manner, and by that, I mean inclusive, compassionate, and loving. I fear that it this point, American is synonymous with a whole other set of adjectives, whether we know it or not.

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I am going to be writing more posts for a while. They will be shorter but all will be on the topic of self-love and how to love what you might not understand. So tell me what you think. I am listening. OH....and share if you are so inclined.