Dilemmas
Starting up this blog is an experiment. Not because I’m new to blogging (I’m not), but because I’m new to blogging with this focus.
I want to avoid politics in this site. I have very strong, well developed, well studied, and at other times and places in my life, well articulated political opinions. The overlap of culture and politics in the US is vast, and I’m trying to navigate that here with the following in mind:
There is no shortage of political content, opinion, and misinformation online.
Without denying the awful things happening all around us all over the world, I want to try to explore and create a space that, without gaslighting anyone or denying the tragic realities, nevertheless creates and lives in the space where human growth and connection thrive.
That feels like an area where I can maybe offer a relatively unique perspective that is not as widely amplified in our current culture and information environment.. Or so I (foolishly?) hope.
Here are the problems with that approach, or at least, the main ones I’m feeling:
Free speech is under attack and I do feel, preemptively, at risk in speaking openly and directly about some topics. I hate bullshit. I am known, where I am known, to be a direct talker. I’m affable, and yet at the same time, I’m blunt. Since I’m pretty quick witted and colorful in how I talk, with unexpected metaphors and humor, I get away with being direct or even blunt without offending people. Plus, people know me as empathetic and caring. No one thinks I’m cruel. But I do hope to travel the world more during the coming years, and I don’t want to deal with hassles or persecution at any borders because of something I said online.
Writing about positive or beautiful things in life can come across to some like gaslighting, or being clueless in the face of everything else that is happening. Or worse, it can come across as cowardice when it means avoiding naming atrocities and bad actors out loud and directly. What good is speaking truth, or my best, most honest assessment of it, without also speaking truth to power? Isn’t empathy hollow when it means silence in the face of cruelty, exploitation, or genocide?
I’m struggling with all these things as I think about what to write about. I want to explore art, creativity, community, human growth and wellbeing here. I believe that the way to overcome violence and cruelty lies in building community and promoting human growth and interrelatedness., attunement to oneself and to others. But if that all comes across as evasion and pabulum, what good is that? Fires don’t put themselves out, and watching silently as they spread tacitly supports the destruction.
These are my dilemmas. I’m just trying to figure it out.