Not a travelogue today

I've just sworn off Facebook for at least a couple of days till the election is over. One friend posted something today about not accepting Hillary Clinton as president, no matter how the election comes out. Another called her "Killary," and said she didn't want a woman as president, especially not a liar like her. Another posted an article from a very suspect source with all kinds of scary "information." And I know that people in favor of her are doing the very same kind of thing -- scare tactics, misinformation probably not created by them but believed by them without checking sources or looking at the motives of the organizations putting out the material they're reading.

I am discouraged about humanity, and that's saying a lot. I am one of those people who deeply believes that each and every one of us is simply doing the best he or she can with what we've been given, that is, our whole backstory: education, upbringing, income, extraneous circumstances ... all of it. And that backstory is what gives us our differing views of the world.

Some, who have worked very hard for everything they have, believe as part of community it is their duty (and for many, their pleasure) to share it with those less fortunate. Others, who have also worked very hard for what they have, believe that if they can do it, so can everyone else, and there is no reason for them to help anyone else. It is up to each person to pull himself up by his bootstraps and make it work. If they can't, well, that's the hand they've been dealt.

I can see both sides of this. I happen to be one of the former, in case you didn't already know that. I'm a trusting person. When I gave the young woman stranger a ride to Biloxi the other evening, I had two types of reactions from my Facebook community. One group commended me for my kindness. The other told me all the terrible things that might have happened to me. Obviously, I chose to help her. I was not hurt by this gesture. But even had I been, I would have looked for the lesson in it and gone on, still believing that we're all doing the best we can. When my bike was stolen in LA, I let it go. Someone needed it. I was okay.

I agree that there are self-serving people. Politics tends to draw them out because both power and money are involved. (Even though money isn't supposed to be a motivation, it is.) But running for office was intended to be a service, a way to help the people one represents, a way to serve one's constituents. And when the office is that of President, the constituents are all of us, who disagree about so many things and in so many ways.

But let's take a look at disagreement for a moment. Let's say I have a strong commitment to peace. So do you. But you believe that the way to maintain peace in our country is to have a strong deterrent force of nuclear arms. That doesn't make sense to me. I believe that the more we arm ourselves beyond a certain point, the more we draw to ourselves the very attack we fear. Can we find common ground in the world of government? I think so. But we have to try to put ourselves in the other person's shoes. We can't just call the other person stupid and completely dismiss all of her concerns and fears. If I imagine what it must be like to be afraid that strangers will attack our country, I can begin to understand why you want armaments to keep you safe. If you imagine that kindness and lack of fear might go far to mending relationships in the world so that we don't have to be afraid, you may begin to understand why I don't want us to spend a lot of money on armaments. We can come to some sort of compromise.

But you have to get to know me, and you have to want to understand where I'm coming from, and vice versa. If we let our fears convince us that there is only one way to see a given situation, we are stuck. We are at an impasse. And fear will raise hatred within us as we see others trying to erode the things that make us feel safe.

So many fears. Fear of the other, however they are "other". I listened to a speaker last week who, in the course of explaining his material, kept repeating: race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. But we can create us/them relationships in any situation. If you do not care to try to get to know the other as human, you are stuck. If I feel threatened by someone with a different worldview than mine, I have already put up a wall that will prevent me from understanding why that person faces the world the way she does.

Do I have a solution? My only solution is still what it was when I stopped working hours and hours a week for the Institute for Global Education, and at the same time stopped feeling as though I was single-handedly responsible for saving the world. Back then, and to this day, I acted from a place where my actions have ripples in the world. You've heard the expression: Be the Change you want to See in the World. That's it in a nutshell. If I want a saner, more loving world, I have to create it in my own little corner. Each of us touches many people in a day, a week, a year -- how many in a lifetime? And even if my lifetime up to this point hasn't amounted to much, it's not too late to start. I can still become someone who encourages and supports people, who takes care of herself and the environment, who brings light into her own world and others' rather than darkness. It's not too late.

And in light of the current political climate, whatever the outcome of Tuesday's election, we are going to need to take personal responsibility for everything we say and do, and seriously think about the world we are creating.