Turning to Face Them

I was just thinking back on something I talked about the other night, about the concept of change, and how we all change.

I just want to mention that not all change happens slowly, sometimes it’s very fast. There are times where a new idea completes a puzzle that someone has been putting together their entire life, and the resulting reflection it gives helps them take several steps, or a giant leap, where before they were practically crawling.

On the outside, it looks rash, even extreme, but it isn’t. I was a Christian fundamentalist 21 years ago. Where I am now took every single one of those 21 years and then some. That’s why I find it amusing, in a sense, when people tell me I’m always someone different, when it just isn’t so. I mean, if all you look at is the surface, then yeah, how I present myself does change from time to time, but then when did it become bad to show off different aspects of one’s personality?

I believe that one is the comment that always draws the most interest from me, because it’s outright wrong.

Humans aren’t like the alien species in Star Trek, we don’t all have just one distinguishing trait that everyone knows, we’re multi-faceted creatures, we show different faces depending upon the context. It doesn’t mean we’re hiding who we are, or lying about what we believe, just that the need to call up another side of ourselves hasn’t happened yet.

I do lose faith in people from time to time, when I speak on something I believe is very important, and I get responses that are dismissive because I’m always talking about them, as if empathy is something that can be put in a box and shelved until convenient.

I forever cope with the knowledge that no matter what I do, there will always be someone second guessing my motives, dismissing my concerns in bad faith, or just assuming I’m some kind of extremist because I have no stomach for people being exploited and ignored.

I had to unlearn so many things, and there are so many things I still have to unlearn, but the root of who I am, what drives me, gives me purpose, what keeps me from leaving this planet in frustration, remains the same.

Many of us are drowning, and the people who can sit on their boats and tell me it’s not at all as bad as I say it is, they have more privilege, and what’s sad is that my privilege is still greater than some, because they have already gone under and have given up hope.

I don’t know if turning people around in the U.S. is going to happen. We’re spreading our infection all around the world, buying up souls and putting them to work to placate a handful of powerful people who insist it’s for our own good that the system works out the way it does. People who will never go a day without food, or shelter, or even insulin.

Y’all are going to get mad at me sometimes, and I must deal with it, because if I did what I wanted to do, shrink into myself and hide away, people would still drown, but there’d be one less voice willing to cry out about it, and while I’m just one person, every voice matters when so many are desperate not to hear anything at all.