On those rare days when the inspirational song actually is my inspiration, I feel obligated to say so. Some random person I follow on Twitter (and there are so many) quoted lyrics on a thread about political despair, and it sent me on a long journey to figure out who wrote them and what the song sounded like. The lines that this denizen of Twitter quoted were:
I know you're tired
And you ain't sleeping well
Uninspired
And likely mad as hell
But wherever you are
I hope the high road leads you home again
To a world you want to live in
We'll ride the ship down
Dumping buckets overboard
There can't be more of them than us
There can't be more
The person who quoted that was trying to inspire hope that as crazy as this country has been over the last couple years, no matter how many people have exposed themselves to be horrible, backwards-thinking, or willfully ignorant, there are more of us than them, and we will right this upside-down world. It's going to suck getting there, but we will do it. The song itself was more personal, less about the national zeitgeist, but it seemed apropos to me. The crazy is coming at us faster and faster, and things that would have covered the news cycle for days or weeks during any other period in history are now barely a 15 minute blip before the next shocking wave hits. This is by design. It is keeping us off balance, so we feel helpless and unorganized. Don't let it. Don't lose your ability to be outraged, and don't forget that we have the numbers to overwhelm the ones who are trying to pull our world apart.
It shook me a little to see a warning that we should be writing down things that were normal for as long as we can remember, so that we have a record of things that disappear, as the authoritarian mindset tries to change us. That was an utterly terrifying concept, and the worst part is, I already am not sure of what I would write on that list. I am afraid I've already forgotten normal.
I got a little bit of normal back tonight, though. I have a very good friend, one I've known for about 15 years now. We have popped in and out of each other's lives a few times over the years, and for a while we even lived a mere three hours apart. He has revolted against social media a couple of times, deleting a Facebook account but later showing up on Twitter, and then deleting that account, to vanish off the face of the earth for months. I don't like mysterious ends like that, and I worried about him for a long time. And then, out of the blue, he came back to Facebook and also started texting. We've spent most of the night, into the wee hours, getting caught back up. It's helping bring back the normal, getting that reassurance that he's okay. I needed this. The ones we care about are out there. It will help to remember that.
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