image courtesy of Beyond the Lens

I started writing a post about how it pisses me off when people say things like, “It’s easy to be optimistic when you have such a cushy life.” As though I am so happily clueless that I couldn’t possibly understand the Big Bad Facts of how screwed up things are. Because if I did, I’d obviously be as cynical as most everyone else.

Now, it’s true that I am a happy, privileged person, but I also get how screwed up things are. I really do. And yet I don’t respond cynically. My take on it is that having privilege means that we have a duty to put that good fortune into making the world better. To me, cynicism looks like a cop-out, a convenient way to shirk that responsibility: “Well, we’re screwed anyway, nothing I can do about it, so I may as well sit on my ass and watch TV.” It’s a lazy, victimized mentality, and it’s bullshit.

HOWEVER. I did say on Monday that my goal is not to argue with cynics, and it’s not. The last thing I want to do is perpetuate patterns of argument and polarization that, in the end, amount to so much wheel-spinning. Furthermore, people have a right to any point of view they want, even if it looks wasteful and wrong to me.

My goal in writing here is to connect with people who are already beyond cynicism, who see their responsibility to change the world for the better, and who want to engage with it.

I’m also guessing that there are at least some folks out there who are dissatisfied with the typical status-quo points of view, but who aren’t aware of alternate ways of thinking. People who don’t jibe with Republicans, Democrats, raging capitalists, or raging environmentalists ... who think there must be some other stance to take.

These are the people I want to reach most of all, because I’m dissatisfied with the typical perspectives as well. And there are other ways to see—ways that are positive, practical, and grounded. I’m hoping we can talk about them, refine them, and figure out how to bring them into reality.

We can’t keep doing what we’re doing. Neither can we go back in time to live in some mythical, romanticized tribe or village. Our only option is to push forward into new ways of thinking, living, and creating.

How to do that is what I’m hoping to focus on here. Not everything that’s wrong—but what we can learn and do and become to make it right.