A year-end plea: don't let politics overshadow life's splendor

[babylonsister]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/30/2016-2017-plea-enjoy-life?CMP=fb_us

A year-end plea: don't let politics overshadow life's splendor
Steven W Thrasher


Friday 30 December 2016 07.00 EST

snip//

What you think is important. What and who you read is important. Poetry is important. Science is important. Don’t let anyone tell you that thoughts, daydreaming and critical theorizing aren’t important in days like these. The scientific witch-hunts around climate change are as dangerous for our environmental survival now as the attacks on queer art were to our cultural survival when Aids first hit.

As we face a highly uneducated, anti-education presidential cabinet, we need our critical minds and creative spirits going more than ever. We need this to fight but also just because it’s fun to think about the moon, iambic pentameter or the sea.

Human interactions you have that can’t be sold, or economically exchanged, or monetized by an app are important.

Leisure, music and dancing are as important as ever. It’s been said that Prince and David Bowie left us maps for moving forward. Surely getting our groove on, shakin’ that ass and reaching up to the starman waiting in the sky to meet us are steps on that journey.

Your neighbors are important - the people with whom you live in closest proximity, the people you pray or play with, the ones you may be called upon to defend from Trump or Brexit in a sanctuary city.

Your health is important. Your sexual and reproductive health are important. Your mental health is important. That you laugh, and smile and give comfort to your lover(s), and experience kisses and hugs and massages and dancing and joy: these, too, are political acts of paramount importance. Access to abortion and a repeal of sodomy laws, no matter how embattled they may become, are about more than legality, after all; they are about your right to pursue the pleasure of your and other bodies joyfully and without shame.

I am not saying that the wellbeing of the things that are important to you are not interconnected with presidential politics. Nor am I advocating that we ignore who is coming to power in just a few weeks. We need to be ready for the fight of our lives, and self-care alone is not an effective remedy for what is headed our way. A full-on resistance to an accelerated crisis of autocracy and xenophobia is necessary. Many of us will be in harm’s way.

But along the way we must not forget: you are important. Despite the hell it wrought, 2016 was still the most extraordinary year of my life – not due to a quaint idea of happiness, but because of experiencing growth, of being present to pain, of learning the joy of community with other queer people of color, of remembering my sister. My life is not going to be dictated simply by celebrities or politicians (or a president-elect who embodies the worst traits of both). Nor should yours, even as he comes at us.

Here’s to 2017, friends. Even as we fight and resist, may you remember how important you are.

[Liberal Jesus Freak]

1. I just rocked my 4 month old granddaughter to sleep.

We talked about fishing with her Papa...goats and chickens...our kitty cat...and her dreams. We talked about love...acceptance...everything but politics.

Thanks for this thoughtful post. Having this baby in my life makes me hope, and that's something that's been in short supply. 2017 scares me, but I'm grateful for the hope.

[babylonsister]

6. What you've got going on sounds lovely.

Keep doing that!

[Phoenix61]

2. Beautiful, just beautiful.

Ultimately, that is what we will be fighting for. The right to enjoy all the things that make living worthwhile and joyful.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Yes indeed.

[babylonsister]

7. Hey,

I know you'll make the best of the year ahead. Love and light to you and your wife, my friend!

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. And to you as well.

[renate]

4. Thank you!

I've been letting these people live rent-free in my head. We only get one life and I don't want to squander it on loathing the deplorables. I'd rather spend it on loving and volunteering and doing what I can for people whose lives I may be able to brighten in any small way.

[babylonsister]

5. Yes, too much

negative space in my head as well, so I do plan on trying to change that. Like a train wreck, it's hard to look away but I will try to do so. HNY!

[panader0]

8. Truth

Appreciating life's splendor is revolutionary in itself. If everyone did it more
often, strife would cease.

[malaise]

9. Great post

at a great time

Happy New Year babylonsister

[babylonsister]

10. And Happy

New Year to you, malaise. You make DU a better place.

[malaise]

12. So do you sis