We Don’t Know Where We Will End Up…

A Year Since the 2024 Election

After November 5th, 2024, I sprung into action mode. Action mode is my default state. After it was clear that Trump would be back in power at the Federal level again, I knew that this time would be different. The regime was coming in with a plan and previous experience. In the immediate aftermath of the election, I heard from so many people I love and care about who were reeling. I also heard from strangers online. For the online strangers, I immediately went to work organizing a series of workshop sessions intended to offer a soft place to land and ideas for future action. They were well attended, and people told me they found the sessions useful. Inspired by and building on a list by Frontline Medics, I created a list of actions that people could take that went viral. Throughout this year, I hosted an informal monthly co-working space for activists and organizers. Our final session is on Sunday.

My conversations with comrades and friends were different. Grief and exhaustion permeated those discussions. There was also rage and uncertainty. Would we be prepared for what was to come? How would our lives need to change?

A year later, I sense that many people I know who live in the U.S. feel a little disappointed in themselves. Somehow, if we imagined living under full-blown fascism at the Federal level, we believed we would be different. Perhaps braver, more focused, taking bigger risks, becoming world-defining actors. But most of us remain just ordinary humans. Not everyone is rising to the occasion because the times you live in do not immediately shape who you are and what you do. The other truth, I believe, is that you rise to the level of your training and practice, not to the level of your imagined self.

I have been thinking again in these times about Mr. Rogers, who used to share the following anecdote:

“A young apprentice applied to a master carpenter for a job. The older man asked him. “Do you know your trade?” “Yes, sir!” the young man replied proudly. “Have you ever made a mistake?” the older man inquired. “No, sir!” the young man answered, feeling certain he would get the job. “Then there’s no way I’m going to hire you,” said the master carpenter, “because when you make one, you won’t know how to fix it!”

I think that a lot of us are young apprentices who believe that we know our work at this moment except that we’ve never fully practiced that work because we’re afraid to make mistakes. We are learned people but lacking in practice.

I’ve been telling my loved ones that rather than trying to do a lot of things, focusing on one or two things is more realistic and sustainable. I get the sense that some of them don’t like to hear this because it doesn’t feel like enough. But I believe that going an inch wide and a mile deep in our actions (i.e., our practice) is actually a good thing to do right now. We need to be in a consistent mode of practicing.

A friend recently told me she feels like she is tiptoeing through fascism. I’ve been thinking about her words for a couple of weeks because I don’t feel like I am tip-toeing. But I am acutely aware that I am limited in what I can do daily. It can feel terrible to know that our influence only extends so far and that we have control over only a few things at the scale of our own individual lives.

Art by Monica Trinidad

Worse, it can be a shock to encounter the reality that who you are is who you have always been. And that who you are is just an ordinary human being. There are times, I suppose, when external conditions might quickly transform us. But for now, most of us are probably just the same as we were a year ago. And perhaps this is deeply frustrating for some of us. On social media, people seem to express this frustration by saying, “Someone should really do something about all of this.” I suspect those saying this know that *someone* is them. The frustration that we feel, I think, is that we know the limitations that we see in others mirror our own. We sometimes direct our rage outward because we are also furious at ourselves for not being more.

For as much as some humans talk and think about taking courageous stances, the reality of being a person in the world is that most of us don’t want to stand apart. To stand apart risks being alone. We don’t want to be alone and we’re very aware that there’s strength in numbers. Though some reject the premise, many humans also desire to be led. But many of us are followers who are deeply suspicious of leaders. If the word, *leader* rankles then replace it with *guide.*

Looking out at the current landscape, visionary leaders or guides are in short supply. Who are the people in our current moment who are focusing on the transformed worlds we could have? Those who are not settling for shrunken horizons under the guise of so-called realism and pragmatism. Who in public life regularly says: “Be realistic - demand the impossible?” The world as currently constituted can be changed. I don’t think enough people truly believe this though and we really need people who help us to see past the current moment towards something different and better.

My father often encouraged me to fail big because it was a guarantee that I would fail at certain things that I tried. And he said that since failure was built into living, it was best to do so boldly and audaciously. And by taking big risks, I would increase the likelihood that I might also sometimes exceed what I thought were my limits. Right now, I think we need public figures we respect telling us not to settle for crumbs and not to allow ourselves to be convinced that what’s on offer is the best that can be done. It isn’t.

We need leaders calling us to a standard in excess of the prescribed pragmatism of these times. We need to be encouraged to take some big swings with others, and that means we will make mistakes. The current construct seeks to limit our imaginations. Who will remind us to shoot for a place beyond the moon? The status quo is unrealistic and impractical. In fact, for most of the planet, it is oppressive and death-making. We want life; we want livingness for all.

Art by Olly Costello

We aren’t superheroes, and we cannot individually stop all suffering. The most we might do is to lessen it for someone else. And often this feels insufficient, so why bother? For me, staying focused on the ways I can lessen suffering that are within my actual control provides grounding and some peace. It’s the best I’ve got. Well that and remaining committed to “doing” rather than “thinking about doing.”

I’ve been feeling angry lately. I’ve been letting that anger sit alongside my grief. I’m so mad about the needless suffering around the world. The current horrors are unevenly distributed. Not all of us are suffering the same effects of fascism. We have to do what we can to defend and protect the most vulnerable in our midst. We can do so while keeping grief close and tending to it. Rather than trying to anesthetize or deny my grief, acknowledging it actually opens me up to more love because grief is connected to our love of people and of life. As Heidi Priebe writes: “As long as there is love, there will be grief.” I agree and all I can do is to keep moving through my rage and grief.

At the start of each day, I remind myself that even if my reach is limited I can still act on my own and with others. I think often of the poem titled Stubborn Ounces by Bonaro W. Overstreet:

“You say the Little efforts that I make

will do no good: they never will prevail

to tip the hovering scale

where Justice hangs in balance.

I don’t think I ever thought they would.

But I am prejudiced beyond debate

in favor of my right to choose which side

shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.”

We may sometimes feel powerless, but each of us influences the world in some way. Most of the time, we have limited influence, but it matters. I have a profound commitment to a future for those who are much younger than me and those who will come after them. So I invoke “my right to choose which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.”

Recently, a comrade asked me where I thought the U.S. would end up in five years. I said that I did not know. I’m with Thomas Merton, who wrote:

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”

None of us knows where the U.S. will end up, and we don’t know where we will either. This is both deeply unsettling and also an opportunity. I hope that the uncertainty that we will never conquer leads us to lean into more compassion for ourselves and others rather than to make us mean and more selfish. I’m often asked by people if there are times when I despair about the world. I offer J.R.R. Tolkien’s words attributed to Gandalf in the Fellowship of the Ring as my go-to response: “It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” We do not know where we will end up and I continue to believe that it is possible to transform our conditions through human action. In the new year, let’s embrace making mistakes so we can take more courageous anti-fascist action together.

Art by Ashley Lukashevsky [Abolition Imagination Cards]

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Holiday Toy Drive with Another World

I am co-organizing a holiday toy drive with Another World next month. We are seeking donations of toys and other gifts. I initially linked a registry list and it turns out that it is not working. My apologies. I have to create a new one.

If you are in NYC, you can drop off toys and gifts to Another World from 11 am to 7 pm ET on December 18 and 19. The actual toy drive event is on December 20.

I will also devote the bulk of December’s Giving Circle funds to this toy drive project. I appreciate all of your support. We want to make sure that families in Crown Heights can give at least one gift to their children this holiday season.

Speaking of the Giving Circle, in October, some of you donated $4027.60 [after fees]. I donated $4040.24 to 14 projects/people. Documentation of the groups that received funds is here. Since January, the newsletter Giving Circle has contributed nearly $30,000 to dozens of people and groups. Thank you to all of the donors. Since I don’t monetize my newsletter, I really appreciate you donating to the Circle instead.