There are infinite responses available to us as we approach possibly the last (anything’s possible) peaceful handover of power on January 20th. Several come to mind: unbridled anger, deep and clawing angst, suffocating depression, willful ignorance, and feigned neutrality that would put Switzerland on notice.

Oh, I forgot myself for the moment. Geez, can’t forget to add unreasonable joy, although for the life of me, I will never understand that one. Sorry guys, that’s a step too far. I do, however, realize and accept that some of you do.

From the looks of the headlines there’s a little buyer’s remorse going around, but then those are the headlines tailored for me, not for the other half of the world. How is a girl to know if her algorithmic headlines are real or not? What is real, anyway?

I’ve thought a lot about this, how we take what we are primed to believe and crown it as real, while deciding that alternative viewpoints are invalid, stupid, horrific, or just full of bunk. By the way, that attitude fuels all the above-mentioned responses.

Few realize, or stop to care, that ‘the others’ we disparage are thinking the same thing about our views and holding their coronation ceremonies for their own beliefs. Few stop to think at all, let alone allow the dissonance to percolate all the way down into the core of thought, the bedrock of belief.

So the rifts get wider, the bridge stretches tighter, until it is fundamentally irreparably torn asunder, left from right, right from left, and nothing of a united us remains. From there anything can happen. There is no we anymore, just us and them, and us and them is super easy to manipulate into doing just. about. anything.

It seems everyone has their own truth and if you’re paying attention, it is easy to see the reality that reality isn’t really real. It’s made up of stories that we tell ourselves, that we use as cannon fodder to blow each other apart, and in general, ensure that peace and happiness are something that can only be attained by demolishing the other guy. Of course, the other guy isn’t really the other guy but a figment of our imagination, fueled by our beliefs in our rightness, so don’t plan on peace and happiness magically appearing anytime soon.

They will remain elusive for all but the crazy ones, those who love their enemies as themselves, who learned along the way that love is the only commandment worth following, for out of it flows all good. The only one’s smiling in the insane asylum are the ones who have discovered the power of surrender, the willingness to be with life as it is, which is my definition of love.

Now I know that word ‘surrender’ is loaded. As soon as I use it it’s like a cat fight at 2am on the backyard fence, complete with hissing and yowling, growling and screeching.

Surrender does not mean that you do nothing. That’s why most people avoid it for all they’re worth. They think surrender is well, surrender.

Surrender brings with it the peace that passeth understanding. It ends the anger, depression, ignorance, the rollercoaster of emotions, the burnout of just too damn much. It says, this is what is but it doesn’t stop there, or it doesn’t have to.

Not fighting life frees up the body mind and soul to listen without the chaotic energy making you feel like you just took a few spins in the washing machine. A peaceful being is well-suited, adapted, ripened to actually hear, what if anything, has true value in doing.

It short-circuits the reactive responses that pour oil on the fires of division, that prove the truth of the opposition’s right to oppose, including our own opposition to life itself. Life isn’t easy. It is filled with trauma, rife with loss and uncertainty. It is uncertainty capped off with the certainty that it will end. Who wouldn’t be angry at that! At least beliefs give us a sense of control, even though they are as made up as one of Grimm’s fairytales. Still, it’s why we feel compelled to protect them.

Seeing the fragility, the unreality, the pretense of beliefs, it’s easier to have compassion for ourselves and every being we cross paths with. We’re all playing out our very own, personally dictated stories. And yet, we’re playmates on the same schoolyard called life, and there’s the rub. Playmates argue. They bounce more than rubber balls off each other. Eventually they learn that anger hurts, rejection wounds, and it’s easy to do and say things you don’t really believe when you are in pain. unfortunately, being one of the mean kids doesn’t give you a free pass. It is painful too, and not just to the targets.

It seems we’re getting ready to graduate or be set back a few years. Is one better than the other? I don’t know.

I liked kindergarten. I like being an old*er woman too. It is what it is. Over the years, I have found that wanting something to be different has never worked. It only made me miserable, but that misery showed me the fallacy of arguing with life, so maybe it did work, just not in the way I had hoped.

May you be blessed with friends who make you smile, with the simple joy of being alive, the ability to flow with life’s ups and downs, and the unfettered willingness to love audaciously, regardless of who life places in front of you.  

This is not the end of the world. Well, maybe it is. Who knows. Either way, any way, you won’t go wrong by loving fully right up to that last breath. You won’t find new answers in all the old places. Want peace? Love. Want happiness? Love. Want to do something powerful? Love. Want to survive and thrive amidst the divisiveness? Love. Want to bridge the ever-widening gap? Love. Want to let go of wants? Love. Yeah, love is the only answer.

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Enjoy this? Then you might like to read, Actuality: infinity at play. At Amazon – https://amzn.to/3Rd4CTY in e-book and paperback.

Image: The Broken Bridge, Maria Schepochkina