I Shall Not Look Away, but I Will Remember

Few want to be poor, but that seems to be the direction life is taking the 99% of us. Some don’t see it barreling this way, believing they have enough for their own safety. They don’t realize that the US coffers are being systematically drained, that our safety nets have more hole than net, that with no allies, currency can’t help but drop in value because without trust there is no investment in US futures, that willful ignorance and intentional denial will not stop the planet from its now certain course.

There are hard times ahead, times we could have softened but without inspired leadership and collective will that opportunity has fled the building.

That’s okay. Breathe. Life is not against us. It is doing what it must. It is a way shower, showing us where our consciousness currently resides.

Accept that or not, the fall will be undeniable soon, if it isn’t already. I think not though, if the posts I read by those still clinging to their messiah are any indicator. I’m beyond the need to rail against the stupidity, the cruelty, the depravity. It is the new normal here in the good ol’ USA. I can however stand for us all, stand for our shared humanity. I can and will stand up and be counted, not against the anger and hate but for love.

As I consider the ramifications, I began wondering about the lives of the 1%, how everything that is being done is to grant them more. With a hole in your soul, there is never enough. That plays out across the board, hitting the entire curve, 1 to 100%.

Sitting with it, it doesn’t take long to realize that I am happy to be where I am, regardless of what comes.

I can enjoy the sun in the sky, the stars in the heavens without worry about how I can monetize them, without concern that someone else will beat me to it. I can walk outside without bodyguards and enjoy the spring flowers, or the nearby creek in the woods and I can meet you on my travels without need to discern how much, if any, value you add to my world, if you are worth my precious time. I can skip right over the label and go straight to your heart.

While some may hunger to move up in the world, while they might even kill to get ahead (literally and figuratively) I can’t imagine what it would be like to be one of them. I’d miss so much, more than I am willing to sacrifice.

Not needing to defend my right to take, to manipulate another out of what they have, not looking over my shoulder in fear of being outed, imagining my name in the headlines (in a bad way), is worth its weight in gold. Not screaming at my twitter feed in the middle of the night when the walls are closing in, when I cannot find a bit of air to breathe, is a gift beyond measure. I like sleeping like a baby untouched by the stain of blood on my hands. Not trying to remember which lie I told when, which story was believed, which, if any, person I can trust … priceless.

But those aren’t even the big wins. They are in another category all together. They are about my humanity and the humanity of those around me. I can look myself in the mirror and you in the eyes and see the good there. Sensing the good feels amazing. I can smile, genuinely, and feel it resonate throughout my entire being, and watch as it lights up your eyes too, how the smile spreads beyond our mouths, until our entire bodies simply emit joy. You can be a dear friend or the homeless man bent over by life’s travails, and it doesn’t matter to me at all. The smile still reaches deep into our souls.

I’d gladly die with that smile on my face, knowing I didn’t betray what I hold dear, at home with the sense of hard-earned long-honed honor and integrity, alive with the recognition of the many shifts that accompanied my life, aware that the darkness once trapped within is now exposed to the light.

I can’t imagine selling my soul for one more dollar, for more access to power, for the right to sit at the head table or stand at the podium, to be deemed important by rules that kill and maim, that are based in inhumanity, where the only ones who matter are members of the elite club, a club I wouldn’t join even if I could, a club where everyone else in the big wide world are simply props for the show, background characters with no value at all.

So yes, we may indeed be headed to hard times. It seems inevitable. Many of our fellow humans are already yoked by the incomprehensible cruelty. Another generation of young men and women have been thrown to the wolves, to battle, to put more money into the pockets of the 1%, to further skew the stock market, to redirect the gyrations of the spin machine.

It’s not pretty. People are dying. More will suffer. I shall not look away, but I will remember.

I’ll remember what is mine to do. I will live by my code, the code of love, even when that love is only possible at a distance. I’ll remember who I am, what I am, what this is. I’ll stand in the recognition that we all, 99% of us anyway, have more in common than we think.

I do not need to hate to prove that I care. Hate has never added a sliver of good to our lives, so I will consciously refrain from adding even the tiniest bit of hate to our world. Love is where the power lies. Love is what the 1% are missing out on, what all their striving for more is all about. Its seeming absence is why they can be cruel without seeing it as cruelty.

Rather than being filled with anger and fear, I shall be a way shower, demonstrating the power of love, caring for those whom I can care for, if only with my smile. There’s power in a smile. It can change the world.

Amaya is the author of 7 books, the latest Actuality: infinity at play. It is available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and IngramSparks.
Actuality: infinity at play by Amaya Gayle Gregory, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®

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