- If you hear a fan of our current administration say that the president's agenda should be green-lighted 100% because after all, he was elected by the people, and therefore his agenda is the will of the people, please remind them that the people also elected their congressmen/women and senators. And they elected those people with the expectation that they would do their jobs and uphold the balance of power set up by the constitution. Just saying.
- OK, that was political, but this is not, this is just about dealing with the people around you. Please if you have a chance today or any day, try to keep your level of righteous certainty about your opinions at about 80%, maybe 90% in a pinch. Try to leave some room for nuance, for discussion, for curiosity about how other people think. Maybe even a little humility. Just be willing to try it. If you're guessing from this that I've run into some people recently who are not willing to try it, you would be correct.
- I keep running into people who think because I am not 100% out there on that limb I told you about in this post, I'm anti-trans, or not an LGBTQ+ ally, or I'm really a conservative and just don't want to admit it. Whatever. I’m not going to argue with someone who won’t let anyone else be on their team unless they 100% agree with some vaunted unspecified agenda. Not that this would convince someone like that, but outside a couple of local county elections, I’ve voted blue all my life.
The conversation around say, ending a pregnancy or someone's orientation or gender identity, can be complex. You don't have to be 100% in one camp or another, in spite of social media algorithms and your like-minded friends who insist you must be. I firmly believe that I can be an ally to all sorts of marginalized identities without dialing my opinions all the way up to 110% of the possible "sides."
What I'm in favor of is you figuring out how you want to live your life and making it happen, not trying to conform to some agenda made up by the opinion people. And that, unfortunately, is hard. There’s no shortcut. Some of us who are ancient of days are still working on it.
- OK, and this is kind of obscure, but I'm responding to a particular conversation I overheard recently. Valuing diversity is not the same thing as supporting anarchy. Diversity is reality. Human beings are diverse. Wildly diverse. Saying you're opposed to diversity is like saying you're opposed to oxygen.
If you're opposed to the DEI policies of the past few years, well, OK, that's a conversation we can have, but please see earlier statement about recognizing complexity and nuance. Just because you can cite a half dozen examples of times when DEI policies went awry doesn't mean that they serve no purpose, and just because you can cite examples of times they achieved what they were intended to achieve doesn't mean that the policies don't need to be adjusted or modified for the current climate. I mean, good grief, could we all please just grow up. The issues facing us are complicated. Getting up in a bully pulpit for your extreme opinion might make you feel all self-righteously triumphant, but it is not helping to solve problems.
- This week's interesting read: here is a gift link to Michelle Goldberg’s column in the NYT about the Michigan senate race: The Populist Left has a Theory.
- Zepbound update: 152. There's no way to talk about this without sounding like one of those irritating thinfluencers *simpers* I just had no idea I would lose this much weight! I'm so confused! *end simper* so I'm not going to say much else except to tell you that I am confused about this and I'm not sure I'm going to stay with it long term and yes, the migraines do seem to be getting better--and I say that even though the smoke in our area has been bad to terrible on several different days recently and smoke is a migraine trigger for me.
The run-on sentences in this post are amazing.
- And last but far from least, we said good bye to our beloved black lab last week and I'm still not over it. Probably won't be for quite awhile. She was a good, good girl. We miss her every day, constantly every day. The last few months of her life were rough, as anyone who has cared for an elderly dog knows. I can't really wish that she were still here and getting more and more decrepit every day. But we still miss her. Rest in peace, Sadie girl. You were the best.
 |
| In her prime |
No comments:
Post a Comment