The World After Monday
There will be a world before Monday, and a world after. We can all feel it. It hovers in the air around us. It infuses our conversations. It even seasons our food, the way it changes how we feel and how it disrupts our senses as we go about our lives as we attempt to grasp hold onto any sense of security, knowing there is no such thing as normality. You don't need to be marginalized to feel what's in the air, and the concern that it smells flammable.
This isn't the calm before a storm, as you keep telling yourself. The storm already began, and deep down you know it.
You aren't paranoid. This is real.
How bad will it get? It will be bad. Again, you know this.
For some it will be far worse than others. This will not simply blow over, and this will not be the same as the last time.
It's okay to accept this. You're not tricking yourself.
And it's okay to not be okay.
It's okay to not be okay.
If you're a target of the new regime, you are already likely aware of the dangers you face and the challenges ahead. You've likely begun preparing in whatever way that you can. I hope you have.
For those of you less marginalized or with opportunity and privilege, what have you done to prepare? You've been listening to your friends, your family, as they express their terror at the impending forces pushing them closer and closer to the point where their backs will be against the wall.
You've told them
I support you
You are valid
I love you
It's going to be okay
It probably won't be that bad
You acknowledge their pain. Their fear. You even believe them. You do believe them, right?
The words felt hollow as you said them, anyway. Maybe, you feel, you just need to find the right words. That's what it must be, you decide. The words.
But what is your plan?
What have you done to prepare?
You've taken stock. You've assessed your skills and abilities and you know a few things that you could offer to resistance and to assistance. Of course you've done this. The day is almost upon us. How could you not?
You know your capabilities. You're a fighter. You're a healer. You're a protector. You're a rogue. You've already decided this, just like you were picking a character class for a video game. Because it still feels like a fantasy and that none of these fears will actually come to fruition, right?
But more than anything, you've made hard decisions about what you are willing to risk. What you are willing to sacrifice.
You've done this. Of course you have. That's what allies do, or rather, it's what accomplices do, and you've decided it's not enough to be an ally, you need to be an accomplice. And you remember that none of us are free until all of us are free.
And when people die– and make no mistake, people will die, as countless already have– you will know that thoughts and prayers are nothing. That even if you hold to your faith and prayers despite my own fervent apostasy, you recognize the words "faith without works is dead," and that nothing in your belief structure or faith is anything without putting it into action.
You know deeply that nothing will get better if someone doesn't do something. You remember the words of the Transcendentalists. Of course you do, everyone reads the works of the Transcendentalists. You remember that Civil Disobedience means that no one person must do everything, but everyone has a responsibility to do something.
You know that all of the pain and harm and terror in the world is interconnected. It is woven together and must be unwoven, and while you can't unravel it all on your own, you can work on the parts that lie before you. It is all the same tapestry. It is all the same tapestry.
There is a world today that is all but faded. A new world will emerge come Monday. Or will it?
Because you know that the old world is dying. You know that now is the time of monsters and even the hope of a new world struggles to be born.
But you know that someone must do something.
You're someone.
Be ready to do something.
Be ready to do something.
Or else, what is it all for?
no ends, only means