People are taking inspiration from this Dan Savage quote during our desperate learning curve on how to survive America’s quick descent into fascism. There is still hope that this is a horrible dark flirtation with evil, and not a complete commitment to this abusive relationship. Maybe we’ll turn this ship around over the next couple of years. But a fight is required and there is new grim news every day. A perspective is needed and tactics to get through it and keep fighting.
It’s the same way you get through trauma healing, or other dark nights of the soul. To paraphrase Sam Harris, you can’t hold your happiness hostage until everything is right and you’ve achieved all your goals. You won’t have the fuel to keep going if you can’t find happiness now.
This doesn’t mean finding some secret switch to flip that calms your mind and changes your baseline emotional state, which you can then put on autopilot and ride from this day forth. It means deliberately looking for glimmers, for what makes you feel truly better. Not distracted, not cheaply dopamine-boosted, not dissociated or numbed or relieved. What makes you feel really and truly better, even if it’s fleeting? Then engineer those moments into your day. Log off and…do whatever it is. Touch grass, or spend time with loved ones, or read a book, hug a pet, work in a garden, go hiking…it’s probably something small. That mundane little stuff that is so good–don’t overcomplicate it.
That’s what we are fighting for, and it’s how to keep going.
