Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Power, Responsibility, Creation, Change

Anyone living outside Maine must think Mainers are idiots. [We are.] Anyone living outside the United States must think Americans are idiots. [We are.]

Every news outlet is bombarding us with the vengeful, gloating greed of this season's political marionettes, who (under the guidance of their billionaire string pullers) have managed to thwart and bamboozle a depressed electorate into damaging its own best interests. But that is all I will say about yesterday, because now I'm going to press myself to focus on where I do have power, hard as that is to envision this morning.

And I hope you're focusing on your own power too. I hope you're calling on your righteous role as a citizen of the world, as a person who ponders conundrums, as a person who understands both/and, not just either/or. I hope you're calling on your strength as a person who pities and embraces and forgives and gets angry and stands up and shouts and speaks the truth.

I look at myself, and I know have the power to see and hear and feel. I know I have the power to write cogently about what I have witnessed. I know I have the power to convince at least a few other people to read or listen to what I have written. So on this gloomy, heartbreaking morning, I promise that I am going to keep watching and writing and talking and listening and feeling. I promise that I will chronicle the sweetness and the terror, the decay and the beauty. I promise that I will say what needs to be said--as clearly, as sharply, as imperatively, as I possibly can.

I promise to remember what the great Audre Lorde said in her 1978 speech, "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power":
It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.

8 comments:

Joan Dempsey said...

Thank you, Dawn. The Audre Lorde quote you chose is the best thing I've read all morning. On we go!

Dawn Potter said...

Sharing some thoughts from a Canadian friend:

Not my place to comment, at least publicly, on another country’s political choices. But for what it’s worth, I felt sad and puzzled and, yes, a bit angry yesterday when I saw the early return predictions.

I feel badly that anything I do know about American history isn’t enough to let me put this time into some kind of perspective. But it’s discouraging to see. The question I asked myself more than once yesterday, rightly or wrongly, was: what’s happened to the American people? Which all sounds grandiose and maybe over-dramatic, but I am genuinely saddened and puzzled at your great nation’s choices.

Maureen said...

I just want to crawl away and hide. I cannot abide the gloating ("make 'em squeal") and ugliness and the complete lack of any sense of where this country is going if it continues on this path. This was an election about racism, about denying Obama any opportunity to provide a legacy of import; about ensuring against the future rights of women, minorities, immigrants, the homeless, those without health care, and on and on; about those in power who refuse to act for America because they're too busy acting for themselves. The results are sickening.

Betsy said...

You say this so well. So very well.

Unknown said...

Bravo - we must combat ignorance with passion and use whatever power we have, erotic or otherwise. The pen (or pencil), is a good start. Love your words.

Jenne' R. Andrews said...

Down with you on this, sistah. Sometimes the demons are inner, often outer, but a demon is what it is.... thanks for this! xxxj

Dawn Potter said...

At least we have each other. Thank you all for reading, and for being who you are.

Cathleen Miller said...

I love this. Thank you for being so clear and capturing with such quiet brilliance the energy that many of us are feeling this week.

I am so completely with you that we've got to move from either/or to both/and! We are all connected, like it or not.