Monday open thread: Remember remember the Seventh of November
A year ago yesterday, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected president and vice president of the United States.
Four long years of the Donald Trump regime, for a moment, seemed to melt away. All the pain and anguish we'd been going through evaporated on gossamer wings.
I made the joke that I'd be posting a lot more cat video threads. The wiser heads of this community knew otherwise. I did as well, deep down. But the desire to rest was real. The desire to heal after a four year wound called out to me.
But life doesn't work that way. Those we defeated that day didn't just lie down and die. They didn't vanish. They didn't sink back under their collective rocks.
The battle for this country's soul still rages. This nation's inherent contradictions will not be resolved by one election. Because too many of our citizens seek comfort over justice, and are too easily swayed by calls to their baser instincts, as we saw last Tuesday in Virginia. To quote Merlin in Excalibur, it is the doom of men that they forget.
So, we keep fighting. Struggle is the human condition. We may yearn for peace, and may achieve it from time to time, but it is fleeting. We struggle in society, and we struggle within ourselves. It is this internal struggle which is what determines how society is shaped. The internal struggle to be better people. To let go of hatred, of resentment. To embrace love and acceptance. To be better than we were yesterday.
Too many people don't engage in this struggle because it is a daunting challenge. The unexamined life may not be worth living, but it does give you a simulacrum of peace. Too many people don't want to do that work, because that work involves pain. It involves realizing that you are flawed, and your beliefs not only hurt yourself, but those around you. You are both the problem and the solution, and you have to figure out how to be the solution all on your own. That's frightening, and something many just can't wrap their heads around.
You evolve, or you stagnate and die. You embrace, or you wither on the vine, expiring alone. You treat others with the respect with which you wish to be treated, or you live on a wretched island. That which is hateful to you do not do to your fellow; that is the whole of life, the rest is commentary. No excuses, no "buts". You have to choose to be good and decent.
We are now in the season of light, as half the globe grows dark. Be that light. It's all that has ever changed anything in this world.
This is your open thread.