COVID, Trump, Biden, BLM, Racism, White supremacy, Lions and Tigers and Bears… oh my!

I keep seeing articles on my daily Medium email about the end of America, the death of democracy, the collapse of the economy, the end of the world, the sky is falling chicken little. But I disagree with all of the doomsayers. No, I don’t think that things are now or have ever been rosy. Intolerance, injustice, inequity, and all the other horrible things that may have come out of Pandora’s box have been part of the human experience since the beginning of our time on earth. But I do believe that the human race is continuing to grow up, I think that we are still learning to stop idolizing celebrity, learning not just to say “we are not racist” but act as is we are not racist, learning that all our actions count.

I thank our current president because if not for him, I would have never cared or learned so many things. I have finally learned about what the electoral college is and how it works and that a few could “money ball” an election. I have learned about the supreme court, and that we need to review how that works. I would still believe that I live in a country of freedom, equality, acceptance, and opportunity when I live with at least 40+ million people who may very likely hate me if they meet me.

I think that what is happening in America, the entire world, is a necessary evil. So, what if America ends? There will be a better, stronger America after that. If the economy collapses, there will be a healthier and more equitable economy after that. If there are 40 million that may hate, there are still 290 million who may not.

I detest the all the deaths at the hands of authority, the cruelty of nature, and COVID-19, if it leads to a change in our justice, hygiene, and willingness to consider the wellbeing of others before satisfying ourselves, then our mourning and our pain would have counted for something.

America, the world, we are growing up and in the words of one of my favorite authors Jim Butcher (please forgive me Jim for paraphrasing):

Growing up is all about getting hurt, and then getting over it. You get injured, you recover and move on. The odds are pretty good, we all are just going to get hurt again, and with any luck, each time, we learn something.

Each time this happens, one comes out of it a bit stronger in the broken places, and at some point, realize that there are more kinds of pain than the flavors of ice-cream.

There’s the empty pain of leaving something behind, graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There is the whirling pain of life, upending all one’s plans and expectations.

There are the sharp tiny pains of small failures and the less known aches of successes that didn’t give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes torn up.

The sweet little pains of raising children, yours or not, giving them love, and taking joy in their lives as they grow and learn.

There is the steady pain of empathy that one has to shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.

If one is very, very lucky, there are a few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realize that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or hilarity that cannot possibly last, and yet will remain with you for all your years.

Pain is a part of life, sometimes a big one, and sometimes not, but either way, it’s part of the big puzzle, the heavenly music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, and it tells you that you are alive. When it is gone, it leaves you changed, it sometimes leaves you wiser, and sometimes it leaves you studier. Pain leaves its mark, and everything consequential that happens to our lives is going to involve it in one degree or another.

Everyone is down on pain because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don’t feel it.

My pains and my teachers: the cooking blunders I’d had to eat anyway, the equipment and property that breaks down needing repairs and attention, tax insanity rushing around trying to hack a path through a jungle of numbers, late bills and unpaid invoices, jobs that gave me horrible aching feet, the occasional loneliness that ached so badly that it made me want to weep, the blind date so bad I was willing to escape out a bathroom window, muscle pulls and hurts I never had when I was younger, the annoyance of everything becoming a subscription and their ridiculous prices that go up and up, the irritation with unruly neighbors, brainless media personalities, and various politicians who all seemed to fall on a spectrum somewhere between the extremes of “criminal” and “insane incompetence.”

You know, life as we know it.

A heavily edited excerpt from White Night, Dresden Files Series Book 9 by Jim Butcher.

On July 14th the new Dresden Files book was released, please support Jim and improve your life but buying and reading his books at: Peace Talks