STAYING GROUNDED WHILE TRAVELING THE STARS

Greetings Cosmic Traveler,

If you are like many of us, then to say that the world has been a lot lately would be an understatement. This morning, I am sitting down to write, attempting to render my latest YouTube video, and nothing is going right. Adobe Premier keeps locking up for no good reason, and I can’t seem to find the common thread. All the while, I am thinking about the 3 hour drive I’ll be making after a full workday to teach out of state, and the five-hour drive back tomorrow (for which I VERY much enjoy and will be exhausted from). Not to mention the general state of things here in the US. Our society has become increasingly contentious, and we all have plenty of fingers to point in this space regardless of what we believe in or support (from social media to political polarization to the breakdown of in-person community to the death of third places) but pointing fingers doesn’t change a thing. As for myself, I am doing all I can to walk in kindness and love and am currently living by the motto of “don’t make things worse”. Then there’s the normal goodness of being a dad, a husband, and just trying to be sure my family is provided and cared for in uncertain times.

It's too much some days, and I know I am not alone in this.

As a science fiction writer, much of what I do is speculate on where the future is going. Be that good or bad, there is a kind of thrill in “getting it right” or at least coming close. If you haven’t had the chance to read Ground Control to Major Thomas, there are some themes in that book I explored that hit a little too close to home now. Sure, I thought they might be possible, things like political revisionist history in America, and more extreme religious groups blaming climate change on a lack of repentance. But we are seeing some of those things now and I don’t like it.

Not to mention where AI development is going.

All of this is to say, I have no answers to any of this that I feel comfortable giving to anyone except for what I am doing: seeing a therapist.

Life is a wild ride, and in my conversations across generations, up and down the stratums of social or economic status, between racial and religious lines, the fears or concerns out there are mixed. Many have an attitude like the sky is falling and vomit the blame on socials. Others believe that things have always been this way, that we’re going through another Civil Rights era moment, which is an interesting comparison. While some just want to put their heads in the ground and pretend like nothing is going on.

There has to be space for all of this. The reality is, despite all the information available, short of going from one end of the country to another, interviewing everyone, and building a team to compile that data, we have no real idea what is going on. Reality is strange like that. Because of this most of us don’t trust many of the sources we once did, the news especially. Yes, we always knew it was biased, but not like this.

We are like Plato in his cave, chained against a wall, facing shadows, seeing only what the fire illuminates. Many believe that they have broken free to see the outside world and understand what the cave is, but chances are it’s just another bigger cave. If you go deeper you start to question everything you know as to whether it is true or not, and if you do that too much, you can drive yourself insane.

My therapist has been talking to me about the idea of radical acceptance. Sometimes circumstances are just out of your control. That there is nothing you can say, or you can do, to change that. And so, if you can’t make a measurable difference, then it is time to accept it and move on. This might sound like giving up, putting your head in the ground, but it is not. A warrior cannot fight the good fight all day and night. A warrior needs rest too. And with how connected we are, that’s part of the problem as a global society. We never get a break from the deluge of information, the hate, the fear. We never unplug from the Matrix. Things don’t feel great, and they are not likely to get better overnight. But I do know, going back to what my mantra has become in these trying times, we can work to “not make things worse”, and that is something you and I can do every day.

I still believe the human race is capable of greatness.

I still believe that most people want the same things.

I still believe that we can be better.

That change will never happen unless you and I start with those we know. The only way forward is for all of us to be the best version of ourselves we can be. It takes learning to have the hard conversations, doing the difficult work of not seeing people in binary (of this or that) but as kaleidoscopes of human experience. Everyone is a hero or a villain in different moments of life, and I believe we are better together.

There is no judgement in any of this, more a flow of consciousness as I work through it myself. Never forget what we say and how we conduct ourselves matter. Take a look at your language, the words you say, and how it affects those around you both good and bad. Stop looking to politics for leadership. I know from experience that people in seats like that are rarely better at leading than random manager #5 at that place you used to work and hated (you know the place).

So, if you’ve been feeling like it’s all too much. You’re right. And those feelings are 100% valid. Put the phone away when you come home. Go spend time drinking coffee or having a beer with friends as you watch the wind blow through the trees. Get away from the screens and the rhetoric and show love to others for what they are, not pity for what they aren’t.

I am human. You are human. And this fact is wonderful and messy and magical and terrifying all at once. More than any other time in human history we have the infrastructure and technology to write a future our ancestors would have looked upon in awe. Let’s not make it into an endless dystopian parade of hate, slop, and constant anxiety.

Their sacrifices, and our own, deserve a better outcome.

Stay safe out there Cosmic Traveler,

-J Fitzpatrick Mauldin