Twitterpated forever?

A friend of mine posts a daily "question of the day" spurring his friends to think about random things that aren't political for at least a small moment. It's a great tradition, but today's really got me riled up. It was a simple one: Do you believe in love at first sight?

It should not have surprised me to see the responses. Most people who said "yes" were wide-eyed optimist types who dream of hopeless romance. Everyone else fell somewhere in the "no" or "lust at first sight" category. Some went so far as to explain their reasoning, many with very accurate facts, like "relationships being work" and "true love means knowing the worst of someone and loving them anyway." I can't really disagree with any of those things, but where I do find fault is that one negates the other.

Love at first sight is very real. Nearly every single person on this planet can point to times when they have met someone who stirs their soul for no quantifiable reason. It is easy to assume that this feeling is just when someone inspires in us lust, but if you look, there is a distinct difference between randomly finding someone attractive to the eyes, and someone who seems to tug on your heart and soul.

I have learned to recognize this to mean that this person will be important to my life. Some have become my best friends. Some have led to relationships. Most haven't stood the test of time, and many turned out to be painful, but in each instance there was an undeniable love present.

Where the romantic poets have gotten us lost is in assuming that "love at first sight" means "I recognize my soulmate at first sight." This is where the paths diverge. It is true that only through time and effort that we are able to strengthen a relationship to the point where it can become "permanent." When we experience the feeling of love at first sight, (a feeling that as a child of the 80's one might say makes us feel twitterpated) we quickly lose it, but not for the reasons that seem obvious. We lose it because we often add expectation on top of it. By assuming that it has to be forever, and when it's not (as most things aren't) we lose our optimism and assume that there's no such thing, closing ourselves off more and more as time goes on.

In that first moment, what we recognize is potential. When you allow yourself to become aware of what you're seeing and feeling you an embrace the fact that someone can be meaningful and can be someone you love without putting on the mandate that they will be your one and only forever. Don't assume that your heart is "wrong" because the last time you felt that magic turned out to be less than you had expected. All you do is make it that much harder for that person to be who they were meant to be in your life.

Cherish those moments and those people. Enjoy the fact that you've found someone who will be important to your life and celebrate in whatever that becomes. You may or may not walk down the aisle with them, but rest assured your life needs them in it, and they need you in theirs.

2016-17: From Conflict to ...?

As we move on to the second millennium's late teen years I am struck by many things. As always as one beginning ends and another starts anew, we reflect. Through the power of social media, it is easy for people to share these reflections. Technology also makes it a simple thing to see your own reflections from years gone by. These reflections tell us as much about ourselves as they do the year itself.

Take myself for example. If you look simply at my posts on New Year's Eve throughout the last several years, one thing is fairly common: regardless of the year I've had, I'm always optimistic about the future. On good years, I feel the next will be even better. During rough times, it is a hopeful outlook towards things to come. I see this replicated by many of the people in my life. It comes as no real surprise given my love of optimism, but is still interesting to see so simply.

I see many others who want to have a hopeful view, but can't quite bring themselves to do so. Statements of: "Well here's to 2017. Can't be any worse than this year..." and the like give into the idea that things are bad, but also cling to the hope that the renewal will have a positive effect on their life or the world.

Still others focus completely on the year itself. This can be a dim view or a bright sunny one, but focuses exclusively on the past. Some of these pour forth a positive message in a time when the world seems anything but. An brilliant example of these came from the love of my life, in fact. Though it's not the way I normally express the change of the year, it is in fact my favorite type to read.

So what about 2016? Well this year is definitely an interesting one to examine. The 2000s "sweet 16" turned out to be as full of turmoil, and dare I say it, growing pains. It's almost benal, but for many people including myself, it was a year of incredible highs and devastating lows. In retrospect, I'm going to call it the Year of Conflict. As a political activist, many of my conflicts are probably obvious. For one of the first times, I found myself in actual conflict with people who in the past have held similar viewpoints. Later, I found myself embroiled in the conflict of facts vs opinions. In my
personal life, I fought against our family's economic situation. My community faced the most blatant conflict with the real threat of violence. This barely scratches the surface, but gives an insight into what I feel was a similar struggle for people throughout the country, no matter what side of any of these conflicts you were on.

To end here would place me squarely in the "dim view of the past" category I mentioned earlier. Luckily for me, there is the other side of conflict. Though conflict is hard and oftentimes painful, it does have benefits. It builds strength. The old adage of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" really is the truth. Through the challenges this year, I found myself growing professionally, expanding my creativity, finding love in unexpected strangers, and strengthening my relationship. I would never wish for conflict, but when presented with it, I'm glad of what I came away with.

This year, I end with a new fiancé, a new job, the framework for a fledgling company, and a solid foundation for my own novel. I will end this year, and start the new with some of my closest friends. I will laugh, and I will likely cry. I will mourn the loss of those we lost. I will feel a small tremor of fear for what can happen to the world of tomorrow, but I will look across the city with the same thing I always do, hope.

I cannot tell you what next year will be. I can tell you that we will be renewed, but we will also take with us the good and bad from this year. It is easy to say it's a clean slate, but the reality is that there is never a true fresh start. Rather than starting over this year, I resolve to bring forth the greatest that this year had to offer, and leave behind the rest. Lay down the conflict, but keep the strength, the love and do my best to make them grow. Yea, I'll toast to that.

The Surprising Problem with Trump's Speech

Like many people, I steeled myself and sat down to what was expected to be another night of complete insanity at the Republican National Convention. I mean for the past several days, we've had near violence break out over a sign that said "No Racism. No Hate." We've heard people called Satan, criminal, and seen discrimination come to epic heights. Putting Trump on the stand was guaranteed to take us to a whole new level.

Except it didn't.

Now don't get me wrong, I hated the speech. I was insulted when he claimed he would protect the LGBTQ community from external threats, especially while the Republican platform had its most anti-LGBT platform in history. I felt that there was, in fact a new level of pandering from Trump. But beyond that, the biggest problem with Trump's speech, is that it sounded good.

I don't mean good like Martin Luther King. I mean good as in it appealed to some sort of emotional self-preserving side that exists in all of us. He didn't fall back on lies. In fact, it may have been one of his most honest speeches yet. Most of his facts were actually real. For once, he didn't draw violently divisive lines. He didn't get angry. He didn't go off the rails.

And that is terrifying.

As I re-read the speech this morning, Britain flashed before my eyes. Here were all the exact same arguments that got people voting for the Brexit. Putting ourselves first. Stop trying to support the world until we fix home. Save the lower class. Make our country great again. Some baser part of my instinct wanted to nod along with the idea of roads and bridges that were actually modern. Jobs given to people who needed them. Crime being lowered.

And therein lies the problem. Much like we saw in the UK, Americans can easily want all of the things that he's talking about. We want everything to be better. And it is really easy to say that the only reason we're not reaching our potential is because of those "other" people. Yes, focus here first. That makes sense. It doesn't even matter that 90% of what he talked about doesn't fall to the President to make changes on. It sounds good.

Humans have an intrinsic need to feel good about themselves. It's easy to think: "My problem isn't me, its that circumstance, or that person working against me." "Leave me my gun so I can be in control of my safety." "Let me spend my own money instead of giving it to some bureaucrat to make decisions over." "Let me make my street safe before I worry about another country."

The problem is that while all of this sounds wonderful, it's false. The world doesn't exist in a series of separated city-states. That age has passed. Our world is too large and too connected to live in a bubble. Attempting to build walls to separate us, and choose who is "good" and who is "bad" only makes it so that we're isolated from a world that we need as much as it needs us. America has some of the most diverse resources in the world, and yet we're still not a self-sustaining country. We need trade. We need allies. When something is unstable in the world, ignoring it will only allow it to spread. And yes, that means eventually spread to us in our magic bubble. Ask Europe about how staying isolated works when an actual threat is looming.

"Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo..." This statement got a lot of cheers. Close the borders to "bad" people. Only trade with people who do what we want. These themes resonated again and again. America First. The United Kingdom said the same thing. They're regretting it already, and little has actually gone into effect yet. History shows us it doesn't work. Fact tell us this is a false sense of security.

But it sure sounds good.

Let's hope as this election cycle continues, we can break through the sound bytes and realize what all these great sounding things would actually do to us in the long run, before it's too late.