Back in the way before times, I wrote a series called 'Watch Your Mouth' which consists of phrases we tell ourselves that are not necessarily true or useful but still persist because we don't examine them. This is a new chapter for that series. If you'd like to see the other installments, just click on the topic on the right hand side of this page called #watchyourmouth.
Remember when the anguish over George Floyd and Breonna Taylor was a fresh lament?
Not as far back as the anguish over Tamir Rice or Mike Brown
but before the fresh heartbreak of Jacob Blake?
Can you remember that far back?
During that particularly acute season,
I was talking to someone I love about all the things in the news and in a
strong, certain voice she said:
NOTHING EVER CHANGES
PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE
THE WORLD DOESN'T CHANGE
EVERYONE NEEDS TO JUST GET OVER IT
AND MOVE ON
I was struck dumb for a minute.
She was so emphatic; her eyes gleamed as she raised her voice.
After a pause, I waded back in to the complicated dance of
discussing prejudice, politics and racism
in a country founded on the murder and servitude of certain people to others
but weeks later this part of the conversation kept coming to mind.
The conversation itself wasn't a new one nor did
it contain any sort of resolution.
It's the same kind of conversation we've been having
as a nation for 300 years with increasing urgency.
Then why have I revisited it hundreds of times over the past few months?
What made this conversation stand out for me?
That ALL CAPS section in green above
keeps rebounding through my mind.
My brain can't let that lie stand so it
keeps running it through the ticker tape of my thoughts
to remind me of its subversive nature.
NOTHING EVER CHANGES.
What utter rubbish.
 |
| A day when it seemed like the whole world was on fire. |
Things change all the time.
My life looks very different than my grandmother's life did
a few short years ago.
My daughter will not live with the same social
norms that I was raised to accept without thinking.
Those changes are hard to quantify in some ways
and even harder to determine the overall scorecard
relating to satisfaction, health and security.
But to refute any change has occurred is kind of ridiculous.
One reason this sticks with me because it is overly simplistic
and fails utterly to convey the complicated relationship
the speaker has with change.
Maybe the speaker is saying that 'good' change never happens
or nothing ever changes for her benefit.
Maybe it is an expression of futility and loss,
exasperation at the amount of time or cost of change.
The inevitability of change is like the weather-
it doesn't fit a moral code.
Whether a change is positive or negative is not a fact-
it's always an opinion that depends on your perspective.
Change occurs and then humans build whole
cannons of work determining whether that
was a positive or a negative shift.
Our need to codify change is ultimately a reaction to trying to control
or understand the change in a way that keeps us from realizing
how insignificant we can be in the universe.
Things change.
Things are always changing.
It is a constant that you can count on.
Whether that change will make your life better or worse
is sometimes impossible to qualify-
particularly in the middle of a shift.
 |
| Hawk Newsome is an activist who will not leave you comfortable. Don't @me if you don't like his perspective. |
Here's another reason it stuck with me.
Saying that nothing ever changes is such a beautiful crutch
and I have used it personally often in my life.
From my non-existent relationship with certain family members
to my eyeroll at the long-time colleague who reverts to potty humor when stressed
or my avoidance of eye-contact with people wearing red hats.
If there's something I don't want to add energy to
because I've had a poor experience with it before
then lies that sound like this pass over the intercom of my brain.
Sometimes it sounds like
people never change
or
same old same old
but the underlying message is that I have permission to not try
because my effort will not make a difference.
That my energy will be wasted this time
because it didn't appear to shift anything last time.
That people are unchanging and the laws of behavior are immutable.
I use this lie to limit my own creativity
and let myself off the hook way more than I'd like to admit.
 |
| source: https://www.instagram.com/ecofolks/?hl=en |
Maybe you're sitting there, firmly rooted in this belief
and ready to send me a 3 page commentary on how it's truth with a capital T.
How do I know it's a lie?
Don't I see hate and injustice? Misogyny and inefficiency?
Isn't that proof that the world is stuck in patterns that don't shift?
No. It's not.
Here's a final reason this conversation stuck with me.
Nothing ever changes it too black and white, to harsh in it's construction.
Some things haven't changed yet,
some things I wish would change are very persistent,
and some things feel overwhelmingly hard to change.
But other things have changed, are changing right now.
Some things changed so quickly and universally that our
collective heads are still spinning.
Some of those changes will stick and some will change again.
Working remotely for instance.
Shaking hands (or actually never shaking hands).
Eating in restaurants or meeting new people or watching movies.
Or even just the basics you need when you leave the house-
do you have your mask?
 |
| I can't find the source for this-if you have it, lemme know and i'll attribute! |
THINGS CHANGE.
All the time.
So when I'm tempted to believe that a person, a system, a belief
is immovable-I need to be aware of what is at work within me.
Apathy often serves the very thing that I wish would change.
I'm not saying that you should go to every fight you're invited to attend.
I'm not saying to bleed out on every field.
I'm saying that we all need to pay attention to this lie when it shows up
so that we don't sleepwalk right into making the very thing that
we wish would change more long-lasting than perhaps it might be
without our consent.
There is a tipping point for everything-
some things just haven't hit that threshold yet.
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