These Traces 108

Aug 22

First Traces in a while and it's good to be back. Hope you had a fun summer :)

Today I'm kicking things off with an ode to joy—of sorts. I do need to mention, however, that everything that follows was written a little over a week and a half ago, before the Obama's brilliant DNC speeches. I guess it's telling when a feeling becomes palpable enough to be tapped into. And yes, this is a political post because these are political times—in the US, but in many other countries as well, including mine. Politics, like it or not, end up defining who we become as societies, whether we participate or not. It's a construct much bigger than the individuals who end up wielding power. Politics can elevate, or stain.

So I wrote this not to push a party or an agenda, but as a longing. A simple wish for decency and truth to again be part of our collective, unfolding story.

...

I despise Elon Musk. There. It's an unkind way to begin and a strong, highly charged word I know, but I don't use it lightly. That feeling stems from recent actions and the man he's become—which was probably there all along—but also from what he represents, sociologically. Anthropologically, even. This reverence we bestow, as a species, on the power hungry. The elevation of so-called alphas, the reflex to endlessly repeat the patterns of our origins as if we never left the savanna, and are still bound by the same rules of survival. For all of our technological prowess we remain stubbornly small, in many ways.

Regardless of past accomplishments, Musk has revealed himself to be another sociopath, detached from facts and increasingly intent on carnage. He's an arsonist who shuns regulations and environmental impacts, disregards the health of workers. He's a father who disowns his own child out of intolerance and bigotry. He's a free speech "absolutist" who sues others into silence. He offers a platform to extremists, cultivating hatred and lies, boosting racist theories, invoking cultural boogie men, fueling society's flames.

He's also an engineer who can't pull off a live audio stream. Oh the irony.

And yet despite all of this, despite demonstrating a complete lack of judgment and self-control (not to mention quality and safety issues with projects and products), he continues to accumulate civil and military contracts hand over fist. This is a single individual with the power to crush nations, a symptom amongst too many alarming symptoms that have led me to disconnect over time—out of despair and, frankly, out of disgust. That he and others like him are now endorsing a mass deportation platform is par for the course.

But after the recent tsunami of events on the American stage, I'm now tasting trace amounts of a very sweet and unlikely compound: hope.

Hope, that what we're witnessing isn't merely political but the stirrings of a surge against this era of incivility. A revelry incited by true change, and against gloom, and intolerance, and hate, and lies, and stupid nicknames, and insult as spectacle. A release against fear-mongering, apocalyptic religious fervor, and "otherism" used as callous fundraising devices. Not just in the US but the world over.

Hope, again, that this shift isn't a mere tremor but tectonic.

It won't happen overnight. But my deepest wish—on the cusp of this new season—is for the soft power of America to finally swing back towards the light. For joy and laughter to be celebrated, embraced, and to become wildly contagious. Not the mean-spirited smirk of cruelty: just simple, unambiguous, joy.

For me.
For our kids.
For all of us.

On to the links…