252: A quiet revolution

A friend said a few days ago “the revolution has begun and it won’t be televised”.

When you first hear this out of context, it’s easy to think of some kind of protest or some kind of takeover where people’s dissatisfaction with the current “whatever” causes them to puff up their chests and get all tough with some kind of righteous “we’ve gotta take control” kind of thing.

But that’s not at all what we were talking about. We were actually talking about mainstream society’s obsession with bread and circuses. We were talking about getting back to the simple and basics and not get sucked into the BS that is pumped out as the way to live and what matters in the noisy overwhelming world out there.

Our revolution wasn’t about angry loud violence, it was actually about backing away.

And it got me thinking about satisfaction with the world and dissatisfaction and making a difference and our responsibilities within that.

There is a lot of anger and frustration in the world right now. Get someone talking about the state of the world for more than a couple minutes and you will have a mess on your hands. Whether you want to talk about the government or the media or the food system or the medical system or morality … pick your poison — it’s there for the taking.

But here’s the thing.

People have been unhappy with the world since the world began. Every time in history has been the worst time in history. The world has always been headed straight for hell. The generations prior to the ones currently alive have always been smarter and harder working, while the current up and coming generation has been the one that’s going to cause the downfall of society.

I don’t care who you are or what your beef is with the world, but I have a suggestion. We’re going to solve things first by taking care of you. The way you first make a difference in your world is to take care of that person inside your skin. Your body, your thoughts, everything you are. 

Next, you take care of those around you. You make a difference to your world by taking care of the people you live with. The people who are close to you. The people you love. The people you feel responsible for and are connected to.

If everyone could wrap their head around those two things—take care of yourself and take care of those around you—we’d be in a very different place as a people. It wouldn’t matter who the fearless leader of the country was. It wouldn’t matter what the government was or wasn’t doing. It wouldn’t matter what kind of BS they are trying to push on TV or social media.

Taking care of yourself and taking care of that circle directly around you and not looking up from that work until it’s under control is how you start a revolution. And not a single person would watch that on TV, because they’d be too busy getting shit done.

Your circle overlaps with other people’s circles. You taking care of you is great but you’re also going to be taken care of by your significant other and your kids. You overlap into other people’s circles. And when you make that circle just a little bigger to include your extended family and your good friends, it overlaps even more circles. Because your extended family and good friends are taking care of themselves and they are also being taken care of by who is in their home. Only you can decide who is in those circles but the point is that the circles overlap with other people’s circles. If we could just start taking care of these little circles and not giving a flying eff about what else is going on, that is how you start a revolution.

A revolution is a fundamental change. It doesn’t always mean marching. It doesn’t always mean guns. It doesn’t always mean chaos. It means a fundamental change and sometimes that’s changing your focus and changing where your work gets done and changing where your attention lies.

If your barn or your kitchen table or your front porch is going to look exactly the same before and after the super important event out in the world happens, is it really a super important event?

People can’t remember half the stuff they were worried about from the news last month, let alone last year. And when I say the news I don’t necessarily mean the 6pm news on TV, I’m talking about the stuff you hear about on a news website, get in an email, hear about on Facebook or Gab or Telegram or the morning talk show or the guy at work about the next thing you need to be pissed off about.

Fix your focus, guys. Take care of you, and take care of yours. That should be more than enough to keep you busy.

Go start your quiet revolution.

— Amy Dingmann, 10-9-23

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