Police and Protest
Right and Wrong.
I’ve been trying to find the answers for days.
I have a habit of constantly taking what’s happening around me
and sitting down to unpack it.
If it’s good, I seek to keep it moving.
If it’s bad, I seek to solve it.
It has become a daily habit of writing it out.
If I just start writing then my perspectives show themselves to me on the page.
Then I’m able to go to work on understanding where they came from…so that I can address them accordingly.
So the practice is to write unconsciously and allow the stream of thought to expose itself before going back and re-writing and honing the thoughts.
Sometimes the practice will galvanize a perspective.
Other times it will destroy it and force me to replace it with a new one.
None of the words that I’ve written each morning this week have been clear.
It's the reason you didn’t get the daily blog on Friday.
Each time I sit down to write something I’m on the other side of the fence.
Today I’m disgusted that we live in a place that still uses the color of our skin to determine the treatment of our souls.
Tomorrow I’m outraged that anyone would think that defunding a police force makes any sense at all.
After a week of schizophrenic thoughts and being frustrated that I can’t come up with the perspectives and insights that I want to be helpful I’ve realized something…
I’ve realized that the reason I can’t provide the answer is because I continue to look at the situation from each side.
When I consider the pain and suffering of the black community I write one story.
When I consider the frustration and sacrifice of the police officers I write another.
When I look at rioters and anarchist versus protestors and patriots I’m looking to determine…WHO IS RIGHT?
That fact alone is the reason I’ve been unable to find the words.
This is the problem with so many of our situations.
We are always looking to determine WHO IS RIGHT?
Our need to be right is literally tearing our Country and our World
apart right before our eyes.
We forget that WE ARE ALL HUMAN.
We are all PEOPLE.
That means that none of us have any fucking clue what we’re doing.
We spend our entire lives experiencing things that we are supposed to learn and grow and change from.
We just keep moving ourselves forward through a series of experiences that we share with other people.
Sometimes we share them from the same side…and other times we share them from opposing perspectives.
But the fact remains that we are all people sharing experiences.
Blood pumping through our veins,
emotions coursing through our minds.
HUMAN BEINGS.
We have lost our ability to realize that we are all facing the same challenges.
They may look a little different but the basics are all the same.
We all have a need and desire to survive and thrive.
It boils down to the simple fact that we all want to find our place in the World.
We all want to have an opportunity to create safety and security for ourselves and our families.
We all want something to work towards and take comfort in.
We all want to know that our babies have a chance to thrive when it’s their turn.
So in our quest to find our place and our path we seek the right way to do it.
This creates a scenario in which anyone doing it another way becomes an adversary.
WE FORGET THAT THEY ARE PEOPLE TOO.
We have become so quick to smash someone we’ve never met and judge them on how we perceive the way they do it, or the way they look like they’re doing it.
So I guess the point of this message is that until we can stop focusing on who is doing it right and what it looks like from the outside, we have no hope of moving forward with growth.
Until we stop attacking an entire sub-set of people based on the attack of an entire sub-set of people then we’ll continue to perpetuate a cycle of misunderstanding and hate.
We will sit in the cycle and allow it to perpetuate indefinitely.
But we can stop it.
We can stop allowing those driving the narrative to pollute our thoughts with hate.
We can control the inputs coming at us from all sources and quit reading and watching piece after piece trying to determine who is right.
We can step back and look at our immediate surroundings and make a determination as to how bad it really is and how we can impact it.
WE ARE ALL PEOPLE.
We don’t need to be right.
We need to be open.
We need to be compassionate.
We need to be helpful.
We need to share understanding.
We need to share hope.
We need to share love.
We have ONE LIFE.
We will not get these days back.
So turn off the TV.
Stop looking for the answer from some twit on the news or some talking head politician.
Stop seeking to destroy and start seeking to build.
Look inside yourself and create the experiences that provide hope and love to the other PEOPLE you share this beautiful planet with….before it’s too late.
Love & Understanding.
-Linc