I need to believe (and so do you)

I’ve been thinking a lot about Tuesday’s election and the upliftingness of recent events. I’ve had several discussions with various people about what I’m experiencing vis-a-vis politics, of all things, and it’s sometimes overwhelming to think about. Otherwise, I’d have posted this Tuesday night (when I wrote it). In attempting to quantify my very complex feelings, I have come back to one thought over and over and over.

I need to believe in the power of good people to change the world.

I need to believe that you or I can make a difference. I need to believe that we can rise above cruelty and hatred, that we can be more powerful than those who are living without conscious awareness of their own destruction and waste. I need to believe that we can do something about sadness and suffering and injustice. I need to believe that positive values, love and truth and trust and hope, will prevail.

The fact that Barack Obama was capable of raising this kind of movement says something about his beliefs, his methods, and the quality of people he surrounds himself with. This isn’t an accident. My god, the way this man leads. I can narrow it to a business or technological standpoint and say that the people managing his internet conversation are geniuses, but there is so much more to it than that. (Hell, I could write reams of posts on that topic alone.)

You need to know how important you are.

If I had to tell you just one thing that galvanized me to support him, I would tell you this: He inspires us to be better people. All those lofty words in his speeches, they may not always be about hard numbers and facts and steps to take, but they stir hearts and make us want to be better. He knows that we can be better. And he knows that we can do amazing things if we only believe in ourselves, and try.

People need this. You need this.

I am sometimes very scared, watching the things that happen around us. People yelling things I can’t believe I just heard, hurting each other, acting hideously out of greed or ignorance or petty wickedness. Turning a blind eye to the kind of bullshit that goes on in the world on a daily basis. Being trampled, exploited, abused. Making decisions out of fear—each of us destroying our individual piece of consciousness in a myriad of seemingly small ways, like little cuts.

I was speculating about Canada. Maybe I could move to Canada, I said. It would be cold, but there are neat people in Canada too. I might be able to find a city like Austin there, somewhere.

I need to believe in the power of good people to change the world.

I need to stay where I am, in this country, because I need these people to be powerful. I don’t want to leave all because the people here aren’t powerful, I want to know that this place can rise up, can do amazing things, can become better and work together and be good. I don’t want to abandon them. I want to help them.

I want to know they can be helped. And can help themselves. I need us to be powerful. My projects, my business, and my purpose. I want an environment where the good people are powerful! I can’t stand the alternative.

Those scary people, they’re just doing what people do. It happens. We NEED to be stronger than those people. This election means we CAN be stronger than those people. We can teach them strength. People who yell “nigger” or “kill him” in a public place and no one says a thing, people not educated enough to have tolerance or compassion for people they don’t understand—people they don’t have to fear, and they don’t even know it. It’s not being evil. It’s just being afraid. These people can be led to a better place. Politics is one way (not the only way, not the best way) to do that.

I’ve never been a fan of politics. I think the system has been broken for a long time. But there is no doubt in my mind that though it makes many bad things, it makes good things too.

Watching people on the television with their faces all wet just fucked up with emotion, that turned my heart. I’ve never seen that before.

I need to believe in the power of good people to change the world.

I have to believe that this is possible.

For me and you, and everybody.

Tagged as: barack obama, belief, change, hope, power