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I had an issue with someone's behavior last week who was in a position to make a decision that impacts my life. I also wasn't in a position to do much about it. So as in most situations where I have no control over the outcome and wish I did, I complained for awhile. I switched up my pitch and expression from time to time and used a few fifty-cent words just to keep everyone on the edge of their seats. A friend of mine who was listening against his will (but who is such an all-around awesome trooper that he'll even try to act interested unless it gets really bad), said, "Oh, come on. Did you really expect anything different from her? THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS."
"NO, I didn't expect anything different, and that's the problem - because I want to be able to!" I said. "Everyone just goes along with her craziness: 'Oh that's just the way it is, there she goes, with the craziness, oh ho-hum, what can we do. Isn't she cute when she acts out?'"
And I told him - ranting now - that when we do that, when we except the status quo regardless of its dysfunction, we're saying that kind of behavior is okay with us - that it's acceptable. We're avoiding the fabled elephant in the living room, when really we ought to kick it out to the backyard (nicely even, with peanuts, but get it out of there, why don'tcha?) And that acting like this with people in my actual environment feels uncomfortably like when I come home from work and the news chatter begins. I hear on the television that another convoy got blown up and 47 (the "official" number, anyway) people were killed in Iraq, or that there were more prisoners taken whose blurry images we'll see until they either get killed or released in some last-minute random act of who knows what. And oh, by the way, another kid was killed in a shooting or in an act of domestic violence. And another overrated celebrity made a tragic life choice and it overshadows all things that actually have an impact on the world. And when I hear these things, I find increasingly that I don't really listen, and I go on about my night, just a little bit numbed out, but none the worse - apparently - for the wear.
I told him that I don't want to be part of this problem on a large or a small level, that I was kind of getting tired of it, and asked if that made sense. He said it did, but it might have been because I was a little more riled up than usual and hey, it was time to go to lunch.
Later that day, I kid you not, I read the announcement about Blogher's Act. I've thought and read about it daily since it was announced, and the submission deadline is today, so I suppose I should speak up. I've been a contributing editor at Blogher for a year and a half now, a lucky break that has helped me to become much more confident about my own place in any number of conversations. I don't think I'd be returning to school to pursue my master's in journalism if I hadn't literally found the words through this work and all the places it's taken me, people it's put in my path, and thoughts it's made me think. So even more than usual, the ideas and the people involved have inspired me to want to find the right words. It's that important.
Maybe that's why it hasn't been easy for me to put all I'm thinking into writing this time around. I had written this post at the end of May, when Cindy Sheehan pulled out of the protest she had waged since her son was killed in Iraq. It spoke to some of my confusion and worry about what my actions could and should be to respond to what I see as some of our nation and our world's more pressing problems. I said,
I think the question on every level is, "What are we doing?" Or, more to the point, "What am I doing?"
So I was really excited when I saw the focus on "action" in this new effort, and curious to see how we could really make it happen. Pam Mandel's recent post "Blogher's Act: On Action"