photo credit: Mellissae Lucia

Life almost never looks like we imagine, like we want, like we think is ideal. Do you wonder why that is? Probably. But our mental narratives are so strong we continue to believe in our mind-made agendas, our imagined scenarios, our false sense of omniscience.

The last month has been surreal for me. Coming on the heels of a once-in-a-hundred-years pandemic that effectively shut down life as we know it for over a year, that is definitely saying something.

After being self-employed for over two decades, less than two weeks ago I went to work full time for the State of Nevada. Let me explain. I graduated from law school in December of 1994. I moved to Reno in February of 1995. I shopped around my writing portfolio and tried pretty hard not to practice law for six or seven years. But since I was mostly doing research and writing for other lawyers during that time, in 2003, I decided to take the Nevada Bar Exam.

But you need to understand why I took the test. It wasn’t just to make more money (though that definitely was a goal). It was because I wanted to finish writing my first novel. The overarching why here, is that I wanted to be a full-time writer.

I know that makes no sense on its face, so I’ll explain. I’d been working on a novel, but was definitely nowhere near finished. And I’d graduated from law school before that, but hadn’t closed the loop and passed the bar. So in the twisted, but well-meaning logic of my mind, I thought if I took the bar, and closed that loop, it would help me to then finish my novel.

And so I did. Took the bar exam, that is. And passed. And then I wrote, rewrote, finished, and published my first novel. But unlike my grandiose notions of how life was supposed to go, I did not find fame and financial independence from that first novel. I’m sure no other writer has had this experience.

photo credit: Thomas Lloyd Qualls

photo credit: Lynell Garfield

If ever a year needed to be broken up with it is 2020. The Go Home You’re Drunk meme has never been more appropriate. Unquestionably it has been the most challenging year in memory. Probably in the last 100 years. That’s a long time, if you think about it. Or really, even if you don’t.
 
During the last 100 years, whether you think about it or not, there have been wars and natural disasters and diseases that have been devastating to certain populations. Events that caused suffering, mass death, and destruction of infrastructure. But nothing on the global scale that covid-19 unleashed. And then there is all the other stuff.
 
Because the pandemic would have been more than enough. But of course, in this year that went on for at least a decade, there were all manner of other things. Not the least of which was the five years of wildfires this summer, literally all over the American West. Already losing our minds from the isolation of the pandemic, our only respite being the ability to get outside and enjoy nature, 2020 decided to trap us inside our homes, or risk hazardous air quality outside. Fortunately, many of us already had hazmat suits. But being outside in a hazmat suit really isn’t the same.
 
Woven into this year’s tapestry was the mostly peaceful and long overdue protests of Black Lives Matter. Somehow, groups of people gathered together to protest the shootings of unarmed civilians was threatening to a segment of society. Pointing out the empirical atrocity of a police officer unnecessarily pinning a fellow human to the ground with his knee for over 8 minutes until that person dies was seen as an afront to our values.
 
Like most every other thing I can think of, the activities and the messages of the Black Lives Matter movement were occasionally hijacked for one reason or another. Some were opportunists who showed up with the sole purpose of acting out, possibly to satisfy their own unspecified sense of disenfranchisement. Possibly for more nefarious reasons, including a desire to paint the BLM movement as violent, when by and large it is not. This is a conversation that will and should go on for years to come. And hopefully it is much more than just a conversation.
 
Of course, it was also an election year. And not just any election year. But one upon which the fate of the country seemed to rest. Perhaps rest is not the correct word. Not one of us rested during this process.

In 2020, the country was like a highjacked race car that had been dismantled piece by piece by an unskilled 16 year-old who thought he could make it run even better, despite his lack of mechanical education. Now the nation lies in pieces in the driveway. The bolts rusting, the gaskets drying out, oil everywhere. Meanwhile, the teenager, who has neither the knowledge nor the inclination to put the parts back together, posts frenetically on social media about how he is the best mechanic ever. And, in a true sign of the times, a surprising number of people believe him.
 
The lead up to the vote count felt like either those tense and drawn-out moments before a tornado hits, or maybe the world’s longest birthing labor, in which the whole planet was in the birth canal. That experience was followed not by a great exhale and well-deserved rest, but by weeks of recounting and of wondering if any planted judges would undermine our democratic process, despite one candidate having won by over 7 million votes, or even if the electoral college representatives would vote according to their mandates.
 
All of that is mostly behind us. But there is still plenty of tension. The teenager continues to dig in his heels and refuses to share his tools. He continues to tell anyone who will listen that the car in the driveway is his. He continues to break as many of its parts as he can. And it is unclear how, when, or if he will get up and go home when the time comes. Whatever happens, one thing is certain: his mess will be left for others to clean up.
 
Other devastation visited us, including hurricanes, which in other years would have captured more attention. The teenager though, mostly consumed by twitter wars and rounds of golf, did almost nothing to help with the pandemic, or anything else. And lately he has not made any pretense of leading, pretty much telling us all we were on our own.
 
There are, for sure, good things that came out of this historically bad year. The winners of the election not only promise to start rebuilding the car, but to do so in ways and with technologies that are long overdue. Also, one of the winners of the election made history twice by being the first woman and the first woman of color to sit in the Vice President’s chair. Again, in any other year, this would be grabbing more headlines.
 
It was a year that challenged our resilience, our creativity, our adaptability, our courage, our empathy, our senses of self, our willingness to serve and to sacrifice, and to hold steadfast vision of the future we want for ourselves. In large and small ways, we met these challenges and found reserves and resources we had either forgotten or had no idea existed.
 
Also, the murder hornets did not sweep the country, as once feared. But other things most certainly did. Including the awareness that over 70 million of us apparently live in an alternate reality. This is no small thing. And it is only the beginning of another long and uncomfortable conversation that we must have.
 
But after what we’ve all been through and achieved in 2020, I believe we are up to this challenge. Oneness is not just a new age buzzword. It is the reality of our existence. It is up to us to acknowledge that fact and to begin to work towards it in earnest. It is time to rebuild all that is broken with its blueprint.
 
For all we have lost and gained this year, I am grateful we are on this path together. Happy New Year, my friends.

​T.

There are two primary worldviews, two lenses through which we see the world. In one, the world is wired together, connected. In the other, the world is made up of separate things.

In the first view, things and people are interconnected. We are interdependent upon one another and upon the earth. What each of us does matters to the whole. We have impact on the world around us. This view is held by a broad range of people, from biodynamic farmers and Buddhist teachers to meteorologists and quantum physicists.

This view embraces the idea of oneness, which has many faces. One aspect is that what we do to the world, and anyone or anything in it, we actually do to ourselves. I don’t often quote him, but for those so inclined to his teachings, Jesus speaks to this when he explained that whatever was done to the least of his brothers and sisters, was done to him.

​In other words, Love your neighbor as yourself.

Chief Seattle famously spoke to this: All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself… What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

The second view believes that we are born into the world alone, and we die alone. And in between, whatever success we have is up to us alone. That humans are islands, separate and apart from one another. That humankind were given dominion over Mother Earth and everything that is in and on her. And that nothing we can do while here has any significant impact upon the planet or its inhabitants.

This view requires some tricky footwork. But if you can disconnect yourself from the world around you in this way – if nature is just something over there, something to serve as a backdrop to your life, a movie set – then you can easily put poison onto the soil and still eat the food that grows from it. You can dump toxic waste into the oceans and still eat the fish that swim there, without concern. You can do this even though you probably wouldn’t pee into a bucket of water and then drink from it.

This belief also allows you to distance yourself from other humans. How other people are treated -- for example those with different colors of skin -- has no bearing on your life. Restrictions on others as to who they can love or marry has nothing to do with you. They are not you, after all. People who make less money or are otherwise less fortunate are not really relevant to your life. There is no reason you should you concern yourself with them. Also, criminals. Just separate them out of view from the rest of society so we don’t have to think about them.

Another trick of the brain required for this view is that one has to accept the benefits of firemen, policemen, public education, public roads, Social Security, Medicare, and other community benefits, while still decrying socialism in all its forms. Anyone who wants to take part what you’ve worked hard for is a freeloader. They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do what you did, without help from anyone. (Of course this is not true, but that is just another trick of the brain to be mastered.)

In short, large blinders are required for this second view. We learned as kids that the leg bone is connected to the ankle bone. Just as everything in the body is connected to every other thing. Just as we are microcosms of our world and our universe. Separation is indeed an illusion. There is simply no proof of it.