I have very few illusions about how the next four years are going to go. As a nation we are recklessly plunging towards disaster. I hope I'm wrong.
I've spent a fair bit of time over the last couple of months thinking about what I intend to do about it all. [Waves arms hopelessly in every direction.]
The first thing is I'm going to start giving myself a bit more credit about how hard I'm trying at my job. I don't write or talk about my job a lot -- yes, this is probably why I'm afraid to watch the show "Severance" -- but I work with a bunch of people to make it easier to find good, truthful, accurate information in online library databases. If I do my job well, it becomes easier for good information to crowd out misinformation, and good information needs all the help it can get these days.
Still, these days in the Age of Misinformation it feels as if I'm one of those Japanese soldiers defending his foxhole on a remote atoll while the war has swept past him. So I'll also spend some time looking for a better opportunity to help good information.
Second, I'm going to keep an eye out for opportunities to help where I can be my most effective. It's easy to despair when it seems all about us is burning. It's impossible to fight everything. So pick one thing that you can do, then do your best at it. Then when you're done, rest up, find another thing then do your best at that. No single one of us got us to this place. No single one of us can get us out of this mess. But if all of us do just one thing to move the ball in the right direction, things will improve.
Along those lines I picked a few groups I like that will be extra busy over the next four years and sent them a little donation today: the ACLU, the Sierra Club, and Amnesty International. It made me feel better about things. I recommend it.
Third, we're headed into four years of meanness for meanness sake and performative cruelty. I'm going to do my best to fight back with beauty and joy and humor. When I say that my plan is to fight fascism with pretty pictures, I mean it. Fascism feeds on hopelessness. Beauty feeds hope. I intend to do my little part to feed hope.
Over on Bluesky the artist Jay Bigam (@jayispainting.earthskyart.ca) -- who created the wonderful #ArtAdventCalendar movement -- recommended that today be a day to post #OnlyBeautifulThings online.
I like that notion. So I leave you with a pretty picture.
Hang in there, everybody. Try not to let hopelessness get the upper hand.
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