“The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.”
Did You Know?
Are you familiar with the Japanese art form, Kintsugi? Artists reassemble pieces of broken pottery by mixing a gold infused lacquer to bind it along the cracks. The resulting product is a reclaimed vessel that highlights the previously broken, unusable pieces in a beautiful manner.
Today
I hope the analogy to 2020 is obvious – America is sharply divided. Cracked by COVID, racial tension, economic hardship and political conflicts. We have plenty of reasons to be at each other’s throat.
Looking to a political leader to heal our divisions is hopeful but probably unfruitful. There are too many powerful constituents who benefit from disunity. We shouldn’t expect our existing societal/political structure to deliver a solution. Yet, somehow in a few weeks, our citizens will cast votes to elevate one candidate to the most important leadership position in the world. It won’t matter who wins, our divisions will linger past the election (and may even get worse).
America has been incredibly good to me personally, so I love this country. I am proud of our accomplishments and contributions to global society. America is no less perfect than any other country so I will acknowledge but never apologize for the few missteps we have taken along the way.
Tomorrow
The only way our country dwindles toward irrelevance is if we choose to cherish our divisions more than our future. Social media flame wars have no winners. None. The destination is always the same – more division, more hate, more envy. Who intentionally wants to further any of these emotions? It is time for citizens to sacrifice their ego for unity.
We can’t wait for a charismatic leader to arrive in Washington and sprinkle magic dust on our problems. We can’t wait for the media to morph into a rational voice that was absent for the last 4 years. We can’t hope for someone else to lead us someplace else.
We can instead, make a personal choice to be less cynical, less judgmental and less mean-spirited. We can do this right now. We don’t have to wait until someone in authority models it. We must have a personal vision of what we can do to mend the fractured pieces of our society. We must act to be the glittering agent of Kintsugi “reconciliation”. We must be willing to reassemble the broken, jagged “pottery pieces” of ideas and relationships one at a time. No excuses. We must risk the sharp edges of disunity and pursue unity. Our only other option is to press in to our pursuit of divisive insanity that surfaced in 2020.
Some will argue that this is a plan of surrender to evil. They believe in winnable wars too. Engaging in unwinnable arguments is evil. We can engage in civil discussion and even disagreement without spiraling into hate. I can do this and so can you. Who else matters? I’m not being preachy to others. These thoughts are a personal admonition that I am voicing publicly. I need to be mindful of this before I hit that “post” or “tweet” button and I’m willing to be accountable for my choices.
It’s time.
Who is with me?
