The empire will suffer because of excessive consumption. Absurdly wealthy elites will emerge where the masses will admire them. People will relate increased consumption to happiness. These values will permeate the public: frivolity, aestheticism, cynicism, narcissism, fanatics, and fatalism \u2014and all negative behaviors affect the\u00a0population.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nOh dear.<\/p>\n
In September a friend and I decided to host post election circles where people could speak from the heart, listen with respect, and solve nothing but the need to be in community with others to digest their shock, fear, grief and dozens of other emotions. We imagined a repeat of 2020, with months of conflict and ambiguity. Instead, the map turned red and within a day we knew who would be president. We really needed to process that.<\/p>\n
For the 5 weekdays after the election, over 50 people joined one or more circle. Many spoke of the death of their dream of and for America, and the death of the assumption that we are headed for a more perfect union. For many that\u2019s a coming of age politically.<\/p>\n
In those circles, where there is no cross talk or fixing or changing anyone, we seemed to move authentically from shock to grief to contextualizing to a determination to continue to be good enough people doing our best – and resisting the harms that may come.<\/p>\n
The 24\/7 news cycle overwrites this kind of deliberate, honest reflection. Even so, I\u2019m sure that circles like ours met around the world, where people were giving space to attend to our feelings.<\/p>\n
This seems to be a small part of coming of aging as a nation. Can the American Empire accept and feel that it\u2019s the end of our glory days, and begin the work of coming of aging? Death comes to all of us, Empires included. The sun now sets daily on the British Empire.<\/p>\n
Two days after the election I woke from a dream and was able to catch its tail. In it, I am aware that there are burdens I\u2019ve carried that I can now set down. I open a closet and it\u2019s half empty, which seems just right. There\u2019s space now for something else. On the top shelf are two boxes, one small with a lid and one lidless large box. I know this box has costumes in it. I think, these are the costumes I can wear, the identities I can put on. I take the box down and the first costume I pick out is a nurse. I know it\u2019s like a nurse in an infirmary, or at the edge of a battle where the wounded come.<\/p>\n
In the following days I understand that my role as warrior is gone and my role, an elder role, is to tend the wounded, and keep a healing hand on whatever situation I\u2019m in.<\/p>\n
Coming of aging seems like such a shift, from being a player, an influencer, a world shaper, to being a spotter the way we used to spot people jumping on a trampoline so they could go wild – safely.<\/p>\n
In each circle we read a poem. The last day we read this one:<\/p>\n
What is hope?
\nIt is a presentiment that imagination is more real,
\nand reality less real, than it looks.<\/p>\n
It is a hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts
\nthat oppress and repress is not the last word.<\/p>\n
It is a suspicion that reality is more complex
\nthan realism wants us to believe
\nand that the frontiers of the possible are not determined
\nby the limits of the actual
\nand that in a miraculous and unexpected way
\nlife is preparing the creative events
\nwhich will open the way to freedom and resurrection . . .<\/p>\n
The two, suffering and hope, live from each other.
\nSuffering without hope produces resentment and despair,
\nhope without suffering creates illusions, naivet\u00e9, and drunkenness . . .<\/p>\n
Let us plant dates
\neven though those who plant them will never eat them.
\nWe must live by the love of what we will never see.
\nThis is the secret discipline.
\n<\/strong><\/em>
\nIt is a refusal to let the creative act be dissolved
\nin immediate sense experience,
\nand a stubborn commitment to the future of our grandchildren.
\nSuch disciplined love is what has given
\nprophets, revolutionaries and saints
\nthe courage to die for the future they envisaged.<\/p>\nThey make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope.<\/strong><\/em>
\n– Rubem Alves<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is capitalism aging gracelessly, full of hubris and making trouble for everyone who loves it? Name me an empire that has gone out gracefully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3505229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79720,213535],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3505217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-society-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3505217"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3505230,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505217\/revisions\/3505230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3505229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3505217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3505217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3505217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}