Looking Back, Looking Forward

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives/ Tomorrow is too late to pretend everything’s all right now… --“Church On Sunday,” Green Day

It’s been a long time since I thought I could feel a tangible transition between December 31st and January 1st, but as 2016 begins, I am very conscious of the time passing--of how little we have in the face of so much change we need to create, and of how little we are probably aware of it.

We live fast. We move fast. We think fast. We talk fast. And all around us, the volatile world changes fast. It’s up to us how that happens. Are we going to struggle for more victories, like the Iran Deal and the defeat of the Keystone XL pipeline? Are we going to fight corporate juggernauts like the TPP? Are we going to demand and curtail proxy wars and drone strikes, police brutality, Guantanamo Bay, secret surveillance programs? Are we going to ignore our rights and let them fade away? Are we going to pay attention to each other, to forge human connections, to live with empathy and respect and thoughtfulness? Are we going to give in to the voices of the media and each other, shouting be afraid, be very afraid? Are we going to sit back and watch climate change worsen, tipping points tick closer, business as usual keep rocketing on? Are we going to put ourselves in the line of fire? Are we going to stand up for those already there?

Our challenges mount every moment that we wait. Years like 2016 and 2017 were settings for dystopian futuristic books back when I was in middle school--and now we’re living them. Time won’t wait for us to stand up, to make our choices over how much we’ll sacrifice now and how much we’ll wait to have stripped away later. Time may not be on our side, but power still can be. The world we will live in, the world we will die in, the world our children and their children will live in will depend on the choices that we make now. This year. Today.

I have been conflicted over using the term ‘political’ too often--it is so often a turn-off to people my age, yet if we deny that everything, everything we do is political, we are simply giving ourselves another outlet for avoidance, for apathy. What we do now matters. How we act is political, because we don’t have time to live in a world where politics doesn’t overlay everything. If it helps to get through to someone about climate change by framing it as something other than a political issue, that can still be an important avenue to pursue--but there is no stepping out of politics. There is no way to terminate the contract we have bound ourselves into--with the planet, with each other. We are all in this together, and we will only get out of it if as many of us as possible fight as hard as we can for a world that we can live in safely, sustainably, equitably, joyfully.

I am quite honestly afraid. But I will be here, somewhere, standing up, fighting back. Whatever I can do, I will offer it. 2016 must not be a year to dawdle. We are waking up. We are looking around. And now we have to run. We have so much work to do. Today is too late to regret, and tomorrow is too late to pretend. We need to act. This isn’t a year we can throw away.

As we move deeper into 2016, where are we headed? Which yesterdays are we going to remember or repair? What kind of tomorrows are we going to build?