Early in the morning on November 3rd 2020 I received a text that read “stay safe today”. This warm message would have been normal on any other day but today it made me think deeper. The majority of people are aware that an important decision will be made today. A decision that will affect the next four years of our lives. The american general elections, an event where democracy is supposed to be alive and well. We the people have the power to vote on policy and leadership that we believe will better our individual and collective well being as a “Powerful Nation”. Of course this sounds good, but to every coin there’s a flip side — especially in 2020.
As americans, our current leadership has divided us more than ever before in my lifetime. ‘Us vs. them’ has been the main rhetoric used to “Make America Great Again”. This division and separation among us has allowed for the fear of ‘The Other’ to permeate itself through mainstream american culture. The Other is an individual or a group of people being different than ‘The Norm’ in some fundamental way. Views of ‘The Other’ contradict those of ‘The Norm’, or the dominant group — they do not belong. These views of the other allow for fear of the unknown and ultimately hate to be used to justify discriminatory behavior and decisions. This is what we are seeing in america today. Us vs. them, Republicans vs. Democrats, White vs. Black, Men vs. Women, Gay vs. Straight, the list goes on. There is a lack of unity, a lack of LOVE amongst americans which has a direct influence on the world at large.
The Other is a story we tell ourselves in order to make sense of the things that are unknown to us — a story told to make our reasoning right and their reasoning wrong. The part of the story that we don’t tell ourselves is that we are all simultaneously ‘The Other’ and ‘The Norm’, but behave as if there is only a single possible story. There is much more to the human experience than what we know. We have the ability to tell ourselves stories that either drive us further & further apart as americans or tell stories that promote our collective well being as humans, advancing eudaimonia.
LOVE and unity are the only way we will advance together as human beings. Fear of ‘The Other’ will always keep us separated like oil & water, never mixing, and LOVE cannot exist in fear. We must change the stories we tell ourselves in order to reach eudaimonia, human flourishing and well-being. I heard in an interview with thinker Van Jones where he said, “If we want to change our facts, we must change our fiction” and this couldn’t be more true. The us vs. them mentality will only continue to prove our animalistic origins. When we realize that we are all both ‘The Other’ and ‘The Norm’, and work towards productive ways to progress our collective humanity, we will then be able to say america is a great place. If that doesn’t happen, we will continue to live in fear of ourselves. It’s Us vs. Us.
Love is as Love does,
-takai 🌈