Reality Check

Extremism makes people think in extremes.  Polarization is another word for extremism.  Thinking in extremes is both dramatic and scary---but not necessarily reality based.

Reality has been taking a hit what with alternative facts and such.  But is still where most of us are trying to live.

Reality is--I'm sitting in a comfortably warm room with sufficient lighting and writing on my computer.  I'm not in hiding from a fascist regime out to get me (picture the diary of Ann Frank).  I'm not walking toward the border trying to escape a civil war that has destroyed my house and my neighbors houses (think Syrian refugees trying to get away from the fighting and find a place to raise their families).  I'm not stuck in a tiny cabin with inadequate food watching those around me be beaten or misused because I was sold into slavery and bought by a people that thought owning other people was OK (think American slavery).

I am not being forced into a marriage with someone I don't love or being left on the prairie in winter because I'm old.  I am not being burned for practicing herbal medicine or refusing to go to the approved church.  I am not being denied a job because of the color of my skin or the language I speak.  I am not being taxed at such a high rate I can't afford the basics necessary to life.  I am not refused emergency medical care because I don't have the money to pay for care.  I am not being stoned for a romantic tryst.  I am not being put in an orphanage for being born female.  I can still go to school if I have the money, and I went for free as a child.

My life could be much worse.  There are people whose lives were much worse.  There are people whose lives are still much worse.  And while many of those people are in other parts of the world or in other times, many are also in this country--now.

I am lucky.

There is sex trafficking in my town, both of adults from other countries and children from here and other countries.
There are people wrapped in garbage bags and newspaper trying to sleep out in the cold.
There are people that can tell me where the best dumpsters for edible food are and when is the best time to get to them.  They can also tell me what businesses pour bleach on their old food and take box knives to the clothing and shoes that go to the dumpster.
There are people locked in dormitories brought to this country for good jobs that are not allowed to leave and are charged all of that "good  money" for the crappy food they are allowed to eat and for the cot in an unheated warehouse they get to sleep.
There are old men and women whose utilities are off because they are buying their very expensive medications.
There are mentally ill people that are fighting internal monsters while the people running their boardinghouse keep the money and treat them badly and don't give them their medications.

I am independent, free to use my money as I wish, and capable of choosing how to spend my time.

I am lucky.

So when I hear about a wall going up, I think about the amazing great wall of china which no longer separates 2 kingdoms but serves as a tourist attraction and the Berlin Wall which was so despised--a symbol of what was wrong in the world and the great joy when it fell.  I have never been to Mexico.  I don't know anyone in Mexico at this time.  This wall will not affect me personally.

I am lucky.

When I hear about a ban on Syrian refugees and no more Muslim immigrants.  I'm not Muslim or even religious.  I have never been to Syria.  I don't know anyone from Syria.  This change will not affect me.

I am lucky.

When I hear the war against abortion rights and women's rights to choose about their bodies is being attacked--again, I don't like it, because I'm a woman.  But this will not affect me personally.

I am Lucky.

When I hear about a hiring freeze on federal employees, I realize that Veteran's just lost the availability of a lot of good jobs that they would have normally had a good shot at and that Veterans Healthcare, currently actively seeking both physicians and workers, will just have to continue limping along understaffed.  I realize that the Post Office may really go away.  But I am not a Veteran.

I am Lucky.

When I hear about getting rid of 75% of government regulations, I'm afraid that will mean environmental protection--stopping waste, toxins, poisons, being dumped into our water or released into our air so that the corporations that were spending money to keep their factories from endangering us all can make more money.  That will affect me.  But I am old so it will probably only shorten my live slightly.

I am lucky.

When I hear about us returning to a full-fledged coal and oil dependency in the name of our coal and oil workers and coal and oil barons, I'm disturbed.  But I have a Prius.  And I don't use coal.  And while I would love to see the skies continue to clear and waters to be spring-like, I am old--it will be alright.  My child-bearing days are over.  I will not have to see my descendants choked by the air or their babies malformed from drinking water contaminated not only with petroleum but with  benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene and other chemicals used to force the oil from the earth.  All I have to worry about is the multiple earthquakes that shake my house everyday and threaten to drop my bedroom down a floor or wedge my doors shut.  There are worse ways to die than in an earthquake.

I am lucky.

When I hear about denial of climate change, by men that profit from not believing in climate change, I am curious about those minds that can so lie to themselves that they endanger all those species--including our own.  But while I have never seen weather like this, the changes were already starting when I was a child.  It is obviously speeding up, and I will have to die before my statistically promised life expectancy is reached or move further north soon, if I would survive summers.  I fear I cannot afford to move.  I hear that while hyperthermia is not a pleasant death, it is relatively quick.

I am lucky.

I hope the changes don't get worse than this.  I fear my lucky streak may end.