The original featured image photo for this post was taken by Joanna St. Jacques.
I follow politics closely. I’d love to turn it off. To let the creative juices flow but I can’t. Perhaps once you are immersed in political circles, creativity becomes forever lost in the harsh realities of nonsense?
Is there room for creativity post elected life and separate from the frustration felt regarding the state of our communities and the west as a whole? Better yet, is there a way to marry the beauty I see in the world and in the written world, with the darkness that has manifested through the pandemic especially?
I once could make words dance, but now I feel they fall flat from my uninspired fingers.
I am love. I’m peace, but I have found anger and I think that’s okay and even healthy, but it has cast a fog over the poetry I see in everyday life.
I hate partisan politics. Left versus right versus ‘I’m right’. I despise the division, blaming the other party for this and the general feeling that someone is a deplorable person if they are liberal or conservative.
Far left. Extreme right. Terf. Racist. Nazi. Anti-vaxers. Fringe views. It’s all fvcking gross.
My mentors are Irshad Manji and Jordan Peterson. Both controversial in their own right, but brilliant minds who I could listen to for hours on end and I have. They are both constantly questioning and growing their own opinions and it’s fascinating listening to them talk through social-political issues. They have both found their purpose and are inspiring the world with their books and talks.
Perhaps we are not all destined to inspire at the level they have, but with the power they are giving us to find our own voice, we can be part of a collective bringing change and common ground to our civic discourse.