It it me?

I had a day.

You know those days where everyone around you seems like an idiot?  Maybe it's just me.
I've got a thing....
One idiot, probably is an idiot.  Five idiots in the same day, I start to think it's me.  I'm grumpy and impatient and need to put myself in a time out.  Actually, by the third idiot I'm usually sending myself home asap, so as to not injure anyone.

So recently I've been feeling ignored, shut out, pushed aside, shut down.  If it happened just once, I'd write it off.  Some one was having an off day, or I rubbed someone the wrong way, or I read the situation wrong.  But when it happens again and again, in more than one situation, with more than one person, over a series of days and situations, I start to think - maybe it's me.

Maybe I'm being particularly abrasive, or bossy. I heard that enough growing up to know - not everyone can take a full dose of me.  Maybe it's karma catching up with me.  Maybe I'm extra sensitive for some reason and reading things into it that aren't there.   Or maybe lots of people are short tempered and feeling sensitive themselves and I'm just handy.

Here's the thing - I have not had the experience of it being nothing when I sense something.  Whenever I get these feelings, something has been up.  The question is, is it something I need to do anything about?  Is it something external or internal to me?  I don't know yet.  Maybe there's something in the air, a general feeling of anxiety and fear, an itchiness just where you can't reach, a rock in our collective shoe.  Maybe I'm being a bitch on wheels and am oblivious.

Here's what I know is true, people have been acting unusually irritated around me. It's unpleasant and unexpected. 
I think I'm ready to not people for a while.

Art is for everyone

Last year I did a program called Wellspring.  One part of the program was that we had to commit to a daily spiritual practice, although what you did could vary day to day.  One of my favorite things to do as a spiritual practice is to create.  Sometimes I practiced an instrument, or wrote something, but some times I drew.

We all get free together

We're not free until we're all free.  We all get free together.

You know how sometimes you see things in your media stream, and the seemingly random juxtaposition suddenly refocuses something and then you see relationships where you didn't before?

Ya.  That.

There's this, and this article about improving education.


We're not free until we're all free.  We all get free together.

Then there was this article followed by a discussion about "identity politics" and a facebook comment from an amazing intelligent young man I really respect about how "identity politics" is going to bring down the Democratic party.  In my experience, all politics is identity politics.  It's just white-identity-politics is called "politics".  The white experience is considered the norm, so anything else is dismissed as "identity politics".

We're not free until we're all free.  We all get free together.

Then I remembered a story about OXO good grips I heard on NPR.  OXO products were designed for people with arthritis, but it turned out that a really good design was better for a lot of people.

We're not free until we're all free.  We all get free together.

Designing a good product, a good system, or a good policy, takes a lot of work.  It takes time and energy.  It's so  tempting to say "good enough", we got the worst of it, dust our hands and call it done.  So tempting.  I get it, we're tired.  I'm tired.

But the extra effort to really make it better for everyone, to make it equitable and not just convenient, not even just equal, but truly equitable, it does make it better for everyone.  Even those who didn't expect to benefit from it do.

We're not free until we're all free.  We all get free, together.