I’ve responded to a handful of texts this evening with this copy/paste reply: “No, you weren’t cut from the list. No, I haven’t started yet.”(And I’ve subsequently gained a newfound appreciation for my time abroad when you hadn’t yet figured out that texts were free.) But now the boy is sleeping, the guests are gone, the emails are answered, the dishes are done, so at long last, I can celebrate Boxing Day the way it’s meant to be celebrated… by penning yet another rambling missive that you likely won't receive until well after the day has hung up its gloves.
So here we are again dear readers, you’ve come back for your 11th serving of what I can only assume has become an email you eagerly await, only to put off actually reading until an exceptionally long public transit commute, DMV line, or bathroom sesh. If you’re new to the list, welcome! Take it from the vets, my feelings won’t be hurt if you passive-aggressively unsubscribe (read: hit delete). You do you – whether you scroll, scan, and bow out now, or dive in with the fervor of a Star Wars zealot renouncing the prequels – my work here is done until next year.
Speaking of years, 2015 has certainly been a doozy. We started off finding Donald Trump entertaining despite his asinine antics, and we now find him a deplorable retrogression of humanity. (Which, I’d be remiss to exclude, is the reverse trajectory of Justin Bieber’s public perception pendulum.) And while it’s tempting to fixate on the humanitarian horrors, the senseless tragedies, the civil and social intolerances the year witnessed (don’t you worry, I’ll get to those soon enough), there were also incredible advances worth celebrating. It was undoubtedly a year of progress. Progress in science, diversity, and diplomacy, in wildlife conservation, health care, and feminism, in international climate agreements and Justin Trudeau… And while incremental, progress can be seen in terrible things getting less terrible, like homelessness, high school dropouts, and infant mortality, all of which have dropped. Where reckless pomposity over pyramids and guns in classrooms persisted despite overwhelming scientific evidence, there was breathtaking, radical progress for LGBTQ rights. So all in all, hope is not lost. However, with election season just heating up, I can’t help but think it’s going to be a schlong 2016.
On a personal note, there are a few life-altering slices of progress to serve up: after an incredible 9-years, I decided it was time to move on from Yelp and pursue opportunities that would allow me to help another burgeoning start-up no one has heard of (yet) expand throughout the world. And to do this, a temporary move to San Francisco is in order, so that’s happening. Oh, and we also figured this would be a perfect time (please bask in the italic typography’s dazzling sarcastic glow) to grow our family, so baby boy #2 is joining the party this June.
Okay then. With cocktails and appetizers out of the way, I’ll get to the main course. Top up your wine glasses, you’ll need it. (It’s like your Granny’s lasagna. Good, but heavy.)
I’ve struggled with what to write about this year. Not for lack of material, but at the concern of vortexing into a political wasteland and not resurfacing until Shrove Tuesday. Moreover, I don’t want to get shout-y, and topics I’m especially passionate about also have the propensity to see me get shout-y. (See my recent gun control Facebook posts here and here.) But here’s the thing: I am truly heartbroken by the hate rhetoric and fear-mongering that is leading people I love – people I know to adhere to guiding principles of love and compassion and mercy – to embrace and advance agendas of fear. So shout-y be damned, I’m diving in, Garfield.
Fear is indisputably important not only to our survival but to our successful livelihoods. Of course, we understand the evolutionary necessity of fear and how it motivates action (i.e. if our ancestors didn’t flee from persecution, from unsafe living conditions, from, I don’t know… tigers, we wouldn’t be here). But in our daily lives, fear shows us what is important, what matters to us the most. At its best, fear can be embraced as a known quantity within ourselves and harnessed to accomplish remarkable things. The advancements of our civilization (and shared experiences I've had with many of you growing up, surviving middle school, traveling, dating, road-tripping, skydiving, ex-patting, parenting, supporting Seattle sports teams) prove that we would not successfully explore/create/discover/reproduce without a healthy and balanced relationship with fear. But at its worst, fear festers as an idea-crippling, experience-crushing, success-stalling inhibitor.
The scariest side of fear is how easily it is used as a manipulation tool. Turn on the news right now and you’ll see that instead of being motivated by [insert: exploration/creativity/compassion] with a healthy dose of precautionary fear sprinkled in, we are encouraged to be motivated by fear itself. “Scared? You should be. More guns. Closed borders. Hide your kids, hide your wives.” Nature imbued us with the need to feel fear, but the current rhetoric has sent it into unnecessary overdrive. Yet if we continue allowing public figures to succeed by scaring people, to stoke tensions with wild and dishonest scare tactics on the supposed threat of new arrivals, we don’t end up any safer. Paralyzing fear doesn’t make us safer, it makes us weaker. For as long as there have been immigrants to the United States, there has been fear-mongering about the destruction they will bring (your ancestors likely included). So what we’re hearing now is simply an update on an old script. How soon we forget, and how often we repeat.
The irony can’t be lost on us as we tenderly re-package our nativity scenes depicting a holiday the majority of the Western world just celebrated. Christmas is a story of a Middle Eastern family seeking refuge, denied accommodation because they were strangers, only to escape to Egypt days later as – wait for it – refugees fleeing violence and persecution. And yet Americans (historical irony refresher: a country founded by immigrants fleeing religious persecution) are keeping refugees at arm’s length. 31 state governors garishly proclaimed that Syrian refugees are not welcome as if they'd never heard of the Nativity, and hadn’t just concluded a red-faced tirade about having to say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” My favorite tidbit? A state representative in Texas recently said that Syrian refugees shouldn’t be welcomed because it would be too easy for them to get guns. Sigh.
Fear is indisputably important not only to our survival but to our successful livelihoods. Of course, we understand the evolutionary necessity of fear and how it motivates action (i.e. if our ancestors didn’t flee from persecution, from unsafe living conditions, from, I don’t know… tigers, we wouldn’t be here). But in our daily lives, fear shows us what is important, what matters to us the most. At its best, fear can be embraced as a known quantity within ourselves and harnessed to accomplish remarkable things. The advancements of our civilization (and shared experiences I've had with many of you growing up, surviving middle school, traveling, dating, road-tripping, skydiving, ex-patting, parenting, supporting Seattle sports teams) prove that we would not successfully explore/create/discover/reproduce without a healthy and balanced relationship with fear. But at its worst, fear festers as an idea-crippling, experience-crushing, success-stalling inhibitor.
The scariest side of fear is how easily it is used as a manipulation tool. Turn on the news right now and you’ll see that instead of being motivated by [insert: exploration/creativity/compassion] with a healthy dose of precautionary fear sprinkled in, we are encouraged to be motivated by fear itself. “Scared? You should be. More guns. Closed borders. Hide your kids, hide your wives.” Nature imbued us with the need to feel fear, but the current rhetoric has sent it into unnecessary overdrive. Yet if we continue allowing public figures to succeed by scaring people, to stoke tensions with wild and dishonest scare tactics on the supposed threat of new arrivals, we don’t end up any safer. Paralyzing fear doesn’t make us safer, it makes us weaker. For as long as there have been immigrants to the United States, there has been fear-mongering about the destruction they will bring (your ancestors likely included). So what we’re hearing now is simply an update on an old script. How soon we forget, and how often we repeat.
The irony can’t be lost on us as we tenderly re-package our nativity scenes depicting a holiday the majority of the Western world just celebrated. Christmas is a story of a Middle Eastern family seeking refuge, denied accommodation because they were strangers, only to escape to Egypt days later as – wait for it – refugees fleeing violence and persecution. And yet Americans (historical irony refresher: a country founded by immigrants fleeing religious persecution) are keeping refugees at arm’s length. 31 state governors garishly proclaimed that Syrian refugees are not welcome as if they'd never heard of the Nativity, and hadn’t just concluded a red-faced tirade about having to say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” My favorite tidbit? A state representative in Texas recently said that Syrian refugees shouldn’t be welcomed because it would be too easy for them to get guns. Sigh.
Let's be clear: not accepting Syrian refugees to avoid terrorists is like not accepting Katrina evacuees to avoid Hurricanes. Or as Obama more diplomatically put it: “The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism. They are the most vulnerable as a consequence of civil war and strife. They are parents. They are children. They are orphans. And it is important that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism." Furthermore, painting terrorist organizations with a broad brush that extends across all Muslims isn't just ignorant, it's irresponsible.
So here's my point: If America is going to be a Christian nation that rejects those who are in the most need, that believes protecting guns is more important than protecting lives, that only welcomes those with the same religious beliefs, then either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish and fearful as we are, or we must acknowledge that Jesus commanded us to love and to serve mercifully without condition, and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.
So here's my point: If America is going to be a Christian nation that rejects those who are in the most need, that believes protecting guns is more important than protecting lives, that only welcomes those with the same religious beliefs, then either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish and fearful as we are, or we must acknowledge that Jesus commanded us to love and to serve mercifully without condition, and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.
Sorry to go Granny’s lasagna on you, I’d much rather be comparing the second year of parenthood with the second year of ex-pat life. (Spoiler alert: less hard, more rewarding, incredibly boring to read about unless an active reality in your day-to-day.) But addressing the heavy stuff is important because not responding is a response. We are equally responsible for what we don’t do. And when a mass shooting occurs every day in America, and when the frontrunner of a major political party spews what can non-hyperbolically be described as fascist vulgarity, and when #blacklivesmatter is perverted by a racially tone-deaf populace that ignores the implicit “also” and negligently attributes the incorrect meaning that “only black lives matter,” and when a group of people, who are victims of crimes more horrendous than our privileged existence could scrape together from our darkest collective nightmares, are resoundingly rejected by “one nation, under God,” a nation that has the words “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door” proclaimed with pride on our most iconic national symbol of liberty, we must speak up. Enough is enough.
The good news is that we can still exercise our humanity. We can stand up to the misguided Islamophobia that permeates media and politics and churches and neighborhood associations. We can agree that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land. We can show mercy for the neediest in the way that we’ve been shown mercy, by giving them the best the world has to offer so they don’t have to desperately reach somewhere truculent for safety or promises of a better life. And we can resist the urge for knee-jerk reactions that perpetuate a paradigm of violence that clearly is not working. Luckily, we have good examples like French President Hollande, who after attacks on his country increased France’s humanitarian commitment to refugees. Or Scotland. Or Canada. (Warning: that last link is a tear-jerker.)
If nothing else, we can reject polarizing “all or nothing” absolutes (gun control or mental health reform, America’s homeless or refugee protections, #blacklivesmatter or LBGTQ progress), but instead replace the “ors” with “ands” and realize that civil, social, and humanitarian progress do not compete against, but rather serve one another just as a rising tide raises all ships.
It’s been quite a year, but as I reflect in the least shout-y way possible, I am truly humbled and grateful for you – my inspirational, non-conformist, fear-defying, thought-provoking friends – whose ideas and examples have been exceptionally contagious in my life and all the lives you touch. I wish you and yours a year full of exploration, creativity, compassion, and at least one trip to San Francisco, with a healthy dose of precautionary fear sprinkled in, you know, to keep you honest.
