Over the past week I see many of us greeting each other with a tender look and “How are you doing?” Prior to *all of this* we were already socially acculturated to respond with a cheerful, “I’m good! You?”
Both question and answer are well meaning and heartfelt, but no one is doing okay. Answering the question feels impossible and even asking the question feels dismissive in a way, like we somehow expect a different answer.
I’m reminded of a Toni Morrison essay from 2015. She writes about a conversation she had with a friend in December of 2004, following the presidential re-election of George W. Bush.
I am staring out of the window in an extremely dark mood, feeling helpless. Then a friend, a fellow artist, calls to wish me happy holidays. He asks, “How are you?” And instead of “Oh, fine—and you?”, I blurt out the truth: “Not well. Not only am I depressed, I can’t seem to work, to write; it’s as though I am paralyzed, unable to write anything more in the novel I’ve begun. I’ve never felt this way before, but the election….” I am about to explain with further detail when he interrupts, shouting: “No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!”
Last Thursday, two days after the election, I signed up for a three week poetry workshop. Even though I write a lot, this email is case in point, I struggle to call myself a “writer” or “poet.” I had/have a serious case of imposter syndrome signing up and showing up for the workshop, but it feels like a “reasonable risk.” Reasonable risks are those things that push us just outside our sphere of comfort. While I can’t pretend everything is fine and it isn’t all going to hell in a hand basket, I can pretend to be a poet or at least someone who writes poetry. I lean into the reasonable discomfort for the sake of fostering my creativity because the alternative is to allow the anxiety and anger to consume me.
Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art: the censorship and book-burning of unpoliced prose, the harassment and detention of painters, journalists, poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists. This is the first step of a despot whose instinctive acts of malevolence are not simply mindless or evil; they are also perceptive. Such despots know very well that their strategy of repression will allow the real tools of oppressive power to flourish.
Many of us face very real risks as a result of the election. When we perceive a threat instinct tells us to hunker down, turn inward to self-protect. I feel like that is what Toni Morrison was feeling in the wake of the 2004 election. The impending risks were causing her to become paralyzed, stifling her creative voice. But, as her friend assured her, shutting down, turning inward, becoming silent, is the worst response. Oppression begins with the repression of creativity. Creativity and imagination are the source of critical thinking. Censoring, limiting, and silencing creativity, art, and imagination, also silences critical thinking. When we fail to think critically we are easily swayed by the lies and “alternative facts” of demagogues seeking control.
Even if you don’t consider yourself an artist or creative, all endeavors in this world are improved with creativity and imagination. We all certainly engage with creativity and art, movies, books, visual art, music, they all invite us to experience and think outside of our own sphere. Scholars, scientist, journalist, teachers, all work is improved with creative and critical thinking. As the Wendell Berry poem we shared last Sunday says, “As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it.” In the face of repression, creativity and imagination become radical act of resistance.
Jeremiah 29, 5-7 (Inclusive Bible, adapted)
“Thus says YHWH Omnipotent, the God of Israel, to all the exiles deported from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses to live in. Plant gardens and eat what they grow. Marry and raise children. Find spouses for your children, that they may raise their own children. Multiply while you are there. … seek the peace and the prosperity of the city to which you have been exiled.”
This story takes place after the fall of Jerusalem, following Nebuchadnezzar’s siege in 589 BCE. The Hebrew people in Jerusalem were forced to flee into exile in Babylon. (For geographic context, Babylon was about 50 miles south of Baghdad along the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq.) God instructs them to seek peace and prosper even while they were displaced from their homes and living in fear.
Build houses, plant gardens, fall in love, cook good food, have babies, create life, create art. God the creator, created us in their own creative image. God created us to be creative.
Find an outlet in which to loose your mind. Take a reasonable risk.
Create something, plant bulbs for spring, doddle in your notebook that no one will ever see, or scribble a few lines of prose on the back of junk mail.
Imagination is an act of resistance.
Don’t allow the despots to limit your mind.
Be creative everyday to keep the demagogues at bay!
(Yea, I'll keep working on my poetic rhyming.)
♥︎ Liz
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