I used to collect clothing and blankets and deliver them to villages in the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico. Each trip took about 2000 miles and involved all sorts of hazards: flash floods, snow, monsoon rains, bribing customs officials, driving alone on primitive roads and potentially running into bandits, drug traffickers etc….
The weird thing was I wasn’t really afraid of getting robbed or killed on the road or getting thrown into a Mexican jail. What I was afraid of was that the whole idea was wrong-headed: that just showing up at these villages with a bunch of clothes would be considered patronizing or insulting… that I’d arrive at some village and the people would say “Who do you think you are? How dare you insult us like this! We don’t want your charity!” That’s what I was afraid of. And it wasn't even their feelings I was worried about... what I was really worried about was simply looking foolish. Because that’s the risk you run by doing something nobody else is doing.
It was ridiculous of course. The people in the villages live on something like three dollars a day, their kids are dressed in rags and even if they had money the nearest store is 12 hours away. But even though everywhere I went the people were grateful to the point of tears, that bizarre fear of insulting them stuck with me. I don’t know why - people are funny, our brains are weird… Mine especially. And each time it came up I’d tell myself that if I really believed what I was doing was important - trying to alleviate human misery, just getting warm clothes to cold people - if that was worth doing… then I should be willing to risk embarrassing myself in the effort.
Even when we know in our hearts that something is the right thing to do, it's still going to be weird and scary to be the only ones doing it. But ultimately you have to ask yourself if deep down what you’re really afraid of is simply looking foolish. And then you have to ask yourself whether or not the thing you’re fighting for is worth that risk.
So, when Donald Trump fires Robert Mueller, or whatever desperate last ditch effort he attempts in the days ahead, what are you going to do? What do you have planned? Another letter to the editor? Another call to your Congressperson? Add one more voice to another march?
Because things are getting serious now. As the kids say, “Shit’s gettin’ real.” We are literally fighting for Democracy, fighting for America: the country our parents fought for and the country our children, hopefully, will live in.
We all do what we can, I realize that, and if you have something special planned, please share it in the comments. But whatever you do to speak out — whatever you do to fight back - if it doesn’t take you outside your comfort zone, if it doesn’t scare you at least a little, I guarantee you it’s not enough.
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