Donald Trump Doesn't Define Us

It's impossible to exist in America at this point in time without having strong feelings, one way or another, about Donald Trump. To some, like my brother, Donald Trump is the embodiment of winning. He's a below average white male who doesn't deserve, doesn't understand and doesn't care about the office he's in and he's the poster child for every inadequate white male out there who hated the past president for being the exact opposite (black, smart, deserving).

To many of us, we can only see the destruction this less-than-average man accomplishes and we only see how we as a country, as a people, are losing. Losing the gravity of the office of President, losing respect, losing our planet, losing our standing in the world.

On a personal level, I feel like Donald Trump is turning many of us into shell-shocked partners of a 

an emotionally abusive man. He's always attacking, always ready to perceive slight and erupt in vitriol and rage, leaving us shaken and afraid, hoping that the fists won't come out.

He's exhausting. If you look away for a minute then you'll miss the latest crazy, the last outrage, the newest damage to our democracy. But if you watch, if you haunt the news and social media, the constant assaults to our normality, to our lives just keep picking at your thoughts and soul. 

There is no winning with this man. Disengage and miss how he's destroying what matters (then come back and despair). Stay aware and despair because it doesn't stop. Ever. Every single motherfucking day there's something.

We're an emotionally ragged country. We can't sustain this.

And we need to learn not to. Not to look away because these are our lives, our future. But more than ever this is the time to return to art, to create, to craft, to fight the unrelenting ugliness of this man and his followers and create art. Art. We need art to keep us going.

Think for a minute about this. How many of us found that this world has sucked the joy out of us? Spend 10 minutes on Twitter and then think about crafting something and all you want to do is take a nap. 

It's so hard to create when emotionally you feel unbalanced. I quit writing after Trump became president and slowly a lot of my creativity went hot then cold then gone. (Admittedly, after Mollie went to Japan I've found it hard to create at all.)

We have to. We have to find that spot within us and nurture it back into being. Creativity is hope. It just is. It's reaching out into the void and finding celebration. Whether writing, art, baking, painting, working with Photoshop, knitting a scarf: creating always equals hope. 

And hope is what defines us as a species. Not hate. Not anger. Not Donald Trump.

I know it sounds simple but it isn't. This is a battle for peace of mind for those staying engaged. You can't live like this small man and his small sect of haters. Live larger. Embrace the world we love and refuse to lose. Hope is the thing created with brushstrokes, keyboards, flour spilled on the table. Raise yourself from the Netflix stupor and make your own short film, dance to BTS, dip your happiness in paint and reclaim yourself with a brush stroke.

Donald Trump does not define us because hope does. Reconnect with yourself, with your joy, with your soul. Create something. And remember that in doing so you're part of humanity and humanity prevails because humanity aspires.

Dream. Reach. Hope.