so many of us are familiar with the phrase, “if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention.” growing up in the bay, i hardly went a day without seeing it slapped on someone’s bumper. and then in 2017, it resurfaced in headlines as the last facebook post of heather heyer, the protester who was killed during the infamous alt-right tiki torch rally in charlotte. in activist circles, those words are seared in our lexicon, memorized like a mantra – i’m sure at some point i shouted it someone it in earnest. it has served as a valuable tool in the campaign to awaken consciousness at the state of the world, and when it was more present in my life in the early 2000s, was a needed bullhorn when it genuinely felt like nobody cared about the world’s desperations.
but at some point over the decade it seems like things flipped. for me, the news of the world went from something that i needed to actively seek out, into a spigot that won’t twist shut. everywhere i go there is so much outrage at all the things demanding our attention. i’m out of rage. my attention has mutated into fixation. and the deeper i go down this path, the more i feel apathetic, as opposed to empowered. i don’t think this is how it was supposed to go.
this morning the phrase wormed its way into my brain and i couldn’t shake the realization that this is no longer the dilemma. and the notion that an accusation on a bumper sticker can impel transformative change seems less plausible. but if we looked at the statement in its exact opposite, would there be something useful in that? i have found that, instead of “if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention” – “if i’m not in peace, i’m not setting intention” is serving as a more helpful guide. this is because outrage absolutely can’t be the final stop, the light at the end of the tunnel. this is not to say there are not things to be outraged about, that there are not things to pay attention to. but my current state of burnout comes not from a desire (or capacity) to stay outraged, but rather to be ushered into a state of peace. and my perpetual state of paying attention to all the things that very well deserve and require attention has left me without the time (or energy) to set intention to anything that i’ve learned. without giving myself the space to set intention, i cannot expect myself to encounter the world in peace (as in the intergalactic greeting “i come in peace,” not to be mistaken for being at peace, which means something entirely different.
there are so many ways that i want to shift the way i approach the coming year and decade, but right now this appears to sum up a lot of it. greater regard for intention, deeper expressions of peace, recognition that the one i need to call in first is myself.