Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash
Author and speaker, Charles Eisenstein, wrote this essay, titled "The Election: Of Hate, Grief, and a New Story", days following Donald Trump's electoral victory as the president of the United States in 2016.
Let me begin by saying I am by no means a follower of American politics to any degree, nor do I have any interest in the matter. In fact, I have never cared much (if at all) about politics in general, and this piece provides a partial explanation as to why this has always been the case for me.
What I took from this piece is that it is truly time to stop, take a few steps back, reflect, and reevaluate. To me, this call-to-action (for, paradoxically, "no" action) is applicable in every setting, whether individually, within our local communities, or globally.
The great Carl Jung, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and one of the greatest thinkers (in my humble opinion) of the twentieth century, had a concept, that when we, as humans, hold a view of certain things in life with a shadowy-disposition (i.e. shadow, darkness being symbolic of something 'negative'), this can be said to be a reflection of what is to be addressed within ourselves. It is simply up to us to be able to first, recognise this, acknowledge that it is the case, then choose to act upon it (or not).
Sometimes, it is more evident than others, and in this particular instance, popular opinion suggests that it is pretty obvious. As Charles quotes in this piece, Trump is described as the "wolf in wolf's clothing."
Analogous to the well-known fundamental of growth and development, when you make a mistake, you learn from it rather than continuing to make the same mistake, over and over again. As the late, great Nelson Mandela said,
"I never lose. I either win or learn."
Perhaps we have finally run out of metaphorical real estate underneath the rug where we've been sweeping (ignoring) our problems, and now the mess is out in the open for all to see, and our bullish-insistence that 'the way we've always done it' needs to be addressed and reevaluated to adapt to our ever-evolving society.
I certainly do not have the answers for this monumental conundrum, but I strongly believe that if we each take a step back, slow down, give ourselves space and truly reflect on what is important to us, our collective view of the world will change vastly for, if not the (subjective) 'better', than the very least, the much-needed truth.
Perhaps what we think that we 'want', as a collective human society, is not in actual fact, what we truly 'need.' As expressed famously by the Rolling Stones,
"You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you might find, you get what you need."