Vachon Imagined

Politics is two children fighting over the same toy.

They want to feel safe, and that toy makes everything right with the world again.

Especially when a parent comes along and says, “No, Tommy. Give James the toy.”

And suddenly James starts building something called self-righteousness.

It is the feeling of power.

Somehow, the toy becomes a symbol of that power.

We do this with money. With people. With marriage. We use one another to have an experience. We build entire systems around the pursuit of a feeling.

Everyone wants to feel powerful while becoming ever more powerless.

One of my favorite leaders in the Army was Ulysses S. Grant.

Why?

Because that man did not back down.

He had the determination and vision to work through what others would have called impossible. He was, and is, a man with a mission: to prevent harm to people while causing harm to people.

And there is the paradox.

You try not to cause harm, and somewhere, somehow, you cause harm.

Even if it is only within yourself.

Harm is resistance to life.

And in life itself, there is no politics.

There is nothing to fix.

No one to protect.

There is simply life flowing.

Then someone comes along and says, “Hey, this is a problem. Let’s fix it.”

And it takes only one person to declare something a problem before they become the one who gets to fix it.

What is remarkable is how quickly people will jump onto that wave and ride it with them without stopping to ask:

Where is this thing called harm?

Where is poverty?

Where is racism?

Where is the thing we have decided must be fixed?

What if I stayed with poverty?

Stayed with racism?

Stayed with this experience happening inside myself?

What if I allowed it to move instead of immediately turning it into something I had to defeat?

Would we still build systems around something that isn’t happening in the way we think it is?

Probably not.

But we will continue to try.

Because people need the experience of life to pass it along through the ages.

See? Here’s your experience too.

And it only takes one person among thousands to say:

“Hey.

That’s not who you are.

Return to who you are.

And don’t pick it up again.”