January 9 Friday roundup

In this week’s podcast episode, I talk about the recent kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, and why, despite all the damage Trump is doing in the world right now, he’s only a small part of the problem the U.S. is facing. (We recorded the episode on Monday and have been somewhat overtaken by events in Minneapolis, which I would have addressed in detail if we’d taped later. But I think the underlying premise will still be useful to most folks.)

You can watch the episode on YouTube or listen to it via Apple, Spotify, and elsewhere. If you’d like to check out the linked material or the written post from Tuesday, you can read it here.

People are being shot in the streets and kidnapped by masked government thugs. This isn’t happening by mistake, but is instead the model that’s being funded and massively expanded nationwide.

In grim days, it’s easy to lose heart. And if you’ve been through a lot personally in the past, or if you’ve been experiencing the repercussions of the hate and punishment that the government is actively inflicting, it’s not unusual to have a sense that nothing can change.

At the same time, just because all this violence hasn’t been stopped yet doesn’t mean that it can’t be stopped. And you might want to play a role in stopping it, but are worried that you don’t have anything to offer. Maybe you’re saying to yourself that you aren’t an expert on authoritarianism or the law or that you aren’t a joiner—or you don’t already belong to a group that has a plan for what can be done to protect vulnerable people, win elections, comfort the suffering, or transform society.

But inside the life each person lives, everyone has so much to offer in terms of ways to contribute. And you might never suspect what that thing will be until you start trying to help.

To be clear, I’m very much not the kind of person who thinks that everything that has happened in the past did so for a reason, or that every experience has inherent meaning as it unfolds, or that suffering automatically makes people stronger. In my experience, that line of thinking tends to punish people who have had to carry inhuman burdens by treating them as if they were lucky to have their afflictions.

But the older I get, the more I believe that nothing is wasted—or at least it doesn’t have to be. We make parts of our pasts righteous, often by accident, through the actions we take in the present.

Sometimes this happens in strange ways. This may be one of those opinions that will reveal me as a crackpot eccentric, but I’m regularly astounded how things from decades ago reappear in unexpected ways. It feels almost miraculous to me when someone says, “I understand laminar flow in HVAC systems because I played the piccolo in a youth orchestra as a teenager” or the front-desk receptionist repairs the garbage disposal in the breakroom, saying, “My aunt had this same one when I was a kid.”

This phenomenon can be just as true for sadder moments from the past, as well. Maybe you know how to help to someone whose partner has died because you lost someone yourself. Or maybe you have had to manage addiction, which helps you understand it across the board.

In some cases, this kind of specific understanding or knowledge can lead to dramatic moments, when a talent or knowledge from your past makes you the star of the scene. But much, much more often when people are out there stepping up to make a contribution to advance the greater good, they will do it in small ways that will never be in the spotlight.

***

I have a million inane examples. Here’s one: When we lost our house to bankruptcy, I was in the eighth grade. No longer having anywhere to live, we had to move in with aunt, and my brother and I had to switch to a new school. We were seven months into the school year, and my new school didn’t let eighth graders take French. You could only start in ninth grade.

But since I had almost finished, they let me take French for the rest of the year with the ninth graders. At my prior school, I had gotten good grades in French, though I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. But at my new junior high, I was a complete social loser who owned one pair of pants and had just been ritually humiliated by a bank officer locking me out of my own house.

In my pathetic state, French became my personality. The next year, my mom got the county to let me go over to the high school for one period a day so that I could take French II. Back at my junior high school, where no one else was in French II, I ostentatiously carried around the simplified, abridged versions of French books that we read in class.

I was trying to assert superiority because I was sure I was damaged goods. My peacocking helped me feel worthwhile. It wasn’t until the first time I actually went to France itself that the French history and culture and millions of people who spoke French became truly real to me, rather than an intellectual exercise or something out of a novel.

Altogether, I took five years of French before graduating high school, and only one year in college. As an undergraduate, I met many people who had grown up abroad, or who spoke two, three, or even more languages. It quickly became apparent that a foreign language no longer sufficed as a personality.

Years later, when I was working in DC, a neighbor mentioned a small nonprofit that needed someone to translate French-language correspondence. By chance, I had gotten a formal rating from the university that served as a qualification for translation. I began volunteering with the nonprofit.

It wasn’t as if no one else in Washington, DC, knew French, but I happened to be available. And this part of my past that I had mostly set aside suddenly became relevant in a way that could help other people.

***

Maybe you were once a whiz at mailing campaigns. Maybe you raised your siblings and developed limitless reserves of patience. Maybe you fucked up your life royally, and your path back from that let you see the inner workings of a corrupt or broken system. Whatever your quiet superpower, it is needed now.

I was lucky enough all those years ago that a neighbor mentioned the nonprofit looking for help. But most of the time, you can’t figure out where you’ll be able to do the most good until you actually start plugging in somewhere.

The lost parts of your past are just waiting for you to take them up and make use of them. But the real secret is that even if your mystery special talent never outs itself, all those little corners of your past are you. You are sufficient to the job.

And at times like this, we truly need everyone. Have a look at the 50501 site to find events this weekend where you can find and expand the community of people who want to build something better in their communities, the country, and the world.

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