Der Tag

Today is the big day in nearly half the states of this country. It's Super Tuesday, the day when millions of voters will vote in primaries or participate in caucuses to decide which candidate will win his or her party's nomination. It's getting really hard for me not to use this blog as a platform to endorse my chosen candidate but I'm determined to stick by my previous resolution. Soon though, the wraps will be off and I will be able to speak (write) freely! In the meantime, just get out there and vote or participate in your caucus! The democratic process cannot happen without the participation of the masses, otherwise we wind up suffering through the tyranny of the minority, when a small but vocal faction gets out their vote more effectively than anyone else and winds up in control of this country. Don't let that be our fate!

In case you're wondering about my absence from this blog, I've been thinking a lot about healthy work-life boundaries, a subject which is discussed and honored at my workplace. I realized that since I spend so much time at home alone it's far too easy for me to fall into a pattern of always working on something - studying, housework, sewing, writing this blog, you name it - I don't tend to allow myself much downtime. It's hard to keep those healthy boundaries in place when so much of your work is done at home - it's easy for it to bleed into any spare waking minute. So this past Sunday evening I decided that once I finished studying I was going to be DONE, done with work of all types, and I was going to allow myself time simply to relax. So I made a point to put all of my textbooks out of reach, my sewing safely across the room, a glass of tea, warm blanket and the remote within reach, and I watched a movie simply for the sake of entertainment. Nothing controversial, no documentary, simply for laughs. It had been a long time, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Of course, now I still have the lyrics "Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a spider pig does" running through my head, but that will pass eventually.

Yesterday I just plain didn't get to write. After I got home from work I spent my computer time getting my assignments for the week and catching up on discussion board action in my classes. That's a bigger task than it sounds when you have 70 people in a class, they each write a post and then respond to five others - that's over 400 posts each week! Great class participation though, that's why I love online classes.

It feels so great to type the phrase "after I got home from work". I can't believe how wonderful my job is now. Each day that I work I look forward to going into the office and I thoroughly enjoy what I do while I'm there. Doesn't seem fair to call it work.

Not much rabblerousing in this post, is there? Well here's something to think about. I had coffee with a friend on Sunday afternoon, and she said something that struck me as being a proper metaphor for initiating positive social change. She told me about remodeling her kitchen and how one day she simply got up and tore a cabinet off the wall to begin the project. She said the reason she did this was because once that first cabinet was down, she was committed to seeing the whole project through. To me this is a brilliant and elegant metaphor for what we need to do in order to begin any sort of social change movement: we need to tear that first cabinet off the wall and irrevocably commit ourselves to the project of changing our world for the better. Think about it - we can either debate endlessly about which cabinet (issue) to tear off first, or how to get the thing off the wall (how to go about creating change), or we can dive in and demolish that first cabinet with our bare hands, with gusto, with energy, hope for the future and faith that our social remodeling project will produce results we'll be proud of. And above all, with the knowledge that we're not just sitting on the sidelines, we're ready to commit "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honors" to seeing this project to completion. So what I'm asking you (and myself) is: are you ready to rip down a cabinet and start the process of social change? I would love to hear about any thoughts or ideas that you may have, and of course I will share my own in a future post. Until then,

"So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world." - Immanuel Kant

Later,
AuntieM