I’m one of those people who believe that the heart of personal freedom is what I decide to pay attention to.
What I choose to focus on is my highest expression of my free will. It’s that simple.
Our focus is our freedom.
In today’s world, a thousand distractions compete for our focus and thought, seemingly at every moment. We have an American president and a number of performative politicians who believe any attention is good attention, even if through war, hate, intimidation, fear or envy. They have rallied a whole tribe of more or less callous people around them.
This puts me in an extraordinary battle to focus. Despite the interference in my life and thoughts, I plan to focus on what I believe truly deserves my personal attention. I will learn to put the attention hogs in their proper place.
If I succeed at keeping my focus, I keep my freedom. Essentially, I win.
If they succeed at stealing my attention through their power, poking, outrageous behavior, hateful words, or attempts to inspire fear, then I lose freedom to the extent they succeed in distracting me. Moment to moment, they can win.
Of course, I’m talking about my personal struggle to maintain my freedom and peace of mind during the next two years and ten months.
Some commentators say that Trump has pushed back on some excesses of the “deep state” or “politically correct” or “woke” policies, especially, they believe, by ridding the nation’s institutions of unfair protections for those who have been discriminated against at the expense of merit.
Okay, if that’s the way people excuse or explain their Trump votes. But they are mere words, and they don’t justify Trump’s deeds and his poisonous heart.
Trump and his sycophants have launched a crusade against immigrants, minorities, DEI, religious minorities — even the concept of empathy itself. They are fear mongers, vengeful, grievance-filled and hostile folks, and they love shocking the rest of us with speed, outrage and shows of power.
It’s chaos, really, to cover up greed. The common denominator of the Trump policies seems to be a chaotic combination of hostility, aggressiveness and destruction.
Trump — with the help of Kennedy, Vought, Hegseth, Stephen Miller and many other sycophants, cheerleaders (like Steve Bannon) and enablers (thinking of Congressional and Supreme Court Republicans here) — has set out to intimidate and destroy our country’s institutions of government, education, the rule of law, law enforcement, medicine, and science.
I can see why some people would say Trump supports Putin’s Russia both by abandoning longstanding international alliances, treaties and organizations, and cutting American aid programs that fight disease, homelessness, hunger and ignorance. It’s a betrayal of all of us, whether for Putin, the Saudis, Netanyahu or whomever.
Trump and company have been successful at this. They have been audacious and fast. It will be hard to rebuild what they have destroyed.
They have made America lawless, a crime scene of immense proportions, including billions of dollars in wealth made possible through abuse of Trump’s presidential powers for his own enrichment.
It is necessary to lay this all out. But that is all the attention that they deserve, not an endless meditation of how and why they managed to do this and how and why people still believe in Trump.
Suffice it to say they have proved that fear and hate work dramatically. In the minds of many, they have made immigrants, liberals and Muslims into some sort of subhuman “other,” often justified by Christian Nationalism, a phony religiosity if there ever was one.
But enough about Trump and company. They have time until the next election, perhaps, but no more. And as they move on, I hope we can begin again and help America listen to its better angels.
Meanwhile, my job is to maintain focus on what is important for me and my family: peace of mind, the freedom to pursue good lives for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren, and the positive actions we can all take as individuals to help our less fortunate neighbors with food, housing, education and employment.
We can choose to associate with people, leaders, and communities of faith dedicated to love, assistance for the needy, compassion for the suffering, and heartfelt welcoming for those marginalized by Trump’s campaigns of fear and hate.
We will choose to find fulfillment in volunteering, helping others, and speaking out against fear, hate and injustice when we must.
We will turn to music, art, poetry, deep reading, exploring the mysteries of both the mind and the universe, marveling at the magnificence of the universe and the beauty of the smallest of creatures.
We will pay attention, too, to remedying the excesses of greed, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, anti-vaxxing extremists, racism, and the dehumanization of the millions of people who feel they must leave their native lands to seek freedom and a better life. We will argue for healthcare as a human right. For these are the issues receiving insufficient attention.
Every moment we choose to focus on truly liberating and beautiful things is a moment that nobody can steal from us. There can be many moments — a lifetime of them — in which we can choose happiness, peace, unselfishness, learning, understanding, harmony and creativity.
We can have both the satisfaction of pointing out what is wrong with the world, as well as the joy of embracing what is right about it.
Through this process, we can feel at peace through living lives of hope and unselfishness — whether that is based in faith or just our own human need to love and be loved.
Above all, we can feel free by maintaining our focus on what is good, right, musical, creative, generous, loyal, caring and kind.
May I have the grace to focus this way. Just today. One day at a time.
