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I wrote this on a mailing list as support for friends but figured I'd share more broadly: Here are my 10 rules for these trying times

1. Realize that this is one part in history and that we've been here before: I know it sounds crazy, but this country has been in similar situations before.

There was the revolutionary war. There was the civil war. The world went through 2 (!!!) world wars. Nazis held rallies in New York and there was talk of attempting a coup in the US. At the height of the cold war, we came within days of potentially escalating into a nuclear conflict with the USSR.

2. Realize you're in a privileged class: Relative to people on temporary residency status (ie. legal immigrants), illegal immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, you're in a favored group. Appreciate that privilege for what it is.

3. Think of the things you have agency on and act on them: "All politics is local." Organize to help those in your community and find activists in your community to work with. Working together, at a local level, will make you realize there is tremendous good still happening in the world.

4. This too shall pass: In the days/weeks/months following 9/11, we all wondered what living under the threat of foreign-born terrorism meant. We survived. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, we wondered if the world could recover from such a shock. We survived.

In the early 2020s, we wondered whether we'd make it past the pandemic. Most of us survived. We may be entering an era of uncertainty but it, too, will end.

5. You do not have to be current on everything in any moment: Turn of the social media feed (or consume it lightly). Turn off the TV talking head (or consume them lightly). We are in an age of constant stimulation and reaction.

Pick up a newspaper as your main source of news. Pick up books you've been meaning to read.

6. Refuse the exhaustion and pessimism: Victor Frankl said "Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing: your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation." Believe that a better can be possible and act accordingly.

7. Do and consume art: Guernica depicted the horrors of war during the Spanish Civil War. Alice's Restaurant is a war protest song. Metropolis warned about the dangers of mass crowd behavior. Solzhenitsyn showed us there could be joy while writing from a Gulag.

8. Reconnect with friends: Don't isolate and don't focus your conversations on the world. Talk about the small things. Take pleasure in a meal, or a walk, or just sitting together with a friend.

9. Teach: You have some knowledge. Find someone interested in that knowledge. Pass it on and rediscover the wonder of why you fell in love with the thing you're teaching. Notice the person you're teaching getting that glint in their eye when things connect.

10. Imagine a better world: Think of how you can make the world a better place. Is it by writing some utopian piece (and thus spending a lot of time in that utopian world you're creating)? Or by doing one of the above?