I’m popping out of Fakequity retirement to check in with you on your post-presidential election stupor. How is your soul, how is it feeling? Maybe you’re tired of being asked that on day three, for others maybe you’re still in a stupor and processing.

My modus operandi is to move quickly through disbelief to “time to do something.” I don’t know if that is good, bad, or just is. I landed on it is all ok. 

I’m working on getting creative to make the next four years tolerable to worthwhile. The Sunday before the election, I picked up Trevor Noah’s newest book Into the Uncut Grass. More than the story itself, I’ve been captivated with a passage in his intro: 

“Imagining… is crucial for conflict resolution. When faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges, it is our ability to envision possibilities beyond the immediate and the obvious that paves the way for solutions.” I work in conflict resolution and alternative dispute resolution, so this passage felt very relevant. Now is the time where we imagine and connect as humans.

We’ve lost the ability to connect with others and to hear their life stories, we’ve lost the narratives. I am guilty of this. Maybe it was during COVID or maybe it’s from years of working in polarized environments where I allow my biases to take over and I now snap to judgments. I’m less patient and less tolerant of divergent views, and less wanting of guiding people to understand other points of view too. This is not a good formula for conflict resolution as a community building skill.

Where I’ve landed in the Trump 2.0 era is to practice resolve. Part of that resolve needs to include imagining new ways fueled by diverse voices, practicing truer listening skills, and asking deeper more personalized questions. A friend who is masterful at teaching people to see each other recommended the book How to Know a Person, by David Brooks. Normally I would have passed on a white male author, but I’m glad I put it into my audiobook queue. Brooks confirmed my instinct to use questions that drill deeper into people and inviting people to connect on a human level versus asking superficial questions.

I need to practice/resolve to making this more of a regular practice, creating space for these questions – not defaulting to “how are you?” or “what is going on?” Deeper questions that invite people to share about themselves create connections. These connections were deeply lacking during the election. We allowed partisan and polarization to put people into over simplified groups. We stopped understanding or asking why they feel the ways they do. We forgot we are each other – as awkward as that statement is I mean it the way it is typed — when we listen to each other there are probably strands of each other’s stories that are relateable.

Practicing imagination to get to conflict resolution takes skill and practice. I’m not there yet. I tried today and made a few millimeters of progress. My imagination muscles need fine tuning. To grow that practice, I’m leaning on the creative works of others to learn this skill. I stopped by the library and borrowed a stack of poetry by authors of color. Joy Harjo’s book Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings was an unexpected find, but the title seemed appropriate for the moment. I also watched Marvel’s Avengers, particularly the scene where they need to defend Wakanda – a good fight scene felt appropriate this week and fed my soul in ways poetry couldn’t.  

It is time to rage at the dying light (apologies to poet Dylan Thomas), but also to humble ourselves and listen.

It is time to imagine, create, and to resolve conflicts and silent tensions by coming up with yet undiscovered imaginations and creations.

It is time to be resolved, and to lay ‘down the burdens next to each other’ (from Joy Harjo’s poem).

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A special thanks to S.S.T. for the text prompting this post. Mahalo nui friend.