On the Rise

I've had this post in my mind for a while now but haven't really known how to write it exactly.

I guess to start, I'll share the inspiration for this post. There is a YouTube movie called Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog and in it there's a song called My Eyes (lyrics at the bottom). It's a juxtaposition between Dr. Horrible and his crush Penny's views on the world around them. Dr. Horrible only sees all of the bad around him while Penny focuses on the good. Their points of view are so completely on the opposite ends of the spectrum that Dr. Horrible feels himself becoming more evil as he looks around him while Penny feels more hopeful.

I already really, really liked this song, but with everything that's been going on in the world this year, this song has hit home more and more as I continue to listen to it.

Let's not beat around the bush. 2020 has been REALLY sucky in many, many ways. The apocalypse bingo memes just keep on coming as the weeks and months go on. There is sickness, loneliness, violence, lies, natural disasters, dangerous animals, and on and on and on. And it can be so easy to feel hopeless and frustrated and disbelieving of not only all that is happening, but also at the responses from other people that we see. People arguing, endangering others (whether Coronavirus related or rioting, police brutality, murdering related, etc.), and generally just being crappy to each other.

On the other hand, there's the oft shared quote from Mr. Rogers;

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.

With great trials always comes great blessings. We have seen neighbors looking out for each other, teachers going the extra 100 miles to help their students, essential workers putting themselves in danger for the rest of us, celebratory parades, virtual baby showers and wedding receptions, virtual game nights, businesses doing a lot of extra things to help make sure that people can still do what they need to do as much as possible while still being safe, heck, even silly app games trying to make quarantine just a little more enjoyable.

Times like these bring out both the worst and the best in people. It's important not to get too caught up in one or the other. If we focus on the bad, it is easy to feel angry and alone, but also at times prideful as we see ourselves as superior to those who do or think things differently than us. If we focus only on the good, we miss important lessons that come from observing the bad. It's important to look on the bright side, but not so much that we're blinded to reality.

Lehi tells his son that there is "opposition in all things." And there is meant to be. As he says;

If not so,... righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

The bad times help us appreciate the good. The bad people help us recognize the good ones. Sickness helps us appreciate our health, social distancing helps us appreciate our friends, arguments help us appreciate civil, respectful discussion, corrupt cops help us appreciate the truly good cops, riots help us appreciate peaceful protest, and hurricanes and wildfires help us appreciate helping hands from strangers.

The bad also reminds us of the work that we still need to do. It reminds us that infrastructures need to be examined and improved, individual emergency preparedness needs to be worked on (toilet paperpocalypse anyone?), basic hygiene practices still need to be normalized (proper hand washing), factual researching needs to be learned, and racism still needs to be squashed.

We are in the middle of a refiner's fire. We can come out of this gleaming and beautiful; having become more helpful, understanding, compassionate, hardworking people. Or we can come out of this as a mottled lump of unusable metal; disgruntled, judgmental, self-righteous, and combative.

What we become depends entirely on how we perceive all that is happening around us. Is evil on the rise? Harmony? Maybe a little bit of both? How we react to the trials set before us will determine which wins out in the end. One can overtake the other. Which will we choose?

It is completely okay to feel overwhelmed, sad, afraid, and even angry about the circumstances that the world is in right now. But it is also very much okay to feel grateful, hopeful, relaxed, and happy. It's great to enjoy the time that we are being given to spend at home. To spend time on ourselves, our families, and our homes. To take the time to renovate, rejuvenate, and reconnect. But it's also okay if you are instead just trying to make it through all of this.

Remember that we'll all be out in the world someday and we will get to choose what things "going back to normal" looks like. It can include prioritizing relationships a little bit more. It can include continuing to work on new or old talents or hobbies. It can include better discussions about things that we disagree with or simply do not understand. It can include change in how we view and treat those who are different from us. All of those things are completely up to us.

Let us recognize both the good and the bad that is on the rise today. But let us let the bad help us to appreciate the good and also fight just that much harder for the good. Let it bring us closer to one another as fellow human beings. We're all just doing the best that we can here.

What do you feel is on the rise in your life? If it's not what you want, then maybe a shift in perspective is all you need to help you support the rise of what is good and right instead.

Life isn't all black or all white. It's a myriad of colors that all flow together to help us to learn and grow. Don't be afraid to acknowledge both the good and the bad in the world. Don't be afraid to recognize the evils in this world. But also don't be afraid to recognize the blessings that come from the trials.

Let us take this opportunity to learn how to allow light to rise up in our lives, communities, and nations. Let us learn to snuff out the darkness around us by our actions and reactions.

Ultimately, we choose what is on the rise.

PS- Before the lyrics to My Eyes, I wanted to share some of the things that have been going on this year. Most will have heard about the bad things, so I'm not going to put links on all of them. There are a couple that have had very mixed reactions as well that I'm going to list. Please feel free to do your own research on them! I am going to link some of the good that has been seen in the midst of it all though. There are many good stories out there, but I am especially interested in the ones that directly correlate with the bad (as you will see below).

If you know of more good stories related to the bad happening around us, please share them in the comments either on Facebook or on this blog post.

Some bad:

Coronavirus
Police corruption in cases such as Breonna Taylor and George Floyd
Murder of five year old Cannon Hinnant
Firefighter's wallet stolen while he was working on fighting a fire
Property damage and looting during rioting
Wild fires
Hurricane Laura
Explosion in Beirut
Poisoning of candidate opposing Putin in the Russian presidential election

Some mixed reaction:
Kyle Rittenhouse
Jacob Blake

Some good:
Couple serves their cancelled wedding reception food at a homeless shelter
Pets are reunited with their owners after the Beirut explosion
Teachers turn their students' desks into Jeeps to make the glass and distancing less weird
Some instances of good cops helping PoC


PPS- Lyrics to My Eyes:

HORRIBLE
Any dolt with half a brain
Can see that humankind has gone insane
To the point where I don’t know
If I’ll upset the status quo
If I throw poison in the water main

Listen close to everybody’s heart
And hear that breaking sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart
And crashing to the ground

I cannot believe my eyes
How the world’s filled with filth and lies
But it’s plain to see
Evil inside of me is on the rise

PENNY
Look around
We’re living with the lost and found
Just when you feel you’ve almost drowned
You find yourself on solid ground

And you believe
There’s good in everybody’s heart
Keep it safe and sound
With hope, you can do your part
To turn a life around

I cannot believe my eyes
Is the world finally growing wise
‘Cause it seems to me
Some kind of harmony
Is on the rise

HORRIBLE (overlapping with Penny below)
Anyone with half a brain
Could spend their whole life howling in pain
‘Cause the dark is everywhere
And Penny doesn’t seem to care
That soon the dark in me is all that will remain

Listen close to everybody’s heart
And hear that breaking sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart
And crashing to the ground

I cannot believe my eyes
How the world’s filled with filth and lies
But it’s plain to see
Evil inside of me is on the rise

PENNY
Take it slow
He looks at me and seems to know
The things that I’m afraid to show
And suddenly I feel this glow

And I believe
There’s good in everybody’s heart
Keep it safe and sound
With hope, you can do your part
To turn a life around

I cannot believe my eyes
How the world’s finally growing wise
And it’s plain to see
Rapture inside of me is on the rise