Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens.

Well at some point over the weekend, I crossed a threshold. I guess I just needed a self-destructive week to lend some perspective. By Saturday night, I was feeling much more relaxed and rational. Had some weird/unsettling dreams last night and woke up this morning feeling kinda crappy, but it’s lifted now and I’m feeling good. It’s going to be a hard few months, but I’ve resigned myself to that and know that it won’t last forever. What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger (and I’m not dead yet, so I must be stronger). And my god, I know I live a pretty damn charmed life.

So. MLK day. I think about people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and how long it’s been since we’ve had anyone, anyone at all, step up to the plate and fight for civil rights. Human rights. Equality. Freedom. Compassion and understanding. And how all of these ideals have become so warped and bastardized that they’re barely a shadow of what the words actually mean (or once meant). At best, they’re buzz words (though it’s been a while since there’s been any buzz around any of them). At worst, tools to reach desired political ends. Weapons.

When is the last time we’ve had a real hero, someone to admire and look up to, and feel that he or she actually had real human interests at heart. The interests of “the people,” because that person him or herself was one of them. Us. I do believe there are plenty out there. They’re just too easy to silence these days. Or ignore. Which I guess ultimately leads to silence, and is probably the most effective way to get it. Actively silencing a person, a group, a movement, only serves to make it louder, stronger. But making them easy to ignore—well, there’s little more effective than that.

Thank you Martin Luther King, Jr. And thank you to a society that, when and where I grew up, still saw fit to teach about the man and his efforts, successes, and failures. I have my doubts as to whether that’s still the case today.