Chapter 1: Where Do We Begin to Fix All This... Mess?

Hello you beautiful, magnificent, wonderful people! Yes I'm talking to you! It's been too long. Do you think I could trouble you for a few moments of your time? I ask if you can give me just a couple paragraphs after this intro at least, and then if I haven't grabbed your attention at all, feel free to hit the X if you wish? That's fair, right? The amount of things that have happened over the past few years is just insane, hence the lack of writing. Between family stuff, moving just under 4,000 miles total, health and other stuff, I've just really needed to take some time and do some soul searching, or whatever you want to call it. Currently, I've been fighting to get a suspected tear in my Achilles an MRI for the past few months, but between the incompetent people in the ortho office referring me to a private psychiatric rehab facility that does not do outpatient MRIs and taking over 4 people more than 5 weeks to change it to a place that actually does do outpatient MRIs, then them having the wrong body parts and codes, and the way the health care system in California is, it's been lacking and insanely painful and stressful to say the least (after deciding to go back and actually finish this, almost a year later, the medical situation hasn't improved any. Yay California?). But enough about me for now, there's an emergency situation unfolding this very moment, and you and I are the only people that can do anything about it. Sounds like a lot of pressure I know, but if we work together, it's totally achievable! So let's do what we normally do, grab a beverage of your choice, get comfy, and hear me out, and perhaps instead of "Making America Great Again", we can instead just dust off the dirt and see that everything we needed to do so, was right there the whole time.

(Disclaimer, I started this entry on June 4th of 2018, and just polished it up as of this publishing. This is just one piece, and this first one is a bit more calming, but there is some anger I'll need to get out later.)

"But Nikki, isn't saying there's an emergency situation unfolding a little bit melodramatic?"

I suppose the answer to that depends on how you view the current state of things in our world today, especially just here in the great ole' U S of A.

"Well, what exactly is so bad?"

Where do I start with regards to what's wrong, or otherwise been going down the drain?

America has long been looked to as a beacon of freedom and opportunity. A chance for everyone to achieve whatever dream they had, so long as they put in the work to get there. A place where you can come from nothing, and end up with so much more. To speak your mind without fear of being persecuted or locked up, simply for stating how you feel or standing up for what's right. To be free to worship however you so choose or feel, also with no fears of persecution, imprisonment, or death. A symbol of hope and justice for the world.

But today, that's not how things are my friends. "We the People" doesn't exist anymore... it's "us vs. them". You can't say anything anymore it seems without having to worry about who you're offending, or who's attacking who. Hell, even disagreeing with someone anymore has somehow turned into a personal attack against people you don't even know. Different views aren't just different views or opinions, it's "fake news". Anything that someone doesn't agree with, or simply a different viewpoint is automatically fake or a personal attack. And if you don't agree with someone? It automatically means you're "the enemy". Someone with a different opinion apparently completely justifies said person opening up an all out personal attack against you or even threatening you, even though you were not even remotely making any attack on their person whatsoever. We live in a world where it's totally ok to flat out lie about virtually anything, and all you have to do is slap on the label "alternative facts" and all is well!

You can't even talk to one another anymore. Let's just say for example sake, let's pretend Trump makes a comment such as: "We need to kill all the ducks, they're downing airplanes left and right! This must be stopped!", and someone goes "See how evil Trump is! He's a duck murderer!", and instead of talking about this particular incident, someone goes "Oh yeah? Well Obama/Hillary said... blah blah blah!" You can't get through to anyone nowadays, no matter the "side". No one wants to acknowledge the harsh or unfavorable truths if it's their "side", but they're perfectly fine with pointing out the other "side"'s unfavorable truths and faults. People, that's not how we get things done. This isn't how we fix things or improve them. If we keep continuing down this path, nothing will get accomplished. At best, things stay as stagnant as they are, at worst they... well... get worse (which is has).

No one seems to care about facts anymore. When I was a kid, if you wanted to do some research, you had to get to the local library (by either driving or having someone drive you), get a library card if you didn't have one, and look for the book or newspaper you want. If it wasn't there, you had to request the book, wait for it to come into your local library, go pick it up, bring it back when you were done, etc. Today, you can literally sit on your toilet and look at books in libraries and such on the other side of planet... all from the comfort of your own bathroom!! That's right folks! While you're dropping a deuce, taking the Browns to the Superbowl, deploying the USS Brownfish, releasing the Kraken, making a deposit at the stank bank, or however you want to say it, you can essentially access nearly infinite information from nearly any corner of the world! It's so much easier to find facts today than when I was a kid, yet, no one wants to actually verify things for themselves. You don't have to spend hours, you can just take 5 or 10 minutes of your time, that's it. Sure, there's a number of actual fake news sites, (not just simply someone calling a site/station fake news simply because they don't agree with them) satirical news sites, etc. But it's not really that difficult to find non-biased, trustworthy places to find simply the facts, without any sort of personal feelings or bias in it.

I am registered Independent. I don't care what party someone is, if they have good ideas and I like what they have to say, I'll vote for them. I don't believe for an instant that one "side" is ruining the country over another. I believe that the answers to all our issues largely lays in the center, not left or right. I recall one day, about the time Trump tweeted out that the time for DACA recipients was over, and the general tone of the tweet was along the lines of "blame the Dems, they wouldn't work with us, they don't care about you, we cared about you, and it's their fault that you're now screwed, not ours.", and I'd made a comment saying that while I'm not all for illegal immigration, that I did not think it was right, and that I actually felt it was downright cruel, to deport someone who was brought here as a child, and had no choice in the matter. Someone who grew up here in America, and likely had no ties to their parents' native country, and may not even speak the language or have any rights there, and knows no home but America should not be deported because their parents made the choice to bring them here illegally. They should be given the chance to work for their citizenship and earn it. I was met by a barrage of tweets calling me everything but a human. Anything along the lines of how I was a "fucking Libtard", or how I was "what's wrong with this country", or how I "shouldn't breed because your libtardness is the disease infecting this country"; things along those lines.

For one like I said, I am registered Independent, and I don't care about parties. The two party system is part of what is dividing this country today. But just because I wasn't of the Trumpian mindset of "lock 'em all up and deport all the illegal bastards", I'm automatically labeled as a "libtard" and the enemy. And it's not just the conservatives that do it either. I've been called or referred to as a "republicunt" for some of my stances as well. From my personal experiences, it does indeed seem in the past especially, the "right" side did seem to be far more hateful and threatening than the "left", but honestly, since I started writing this, a little over a year ago, both sides have gotten worse in general.

People, this needs to stop. The thing with "sides" needs to stop. This needs to stop being about "us vs. them", and more about "us" as a whole. The more you allow the government, media, famous people, your dentist, whoever, to keep feeding you lines to make you angry and invoke your emotions and feelings, instead of a more rational and level mind looking for actual factual information and not talking points or memes or pictures anyone could make up in their basement (or restroom, wherever the trolls like to do their work anymore), the worse things are going to get. Things aren't getting any better, they're only getting worse.

"Ok Nikki, you're pointing out problems, how do we fix this?"

First, you have to want to fix it. The fact of the matter is, the more we allow people to invoke our emotional feelings and have us attacking each other instead of working together to fix the problems, the longer it is that nothing gets fixed. Here's some starting points (but by no means are these all we have to do to fix the way things are):

1. Breathe. If you see something online that really starts boiling your blood, pause, breathe, and dig into the subject matter more. If it's an article headline, actually read the article. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen people comment only on an article title and not actually read the darn article. Sometimes just reading the article and looking at the words/evidence/whatever presented could have easily solved that person's anger.

2. Consider your sources. I seen someone tell me on twitter that sources don't matter, only facts. Not entirely true. If you have Bob over here that tends to spew things out of his mouth as fact before verifying if he has the truth or not, and then you have Bobby over there who tends to not open his mouth right away because he wants more information before he comments, who are you seriously more likely to trust? Who's more likely to have looked at the facts before reporting them? And don't just use one source, look at a few! Look at ones you don't even like too much. I have places I trust more than others, but I never just stop at one source, especially for things that are important to me.

3. Realize that someone having a different opinion or registration or whatever, doesn't make them an enemy, it just means they have a different feeling opinion. What's important here is that we all keep in mind, we all have different life experiences. Any of you that have read my older stuff may have seen that I've mentioned before that I was raped by a black man nearly 20 years ago. Some would argue I'd have a reason to be fearful/hateful toward black persons, but you know what? I don't. It was a single individual who did that to me, not a race, not a gender. But even if I was fearful of blacks, it was my life experience, so maybe that's why I feel the way that I do (even though it's not). It's amazing what you can learn by just talking to people from different walks of life, cultures, etc. I have friends of every race, religion, sexual identity/orientation... hell I have friends in/from England, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, India, Australia, Pakistan, Iran, etc., and I can't even begin to tell you how much I've learned from every one of them. It doesn't mean I change my mind or that I have to, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, but I've at least learned a lot, which brings me to:

4. Keep in mind that just because you're listening to what someone from another "side" or "stance" is saying, that doesn't mean that you hereby compelled or demanded to chance your thoughts/feelings right on that instant! Just because you listen to what someone who has differing opinions has to say, doesn't mean you have to change your mind or feelings. Just hear them out, see why they feel the way they do. Even if you don't agree with their feelings or thoughts, perhaps at least you can understand where they're coming from, and maybe be able to come to an understanding and work together to fix something. The more we allow those in higher positions of power (government, media, people with fame, whatever) to keep reminding us why we should be angry and fighting each other, the less time we spend holding those accountable who are responsible for this mess to begin with. The longer we fight each other over religion, abortion, race issues, immigration, whatever, the less time we're spending holding those who can fix issues accountable for actually doing something to solve our problems. Am I saying these things should never be discussed or that there's no problems? Absolutely not! But there's a healthy productive way to do this, and an unhealthy not-productive way to do this.

And for now...

5. If someone's having a civil conversation with you and/or picking your brain on your stances/why you feel the way you do about ______ topic, allow them the same courtesy in explaining their views/stances. Don't be a greedy, selfish asshole.

I realize a lot of this might sound like I'm asking people to gather together in a circle, hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but I'm really not asking that. Just breathe, please. We NEED to get out of this mentality where we see anyone who sees or thinks or feels differently than we do as the enemy. We need to stop fighting each other and start holding those in power accountable for their failures, lies, broken promises, etc. Stop seeing people who aren't a carbon copy of you, your life, your beliefs, your thoughts and feelings, as the enemy and see people for who we really all are... we're all flawed, we all make mistakes, none of us are perfect, but we're all human. We come in different packaging, we may speak different languages, follow different religions/belief sets, be attracted to different people, but at the end of the day we're all essentially the same. And yeah, some humans are seriously just the worst assholes right? But hey, assholes come in all sorts of packaging too, just as do decent people.

Anyway, that's all for this moment. The next installment will hopefully come far sooner than previously haha! Until then, please just remember to breathe, ok? Pause, breathe, and let's figure this shiz out before things get any worse eh?