On Enraged Optimism
In August I found myself in Bozeman and Missoula. Only a couple weeks after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.
Coming on the heels of my conversations about nihilism, I met people who were finding purpose and meaning in the everyday, repetitive and often frustrating activities which accumulate to real success over time.
On the same day that Donald Trump brought his circus to the town of Bozeman, I interviewed Alecia Jongeward in a park down the street from the pop-up market of absurd campaign nicknacks. Just a mile separated us, but we might as well have been living in different time lines.
Alecia is a former teacher who guided students at her high school over many years as they took on increasingly challenging projects. They started with recycling in school, then created their own state-wide climate summit, raised over $100,000 to install solar panels on their school and most recently secured an EPA grant for all-electric school buses.
It was an amazing juxtaposition. In one corner was an old showman trying to convince Americans that the future is bleak in order to coalesce power; a one-trick pony in the center ring trying desperately to keep the show alive by weaving stories of better days and imaginary enemies hidden among our friends and neighbors.
In the other corner were students, pushing their teacher to let them move faster with all of their plans to make their future better than our dystopian present. They see existing in balance on our planet as the the most important and meaningful future to work toward. To them, renewable energy represents clean air, jobs, energy independence, innovation and hope. This is not an academic argument for them. They flatly reject the (easily proven) false claims from the circus ringmaster that clean energy and sustainable practices are bad for our country.
In some ways, their resolute drive ignores the circus master. They know with every action they take that his time in this world is short. And while the damage he has done will drain us for a generation, we can survive and we can find a thousand better ways to live in balance with the very environment that sustains our existence.
In Missoula, I met much older people who were fighting just as hard against astounding odds. The volunteers with 350 Montana probably averaged in their 60s. They certainly know that they will not see the fruits of their labor. They are the truly selfless.
They could have chosen the nihilistic route. They could have found some active retirement community somewhere, martini in hand, to watch the world slip in to further despair. They could have said, “I’m only going to help my family.” They could have allowed the ringmaster to convince them that they should blame whatever boogyman he served up for them that day.
But they chose to help all of our families.
Alecia’s students described their motivation as enraged optimism. For me, trying to exorcise nihilism from my life, enraged optimism provides new fuel for the fight.
