I was going to write an article this week about something silly, like little crafts you can do that might brighten someone's day. I may still do that. But in light of recent events, I feel like I have to write an entirely different kind of article. While this article will not be directly about the election, it exists because of it.
Living on a college campus, you get to experience a lot of different views and opinions and emotions from a lot of very different people. Whenever anything significant happens, there's an atmosphere around campus that you can feel almost the second you walk out the door. It's palpable. And it's amazing. Usually, I love having such a strong sense of community, and I love being able to experience the world, however briefly, through the eyes of my peers.
On Tuesday night, the atmosphere was electric. Everyone was waiting on pins and needles. You could taste the excitement on the air. But as the night went on, the excitement became tinged with something else, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, but knew I didn't like. When I woke up Wednesday morning, I finally found the word.
Fear.
I walked out of my dorm room Wednesday morning, my chest tight and heavy, and I could feel that sensation echoed through the campus. It was almost eerily quiet. Usually you can hear small groups of people distantly talking or laughing. Not Wednesday. It was still, like when the hurricane has passed, and you're standing in the eye of it, that brief moment of calm before the storm resumes. Yeah. It was like that. A hurricane had passed through, and this was the aftermath.
Not only was fear present in my campus, but something was absent, too. I usually get this feeling, however faintly, all the time when on campus. I can feel it running through the very fabric of what the college stands for.
It's hope.
The fact that the outcome of last Tuesday's election can strike such fear into people that they lose hope is sickening. How did it come to this? How did things get so bad? A lot of people lost hope on Tuesday night. And that terrifies me.
You see, hope is a very tricky concept to pin down, but for me, it means a few things. Hope means courage. It means kindness. It means the ability to look past the immediacy of our situation and see the future behind it. It means being able to find the good things in life, no matter how small. It means keeping on even when it feels like the world has turned against you.
Hope is such an essential part of what makes us human. It drives us to be better people, to push past the bad situations and make better futures for ourselves and for everyone else. It's that metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel. When nothing seems to be going right. When it feels like the worst has come. When it feels like the end of the world. That's when hope is needed the most.
A lot of people seemed to lose hope Tuesday night. It felt to them like the last nail in the coffin this shitty year has been building around us. They felt powerless, terrified, and hopeless. Like there was nothing they could do to make this situation better. My message to all of you who feel like this is this: that is simply not true.
This is not the end. This is barely even the beginning. There are still things everyone can do that can make this situation better. You can be kind. You can love. You can stand up for the people who can't stand up for themselves and stand beside those who can. You can fight back against hate, and anger, and fear, and all the other things that threaten to poison us. You can be a force for the good in the world. You can fight for what you believe in.
You can hope.
So do not go gentle. Do not stand by when you see wrong being done. Do not be idle when people try and spread hate and anger and fear. Find your strength and your courage. Reach out to those who need help, and stand together in love and respect and acceptance.
Hold on to hope. Because if we don't, the demons win.
And I refuse to let that happen.
