Love Marches On

I was heartened this morning when my eyes happened to sweep over my bookshelf and happened on the title of Noah Diamond’s book: Love Marches On. A very timely time to get some “Love Marches On” merch in circulation! I know I’d wear that slogan on a shirt.

I keep going to a place of hatred when I think of Il Douche and his supporters, and well…that won’t do the trick. Righteous anger, absolutely. But the end game is going to be changing people’s minds and influencing their choices, and that’s going to have to come — somehow — from a positive place. Getting there for me personally is going to require a journey of some sort, as I am accustomed to, and more than comfortable with, writing off most of humanity as unsalvageable. That is what satirists do. But satirists are rarely nihilists. Explicit in the word, the logical outcome of nihilism is annihilation: of everything or of oneself. The late Sarah Kane, whom I adored and who may have been the most brilliant playwright of my generation, took that step. But most of us believe in redemption, to some degree, on some level. We CAN fix this. It may take a long time, it may take generations, but we have to have hope if only because it is necessary. If we want things to be better, we have to have at least enough faith to believe our work isn’t futile. And that’s going to involve forgiving people for what they have DONE (e.g., at the ballot box…and many are about to do new things we’ll need to forgive them for) so that we can work to change what they WILL DO. Like most of you, I’m really not there yet. I am spitting mad. But looking at the title of Noah’s book will be an immense help.