It is important to find hope, wherever you can find it, and nurture it rather than crush it. Hope can carry you through the tough times. And we are going through some of the toughest I’ve ever seen.

There are quintessential virtues, load-bearing ideals that we can build upon. Build what? Everything. A person. A story. A society. Literally everything.

A partial list of these virtues includes: honesty, integrity, empathy, compassion, and generosity. There are more virtues, some more arguable than others, but the ones I’ve listed are the ones I hold dearest, and the ones most core to my personality.

Why am I talking about this?

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen terrible things. The murder of representatives by political activists. The arrest of elected officials, perpetrated by the new American Gestapo. Illegal, immoral actions involving the national guard and marines. Crushing, despotic behavior by a would-be tin-pot fascist, on the backs of greedy, opportunistic people that claim to love my country but demonstrate through their actions a profound hatred of the foundation and ideals that this country was built upon.

Maybe I’m naive, and this country was always built upon hatred and greed. But, there is an ideal I grew up accepting, which is better, more noble than the aspirations of the people in charge today. To that ideal, I will continue to hold true.

It’s through the quintessential virtues that we can look at the actions of those in charge and make our judgement. Is what they are saying true? Are they doing what they said they would do? Are they working for the interests of people other than themselves, and are their actions compassionate? Are they providing for those that cannot provide for themselves?

These are the questions you can use to judge your own actions, as well as the actions of those that are supposed to be working in the public interest.

Those that are operating without virtue are the villains of our story. They can easily be identified by what they are saying and doing.

And this is where hope comes in. My hope is in the belief that those acting for their own interests are not as powerful as those that band together for the common good. My hope is that this time of darkness and deceit will be vanquished by people waking up to a renewed appreciation for truth and goodness.

I attended the No Kings protest and saw a lot of people outside, raising their voice against the cartoonishly evil people in power. Those of us that favor a free and despot-free America outnumber those that wish to cosplay Nazi Germany.

Before Trump and Musk and RFK Jr and the rest of Trump’s junk-drawer-of-a-cabinet started dismantling the country, the system was broken to its foundation. Inequality is baked in. Perhaps the only way for us to build a better system is for things to get so bad that we break down the entire structure and rebuild from the ground up.

Do I believe that will happen? Not really. But I can hope and dream, and maybe if enough other people also wish for us to aspire to a better version of ourselves, one in which we invest in our people, use technology to prop people up instead of take advantage of them, and one in which the quintessential virtues illuminate the way in which we administrate and grow our country… maybe in my lifetime, we will make a better place for everyone.

But to get there, we have to support each other, stand up against the people that would oppress us, and remain hopeful as we hold ourselves to a higher standard.

That all sounds great, but what do actually do?

For my part, it means I need to keep writing, both my blogs and my fiction, and keep my eyes open for opportunities to help. It means attending protests. It means listening to people that are different to me. Maybe… just maybe… it means running for local office and getting directly involved in public service.