2017: The Year In Review

I decided to review my 2017 as seen through the articles I’ve posted on Medium, and more specifically, on Extra Newsfeed. Here are the articles I posted by date:

• January 10th: FTSIO
• January 17th: Nunya Bidness
• January 26th: Narcissism, Thy Name is Trump
• January 28th: Everybody Wants Propaganda
• January 31st: Somewhere In Between…
• February 6th: Back to the Rulebook, Americans.
• February 7th: Conspiracy Theory Tuesday!
• February 15th: Edward Bernays’ Propaganda
• February 23rd: Thursday Morning Reality Check
• March 16th: Demographic Shame
• March 20th: Common Law Citizenship
• March 28th: Who Has Two Thumbs and Doesn’t Give a Sh*t About Donald Trump?
• April 11th: The Asshole Factor
• May 8th: Business as Usual
• May 22nd: Trump Supporters — Who Are You?
• June 7th: A Sign of Hope
• June 21st: The Hierarchy Fallacy
• June 23rd: The Mandarin, or Trevor?
• July 11th: Conquerors and Caretakers
• July 26th: Righteous Indignation Is Not Helping Us
• July 31st: “D.C.” Changing It’s Name to “B.A.” for “Blind Ambition”
• August 28th: Thinking Outside the Box versus Not Knowing What a Box Is
• September 2nd: Motive, Intent, and Action
• September 6th: Stereotypes, Straw Men, and Unrepresentative Examples
• September 13th: “Created Equal” versus “Deserve to be Treated Equally”
• September 25th: I Believe — 2017/09/25
• October 3rd: My Resignation Letter
• October 4th: You Don’t Need a Gun
• November 17th: 2017: The Year of Hopelessness
• November 28th: The Great Gun Debate Part One: Gun Ownership and Firearm Deaths
• December 7th: Argumentum Ad Hominem
• December 16th: The Great Gun Debate Part Two: Why Guns, other Factors, and Switzerland

32 articles in total. There are certainly some common themes I can pull out of all of these, which go a little something like this:

• This year, I have had to question what it means to be human, and what my responsibilities as a human are.
• I have also had to question our ultimate ability to be and do good, and to put the needs of our fellow man before our own.
• I have spent a lot of time trying to understand discrimination, and balance my belief that we should not judge others based on affiliation with any group (be it race, gender, political or anything else) with my own tendencies to prejudge certain people based on these exact things (namely old white male republicans).
• I have continued to be surprised and disappointed by the extent to which our elected officials are willing to ignore the will of the people in favor of the organizations and corporations funding their campaigns.
• I have tried to clarify for myself what I truly believe and what is important to me.
• I have been angry, frustrated, and sad a lot.

Of course, simply putting something out there does not help anyone grow, they have to get feedback, and that for me has been the key thing I’ve gotten out of my Extra Newsfeed articles this year.

• I have heard from people who think like me, people who believe almost the polar opposite of what I do, and several levels in-between.
• I have seen how people who disagree can still discuss and debate their respective beliefs, and I have seen people so blinded by hubris and narrow-thinking that no effort on my part would convince them to consider alternatives to their own perspectives.
• I have had to struggle with my own pride, and try to find the lesson to learn or knowledge to be gained from negative responses, rather than jumping to anger and defensiveness.
• I have been called out on my own bullshit, probably more often and more effectively than I have called others out on theirs.
• I have read the works of like-minded folks and been comforted, and read the works of non-like-minded folks and been challenged to consider other perspectives.

So, before I move on to write a piece on how pissed off I am about net neutrality or why I have so little faith that Trump might actually be impeached, I want to take a moment to make some commitments for 2018. I gave up making New Year’s Resolutions a long time ago, but I can certainly lay out some things to work towards:

• I intend to read more Medium articles, on Extra Newsfeed and elsewhere. I will try to balance the pieces by authors singing from the same sheet music as I am and those that are working from a different score.
• I intend to respond more to what I read to help me learn but also to give other authors the chance to be challenged and to hear new perspectives just as I have.
• I intend to work towards optimism. 2017, and to a lesser degree 2016, have brought me to a much more skeptical pessimistic place than I would like, so I am going to make a concerted effort to find hope and possibility instead of wallowing in frustration, anger, and hopelessness.

I think a lot of us feel that 2017 has perhaps been the most difficult year we’ve experienced, and it is hard not to look towards 2018 with fear and trepidation.

But where there is challenge there is growth, right?

We need to find ways to grow and move in a positive direction despite all the crap and nonsense out there. I will give it a shot if you will.

Here’s to 2018.