Speaking Freely

When you start with champagne you set the intention for good things to come, even from life's most difficult moments. When you continue with grace and gratitude, and stay true to your own values and conscience -- though you may get to learn patience one more time -- good things will come. And you learn along the way that even the people with whom you disagree are in your life for a reason.

I haven't written here since June because it was then I became acutely aware of what free speech really is. I negotiated my way through the summer and what I legally could or could not say about the circumstances of my termination from the ACLU, a non-profit corporation. I was also aware potential employers were reading this otherwise low-traffic blog, my rare musings longer than 140 characters, or my often too frequent postings on Facebook. I decided that while engaged in a legal process, it was best to let my lawyer speak; and while engaged in an interview process, I should practice what I preach, and stay on message, not distract from my talents by writing absolutely everything I was experiencing. It was frustrating to have so much to say and to have no outlet other than my many faithful friends who patiently listened after I stopped writing. It was frustrating to have my speech so clearly linked to my ability to earn, especially since one of the ways I earn is to write.

The legal process ended, much to my delight, and freelance work arrived that sustained me while I patiently followed the little hints along the way leading me to the next phase of my career. There were two conversations I'd engaged about prospects in the fall, so not only did I stop writing, I stopped interviewing, trusting that one of these two would be where I landed. Thankfully, there was an election to hold my attention and just enough of freelance work on issues I care deeply about to keep my brain from getting in my heart's way. I knew spiritually that, as cliche as it is, things happen for a reason. I knew in my core I was going to be fine. I didn't need to frantically chase every lead, or interview for jobs I really didn't want. But having only worked for one of the last three years, after spending two years on a self-funded writing sabbatical, this was a true test of faith for me as my personal safety net was frayed.

I believe there is an animating spirit to life and that all our interactions influence that spirit as much or more than it influences us. I believe this is what the best part of religion teaches, each in its own way. I believe science is proving the existence of what we have heretofore called spirit; our ability as humans to tap into our intuition and other guiding forces and use our hearts and minds to create better circumstances for ourselves, our families, our communities, our world. I believe our egos lead us astray and the challenges we face in life are opportunities to find our way back to center, to be more grounded, to be more in tune with something greater than our material existence.

Most importantly, I believe these are individual journeys. Each of us is connected to the people and places that we need to interact with in order to grow deeper in our understanding of our own individual life and conscience. I can no more tell you what you should do with your life than you can tell me what to do with mine. We can only speak from our own truth, our own experience, and together find some common ground. 

It is this belief in the individual journey that has been at the heart of the American experiment ever since "We the People" set forth to perfect this union. It has always been imperfect and the work of making it better has always been ours. The worst part of religion, or any institution, is that which attempts to impose itself onto the individual and the individual's self-expression. Our ability to speak freely, my penny-less voice just as important as a billionaire's, or a corporation of any construct, is the very essence of our democracy and our ability to relate to one another even through our disagreements.

And so it is I get to end this part of my journey where it started, with champagne, as I toast a new beginning with new friends and colleagues at Re-Think Media and a project of the Piper Fund to challenge the mistaken notion that we the people cannot regulate our political process; that people with money have the right to more speech than people without; that corporations are more than legal constructs that have rights over individuals and prevent transparency, be their mission profit, or not. 

Democracy is about all people. Not acreage or property, not profit, gender, race, or creed. That I get to spend the next phase of my career so intimately engaged in this fundamental democratic value strengthens my faith. 

Living Values

The left, in my lifetime, hasn't articulated its values well. The right believes there is one set of narrow values, theirs, so they benefit from simplicity. Ironic then, since "rugged individualism" is supposedly a cherished conservative principle, that one of the reasons the left has difficulty articulating progressive values is because we recognize they originate within, and are as diverse as the individual experiences the American experiment celebrates.

We are all challenged by living our values -- hypocrites abound across ideologies. Institutions seem more interested in covering up hypocrisy than confronting it. That's true for many individuals too, but in our honest moments we deal with our inner-hypocrite, our own conflicting voices and competing values.

Life is, in part, about gradually walking more in alignment with our chosen values. Some figure that out sooner than others. How we each define our values is different by degrees. As Americans we celebrate our voice, our vote, our choice -- outward expressions of individual values.

Joining with just one other for any purpose, from BFF to FWB, cherished one-on-one family time, or that colleague that transcends the purely professional -- is never easy. Doing it for life, as in marriage, is a test even for the madly, deeply in love. At some point the individuals within any pairing acknowledge the benefits of being in relationship with another require each to check individual impulses, to harness our inner-contradictions.

It is rarely comfortable when two people confront the fact a valued relationship is out of sync. But the short-term discomfort outweighs ignoring the partnership's benefits, past and potential. Time away from a valued friend, family-member, or colleague may be warranted at different moments to reconnect with our internal compass, check boundaries, and re-evaluate where each individual is on life's journey. But ending a relationship without checking perception against reality is a risk carefully weighed. When it happens, when people just disappear,  one questions if the relationship was ever valued. We all have insecurities. Not projecting them onto others seems the least we could do in any relationship. 

When more than two individuals come together in community, the complications of individual impulse and interpretation of motivation grow exponentially. Often, so do the insecurities. History shows us where that leads.

Democracies, in theory, derive power from individual voices expressed through a ballot, a bottom-up assurance that out of many, we are one. This is how communities continually define and refine our values, casting a vision for the future.

Competing forces within each of us enable growth, learning respect for others' values we may not share, or with whom we simply disagree. Knowing communities will never be in complete agreement, we find respect in dissent, a challenge spurring each to be better as individuals and collectively.

Corporations seem wholly different. Sure, there are shareholders, members, and boards of directors, each with some authority depending upon the construct. But corporations, from the smallest non-profit to the largest conglomerate, mostly have top-down governance. They are by design anti-democratic. Votes aren't distributed equitably, but by means, either wealth or status, something our democracy struggled to overcome, and for the moment, mostly has. The lower on the organizational chart, the fewer shares you hold, the less power your voice has. Corporations limit individual speech but for a few, no matter how much money they have, or how often some conflate money with actual speech, or their legal structures with real people.

We can, as individuals, join together to write all the charters, missions, laws, rules or policies we choose. They can bind us or divide us as statutes or cannon law. We can follow the letter or the spirit, amend and change, obey or civilly dis-, how we see fit.

The question is are we living our values?

When we disagree with the status quo, do we express that dissent in a way that positively reflects the values we promote? Are our expressed values -- as lived each day, not only through litigation, legislation, preaching or teaching -- attracting people? Or is our hypocrisy alienating them? Answering those questions gives any community a glimpse of its future. Asking that question in the quiet of our individual mind is like a pebble in a shoe. How far can we walk pretending it isn't there? When does internal discomfort require external action?

How do corporations live their values? With top-down governance, when so few people define the values that bind everyone within corporate structures, how are conflicts resolved? Is dissent as patriotic within a corporation as some suggest it is externally? Is the 1% of any organization connected to its 99%?

Living our values isn't easy. We all find our way to that truth. For individuals it is a daily struggle. Couples, and those who choose to become families, work even harder to hold their shared values and vision together. But in the world today, the institutions with which we align our individual selves rarely seem to struggle with internal values. Many simply don't live the values they espouse corporately and are content, or complicit, in that conflicted state.

If progressive individuals urge organizations to live their values, difficult as that choice is, we won't have to compete with the right's narrow and overly-simplified values. We can simply live ours, and in so doing, draw more individuals to our cause, recognizing it isn't what we say, it's what we do that matters most.