Leo

This is the longest streak of not-writing in years. It’s impossible to know what to say, impossible to describe the disappointment and frustration over the last few weeks. Right now it feels best to be quiet so I’ve thrown myself into my work: designing things, refactoring icons, trying to move the needle on some projects. For the past few weeks I’ve been tearing apart our design system docs and, on the side, imagining this interface that I haven’t seen before—it all feels genuinely novel and interesting. Because when the world feels so unstable I find solace in the work. <hr /> As a kid I felt this way all the time. I never felt safe. Over the years there was a constant threat of violence. I was never hit or anything so it’s hard to describe clearly but at any moment it felt like my family’s home would collapse, swallowing us whole. Shouting might kickoff at any moment or my possessions might disappear. If I put something in a drawer I couldn’t trust that it would be there when I returned. I would often wake up to doors slamming, or doors once thought private being burst open. I would get shouted at or scolded for reasons I didn’t understand and casual, fun discussions would suddenly twist and snap into a grotesque shape of racist, homophobic talking points. Nothing felt safe from the emotional flux of my parents. Any period of safety or calm was an outlier, a brief lapse in the constant hum of Rendle clan instability. <hr /> One day when the topic of gay marriage came up at dinner, and I was old enough to defend it, my dad turned to me and grabbed my thigh under the table. “Is this what you like? Is this what you want men to do to you?” he snarled. I was shocked to find that this little act of violence was a relief to me. The ruse was now up, the pretense of calm was over. We could all stop pretending that we loved each other. <hr /> At the time I would have understood if the violence was directed towards me because I wasn’t a great kid. I was lazy and rude and arrogant in my teens. I was always looking for a fight and found my parent’s ridiculous conservative and colonial views to be the perfect target of my teen angst. Plus I was mean and weird in a fedora dude kind of way. What I couldn’t understand was directing that sort of violence outwards, at the world itself, as all my family saw was doom when they looked out the window. There was this prophetic, wishful glee in the apocalypse—coming soon to Plymouth!—as nothing could be improved, nothing could be fixed. Everything about our lives was slipping into the muck: the news, the weather, the economy, society. All of it, every single day, it was all getting worse and there was nothing anyone could do about it. And yet! When I looked out the window I saw museums and aquariums and music and computers and weird novels or video games. I couldn’t stop reading about the people out there, getting their hands dirty, trying to make things better. There was ten thousand years of wonderful things to be found! How could you not be excited about tomorrow or next year? There’s so much work to be done! And so much great work to enjoy! Despite this overwhelming rush of lovely things, my parents continued to dream up countless petty grievances and paranoid fantasies where great mobs of Muslim tax-dodging homosexuals were here to take their empire from them. And this wasn’t just a frustrating comment at Christmas or a weird, hushed statement at Thanksgiving that I could brush aside. It was everywhere, at all times. It seeped into the foundations of the house until I realized the only way to be happy was to escape. <hr /> A couple of years later I was alone in my apartment. I had been drinking and I was in bed, dozing off. I was about to slip into a deep, drunken stupor until I jumped out of bed and ran for the door—double, triple checking that it was locked and that no-one could get me. I had a horrible feeling that my parents would just kick the door open and waltz on in, despite me living five thousand miles away. I sat in bed, staring at the ceiling, and I realized that once you’ve experienced instability like that then it never really goes away. <hr /> Privately, things are way different now. I have a loving family with two round cats. My wife and I have built a home that’s safe and secure. Our little hovel has all the warmth that was missing when I was growing up. No one is gonna get me in the middle of the night. And yet the results of this election welcomed my anxiety back with open arms, along with all those feelings of instability. Because for the next four years the country will no longer be safe or secure. Even if you’re immune from the effects of these tantrums disguised as policies, the airwaves and blogs will be full of poison each and every day. Do you remember what that was like? Every day hearing his voice... I mean, I’m a white dude in America, I’ll be fine. But millions of people will suddenly know what it’s like for their government to grab their thigh or for the ground beneath their feet to buckle. Some will now know what it’s like for their country to swallow them whole. And most folks won’t be lucky enough to escape to the other side of the world, as I once did. <hr /> All I can do tonight is make small jokes and nudge what I can in the right direction. I can do the dishes and take out the trash. I can fix all these icons, redesign my website, rewrite the docs, play with the cats and hug my wife. I can reshape this tiny part of the world and refactor it, towards safety and greater stability. It can be cleaned up and made better, one tiny chunk at a time because, yes, the world can be 1% better every day. Even if it’s small and even if it’s only mine.