It's a Little Bit of Everything

Recently I was honored by Humboldt State University for being an author in their annual celebration of the Author's Hall, a little chunk of shelf space set aside for people associated with the university and the books they have either authored or been published in. My recognition was all due to my good friend Ryan Sendejas, who bought a copy of the poetry collection I was published in and donated to the university for all to read. Thanks Ryan. During that celebration, which included vegan chocolate cake (to die for) and an introduction by the university president Lisa Rossbacher, I was fortunate enough to hear a publisher talk about why he loves to publish. I'm paraphrasing here, but the man said something along the lines of, "In a time where the brashest voices are often the loudest, I love to publish people who are saying and doing amazingly wonderful things, so that their voices might be heard among the rest". His outlook inspired me. It filled me with hope, but it also instilled in me a little patience. Patience because his perspective is one that recognizes the dynamics of power and influence and how slow change is. He is right, we do live in a time where voices of cynicism and prejudice reign triumphant, yet it is only because avenues for the uplifting voices are not as prominent. The resistant voices which counter the relentlessly brash voices are present, they simply aren't amplified enough.

 

I also recently went to a cartography symposium at Portland State University with a good friend and promising young mapmaker, Nathaniel Douglass. The keynote speaker at the symposium was a man by the name of Aaron Draplin, a graphic designer based out of Portland that has done a diverse range of logo designs from his nephew’s birthday parties to presidential platforms. I really loved what he had to say about positive messaging. Like the tone of Joyful Militancy, Draplin encouraged all people involved in visual outreach, whether it be cartographers, graphic designers, or painters, to utilize love and compassion to fight our enemies rather than hatred or slander. That is something I can stand behind. During a job Draplin did that was politically anti-trump, instead of mocking his hairpiece by doing a silhouette of it, he created designs intended to spread ideas of peace and love. He did this because, to him, to counter brashness with more brashness, begets hyper-brashness.

 

This past week in our ENST Capstone course we read essays from the book The Impossible Will Take a Little While. In this book the author Danusha Goska wrote about the seemingly trivial things in life that help her to avoid feeling burnout in her strive for a better world. While talking about a neighbor that helped her one day, she writes, "He didn’t hand me the thousand dollars I needed for surgery. He didn’t take me in and empty my puke bucket. He just gave me one ride, one day. I am still grateful to him and touched by his gesture. I’d lived in the neighborhood for years, and so far, he has been the only one to stop” (Loeb pg.61). This reminded of a song by Dawes called “A Little Bit of Everything”. One line of this song, I believe, encompasses the perspectives envisioned by the readings and my experiences currently in life. The line says, "Oh, it's a little bit of everything, it's the mountains, it's the fog, it's the news at six o'clock, it's the death of my first dog. It's the angels up above me, it's the song that they don't sing, it's a little bit of everything." For some reason I can’t quite explain, that line summarizes how all these small things add up to something big, something meaningful and powerful that gets us all through the hardest times.

Loeb, Paul Rogat. The Impossible Will Take a Little While: Perseverance and Hope in Troubled Times. Basic Books, a Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2014.