These times are not “like” a powder keg ready to blow. They are the powder keg, blowing. As such, please do not tag or include me in heated online political arguments.

I’m fine to be tagged in political solutions, always — yet lately, for some really weird reason, I’ve been tagged in numerous debates, tagged to mediate, moderate, weigh in, whatever — please STOP.

I do not discuss politics openly on Social Media because our nation has melted into a sh*t show of irrationality, conspiracy, and quite frankly, crazy-*ss cult-like adherence to belief — and I don’t need the energy-suck of the pointless back-and-forth in my life.

SOME PERSPECTIVE: The largest hurricane in forever is smashing up Florida and the east coast, our clean water across the USA is repeatedly compromised or bought out as corporations drain aquifers to put in plastic bottles that are choking up the ocean and killing the ocean floor for hundreds of square miles as floating garbage decomposes, our coastline is shrinking as fresh water pours into the ocean from the planet once heating, our tidal convection system is now slowing down from said water so the earth is cooling down to extend our winters and create SyFy Channel superstorms in real life, poverty in America is at an all-time high though at an all-time low in the rest of the western world, our honey bees are still on the steep decline (no bees = no food crops) —

— and what do we focus on, America?

Those nasty snowflakes. Those nasty deplorables.

Oh. My. God.

Well enjoy your pithy political memes and conspiracies while we’ve still got an electrical grid to pass them around, USA. Because while we’re so easily distracted by utter base-level drama, the rest of life could actually use our efforts for something other than our fleeting divisive opinions, or our insecure and obsessive need to convert others to our personal belief system to make us feel justified in areas where our subconscious may be questioning our own life choices.

Stop the proselytizing, America. It’s ridiculous. It doesn’t work. America has always been diverse in opinion and it always will be.

And stop with the catastrophizing. There’s no “war on men” just because women are finally collectively voicing that we are sick and tired of a totally separate set of social, emotional, physical and economic rules under which we’re supposed to function. America isn’t being “taken over by authoritarians” just because we’re finally seeing, out in the open, the same sociopathic oligarchy that’s been running the country for the past 40 years.

If knee jerking were an Olympic sport, we’d be owning the gold. U-S-A! U-S-A!

We’re seeing life in America how it truly is — because it’s how we’ve allowed it to unravel. We’ve been too afraid to speak up, ladies, so we’ve co-created this bizarre social imbalance we live in everyday. We’ve been too lazy to be stewards of our bodies, humanity, so our illness rates in America are off the charts and our opioid addiction in the USA tops the planet earth. We’ve been too unwilling to be a grateful steward of the privilege that life has granted you, white guys, so now it seems blatantly unfair when the rest of the world is applying the same rules to you that are applied to them.

We’re easily offended, thin-skinned, frightened, blaming, angry. Like mangy cornered animals fighting over a partially-eaten hotdog dropped on a dingy nighttime fairway.

All while the planet slows to a halt.

Maybe the human experiment is over?

Or maybe we’re being asked to do better? To level the playing field, for all people, all plants, all animals, all beings, including the planet itself?

Maybe we’re being asked to do better than the idea that “there’s not enough”, an idea implanted into us by groups of people who also implanted us with the idea that “bought stuff” makes us happy, and “more bought stuff” makes us happier?

We are seeing our society for its frailties — because we have a choice to make about who we wish to be in the world. Not what (R) or (D) to put after our name, like some antiquated proclamation in a holy war — but WHAT and WHO we wish to be. Not what tribal brand holds us in the illusion of safety. But who in the dang hell we actually have the temerity to BE in the world; in the physical world, not in here, on social media, online, this energetic septic tank where electromagnetic impulses trap emotions and allow them to rot, suspended in their seething vitriol indefinitely, with no escape.

Not who we create ourselves to be, virtually. But who we decide to bring into the real world.

Because the world. Needs. YOU.

Not who you’re told to be. Not who you’re frightened into being, or guilted into being, or bullied into being. But who you HAVE THE COURAGE TO BE.

I have the courage to BE ME. You be YOU. And let’s give each other room to BE, while we clean up this collective crap-bucket we’ve all taken a dump into, over the last 2,000 years.

It stinks. It’s rough. It’s gross. It’s caused sickness and disease. And everyone is going to have to reach in and grab a chunky handful, to scoop away. Everyone — women, men, black, white, red, yellow, green, orange, whatever color, whatever gender or no gender you embody — it’s time to scoop.

Whatever political affiliation or no affiliation — it’s time to scoop.

Whatever religion or no religion — it’s time to scoop.

Whatever socio-economic background, rich or poor — it’s time to scoop.

Because with enough elbow grease, with enough people on deck — we can do this. We can get this mess cleaned up.

At least that’s what the angels tell me.

So I try and do my best to get as many folks to roll up their sleeves as possible. I gift all of my energy to this endeavor, which is why I don’t choose to leak my energy into pointless political rabbit holes.

Look, I realize for a lot of people, “armchair social media politics” is a great distraction. Yet I can’t just “tune out” by turning on the news. I can’t distract myself with a Tweet from a slowing planet, or dying bees, or victimized people, or poisoned water, or raising coastlines. Because I’ve got a karmic job to do, to remind people that we’re better than this, that we have superpowers we’ve forgotten about that are far, far greater than simply our capacity to destroy.

Maybe your karmic job is professional political agitator, stirring the stink-pot of 2,000 years worth of human waste to inspire the clean-up. Maybe that’s you being you. Go for it. I respect that.

Yet please also respect my job, which requires all of my energy to attempt to inspire people to quite literally — participate in the crap-scooping.

I thank you for listening. I thank you for the role you are playing.

And may we all have hand-soap ready for use in the days to come.