I prefer not to...

I wonder if a blogger could be considered a modern day scrivener? While admittedly I blog to help beat back the darkness and in my strange way to be engaged in tikkun olam, I wake up on some days and wish I could be Melville’s Bartleby.  When I first heard of David Kato’s brutal murder, I thought to myself, I prefer not to–I don’t want to think about this.  When I first read about how the GOP plans to redefine rape, I thought to myself, I prefer not to–I don’t want to think of our country becoming Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. When I read about the dozens of gay teen suicides–I prefer not to…When Walgreens refused to help save a woman’s life because she has had an abortion–I prefer not to…  I prefer not to engage.

I do believe in passive resistance. I do believe in social change through non-violent means.  Obviously, I prefer to write about all the human atrocities, in the hopes that I, and others, can make the world a better place and to prevent myself from slipping into a misanthropic abyss.  So rather than being Bartleby (who certainly has his place in society), I have chosen to be Ida Tarbell.

I prefer not to

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