Thread by @JuliusGoat

It's 2020.

Let’s fight hard in 2020. Let’s not dream small. Let’s not allow what *is* act as constraint on what we believe *can be.*

Let’s believe in good impossibilities in 2020. Demand them. Fight for them.

That’s how reality is crafted.

If I could change just one thing, I think it would be this: that we stop letting present position fix a ceiling on what we believe is possible.

Let’s be impossible.

History is a litany of impossibilities coming true. I was born into a world impossible a century before. The world I grew up in is already unimaginable in many ways to my children. The world we’re in would be unimaginable when I was born.

Let’s be impossible.

People imagined the present nightmares of our world were possible—out of greed, or fear, or hate. People imagined an authoritarian government. People imagined a world that existed not for people but for profit.

Imagined it, then demanded it, then fought for it. And here we are.

We can imagine the end to all that.

We can imagine justice. We can imagine sustainability. We can imagine sanity and truth and fairness and equality.

We can imagine an inhabitable world.

And—by imagining it, and then demanding it, and then fighting for it—we can create it.

If you’re familiar with "The Handmaid's Tale," you’ll know the phrase “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum”—a mock-Latin phrase meaning “don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

To hell with that. “Carborundorum te bastardes” instead.

Let's grind the bastards down.

Let's grind them down believing in good impossibilities, that don't exclude their essential humanity, but utterly reject their deadly ideas.

Carborundorum te bastardes.

Imagine it.

Let’s be open-minded in 2020.

Let’s realize there aren’t 2 sides, but many facets—all religions, body types, and gender, racial, national and sexual identities—all working to live together in harmony.

Let’s not confuse a fearful urge to deny this diversity with open-mindedness.

Let’s reject the reductive notion—that an ideology claiming 1 facet or another of humanity doesn’t/shouldn’t exist or is lesser—is one of 2 sides, elevated to the level of all other facets combined.

Let's not be so close-minded as to entertain that notion.

Real open-mindedness

Let’s be kind.

Let’s demand a welcome for immigrants, a livable planet for our children. Care for the sick. Homes for the homeless. Relief for victims of predatory debt. An equitable tax platform. True racial equality.

Let's not confuse kindness with niceness.

Let’s not be so unkind as to stay silent in our comfort. Let’s be kind enough to demand a generous and open society, that provides things people truly need—for everyone, even if we ourselves have them.

Real kindness in 2020.

Let’s be civil in 2020.

When we see somebody without power being excluded, either by design or default, let’s open the door for them, even if some complain of the draft, even if some who were enjoying the extra space have to make room.

Let's not confuse comfort with civility.

Let’s not be so uncivil as to prioritize the comfort of a few against the inclusion of many.

Let’s be too civil to confuse civility with a self-serving politeness, a polite silence, a silent acquiescence, an acquiescing complicity, complicit participation.

True civility in 2020

Let’s be brave in 2020

Brave enough to call hate out as hate. Brave enough for us to know things that cost us something to know. Brave enough to move ourselves from a place of safety to a place of exposure, to protect threatened people.

Let's not confuse bravery with violence.

Brave enough to not confuse violence with redemption, or retribution with bravery, cruelty with victory.

Let's make a kind world that the cruel will hate, because it refuses to hate, but loves too much to ignore hate.

True bravery in 2020.

Let’s have imagination in 2020.

Debates *how* to solve the challenges and problems of justice and equality and climate and resource facing us.

Not a second more wasted on debates over whether the problems are real, or why they shouldn’t be solved or discussed or afforded.

Let’s demand leaders who will fight for real solutions, and reject any supposed leaders who would be so unimaginative as to speak of the impossibility or expense of a better world, or, worse, so craven as to fight to make a worse one.

Real ideas in 2020.

Open-mindedness. Kindness. Civility. Bravery. Imagination.

Let’s practice the real things, fiercely.

Carborundorum te bastardes, by believing in impossibilities, and demanding them, and then fighting for them.

Be impossible.

It's how reality is crafted. It always has been.