Lance Phillips • February 03, 2026
How do I lean into adventure at a moment in history when the most vulnerable humans in my orbit are targeted? Maybe the answer is not to lean but to stand strong. The only way to face down an authority based on fear is with patience and kindness. I’m not an expert on ways to reinforce inner resources, but I do know that optimism must be part of the equation. So how can I remain optimistic when confronted with fear-based actions? Maybe this is a question you’ve asked yourself, too. As far as I can tell, the simple answer is to cultivate what makes you a singular human. It is MUCH more difficult to commit government-sponsored terror, or any kind of terror for that matter, against discrete human beings.
What makes you you?
One of the latin roots of the word adventure is “adventurus” which means about to happen. Because I’m a word geek, I find this distinction to be buzzing with possibilities. What is about to happen in your life? The energy you invest in your ‘what’s next’ IS what makes you powerful. It is what helps you to see those around you as whole humans, with all the contradictions that entails. Cultivating the successes and the failures, the interests and the disinterests, the patiences and the impatiences, acknowledging the vast array of human possibility and kindness is celebrated first by looking inward.
What makes me more me?
I plan to enrich my relationships with my world in the new year in a number of ways. As a commitment to how I interact with those around me I plan to continue to write poems that question how and what I see, to memorize poems that force me to sit with the power of language, to learn to take photographs that show the world as it is, and to expand the ways I make food for my friends and family (including sharing what I can). Each of these endeavors, I hope, will reinforce my commitment to the de-commodification of the things about which I care deeply, and by extension will help to de-commodify the humans around me.
Subjectify the world.
In a time when humans are being OBJECTIFIED, perhaps, more than ever before, choose to SUBJECTIFY everyone you meet, read about, see footage of, or hear about. Choose to cultivate the subject in you so that you will see the subject in everyone. In short, honoring your own interests and peculiarities will, in fact, give you a broader, more nuanced take on the world. What’s that line from Emily Dickinson? “Narcotics cannot still the Tooth/That nibbles at the soul -” Fostering your inner resources will reduce that nibbling, and it will open your eyes to the humanity all around you.
Recent Comments