Get More Ready
Fierce Community is planning Zooms for the rest of the summer to do exactly this: to help us all get more ready. They’ll be announced here this week.
CHANGE IS HAPPENING FAST
Get more ready.
Whatever you're doing now to get ready for the changes that are happening... do it more.
Take some time out to shift things around and re-prioritize.
I'm not talking about prepping. That's not what this is.
I'm talking about having conversations with people about things you might do in case various things happen.
I'm talking about doing things to be able to play the long game if that's what you want to be doing through all of what's coming.
I'm talking about putting things in place for you and yours to help you get through all of this, as part of your actual life that you will be living as this new era unfolds.
I'm talking about putting things in place so that you can do fierce community with and for the people you live around. That can mean a million things. What doesn't mean for you? Do you need to make some changes so you can be more of all that?
I'm talking about getting your various ducks in a row to reduce risk where you find it appropriate. 🦆 Like you can't help people over the long-term if you've been disabled or taken out of service by the threats and changes that are out there.
Find out where you need help as well. Figure out what you can do to get help in different ways if that's a thing you need to do. Some of us are going to have to get real creative given the changes that are coming. We also might need to get more vulnerable. It's hard to ask for help when you're already in a hard place.
With that, we're going to need to meet people where they are. ❤️ And bring our willing and open hearts where we can and where we have the wherewithal and resilience to help.
⭐⭐ Pull back from the world a bit if you need to and think strategically and uncomfortably about what it is you need in your life to do differently to be ready for this moment. ⭐⭐
I don't know what that is for you. You might not yet either but you can figure it out.
This doesn't have to do with how much money you have. How much privilege. How many things you can hide in a basement or in closets in case the supply chain runs out and the infrastructure gets wonky. That's not what this is.
This is about deeper resilience... which is about community and connection including the place you live and the people you know and who's around you. And what you are going to do in the getting *through*.
As things ramp up — AND THEY WILL — not a single one of us is going to get through this all on our own or by hiding out in our hidey holes and living rooms and safe places with money and cash and assets. Although that's certainly going to help a lot of people for a while.
For the rest of us, we're going to need each other.
WE NEED PEOPLE
We're going to need each other to protect each other. To keep us all going forward and through. To give strength. To give ideas. To solve problems together.
Lots of people are going to hide out. Lots of people are going to revert to their emotional support firearms. That stuff only goes so far. Yep those are definitely options.
⭐⭐ But what is the life you want to live through this? ⭐⭐
What is the life that you want for the people around you? For kids? For aging people? For people in their 20s with long lives ahead of them possibly?
❓ How do we work together to live our lives over the long term as all of this unfolds?
I don't know the exact answer. You don't either. No pundit does.
But we have to get serious about asking these questions because this is going to be a long haul.
The law that was signed last week is going to absolutely transform the landscape of this country in ways we haven't even seen yet despite the spectacular changes since January. It's going to be really hard and it's going to be mean. And thorough. And all kinds of other things.
Plus of course climate change is intensifying disasters and their frequency and as we've all seen in Texas we are already less ready for all that as a society.
WHAT DO WE DO?
So okay. What's your community going to do when it hits you? Whatever it is?
Right now we are doing child's play. We are holding on to hope and grasping at straws and sharing memes and making declarations about how the cruelty is the point.
Okay yeah that's all understandable… but what are we going to do through all of this?????
We are also stopping some things here and there which is important. We're doing legal fights. We're saving data. We're trying to get reporting and straight information on what's getting changed and cut and attacked and unfunded and unstaffed. We are gumming up some works. We are doing continuous protests which is super important. Some of us are doing direct interventions and accompaniment on behalf of humans at very high risk. It is incredible stuff and I imagine we will see more of that as this intensifies.
Again that's all understandable and we absolutely need all of it.
But we also need more.
Again, what are we going to do through all of this? Through the long term?
It's not like we're all going to up and evaporate away into sparkle dust and move into another realm and magically be safe. Although that could definitely happen for some.
⭐ We have to live through this. ⭐
So what are you going to do?
What are you going to do in your own life? With your own people? With your neighbors? In your building?
Start there. ⚓
Start there and let it be an anchor point or a grounding point or something like that. Create space and connections and grounding that will help you and yours with what's coming. It could be spiritual or physical or mental or fiscal or any combination of things.
Allow yourself to have the awkward and hard conversations... whether they be just with yourself in your own head and in your own space... or with your family and friends.
Then take some time and take some action putting things in place that will be a little bit different that will help you *live* through this. And be effective. And help others. Or whatever you want to try and do as this all unfolds.
Some of that space you're creating is in understanding that things are going to be different going forward.
Some of that space you're creating is in letting the other world go where it's no longer practical to hold on to it.
We need to do different things now. We need different things. We need different kinds of connections. We need different things from our physical space.
Create what you need, or get started. Talk to other people about it. Do it together.
Remember to include your own vision and values and dreams for what the world could and should be. For looking after humans. For evolving as a species. For thriving and flourishing. Whatever it is.
We need to bring those things forward into the new world that will be on the other side of this massive disruption because that will come.
Humans will survive through this so let's bring the good stuff with us that we are going to need over the very long-term as well. For those that get there. 🌱 We plant seeds now. We carry them through.
REALITY
And here's the thing. We're not all going to make it. I know that. You know that. It's part of why we're afraid.
But we can also work with that and help each other through.
Nobody makes it off this planet alive anyway. That's not how it works.
It's just that while we're here, what are we going to do with what we've got?
We have options. Even in the midst of this. We can do more with those options.
We can help each other when we know we are higher risk or need backup or need help when society's official government systems are stopped being put to use to help humans in the ways that they were supposed to. And being put to use to actively cause harm.
That's all coming. That's all in the new “big beautiful bill” too that’s now the law of the land, although it's been happening at scale in lots of ways since January.
Plus now states and local governments are doing all kinds of things to get in on the taking-things-apart action themselves so some of us have more of this where we live.
So get more ready.
This is what I've been doing. This is why I've been away from this space and from the work I was pushing before here. I've been getting more ready. I will be back to help with creating some space online for us to deal with all this here shortly but for now I am getting more ready myself.
IN OTHER WORDS, BUILD SOME RESILIENCE
You cannot help other people if you don't have your own resilience.
Part of living in service and being helpful through chaos is being able to keep yourself functional.
So do what you need to do. Don't just take a few days at it. Take a few weeks (or months?) if you need to. Because you have all of the other things in life to deal with as well.
But step back. Create the space to do this thing.
We're in a new era. The society we had isn't anymore. But we still have a society. It's going to be different, and it's changing super fast.
Get more ready.
Because we need you. We need us.
We need humans who are willing to walk through with strength, with resilience, with love, with humanity, and with each other.
Get more ready. We go forward together.
Fierce Community is retooling behind the scenes. We’ll be announcing Zooms later this week scheduled for the rest of the summer, to help us all get more ready. Stick around. Keep the faith — in humans. We go through together.
Vanessa Burnett is the director at Fierce Community. This nonprofit work promotes connection, community, coordination, creativity, engagement, empowerment, leadership, and resilience in an era of rising instability and societal disruption. Email fiercecommunityteam@gmail.com to set up a conversation.
Vanessa is a social entrepreneur, advisor, and empower-er for doing fierce community in a time of disruption and disaster. Ms. Burnett has a rare systems-level understanding of the pieces and parts that modern society needs in order to survive that can help people and groups navigate this era of fast change and unprecedented challenges. More about the author in this bio and on this page.