Finding Light in the Midst of Global Darkness

Ami Chen Mills-Naim
5 min readDec 19, 2019
Photo by A.M. Stewart, Blowing Rock, N.C.

There is no doubt we live in dark, exterior times. For many of us, we never thought things would come to this. Whether we call this “late stage capitalism,” the rotten fruits of “corporatism” or the inevitable products of regressed human consciousness (insecurity, greed, imagined separation), it all looks rather s**t at the moment.

My friends in the UK, post-election, are currently in a bit of shock and despair. “Welcome to the club,” I’ve said.

I have in the last few years despaired at our tacit, universal acceptance of nearly complete electronic surveillance; the crumbling of democracy and truth under Vladimir Putin’s venegeful assaults; the ascendancy of the uncaring multinational “corporation,” with seemingly no driving interest but ego, power, domination and the bottom line.

Let’s call this all what it is: the worship of power and of “Mammon” — excluding Life, God (however you define such), Love.

And of course, there is the looming, unfolding climate crisis, made so much more looming and seemingly unfixable by the failure of “Western democracies” to resist authoritarianism, climate denialism and fossil fuel industry deceit.

In the midst of all this, my daughter called me very early Thursday morning, the 19th of December — I was out of town and trying to sleep in — and breathlessly said: “Mom, did you hear? Trump got impeached!”

There was this hopefulness and excitement in her voice. I mean, this was her Christmas morning voice. … Luckily the phone cut out before I could respond.

I didn’t know what to say. We have heard Republicans use their dark “mirroring” trick of taking any real, fact-based accusation and turning it around, amplifying their tone to righteous anger and indignation, employing the Hitlerian methodology used relentlessly by Trump, that if you “repeat any lie enough, it becomes the truth.”

My daughter thought that Trump was being removed from office, and I had to tell her that the next step would be up to these Republicans. I thought about this for a moment. I didn’t want to dash her hopes and excitement that maybe the “good guys” finally won for once. (And I know we could debate about the “good guys” and who they are. We are all increasingly cynical…

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Ami Chen Mills-Naim

Global teacher, mother, author, journalist: SF Chronicle and Examiner, Inc. Mag, Metro, 3 CNPA First Place awards. See “Heart of America” on YouTube