How do you know that you're on the right side?

In one of my large online groups this week, an anonymous and brilliant person from somewhere in the U.S. asked us this:

"There is a sign in my city that says “maybe you are wrong” and I think about it all the time. I am getting tired of comments from the other side. Most of them are childish and name calling but some make a little sense. And someone has to be wrong, right? The huge numbers of us in Saturday was really uplifting, I guess I’m just tired of seeing rude comments like we are “mentally ill” “idiots” “arrest them all” “lowlifes” who don’t have “jobs”. How do you know you are on the right side?"

What a beautiful question. This was my quick, off-the-top-of-my-head answer to this neighbor living bravely somewhere in the U.S.:

"Taking right actions feels right in your whole body and in your heart. They settle your nervous system. Even when the action feels scary and shakes you up a bit to take, once you've done the scary thing, you'll usually feel more settled. If you can't tell, find others to take right actions with together. The effect is felt more clearly when you're not alone and scared or tired. PS, the Meta platforms are flooded with fake accounts/bot farms/paid bad actors here to generate rage and fear. Negative emotions keep you engaged longer, making them more ad revenue. Bad actors who can make you fear or hate your neighbors are working for the men who want us so tired or scared or full of despair that we do nothing at all. Don't believe rage-generating comments online. They're either full-blown scams or made by people who've fallen for full-blown scams. Ignore, block, or if they're an actual neighbor, invite them for coffee. Billionaire tech bros and con men are the problem. The vast majority of our neighbors aren't."

Finding our own answer to this very good question

How do we know that we are on the right side?

We're learning to trust ourselves and others more now. Can you feel that in your body yet? We are stepping up and expanding our ability to trust ourselves and others– a lot of others– right now. And we're growing closer, doing this together, now, instead of continuing to try and fail in unending cycles of doing this alone. A whole lot of us are unlearning and learning together in real time now.

The most important words– for me– in that terrific question are the words we.

How do we know that we are on the right side?

Who does your "we" include now? Who does it exclude?

My own "we" has shifted dramatically in the past 6 months. My "we" now includes anyone who wants to be included as part of my "we" after we spend at least 5 minutes talking, and anyone I trust that fast too. Some people can't give me 5 minutes– they aren't my "we" at the moment, and I'm not theirs. And, some people show up and take far longer than 5 minutes to step into my "we" or to invite me to step into their "we," helping me learn and grow and outgrow my biases and former selves easily as much as those who jump right into my "we" after 5 minutes.

Trusting more others has to involve trusting ourselves even more.

Sorry. It just has to. There's no way around this now.

Here at about-to-turn-55, I have tried literally all the other ways. Trying to trust more others without trusting myself more doesn't work. Trusting myself even more– so that I can trust more others– was all we had left to try here. ;-) And, I'm old enough now that I can say this works in the long term. How lucky am I to have come from people whose almost every action whispered "Trust yourself. Trust yourself. Trust others."? Lucky, lucky, lucky. This is true wealth.

Trusting more others has to involve trusting ourselves even more.

Anonymous friend, if you're so present and sensitive to others that you regularly think, "Maybe I am wrong." then you are on the right side. You are human. Humans are wonderful.

If you regularly listen to your neighbors, and their real concerns based on their own experiences– setting down your own fears and defenses for a while and choosing just to listen more closely now and then, thinking maybe you could learn something– then you're on the right side. You are human. Humans are warm and generous and loving and brave. We love to listen. Love to connect. Love to have conversations where we all learn something new. Love to learn.

If you care about what happens to neighbors and you work to make things better for them, and your neighbors are either 1) everybody in town or the community, 2) everybody in the region or state, 3) everybody in the country, 4) all of humanity, and/or 5) all life on earth (humans are just 0.01% of life on earth), then you're on the right side. All 5 of these neighbor-loving perspectives are deeply needed. One is not better than the other. Most of us shift among these perspectives regularly. And if, like me, you tend to sit in just one of these perspectives most days– regardless of which one it is– then you actually really, really need other people thinking about their neighbors from the other perspectives. Humanity as a whole doesn't work well without all of these perspectives. Do you see yourself here somewhere? Do you know where others you meet spend most of their time? Then you're on the right side.

And, this part's even more important. If you care only about your own family, or about your own body/self or pain right now, because you are struggling and tired and facing pain or difficulties or losses that are too much to hold alone, then you are on the right side too. Even when you lash out at others because you're exhausted, in pain, frustrated, scared, and/or trying to hold loss and grief beyond measure without enough help, you are also not the problem. You are on the right side. How do I know this? Many reasons. Here's one I can share...

Our family holds Younger Onset Alzheimer's disease, and we've lost far too many people we couldn't imagine living without to it across the past 25 years. Mom has lived with this disease for 23 years now– she's a medical marvel. Doctors told us we'd have just 5 to 15 years together when she was diagnosed. Never underestimate strong, loving women who naturally move through the world as collective beings.

Across the past 23 years, there have been days, months, and even whole years where we were holding so much as individuals and immediate family that we had almost zero energy, or time, or patience, for anything else. Moments when people with ample time on their hands to argue and complain about their neighbors or the wider world seemed wildly ungrateful for what they had and wildly out of touch with our own reality. Looking back, I can see now that everything we've done that was clearly loving, and also everything we've done that made us look and feel like total and complete assholes both to people who know us and to total strangers, was born from love. We've had to let friends and family members go: some for a while and some forever. This felt like shattering at the time. We've had ugly, cranky, we're-all-grieving-and-exhausted fights. We've yelled at people trying to help us. We've been short or rude with strangers, blunt and unkind to family members. Ironically, those of us without Alzheimer's disease did considerably more of this than the person with the disease.

That others couldn't see what we were holding and handling doesn't make our pain and reality any less real and true for us. I know here, now, today– from a place of always holding unimaginable grief and always moving with love anyway because together earthlings are magic– that every last word we said, every last friend we lost, and every last stranger I pissed off– all words and all actions– were coming from a place of love.

Never underestimate strong, loving women who naturally move through the world as collective beings.

Most of us can feel that "positive" emotions and actions are solidly based in love– for example, when we and others are warm, generous, open, welcoming, listening, patient, trusting, respectful, curious, embracing of new ideas or difference, wanting to connect, laughing and crying together, wanting to hang out together, wanting to learn and unlearn and grow together, sharing with each other, or giving each other the benefit of the doubt–for example. Express these emotions and take these actions, and most human beings love us in return. Easy peasy.

The much harder life lesson to learn is that ALL emotions are based in love. All emotions show up to help and connect or protect us and each other. Fear, anger, outrage, despair, sorrow, grief, and resulting actions such as hiding from humanity, cutting people off for a while or forever so you can breathe and not sink into contempt or violence, protesting, fighting for what you believe in, lashing out, screaming, name calling, and so on– all of the "negative" emotions and actions we human beings catch ourselves and others doing, and that many of us were taught to fear as kids– they're here on behalf of love too. They're often here to point out that we need to accept new or different help, or how far we've strayed from love and who we want to be, and to re-center us on love either together or separately.

Because this question– How do you know when you're on the right side?– came from within an online group on Facebook, I'm going to add a bit more about online spaces now.

If you're still trying to personally take on every jerk online, including every fake account and site online, every bot farm you encounter on social media, and every paid bad actor in comments sections online today, you're fighting a losing battle. Most intentional rage- and fear-provoking accounts are funded/hired/created by a handful of greedy, deeply wounded/wounding billionaires and cruel, death-bringing dictators and other chronically misled-and-manipulated-by-chronic-fear men. You are loving and passionate about who and what you love most. You're willing to fight for who and what you love. Online, this means its remarkably easy to end up fighting accounts that aren't even real people anymore.

The shift that we need to make online is showing up for friendship and for community as a whole– and standing together to demand we all deserve it– not simply to escape into the online world as individuals. And maybe learning a bit more about how to get what we truly want for ourselves and our neighbors and humanity or the planet from online spaces, and public spaces, instead of settling for less and less and less each year as exhausted individuals, like we've been doing in the U.S. for far too long. Join groups in real life and online groups. Make sure that you're spending at least as much time within groups as you do wandering online alone. We all need this now.

There was a time when all of the people you encountered online were real human beings. A time when ignoring and/or individually blocking jerks and bad actors worked well, because it was rare enough that it took almost no time at all. There was also a time when people running high-tech companies– all the way to the top of the corporate org chart– were attempting to work for the betterment of humanity as a whole, not against it. That has changed. At least in the huge tech companies run by billionaires who make so much money that they've become completely disconnected from reality. Competing to become the world's first trillionaire while so many others suffer or using online platforms to spread misinformation and fear, trample human rights, milk humanity for more and more money, and silence free speech and much-needed dissent in the real world is the opposite of working for humanity.

Wow do I feel like a grandma saying some of that. Back in my day! Good. Grandmas are so bad ass! I mean lit. Grandmas are lit. Attend a protest in person to see that for yourself.

The actions that once worked online no longer work for many of us. As an individual, on these social media platforms and in many comments sections, especially, it seems, news sites, elected officials' sites, government sites, and sites clearly run by or for women and people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, you are now often taking on huge bot farms– paid bad actors and AI with infinite time that most of us non-billionaires simply don't have– by yourself. This doesn't work.

Grandmas are so bad ass! I mean lit. Grandmas are lit. Attend a protest in person to see that for yourself.

Some of the old ways of individually connecting with strangers online and trying to hold and handle everything online as an individual don't work for most of us anymore. Just like trying to handle everything as an individual IRL (in real life) doesn't work anymore either, if it ever did.

So, what do we do? I bet you've got plenty to add to my list. Some things that are working here right now:

• Find and join a new online group or two, or create a new one if you can't find the one you need, or leave one or more online groups that you loved in the past but that are no longer filling you with energy. When you can. When you feel like you're being stretched too thin, leave one or more of your groups. When you feel like you're ready to connect, learn, play, or make a bigger difference, or kick some ass as a collective again, find and join one (or more) or create one. I try to be both extra honest and extra patient right now, because so many people are losing rights and jobs and family members right now that people are terrified. I succeed only when I get enough rest and also follow the new time limits we've set for ourselves for being online.
• Find and join, or create, one small, in-person group so that you see more loving, friendly faces and create more love/connection/energy together weekly. Or, leave one that you once loved but that is no longer working for you/is draining you/making you miserable. When you can. We miss out on the support and perspectives of so much of humanity and of life as a whole on earth if all our interactions and groups are online. If you have enough free time, consider two new-to-you in-person groups– one that's simply about filling you and others with joy and love and energy (for me, this has been hosting writers at our home again after a 6-year break from hosting groups at home) and one that's about helping make the world a better place (for me this is regular collective global protests against fascism/dictatorship/abusive billionaires wildly overestimating themselves and wildly underestimating humanity and other earthlings as a whole). If you don't have enough free time for even one small in-person group to fill you up with energy each week, then leaving a group or organization or person who is draining you might be where you're at. Hugs, brave human. Leaving is almost never easy.
• Know that on Facebook (which is where this question came from), smaller private groups are often preferable to huge public groups now, because it's harder for the bot farmers/paid bad actors to get in, spread cruelty, and cause damage. Most admins of public groups on Facebook are either completely overwhelmed and are spending precious human life battling fake accounts and intentional rage- and fear-provoking accounts, or they've completely given up. Go especially easy on Admins of public groups these days– they are people who love humanity so much that they have taken on fighting an uphill battle that some are bound to lose against AI with all the time in the world. Too-large private groups can exhaust human Admins too. Consider sending love and flowers and chocolate to group Admins, or better yet, asking how you can help when they need breaks.
• Be aware of why you, personally, are in smaller, more private groups online. For example, I lean on smaller private groups to make friends, grow closer, learn and unlearn, create energy together, and to re-center on love. I especially like private groups that draw a wide variety of people from around the globe, so I get to talk about, for example, medicinal plants we forage here and that they forage in their region or country, and the conditions the plants like in both regions, or the medicine the plants offer in both regions, which can be different from region to region. Plants are so cool! In smaller, more private groups, we go out of our way for each other– for many of us, to make real friends. We joke, we exchange a few of grandma's recipes, we apologize when we realize that we were tired yesterday and that we just snapped at people we weren't even really mad at. We slow down. We talk about the weather where we are or what we love most. And even about what we and our folks are doing in our states/countries to take on the handful of deeply abused/abusing billionaires and dictators determined to harm and conquer humanity as a whole, even if they have to burn whole countries and forests to the ground to do it. But that's just me and my folks. You do you.
• Be aware of why you, personally, are in public groups and spaces. This includes public, open-to-all groups you join on social media, and public spaces in person, and also all comments sections online where literally anyone or anything with a computer and code can throw in their 2 cents. Armed with the love and energy we've created as friends in smaller, private groups in person and online, I venture into larger public groups for one primary reason now– to offer our energy and love to real human beings swamped with billionaire-funded and AI-generated despair, contempt, and rage, and, online, often screaming at/arguing with accounts that are clearly not even real human beings. Chronic fear can do strange things to our ability to perceive who and what real threats even are. "Why am I here?" is a great question to ask yourself and slow yourself down, before you say anything online, or anywhere really. Being publicly playful is usually a solid choice, and the more you do it, the better you get at it, even with strangers. If you can't be playful, asking "Why are you here today?" or "Why are we all here today?" or "What would make you feel welcome today?" or even answering these questions visibly/out loud yourself tends to make us great together as a whole, for those of you interested in things such as that.
• Pay closer, loving attention to your own energy and body. Online, you are usually talking to a real human being when you are all allowed to make mistakes, and demonstrate curiosity and humor, and you all feel like you a) can have a real conversation, including difficult conversations, b) learn something interesting and unexpected and (eventually) welcome that you didn't know already or couldn't fully see before, and c) leave the conversation feeling energized and more connected, or at least stronger and more trusting of yourself and one nearby other. If you leave a conversation full of only despair or fear or rage, rest. Talk with someone you love about it. You were speaking with a fake account, a paid bad actor, AI/bot farms, or a real human being so chronically isolated and scared or manipulated that they actually believe most real human beings show up online mostly just to be cruel to others. Reflect on where and how you could be having more meaningful conversations with people who you know are real. Then, go there to have conversations instead. Humans are wonderful. We have mobility. We can move and change and find others to have real conversations with. We don't have to believe lies spread by AI and humans abused/abusing to the point that they cannot trust themselves, or others, at all. Humans can come together, surround any pain with love, hold it together, and heal themselves together. Our bodies know when we're in those moments and spaces. Our energy rises. Our curiosity increases. Real human beings rise together.

Here's an example of learning something interesting from a real human being online during a difficult conversation (item "b" from the bullet above) from my life this week. I learned from a real MAGA man in a large public community group this week– who I slowed down to talk to in depth because he was clearly an actual neighbor– that he thinks I and other protestors are coming across as simply jealous of Elon Musk. Wow. That would never have occurred to me in a million years. I wouldn't trade my loving parents and love-filled life for his horrible parents and cruel, empathy-lacking, energy-draining, drug-addled life for all the money on earth. And, I've changed thanks to that conversation. I will definitely change what signs come with us to the April 19th day of action/protests, thanks to this conversation.

When I'm online now, I'm almost always aware of how lucky I am. No matter what's happening. Because I know that there are a lot of people on earth living in police states and war/genocide zones and with darker skin and different looks than mine who are 100% not safe, or free to speak their minds, on social media platforms, online, or even in person in public spaces at all. At the end of the day, everything we say on a social media platform or online could be found by the owners of the platform– and also by anyone who can pay them or otherwise coerce them into sharing their information about us. That's actually why I publish on Ghost, not Substack. Too many writer friends warned me that Substack has grown so big that it's sliding toward happily supporting fascists and con men just to make more money. I went with the younger upstart of young human beings around the world trying to make the world better for everyone. Thanks friends. Friendship saves us all in the end.

We have friends who live in police states in other countries who cannot say anything online, on social media, or in public spaces at all. Can't use cell phones without using an app that encrypts everything they say, and they do so knowing they may still be putting themselves and families at risk. People who can't move freely within, or in and out, of their own country. This used to be true of friends in a handful of other countries, but this is now true in the United States as well. I share this here for my new MAGA friend who doesn't believe this yet. Who doesn't fully trust and believe me yet. We'll get there. Here are two examples from the past couple of weeks:

• Since the presidential inauguration in 2025, many people in the U.S. who've been legally here for years or decades, with work permits, green cards, children and spouses here, etc., and who consider this country home, and who also happen to have brown skin instead of white skin, no longer feel safe sharing online at all anymore, and some don't feel safe flying or taking public transportation anymore, or travelling across U.S. borders either. Some will miss weddings or funerals of people they love or lose work opportunities because they don't feel safe traveling anymore. Some no longer feel safe to share how they're feeling in person in public places. They are seeing people abducted off the streets by men in unmarked vehicles– and without showing credentials– and watching them be shipped to for-profit prisons in other states and countries with zero due process. Essentially "disappeared" for months, or years, or for life– nobody knows yet. Leaving behind horrified and devastated spouses and children and friends and neighbors and coworkers who now have to go through life not knowing if they'll ever see the parents/spouses/friends they love again. Watching the "due process" that we could once count on simply as human beings in the U.S. go up in smoke. I can't give more details here, sadly, because I won't risk endangering others.
• I'm using they/them pronouns here to protect the anonymity of the people involved... We ran into a white elder at last Saturday's national and global protest who was furious because the organization they once worked for and admired here in the U.S. just fired someone the person/a lot of people deeply respect and admire. Fired simply for being Muslim. No other reason, just that. Doing work that had nothing to do with religion at all. The person we met was going to write an open letter to the organization they once worked for and share it online. But, they also have an adult kid who works for the federal government. Their adult kid asked them not to send the letter, or share it anywhere online at all, because if they speak up, their adult kid will lose their job. The people that their adult kid suddenly work for in the U.S. federal government are now using any reason they can find to fire more people– including if they have any family members saying anything at all about injustice, or against racism, or against the administration on their personal social media accounts. The government is scrubbing social media accounts, looking for people simply speaking their minds. This person's adult kid isn't in the military but is doing work that is important to the safety of all Americans. That person's parents and all other friends and family members are not allowed to even speak about injustice, or racism, or religious discrimination, online, or this person will be fired, putting all Americans at greater risk.

Friends, now's a great time to talk to MAGA folk when you feel safe enough to do so. I don't fear MAGA folks the way I once did because I've begun talking to them again. (And please, fear whoever you need to fear to be safe, friends. You're not me. I'm not you.) In my conversations with MAGA gentlemen this week, I learned that they actually aren't happy about who they voted for, or much of what the men they voted for (and a bunch who nobody voted for) are doing right now, either. I learned that at the moment there's literally only one difference between them and us that matters to me now. We know that we are living in a police state, run by extremely wealthy, abusive, and disconnected-from-reality abused/abusive men working around the clock now to line their own pockets, strip away more rights, drain regular folks of more money, and turn the U.S. into a cruelty-centered dictatorship for the long term. MAGA folk cannot see, or believe, yet, that the men at the top of the federal government are dictators or fascists, though they're coming around on the idea that some con men appear to be among them and steering them wrong.

I learned this week that I don't have to prove that the administration is full of fascists and wanna-be dictators and greedy, unchecked billionaires. Or Russian assets. Or even con men. What I have to do is show up more bravely and more fully present, and together we can prove to each other that we're not the people we've been manipulated into believing the worst of. We have to globally manifest this truth together now: our neighbors are not our enemies. Believe that and demonstrate that or learn that– no matter who or where you are– and you're on the right side.

How do you know that you're on the right side? Here are three final clues:

1. If you're aware of how much power We The People as a whole have right now, or you're waking up to it, you're on the right side. Nobody gets to tell us what real support and love looks like and feels like. We get to decide that for ourselves. Nobody gets to tell us who our enemies are. We get to decide that for ourselves, too. Nobody gets to tell us who to hate or fear. We may choose hate or fear for a moment, and then we chose to set them down for ourselves and our neighbors. Nobody gets to tell us who we are. When we stand shoulder to shoulder as love-centered human beings, we know exactly who we are, and even the always-angry, still-greedy billionaires cannot hide that from the world at large anymore. I learned all of that– for good this time– from watching people living more lovingly and graciously and collectively in the epicenter of large-scale genocide the past few years than by watching how my own country's people have been living and behaving.
2. Is your own personal mission in life to become the world's first trillionaire while knowing full well that means that millions of people– especially the most vulnerable among us– will have to struggle, lose hard-won rights, lose jobs, lose access to healthcare, possibly become homeless or starve, be silent, be imprisoned, tortured, or die for you to reach that goal? And do you not care about anyone else, at all, including your own family and friends, or organization, or country to reach that goal? No? You're on the right side.
3. Is your own personal goal to join or protect a tiny cabal of always-angry (even when they win– have you noticed– because nothing is ever enough for them?) wounded/wounding billionaires– the last handful of men on earth who were so deeply abused as children and so wealthy they never had to lean on community so they still believe nobody on earth can be trusted without being completely silenced, controlled, imprisoned, wounded, and/or killed by them? No? That doesn't sound like you either? You're on the right side.

So is almost every other human and other living being on earth.

Times have changed again. We aren't who we were six months ago. We have to step toward and into our fears about neighbors and ourselves, or more fully into our role loving neighbors as ourselves, to see that things have changed. People are changing. Humanity herself is changing together now!

Friends new to collective days of action and boycotts and protesting, it helps to remember that the handful of individual, angry people flipping you off, screaming at you, and calling you ridiculous, cruel, or untrue names are lost and hurting and suffering too. We've found that collectively singing beautiful songs, or chanting "Protect the constitution." or even thanking them for their support confuses and shuts most of them up in person. Anything we do that visibly demonstrates we're not the people they've been led to believe we are helps. Older white friends new to protesting, remember that our bodies being treated with respect by police officers (so far) is NOT what many brown and black and LGBTQ+ and young bodies experience when they protest against the same injustices and horrors that you're now protesting. No matter who is president. Use your privileges for the benefit of all now– visibly and collectively– whenever possible.

In the U.S. today, to join upcoming days of action and protests and boycotts and divestments near you, ask your most uppity friends of all ages and backgrounds what groups they're part of, where they're getting their most trusted information and news now, or where they're going to be next, or visit 50501 or HandsOff or follow the AltNationalPark newsletter or on the social media platform of your choice. Show up to connect, listen, and learn, and you'll be welcome eventually, and definitely on the right side of history.