20 January 2026

Talk and Tales from Coco, Optimist in Charge at The Shiny Butter Blog

Start right where you're standing

Here's what happened, Reader,

I started to retreat from my well-honed partisan but genuinely peace-loving mouthiness after the 2016, then the 2020 US election.

I'd been a big ol' Bernie fan in 2016, even to the point of traveling to go see him in person, and I was writing a good bit about that election.

Then my party stole the nomination from the most popular candidate and gave it to the much-less-popular candidate but said that was okay because they can make their own rules (this is documented, not emotional hyperbole).

But I kept going, shaking my fist while also realizing my "side" and my "party" were displaying a severe shortage of integrity.

Then, after the 2016 nomination theft, they did the same thing in the 2020 election, right in front of God and everybody.

So I had a personal come-to-Jesus about it all and subsequently hid for a while.

I realized I'D BEEN HAD. I collected myself.

Not because I chose the wrong political party or candidate over the right one, but because I'd been believing all along that there was a wrong party and a right one.

I've now come to believe that just as there's no such thing as "the right side of history," there's no such thing as the correct or incorrect political party or side, either.

I considered my re-entry and what path my mouthiness would now take.

But here's the problem

It's scary and also lonely not choosing a side.

It feels like being a social outcast when you don't jump in where "everyone else" is just because you see a situation differently, maybe even very differently, from your peers and friends, but you don't want to be a jerk by blabbing your strong opinions all over the place under the assumption and hope that all mentally stable people are thinking this way, even if other people are doing just that.

And it's lonely when you realize that fewer people are seeing things like you do, and that a whole, whole lot of people are hanging out together on one side or the other.

So there you sit without a dog in whatever the fight du jour, lonely in a crowd.

I'm talking about myself here, of course.

To be redundant, because long-time readers have heard me say this a few times over, I'm no longer on either or any side (except, of course, that "laundry is my love language, and peace is my religion.")

I suppose I can thank the Democratic party for this.

It's probably blasphemous to say this

... considering the gargantuan amount of unrest out there (and considering the "us and them" stories I used to buy into), but I now believe that choosing a political side is akin to jumping on a bandwagon.

I'll repeat that: I now believe that choosing a political side is akin to jumping on a bandwagon.

Especially nowadays.

Just watch as the news unfolds on any given day or about any topic or following any event. Emotions are irrational and high, blame is automatic, and rage and anger and fear are rampant and rapidly increasing.

One side is knee-jerk blamed by the other—and this comes from both directions—neither party is more guilty than the other of this behavior. Equals at last!

This behavior, attitude, and paradigm isn't the stuff of reason, kindheartedness, and dare I point out, peace and love.

Sounds obvious, but we can't fight and hate our way to peace and love. (Or at least I don't believe so.)

Not how it works

For centuries upon centuries of human history we've been toyed with by our media sources, which are beholden to their sugar daddies to say what's most profitable, beneficial, and power-amassing to someone who's not you or me or the people next door.

When you and I and the people next door choose a political side we're playing a game for those who don't want to get their hands dirty.

I'm not saying there's a secret plot to manipulate us—I'm saying very simply that we are easily manipulated by the people we allow power over us, plot or no plot.

We're gullible, susceptible, and lizard-brained, and fail again and again to see that we are. Education and braininess are not preventatives.

Not that there's no hope, because I am, after all, an optimist. The deal is, though, that we have to change our paradigms in order to recognize and therefore not keep falling for the sugar daddies' schtick.

Peace and love don't come by way of blame, fear, retaliation, and good old garden variety meanness. That's not how it works.

No longer interested

I'm no longer interested in choosing who to respect by virtue of someone's ball cap and bumper stickers, or even their opinion—or even, get this, how they vote.

I'm also no longer interested in writing off whole groups of people who I've put into a "don't like, don't respect" bucket, when the truth is, we humans do really well when we relate to each other face to face.

By not keeping fellow humans behind an invisible yet very present "you're wrong, you're the bad guy, I'm the good guy" wall, we can re-humanize people we'd previously de-humanized by way of the don't-like-don't-respect bucket we had them in and wall we kept them behind.

Let's re-humanize each other.

This isn't to say we have to like everyone we don't currently like or may never like.

It's just to say that we have a much greater chance (much greater!) of relating to someone as a fellow traveler on this orbiting island home we share when we look someone in the face instead of from behind our self-righteous (yes, self-righteous) wall, or from afar as some sort of non-human "them," as in "us and them."

There is no "us and them."

There is only us

And there's no waiting around for someone else to go first, or for peace and love to sneak in so we can have reason to believe in peace and love.

Yeah, it's socially uncool, if not unacceptable to not become inflamed and enraged at someone who ought to do better and know better. Or to not engage in the latest giant thing the way our peers are.

Yes, it's potentially isolating to change the subject so often when someone assumes you're also anti-this or anti-that or anti-so-and-so like they are as they unload on you, make jokes about some person or people, and express endless incredulity at whoever/whatever it is they're so angry about.

So sure, it can be a little scary and a little lonely to not jump on a bandwagon. But seeing as how bandwagons crop up like mold after a hurricane (I speak from experience about hurricanes), they're better off avoided.

To really believe in peace and love we'd be a lot better off to embody peace and love, which begins very simply with respect for the dignity of every human being.

The way I see it, we can either keep falling for the divisions, or we can look past the false categories and see actual fellow humans. This is also a lot more enjoyable and happiness producing—which is obviously good for the world.

Yeah, it takes some ego releasing, which isn't so terrible if you think about it.

There's nothing to wait for

Personally, I'm relieved to be in the process of offloading the "us and them" beliefs I had. Life is a lot better this way. I've got more room for wonder and curiosity, as well as for peace and love.

And good old happiness, like I said above.

We don't need to wait for all the world's problems to get solved before we can safely ditch the fabricated divisions we're sold, even though so many look very real and reasonable to us.

Peace, calm, kindness, love, curiosity, friendliness, respect.

It's no big deal to start right where we're standing to embody what we want more of in the world.

But then again, it is. It's a very big deal.

Thanks for being on the other side of the screen today

I sure do appreciate you.

Shine on, my friend,

Coco

p.s. We know so much now about becoming who we want more of, and it always begins on the front lines—that is, with us and what we embody in this world. Our point of power is inside us, and it matters more than we've ever realized or been taught. If you want to go deep with this concept, schedule a coaching consultation with me, and we can talk about how to get from where you are to where you want to be in your life. Because this is good for the world—it's very, very good. Click here.

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