I wasn’t expecting to be watching the internal disintegration of America play out before my eyes like the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Until these last few years – and really, these last few months – I hadn’t given a lot of thought to the notion that we, right here in the true north strong and free, might one day be floating in a dystopian soup of daily uncertainty, fear and anxiety, as we witness America’s twisted decline into authoritarianism.

I don’t know, I guess I just thought it would be harder to actually become Margaret Atwood’s imagined Gilead. The book was only supposed to be an extreme representation – a warning at the most. Not a scarily realistic frame of reference for how things could look if the never-ending series of restrictive policies, increasing isolation from outside intervention and international organizations, and rampant censorship in the name of “free speech, continue.

One thing is clear. Whatever happens, things will not be the same in the world again after this. The old world is dying — in North America at least — and a new one is struggling to be born. And it’s breaking us all in the process – our systems, our trust, our beliefs about how we thought it all should or would be.

And, while it might not be a popular opinion, I’m trying to decide whether or not it’s an entirely bad thing. I think some of it will be so bad – incredibly hard and damaging for so many good people, maybe even impossible to come back from in heartbreaking and real ways.

But, I hang on to a lot of hope that all of this great chaos will usher in great sweeping change one day. That the long arc of these times will bend towards goodness again. That what we’re witnessing is a dying system that’s just fighting harder than ever to survive.

That the desperate overreach in laws and the every day stirring of fear we’re seeing are not signs of strength. They’re last-ditch efforts to hold on. That the backlash to progress is a sign of its power. Bullies push back hard when they’re afraid. The harder they push, generally the closer they are to falling.

My thoughts keep turning to one question: Who do we want to be right now?

Because we don’t get to choose how world events unfold, or what our countries do about them. And no one wants to give up the next four years of the long dark to anxiety and fear. Our only choice is how to live a full and intentional life – with hope and care and compassion for the world around us – in spite of what befalls that world.

Our choices will make all the difference to the world we’ll inhabit in the future. So how do we keep finding the light in this seemingly never-ending shade? I think all we can do is keep hope – and fight in our bones –  for the world that’s coming.

In all of my Anne Frank idealism, I do think about the world that’s coming. I hope it’s a world where we pay attention – less to what stands between us and more to what stands before us. A world where we don’t avert our gaze. Where we aren’t afraid of saying the wrong thing, so we say nothing. Where we don’t let oppression be guarded by what we’re willing to question.

I hope we one day have a world where we return to remembering and considering the sacredness of things more often. Like the sacred value of all of humanity, in and of itself. And of our own flawed natures. I hope it’s a world of community where, just when we think we can’t go on – we do – by offering comfort to others who can’t go on. Where we care more for the poverty and pain of the many than we do about vanquishing the insecurities of a few.

I hope the world becomes more compassionate in the future. A place less divided – and more capable of deeper empathy. Where more of us remember that we are “the others.” That so many of us are, or have been, one paycheck, one divorce, one drug-addicted kid, one mental health challenge, one sexual assault, one drinking binge, one night of unprotected sex, one affair away – from being “those people.” The ones we pity. The ones bad things happen to. The ones we don’t want living next door or playing with our kids.

I hope we create a world one day where people remember the year that hatred and intolerance finally became so 1960 – where everyone lives with ease and liberation, and the relentless marches toward human and civil rights for all are receding dots in the rearview mirror.

I hope it’s a world where stories are intentionally sought out and shared to show us our own humanity – and to teach us to accept and appreciate and value that which is not us. And God, I hope there are more good books, and more libraries. The stories they hold are the birthplace of empathy.

I hope, somewhere down the road, this is a world where no one is influenced or deeply disturbed by a “Christianity” that demands that the government enforce the most literal and harsh interpretations of the few Bible verses about human sexuality – and, in the same breath, opposes them carrying out the 3000+ verses about caring for the poor.

I hope there is a world in my own immediate future where we unequivocally reject unqualified political leaders who, bored with money and business deals, are now preoccupied with power. Who preach from well-worn authoritarian playbooks aimed at destroying the very foundation of democratic society.  A world where we see the creation of a cult of personality, the firehose of lies, the scapegoating of minorities, the echoes of Nazi rhetoric, and the incitement of violence for exactly what they are – the destructive tools of an indifferent, power-hungry regime.

To put it more bluntly, I hope for a world where being an adjudicated sexual predator, convicted felon, coup leader, seller of national secrets, misogynist, racist, transphobe and homophobe – all of these things or any one of them – is an absolute deal breaker for the voting public.

One day, I hope we have a world where we aren’t told — in a read between the lines kind of way — that we can’t have peace because it’ll destroy the weapons industry. That we can’t have a cure for cancer because it’ll destroy big pharma. That we can’t have clean energy because it’ll destroy the oil industry. And instead, we have a world where we’re not adrift in a capitalist sea of a million financial reasons that seem to make it impossible to do the right thing.

I hope we emerge as a world that shows our kids – undeniably – that there is always hope. Where they’re raised on tales of how all wars and all tyrants, since time began, eventually meet their glorious end. And where they’re not unaware of or indifferent to the lessons of the darkest parts of our history. A world on which they will never look back and ask: “Why didn’t anyone do anything?”

Do I expect all of these things to happen? I’m not naïve. I’m a little brokenhearted at the moment, but I’m still an optimist who believes it can’t hurt to put your hopes out there. Hope is nothing, if not optimism with a broken heart.

So, I hope there are no more sad generations with happy pictures.

I hope you know that your joy and your struggle can coexist. You don’t have to choose between them.

I hope you notice when you are happy. I urge you to please notice when you are happy.

I hope you find even one small channel for all of your love. And another for your rage.

I hope you don’t get trapped by the small stories. The little ideas you have about what our future will be in the world. Not everything that happens, or even everything we will lose, will be a loss.

I hope you know that “woke” isn’t a bad word. Be present and awake to the world’s injustices. Nothing bad ever came of that.

I hope you have a chance one day to help even one other life find its voice. It’s a sacred act.

I hope you don’t ever buy into the notion that democracy is an inferior system. We rise higher together.

I hope you don’t live with false confidence that fascism, wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross, can’t happen in our country too.

I hope I don’t get arrested someday for writing this.

But, in case I do, remember what Atwood said: ‘Nolite te Bastardes Carborundum.’

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.