How Can I Deal With the Putin in Me?

“It seems like a million miles away/But it’s getting a little closer every day.” — The Police

Like maybe most people, I’m focused on my personal situation. How can I make more money, how can I be a better person, all the usual things.

Yet on some level, I know that we’re all connected. I’m not in any fundamental way separate from what’s going on with my family, my neighborhood, my world.

So although I don’t consider myself the most compassionate of people, I can’t at the same time can’t shut out what is going on in Ukraine, and all the suffering that people there are going through.

A part of me suffers and I want that suffering to stop.

I think it’s interesting that there are authoritarian leaders prominent in many parts of the world, such as your Trumps, your Bolsonaros.

Many of these guys — they’re all guys — have significant followings as they proceed to do what authoritarians do: lead people to submit to their version of reality while putting processes in place to limit individual freedom of thought and action.

I wonder if there is some sort of cosmic battle going on today between authoritarian tendencies and our democratic, collectivist impulses. Or whether there’s a kind of war between our narrow, egoistic selves and that part of us that senses that we’re irrevocably interconnected.

And if that battle masks a kind of evolution, from out of an authoritarian, top-down framework towards a more universalist, democratic and collectivist one.

And, if I’m working to assist that evolution, what are my responsibilities? What does this particular historical Ukraine-dominated moment mean to me?

I did the easy thing today. I donate some money to Nova Ukraine (here is a link to some other related charities — https://bit.ly/3higvpl).

But this response seemed a bit superficial.

What I also did was reflect on the part I’m playing to contribute to this negative situation. I wondered what I see going on out there in Ukraine reflects something what’s going on within me (and within us).

The easiest response is to vilify Putin and the other authoritarians of the day. The more difficult response is for me to identify the Putin inside of me and deal with all of his grievances and rage.