F*ck War & F*ck Not Drinking Coffee

Finding inspiration.

I unlock my phone and open up social media, looking for inspiration for my work. I know it’s risky and because there are so many things that are asking for my attention. Doomscrolling can take a lot of forms; mindless entertainment, bigotry based on negating others’ experiences, even neutral to positive videos like dancing or pet videos or silly pranks. There’s a lot contending for my approval and engagement, and it’s obvious and overstated at this point, but it’s exhausting.

I happened to be successful this time. I opened Instagram and see a video from coffee creator that I kind of have a crush on and I’m super inspired. The work that this creator is doing is super engaging, offering a lot of value and perspective and hope to people in the coffee industry, and it gets my mind thinking of so many possibilities. This is exactly what I’m looking for in these inspiration-seeking moments.

And then. I accidentally click on another video in the feed that disrupts the coffee/cafe algorithm. This one is from a post-evangelical creator that I’m also kinda crushing on (don’t hate me I love easily). This post, though, was a video from a someone caught in a recent war, happening to film their own death while praying to God for help.

I considered looking away, but I stayed.

As a side note, I don’t know if that is the “right” decision, to stay and witness these difficult, horrendous, heartbreaking moments that we now have access to through social media. Part of me thinks that this is not what humans should be witnessing, on so many different levels, and part of me wants to be a compassionate person who holds space for people and their difficulties and do what I can to create safety for anyone struggling.

As I worked through these feelings, staying to the end of the video, witnessing the atrocities of war and perpetual violence happening at expense of people who have no say in the situation and are casualties in a fight not their own, I’m overcome. It’s not just sadness or rage, and it’s not just a call for empathy or a fight for justice.

I’m overcome with purpose, hope, love for this person and all the people involved in this situation. I’m overcome with the realization that this has long been happening and unfortunately will continue to happen long after I’m gone. I’m overcome with the desire to do what I do in the world, for and because of situations just like these.

Please, please, please.

Please, please know that I am writing this not to trivialize this person’s death and the bullshit of war that we’re witnessing unfold in front of us. Please know that my intent here is to honor this person’s life and the lives of the many people that find themselves at the expense of causes and arguments of greedy individuals so far removed from the innocent people they’re effecting and destroying.

And please know that I’m writing this for you as you read this, and myself as I write it.

It can feel like a lot, not knowing how to handle these questions, not knowing how to fight for what’s right, feeling a lack of agency about what we can do to address the injustices we’re witnessing and that we feel complicit in-especially when it’s done with our tax dollars and in the name of the millions of us who believe this is antithetical to who we are as fellow humans on this earth.

Back to coffee.

For some reason, after moving through all of these thoughts and emotions in what seemed like a split second (perhaps I’ve had practice doomscrolling and sorting through what to do about it?), I came to the realization pretty quickly this time: I am witnessing these two videos at the same time to show me how my work in the world is important, and it’s pushing me to continue this work, no matter how hard it gets.

To be honest, when faced with the serious, substantial, often unfathomable realities of things like death, sickness, loss, grief…it’s hard to be like, “Ok, heard. Now let’s talk about cafes again,” and I want to honor that feeling. But I also want to recognize and value the work that we’re doing in relationship to these extreme difficulties.

Cafes shape culture. Coffee brings joy and energy and passion and livelihood and connection to billions of people. And despite the seeming weight of it all, these two realities that I’m witnessing in this moment, the depths of heartache as well as moments of connection, are not in competition with each other.

Our work matters.

I work with cafes and coffee brands and people that love them because of how they bring people together. The amount of good that I’ve been a part of and witnessed in my work has exponentially increased the quality of my life and the lives of people around me.

It’s these small, accumulative moments that offer rest for people, that offer opportunities to bridge the disconnection that happens when we’re pitted against each other. Among so many other things, a cafe becomes a place of solace to dozens or hundreds or thousands of people everyday, creating moments of connection and reflection unlike almost any other setting.

So while I’m going to do everything I can to speak out against the destruction and disconnection that I am witnessing in war around the world as well as in my own community, I’m also gonna speak for something.

I’m going to speak for continued connection in our third places, to foster places of hope, conversations that bridge divides. I’m going to continue to insist that our daily rituals have the potential to slowly create a world that is more connected than divided, because it is in these moments that we eventually bring into reality the world that we want to see.