The sonic boom that was this election and its ensuing ripples are waking up what has been latent in all of us. It’s calling us all to our truest selves. The world has made a clear request and demands our authentic response, and right swiftly too.

For many, the response comes in the form of fear and hatred being worn brazenly on the outside: the emergence of our collective shadow. For others—for me—it’s a neon sign pointing to my own ignorance, and an understanding that I have a lot of catching up—and acting—to do. Big time. Things are moving fast now and whatever’s been asleep in us has been roused. No time to lose.

Something that deflated in significance, almost all at once, has been my hesitancy to say things: to participate in social media, to share my writing publicly, to say what I see. I’ve historically withheld my full participation, even though, undeniably, this is where people see and hear and share and learn and interact the most. I’ve been resistant to the inevitable tide, overwhelmed by being in contact with so many people’s thoughts and emotions and lives in such close range all at once (not something my Gen X body has easily adjusted to). And of course there’s my own crippling self-consciousness. Online and and in real life, I’ve kept a filter up to protect myself.

I’ve been supporting my close friends’ activism with a kind of distant admiration, harboring deep feelings about what is right and true, but flabbergasted most of the time by subtleties and nuances and brilliant points I would never have thought of. I know I’m always missing something so I gave up trying to follow. Plus there’s potential conflict inherent in all of it—a lifelong terror of mine. Heaven for fend I have to choose a side, or worse: that things get unpleasant.

Anyway, none of these feel like excuses I can rest in any longer. It seems dumb that I ever have.

I realize this: I’m a beginner at activism. Like anything new it will start awkwardly and I’ll make many mistakes. I’ll say the wrong things; I’ll inadvertently offend. But it has to start. I’ve been avoiding this because it’s felt too hard, too complicated, too impossible, too overwhelming. It’s been intimidating to take up because I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s why people shy away from aikido or painting or cooking or whatever … because after a few stabs they can’t do it perfectly so fuck it.

But now, it seems, there’s very little to lose (I say “seems” because what is happening in the world is not new—it’s just that the volume has been turned up). So I’ll do this badly for awhile. Maybe forever. But I’ll do it. Dignity be damned. I owe it to the world to finally extend my gaze past my own overly examined navel.

Still, as I toddle out on undeveloped legs in my effort to finally contribute something more than crossed fingers, I acknowledge my klutziness. I acknowledge that it took a threat so giant, glaring and global to finally make me see and be willing to stand up. Like so many, before now, I wasn’t ready. Now I am. I humbly request the forgiveness and support of those who have always known better.

Fortunately I’m steeped in a community of experts. My apprenticeship has been occurring even as I’ve resisted it. I have all the resources a beginner could ask for.

But this is foundation of mastery, isn’t it? Don’t not do something because you fear doing it badly. Whatever call you hear, no matter how mysterious or foreign or shadowy seeming—move in that direction. Start in tiny increments if you must, but do it now. I’ve never been one to go in for urgency but damn. Most of us—definitely I—have been asleep for so long that the world had to issue us (and by “us” I mean people who haven’t been suffering for generations) a rather horrifying ultimatum.

If you haven’t already connected to your response—what life is asking of you at this moment in history—I suspect you don’t have to dig too deep to unearth it. Find it, my friend. Find your heart, your voice, your strength, your calling. Find the support that is so near at hand to help with its emergence.

Listen, and begin.