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Shellen Lubin Biography

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“It really helps if we can respect each other's perspectives. That alone can get us past so many impasses. Sometimes it can even help us find a new possibility we hadn't seen before; but even if not, sometimes it can help us at least see the other person's rationales; but even if not, sometimes it can help us just accept that another way of seeing it, of doing it, exists, functions, is effective for someone, even if not for us, even if we can't understand it. It really helps if we can respect each other's perspectives. But sometimes we can't. Then it really helps if we can trust each other's intentions, know that we want the best for each other as much as for ourselves even if we disagree on how to get there. It really helps if we can trust each other's intentions. But sometimes we can't.”

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“We move forward, treading carefully, assessing the fault lines; the red flags; the triggers, the trigger-happy destroyers, and the destruction left in their wake; and the seers and the vigilant doers as well, those trying to stem the tide of authoritarianism and dictatorship. We continually assess when and how to protest; when and how to silently stand strong; when to retreat; and if and when we must run. All must be reflected on, new findings factored in, continually assessed and re-assessed... Talk about what's happening--it helps. Weigh your options, for yourself and those you love--it helps. Weigh your options for taking action and making a difference if you can--it helps. Make contingency plans--it helps. Fear nothing.”

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“This is what I have been saying, especially about those people who were once partisan operatives and have become Never-Trumpers, and most especially those who speak now all the time about what a danger he is. I'm talking to you: Nicole Wallace, Michael Steele, Steven Schmidt, Kurt Bardella, Rick Wilson, can you own your part in where we are currently? Can you tell us how you helped get us here? Can you make clear how and what you sold people that led right to this snake oil salesman?”

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“The RNC was easy for Trump to corrupt to his will, because it had already been corrupted with voter suppression, Frank Luntz messaging, the Hastert Rule, the selling of Sarah Palin, telling different lies to different voters just to gain their support, Mitch McConnell's theft of the supreme court (assisted by those justices prevaricating at their senate hearings), to name just a few. And how about the New York Times, and all those journalists country-wide who cared more about appearing "fair and balanced" than exposing lies and corruption? We watched them not know how to handle the vilification of facts, but that, too, started before Trump (think Joe Walsh calling out "You lie!" during Obama's State of the Union, when Obama was stating facts. They reported the lack of decorum, but not the lack of veracity.) Now we watch the legal system--and its avenues for motions and appeals before, during, and after conviction--be abused and corrupted by Trump's legal team, with an assist from judges who don't even try too hard to hide their partiality. We need those who participated whose eyes have now cleared to be as forthcoming as Michael Cohen has been in exposing how and why the deeds were done, and owning their culpability. They need to come clean, to help us find ways to strengthen the frayed and fraying institutions that are barely holding together. It may be the only way through.”

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“The 'originalism' of which they speak (they being the Supreme Court, the Federalist Society, and affiliated lawyers and politicians) treats the constitution like Evangelists treat the bible: they cherry-pick at whim which tenets they will uphold and which they will ignore, and, also, which they will distort so the text seems to agree with whatever it is they're claiming. Of course, it's as absurd to believe there is only deep truth to be found by trying to get into the mindset of a privileged white slave-owning land-owning cis male founder of this country as there is by trying to get into the mindset of whoever you believe wrote down the various pieces of the bible, both old and new testaments. And now they're chopping down the cherry tree out in the open with us all watching (well, watching only when we're not getting felled along with the branches) and they're speaking the truth about their intentions in a document called Project 2025. We all must read it carefully, read it and weep, weep and get angry, get angry and build strength, and then do all we can to stop them. It's now, baby, or never.”

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“It's easy to be afraid right now, but doing things that scare you makes you stronger, makes fear less of an obstacle, allows us to find ways to dance in that liminal space-- that contradictory co-existing reality-- of afraid not afraid. We need to keep doing things that really scare us, to remind ourselves that it is just a thing, what we call fear-- and that as much as there are real things to fear, that thing itself is the only thing that can paralyze us. Love, passion, hunger, desire, lead us forward to dance with our fear so we can do it, yes, and also so we learn that we can do it again and again, and live with the failures-- learn from the failures-- when our fears are realized (another topic entirely). Take heart.”

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“Where we are strongest it is the easiest to stay open, fluid-- curtains of lace and linen instead of walls of steel-- open borders (at least for those with passports and visas or the will to earn citizenship in our personal territory), never losing clarity, because that is where we are strong. Where our resolve is weakest is where we have to draw the hardest lines for ourselves, for others, for the world. We can't afford to give a little, because, well, our resolve is too likely to give way when so tested. It sounds so simple. But it can be so hard to do. Where we are weak, the hard lines must be drawn strong.”

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“Vote for the ones without voter i.d. In jails or in districts without parity. Vote for the idlers and despairers who wouldn't. Vote for the women and slaves who just couldn't. Vote for your immigrant ancestors all; They're pleading that you hear democracy's call. Bring friends! Cast your ballots! Just get out and vote! Let's keep our two-century-old-country afloat. We all must stand strong, and we all must make clear: "We are here! We are here! We are here! We are here!”

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“It was an insane venture. And then, while I was working away at figuring out how to make it happen, I watched Inventing Anna, and at the end of the whole series of episodes, this accomplished con artist was asked what most surprised her about people... She said she was surprised that people couldn't live with a higher level of anxiety. She believed that that was what brought her down. And at that moment I knew that that was what I needed to get through this whole venture: to be able to live with that level of anxiety. And I could. And I did.”

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“This is one of the harshest after effects of the pandemicthat I am witnessing someand experiencing some,a diminished ability to deal with resistance,and soa willingness to stay in one place for too long,shut off from the outside world,nose in phone or binge-watchingsome showwhen once upon a timewe used to have to wait a week for the next installmentand discussed it with colleagues over water coolersand over landlines with friends. We need colleagues.We need friends.”

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“This is one of the harshest after effects of the pandemic that I am witnessing some and experiencing some, a diminished ability to deal with resistance, and so a willingness to stay in one place for too long, shut off from the outside world, nose in phone or binge-watching some show when once upon a time we used to have to wait a week for the next installment and discussed it with colleagues over water coolers and over landlines with friends. We need colleagues. We need friends.”

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“It's always been a choice-- every weapon a tool, every tool a weapon, every banana slip a joke, every song a scream of fear, pain, or pleasure, every flower a perfume, a ballet, a color splash grown from the soil of both harvest and destruction. It's always been a choice. Whether the direction you choose is foggy or clear. Where do you look? What do you look at? What do you hear?”

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“Sometimes there's nothing to be done. Sometimes they're not listening, can't hear, don't want to, don't believe you. Sometimes you cannot stop the storm, stem the tide, change the path of the ocean liner even though it hasn't quite yet hit the iceberg. There will be times despite all efforts you will feel completely misunderstood completely unappreciated completely wronged. Sometimes love just isn't enough.”

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“We artists know how to address transformation-- how to grow empathy, passion, and collectivity-- Spirituality knows how to address transformation-- but not with formal systems-- Systems breed safety-- follow this and you will be this, do this and you will do that, get here and you will get there. But empathy, passion, and collectivity grow from the recognition that we are not safe, that no one is safe, that our only hope is to care for ourselves and each other, and that we must each figure out our own way to do that.”

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“For all my days, I have been making up to the world for how challenging I am, how questioning I am, how strong and smart and passionate I am, how unwilling I am to accept systems and processes and values just because that's the way it's been done and been seen, considered especially challenging as a female, especially in a somewhat younger time (a/k/a less open to challenges)-- when I, too, was younger (a/k/a what does she know?). There I was, challenging, questioning, but also trying to make up to the world for it, always to be--show--prove that I'm not didactic, intransigent, inflexible, that my passion is not dogma, but a malleable creative force informed by sensory, intellectual, and emotional input... For all my days, I have been making up to the world for how challenging I am. But that has been as good for me as it has thwarted me, it has grown me, shaped me, honed me”

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“What is more than memory that connects us always?... what was it I wrote for him, this then-young then-not-young man hungering for fame and acclaim as much or more than burning with something to say? I wrote him a poem called Immortality, assuring him of his, about the immortality we have through connection, through shared experience and the memory of it, through how we touch and alter each other”

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“The most important quality we bring to everything we do (work, play, creating, loving, parenting, friending, teaching, learning) is to care, to start from a place of caring and to care throughout the process. With care, there are unlimited possibilities-- without care, pitfalls dead ends trip us up knock us down bury us. This is your life. Allow difference mess even chaos. But not Indifference. Handle With Care.”

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“Most of us have both ways that we are privileged and ways that we are discounted. I am a woman, and women have historically not owned their own lives, having once been the property of fathers and husbands, the acclaim and remuneration for their finest work given to others, and still evolving from that reality. As a white woman/mother/artist from a middle class family in the twentieth century? I have lived a life of such privilege, with so much support provided me. I have lived a life of such deprivation of opportunity and lack of recognition. Sometimes my head spins from the contradictory co-existing reality of it... How have you had privilege in your life? How can you do better for those who have not?”

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“I remember a study that was done in the seventies (a study I've been trying to find unsuccessfully since the advent of the internet). It was a study of psychologists and psychiatrists, not of patients. They filled out three questionnaires, true or false questions. One was for the traits of a healthy man, next was for traits of a healthy woman, the third for traits of a healthy human being. The traits of a healthy man and human were the same, but a healthy woman was very different. Completely different. You know--softer, sweeter, more empathetic, less self-centered, less ambitious, more dependent. And these were the people who were treating people who were trying to live healthy lives.”

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“When people ask 'how do I know if I'm being too easy or hard on myself?' or 'how hard should I be on myself?' I answer, 'hard enough to motivate you to do something, and not so hard that it makes you want to bury your head in your pillow and give up.' So now I add, to the question 'how much should the director in the back of my head be side-coaching what I'm saying and doing?': enough to make you self-aware (and aware of others, and receptive and responsive to them) and not so much as to make you self-conscious. No judgement.”

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