Are We Really Feeling Peachy?

This year, Pantone has selected “Peach Fuzz” as it’s color of the year. According to their website, “[P]each Fuzz communicates a message of caring and sharing, community and collaboration.” If you are curious about Pantone and it’s significance, feel free to check out https://www.pantone.com/. For now, I don’t have anything else to say about Pantone except I think they appear woefully out of touch this year.

(And I pause to reflect. I suppose I write this post because I too could give that impression. I mean, my business is called “Cause to Celebrate” and my web domain celebrates life. It’s lovely and inspiring to me, yet could seem out of touch. I guess that’s why I write this blog, to provide some balance and context.)

So let me provide some context for what bothers me about Pantone’s choice. Pantone is an AMERICAN company. They select a color of the year every year, with the intent of essentially capturing the cultural zeitgeist with a single color. Then, of course we start seeing this color everywhere. They can pick ANY color in any given year. So wait a minute… we’re on the cusp of losing our democracy and Pantone thinks we’re all about caring and sharing this year? Now, I personally endorse the idea of caring and sharing. And yes, it’s exceptionally important for us to connect interpersonally in order to manage the stress of our turbulent times. But this year’s color shouldn’t be about caring and sharing because that is NOT the cultural zeitgeist. Maybe this year’s color should be the color of scorched earth or a massive tire fire or some sort of industrial accident – cause that is what’s coming FOR ALL OF US if we don’t figure some stuff out in this election cycle.

Maybe Pantone is hoping to offer a color that optimistically represents an antidote to our toxic times, which I genuinely believe is caring and sharing on a fundamental level. But THIS critical election year, that’s not going to cure us – not even close. We have to VOTE for a democracy to stay alive. We have to pay attention. We have to think beyond the moment and consider a possible future where we can’t reasonably dispute issues and compromise on solutions. That absence of conflict may sound nice in the short term but the consequence is going to be the loss of freedom to choose our own position. Again, may sound appealing if you think the prevailing attitude is going to match yours because you don’t have to defend your position anymore. I guarantee it won’t stay that way for long, if it ever really was going to be that way.

Without democracy we likely have to accept what authoritarians tell us as true and accept their ‘solutions’ if there are any - or risk harm to ourselves and our loved ones. That’s the cost we’ll all pay eventually when democracy dies, and anyone who thinks they’ll be exempt is woefully out of touch. Authoritarians are not relatable people. They don’t care about anyone else because that’s the quality that draws people to authoritarianism; not having to care or really share at all.

So yes, please start caring and sharing if you haven’t started yet, but it’s not at all peachy out here.