Community

Yesterday Was Arguably A Pivotal Moment Of Our Lives

Our Tribe Ultimately Bonded

Everyone who either reads is an editor on or contributes to Illumination knows our recent story. I firmly believe we all will be talking about it for some time. In fact, we all may get on down the road to the point where we mention it in passing, a distant memory filled with nervous anticipation, and immediate calls to action.

“Hey, were you a contributor to Illumination when the lights went out? Do you remember that day?”

But we ain’t there yet. For a brief, and yet agonizingly long series of hours yesterday, the lights on Illumination failed to shine. We lost our publication.

What happened yesterday is something a lot of us will never forget. And no, I’m not the first one to come to this realization. I’ve seen other commentaries post “lights out,” which spell out in fantastic detail how each writer felt about the situation.

As I sipped my coffee and revisited the actions each of us took, the reactions we shared, the calls to action we performed, it hit me right between the eyes.

Figuratively, of course. Unless you want to count that pesky moth that tried to mate with my forehead this morning.

But seriously, think about it folks, think about how we as a community reacted, how our tribe acted when it happened. Not so much the fact that it did happen, and that we fought tooth and nail to get it back, but how the moment changed all of us.

Yes, I said it changed all of us.

Okay, you might be thinking, “oh great, here comes the cool-aid thing again.”

But I ain’t talking about a cult, blue oyster or otherwise. I’m not talking about a misplaced ideology which possesses some sinister or strange undertow. I’m talking about what I saw, what I witnessed myself yesterday.

A lot of us are writing to make a living. A lot of us are writing, trying to make a living, and a lot of us are writing and making a living (or not — thanks COVID-19) doing something other than writing.

But yesterday, oh boy, I witnessed some merely amazing things.

To a woman and man, each writer on Illumination put the publication first. We banded together as a tribe of like-minded warriors with the intent to fight however we could, to get the owner of this publication and the publication itself back.

Were our reasons, profit-centric? Were we thinking about how many reads we were going to lose and thusly the pennies a day we write for being taken from our pockets?

I don’t think so. I genuinely don’t believe a single writer on Illumination was thinking that.

I believe the reason we banded together as one community, one collective force was because we felt the very core beliefs of our community was under attack.

What I witnessed was a band of writers coming together with a single purpose in mind. Yesterday I saw each writer charge full bore into the fray, pouring out words which served to bolster not only themselves but the entire community on the publication.

I saw each writer drop what they were doing, the articles they were working on, and put the publication, the fundamental reason we all contributed to Illumination before their own interests.

Nothing else mattered. There was no competition between the writers on Illumination. There was no dancing away from the publication and dropping it like a hot potato and moving on to greener pastures.

To a woman and man, each of the writers and editors stayed put and fought back — put the well-being of Illumination before themselves and their own interests.

We banded together, locked arms, and said, “let’s do this.”

And each of us knew the reason without even having to say it.

Yesterday, I saw a band of writers come together for a greater good. Yesterday I witnessed selfless and unflagging tenacity in the face of some pretty stiff odds.

But we held in there, and we kept swinging, and this time, we were rewarded for our hard work.

Not monetarily, because none of us had a single thought of lost revenue at the time.

Our goals were loftier, served a higher purpose.

Yesterday we all came together and fought with our words for something we believed in. And each of us knew, we felt within the very core of our souls that we were in this together, we were going to take Illumination to a place where it will be a force to be reckoned with, where we will be allowed to have our voices heard and not ignored.

We all are going to move forward and we’ll be d*mned if we’re going to let anything or anyone stop us.

Yesterday it wasn’t about us, or the number of reads we got, or how many fans clapped for us.

Yesterday it was about a wonderful man with an idea and a publication, nothing else. It was about each of us buying into the fundamental core beliefs, whether right from the get-go or after writing on the publication for a while.

It was about believing in ourselves and our fellow writers.

How could I not be so very proud of each and every one of you right now?

Sincerely,

Paul Gene Barnett