I’m just going to come right out and say it: Existence is meaningless. There is no intrinsic purpose or reason to the universe. We are subject to the cold, uncaring mechanics of cause and effect, of the unending interplay of chemistry and physics as each minute action feeds into the next, over and over and over. The universe does not care about justice, about stories of wrongs being righted, of heroes being rewarded, or villains getting their comeuppance. These only exist as stories we weave ourselves, imposing narratives where we can make them fit and ignoring all the countless other instances where they do not.
In saying that, things do work out alright sometimes.
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Take a look at Juli Briskman, for instance. Back in 2017, Briskman was fired from her job because she was papped flipping off Trump’s official motorcade in a gesture of frustration while cycling to work. Her employer — a government contractor — summarily fired her on the grounds that the gesture was ‘obscene’, and that using it as her Facebook profile picture contravened their social media policy.
Fast forward to the present day, and Briskman has managed to transform both the notoriety and stack of GoFundMe money she accrued as a result of the infamous flipping off incident into a successful bid for local office in the state of Virginia.
As CNN is reporting, Briskman tonight won a position as supervisor for the Algonkian District in Loudoun County, Virginia. Briskman’s win was part of a much larger victory for the Democrats in the state of Virginia, with the party managing to take both the Senate and the House of the state government for the first time in over two decades.
Briskman’s platform included increased funding for public education and addressing issues with the gender pay gap in Loudoun County’s labor force.
Unsurprisingly, Briskman seems pretty stoked with the result:
Looking forward to representing my friends & neighbors in #Algonkian District who backed me up today! So proud that we were able to #FlipLoudpun #FlipVA #LOCO219 Thank you Loudoun! https://t.co/vRcDUih1AP
— Juli Briskman 🌞 (@julibriskman) November 6, 2019
