He Lives in a Small World

Living in Small Worlds

Long ago and far away, Kadizzle used to ride around a surface coal mine in North Dakota with the general superintendent. One day, as they were discussing a problem employee, Duane leaned back and said, “He lives in a small world.”

That phrase stuck with Kadizzle. It was perfect—short, sharp, and true. Everyone lives in some version of a small world. Kadizzle’s happens to be Payson, Arizona.

Yesterday, driving through Phoenix’s sprawl, it hit him: trying to change the big world from inside a small world might be hopeless. But people keep trying anyway. The question gnaws at the edges of everything: how do people really change people?

---

Donuts and Democracy

This morning it’s Donuts with Democrats day. The routine is familiar. First comes the highway protest—homemade signs on Highway 87, waved at the endless weekend traffic streaming through Payson. Cars and trucks rush past, drivers glancing up for a split second before re-immersing themselves in talk radio, gas station coffee, and weekend plans.

Does it accomplish anything? Maybe. Maybe not. But for that one moment, when a weekender sees a sign that says “Democracy is on the ballot” or “Stop the Lies,” perhaps a small flame flickers. Change rarely starts with fireworks—it starts with sparks.

Later, the gang gathers at Democratic Headquarters. A small world inside a small town, sitting around a table with coffee and donuts, talking about how to change the course of the nation. It’s absurd in one sense—like a handful of ants plotting to move a mountain. Yet in another sense, it’s the only way change ever begins: small worlds colliding, overlapping, growing into something bigger.

---

The Kingdom of Trump

The world today has three kingdoms: Payson, Arizona, and Trump’s America. One is intimate and personal, one is sprawling and local, and one looms like a dark empire over everything. The Payson Democrats live in all three at once.

Trying to change Trump’s kingdom from a folding chair in a small-town headquarters feels like bailing water from a sinking ship with a coffee mug. Still, what’s the alternative? To stop? To quit? To let the tide swallow us whole?

---

Change as Maintenance

Changing the world isn’t a grand once-and-done achievement. It’s not a statue raised or a mountain moved. It’s maintenance. It’s repetition. It’s like changing a diaper: a nasty, necessary job you know you’ll be back doing again soon.

And maybe that’s the real truth. Democracy, justice, progress—they aren’t permanent states. They’re diapers. They get soiled again and again, and someone has to keep doing the dirty work.

So Kadizzle, along with the other stubborn souls in Payson, will keep showing up. Holding signs. Eating donuts. Talking politics. Living in a small world, but refusing to let the small world shrink to silence.

---