Sawa Bona
I’ve felt off and isolated for several weeks. It is a number of things, personal, professional, familial, cultural, there’s something just not whole anywhere with me.
I made the mistake of falling asleep too early last night. So I’ve been up since 3AM, there’s a song titled that here . It's not completely appropriate but close enough… I like music. If you don’t I worry about you. But back to my early free time… I saw a headline a few days ago and never got around to reading it. I found the article by Dr. Starla Fitch and you need to read it too. . The accompanying TED Talk is worth a watch.
We aren’t people anymore, at least not like we used to be. And in a number of ways that’s okay. It’s evolution. Everything changes, even when we don’t want it to. And we just have to adjust and appreciate what we had. But what if what we had becomes harder and harder to obtain what we had? What if those connections that get lost. As the article and Talk say, 80 million Americans say they feel like there is no one close to them to share their lives with. To share their souls, experiences, fears, and to be there to endure pain and suffering together. That’s absolutely terrifying and degenerative to our species.
I don’t know why, I think there are a number of reasons but we just don’t like each other anymore. We pick, we fuss, we argue, we gloat, and we cower. We hide in our homes and echo into our own self-delusions and dreams. We are mean and mad at each other and we just don’t want to talk about it anymore, but these aren’t things we can just “not talk about”. It's easy to bitch about who has to pay what tax. It’s noble to discuss world-view ideological differences and work for consensus and know you are not always going to win. But after those disagreements, you are still a human. And so is everybody else. But we aren’t talking about those issues. And I’m not saying we haven’t had these crises before… But we should be past this…
The humanity of so many humans is daily questioned, trivialized, ridiculed, commoditized, and consumed by other humans. Carl Sagan’s pale blue dot includes the passage:
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
We are all we have kids! We have to be better at this. And I know we can.
We are discussing the Star-Spangled Banner in class this week. And my students were assigned to argue whether they felt it was an appropriate song for our National Anthem. They have to read an opinion contrary to theirs, because everyone has to listen to each other. Reasonable people can listen. We don’t have to accept another’s view. We have to listen to them. We have to hear them. This is how we become better humans. Chris Abani has a wonderful TED Talk here about storytelling and discusses elements of his past. He discusses after living through horror and destruction that he introduces himself as a Human for “so many days” The point being I am a better human today, than I was yesterday. And I will be a better one tomorrow. That’s all I can be.
I’ll close with music. My daughter and I’s favorite band. First here is the song. But it’s really worth it to listen to this live version. Skip to about 2:10 for the song to begin and wait for the Ali tribute at the end. That statement is the closest to religious thought I can achieve, and really I think that's all we really need.
The lyrics are here and I cannot express how much this song means to me. How many people I think of as I listen to it. My kids collectively and individually. So many of my students. A precious few friends and family. There are so many ways those connections with one another alter and break. We know they are coming too, but that doesn’t mean we have to like them. And damn, it hurts when things go away. But what did I have? That’s what keeps me going. Knowing that those connections can be made again. It is a terrible thing to live in fear and isolation. We have to be strong enough to reach out and listen. If someone has not done that for you, do that for someone. Don't let them scare or hate the human out of you! I I can admit I haven’t been a good friend, and I want to work on that. I would like to ask you to try it as well.
I’ll leave you this this passage from Dr. Fitch's TED Talk and know that I see you.
"Perhaps we can take our cue from the Natal tribes of South Africa. Members greet each other with “Sawa bona,” which means “I see you.” They respond with “Sikhona,” which means “I am here.”
