In this age of technology and instant gratification, sometimes we forget the simple pleasures. Like meandering, and chatting people up, and pausing to soak it all in. Kurt Vonnegut used to like to walk into town for a single envelope when he had something to mail, ignoring his wife’s argument that he could buy more than one envelope at a time.
Vonnegut responds, “…And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is – we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”
Of course, an author depends on immersing themself in the midst of living, noticing details, trying to hold on to it all long enough to capture it in words. But don’t we all benefit from farting around and noticing the little things? Kind of like writing ‘I was here’ in graffiti. We’re here. This is our now.
Today, in the United States, we vote. We celebrate a country that allows its citizens input into this remarkable experiment of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
We honor this country and its principles of equality, freedom, and justice for all. Our understanding of those concepts has evolved over time, and taken some steps back, but today let us be grateful for how far we’ve come and consider the steps that we each might take today and every day to make this country move closer to the ideals for which it stands. It is both a privilege and a responsibility to vote.
Reading history is one of the best ways ironically to really enter the present. As James Baldwin says:
One must say Yes to life and embrace it whenever it is found — and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is. For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. ~James Baldwin
We look at our past and see people making their ways, making mistakes, celebrating triumphs, struggling but then getting back up. And this is true during objectively awful times of war or suffering as well as in more relatively peaceful times. People go on. They find a way to come together, to survive, to do better.
I wonder what historians will say fifty years from now about the times we are in right now. Will they point to the divisions between us or the attempts to heal and grow. Will they see in us the grit and forbearance we can recognize in our ancestors?
Imagine writing to one of your literary heroes and getting a serious letter back. Over 50 years ago, then fifth grader Joel Lipton wrote to Charles Schulz, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts, to ask him what made a good citizen.
And Schulz wrote back:
In 1970, students in a fifth-grade class at Hawthorne School in Beverly Hills were assigned to write a letter to someone they admired, asking them “What makes a good citizen?”
Joel Lipton, 10 years old at the time, wrote to Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz.
Fast-forward to this past February, when Lipton and his wife were cleaning out their closet. “And she pulled out a box and started going through some photos,” Lipton says today. “And between some old photos was this letter. I said, ‘Oh, wow, there’s the Charles Schulz letter!’”
Lipton remembers getting a response from the famed cartoonist, typed on official stationery from his Sebastopol studio, and hanging it on his bedroom wall with thumbtacks. But he was amazed when he re-read Schulz’s letter almost 50 years later, and realized how prescient it was.
Schulz’s words are no less powerful today as we come together to vote for our future in America, a country defined not by homogeneity of race or religion, but by common principles. Principles of equal justice under the law, of democracy, and of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Oh, child. How I wish for you to have a life without misery and heartache, a world without disillusionment and betrayal, a childhood unmarred by neglect or abuse, a journey without conflict. But, alas, that will not be. We do not live in a utopian world, but here in this world, and you will know sorrow and pain and, as much as I would love to shield and protect you from it, I cannot. There will be dark days, my love.
But you are brighter than the darkness, and, even in your misery, you will find a way to shine. And when you are at your lowest point, I will be there beside you knowing that you will rise again and that this pain will make you more compassionate and humble, more honest and fierce, more determined to make this world a more perfect place, because you, my beautiful child, are not meant to be kept down in the darkness, but to shine.
What questions do we frame for ourselves at the end of the day? What are the questions that have caused us to soul-search and perhaps take a new path? What questions have forced you to look at something a different way?
Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers. There are some that resonate so deeply with us, we may spend a lifetime trying to answer them. In her piece about the beauty of these profound questions, Karen Horneffer-Ginter identifies some that have been meaningful to her:
When used properly, questions have the potential to connect us to the world of another. A heartfelt “How are you?” or “How was your day?” can become the bridge that keeps us in relationship to the lives of those we love. Sometimes, too, questions create a bridge within ourselves, allowing us to hear what’s going on at a deeper level. We know when we’ve encountered a question that has this potential because it stays with us — maybe for the day, maybe for our whole lives. It taps us on the shoulder to wake us up, or it wiggles its way in more deeply, opening us up to seeing things in a new way.
I still recall first encountering Judith Duerk’s chorus of questions about how my life might have been different if there had been a sacred circle to step into. Mary Oliver asking me about my plans for this one wild and precious life, Oriah Mountain Dreamer wanting to know what I ache for and if I dare to dream of meeting my heart’s longing, and Angeles Arrien reminding me of the questions asked in some indigenous cultures: When did you stop singing? When did you stop dancing? I think of my friend Ming, asking me at lunch one day if I thought writing was my fullest and truest expression. All these questions have remained close companions across the years.
The questions that have been consuming my thoughts and are my close companions these days are What does it mean to be welcoming? How does welcome look? How does it change the mix if it is accepted? What are the stumbling blocks to be truly welcoming? Where does fear creep in to inhibit welcome? How will my life be different because I have welcomed another into it? How will it disrupt my comfort zone, and how will I get my ego out of the way to be more accepting?
What are the questions in your heart, questions that are your close companions? And just the framing of those questions can be significant, as she suggests above. Consider the difference between ‘What do I have to do today?’ and ‘What do I get to do today?’ That simple shift helps us move from feeling burdened to being grateful for all the opportunities presented by the day.
What are the questions that have been your close companions? What do you get to do today to help answer them?
Sometimes, when we feel down, we need to evaluate the input coming into our lives. Are we steeped in negativity? Maybe not just news, but the vitriol that follows it in the comments? The political back and forth can get ugly and pull us down. And then we can think about the friends we surround ourselves with. Are they upbeat, trying to make things better, or always complaining?
And, while we don’t want to retreat from fighting the good fight or the friends who are going through a rough patch, it’s so easy for people to tear things down, to find the flaws, to make a conflict, and, when we are around that kind of energy constantly, we can feel beaten down.
But, there is good news to be had, and there are positive people and opportunities to be found. Sometimes we need to focus our attention there, if only for a break from the storm.
Sometimes I feel everything in life comes down to the question, ‘Who is my neighbor?’
We are always asking, ‘This one, too?’ And the answer is always, ‘Yes’.
The felon, the refugee, the homeless person, the enemy, the one who hurt you, the one you disagree with, the one who makes your life hard? Yes, always yes.
The potential for a loving relationship is in one embrace. The potential for peace is in forgiveness. The potential for harmony is in stillness. The potential for quality conversation is in listening.
Consider the opportunities you have to make your world and the world in general a better kinder place with the actions you sow today.
Listening, truly listening, is rare. Most people are just waiting for their turn to reply. Or maybe not even waiting, but interrupting to say what is on their mind. Two people both talking, but neither listening, and no one, consequently, heard. Too often, we want to avoid the discomfort of listening, particularly if someone is hurting, and so we turn the conversation back to something safe, ourselves.
Celeste Headlee recounts a time when she tried to support her grieving friend, but failed:
A good friend of mine lost her dad some years back. I found her sitting alone on a bench outside our workplace, not moving, just staring at the horizon. She was absolutely distraught and I didn’t know what to say to her. It’s so easy to say the wrong thing to someone who is grieving and vulnerable. So, I started talking about how I grew up without a father. I told her that my dad had drowned in a submarine when I was only 9 months old and I’d always mourned his loss, even though I’d never known him. I just wanted her to realize that she wasn’t alone, that I’d been through something similar and could understand how she felt.
But after I related this story, my friend looked at me and snapped, “Okay, Celeste, you win. You never had a dad, and I at least got to spend 30 years with mine. You had it worse. I guess I shouldn’t be so upset that my dad just died.”
I was stunned and mortified. My immediate reaction was to plead my case. “No, no, no,” I said, “that’s not what I’m saying at all. I just meant that I know how you feel.” And she answered, “No, Celeste, you don’t. You have no idea how I feel.”
She walked away and I stood there helplessly, watching her go and feeling like a jerk. I had totally failed my friend. I had wanted to comfort her, and instead, I’d made her feel worse. At that point, I still felt she misunderstood me. I thought she was in a fragile state and had lashed out at me unfairly when I was only trying to help.
But the truth is, she didn’t misunderstand me at all. She understood what was happening perhaps better than I did. When she began to share her raw emotions, I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say, so I defaulted to a subject with which I was comfortable: myself.
I may have been trying to empathize, at least on a conscious level, but what I really did was draw focus away from her anguish and turn the attention to me. She wanted to talk to me about her father, to tell me about the kind of man he was, so I could fully appreciate the magnitude of her loss. Instead, I asked her to stop for a moment and listen to my story about my dad’s tragic death.
How often do we do this in our conversations? We listen to the story, only to remember a time when we experienced something similar and then quickly switch focus to our story. Do we sit with a person in their grief, their discomfort, their loneliness? Or do we try to change the topic to something more pleasant?
Headlee continues:
From that day forward, I started to notice how often I responded to stories of loss and struggle with stories of my own experiences. My son would tell me about clashing with a kid in Boy Scouts, and I would talk about a girl I fell out with in college. When a co-worker got laid off, I told her about how much I struggled to find a job after I had been laid off years earlier. But when I began to pay a little more attention to how people responded to my attempts to empathize, I realized the effect of sharing my experiences was never as I intended. What all of these people needed was for me to hear them and acknowledge what they were going through. Instead, I forced them to listen to me and acknowledge me.
Sociologist Charles Derber describes this tendency to insert oneself into a conversation as “conversational narcissism.” It’s the desire to take over a conversation, to do most of the talking and to turn the focus of the exchange to yourself. It is often subtle and unconscious. Derber writes that conversational narcissism “is the key manifestation of the dominant attention-getting psychology in America. It occurs in informal conversations among friends, family and co-workers. The profusion of popular literature about listening and the etiquette of managing those who talk constantly about themselves suggests its pervasiveness in everyday life.” Derber describes two kinds of responses in conversations: a shift response and a support response. The first shifts attention back to yourself, and the second supports the other person’s comment. Here is a simple illustration:
Shift Response Mary: I’m so busy right now. Tim: Me too. I’m totally overwhelmed.
Support Response Mary: I’m so busy right now. Tim: Why? What do you have to get done?
Here’s another example:
Shift Response Karen: I need new shoes. Mark: Me too. These things are falling apart.
Support Response Karen: I need new shoes. Mark: Oh yeah? What kind are you thinking about?
Shift responses are a hallmark of conversational narcissism. They help you turn the focus constantly back to yourself. But a support response encourages the other person to continue their story. These days, I try to be more aware of my instinct to share stories and talk about myself. I try to ask questions that encourage the other person to continue. I’ve also made a conscious effort to listen more and talk less.
I’ve never learned something I didn’t know from talking. It’s in listening that we grow.
While our leaders model interrupting, our children are watching. What are they learning? If constant interruptions become the norm, how will this effect public discourse and civility? How will we work together without listening to each other’s points of view?
Today, perhaps we can model listening. Allowing people to feel heard is a gift we can freely give.
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