I have been having too much fun with my family to blog for the last week (plus)... but the time has come. I'm never quite sure what I'm going to write about, then it seems as if something hits me in the face, and I have to get it out. So what, you might ask, has viciously attacked my face and forced me to write today? Ebola? Ferguson? Robin Williams? Syria? ISIS? Obama? Well, all of them, I guess... but more importantly what I'm seeing as our reactions to all of them. This isn't going to be a blog about how you SHOULD react to crisis and whatnot... instead, it is simply an observation of how people do seem to react. On Facebook right now, my news feed is filled with reactions to Robin Williams' death. Personally, I'm sad about his loss: I show The Dead Poets' Society to my seniors almost every year, and have grown a strange attachment to his character. He has inspired me, and I am saddened to think of his personal pain and struggle. Although my family has experienced suicide very directly, I cannot claim to understand the depression behind the act- I've been extremely blessed in this life with never really having to deal with depression... therefore, I can't begin to understand or judge it. Still, I was strangely, but, joyfully overwhelmed when on the day of his death, hundreds of my friends and students posted about this single man, who's loss they felt directly. How amazing that we can collectively mourn the loss of someone 99% of us have not met personally. How beautiful that we allow our humanity to shine as we allow ourselves that grief.
But... the end of Tuesday arrived, and with it, my news feed began showing signs of the world's "second thoughts". Many posts on how "suicide is selfish" appeared, and alongside those, articles about how depression is a disease, and how ridiculous it is to blame those who commit suicide.
And it began. The division. It's always there. It breaks my heart...
An over-simplification is to say that some people appear to react to things from a fear base... others, from a place of optimism. I don't know how to get these folks to understand each other... I don't know that we can... but I see them judge and hurt each other. Those who are angry at much in the world see the optimists as the problem, as they believe the optimists are blind to the truth... the optimists get frustrated with the angry folks and often feel it is the negativity they push causing the problems.
I don't know who is right... and frankly, I don't care. I want to feel my sadness about Robin Williams' death. I want to be angry at my family members who chose to leave me. I want to forgive them. I want to understand.
I was very amused the end of the year when my youngest daughter started joking about all the hate and blame leveled at President Obama. We don't talk much about politics or religion in our house: we wish our children to develop their own beliefs... we "preach" kindness and education... they can take it from there. Still, when Kobie couldn't find a homework assignment she'd worked diligently on for hours, she said, "Ahhh! Obama must have taken it!" Then she laughed at herself for having misplaced it. She hears the division... at 14 she's aware of society's greatest struggle.
So as I continue to filter through the "we must save the children from ISIS" versus "these are not our people and this is not our war" posts... filter through the fear over Ebola in our country versus the people praising the medical personnel who have risked, and given their lives to help... as I filter through all this, I am continually trying to remind myself that we are all doing the best we can. We are all trying to do what we believe it right- even if we disagree on what is right... we are all working with our individual cards, making the best choices and creating opinions based on the information in front of us... but the best days... the best days are the ones when we unite. The ones when in the collective shock over a superstar's suicide, we all take a moment to acknowledge he MEANT something to us... together.
Good stuff Kelly. I love the topic because it's edgy. Seems we have to have a right and wrong, a black and a white in the world to function. Which I think is what you're talking about when you talk about fear-based. What would the world be like if there really wasn't right and wrong, good and bad, black and white? Could there still be actions and results? I think so. I think the world could be much more grey, and kind of...floaty, like hovering in deep space, nothing to hold on to, nowhere to land. And when the initial terror is gone, maybe we could find tremendous...space...to exist, to perceive, to love.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great words.
I definitely struggled with the word choice on that... I see it, but find it difficult to define... and maybe that's good... maybe definitions are just another form of right an wrong in a case like this? I like the "floaty" idea... I can see that... feel it...
ReplyDeleteComments left on my FB page- reposted here...
ReplyDeleteTom Wright: I tried to comment on your blog, but it wouldn't let me. Anyhoo, here is what I was saying....
When I first read this, I had all these things I wanted to say, but now that it's had time to ruminate and I read your post again more closely, I don't want to. But I thought I'd comment anyway, since I always like to see comments on my own quaint little blog.
Anyway, like you I simply try to teach my kids how to think not what to think. The rest works itself out. We will always have disagreements because we all filter everything through our vastly different experiences, and simply understanding that those differences exist seems to help. That doesn't stop me from speaking out about things that are clearly, demonstrably false, but it has calmed me down a lot! LOL
Some things are definitely black and white (like ISIS beheading children for their beliefs is definitely wrong and should be crushed immediately), but most things are shades of gray. I think far too many people are stuck in belief systems of all kinds (religious, political, environmental, etc) that turn everything into an us versus them, we have all the answers, black and white thing. Sadly, the vast majority of these belief systems are not the result of the individual having thought through these things but rather are just handed down through the generations. If they could be bothered to listen to anything that contradicts their beliefs for five seconds, they'd see how gray most things are.
Now that I no longer subscribe to a particular party, religion, or other belief system, it amazes me how often both sides have good points. It's weird, but it's about half the time!
Now I'm rambling, but that's my 2 cents.
Thanks Tom Wright! I have the comments set to allow anyone to leave them- user, subscriber or simply anonymous passerby... not sure why it wouldn't allow your post? Maybe there is a word limit I'm unaware of? I so enjoy finding people who see, feel and support the grays in our world... yet, again, that causes me to "side" with like minds, so I find myself wary of this type of alliance as well I am fascinated by the sides people take... I has seen so many people want the USA to do more to fight ISIS, but as so many people vehemently hate our President, and he is wanting to fight ISIS as well, I have seen numerous post from Obama-haters regarding the situation being "not our war... not our problem!"... more fascinating is that this situation seems to make strange "bedfellows"... strong Christians and moderate liberals are banned together in wanting to stop the violence while extreme conservatives and extreme liberals appear to want us to stay out of a war (for very different reasons- one, the "not our war" group, while the other is "you can't stop killings with bombs... war can't be an answer")... I hold to the strongest belief I have in this life: education- a full, rounded, all-account view of any situation allows for people to find answers together... but this is the beast we fight. People get only part of a story- often the part they search for... and do not get the other side. Until we become truly educated about any singular subject, especially a "hot topic" subject, it is next to impossible to form non-biased opinions. And then the big wall that hits us in the face: time. Who has enough of it to become truly educated on all that is going on in our world? Tough stuff for us all...
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