I know I'm interrupting my (very delayed) series explaining Transition Lab curriculum. I'm going to earnestly endeavor to continue the series tomorrow, but for now, I hope you'll pardon me.
I usually avoid reading the news, because most of the time,
what I find there hurts. I, like most
humans, do not like to hurt. I’m not
saying that I think it’s bad to read the news, or even that I should refrain
from reading the news simply because it’s painful. I’m not even saying that avoiding things that
hurt is actually a good idea. I’m just
saying that I don’t read the news much.
Sometimes, though, something happens that is actually
impossible to ignore. An environmental
disaster floods Facebook with righteous indignation. A law passes which activates a volley of justifiably
defensive op-eds on the Huffington Post.
Six young people are killed; a grieving father’s face appears on every
screen, the hashtag #NotOneMore floods Instagram, and I hear the constant
murmuring of the gun control debate approach a deafening roar.
Finally I cave – I consume with ravenous energy the
multitudes of articles, posts, and stories at my fingertips. It’s late at night, I have to be up early,
but I can’t stop myself once I start.
It’s a painful, gut-twisting blend of anger, sadness, confusion, fear,
and morbid curiosity that drags me on, clicking through link after link. The salient quotes start to ring in my ears,
the same set of details spin a thousand different ways, and the simple fact of
the act itself disorients me and leaves me sitting helpless in my bed with
tears pouring down my cheeks.
I’m so, so sad for the students that lost their lives,
including Elliot Rodger. I’m so, so sad
for the father whose face has become synonymous with deep wound this act
reveals. I’m so, so sad for the people
who bear witness to the anguish of the shooting, in person and through the
seemingly endless web of coverage. And,
more and more, I’m sad for all of us who live in a world where things like this
happen.
Part of the pain I
feel comes from an unbearable energy, a desire to defend myself and my loved
ones, to lash out with anger, to campaign to “fix this,” by demanding gun
control, or advocating mental healthcare reform, or maybe even buying a small
handgun to defend myself, or, screw it, we need to melt all the guns in the
world because they’re awful and no one should die by having a piece of metal
shot at them with a small explosion. The
point is, I don’t know what to do, but I feel I must do something. Inaction burns in my veins; my skin actually
itches with inactivity.
But what can we do?
Bereaved father Richard Martinez calls us to use our constitutional
rights to petition our government leaders for stricter gun control – for the
restriction of semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles to military use. I watch as my friends polarize into their
respective pro-gun and anti-gun camps; incendiary missiles of verbal abuse
begin, they trade barrages of slanted data, they both quote the Bible. They sling hate at each other. We don’t
know how to react with anything other than hate to what we see as an evil act
by an evil man, perpetuated by an evil system.
Incidents like these make the evil in the world impossible to ignore,
and I don’t think we should ignore it.
In the wake of one of the horrific shootings of the last
five years, (I wish I could remember which one, but maybe the fact that I can’t
speaks to the shocking frequency of these events) I was over at a friend’s
childhood home, having dinner with her and her parents. The TV was on, broadcasting a debate between
pro-gun and anti-gun representatives. My
friend and I were making dinner, watching the debate as we chopped
vegetables. We listened to the anti-gun
argument in silence – I was vaguely aware of my friend nodding in unison with
her parents, and, for the most part, I was nodding too. I found a lot to agree with: the power that
guns harness fills me with respect bordering on fear, and I want to be safe
from people who have them and want to use them to hurt people. And then there were some things that I didn’t
fully agree with, or that made me a little angry and confused.
Then came the other side of the debate, and suddenly the air
was thick with noises of derision. My
friend’s dad’s voice rose in a wave of contradiction, and suddenly the
atmosphere in the kitchen became tangibly tense, and filled with frustration
and helpless anger.
I was, perhaps naively and/or selfishly, upset by this turn
of events. I had come over to have a
nice dinner with my friend, and to cook for her parents, who I deeply respect. My vision for the night comprised vignettes
of playful teasing, beautiful food, good-natured debate, and, overall,
love. The thick, palpable hostility in
the room felt jarringly dissonant with the presence of my dear friend, for whom
I hope I would be brave enough to actually take a bullet, standing beside me,
almost elbow to elbow, cutting up vibrantly colored vegetables that we were
about to eat together.
“I can’t believe this is even a debate,” my friend said,
practically shaking with anger. There
were tears in her eyes. “I just…don’t
understand why anyone could possibly think we need guns.” I don’t remember the rest of what she said,
but her anger and judgment toward the NRA and all gun-owners was difficult for
me to stomach.
At the time I didn’t understand the pain I felt upon hearing
her words. I lamely offered a few counterpoints,
but I didn’t know what to do. I
certainly didn’t disagree with her, but I didn’t feel like I totally agreed
with her either. My overwhelming desire
was to stop talking about it – to continue cooking together and let all that
anger fade into the past. So I changed
the subject and we continued cooking, and ended up having a nice night. I think her dad read us some French
poetry. They’re a wonderful family.
It worked out okay, but I wish I had responded differently.
I wish I had pulled my friend into my arms and hugged her
tightly until her tears soaked my shoulder and neck. I wish we had kept talking about it, that I
had been able to voice what I was thinking: “When I see you hurting so badly, I
feel a deep, tender pain too, because I love you and I want you to live in a
world where you have all that is good and beautiful.” I wish I could give that world to her.
I love my friend for her passion, her stubbornness, and her
conviction. Most of the time, she
beautifully and compassionately balances my indolence, doubt, and tendency to
cave under pressure. Sometimes, though,
I feel that I need to balance her out, and I don’t know how.
Many of my interactions with friends and acquaintances are
tinged with this pain of not knowing how to bring healing. I find so much anger in the people I love. Sometimes, I am filled with selfish irritation
– I want them stop being so angry so I can have some peace. I really wish I didn’t feel that way. But it helps me to move past it when I
realize that all that irritation is just a very ugly scar I bear from years of
craving harmony, love, and nurturing and finding too often discord, separation,
and anger instead.
Richard Martinez says he isn’t angry with Elliot Rodger,
with Rodger’s parents, or with those who failed to pay adequate attention to
the warning signs. This, to me, looks
like progress. But even if he isn’t
angry, there are millions who are. If I
can’t even figure out how to heal the pain of my closest friends – remote from
the impact of the shooting, thankfully safe and far away – how can any of us
even begin to heal the huge, spreading wound that is both the cause and the
result of these acts of apparent evil?
Tentatively, I imagine the intensity of the pain that Elliot
Rodger must have felt: a constant ache of loneliness, a burning separation,
unbearable agony. I draw from my own
experiences, my own deepest, most tender wounds, my worst nights where I felt
that I hated myself and couldn’t see how I could possibly keep on
existing. I take these feelings and
imagine them spread over a lifetime, with no relief, with no network of loved
ones to remind me that I was a part of something larger than myself. Merely imagining this degree of isolation hurts
so much it brings tears to my eyes, and worst of all, I realize that my imagination,
limited as it is by my own privileged experience, is unequal to the task. This phantom of pain I’ve conjured is tiny by
comparison to the immensity and depth that must have been his reality. Indeed, all that the phantom and the actual
have in common is that they flow from the same source: humans living in separation
from each other and from the world with which we were meant to be so intimately
linked.
What I’m trying to talk about is my desire to create the
world that I have always wanted to give to the people I love: a world where
they are happy, healthy, and free from danger.
This incident has made me realize that everyone deserves that reality;
leaving one single person behind would be a loss. How can we create this world?
 |
| Russell and Zeno picking up trash from a stream that runs through Montrose |
In Transition Lab, we’re reading a book called The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is
Possible by Charles Eisenstein. I
want to endorse this book to any of you who are interested in what I’m trying
(clumsily) to explain. You can read it
online for free HERE. It’s had a huge impact on my understanding of
myself, the world, and my relationship to other human beings, and I
conscientiously believe it’s the most important book I’ve read in my life. Plus it’s beautifully written. That’s the highest recommendation I can give.
To paraphrase grossly, Eisenstein identifies the source of
the pain we all feel as part of our day-to-day lives as a result of the
brokenness of the story we tell ourselves about the world and our place in
it. He calls this dominant narrative the
“Story of Separation.” In it, humans are
isolated entities, living apart from each other as self-serving individuals,
and living above nature, free to exploit its resources at will. For me, this immediately rang true – I often
feel that humans are encouraged to be self-serving, to compete with each other
for scarce resources, and to cultivate an unhealthy self-absorbtion. And I believe that living this way causes the
pain of loneliness and the impotence of unfulfilling life.
He claims that a new story is beginning to emerge, and,
indeed, has been trying to emerge counter-culturally for many, many years: the “Story
of Interbeing.” In this world, we are
all closely connected; we give freely to one another, and are free from the
technologies of force and competition.
Instead, we recognize that the things nature and our fellow human beings
have in abundance (nourishing food, love, fulfilling work to be done,
adventure, etc.) are the very things that most completely meet our needs. We feel pain because those needs are being
met by substitutes, from unhealthy, artificial foods to social media, and
substitutes are never enough to make us feel whole.
In one anecdote, he describes an experiment he conducted,
where participants simply held extended eye contact for many long minutes – way
longer than social norms dictate acceptable.
He found that after the discomfort had passed, people were filled with
euphoric joy. A need was being met that
most people don’t even put a name to: genuine connection.
I don’t want to live in poverty of connection anymore, and I
don’t want my friends, family, community, or any single person in the world to
be there either. It seems to me that the
world I’ve always wanted for myself and my loved ones is possible – only a
radical shift in perception away.
 |
| Transition Lab 2014: Jake, me, Zeno, Kevin, and Russell |
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