This morning I read an article in the UTNE Reader (the link is to UTNE, but the article isn’t available online at this time) about an American soldier who committed suicide after returning home from Iraq. I started crying on the bus and when that little swell of emotion died down it left behind, as if forged in a weird and sudden fire, a new articulated, hardened and crisp resolution: I want everything I do to be in the service of making us more human. There are so many forces that push us to be less human, more hard, bitter, consumptive, competitive, invulnerable, cleaned-up and presentable, proper, distant, polite, angry, violent, separate. I want everything that I do, every single action, whether it be a long-range goal or a sweep of a second, to be in service of softening, connecting, dissolving, touching and making it more difficult for us to ignore, damage, murder, reject and dehumanize each other.
It felt like a door suddenly opened and I have a new choice – to walk through it, re-dedicate all my efforts in that clear and resounding bell of a direction – or to keep fumbling. Walking through the door doesn’t mean a renouncing of exploration – I will always be exploring – but it does mean that the exploration has a compass unclouded. I felt this sudden clarity and in it the thought: “This could be one of those moments where everything changes.”
Everything in service of a humanizing impulse.
Impulses that I have that work against that:
• Acquisitiveness
• Desire for fame
• Fear
• Self-deprecation
• Arrogance
• Hunger to be liked by everyone
Everything in service of a humanizing impulse.
I’m writing from what seems a world away, so safe in my little mountain home, but your post found it’s way to me, and I read it, and I FEEL it. I wish everyone could read this just once, and see how many people might think just a little bit more because of it.
Wow – that’s such an incredible undertaking. So simple but so difficult!
Where do you start?