“America is getting angrier and more afraid every day because the negative seeds are being watered, and that is why we need people who have the capacity to water the good seeds.” Thich Nhat Hanhn Winter 2001
Last Friday afternoon came and went, the time when I have habitually started my stories for Sunday morning release. By then, I had pretty much relaxed into not writing a story this coming week, which is certainly more of a thing for me than it is for you. However, in a moment of wonderfully neurotic, twisted thinking, I had this demented flash of running the Church of Larry. When my loyal parishioners venture into the Chapel of Words for their Sunday sermon and there is nothing, but a blank page, spiritual disaster would surely ensue. After six years and nearly 300 stories, I would be forever abandoned, empty pews, dropped like an apple core.
On the other hand, I don’t know why things like that matter to me. I continually break some of the basic rules of writing, the big one being: get to your story as directly as possible, avoid getting lost on sidebars that are not germane to it. Why should it matter that I couldn’t think about what to write, when I actually have a story to tell now? Years ago, when I decided to give this magnificent discipline a go, I also decided I wanted to let readers into my convoluted thinking, just like every one of you. Show me a mind that operates in straight lines and I’ll show you a robot with a fleshy outer layer, a narcoleptic brain and a frozen heart.
Hell, it’s only two paragraphs gone astray anyway.
I woke up Saturday morning, having come to terms with my looming lapse. Then, two seemingly unrelated things transpired right in my face. First, I read a fabulous piece by Thich Nhat Hanhn, written shortly after the Twin Towers were felled. In the past, I have tried a number of times to write about the lost opportunity presented by this catastrophe, but I bow deeply to this man’s extraordinary insights, merely residing in his shadow with great humility. He said, amongst other things, “What happened in New York caused great suffering, but if we can learn from it, the suffering can become a bell of mindfulness in waking up the whole nation.”
This was a shot of mental and emotional adrenalin to the right side of my brain, feeding into ideas I have had for quite a while now, in relation to the ugly schisms in our country. I am not sure there is such a thing as half a story, because it would exist in the ether of the almost. Next thing I know, the other half of my brain is doing back flips and a whole assortment of mental, circus tricks, because the story became a story, As if completely out of the blue, I got slapped in the brain and ideas started coming and here’s why.
Every Saturday morning, I get a wonderful overview of statistical findings from the Pew Research Center. Unlike Thich Nhat Hanhn, they walk in straight lines, the idea-distance measured solely by the numbers, a statistical treasure map, quantifying who we are, what we think and do. It is the other half of the brain puzzle, the factual fodder that shines a light on where we are, leaving the why to greater minds than my own, over there on the right side.
This particular Pew report dovetailed seamlessly with the story I wanted to try and tell, innocently prompted by the words of Thich Nhat Hanhn’s message of how to heal the deep divisions in our country, manifesting in closed minds and fists. This particular report dealt with how many of us seek out news that conforms to and enforces our way of thinking. Our informational landscape is limited to what we want to see, hear and read and it does not play favorites either, reinforcing all sides indiscriminately.
It is actually quite simple. We are not talking to each other, we talk AT each other. We reside in the protective shell of reinforced rhetoric, affirming our rightness in all matters. We are a country, in fact a world, of people speaking languages, understood only by those, who live in the same shell and we don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on under the myriad bale of shells around our own.
9/11 occurred nearly twenty years ago and should have been a warning, as opposed to affirming the rightness of mob rule. We were furious and revenge was the only way to avenge this horrific crime. Societal anger starves for a victim and almost anyone will do. We were all fed lies, perpetrated and corroborated by virtually all media, far fewer than we have two decades later. It didn’t matter that 19 of the 21 conspirators were Saudi. Saddam and all of Iraq were deemed to be guilty. Justice got buried under the human tombs of the Towers. All these years later, we are still at war, at a cost of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. The War on Terror ranks with The War on Drugs, as failed strategies that feed off fear and anger and misinformation manipulations by those who stand to gain the most from their longevity.
In the twenty years since we were all lied to, going full tilt after a phantom, we have now turned on each other. Regardless of what you believe to be true, you will find a plethora of sources affirming your beliefs, an intellectual, fast-food convenience store, with millions of satisfied customers.
Thich Nhat Hanhn comes from a religious lineage that relies on the role of the teacher. I joked above about not being worthy to walk in his footsteps, and while I know it is true, it doesn’t stop me from wishing I could. I would tell you we have to venture outside the comfort of our shells, stretching our necks for a look around. Holy shit! We are all turtles and unless some of us crawl outside ourselves, we are doomed to let fear and anger continue to rule and ruin our lives.
Honestly, I am not sure we can sink any lower than where we are today. We can hover around this selfish dyslexia, prompting the encroaching tide to wash us away. The alternative is for all of us to admit it is very difficult to be a turtle.
As slow as we have been, we can still win this race, but not as long as we refuse to understand each other. We are our own predator, which is insane.
Save the Turtles!