I wonder now, in these agitated, often berserk times, if we have lost something precious in ourselves. Maybe we never had it. Maybe I have an image of our humanness in my mind that does not exist outside my mind. If so, then where did I get the idea that we are mostly good, and kind, and know how to behave in decent ways? I got it from people in my life who demonstrated those beautiful characteristics to me. Real people. Family. Teachers. Neighbors. Coaches. Friends.
I know we can be caring people because I still see people caring all the time. And because I want to be caring, too. Where does that come from if we are basically just selfish, coarse, vulgar people?
Who in our culture today champions good manners, courtesy, appropriateness? Where are we to look for people who value intelligence, learning, curiosity; who demonstrate kindness and generosity?
It was blistering hot this past weekend. I was running errands and saw an elderly woman walking on the sidewalk. She was frail, had on a lightweight sweater and was carrying a small bag of maybe groceries or maybe household items. I passed her going the other way and I slowed to watch her in my rearview mirror. I turned my car around and put on my flashers and slowed down by the curb next to her. I stopped and rolled down my window and asked if I could take her to where she was going. She never really looked at me, she just shuffled along, and said, “Oh, no thank you.” I said, “It’s so hot out and I would be happy to take you wherever.” She just smiled and kept walking.
I looked at my dashboard and the temperature reading was 108. I slowly drove on but felt terrible for her.
I wondered if, in this day and time, she simply refused to get in the car with a stranger for fear that something bad might happen. How enormously sad that as a society we fear one another with such intensity. I do not fault her. If she was my mother I would not want her to get in some man’s car either. I felt helpless though. I can’t imagine how she got home in that heat.
Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a society where we all openly helped one another in every way possible? And where none of us were afraid to be helped? Where none of us worried that we were being manipulated or used for some form of mistreatment if we allowed another person to assist us?
Emerson once said, “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
Why do we not decide to be respectful, warmhearted, unselfish, and neighborly? Why are those attributes seen today as weakness, cowardice, passive, naive? When did we get the idea that cheating others, grabbing what we want, climbing over someone else, lying to avoid responsibility for our actions, and disregarding the feelings of another person, on our way to fulfilling our basest urges, is American, is acceptable, is right?
I’m not calling for nirvana. I don’t expect everyone to be nice all the time. But what has happened to our sense of good will? When did we decide to disregard as irrelevant, feeble, and useless, our conscience and the innate power of reasoning and humility in defining our conduct with others?
Novelist Pat Conroy had a great line, “My mother, Southern to the bone, once told me, ‘All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to sister.’”
It’s funny at first. But then you sense the harsh reality in it. Southern literature and all good literature for that matter remind us that we humans can sink into slimy depths of conduct if we are not careful. There are, as Jung said, our shadow sides where lurk unresolved conflicts, unhealed wounds, rage and fear, that drive us toward bitter and sometimes violent living.
Today, those unhealthy aspects of our humanity seem perfectly acceptable if not even outright encouraged. Where can we find those amazing individuals who instead guide us in the direction of emotions and strengths that are uplifting and transforming, that show us the superiority of common goodness, integrity, and dignity?
There is an old saying, “You are destined to fly, but that cocoon has to go.”
We are as a society caught in some crusty, dark cocoon, unborn yet, embryonic and formless. In order to bloom into something beautiful, we will need to shed that shell. It is not intended to protect us forever, only until we are big enough and healthy enough to break free. It is way past time.
© 2018 Timothy Moody
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