I recently read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. If you've read it, you know. You know how heart wrenching it is. You know it's impossible to get through this book without navigating the terrain of your own grief for our broken world and for our brothers and sisters who suffer the greatest atrocities within it.
As I was reading this novel that portrays a war torn country, and the atrocities inflicted by the Taliban, I stopped frequently to initiate conversations with my partner--mostly needing to vent my anger towards people who sadistically harm others "in the name of God". Nothing--I mean NOTHING--is more absurd to me than this. If you are committing violence in the name of God, you know nothing of God. This book riled me up and stirred my pot in big ways. My partner would roll his eyes and say, "You've got to stop reading this book". He didn't understand why I would choose to read something so profoundly horrific--why I would want to immerse myself in the suffering of others. It's a good point to consider. Why would I? I have a nice, comfortable life. I know bad things are happening in the world. Why would I want to read into the details and make myself feel this pain? Why not focus my attention on positive, happy things? Why not instead read about cats doing cute cat things? The more uplifted I am the better I can serve the world, right? Hmmmmm......
It's a fair question and one I continually asked myself. Why do I feel the need to rub up against the pain and suffering of others? And the answer that immediately fills my heart is this: there are no "others". For me, turning away is not an option. A person's suffering is not theirs alone. It's for all of us. If we choose to look--we can all find growth from another's experience. We don't have to have a shared experience to learn from it. To turn a blind eye feels like allowing people to suffer in vain. At least let their suffering carry the silver lining of opening the hearts and minds of the people who choose to hear their stories. This is where most people argue the point: but there's nothing you can do about it. It's half a world away. Tragic, but nothing to be done. And on this point I call bullshit. Because the second we turn away from the experiences of our brothers and sisters simply to protect our selves--so we don't have to feel sad, so we don't have to feel uncomfortable--we have a bigger problem at hand. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is just ignorance.
I think it's important to understand what others are going through in our world because this understanding breeds compassion. This compassion reminds me that everybody has a story we know nothing about and this lessens my judgment of the people around me, in my immediate vicinity. This compassion makes me a more tolerant person and a kinder person and what the world so desperately needs is TOLERANCE and KINDNESS. When I hear another's story and I witness their perseverance it inspires me and makes me a little bit stronger. Will my compassion and tolerance and strength end the Taliban's reign in the middle east? Will it end the violence in Africa? Will it end our own president's horrifying brutality against immigrants? Not today and not tomorrow. But change has to start at the individual level and change cannot be had by burying our heads in the sand about the world we live in. We are more connected than we know. When we grow, when we expand our own hearts to include more tolerance and understanding, we help the whole. And eventually, because progress is slow, we build a brighter world through our own individual growth.
Don't get me wrong--I don't wallow around in the grief and sadness. I don't absorb other people's pain and carry it around with me. That is useless to us all. I celebrate my good fortune. I extend gratitude every single day for having the life that I do. But for me to go skipping along plugging my eyes and ears to others' experiences would deny me a broader perspective of the human experience. And this my friends is not the narrow, limited vision of life I wish to experience. I can't believe that other people's suffering is just for them. Isn't it a potential growth opportunity for anyone willing to look at it?
We are so unbelievably uncomfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Have you guys watched Hannah Gadsby's Netflix special? Hannah is a stand up comedian and the special is just that--an hour long comedy gig. As Hannah tells her jokes, her humor is strongly peppered with truth. Painful truth. And at the end she drops the humor and goes totally fucking raw. Given the venue--a comedy special--this gets uncomfortable. You can palpably feel the tension in the audience (wait wait, isn't she supposed to be making us laugh, not telling us her brutally honest story?). I realized I was a little uncomfortable watching her up there. And I welcomed that discomfort, as I think her live audience began to. If we can't look into another persons pain as they are offering it to us--without trying to fix it or make light of it or brush it under the table--we can't be fully and authentically engaged in the human experience. They are offering us that pain, that story, to teach us something. As a straight woman I have no idea what Hannah went through while finding her sexual identity--until she tells me. I have no idea what types of feelings and shame and violence a person experiences for trying to be themselves--until they tell me. And I never want to be anything less than an open witness to their stories. Those stories make me want to love more fiercely. And if temporary discomfort and sadness breeds deeper love, compassion, and understanding, I'm all for it.
This is why I won't shake my head at someone and say, "You shouldn't read that, it's only upsetting you" when they tell me of a difficult story they are taking in. By God we need to get a little fucking upset once in a while. How will change come if we aren't prodded outside of our comfort zones? For me personally, I am not going to stop diving into the human experience. I am eternally grateful for books and films that can show me perspectives I will never have in my own life. I am eternally grateful we have these mediums to share our stories with one another, because our stories connect us and connection is a very healing thing.
It's okay to be uncomfortable and it's okay to rest in that discomfort for a short while. When our children or friends or loved ones approach us with their discomfort we try to immediately get them out of there! Get out of that uncomfortable place because it's making ME uncomfortable! "Don't cry" we say. "Feel better" we say. Eventually they will stop crying and they will feel better but we try to make this an immediate thing. Hurry up and stop making me uncomfortable.
We don't teach each other and reinforce for each other that discomfort is a valid and worthy part of the human experience and breathing with that and working with that space for a bit can be profoundly rewarding. Real and raw freaks us out. Well too damn bad. It's time, don't you think, to see the real and raw? How else are we going to better ourselves, and better our world?
And so, these were my thoughts as I processed that question: "Why are you reading this book??" I apologize for being a bit ranty--the world is in a precarious place and I feel impassioned about doing what we can at the individual level to help move us in a positive direction. The ostrich/head in the sand thing isn't helpful. I'm frustrated when people encourage me to choose this option. I will not. I will look. I will see. I will feel.
In Love,
Heather
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