Back when I still considered myself on summer vacation and was busy trying to fill the days I got caught up in Glee. Mohamed and I found some pleasure in watching this TV series about a group of high school students and their experiences in the singing club. A friend had given us the first 4 seasons on a flash drive and so we were free to watch at our leisure. We got so caught up in it that- to my horror- Mohamed announced his goal of 'watching all of season 4 in one day.'
While I silently revolted at his plan for spending a beautiful day glued to the screen, I understood his double need of entertaining himself and escaping from our boring (read lonely) first days here in Abidjan. We watched together, got to know the characters together and enjoyed the music. As an adult, however, I think the similarities ended there. I watched with an eye on my past- ever regretful- while he probably watched with an eye to his future (I'll never act like that.)
High school, I think, tends to bring up a lot of past baggage for many people. (Hail to the high school teachers who navigate this world everyday.) While I have long grappled with my past, watching the main characters struggling through the highs and lows of teenage-dom brought my own experiences ever more in focus. If only, if only, if only......
Thoughts of my past still bring up resentment, regret and wishes that it all had been different. If only I had known.....if only I had had parents who..... and on and on. In the end, I am left with just one question to ponder. Why is that the most formative years of our lives are those when we are dependent upon others?
Most of the time I wonder why I am still plagued by the events of my youth. At this age I would have expected to have long moved on from those tumultuous years full of mistakes upon mistakes. All my training in therapy suggests that people can get over the impact of parents and friends and errant ways of our childhood. All my experiences in life suggest that we never really do.
If we map out our lives on a timeline, the youthful period takes up a significantly smaller portion of our lives than the grown-up years, and yet, if we're not careful, we can spend an enormous portion of those grown up years looking back, reminiscing, regretting, wishing we could revise what happened long ago. Long ago when we were at the mercy of others.
I think about it in terms of infancy as well. Newborns are completely dependent upon their parents and errors in those early months and years can have disastrous effects on how we develop physically and psychologically. Our self esteem, curiosity, motivation and the general way we approach the world is shaped at a time when have absolutely no control over what happens to us. It seems inherently unfair that our well being is based upon the decisions and actions of others.
Until it struck me that that is precisely the point of it all. No matter which 'good book' you check, they all refer to humans looking out for humans. It may seem elementary, but I finally got the hugeness of this while washing dishes and reflecting on my reactions to spending every night lost in 45 minute episodes of a high school ecosystem. It was a Glee epiphany. We need each other when we're most vulnerable.
Previously I'd always interpreted the 'do good to others' rule as helping our neighbors. I thought I'd covered it by volunteering and offering what little I could to those I saw in need around me. But for some reason it's taken me until now to realize this need for perfecting human interdependence extends to smaller systems- the family systems. Service must begin at home. (I guess you can imagine how that played out in my family if it's taken me some 40 years to figure this out.)
While most of me resents this idea since I seem to have gotten a raw deal on the parent end of things, I realize it is the ultimate vision of a harmonious humanity. Peace in the world can begin to truly develop when we take care of our children, who are then confident and service minded enough to go out and take care of others. And by feeling a true love for our family, our neighbors and so called strangers (in this version of humanity, we know we are all brothers and sisters) we can truly develop. As a race. Or grow closer to God, if religion is the path you're on. Grow closer to nirvana, if spiritualism is the path you're on. Balance out the universe, if space and energy is the path you're on.
I've spent many of my adult years trying to determine, label and name the path I am on. Islam came pretty close. But these days, I can see the labels are less important than the ideas. It's this concept of humans needing humans that rings the most true. Not just needing, but being obligated to be in service to each other. Getting a raw deal in our own youth doesn't exonerate us from providing for others in our future.
It's easy to think this is right when we consider orphans and hungry children. Women sometimes get our sympathy as well, being the main caregivers for children. But distance is easy to come by. People who are too different, or seen as potentially able to care for themselves or people who are too dangerous to care for fall outside our radar of obligations. Some cultures foster more of a sense of interdependence while others focus on independence. All cultures eventually face a limit.
Ebola in the news seems one curse on this world designed to drive the wedge between us humans even deeper. Its not just Africans who are ostracizing their children and neighbors. Spain is having a hard time dealing with an outbreak there. The numbers of confirmed cases remain in the single digits and observed cases in the double digits. It's not a far stretch to understand how countries in Africa, whose numbers have hit the thousands, are having trouble coping.
Ebola is tearing apart the fragile seams that hold families and communities together- especially in places where resources needed for daily living are already scarce. Most of what I read or see on the news is capable of bringing me to tears. (New mama hormones are an excellent strategy for increasing empathy-maybe it should be added to the water supplies.) I try not to pass judgement but am lost in wonder when confronted with images of children suffering or dying alone. Perhaps they are orphans, but thoughts of anyone spending their last days and hours in a haze of pain and loneliness is enough to make me doubt the future of humanity. If we could all be as heroic as this woman, than my faith might be restored. But we can never really know how we will respond to crisis in our family or in our community. Maybe Ebola is more of a test of our humanity rather than a curse.
Aside from our emotional reactions and spiritual safety, Ebola presents a real danger to pregnant women and medical caregivers- those charged with the physical future of humanity. I remain divided between the joy of my epiphany- we need other people when we are at our most vulnerable- and utter dismay- you mean we need other people when we are at our most vulnerable? I'm committed to being the other person.....now I just have to work at accepting help when I am most vulnerable. Which TV series is going to teach me how to do that?
