YES, WE CAN!

I confess to having recently lost all sight of the privilege it is to be alive in this imperfect wonderful/horrible world of ours. I confess to being sucked into the great, swirling vortex of everything that is going wrong in the world, every day, everywhere, minute to minute. My mind was saying things like “What is wrong with everyone?”  “What is the point in even trying?” “How can people be so stupid, cruel, bigoted, selfish, and short sighted?”  I began to entertain the possibility there are three types of people in the world. Idiots, jackasses (to use a kinder word than the one in my mind) and, in direct contrast and opposition, those people who are just like me – not an idiot – not a jackass. I became overwhelmed with grief, misery and helplessness at the impossibility of accepting that the world and all of its population were in the worst shape ever known in the history of humankind. What about war? What about terrorism? What about poverty? What about violence? What about Black Lives? What about inequality, prejudice, bigotry? What about climate change? What about nuclear holocaust, what about suicide, addiction, mental illness and natural disasters? I was ready to tear out my hair and head running full boar for the hills never again to face this horror show we call modern life. I am a mom to four grown children, have twenty-three grandchildren and two “greats” (half of whom are coming of age, many of them are African American). They seek answers, hope and purpose.

 

During the several years before our current president I practiced living in a place of studied acceptance and calm. I was nurtured by Pema Chodrun’s LIVING BEAUTIFULLY IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY AND CHANGE, Thich Nhat Hahn’s encouragement to live in the present moment, Jon Kabat-Zinn’s secular and healing approach to FULL CATASTROPHE LIVING. And I DID feel some peace. I DID feel some calm. I HAD some perspective on the issue regarding will it be/will it not be okay. In losing this calm view I told myself it was unhealthy to continue in the naïve vein of ignoring the reality of world, national and local decline and the threat it is to humanity’s survival. I watched and listened to the news from what I considered to be reputable and responsible outlets. I paid attention to the dialogue, prophecies, reports and opinions of politicians, journalists, pundits, respected educators, spiritual leaders and friends, community members and neighbors. I watched and listened as one after another the voices of outrage attempted to out shout each other, called names, dismissed, denounced, lied and justified. I couldn’t stay in that place of loud noise and haranguing chaos. In the midst of my anguish I picked up Langston Hughe’s novel, NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER, published first in harder times than ours,1930, again in 1969, then in 1994 with a forward by Maya Angelou. I reread James Baldwin’s ANOTHER COUNTRY. Weren’t these times in our country and world at least as bad as our current times? I had to believe that someone, somewhere, in the here and now could offer a middle view, a broader view, a view based on reason and verifiable information. Just as I was entertaining my run to the high hills, Jeffrey Brown (PBS News Hour) interviewed Harvard’s Steven Pinker about his new book ENLIGHTENMENT NOW. Brown introduced Pinker as an optimist and they both chuckled a bit at the idea such a thing was possible. But, in fewer than three sentences Pinker drew my full attention to the possibility of taking a reasoned, scientific, humanistic broad and deep look at what is rightwith today’s world. He demonstrated the world is a better place today than it was in the past, that human beings are problem solvers and though problems solved bring to light new problems, genuine, verifiable, appreciable progress is being made and it would behoove us to find ourselves, as a planet, as a global human society, paying attention to what is right rather than wrong with our world. He puts reason and fact to the progress made in each of the areas of concern I raged about some paragraphs back.

 

 “… the world as a whole? Last year, the world had 12 ongoing wars, 60 autocracies,10 percent of the world population in extreme poverty and more than 10,000 nuclear weapons. But 30 years ago, there were 23 wars, 85 autocracies, 37 percent of the world population in extreme poverty and more than 60,000 nuclear weapons. True, last year was a terrible year for terrorism in Western Europe, with 238 deaths, but 1988 was worse with 440 deaths. Indeed, we've become safer in just about every way. Over the last century, we've become 96 percent less likely to be killed in a car crash, 88 percent less likely to be mowed down on the sidewalk, 99 percent less likely to die in a plane crash, 95 percent less likely to be killed on the job, 89 percent less likely to be killed by an act of God, such as a drought, flood, wildfire, storm, volcano, landslide, earthquake or meteor strike, presumably not because God has become less angry with us but because of improvements in the resilience of our infrastructure. And what about the quintessential act of God, the projectile hurled by Zeus himself? Yes, we are 97 percent less likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning.”

 

More encouragement toward optimism is offered by James and Deborah Fallows’, How America is Putting Itself Back Together, Atlantic Monthly, March 2016. Excerpted and paraphrased:

“As a whole, the country may seem to be going to hell. That [harangue, complaint, lament…] is a great constant through American history. The sentiment is predictably and particularly strong in a presidential-election year like this one, when the “out” party always has a reason to argue that things are bad and getting worse. And plenty of objective indicators of trouble, from stagnant median wages to drug epidemics in rural America to gun deaths inflicted by law-enforcement officers and civilians, support the dystopian case.

But here is what I now know about America that I didn’t know when we started these travels, and that I think almost no one would infer from the normal diet of news coverage and political discourse. The discouraging parts of the San Bernardino story (for example) are exceptional—…but the encouraging parts have resonance almost anywhere else you look. Some share… pessimism about trends for the country as a whole. But they ... feel encouraged about the collaborative efforts on education reform under way right now in their own town. What is true for this very hard-luck city prevails more generally: Many people are discouraged by what they hear and read about America, but the closer they are to the action at home, the better they like what they see.”

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not urging in the direction of silent acceptance of all that needs our activism and our innovation and our greatest critical thinking and problem-solving skill. These are givens. This is our human purpose and I believe it has always been so. Progress is made in a world and universe forever falling apart (as in the 2^nd law of thermodynamics… Look it up! It’s important to understand…) by human beings staying the course. And, yes, times are tough. But, hell… We SHALL overcome… YES, WE CAN and when the going gets tough? You know this one! The tough get going!

Deborah Padgett is a writer and artist in St. Paul’s W 7^th Community. For more information on her published work see padgettstudios.com