feeling prideful ...
...like humans do
03.28.03
1:00 a.m.
a very kind christian woman i'm friends with recently sent ken and me a link to her church's website and asked us to listen to a sermon. we did, and afterword shared our honest reactions. i exchanged a few e-mails with my friend about this, and by the end of the discussion, she told me that she hoped we would find the "truth."
hmmm. the truth.
does one person have a corner on the market of "truth?"
do we make our own realities? is the "truth" only true because we say so? is "truth" in the eye of the beholder?
do we also have a shared, collective "truth" that binds us? if so, where can that be found?
one friend believes it can be found in the bible. one friend believes it can be found in the stars. one friend believes it can be found in the koran. one friend believes it can be found in the tao te ching. one friend believes it can be found in art. one friend believes it can be found in our dreams. one friend believes it can be found in psychology. one friend believes it can be found in science. one friend doesn't think there is such a thing as "collective truth."
what do you believe?
what do i believe?
i believe there is a collective truth, and i believe it can be found in all of these places. i believe that the things that strike a chord in all of us are the things that we can call "shared" or "collective truth." it's the feeling you get when what you think matches up with what you feel.
the other day i watched oprah say,"why should you care what's happening all the way in africa? because you are mothers. and fathers. and daughters. and sons. and all pain, my friends, is the same."
i felt a "rush of blood to the head" (excellent coldplay album incidently) and my eyes welled up with tears. i know that what she said is true. i know i'm not the only one on earth with that reaction.
we know the truth about some things when we hear it, don't we? even if you're the guy recounting the facts for a debate, if you are at all listening with an open heart and mind, you have at least a moment of being moved, . sometimes, if these moments are intense, you can feel the physical rush of adrenaline, the vibration, in your body .... "goosebumps" or "chills" ....
i tuned into dan's show (all's fair, wed at 7) and listened to him rant about why michael moore is a liar and a hypocrite. later ken and i looked up some stuff on the myth of atlantis, and found many sites dedicated to whether atlantis ever existed at all. in both cases, the messages of the storytelling were lost by the quest for historical or factual accuracy.
there are "collective truths" we can learn from completely (and admittedly) fictitious stories. storytelling, just like pure, innocent, uneducated children, can teach you the most amazing things.
there are moments of "truth" that stick in our throats ....
when shindler tries to sell his ring at the end of shindler's list. when bono cups his hands over his heart at halftime and sings,"what you don't have, you don't need it now. what you don't know, you can feel it somehow." when dr. king says, "i have a dream."
what are your "truth" moments? when have you felt that rush?
lately, many of us are moved like this when we hear patriotic songs. yesterday while flipping through our seven fuzzy channels i saw the aspiring american idols passionately belt out the last few bars of the wartime anthem "proud to be an american." i have no doubt that this new anthem of sorts welled some eyes. does that mean it holds some kind of resonating "truth?" what kind of "truth?"
first let's look at the shindler example. the truth that gripped my heart was that of guilt, shame, and sadness over my own materialism and greed.
for bono's cupped heart, i felt joy and hope.
the power of dr. king's "dream" gave me a rush of optimism. i felt elated that there existed a truly courageous person that dared to dream so big.
oprah's statement of "truth" filled me with deep sadness over all the killing, all the wrath, all over the world.
what "truth" does a tear in the eye during the our new "wartime anthom" reveal?
yesterday, ken and i saw "the pianist." throughout the film i was struck not just by the violence and destruction that accompanied that war,* but also by the pride of the german soldiers, and the shame inflicted on the jews. by the end, the cameras show the same, once prideful, german soldiers all sitting in the mud behind barbed wire, ...shamed.
my brother always tells me "pride is shame's cloak." it's one of his favorite quotes, and it's stuck in my throat like shindler's ring, and bono's heart. now every time i see my fellow american's sing "i'm proud to be an american," my brother's favorite quote rises from my throat like a song that i'm just not sure how to sing....
pride is not a good thing.
when you tell someone you're "proud" of them you imply that you are also capable of being "ashamed" of them. this pride and shame reflect your vanity....when you say you're "proud" of someone, you are delighted because that person, by their association with you, made you "look good"... in reverse, when you are "ashamed" of someone, it's because they made you "look bad." this is an issue of vanity.
dignity is not synonymous with pride. nor is humility synonymous with shame. humility and dignity are two sides of the same coin. this coin lies in the middle ground between pride and shame.
pride is dignity plus vanity. shame retains this vanity, but lacks dignity. dignity, therefore, is positive feelings for the self as a human, minus the vanity that accompanies both pride and shame.
the flip side of the coin, humility, is the appreciation for our gifts with the recognition that they are useless without the collective. (the "collective" being rooted in the notion that every human is connected, not just those that share their living space or culture.) the appreciation for the collective saves us from the pains of vanity.
i am an american. am i "proud" to be an american?
i was in ireland the week prior and the week following september 11th of 2001. the first week, many people said to me,"you're ok,...for an american." they told me i wasn't a "typical american." at that time, i had no idea that people in ireland, and many people in europe, saw americans this way. hearing these things over and over, there were many times in which i actually felt embarrassed to be an american. in all of my vanity, i felt ashamed.
after a few days of tolerating this "american bashing" (and sheepishly agreeing with it..."yeah, i know...") i noticed a growing anger inside of me. when i finally had a couple of hours to sit and reflect on it, i realized that many many of the people i love are american. my family, my friends, my teachers, ... and that these are truly wonderful people. during this period of reflection, i decided to stand up for myself, and all of the americans that don't fit that stereotype. i would no longer just go along with these bigoted comments.
then, at a small gathering later that night, someone flipped on the telly and lo and behold, the sally jessie show was on. "today sally talks to men who love big ladies...." someone said, "american men are muppets." (i actually heard that one a lot, and it made me giggle at first, having a great bit of experience with a few american muppets myself...) the "big ladies" came out, one by one, with their small skirts and large cleavage, and the men on stage play-humped them and stuffed their faces into their big bosoms. my friend shouted in disgust, "oh, typical fucking american!"
keeping my word to myself, i responded,"you know, that kind of hurts my feelings. you're really being bigoted. when you say things like that, you're insulting my family, my american friends, and me. there are plenty of americans just like me and you, you know. not everyone in america would qualify as a guest on jerry springer or sally jessie."
he looked surprised. uh oh. i've stunned him, i thought. then he sincerely apologized. he told me that the only few television shows they get from america reflect this ugly american stereotype, and his trips to the states reinforced this view, so he determined it was true. he never for a minute thought i would be offended by it since i didn't appear to be a springer type.... since i'm not a "typical" american, (whatever that is) ....
that was the first time i really felt like i was in a position to have to defend "being american." i didn't realize how people around the world saw "america."
what lens have these folks been looking in through?
all this negativity changed immediately following september 11th. when people found out i was american, they no longer made biting, bigoted comments. instead, they hugged me, (even strangers on the street) and told me they were "with us."
despite the love and support i received all over ireland, i was scared shitless to fly home on the 18th. (by the time we landed, i was three sheets to the wind. i'd befriended an irish lad with whiskey in tow who just happened to have an empty seat next to him that i promptly filled..along with my little plastic airplane cup. in general i don't recommend drinking as a coping mechanism,... but i must admit that it worked for me in this case.)
by the time we landed, my eyes welled up with tears to see the american flags all over the streets of boston. that rush of blood and adrenaline.... i'd been swept up in the patriotism...but why? what truth is speaking to me?
the flags waving everywhere made me feel safe. i felt hope from the show of solidarity. i remember thinking,"maybe this is the wake up call we needed, spiritually speaking. maybe this will bring people, americans, from all over the world, together. maybe we'll right some wrongs that have been building. maybe we'll feel safe again if we can just all pull together."
while comforting at first, the flags soon became equivalent to a team jersey. star spangled america started gearing up for war. the flag no longer made me feel safe, but rather quickly became a visible reminder of the "us and them," "either with us or against us" nationalistic mentality. today, flying the flag reflects the "with us" while the peace sign (sadly) seems to fall in the "against us" category.
(many of the celebrities against the war at the oscars flashed a somewhat angry snarling two fingered peace sign, which tickled me in it's hypocrisy...)
last week, a dixie chick was boycotted for expressing her opinion about the president. this week the new york times ran an ad asking people to boycott everything french.** they aren't "with us," i suppose...
but who is "us" exactly? why do we see americans as our brothers and sisters, and not the irish, and the british, and the iraqis, and the chilians, and the japanese,.....why do we care more about loss of american lives then the loss of an iraqi's life, for example?
admittedly, i've always felt somewhat of a misfit. because of that, i've tended to be drawn to others that share that sense of not quite belonging... like one of only about twelve black kids at my high school that used to slow dance with me, the really tall girl, when no one else would...., or the tiawanese woman i interned with in graduate school.... or the (uncircumcised) french guy i dated briefly at 19.... or the hilarious haitian woman i worked with last year ... or my spanish roommate two years back, or the roommate before that from pakistan who used to make us all coconut shakes, or my pals from argentina that i danced with at "sophias," or my neighbor from australia i bar hopped with, or my friend from england that still writes the most beautiful letters, or the woman from zimbambwe that i goofed off with through two weeks of what would have been very a dull training .....
... all kinds of people, all colors, from all walks of life....
those of you that know me know that i can connect quickly and deeply with people. because of this, i have heard people's dreams, and their fears. their joys, and their aspirations. their deepest grief, their most shameful memories, and their recurring nightmares. and you know what?
we're all essentially the same.
now i've put away the flag and the pride, and have tried to be really honest with myself about the real question:
how do i feel about being human these days?
at the moment, if some other species were to appear before me and ask me that question, i would feel embarrassed. i'd cringe with vanity pumped shame.
wouldn't you?
where there's pride, there will be shame...eventually. the dignity will leak out, drop by drop, as we are forced to deal with the consequences of our actions. while the dignity seeps out, the vanity will remain intact, and it'll be caught in our collective throats like gravel.
newton learned the hard way when the apple fell and konked him on the head that what goes up must come down.
how hard you're hit depends on how high you toss that apple up there.
how high will american pride take us? how hard do we want to fall?
we can choose, america.
let's abandon vanity.....and choose humility and humanity.
*see the image of the war torn ghetto within a film trailer here:
http://www.thepianist-themovie.com/pianistel.html
**New York Times, March 26, 2003 on page A6 ... i received an e-mail about this from act-ma which said to call the company behind the ad with any complaints you may have: 1(800)485-4350 (ask for customer service).
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