When you’re outdoors and encounter a person wearing a mask — smile. Give them the gift of remembering what they’re covering up. Remind them what it looks like (and feels like) to be free. Emojis can never replace that.
I have a question:
Do you think the human immune system can function properly when we are not smiling or when we are constantly covering up our mouths with cloth?
I don’t think so.
It is natural for us to smile to each other as we pass each other walking our dogs or just ambling about. As someone attractive moves suddenly into view, we respond with a smile and they smile back.
A couple days ago I was walking around the perimeter of my neighborhood park. I thought I saw a friend, so I called out to the guy, “Is that you, Jeremy?” He redirected in my direction and soon I could see it wasn’t who I thought. I apologized, “Sorry, you look like my friend Jeremy.” We were both smiling at my mistake, but moved towards each other to talk anyway. We got acquainted because of a mistake, and we smiled our way through it. I got to find out about him, the unique individual, father of an infant bundled up in his jacket. He got to hear about my dog (who was at home) and how I feel better as soon as I get outdoors and get a bit of nature. We mentioned what we do for work.
Maybe its time we take these simple, natural human interactions and extrapolate from them how to deal with the bigger stuff. It seems like we may be allowing the ‘big stuff’ to creep into how we do the little, natural things with each other. Did those really need to change? I don’t think so.
I think the power of the mistake might be as powerful as the smile. Take a chance on being wrong. It would’ve been nice to see my free-spirited friend, Jeremy. But now I’ve got a new friend, Corey, who does I.T. support from home.
Community is that feeling of recognizing people when you go out, remembering their face and name and something about them. That way you have a basis for asking them what’s going on with them.
Simple right?
If only we could transfer this same approach to all the big stuff (government) — being neighbors. Everyone we encounter is a neighbor, a nearby-er. Yet it seems most of us have been investing psychic energy in a lot of wall building. I know I have, even though I don’t like admitting it. We’ve formed (sometimes undeclared) private thought clubs and only let into our mind-space those who won’t challenge us.
I bet a psychic wall is more of a wall than one made of brick, stone, or steel.
And the more nearby-ers we block, the more isolated we feel, and the more disempowered and alone we feel.
I think Mr. Rogers got it right.
I didn’t like the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood TV show that much as a kid. I remember his witch puppet seemed a bit scary. I preferred Star Trek. As an adult, I really appreciate Mr. Rogers and what he was doing a lot more. And, ironically, now that I’m a nature pagan ⍟, I’m the witch! But Mr. Rogers lived by the Golden Rule and saw everyone as his neighbor. So every kind of character was there.
I’d love to have Mr. Rogers for President, but I think he was too good for the White House, to be honest. A person has more freedom, and I think more power when we are not trapped in spaces of intensely focused expectations from others.
So what is our expectation of others and ourselves?
I hope it is to be human. To be your real self without need of tough pretenses.
Nature is generous. May we be like her. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike. The sun shines on both hemispheres and on every person who walks into its light. Isn’t something of our humanity signaled by this, even as we are talking in the park with each other and both feeling the same rain or the same sunshine?
TV, media, corporations, and government seem to have absorbed the inhumanity we’ve denied in ourselves and they stay busy projecting it back at us. But let’s not allow that to change how we are with each other. Let’s find our humanity again. Any nearby-er is our neighbor. It is not what goes into us but what comes out of us that corrupts us. A word in rage. A presumptuous thought of others’ motivations. Invisible stones thrown at someone to beat them down. Whether visible or invisible, what we project outwardly would seem to build a beast that takes shape slowly until it has nearly gained a mind of its own.
And it would appear that we’ve been so long in projecting our fears, rage, and inhumanity upon the objects or entities built to contain them that they have turned on us.
The remedy is our own humanity. Our mistakes, allowed. Our frailties, allowed. Our imperfect wobbling towards an imperfect idea of perfection.
And be neighbors again, maybe for the first time.
Talk to someone new in the park.
That reminds me, I passed someone wrapped up in a fleece blanket sitting against the brick wall of the nearby 7-11 the other day. She asked if I had a lighter and I said no without missing a step. I was on my way with great purpose to the library. Was that book return more important than her? More important than a human being? I don’t think so. I told myself when I came back by I’d stop and talk to her, ask her how she’s doing, what’s her story. But I forgot. I’ve been homeless more than once. I know what it’s like to be out in the cold. She’s not just my neighbor, she IS me come back around with a new face and a new history.
I’m not preaching, my friends. Just thinking out loud.
We cannot become healthfully immune to an invisible bug by becoming immune to each others’ humanity.
Let’s get better acquainted through our mistakes and try not to hold them against each other.
Is that you, neighbor?
I thought so.