All It Takes Is A Little Love

I must have been in the fourth or fifth grade when I learned how our continent got its name. The shocking truth was that it came from an Italian businessman and explorer named Amerigo Vespucci. As a young man working for the Medici family Amerigo learned that explorers were looking for a northwest passage to the Indies. When he was in his forties, after Christopher Columbus had made his famous voyages, Amerigo decided that he too wanted to explore this new world. He left his business behind and embarked on a number of explorations discovering numerous places in South America. In 1507, cartographers working on maps of the New World decided to honor Amerigo by naming South America after him. Later in 1538, a mapmaker chose to use the name America for all parts of the continent both north and south.

The idea that the word, America, has some special connotation for only the United States is historically incorrect. Those who live in Canada, Central America and South America are also Americans in the strictest sense of that word. Somehow along the way we have coopted that designation as though we are the only ones who have a right to be considered Americans. It is a rather audacious thing to do. It detracts from the contributions of all of the people who are part of the history of the incredible new world that Europeans stumbled upon in their travels. We like to say that they discovered certain areas but of course those places already existed. They were simply unknown to the Europeans of the time. The true ancestors of our nations are the native peoples who roamed the land for centuries before the explorers even arrived. 

Humans have walked across the world from the beginning of time. More often than not the earliest humans wandered in search of food and perhaps warmer places to live during the cold of winter. Eventually many of them settled down into agrarian communities where they built permanent structures and enacted rules, laws and traditions. 

It is important to teach our children such things. Knowing such information provides them with a more enlightened way of looking at how humans have evolved over time. They are able to understand why people adopted certain practices and settled down in particular areas. The ascent of humans from being hunter gatherers to creating towns and eventually nations is fascinating and speaks to the inventiveness of humans from all parts of the world. 

We live in very modern times in which even people in what may have been primitive places are driving cars, watching television, using computers, enjoying the benefits of technology. At the same time they have their own languages and cultures and ways of interacting with the world. They have created different foods and clothing and hairstyles. All in all humans have always had a tendency to move forward with their art, architecture, and knowledge of the natural world.

When Shakespeare penned the famous lines what a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving, how express and admirable, in action how like an angel..” he praised the best aspects of our humanity and yet there has always been a baser reality of the people who have lived on this earth. Those explorers to new worlds took for granted that they somehow owned the land and the riches of the places that they found. They pushed the native peoples aside, sometimes looking at them as being subhuman. The stories of this happening abound and comprise the realities of exploration of what would become the Americas. 

Some people seem to think that exposing children to such honesty is damaging to them, but I learned these things when I was nine or ten years old. Somehow they did not terrify me or make me think less of the people that I knew, they were simply facts that explained to me how we have historically made mistakes and then changed for the better a bit here and there over time. It helped me to understand that we are always a work in progress and that we have the possibility to be angels but have yet to rise completely to that status. For me life is a process of making mistakes and then trying to do better and be better. I am no different, no better or no worse, than those who came before me with the kind of hopes and dreams that only humans are able to envision among all of the living things attempting to survive. Those were beautiful lessons that surely made me want to reach for the perfection that Shakespeare describes with his beautiful words. 

We would do well not to believe or boast that we are somehow the golden people who deserve more than others. We might do better and be better by embracing the truth that we are but a part of a vast continent made up of Americans of many different cultures and languages. History demonstrates over and over that we are best if we remain humble and willing to understand that we are simply one version of people trying to live our best lives. 

Each of us is a beautiful individual. We become who we are from our genetics, the ways that our neurological systems work, our experiences and the ways in which the people we have known have influenced us. No two people even from the same family and same backgrounds are totally identical. There are small differences here and there in how we look and think and feel. Becoming oneself is a lifetime journey that we don’t always understand even about ourselves. 

Because I know this to be true I often wonder why some among us try so hard to change the people around them into mirror images of themselves. Why would we think that one way of being is totally right and another is totally wrong? If we look around us even within the limits of our personal worlds surely we can see and understand the need for each person to define what and whom they want to be. 

There were people who came to the Americas from Europe because they had adopted certain religious beliefs that were literally illegal in their countries of origin. Sadly there is a long history of persecuting people for their religious thinking or lack of it, People have been burned at the stake, imprisoned, ostracized for their spiritual thoughts. So it was for many of the brave souls who landed in Massachusetts near what is now Plymouth in the long ago. They were literally religious refugees hoping to find a place where they would have the freedom to follow their God. We celebrate them each Thanksgiving and call them Pilgrims.

Others would come to the land for many different reasons but in every case they saw it as an opportunity to build the kind of lives that felt right for them. The freedom and sense of independence from authoritarians telling them what to do became the impetus for founding the United States. We all know this and yet of late we have a lot of finger and tongue wagging against individuals who do not fit the ideas of certain religious beliefs. What an irony that people in our nation would be using their religion to judge the behavior of others that they do not approve. 

The whole idea of baking religious freedom into the Bill of Rights was based on the fear of the people that the new government would begin deciding what is ethical and what is not based on a set of standards related to religion. A perfect example is targeting the LGBTQ community simply because some faiths find such relationships to be wrong. While persons who believe so have every right to that thinking, it is also true that those who are members of the LGBTQ lifestyle have every right to live as they decide. Neither group can kill or steal because those things are universally wrong, but telling someone who they can or cannot love or be is none of our business and should always be so. We should all be in favor of protecting personal rights, not harassing those that we find offensive. If we go down that road we are no better than the nations who ran the Pilgrims out of their homeland.

In all honesty it does not matter to me if someone wants to take the Bible literally and believe that Methuselah lived hundreds of years as long as they don’t make everyone think that. If someone is appalled by a homosexual or trans person I would suggest that they just stay away from them. I find racism of any kind to be appalling but I can’t make someone accept those of a race other than their own. What I can do is insist on enforcing laws that that protect each of us from discrimination. 

Nobody should have to change who they are or what they believe because of an authoritarian government. Leaders who turn us against each other might make political points with a certain group of people but surely they know that this is not in keeping with the foundational ideals that became our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. No one person should ever be able to do whatever he wants just because it pleases him or because he is angry that he was caught breaking laws and is now seeking retribution. 

I was only eight years old when my father died but I vividly remember how often he warned me not to be part of any organization in which people with wagging tongues were telling me how to be. He taught me that there were people like that who would even insist that they knew how my relationship with God must be. I remembered his warning because it seemed so out of the ordinary and I have always avoided any kind of self righteousness that attempts to police my beliefs and my very being or those of anyone else. 

We are at our best as a nation when we agree to just live and let live with each other. Nobody wants to be made to defy the beliefs of who they know they are. Let’s honor each other by agreeing that it is really none of our business to assume that we know what is best for someone else. Instead let’s celebrate the glorious human creations that bloom all around us. None of them are junk.    

It happened here because the people made it happen… From the movie Nuremberg

Even as a young girl I wondered how it was possible that the atrocities of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen took place in a country seemingly so advanced and civilized. I suppose that mine was a kind of naïveté that could not imagine the possibility that ordinary people would look the other way while vile things were happening in their midst. I wanted to believe that the entire event was an aberration that would be impossible to reproduce in any other time or place in history. 

The movie Nuremberg staring Rami Malek and Russell Crowe tells the story of an army psychiatrist, Jack Kelley, assigned to determine the mental well-being of high ranking Nazi prisoners about to stand trial for their crimes against humanity in the German city of Nuremberg. Among the accused is the man who had been second in command of the Nazi movement, Hermann Goring. 

The story, based on a book by Jack El-Hai, takes a psychological look at evil through the prison meetings between Goring and Kelley. Each man is manipulating the other in a game of cat and mouse. The psychiatrist Kelley believes that his interviews will afford to an understanding of the kind of psychosis that leads to evil. He confides that he may even be able to write a book about what he finds that will ensure that horrors such as those perpetrated by Hitler and his henchmen will never happen again. Goring of course is intent on manipulating Kelley to believe that he is essentially a good guy who had no knowledge of the most egregious aspects of the murderous philosophies that created the death camps where so many lost their lives. 

The back and forth between the two men is a fascinating view of the kinds of evils that humans are capable of doing by convincing themselves that their beliefs are actually for the common good. Both Crow and Malek rise to near perfection as actors while delivering the message that evil is not always a product of psychosis but all too often is derived from the mundane. 

Most of us know the horrific history of Nazi German under the authoritarianism of fascism. We are aware of the outcomes of the Nuremberg trials. What we do not often consider is how seemingly ordinary people fell under the spell of the horrific political views that would eventually destroy the country and its people. It holds those who looked away as the violence accelerated as accountable as the leaders like Goring. It implies that there may have been a point at which the people might have been able to make it stop but chose not to do so either out of fear, indifference or agreement with the basic tenets of the movement. It suggests that there comes a point in such a situation after which it is too late to turn back. In a sense it indicts ordinary folks who allow men like Goring to fool and dominate them. 

The theme of the movie is very clear. We must all be vigilant lest we allow ourselves to be manipulated into doing evil by a narcissistic con man. What happened in Germany in the last century can happen anywhere and has done so throughout history. The message of Nuremberg   is important for us to remember whenever we see governments scapegoating groups of people, using want and anger to take power, turning people against each other by vilifying those who are unwilling to bow to their demands. These are all warning signs that we should be able to see even without training in psychiatry. 

Nuremberg tackles a large number of ideas at the same time. It is intense and disturbing but is definitely a film that we should each take the time to view and then discuss. The acting from Rami Malek, Russell Crowe, and Michael Shannon as an American prosecutor in the trial is sure to garner nominations and even awards. It is a thought provoking piece that does not demand that the viewers see the characters and topic in all the same way. It instead challenges us to critically think about what happened then and what might happen now or in the future. 

I know that in these difficult times it feels better to just laugh and find ways to enjoy life. When our Congress seems to be nonfunctioning and so many people in our nation are out of work, in financial limbo and angry with each other we may not wish to add a deep movie to our list of ways to use the time when we most need to relax. I would nonetheless challenge you to visit a theater with a friend or even someone with whom you disagree and then spend some time talking about what you have just seen. Sometimes we have to face up to hard conversations to set things right rather than relying only on one man, one party, one group to save us. We have the power to protect our nation, its people and our families. We should always be willing to use that power. If we choose to pretend that nothing is wrong we head down a pathway from which we may never be able to return. That is how horrible things happen. 

“Play is the highest form of research.” Albert Einstein

My mother always knew that my brother, Michael, was a brilliant soul even when others were not so sure. He was curious from the day he was born and his intelligence showed itself in the intensity with which he interacted with the world around him. She had photos of him among a flock of ducks with the most serious expression on his face while other children were laughing with delight at the antics of the birds. Mama treasured the picture because she felt that it demonstrated his intense concentration and the fact that he was quite seriously thinking about what made those ducks the way they were.

When Michael was a toddler he often got into trouble because he always seemed to be intent on discovery of some kind or another. Once he dove his hands into an ant bed because he wanted to know what had made such an interesting structure. Of course he quickly found out that the critters had an incredible sting that left him with a swollen body for a couple of days. 

On another occasion when he was about three years old he was playing with me and he managed to unscrew a part from a little doll swing that I had. Just as I was chastising him I watched in horror as he studied the metal screw as though he was deciding how it worked. First he tasted it but was smart enough not to try to swallow it. Then he put it up his nose and it disappeared. That little experiment landed him in the hospital and resulted in his tonsils and adenoids being removing. 

I think that most parents might have viewed his courageous interactions with nature and objects as the silliness of little ones but my mother seemed to understand that he was actually attempting to find out what made those things tick. It would be how he was for all of his life and sometimes it made him seem as if he was in another world as he put on his thinking cap as my mother often called his faraway looks.

My little brother walked around with books about how to tie knots and a large volume written and illustrated by Werner von Braun predicting a future journey to the moon when other kids were gazing at Little Golden Books. He was fascinated with numbers and science and my mother encouraged it in his play before he ever went to school. 

Because my brother was very quiet and seemed to be in a world of his own some of his teachers would initially view him as a slow student. He would surprise them when he silently completed his work with perfection and insight. Soon enough they too realized that he was alway learning from the world around him and they gave him a wide berth to do his thing. 

Michael wanted to know why and how everything worked so he all too often took things apart and then attempted to put them back together again. Sometimes he did not have the skill to make the repairs but both of my parents would just smile and insist that his learning was more important than any object. When he attempted to determine how the moving joints of my favorite doll worked he summarily undid the intricate balance of rubber bands and eye hooks and there she lay in pieces when I came home from school. Somehow as a seven year old I was not able to appreciate his experiments as much as my parents did so when they defended him I was confused. I would have to grow up before I fully understood what a precious gift he had.

I learned soon enough how bright and wonderful my brother is. He would attend Rice University and earn both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mathematics and engineering. His mind was on a plain so much higher than anyone that I knew that I often wished that my brilliant father had been around long enough to enjoy the kind of conversations with Michael that only two peas in a pod would totally comprehend.

Micheal spent his entire career working as a contractor for NASA. He was the author of the software that sent astronauts to the International Space Station. He still reads constantly and pushes his mind beyond the limitations of most of us. I smile when he launches into a detailed discussion of the mechanics of why a plane crashed or how a mathematical calculation came to be. I remember that faith in him that my mother had from the time he was born and the joy that she and my father shared whenever they watched him exploring the world around him. 

We sometimes put limits on children out of fear that they may hurt themselves or that there may be something wrong with them if they do not seem to be just like all of the other kids. We would do well to believe like my mother whose intuition told her that play is evidence of a working mind attempting to make sense of the world. Big research is happening in them minds of children every single day and when we encourage them their minds go to the most wonderful places.

T.S Eliot wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock somewhere between 1910 and 1911 to express the difficulty that humans faced in adjusting to the modern world. In one of the lines of the poem Prufrock proclaims with frustration, “That’s not what I meant at all!” 

T.S. Eliot was way ahead of his time. I sometimes wonder what he might think of our present times when we humans seem to be misunderstanding and bickering with each other so much. Perhaps he would just suggest that people have not really changed that much and that we humans have always had a tendency to ascribe wrong beliefs to each other. He certainly had a clear understanding of human nature in his writing that is no doubt the reason that his work lives on as a classic.

We are at one of those moments in time that makes me scratch my head in total confusion because every single time I write down my thoughts somebody totally misunderstands what I am attempting to say. I have to wonder if I need to be clearer in the choices of my words and phrases or if we humans are hardwired to overlay our own feelings onto others. After all there have been situations in which we humans have completely missed the mark when it came to actively listening to the people around us without mentally drafting our rebuttals even as the person was still speaking. Perhaps it has always been true that we view the world through a lens that is protective of the essence of who we are. 

A few weeks ago I had scheduled a blog that was intended to discuss violent shooters in general. I write things sometimes as far out as a month, so not everything that I compose is related to the most recent events. On this day I woke up and realized that my commentary coincided with the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk. What I had written had nothing whatsoever to do with my feelings for Mr. Kirk one way or another so I mentioned at the top of the blog that my musings had been composed weeks before. I wanted people to know that my generalizations could not necessarily be attributed to my thoughts on Charlie Kirk’s death. I realized that it was almost eerie that my mention of guns and violence and disturbed young men had hit so close to yet another grotesque tragedy in our nation. 

Sadly, I really wonder how many people actually read what I had written. Many of their responses to me had nothing whatsoever to do with the text. Some went into long defenses of Mr. Kirk as though I had somehow very coldly disrespected him. They challenged my feelings and my personal beliefs and brought up other times when they disagreed with me, none of which had any connection to the blog for that day. I literally thought of J. Alfred Prufrock and the irony of our frequent difficulties in truly understanding each other. 

On another occasion I wrote about my sorrow over the death of George Floyd. I had watched him choking and calling out for his mother as he was dying under the knee of a police officer and it horrified me. I had also been contacted by one of my former students who was devastated by what he had seen. He told me that he knew that I would understand how to speak of the tragedy in a way that would help people know how he and other young Black men were feeling in that moment. That is what I tried to do, but even then I had people misunderstand the main idea of my essay and then accuse me of supporting riots.

Somehow our tendencies to simply talk over each other seem to have become worse in the hundred plus years since Eliot wrote his poem. Even when I attempt to clarify my thoughts and embrace a willingness to consider why the other person is so upset with me, I can’t seem to get through to him or her. It is as though we all live in different worlds speaking different languages. 

I have often suggested that whenever we feel that someone is very wrong in their thinking our first response should be to encourage them to tell us what made them feel so upset. I find that more often than not the person has had a life experience that was so terrifying that it strongly affects how they react to different situations When I hit near what is a trigger for them they go inside themselves and have difficulty really hearing me. In those cases I attempt to reflect what I hear them saying with respect rather than immediately defending myself. Given an opportunity I use active listening that goes something like this:

I hear you saying that my blog upset you. Is that right?

Wait for response.

What were the things that caused your feelings?

Wait for response.

What I hear is… Do I have the right idea?

Wait for response. 

Would you like to know why I wrote these things?

Wait for response.

And so it goes. 

Sometimes this really works and saves a relationship. Two people only intent on defending themselves rarely come to a state of understanding and respect for each other. 

Try this the next time someone goes off on you and you feel like J. Alfred Prufrock murmuring “That is not what I meant at all.” Honor people’s feelings and they are more likely to honor yours. If they stay angry then they have most probably made up their minds no matter what. That’s when it’s time to just let it go.