(Some thoughts on cities, vulnerability, fear, and dancing your ass off in public) Cities are weird, but also wonderful, and this is why: us humans have invented a structure that lets millions of people live in close proximity to each other without (for the most part) A: starving to death or B: drowning in our own shit. As a consequence, we often forget how tenuous life really is on this planet. For most of human history, the problems of starvation and drowning-in-your-own-shit (okay, let’s call this “disease” for short) loomed much larger for the vast majority of humanity. Life as a hairless monkey that’s evolved to rely on the kindness of other hairless monkeys to stay alive was, and is, a pretty scary proposition. Because we’ve now solved many of the basic problems of staying alive and fed, people in the “developed” world now have the luxury of being able to ignore this fact. Even with “development”, though, a great deal of fear remains. With proximity comes more vulnerability. Our basic needs are much more easily fulfilled, but not guaranteed. How do we know that our stuff is safe? Can we trust that all those *other* people have our basic interests in mind? And the answer is no, sometimes we don’t trust the Other Ones. We huddle into smaller groups, and subgroups. We look out for number one. We narrow our focus and look to people exactly like us to reinforce our particular beliefs. But sometimes, we come together. Deep inside, we know that we’re all scared of the same stuff. So we line up along the streets, and there’s a realization that hey, we all LIKE a lot of the same stuff, too. If we dress up and put our insides on the outside for a bit, maybe it’s not as scary anymore. You think that you’re ridiculous? Well look how ridiculous * I * am! And that, somehow, makes it more okay. Okay to be afraid, and to okay to be human. I’m from a very small town, and I certainly learned a great deal from that small place and appreciate it all the more as I grow older. But there are things that small places can’t do as well as big places can. A small place is often reassuring. But in a big place, you have to walk around and look at all the swarming unfamiliar demons out there. If you are lucky, you realize that all of those demons are versions of ourselves. Cities aren’t the opposite of nature. They ARE nature. They’re pulsing, living, breathing natural systems, as interdependent on all their component organisms as redwood forests or coral reefs. And like any natural system, cities rely on equilibrium. Any system that throws itself out of equilibrium either rights itself, or ceases to exist. Humans, however, are unique in that they have the ability to consciously work together to modify the system that they find themselves in, should they so choose. But back to the festival, and to the parade. We dance around like fools. We bang on shit and make noise. We pretend that we are sexy. (We ARE sexy! We go home and clump together and maybe even make new babies, because as scary as life may be, we still think it’s worth it.) We’ve all got The Fear. The question is what do we do with it? Do we hide it and let it fester? Do we let someone else weaponize it for their own power? Or do we get our asses out on the streets and our fears in the open? Do we have the courage to parade our vulnerabilities out in public where everyone can see them? What you feed, grows. What are we feeding? What are we neglecting? What do we want to have flourishing alongside us? What needs to wither and die? We humans are at a turning point, but we’re ALWAYS at a turning point. One of the blessings of a crisis situation is that more people are able to realize this fact, and get together to do something about it.
So make some noise. Show your insides. Realize that those Other People are us. You can go back to being normal tomorrow.
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David Wells
(Not the former pitcher for the Yankees) Archives
January 2019
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