WHY ARE YOU STILL SITTING?

A few years back, a couple of stories in the news had parents everywhere getting their armchair-quarterbacking-game-on!  Because seriously—who lets their kid crawl into a gorilla enclosure?  Or get eaten by an alligator while on vacation at Disney??  Can you BELIEVE these people???

The ones judging, I mean.

My first thought when I heard about the gorilla enclosure incident was—“Wow, that zoo has a real problem if 4 year olds can figure out how to breach a habitat”—NOT “where was the mom?”  Because I know exactly where the Mom was and if there is any parent alive who has not looked away for a second and had a child vanish, I would like to meet them.

My first reaction when I heard about the alligator was to cry.  Because that’s what you do when another human being is confronted with a horrific, tragic incident that costs them their beloved child.  You cry.  And you thank your lucky stars that no alligator emerged from the many lakes on the Disney property you had visited, because now you know it could happen.  I admit, it never crossed my mind as possible before.

All screens large and small have made us voyeurs into each other’s lives; whether on the limited stage of Facebook or the infinite stage of cable television and the internet, our increased access to the travails of our fellow man seems to be engendering more a haughty sense of self-righteousness than a compassionate sense of connection.  Why is this so? 

Is it the fact of the screen itself that makes others seem like fictional characters on a soap opera; or is it our own isolation from self-reflection and one-on-one engagement that causes us to disconnect from the raw emotion?

Although the advent of social media has been a boon to judgers everywhere, I believe the real voyeuristic creep began way back when we made the transition from having three TV networks to the vast landscape of cable television.  With so many channels there couldn’t possibly be enough scripted programming, so quasi-reality began with things like Divorce Court and talk shows like Jerry Springer; and with the popularity of those, the entertainment industry got the hint that we were becoming quite avidly interested not so much in other people, but in other people’s problems. 

Once TV became no longer just a relative handful of sparkly celebrities we admired, but also a whole boatload of regular Joe’s, we became more critical.  We were enjoying not their superiority, but smugly, our own.  And with this inevitable self-comparison to the idiots on Judge Judy, we started thinking, “Why I could be on TV!”

The weird shift from “people-who-are-on-TV-because-they-are-talented-performers-telling-an-interesting-story” to “people-who-are-on-TV-because-they are-imbeciles-who-make-freakishly-bad-decisions” commenced; reality TV became the craze, where actual human beings connived and backstabbed and behaved their very worst for fun and prizes! 

And we watched and we thought, “I could do that”.  For a million dollars, I can become my very foulest self on national television!!!  I can leave an indelible impression on this world of my sneakiest, most morally bankrupt, most intimacy-impaired persona!!!  Bring on Big Brother, For Love or Money, Survivor, The Apprentice et al!   

And more and more people thought…gee, I can do that.  And so someone invented a darling little thing called YouTube, where you can make videos of yourself and post them publically for the whole wide world to see.  You might want to sing a song, or make a short film; but, if you’re troubled for time, a racist rant or the callous objectification of a suicide victim might get you a lot of attention, too.

But let’s say you are just not even that motivated.  You don’t want the hassle of filling out applications for reality TV, you can’t afford a phone with a decent camera…what is there for you, who dreams of being famous but just doesn’t want to put any gosh darn effort into it?  For you, Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook. 

WAH-LA!  Now everyone can be a “star”, everyone can have a page all about themselves and they can grant access to anyone and everyone they ever met and even people they haven’t met but who maybe got drunk once with their second cousin. 

This shift has happened gradually—your life as entertainment!—and the pressure to perform is tremendous.    How many “likes” did you get?  How does your life compare to the lives of your family and peers?  And why wasn’t I invited to that party???

So now insecurities get triggered and we have to figure out a way to quell them—hence, the judgments begin.  We talk a lot about cyber-bullying in relation to teens and the ease with which cruel messages can be relayed without having to look the other in the eye; this same principle is at play when so-called adults start theorizing about how much better they could have handled any given situation or openly attacking each other’s views from a safe cyber-distance.

Let’s face it, even in real life we all armchair quarterback our friends and families because a) we actually know them and have a genuine sense of both the personalities and circumstances at play and b) we have perspective on and love for the people in question.  I’m not saying this is right or wrong; I’m just saying we have a CONTEXT for what we are doing.

With strangers and acquaintances, however, we are getting a tiny soundbite of their lives and then making sweeping judgments and pronouncements based on it.  Isn’t this the same principle at the very heart of prejudices?  What is the difference between judging someone you don’t really know for one element of who they are—a women, a Muslim, a homosexual, a Mexican for a few examples—and judging someone you don’t know for one post, tweet, comment or otherwise out-of-context moment in time?

So that brings us to present day, with the reality TV star we elected (yes, we did!) in the White House (who daily makes an indelible impression of his sneakiest, most morally bankrupt, most intimacy-impaired persona and who, not coincidentally, openly judges women, Muslims, homosexuals and Mexicans, for a few examples) living his whole life in soundbites.  Here we are, with our nation’s disassociated citizens gunning each other down in record numbers, more and more often in cold blood.  Here we sit in our armchairs, staring at our screens, judging and attacking each other in a voyeuristic frenzy of self-righteousness.

Here we sit, staring at our screens, while our children are murdering each other at school.

My first reaction when I heard about the Parkland shooting was to cry.  Because that’s what you do when other human beings are confronted with a horrific, tragic incident that costs them their beloved children.  You cry.  And thank your lucky stars that your own child has not been killed in his or her classroom, because this is something that happens now in the United States of America.  It never crossed my mind as possible when I was a kid.

Columbine occurred before the Parkland kids were even born.  They have grown up, every minute of their lives, knowing that such a thing is possible.  They have grown up watching us sit in our “thoughts and prayers” armchairs and do nothing to prevent this from being so; they have grown up watching lawmakers connive and backstab and behave their very worst for fun and prizes (from the NRA)!

And these kids, these actual survivors, have decided they have had enough with our armchair quarterbacking.  They are taking to the streets AND screens, declaring their intention to succeed where we have failed in protecting them; they are calling out the reality-TV-star-in-chief on his feeble impotence, in spite of his insistence that they pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

And, like many generations before them who have called adults out on their complacency and bs, they are leading the revolution.  Just look at them go!  You’ll be happy to know you can do this from the comfort of your armchair, where you are slowly dying to the idea of your own humanity.

Those of us who grew up before the internet, before camera phones, before the 24-hour news cycle, still live with the delusion that there is someplace to hide; these kids, who have grown up on the world wide web, know the truth.  They will not have their existence reduced to soundbites; they will not “get over” the experience of watching their classmates killed before their eyes; needlessly, violently.  They will stand, they will speak out, and they will fight.

So why are you still sitting?

 

 

 

WHY I THINK I LOVE YOU!

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I think most of us do, not necessarily in the some-enchanted-evening way and not necessarily because we’ve experienced it ourselves, but because it has an odd sort of logic.

You can’t go through life without acknowledging that we all come so front-loaded that there is no way that some essential part of us (commonly referred to as the “soul”) has not been bumping around for a good while before our actual birth.  And that with all those souls out there bumping around, some must have bumped into each other before as well.

Even if you have never had the romantic love at first sight experience, certainly all of us have had such an incredible “click” in a first conversation that you feel as if you’ve known the other person for years instead of minutes.  Or you’ve mistakenly thought you recognized someone who turns out to be a total “stranger”.  Or you’ve walked into a place for the very first time and felt immediately at home.

These connections are powerful and undeniable; there are just some people, places (and yes, even things) that somehow jibe with the essence of who you are instantaneously.  It’s always an exhilarating feeling to meet up with these external pieces of your self—the serendipity gives you a secure feeling of being in “the right place at the right time”.  Life seems to make sense and be on track; all is well in your world.

Then, of course, we also have the less often discussed “hate at first sight”.  That icky feeling someone gives you before they’ve even said a word; a skin crawling, get-the-heck-out-of-Dodge urge to turn the other way and run.  We call this our “instincts”, but doesn’t it seem possible that it may also be the recognition of a soul encountered before, except in a most disagreeable manner?

The thing is, whether you believe we are born empty and new with that “clean slate” or if you agree with me that we are steeped in myriad energies from a past, present and future we can’t quite “remember”, you will still have these reactions to people and places.  It’s a part of life we all accept; how many times have your “instincts” saved you from disaster or brought you good "luck"?  And how often have your “love at first sight” friendships grown into the most important connections in your life?

I have written here before about a friend once “insulplimenting” me by saying that I look at everyone as if I were in love with them, and I won’t deny it; the fact of the matter is, most of you just kill me, in the good way.  In fact, the name of this blog, Your New Best Friend was inspired by my husband once telling me, “You don’t know how to be somebody’s friend…you ONLY know how to be their BEST friend.”

Another friend once opined: “If Kara doesn’t like you?  Then you must be REALLY working at it!”  This is also true; I may set the bar low, but once you are under it, all bets are off.  Despicable people are blessedly rare—my God, doesn’t it seem like it would be a LOT of effort???—but once I have identified you, I have enough faith in myself to steer as far clear of you as possible.

As for everybody else?  You are all innocent until proven guilty and P.S. the judge is a total pushover!  In other words, even if we haven’t met:  I think I love you!

So in honor of all of my yet-to-connect true loves out there, I am going to give a shout out to a few of the fine folks I only came into contact with once, but will love forever:

THAT GUY ON THE MASS TURNPIKE:  here’s the set-up…I am in college and my parents dropped a car off on campus so I could join them after classes on Friday at my older sister’s home in Massachusetts (I forget the occasion).  But when I turn the key in the ignition, the fuel gauge reads nearly empty.  I am broke, and I figure my parents would not have left me without enough gas to make the journey (wrong) so I head off on my merry way.

Yeah, NO, the car runs out of gas and I literally coast into a gas station with almost zero money.  I scrounge every nook and cranny of the car for change and huffily put all I scrape together into the tank (less than four bucks, but in those days probably good enough).  And then I get off on the Mass Turnpike where I am immediately confronted with a TOLLBOOTH (and not the phantom kind)!

I have no money, it's the 80's so no cell phone (or pay phone, I am on a highway ramp) and not enough gas to make it back to campus.  CUE:  crying!  ENTER: That Guy.

He pulls over and taps on my window to ask if I am alright.  I breathlessly explain my situation at which point he tells me exactly what the tolls will be and gives me enough money to cover them and then…leaves.  I’m pretty sure even though I was in some kind of trauma-induced trance I did manage to say thank you.  Because I LOVE That Guy.

MRS. ANGEL: (yes, her real name!)  I never actually met Mrs. Angel, but one time in a mad dash to calls my folks and tell them which train I was catching out of Grand Central, I accidentally left their calling card on the pay phone console.  Mrs. Angel found it, got in touch with my mom immediately and mailed it back to us.  Mrs. Angel is aptly named, right?

RANDOM PERSON WHO (like Mrs. Angel) USED A PAYPHONE AFTER I DID:  okay, we are sensing a theme here (my idiocy), but one time, a-way back before GPS, I got some bum directions and drove for over an hour before I pulled over and called to confirm said bum directions.  Turns out, my destination was actually mere minutes from my house, but in the OTHER direction.  In a panic, I jumped in my car and sped off, leaving my Filofax (damn, I’m old!) on the payphone (really old!) with not only my driver’s license, but cash and my bank card and oh-my-God, I’m an idiot.

Random Person found my Filofax and drove for an hour to drop it off at my apartment and didn’t leave a name or any other information for a reward or anything.  It was there by the time I got home from the job I had arrived almost two hours late for.  Random Person, I love you so much it makes me cry a little bit.

Then there’s the pizzeria owner who gave my girlfriend and I a free pizza just because we told him we were having a bad day.  The cop who let me off with a warning when I drove the wrong way down a one way street (presumably because I jumped out of the car to explain myself wearing pajamas.  Way back before “wearing pajamas in public” became a thing).  The man who would gleefully shout “There’s the walker!” every time he saw me one summer I spent on Martha’s Vineyard without a car, walking every inch of that island.

The woman who told me, as she checked me out at the register, that my name sounded like something that should be announced from a podium at an awards ceremony.  The anonymous person who washed my filthy car while it was parked out on the street.    The two cops who came up behind me on a street in Philadelphia and lifted me, each taking an elbow, out of the way of a speeding car.

Actually, every single person I met the one time I went to Philadelphia.  They do not call that place “The City of Brotherly Love” for nothing! 

Oh, I could go on and on and on!  Because isn’t this how most of us live our lives?  Not only do we help and support the people we know and love, but we are constantly aware and on the lookout for those opportunities to be the “random stranger” in someone else’s story.  Our souls recognize each other and call for it, and more often than not we find ourselves exactly where we need to be to at the exact right time(like when my mom’s car CAUGHT ON FIRE and the guy in the car behind her HAPPENED—ahem---to be a volunteer fireman).

“Love one another” may sound like a cliché, or pie-in-the-sky, but here’s the thing…it’s really NOT THAT DIFFICULT.  We are all just a big pot of energy soup, combining our ingredients to make something savory or something bland or something downright inedible.  But the more we tune in to each other, the more likely we are to create the savory; the more we listen to our soul, the more likely we are to fall in love at first sight each and every day.