Just This Much
First published in my print column, The Nature of Things
So I’ve got this thing I’ve started doing lately in effort to avoid the overly biased news outlets and their clearly slanted perspectives on current issues; I look to news stories about current events in the U.S. as reported on from other countries. It’s rather interesting to see how others view and interpret the goings on here, from the outside looking in, so to speak. I highly recommend it for those brave enough to break away from the one-sidedness of their usual news source channel for a moment, to consider a foreigner’s take on our domestic issues. Think of it like asking a friend’s opinion on your chosen outfit for an occasion. Sure, you can look in a mirror and see for yourself, but we all know others see us differently than we see ourselves.
In fact, according to Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa in his autobiographic work, The Book of Disquiet, published 47 years after his death, “Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face—there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes. Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself. The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”
In other words, our own perceptions about ourselves can sometimes prove toxic to our own humanity. And maybe our humility, as well.
This, I think, we are able to recognize more clearly when we pay attention to how others see us.
These days, there’s a great deal of energy and attention given to the promotion of not caring what others think. It’s not any one individual’s business what someone else might think of them. And I understand the value in such a position—living as authentically as one can without regard for, or inhibited by, what others might think. But it’s such a thin line, really, for such indifference smacks of disregard, dismissal and invalidation of others’ thoughts and feelings. Somewhere along the way, as empowered as we may seemingly have become, we’ve lost our sense of good manners, and moreover, our ability to disagree graciously.
I’m left to wonder: Is the current political landscape, with all its divisive language and polarizing accusatory positioning an accurate reflection of the current American collective? Or are we becoming a reflection of the machinations of our body politic as represented to us by the media? (Remember the 1997 Barry Levinson movie, Wag the Dog?)
In the wake of our celebration of the signing of our nation’s Declaration of Independence a mere 246 years ago—what it meant to us then, and what it means to us now— and as I consider the broken reflection we’re presently casting upon the watchful eyes of other nations, I’m wondering if we’re really all that and a bag of chips, like we’ve been brought up believing. So assured in our positions of privilege, purpose and power.
Other nations see our government perhaps more clearly than we are able to while sitting under its enormous shadow. If more of us realized just this much, it would provide that first thread of commonality it takes to begin the process of stitching us back together again as one nation, indivisible.
