What We Do Next [part 1 of 3]
Looking more deeply at our neural wiring as it is expressed through the specific American cultural lens offers insight into, compassion for, and understanding of why we do what we do.
Even in the aftermath of devastations due to Coronavirus happening across the globe, particularly in Italy and China, many Americans continue to see ourselves as less vulnerable to the virus. We Americans—who pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, are accustomed to instant gratification, and tend to have less tolerance for suffering, discomfort, or inconvenience—are divided in our response to this pandemic. In both 1) the multitude of divisiveness (politically, socially, and economically) and 2) our most vital human need to connect, our response matters.
The vantage point from which we can hold both our current divisions and our need to connect is quite possibly a panoramic view we have not yet stepped back far enough to fully see. Our perspective for now is a moving target that keeps changing, rapidly, as the pandemic imposes itself and elected and natural leaders offer guidance, instructions, and sometimes mandates. Perhaps it will be the forced behavioral restrictions that catalyze our creative nature so that we might settle back into our most basic human needs and our connection to the Earth adding significant momentum to the necessary cultural shift to change the course of what we do next.
In our modern world, when cultural norms are disruptively shaken by devastating events like 9/11 or the current Coronavirus, we meet ourselves in a whole new way—sometimes for the first time aware of our behaviors, attitudes, and expectations. Still in the early stages of the Coronavirus pandemic, we are already beginning to recognize the great losses of our mobility, work and ability to provide for our families. We grieve the freedom to touch and have physical contact with friends and family members who do not live in our household. Our anxiety alerts us to the threat to our sense of safety and well-being. For those living in large urban areas on lock-down, sometimes in small apartments, we crave connection to the natural world. We are becoming acutely, painfully aware of our most basic needs.
Currently, the viral pandemic is challenging, disrupting, and limiting to all categories of our basic needs. In some ways, the power of these needs is already empowering us to set aside our wants in order to sustain our humanity. We have been cancelling vacations, choosing to isolate or shelter in place, and letting go of their desire for more stuff for the sake of the community. These impositions and restrictions are a breeding ground for new rituals and solutions. We are using technology to connect, to see our loved ones, to share inspiration, spirit, celebration, and feel our interconnection.
Ahead of and in contrast to much of the state of Texas where I live, my local community, in large part, is choosing to shelter in place. Our decision is based on what we are seeing across the country and the world, despite the fact most of our elected officials are not insisting we do so. To meet our basic human needs, we are inspiring each other to create new rituals. To celebrate birthdays, we post messages on social media or celebrate singing the birthday song safely via video chat. When one of our members dies, we reach out to loved ones, and find ways to mourn and honor the dead from where we are. For those of us privileged enough to have technology, computers, and internet—this works. We can patch up a breaking system enough to get us through for the time being. For those of us with clean water, our health, and savings, we occupy our time with our families working jigsaw puzzles, walking our dogs, planting gardens, reading, painting, writing, and tending a simpler daily life.
What about those without access to technology, savings accounts, or community support? For those who have been living on the unraveled and broken end of system that has only served some, the vulnerability and loss are greater and unsupported.
The change required to bring equity and compassion cannot be incremental. This viral pandemic is already making that clear. Accommodating a system that does not hold all human beings equally will only further fragment the sate we are already experiencing. What we do next must be in the form of radical leadership—the kind of leadership Monica Sharma describes in her book Radical Transformational Leadership. Sharma emphasizes the power in recognizing our “universal values of dignity, equity, and compassion" (2017, p.6). In his article, Ubuntu: An African Culture of Human Solidarity, José Luis Gutiérres Aranda describes these universal value in relation to the Ubuntu belief that each person’s life and choices are deeply connected to the others, the universal human values.
When the stakes are high, our ability to collectively act for the common good engenders creativity as we look toward leaders who call upon these universal values and wisdom so that we can find our way. The divisions we are living with, the fragmentation of our culture will require a great leader, more than one, and all of us.