Today, the fourth piece of advice translated to action, a la the Olympic post a few weeks ago.
(Recap: the world is in a transitory state, childhood to adolescence. If we had the chance to help our adolescent selves through this transition, what would we say and do? It stands to reason we can improve the transition of the world in general if we follow our own advice in our daily interactions with that world and the people in it, our brothers and sisters.)
The advice: If you don’t like something you have two options: change it or change yourself. Notice complaining is not an option. I’d be a better man now if I’d heard as a boy the Chinese proverb “If you fall in a pit you can either die or climb out.” (下坑死爬, though don’t quote me on the translation.) If you don’t like something, change it or learn how to like it. Failing that, how to be resigned to it.
How it translates to action: Die or climb out. Put up or shut up. Shit or get off the pot. Walk the walk. However you prefer to phrase it. Man up. Either work for your own betterment and the betterment of those around you, all of them, or shut your mouth and do your own thing. No foot in both camps. No luke warm. This is very difficult to do, so remember be gentle. Also, no more being surprised. The world is full of shit and shit happens. OMG tsunami? OMG earthquake? OMG war and famine? OMG death and destruction? Read a book. This stuff is as old as dirt. Read a newspaper. It’s old as dirt and constant as gravity. Let’s stop acting surprised and just get to work fixing what we can fix and preventing what we can prevent. Enough of the greasy telethon fundraisers, let’s roll up our sleeves.
I’m daunted by the prospect of further explaining this advice. It’s already so accurate and poetic, what could I add? Even the broad explanations quoted above don’t advance the facts of the proverb any farther than does its original format. If you fall in a pit, you can either die or climb out. Maybe I’ll just offer up a couple examples of what could be a pit and what it means to climb out.
- One sort of pit is a bad job. I speak here from personal experience. The first bad job I had I was lucky in the climbing out. The boss one week changed the branch where I’d be stationed. Given that I biked to work and the new locale was out of range, I took the opportunity to quit rather than find a solution which would have accommodated them at my expense.
The second bad job I had, years later, I tolerated until my wife was making enough for us to afford single income while I looked for something better. Although I tolerated it, I didn’t complain. At least I don’t remember complaining and I hope I didn’t. I did my job until I got an out.
Mind you, one man’s pit is another man’s pedestal. It turned out with this second job that I just climbed into an adjacent pit. If I’d been a smarter mountaineer, I’d have climbed by landing a new job before I quit. Instead I scrabbled up without a plan and fell right into the next pit, which was unemployment in a city without any jobs for someone of my qualifications and / or within sane commuting distance for someone of my means of travel. “No, no. Dig up, stupid.”
- Another sort of pit is a situation — any situation but for the sake of concrete examples we’ll say a social situation — in which you feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, uneasy, whatever other adjectives that begin with un. In these situations we often galvanize some modicum of drama in the situation until we feel helpless to change it. We guilt ourselves into a corner. Why? I don’t know. It might depend on who’s doing the guilting. When I do it it tends to be out of a sense of responsibility to vague and possibly nonexistent social customs.
I once had a long uncomfortable conversation with a homeless gentleman. I say once, but I’m apparently a magnet for soapbox kooks. It’s happened numerous times but I’ll just use this one example. It began innocently enough. I was taking photos in the park, an older gentleman dressed respectably enough started with the small talk. As I worked we got into deeper discussion. Social issues, travels, family values. Topics all close to my heart and tongue. I joined him on the bench and we continued perhaps a half hour before he got into Canada’s flirtation with a shrinking population, from there to a rant on a controversial MP, from there to his prior work for CSIS, his deep ties with the government. He also got into a six pack of lager he’d stashed under the bench. He’d mentioned early on that he was gay and while I couldn’t care less about his own preferences I got uncomfortable when he started questioning mine. He kept asking if I was really satisfied with my wife and saying if I had any inkling at all of gay inclinations I should get out of my marriage before we had kids. He also kept winking and giving me this knowing look.
At that point, I was in a pit. I could either die or climb out. My inner dramatist proposed the former. The rationale: if I excused myself at that point, it would only make me seem defensive, which he would take as evidence for his suggestions. My inner and outer actually intelligent and rational self proposed the latter. The rationale: I’m wasting my time, who cares what some crazy old guy thinks anyway, I’ve been nothing but courteous and I don’t play that guilt shit. I chose the latter. I politely concluded our discussion and excused myself and went back to my photo-walk. I climbed out.
- A third sort of pit is an unhealthy relationship. A very, very common pit. I recently had to bow out of a friendship that, although it began and carried on in good fun, became uneven. Our priorities were very differently arranged and our places on each other’s lists were mismatched. It was a little heartbreaking to bow out of this friendship. It must always be — even in the most abusive relationships there’s some semblance or love no matter how perverse or misdirected. But, in the end, it was the right thing to do. If I’d stayed I would have been dying a little bit at a time. It was emotionally difficult, but practically it was simple. I just said until you can bring to the table what I’ve brought for you, I’ll go my own way. A few back and forth explanations and assurances of no hard feelings and that was that. I climbed out.
It’s easy to give this advice. Like most advice, it’s not always easy to take. Not every pit is all dark and cold and scary. Some are comfortable. Some we might not want to climb out of. I don’t think there’s a pit, though, that has a third option. If we don’t climb out we’re just sittin down there dying a piece at a time.
A final point by request. One reader said he was looking forward to an explanation of the last part of the advice, the set aside of greasy telethon fundraisers in favour of work part. This year already we’ve had deadly earthquakes Haiti and Chile and just a few days ago another in Yushu, China. Last year some other disasters, the year before that still other disasters. I cannot fathom why people still act surprised. Even if you discount every shred of evidence that supports climate change, we still inhabit a living, breathing planet. A volatile and huge and tremendously powerful ecosystem in which we are but tiny migrant germs.
Everyone and his uncle says, “Those poor Haitians, what can we do to help them?” Don’t get me wrong, that’s a noble and admirable sentiment, but where were these voices of compassion before the quake? Haiti has a long and appalling history of bloodshed and subjugation. Its people have been victims of colonial and political and corporate disaster for centuries. A number of relief organizations were already active in Haiti before the quake. (Food For The Poor Inc., Haitian Health Foundation, etc.) This is what I mean by rolling up our sleeves and just getting to work. These people didn’t wait around for some news clip to move them to blind monetary charity — they went out and found a problem and dedicated themselves to working against it. They’ve been up to their elbows for thirty years. We, what, text HAITI6 to donate how much and to whom exactly via some teleprompted dickhole whose suit could put a kid through college in Haiti?
Naturally, not all of us can dedicate our lives to the sort of work these proper organizations do. If we all did there woundn’t be anyone left behind to farm or teach. What we can do is borrow that Think Globally, Shop Locally motto and transpose it to the realm of charity or volunteer work. We can find problems in our own communities and work toward their solutions. If some big problem like a natural disaster comes up, we can either take vacation time and go help or we can take all that empathy it evokes in us and apply it to our work at home.
It might seem unproductive in the grand scheme of things only to work in our particular neighbourhoods. Our work, especially in the west where we’ve got it pretty good, seems without impact by comparison. In some third world country I could be digging wells to provide villages with fresh water or teaching children to read and write. In Canada I occasionally buy a hobo lunch when he asks for spare change. Big deal. But it really is the most efficient and effective use of my energies to contribute locally. If everyone does, then every locale is improving. If I help instil values in the youth of my neighbourhood, if I show them the world doesn’t have to be all webs of deceit and unjust relationships, then that reduces the odds of my neighbourhood producing a slimy politician or some scumbag CEO. Even one less scumbag junior partner is a bonus. One less scumbag at all.
If certain US neighbourhoods had been so enlightened in the early twentieth century, maybe they wouldn’t have produced the policymakers who subjugated Haiti in the 20s and 30s. Sure they built roads and hooked the cities up with fresh water, but they can’t possibly have had to disassemble the Haitian constitution and reinstate slavery and spend thousands of lives in the process.
Everyone comes from somewhere. If we all make our here better, then there will be no there left for conquerors to come from. Nurture can’t always win out against nature, but a strong community may better recognize a threat and diffuse it before it’s too late. Remember the newsreels when those kids shot their classmates in Columbine? The parents saying, “We never saw it coming.” How much do you suppose those parents donated to earthquake relief?
Instead of telethons — “Look at that trouble over there, throw money at it to appease the chasm in your heart where fellowship and charity belong” — let’s just open our eyes at home and contribute as we can to better our communities. Think Globally, Help Locally. Disaster and relief occur at every conceivable scale. Look for the pits, help your neighbour climb out. Help your friends. Help your family. Help yourself.
~J
Post Script: I guess I’d had this thing set to force you to register in order to comment. That’s changed, registration is no longer required. I will of course still be collecting all your personal data and distributing it freely to ad sites and malware designers.
