My Manhattan // 11.24.15

empathy.

I sat in a dark theatre last night and watched Signature Theatre's new production of Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy. When the lights came up and the actors took their bow, one stepped forward and said only the following: We dedicate this to the people of Paris. I sat next to my girlfriend who is a new mother, who says since having a baby, everything hits her differently, and I felt the first sting of tears. 

It is a lovely play, haunting and timely and important. I sat in that theatre last night and thought about the events of Friday. I thought about young men and women wooed by a story of other-ness, one rooted not in religion or faith, but in the seductive nature of hate. I thought about how evil grows like a weed and wondered what in us makes some more susceptible than others. And then I thought about how there are still people in the world sitting in a cool theatre listening to a story about human decency and goodness in the face of the most horrific acts. And how that's not nothing. I thought about how theatre and stories are their own acts of rebellion---different seeds, better seeds. I thought about how changing the world must be built on small acts of kindness, an activation of our empathy at every turn. 

On Friday, as terror unfolded in France, I sat safely in my office in New York underlining the following passage from a book, having no idea what was taking place across the ocean. It was important before what occurred, and may seem not terribly timely as extreme events tend to activate our empathy in really profound ways, but when the dust settles, as it will, it will still be our job to offer kindness, to tell stories, and engage our better angels, to shuffle the world forward by planting small seeds of goodness wherever, and however, we can.  

"Empathy isn't just something that happens to us--a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain--it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It's made of exertion, that dowdier cousin of impulse. Sometimes we care for another because we know we should, or because it's asked for, but this doesn't make our caring hollow. The act of choosing simply means we've committed ourselves to a set of behaviors greater than the sum of our individual inclinations: I will listen to his sadness, even when I'm deep in my own. To say going through the motions--this isn't reduction so much as acknowledgment of effort--the labor, the motions, the dance--of getting inside another person's state of heart or mind. 

This confession of effort chafes against the notion that empathy should always rise unbidden , that genuine means the same thing as unwilled, that intentionality is the enemy of love. But I believe in intention and I believe in work." Leslie Jamison | The Empathy Exams

on Showing-Up

Because I spent six years in the trenches of a really severe eating disorder, much of what I know and understand about life I learned from that very peculiar disease. Food became both a metaphor and microcosm for how to deal with the larger world. Tom once said to me, Food isn’t always meant to be enjoyed. Sometimes you have to eat the thing that doesn’t taste that great because it is really, really good for you. I think of that so often. Because the thing about life is often you have to do thing you really don't want to, but have to do, because it is really, really good for you (or for the people around you). 

I dated a guy last year who was--without question--good. He’d pick me up at my door and return me there at the end of the night. He’d plan dates and map out small road trips. He was respectful and kind. He actually listened. And all of these things engendered within me a feeling of total safety. And that sensation of safety is--for me--like the bit of the boat submerged beneath the water; it keeps everything afloat. What was remarkable was that he wasn’t reinventing the wheel; everything he did was actionable--a sort of return to basics. And there was a very great lesson in that. I began to look around at my friends and family, wondering what small things I could do that would allow them to feel loved. Basically, it meant responding to emails in a timely fashion, and picking up the phone and putting a letter in the post. It meant gifting the book and paying the extra twenty dollars without complaint. It meant saying thank you and I love you and I’m sorry, even (and especially) when those words didn’t come easily. It meant being a person of my word. It meant daily forgiveness and honesty and grace.

I am a fearful person. By nature, I am a truly fearful person. I am afraid of small things and big things and blue things. Of first dates and cross-country flights and running into friends on the street. But what I’m learning is that not only do you have to eat the things you don’t want to eat, you have to do the things you don’t want to do--the things you are afraid to do. Because the truth of it is, we are all afraid. Every last one of us. So fear does not absolve a person from showing up. That’s the phrase that I’ve been coming back to these last few months: showing-up. It can mean so many things, but in the end it’s an attitude. And it's about accountability.  

Mary Shelley once wrote, “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.” 

Heartbreak is inevitable. Life is scary and terrifying and more often than not, overwhelming. And to show up is to risk all of these things each and every day on a grand-scale. But that is the entire point. And the more you risk, the more you experience freedom from fear itself. 

I ate a lot of food and gained a lot of weight as a way to absent myself from my own life. But no amount of food or added fat or lost hours could alter the gravitational pull of life itself--its precariousness and beauty and utter persistence.

This existence may just be one grand illusion, but the moon moves the ocean and a small, round globe spins on a fixed axis hurtling through space. And the taste of life, bitter and sweet and sharp, is better than any food I’ve ever known. 

Goodness

photo by Sam Shorey

I had a rough day on Monday. It wasn't any one thing, it was just a sort of catch in my breath that hinted at a looming sadness--its presence both strange and familiarity. The sensation unsettled me and I found myself wanting to sleep--to not get out of bed. But not getting out of bed was not an option. So while I woke a little later than I should have, I made sure to make the bed and leave the house (and to do so on time). 

I took the usual route to work and upon crossing fifth avenue I entered my usual morning coffee shop. It's not my favorite place--as long as I've been going there they seem to have no idea what I order, of if they've ever even seen my face before (they have). But yesterday one of the guys, who is relatively new, started chatting with me as he made my drink. I can't tell you what he said, but I know it required my response. I offered something up and he responded and we went back and forth like that for a minute, until the warm latte was between my hands. His kindness was met by my best attempt at it and I walked out of there feeling good--feeling okay. Feeling joy, even. Thankful for his goodness and my own.

I shared this recently, but I'm going to do it again because these words aren't yet done with me: 

"The Greek word for the state of happiness is 'euphoria,' and the noun 'euphoros' means the bearer of goodness. One of the fundamental elements to finding euphoria is to be that euphoros -- bearer of goodness -- for yourself and for others. This means radical generosity, starting with yourself. 

If we see ourselves as the bearers of good, wherever we go we will create an atmosphere of goodness around us, and we will spread a sense of well-being to others. We will start to do good things for ourselves without thinking about it, and we will start having good thoughts about ourselves. We will experience positive emotions and produce positive outcomes because we will be connecting to our innate goodness. And from that place we will bring it to others." Agapi Stassinopoulos 

That joy comes when we are the bearer of goodness--kindness. The breeze will blow through again, but this notion of goodness, it's actionable, doable, manageable. And there is quite a lot of comfort in that. 

What I'm Listening To // Bahamas

Sometimes you happen upon an album years after it has actually come out, and it feels like it was worth the wait.