On obligation

Yesterday, at the grocery store, babbling with my best friend about - oh, I don’t know - the applications of different pickle types, cantaloupe season, the calorie content of fat-free fudgesicles - she stops in her tracks. 

“Should we be talking about more important things when we’re together?” 

Members of the jury, I must say: no, I don’t think so. I trust you to be the kind and intelligent person I know you to be. We’re good! In a world that demands our best in all aspects and at all times, allow us the rare sanctuary we find. 

We crawl for each other, bloodied. Tired, lonely, alienated, burnt-out. My only mandate is to see and love you - we can talk about whatever you want! That part, quite frankly, is hardly material at all. 

Our hearts are broken. They’re so broken. A bunch of fucked up shit happened to you this week? And last week? Awaits you tomorrow? Hold my hand about it. Let’s talk about fudgesicles. 

Normally, drinking precedes a tearful confession of philia (friendship-love, the Greek). Why bother with an order of operations? I see you now. I love you now. This much. Look me in the eyes, for real, two sudden strangers turning circles on the boardwalk. 

The natural state of a human being, in these times of ours, is fairly dire. Husk, shell. Addicted, depressed, slack-jawed, alone. Rage misplaced if you feel anything at all. I use this word “alienation,” and mean it. We can dream of communal living and organic produce all we want, and it’s still just marketing. Light and shadow. This is to say, this is all there is. You get one reality. Let’s save our own damn time, since nobody else will. 

We ask: What can Joe Shmoe do about the state of the world? And it’s more simple than we could have hoped. 

See a person like god today. This is to say, in the fullness of their complexity, sovereignty, and inherent dignity.

Ask, listen, remember, follow up. No, really. This is your most basic vocation: to see, to be affected by what you see. Seek not to be understood, but to understand. Your friends, of course. And also the passerby, and also the antagonist. This is to say: strangers, enemies. And, perhaps worst of all, garden-variety "difficult people."

After all, 100% of human behavior (healthy or unhealthy) can be traced back to either: the giving of love or the looking for love. Once you see it, you can't unsee it - you'll be walking around all day in either gratitude or forgiveness. What a gift!

There is no grand, cohesive narrative waiting to deliver you to righteousness. That is a fantasy, and selfish. The hurt in this world drive beside you in traffic, bag your groceries, give you a kiss when you arrive home. We have enough would-be romantic heroes! Be the helper. Be the eyes, ears, and hands that lighten the load.

Great. Now: a brief aside for a pet peeve, only it’s neither brief nor an aside. I’m derailing this train.

There is nothing this old woman (I’m 22) hates more than a “you don’t owe them anything,” “protect your peace,” “cut off queen,” “focus on yourself” manner of thinking. You want to talk to me about the loneliness epidemic? Sorry, but your fellow man is messy and needy. So are you. 

“Obligation” by another name is “tether.” To the vital. To the sacred. We are called by our most intrinsic natures to treat one another with patience and generosity. Not to secure a return, not to earn salvation from a religious Hell, not because it’s the antacid for our guilt. Just ‘cause. 

Let’s hear it from a few dead celebs* in case you’re sick of me. Pick the one that speaks to you, and let’s rock on. Logos is a dart board, right?

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese-American writer, poet, artist, and philosopher:

“I slept, and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy."

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish poet, playwright, and author: 

“If a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. But if a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly. If he shut the doors of the house of mourning against me, I would move back again and again and beg to be admitted so that I might share in what I was entitled to share. If he thought me unworthy, unfit to weep with him, I should feel it as the most poignant humiliation.” 

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), German poet and novelist (he moved to Switzerland in 1912 and opposed German militarism and the Nazis, I triple-checked): 

“To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.”

The Apostle Paul in the Bible verse Galatians 5:13 (ish, 48 AD): 

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (died 65 AD), Ancient Roman statesman, dramatist, and Stoic philosopher: 

“The wise man, self-sufficient as he is, still desires to have a friend... Not, as Epicurus put it… 'for the purpose of having someone to come and sit beside his bed when he is ill or come to his rescue when he is hard up or thrown into chains', but so that on the contrary he may have someone by whose sickbed he himself may sit or whom he may himself release when that person is held prisoner by hostile hands… What is my object in making a friend? To have someone to be able to die for, someone I may follow into exile, someone for whose life I may put myself up as security and pay the price as well.” 

You ask: Where is the love? - the warmth, the gentleness, the justice? Look no further. You are both alchemist and source! You stopper the natural spring! 

We are nothing without love. Nothing. Put another way: we are the love we freely give.

You are first and foremost a conduit for service, creation, empathy, and connection. They (“they,” the mythical conglomerate, the artist formerly known as The Man) have stolen enough from you.

Let’s not roll over on the very essence of our divinity, too.

*  I’d like to acknowledge that all 5 of these guys are men. I catch heat for this. But, look: men had the mic more, historically. And as such, these are the ones that came to mind. I’m sorry! These guys probably stole it from a woman, anyway. (If that helps? It doesn’t - that's worse.)