FACEBOOK, this seemingly innocuous technology that has become such an entrenched part of our lives and veritable extension of society, is where empathy goes to die...
It is clear now during these tenuous times where opinions suddenly are momentous, even perilous, and the grand collective pulse anxious, unsteady; threatened by mortal fear by the sword of a pandemic. And this is increasingly not the place to sort it out. Rather, it's the place to fight it out, to make caricatures of one another, dehumanize with vast ballooning nets that always leave so much more of the person out of one's knowing. A place where we cannot see nor feel each other's living presence, deadened by digital rendering. Communication often, too often, runs off the cliff. Friendships, even, are ended from a post, a post...a post...
We all know we are so duped. How can it be anything but brazenly obvious? The drastically immense amount of information that entails 'communication' is the body's language; that beautiful visage which imprints compassion and depth where text might seem callous and demeaning. That field of humanness that subtly weaves us into the pleasure of meaningful conversation and natural respect from simply the tangible tethering of eye contact. Perhaps two steaming teas, delicious coffees or (best yet) heart-fondling cacao to ease our tempestuous 'opinions' and guide us to the gregarious. Or most supreme, the elixir of embrace, melting armour, bringing forth the beauty of the truth of just love, no matter what. Long hugs can end wars. Mark me...
Even if I know you as close friend, Facebook distorts our relationship into the anonymity of this strange communication of typing, waiting, responding; a binary beat entraining a melodious symphony into a banal military march; the suffocating silence and the anguish of longing to hear your laughter, even your cathartic sigh and tense groans of disagreement; the full glory of your humanity--a gospel greater by thousands of galaxies than any computer.
Empathy is being devastated in a time when we need it more than ever. The world as we know it is dying a hard, fast and painful death and we are called ALL to give birth to another. This is unprecedented, unparalleled and, somehow, still unfathomable. Our collective imagination, one of our most brilliant qualities, distracted by the morbid battle to be right and righter still; the chaos of mystery and the fear of losing a sense of security.
So when that Facebook conversation or post thread turns nasty and you feel that growing weight of shame and yet addiction to maintaining one's semblance of righteousness, STOP. Close the puter. Run to your breath as if seeing a lover after long absence and throw the arms of your presence around it. Then, get up and shake, dance and release all that needless enmity to the ethers. Imagine those you are struggling against before you and see them larger than a profile pic, a pixelated soul, but rather a world of a life; the bigness of their beauty of a being. Send them love, not the pithy kind that throws saddles on unicorns, but the sobering, somber, descending vibration that grounds in the collective experience of both being wonderfully, imperfectly human. And knowing, no matter what, that the greatest differences have also been the harbinger of great peace. That beyond the massacring myopia of talking to each other through computers, if we drop the machines, we pick up our humanity and the whole ineffable spectrum of our innate brilliance (wonderful smiles, vulnerable, glimmering eyes, infinite dance moves, holy laughter, etcetera eternal...).
We have a new world to make and immensely care for. We are all parents of this timid, tender child. Let us begin from this place where our humanity is given space, perhaps for the first time ever, to truly, deeply, show what it's really made of...
