I wish I could be with the lions and zebras... when life felt simpler; waking up to drink my coffee with the sunrise, overlooking the picture-perfect scenes of Africa. Damn. There’s a LOT I’d do to be back there right now. Life was slow and the only stressful moments were framing my photographs correctly and franticly distancing ourselves from potentially dangerous lion encounters. All in all, life was peaceful and pure.
I can’t say the same these days. Life may be slower, but in no way does it feel peaceful or pure. There is an underlying sense of discomfort and tension running through not only our country, but the world. The pandemic, racial discrimination, women’s inequities, and antisemitism… honestly this list doesn’t seem to end and with each news story I get fired up and sad. What’s going on??? This is not a “political” post because the reality of this current situation is that it is a humanitarian issue and politics are merely getting in the way, causing even more hatred. Polarization is the enemy of peace… let that sink in. The truth is, or I guess my opinion because technically everyone is entitled to their own, all people should be treated equally. This means no discrimination regardless of race, religion, gender identification, etc. As I say time and time again, kindness will forever be the answer to so many issues. Be a decent human. Be a kind human. Things will get better if we can all commit to doing our part.
Right now there isn’t much that seems normal, and by normal I guess I mean life as we knew it pre-pandemic. A year ago I was in Africa, spending my days and nights in the bush surrounded by majestic animals who like all of us, are programmed into routines; patterns of behavior remain fairly consistent and that is what makes life “normal”. This pandemic has forced us to shift from the norm into a completely new lifestyle. It’s scary to think about all that we’ve been through in such a short period of time. It proves that life can really change at any given moment, and honestly, may never return to how we knew it before.
Like the lions have their hunting patterns and ways of going about their daily life, humans have their ways of balancing work and personal life and relationships and all of the different parts of us that make our lives complete. Lions are nocturnal giving them the ability to hunt during the darkest hours of the night. Their vision gives them that extra advantage on top of their incredibly speed and sneaky demeanor. This pandemic has shifted the way humans see… however, instead of giving us special seeing-in-the-dark powers, it has opened our eyes and widened our gaze. Most of us can now see beyond our personal issues and look into the world with greater appreciation for the human struggle.
Collective pain is an interesting concept that I just read lots about in an awesome book called “Braving the Wilderness” by Brené Brown (thanks Mrs. Gauvin!). The premise of the book is that humans inherently feel the need to belong. This makes sense right? I mean think back to your very first day of school, when you just wanted to make friends and fit in. Or maybe your first day at a new job when all you really wanted was to blend in a little so that your boss wouldn’t notice you so much. Or even one time when you didn’t say how you really felt because your opinion was the minority and it was safer to say nothing at all… these are all examples of this desire to belong that all of us want at one point or another. Brené uses “the wilderness” to describe that feeling of not belonging. It’s brilliant… it’s a perfect metaphor; the wilderness is scary and lonely, and not belonging can often feel that way too. In her book, she places emphasis on certain types of ostracism that can contribute to someone “not belonging”: race, gender, and religion. Seems to be a theme these days, huh? Brené illustrates her claims by showing what true belonging looks like. An example of this I found particularly interesting was her commentary on collective human experiences. These experiences fell into two main categories: pain and pleasure. An example of collective pain would be a funeral and one of collective pleasure would be going to a concert. I’ve experienced both multiple times and each time I can attest to the feeling of belonging Brené mentions. Everyone in the room seems to be captivated by the same words, lyrics, and sentiments. A bond is shared in that moment with even the strangers sitting directly beside you. This shared experience brings people closer together and makes them feel as though they belong.
A global pandemic sweeping across the globe, taking lives, jobs, hope… sounds to me like we may have a collective pain situation going on here, right?? Think about all the news we’ve watched and the breaths we’ve held hoping for things to work out… to be better. We’ve all been in this together from the very start. We’re all trudging through this “wilderness” together, which I realize is not reflective of Brené’s initial point, but I wonder how she’d feel about my theory. We are joined in this collective pain fighting against something that is larger than all of us… it’s so large that it has disrupted many components of life, and depending on who you are, where you’re from, and what you do, you know this struggle a little differently. Yes, we are united by a common enemy, COVID-19, but we still feel alone. Why? We are scared of the unknown.
The unknown. The wilderness. The African desert. What do these three have in common? They have many different paths with no clear view of the destination. Obstacles get in the way and hinder our sight, and this creates some curiosity, anxiety, maybe some excitement (depending on how much you like to live on the edge). But when you observe the behaviors of lions, and many other animals, you notice that they learn how to navigate their environments based on clues, intuitions, and senses. They use these tools to help them achieve their goals which primarily include mating and hunting. No, we’re not lions, I know that. But, we can certainly draw parallels here between the way lions go about achieving their goals and the way we can achieve ours, especially as we live in such uncertain times. We can use our clues, intuitions, and senses to make smart decisions for ourselves and those we love. Our pre-pandemic roles have been altered and it can be hard to navigate the changes that come with this. Similarly to the lions in Africa, we are braving the wilderness looking for our next opportunity to strike. We will get there. And, hopefully one day soon, we will all be there together.
