Deep Responders

 A lot of accolades have been heaped upon the firefighters, police, doctors, nurses, and other frontline workers. Deservedly so. They have been putting their lives on the line for all of us. They are the first responders — the ones who deal with the emergencies and protect us all. They deserve recognition for doing their incredibly demanding jobs. 

This Slow Lane, however, is not about them. It is about the unrecognized, but equally important responders who figure out what is going on, and how something else can happen. These are the deep responders, who are also doing a job for all of us, but don’t usually get the notice they deserve.

Victor Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote of survival in the death camps, “There is only one freedom that cannot be taken away, and that is how one plays the cards, that one is dealt.” That is, what deep responders do, they figure out the best way of addressing the situation at hand. They practice the very rare freedom of creative response. They are the system thinkers, intuitives, and outside-the-box players, that discover solutions to the complex challenges that also plague us.

They are deep responders. They hang out with a painful dilemma long enough to sense what matters about it, so that it can be rightly approached. They are frequently marginalized and considered exotic. Yet, they provide a most essential service. Deep responders are the ones who are more truly heroic. It isn’t their job to provide anything to us, yet they do. They alert us to how our response ensures the dilemma, and how changing our response changes everything.

It is important to notice deep responders, and how they work. It is them, who have taught us, that the quality of our response is what makes something benign. They reveal how important the ability to respond is. They also reveal that the ability to hang out with a dilemma long enough is a necessary skill, that is essential for some situations. 

In fact, an adequate response, is often only cooked up from the juices of what is hurting. Deep responders respect the dilemma, and don’t try to get rid of it, like first responders often do. Sometimes an emergency is just that, the emergence of something essential and unseen before. Deep responders give homage to what they face, and sometimes discover the hidden gift inside a dilemma. They are the ones who innovate and allow us to evolve. In conjunction with first responders they save a lot of lives, but their unique function is saving the future, by recognizing the ineffable coming through a significant difficulty. 

Think about that. The deep responders are already engaged, In fact, you might be one of them. The uncertainty you feel might just be the essential ingredient that this, or any, dilemma might have to contribute. It might take a while to unfold, to become exasperated enough to generate sensitized attention, to become hot enough to make a real difference. Let’s hope that you and I are deep responders enough to notice, and to take our own perceptions seriously.

Deep responders, unlike first responders, are less reactive. They give time to what takes time. That is why I tend to think elders with frail bodies are better responders than the body-minded first responders. In addition to bodies attuned to hardship, elders have more experience with how some things unfold. They also have the advantage of perspective. When a deep response is wanted, I’d rather have some gray-haired wisdom on my side.

Ultimately, those of us, who have had the privilege of surviving very long, become deep responders. Life asks something of each of us. Our response is in how we craft our lives. Our response is what makes each of us unique — snowflakes in the storm of existence. Deep responders in the end.