The Noise

Asking for help has been illuminating. Watching what happens, feeling the agitation it evokes, waiting for responses, hoping for the best, and learning how hard it is to penetrate the noise, distraction, and preoccupation of others, awakens one. Asking is anything but a straight-line experience. It exposes one’s humanity, while revealing the human condition. Somehow, the word “we” comes more alive, vivid, and poignant. Collective wholeness is such a rare bird.

I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, by how difficult it has been for me to get people’s attention. The plea for help does not have much resonance in the modern overactive world. Last time I wrote about how speed kills. These last few days, I’ve come to experience how easily we lose touch with ourselves, and each other, in the mesmerizing rush of this violent version of modern life. I go to pieces each time I answer the call of being a normal agent of this kaleidoscope of activity.

My disabled self relishes the slowness it has imposed upon me. I am Lucky, and I feel a certain compassion when something, like my request for help, reminds me that the price of normalcy in this world is so exacting.  Then I feel the tidal wave of grief that is extracted by this fragmented, speedy life most of us are living. I know I feel inadequate, like I have failed the test, and I should go home and crawl under the bed. Luckily, most the time, I’m off this treadmill.

The treadmill, that is such a good metaphor for the kind of constantly distracting effort that modern life insists upon. From the vantage point of this go-go life, one can easily see how difficult it is to have a semblance of an integrated self. The world of commerce, efficiency and actualization throws everything and everybody into the hopper. What’s left is truly gross national product. Effluvial quantity rather than humane quality.

My simple request for help is making me too aware of the brokenness of this social moment. I wanted to help marginalized old people, only to get a big dose of how marginalized most of us are. The suffering of the old — not-knowing what a miracle we are, and this life is — is a debilitation that is wide-spread in this world. It has become normal suffering.

There isn’t enough money, balm, medicine, or realization to staunch this flow. It is no wonder the Earth is reeling. The old are only the harbingers of what is to come, and of what is happening. Modern times is a misnomer.

There is time for adjustment! There are still neighbors, family, partners —and most importantly, the one within — who can experience the glow of recognition. The redemptive quality of life hasn’t gone away because our attention has been diverted. Life cares more than that for us. Now, we just need to care that much for each other.

Once upon a time, I read of an anthropologist, who claimed he had discovered the missing link between modern man and our animal past. He proclaimed, “it is us.”

We still have time on our hands. Maybe we can discover the missing link within ourselves.