A case for compassion in this divided and polarised world
Caption: Labradors having a friendly wrestle, Kreuzschnabel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Recently I came across a few situations that made me question whether people have compassion for one another while coexisting in this world. It made me want to do something to help relate to people around us and treat each another with a little bit more kindness.
Same skin, different people
As I alluded to in a previous post, I tend to produce a Christmas video every year. I've done so since 2022 with some colleagues at work.
Me and my colleague were out filming at lunchtime. We needed a scene where I am disoriented and get chucked out from an alleyway. It was a wide-angle shot, which meant the cameraman was stood a fair distance away from me.
I hear the phrase, "Bhxxchod!" (sister-fxxxer! in Hindi) as I complete filming the scene. That completely caught me by surprised as it was the last thing I expected to hear in a foreign country, especially during my lunch break at work!
I had unintentionally stumbled in front of a fellow Indian while filming the scene. From memory, his stride was barely broken by my intrusion. Yet he felt compelled enough to spew some profanity at me.
I stood there looking him in the eye, deciding how I respond to his insult. He had clearly intended to elicit a response as he turned around several times while he walked away, presumably looking to start a fight.
Since I didn't want to go back to the office with a black eye, I decided against escalating the situation. Getting into a fight (verbal or physical) in that moment did not really solve anything. If anything, it may have resulted in negative consequence for both of us.
If I was someone he knew or someone he felt a kinship towards, he most certainly would not have done that. He felt compelled to attack me verbally because he felt I was in the 'them' box and not in the 'us' box.
But in reality we probably aren't so different, we possibly grew up with similar values, similar education and underwent similar struggles to move out of our homes and live abroad in a different country. Yet all of that did not seem to matter in that moment.
This experience reminded me of a quote from GTA 5:
We forget a thousand things (faces) every day, make sure this is one of them.
-Michael in GTA 5
It's quite reflective of our city life and the anonymity that comes with it. We do see thousands of faces everyday as we go about our daily lives, most of whom are people we will never see for the rest of our lives.
In contrast, in a small village everybody knows everybody, we are a lot less likely to call someone a sister-fxxxer for no real reason.
The case for stories
I was once having a drink with my cousin and a few of his friends. We were all having a grand old time talking about our lives and our interests. At some point, one of them pointed to another and said, "Hey, you MUST tell everyone the story!" promting them to share something that happened in their life.
What followed were some vivid and detailed stories that transported me into their world and the events that actually transpired in their life. This made me feel like I got to know them a lot better.
In a world where we're becoming more and more polarised between the left and the right, where violence, discrimination and division is seen as the way to solve our problems, it's more important than ever to try to understand each other.
I've experienced the powerful effect that stories have in our capacity to understand each other. Through cultivating a desire to learn about each other, we can reduce the likelihood of seeing each other with animosity.
So the next time someone cuts you off in traffic or disorientedly stumbles in front of you, treat them with compassion and seek the stories that underly their behaviour. And don't call them a sister-fxxxer cause otherwise they may write a blog post about you!
Until next time,
Tony