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mousetrapplingA meditation on the words of John Donne, community, The Book of Boba Fett, growing up, growing old and covid.
[themes of The Book of Boba Fett touched on but no event spoilers]
There's a piece by John Donne that almost everyone knows the beginning of even if they don't know where it comes from. Written in the 17th Century but I seem to've been seeing it everywhere lately – even directly quoted a couple of times in the last few weeks. It opens "No man is an island, entire of itself" and maybe I'm just noticing the references and quotes because it's been on my mind. True now as it was then, none of us stand apart from society, able to do it all alone.
I've been re-reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, as I do from time to time (who knows, maybe someday I'll properly internalise what it's trying to teach me!). And really that's one strand of Covey's central thesis isn't it? The process of maturing starts with the dependence of childhood (and some never really get past that), and proceeds to the fierce independence of the adolescent – I can do this all myself, I don't need anyone else, I'm a capable adult. But real maturity, being an actual adult (or effective, as Covey puts it), comes from realising that yes, I can do it all myself but I can do it better if I work with the others around me. Together we are more than the sum of our parts. And yet the culture we swim in tends to valorise the independent person, the "self-made man" (who of course did not do it all himself but we pretend he did). We're encouraged to stick in the "me, me, me" of the teenager rather than growing up to know that no man is an island, entire of itself.
And the theme came up again from a different angle in an article I read, I forget what it was called, that was arguing that we shouldn't fling out the baby of meritocracy with the bathwater of inequality. Instead of judging people on a binary scale and rewarding the successful while damning the unsuccessful for not working hard enough, we should judge on a three part scale. As we walk through life, we can lift up those who stumble while celebrating those who fly. And we can acknowledge that no-one is strong in every way – you help me where I am weak, I help you in turn where I am strong and together we build something better than we could alone.
Even in the fiction I consume – The Book of Boba Fett is a coming of age story in this sense of growing up: an adolescent becoming an adult. A would be island realising that it is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. But I made the mistake of reading reviews on IMDB (don't, just don't) and they are full of shrill adolescents of all ages complaining that "they" have ruined the character. Because they wanted to see the lone gunner, doing big manly things with his big manly weapon alone and independent of all attachment, and they got something more interesting and more mature and they didn't like it one bit.
And it's on my mind because it's what's making me so angry and so very very sad right now. "Me, me, me" the cry goes up, "it only kills the old and sick, so why should I care?". Dismissing with a shrug a whole swathe of real people as being unimportant and lesser – why stop and help when you can pass by on the other side of the road? You're too busy trying to fly to worry about those who've stumbled and fallen. You are an island, the sea is your moat.
Only, it's not, is it? Because the thing that is making me despair is that you don't even have to care about other people to see the problem with that attitude. Because the old and the sick – they are not other, they are us. Today you are young, fit and healthy. But unless you get hit by the proverbial big red bus soon, you'll not be staying that way. Someday you'll be facing down the horrors that lurk in your genetics, or standing up to the consequences of a life changing accident, or maybe just crumbling away because you've lived too long. Because the human body is frail and held together with string and sealing wax and frankly it's astonishing that any of us live long enough to be born let alone make it 70 or 80 years after that! You'll get weak and vulnerable in your old age, everyone does. The only people that don't are those that died before they got old.
But if we worked together, we could make it better for everyone. If we live in a society that cares for the vulnerable, we'll be cared for when we are inevitably vulnerable ourselves. If we lift up those who stumble, we give everyone the chance to fly. So wear that mask even if it's annoying, open those windows even tho it's cold, take that test even if it makes you gag, get yourself vaccinated even if it's "just" to protect other people. Those inconveniences, those impositions on your precious independent self, those are what help to make it better for everyone.
No man is an island, entire of itself: isn't it about time we grew the fuck up and started acting like it?
[themes of The Book of Boba Fett touched on but no event spoilers]
There's a piece by John Donne that almost everyone knows the beginning of even if they don't know where it comes from. Written in the 17th Century but I seem to've been seeing it everywhere lately – even directly quoted a couple of times in the last few weeks. It opens "No man is an island, entire of itself" and maybe I'm just noticing the references and quotes because it's been on my mind. True now as it was then, none of us stand apart from society, able to do it all alone.
I've been re-reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, as I do from time to time (who knows, maybe someday I'll properly internalise what it's trying to teach me!). And really that's one strand of Covey's central thesis isn't it? The process of maturing starts with the dependence of childhood (and some never really get past that), and proceeds to the fierce independence of the adolescent – I can do this all myself, I don't need anyone else, I'm a capable adult. But real maturity, being an actual adult (or effective, as Covey puts it), comes from realising that yes, I can do it all myself but I can do it better if I work with the others around me. Together we are more than the sum of our parts. And yet the culture we swim in tends to valorise the independent person, the "self-made man" (who of course did not do it all himself but we pretend he did). We're encouraged to stick in the "me, me, me" of the teenager rather than growing up to know that no man is an island, entire of itself.
And the theme came up again from a different angle in an article I read, I forget what it was called, that was arguing that we shouldn't fling out the baby of meritocracy with the bathwater of inequality. Instead of judging people on a binary scale and rewarding the successful while damning the unsuccessful for not working hard enough, we should judge on a three part scale. As we walk through life, we can lift up those who stumble while celebrating those who fly. And we can acknowledge that no-one is strong in every way – you help me where I am weak, I help you in turn where I am strong and together we build something better than we could alone.
Even in the fiction I consume – The Book of Boba Fett is a coming of age story in this sense of growing up: an adolescent becoming an adult. A would be island realising that it is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. But I made the mistake of reading reviews on IMDB (don't, just don't) and they are full of shrill adolescents of all ages complaining that "they" have ruined the character. Because they wanted to see the lone gunner, doing big manly things with his big manly weapon alone and independent of all attachment, and they got something more interesting and more mature and they didn't like it one bit.
And it's on my mind because it's what's making me so angry and so very very sad right now. "Me, me, me" the cry goes up, "it only kills the old and sick, so why should I care?". Dismissing with a shrug a whole swathe of real people as being unimportant and lesser – why stop and help when you can pass by on the other side of the road? You're too busy trying to fly to worry about those who've stumbled and fallen. You are an island, the sea is your moat.
Only, it's not, is it? Because the thing that is making me despair is that you don't even have to care about other people to see the problem with that attitude. Because the old and the sick – they are not other, they are us. Today you are young, fit and healthy. But unless you get hit by the proverbial big red bus soon, you'll not be staying that way. Someday you'll be facing down the horrors that lurk in your genetics, or standing up to the consequences of a life changing accident, or maybe just crumbling away because you've lived too long. Because the human body is frail and held together with string and sealing wax and frankly it's astonishing that any of us live long enough to be born let alone make it 70 or 80 years after that! You'll get weak and vulnerable in your old age, everyone does. The only people that don't are those that died before they got old.
But if we worked together, we could make it better for everyone. If we live in a society that cares for the vulnerable, we'll be cared for when we are inevitably vulnerable ourselves. If we lift up those who stumble, we give everyone the chance to fly. So wear that mask even if it's annoying, open those windows even tho it's cold, take that test even if it makes you gag, get yourself vaccinated even if it's "just" to protect other people. Those inconveniences, those impositions on your precious independent self, those are what help to make it better for everyone.
No man is an island, entire of itself: isn't it about time we grew the fuck up and started acting like it?
