unofficial leaders

october 29, 2020, 1:24am

after watching some episodes of other shows, i settled on an episode of david letterman's netflix series with dave chappelle. it was powerful to watch something that referred to events happening this year that have touched my life, that have affected so many lives. and empowering to hear him amplify so many of the values that i have also come to embrace, including community. 

it made me think about my life in slippery rock. this small town, made only slightly bigger by the university that brings in a more diverse range of thinkers and characters than the town itself could ever hope to boast about. i was drawn to this place because i wanted to be closer to thick clusters of trees and farther from dense throngs of people. the electricity of the city had worn me out by seventeen, and i craved an escape from the pace of consumerism that felt foreign and overwhelming to me.

but as i got older within the smaller town's limits, i recognized more and more about how my experiences fit within a bigger context. how certain things that had been more subtle or more covert in pittsburgh were obvious in a place still glaringly white, and glaringly conservative. and i the more i realized about the way the town operated, and the way the country operated, and my own place within all of that, i felt more and more disconnected from my literal community. from the place where i liked the trees more than the people.

still i managed to make friends. characters paraded in and out of the tiny gas station on a corner at one of the four intersections in town. people spoke to me because i was just about the least threatening person, and i was in a subservient role. i had a welcoming aura that had been inviting strangers to open up to me from the time i was a teenager waiting on buses in downtown pittsburgh. that trait followed me into my twenties, and into various customer service positions. as a cashier, i didn't have the freedom to walk away from a customer who decided to unload about his day, his life, his opinions about the state of the country. there was a sense of marginalization that i always felt. a feeling of subversiveness just beneath the surface. and so community for me came to mean the group of people whom i had gravitated toward. whom i had chosen to talk to and listen to. people who stuck around and became close to me, spent time with me, allowed me into their lives and into their families and into their hearts. before long, new friends became people who were precious to me over a decade, and that time grows longer still with so many friends i had the pleasure of meeting in this tiny vortex of interesting and predictable people.

as i get older, i want to be more active in my community. i already know i have a talent for talking with people. for listening. and i know how many people i learned about just from that passive role as a cashier at a gas station. so imagine what i could accomplish with a bit more intention. i've never been much for schmoozing. i also don't believe in selling anything to people. but i know we all have needs, and i believe in working toward making sure everyone's are met. and i know that we stand a much better chance of accomplishing that if we work together, rather than against each other.

there are times that i have really fucked up with people. times when my ego or my perspective has gotten in the way of using a better approach to create dialogue. times when i've talked at someone. or times when my feelings got the best of me, and i spoke before i thought well enough. i think thoughtfulness is definitely something that improves with age and experience, especially if we're conscious about strengthening that muscle. when someone hurts me, there is the part of hurt that is all ego. that is painful. and forgiveness seems always to have two parts--one for forgiving the other person for being human and doing what humans do sometimes which might be lashing out, or projecting, or doing what wounded creatures do. the other for forgiving myself for reacting and getting mad at the person for being human and doing what wounded creatures do. and anyone who denies me permission to make mistakes is not really my friend. but anyone who is not my friend is not my enemy either. and again, ultimately we are both trying to achieve something with progress. with shaping the world around us (and within) toward what we want it to be. and while i cannot control how the other person advances with their own sense of forgiveness, it's never a bad time to engage in some self-reflection and re-evaluate what i have the power to grow within myself, improve within my own behaviors. what the other person does is up to them. and i want only never to hinder their growth. so sometimes stepping back, stepping away from someone is necessary. but the door for dialogue should never close. 

and i think that relates to the bigger picture. the bigger society that we're all a part of. 

tonight, i was thinking as i hung up the fiona apple poster in my room, the construction paper matting badly faded. the cheap plastic poster frame misaligned and taped at the corners to hold it all together. i was thinking about giving permission to people to make mistakes. allowing it. when that idea first comes into my mind, it comes with the assumption that people will learn from their mistakes, and become better. smarter. more compassionate. but there is an error to that thinking, because it assumes that people must be better than what they are, and that they are not worthy of forgiveness unless they evolve from their mistakes. we punish a child with the intention of teaching them to think and behave more appropriately. but children repeat behaviors, pushing the extent of our boundaries and still receiving forgiveness because it takes time to learn certain lessons. if that patience is not applied to adults, then everyone is doomed to failure. not only that, but we withhold love from people we deem as not acting right.

somewhere in my heart i know that i have to love my neighbor. and somewhere else in my heart i don't want anything to do with him unless i enjoy interacting with him.

friends are neighbors we choose, and it can be harder when they disappoint us. but only because we become so used to them that when they let us down we take it personally.

if we allow people to make mistakes, and accept that they will, and accept that it might take a long time for them to learn...how does that inform our expectations for leaders?

dave chappelle had a skit talking about an interaction he had with a transgender woman that did not paint her in a very kind light. and i was very upset with him. i wasn't the only one. but when he went on to continue making specials, i refrained from watching because i didn't want to support someone transphobic. i didn't want to risk that he would keep telling those kinds of jokes. but he ended up addressing that bit in a later special. i ended up coming back to him, because there was always something about his honesty and delivery, his artistry, that i was drawn to (like so many people). in the interview with letterman, he asks chappelle about if he wants to be a leader, acknowledging how letterman himself looked to dave for some sort of guidance. some sort of catharsis following the murder of george floyd. and it made me think about the leaders that the people choose versus the leaders that are groomed for us.

joe biden is the democratic nominee in our two-party presidential election, the results of which will be determined by an electoral college whose structure, like so many other things in this country, is in terrible need of revision. the people who are openly unenthusiastic about biden refer to his history, his involvement with legislation that was, like so many other things in this country, terribly imperfect and influenced by the politics of the time. biden had to change. as a public figure, as a political figure, he had to change with the times and with what the idea of a democrat meant, otherwise people like bernie sanders would stand a chance, and the two-party system would finally shift toward something more pluralistic, and the powers that be want to remain the powers that be. so while people condemn biden for his past, here i am wondering on one hand isn't he allowed to be imperfect? while at the same time wishing we could have had better leaders altogether from the start. leaders who were ahead of their time. leaders not so influenced by the politics and trends of the time. leaders who really make all of us feel confident they will be good for all of us. be what we really need in that office.

i guess what i'm saying is chappelle for president? but really what i'm saying is there has to be a balance between the degree of accountability a person holds for their behaviors and a degree of permission that we grant to people to learn from their mistakes and do better. and we shouldn't be electing anyone to office who hasn't demonstrated that they can learn from their mistakes. who remains the same self-interested, self-absorbed, capitalist pig they always were. i have every faith that chappelle will continue to evolve as a human being, because his craft and his passion are connected with that continuous journey of learning and experiencing and reflecting. i don't have as much faith in biden. but i want to. i want this not to be just another swing of the pendulum back toward the center before another swing toward the right again. i want our political arena to have more representation. more progress. to really be for the people. even though that's not really the way it was set up. those were the words that were used, and they represent a good vision. a good potential.

i don't know what for the people really looks like. there are some examples around the world, even in my neighborhood. but every place has its issues. no place on earth is perfect. (though ikaria might be close to it. and some of those other blue zones where people live the longest, happiest lives.) 

i have no power in what happens next in the bigger political picture. the presidential election is in five days. i've cast my vote. millions of citizens have. maybe the outcome has already been decided, and this election business is more of a farce than we realize. but i still have no control over what happens, and i have to focus back on the arena where i do have power. myself. my own backyard. my own community. my own friends and family. my work. my interactions. my learning. so that's what i'll do. and i'll always feel grateful for people like chappelle who are willing to speak up about things many of us have a hard time with, even within our communities. thank goodness for unofficial leaders who open up the spaces for us to keep the dialogue going. especially when they can help us to laugh. because we're all dealing with so many of the mistakes people have been allowed to make for hundreds of years. and it is hard to keep our fury under control.