Our staff canteen at breakfast has two TV screens on two different walls. Today morning one screen was showing a heart wrenching footage of refugees lining up to be granted permit, while another was simultaneously flashing a cheerful basketball match. My brain went into a spin! The dissonance was very taxing for me. Somewhere between the emotions invoked by the sight of the refugees and the adrenaline rush of watching the lively basketball match, I had to find a way to create space in my mind to design exercises for my next class on cognitive biases.
It is not that I do not want to care about the plight of the people who are suffering in another part of the country. However, it is difficult to ‘feel’ their pain and then at the same time also ‘cheer’ alongside another group celebrating elsewhere. In the absence of live television, life was a bit simpler at least in this matter. If there was a problem or some mourning happening in my neighbouring street I would definitely not have chosen that day to throw a party in my house. However, now TV has brought every part of the world into our room. So technically, everyone feels like a neighbour. This leads to a lot of dissonance because we can’t really feel happy AND sad at the same time. What we can feel however is compassion, and maybe as the result of all this excessive footage of news all around, compassion will be the only emotion we will be able to hold in ourselves without feeling dissonance.
I would like us however to live lives where we can also feel ‘cheerful’, ‘upbeat’, ‘ecstatic’ and joyous (like the kids on this street who are playing now), without any dissonance. Is there a way to do this without ‘shutting out’ the disturbing news? Frankly I do not know. What helps me at times like this is to turn to nature, turn to the earth, and turn to poetry. So that’s what I just did today.
Asking the Earth
Call me dear Earth
To come work for you
Whisper into my ears
What I can do
Call me where
You would like me to go
Show me whatever
You would like me to know
Tell me how I
Can be your scribe
And take your message
To the rest of my tribe
I’d like everyone
To see your glory
And experience your magic
Through my poem or story
Guide my fingers
When I write something down
Gift me the words
Each verb, each noun
Guide my thoughts
Give me some clues
Show me the colours
The shades and the hues
Tell me how I
Can help ease pain
When my tribe is locked
In stress and strain
I ask cos I know
You hold the key
To the joy of living
In harmony
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I am a pipe the wind blows through
Be still its the wind that sings….
Arthur Osborne