The world according to Desmond Tutu

“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” 

I’m not going to pretend that I really understand the concept of ubuntu, or that it is part of my philosophical or cultural tradition. Nope, I am just straight up appropriating – or just admiring (are we still allowed to do that?).  To seek to be open and affirming is to seek to be a better person. The other day, I woke up and snuggled in the bed with two sweet little girls (at least, at seven in the morning they are very sweet!), my visiting Irish cousins. As we lay in bed, we talked about our resolutions for the year, how to make them achievable and yet aspirational. Here are mine:

·         To write. I meant to write stories, but to write, period, will do for now.

·         To be more patient with my mother. She deserves it, no matter how much she drives me crazy.

·         To be less bossy when I don’t need to be. This leaves me plenty of wiggle room to be bossy, but there are some clear boundaries. For example, while there are plenty of times when I “need” to be bossy with my six year old sister, I probably don’t need to tell my 22 year old brother what time he should get out bed. Probably.

·         To focus on the good in people, rather than on the bad (especially at work). You’re work peeps are a bit like your family: you don’t choose them. But unlike your family, you don’t have to love and respect them. I should, however, if what I truly value is productivity and progress. Lucy may be seriously lacking in skills, tact, and creativity, but if I focus on how she annoys and impedes me, she will only continue to annoy and impede me. If I focus on how we can work together, maybe we will actually be able to work together.

“You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.” 

One of things I most admire about my Peruvian family is how they prove the elasticity of the bonds of love. No matter how hard you try to pull away, you will always snap right back. You can fight, insult, cry, scream, etc. – almost limitlessly – but you are FAMILY. All capital letters. You take care of each other when it is needed, and sometimes even when it isn’t. But in spite of the great respect I have for this way of living in the world, I’ve learned something else in these past few years of my Saturn return. You cannot hold yourself hostage to the love and neediness of your family. The fact is that your family will always need more from you than you can possibly give – all human beings do – and, just as you cherish a gift because of its special meaning and symbolic importance, I need to learn to cherish my family – not allow feelings of guilt or obligation to dictate my life path. I didn’t realize until I left New York how much I shaped my life according to what I “should” be doing or according to how accessible I could be to my family. Finally, I stopped and said to myself, “Hey. I’m almost thirty and I don’t know what the fuck it means to live a happy, productive, aspirational life. I want to be brave, and open-hearted, and to know inner peace. So I’m going to “do me” now, ok, universe?” As much as I love my mother, I don’t need to call her every day, or even every other day. I need to live my own life, in which I love and cherish my family, but am free to do that and to love and cherish myself, too.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”  

I’ve been thinking a lot about the reasons people separate themselves into public and private personas, and about how this feeds into a duality (or triplicity) that is not necessarily manifested in reality. I am not actually an either/or in practically any aspect of my life, yet having a public self forces me to align myself with one or the other. To the world, I must be either gay or straight or bi, depressed or happy, kind or powerful, sophisticated or a bumpkin – where the reality is that I am none, all, and every gradient in between – sometimes.
 

I think we are afraid that if we share who we really are, we make ourselves vulnerable to the ignorant and the abusive. There are many people who would gladly take our private lives and use them against us in our public ones.  That’s the reason, I guess, why I never disclose “dysthymia” (commonly known as chronic depression, which is longer lasting but less severe than “clinical depression”) on the teaching applications I submit. I assume, probably rightly, that my prospective employers will perceive this as a weakness – and sometimes, they would be right. Depression has definitely made me a worse teacher – at times. At other times, it has heightened my sensibilities to the needs of my most vulnerable students and allowed me to feel compassion, empathy, and hope for them. I know not to give up on them just as I have never given up on myself – no matter how bleak, dulled, or frozen I may have felt. I also know that a huge part of my never giving up is the dedication and patience of those who love me – and therefore, I offer perseverance, patience, and love to my most “difficult” students. I may not have saved their lives or their academic futures, but I am sure I have given them a small piece of myself (Here we cycle back to the point above, of course, about needing to make sure you cherish yourself as much as you cherish others – that you put on your own oxygen mask first before the dependents sitting next to you on the crashing plane) that will help them to know who they are. 

A few weeks ago, I was sitting with a few teachers having lunch when we began talking about embassy receptions. I asked if one of the teachers, the wife of an ambassador, was attending an upcoming reception about which I had heard there would be good food available (and in Cuba, you jump at any chance for good food!). She scoffed, and said she didn’t like attending functions because you quickly bore of all the small talk with all the same people. Now, this makes perfect sense to me as the perspective of someone who is forced to go to countless events (even if I personally am not and therefore enjoy the hors d’oeuvres and the mojitos and the random conversations). But then she started talking some crazy talk about how you have to be careful who you talk to because you might end up talking to someone who is homosexual, and how that is against her religion as a Rastafarian, and how she had a sister who decided to try out the lesbian lifestyle whom she no longer spoke to, and who was trapped in her sinful life by an older, wealthy sugar mama. I almost choked on my food, I was so shocked, and I escaped by claiming a meeting I had forgotten. Later, I felt so guilty about not confronting her, even if that would probably have been against my best interests as a member of the school community. I mean, she was obviously crazy and nothing I said would have changed her kind of crazy. 

But that’s a rationalization. The truth is, I should have said to her, “Hey – I’m not straight.” The fact that I don’t actually identify as gay is a public truth, for I’ve had a few gay relationships that were happy and fulfilling while they lasted (ok, no they weren't – but none of my relationships were!). I didn’t feel the need then, or now, to therefore claim any labels – whether gay, straight, bisexual, lesbian, or whatever. But the fact remains that, in the public domain, not claiming a label means defaulting to a heterosexual identity. Most straight people don’t feel the need to tell others they are straight; it’s just publically assumed. Do I have a responsibility, then, to tell the world I’m not straight (at least not in the sense that the Rastafarian teacher meant it)? By letting people think I’m a “regular,” run-of-the-mill heterosexual, am I silently complicit with all the rabid homophobes of the world? Can I really say it’s my business and no one else’s?

“When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves.

All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.” 

In some ways, this sums up my resolutions for the new year. To be patient rather than abrupt, to be gentle rather than demanding, to be encouraging rather than critical – these are all different ways of saying the same thing. Thanks, Desmond!