Remember what it was like being q kid & sitting in a circle – at school or a birthday party, & going arnd sharing names…or birthdays…or favorite colors? We’d get SO excited if someone had the same name, same bday, or “amazingly” liked the same color as us: “OMG my name’s Michelle too.”
I see this in schools we work w now, still, when the topic’s not as simple as bdays or names. When we start getting kids to open up vulnerability (typically K-6, the younger kiddos before ego has developed), it’s: “OMG, my pet just got sick too…OMG my grandpa is in the hospital too.”
We’re wired for sameness & connection.
Here’s the problem – that sameness part can & HAS been vindictively used against us – actually to separate us into factions. There was no greater evidence of this, than the news & reactions yesterday, of the firings of 2 faces from 2 competing network news stations: Tucker Carlson from Fox & Don Lemon from CNN.
I avoid politics here..I steer clear. What I don’t avoid is pointing out trends that themselves DO divide us. I dont take sides publicly. And what was on display yesterday – the media reactions & the personal/SM reactions to the firings of both men – on the same day, rt at the same time, show just how much we’ve been made to feel the SAME – but based on our DISLIKE of others, as opposed to our LIKEs we have in common.
Look at the reactions on the 2nd to last slide: NYT reaction to Tucker…then Fox’s reaction to Lemon. Then same slide – ppl w large platforms – reveling in the demise of the “other side.”
When you look from a 30k foot view, what we’ve been condition to do is find our sameness/our groups, based on our common DISLIKE of others, more than our LIKE of the same things. It’s literally tearing our country/our world apart. It’s a big piece – why we have a MH crisis. There’s no community in the enjoyment of things the way there once was. Now the greater ‘joy’ is in how you can make “others” feel less than.
And it happens in this space of advocacy too: “This is what OTHERS need to know about US, w XYZ disorder to treat US better.”
Celebrate our commonalities. We have many.