OK, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m often very critical of mainstream news media sources. I frequently refer to them as channels of “infotainment,” a term loaded with pejorative connotations. I think these criticisms are mostly justified. But not always. CNN’s annual Hero series, which culminates in an award ceremony, is really great. I’ve chosen to blog a video that was prepared to honor Guadalupe Arizpe De La Vega, one of the 2010 nominees and an extraordinary woman from my home state of Texas.
This mini-documentary about Ms. Guadalupe and the work she does (and has been doing since 1973!) is filled with many wonderful, heart-warming moments. My favorite line comes early on, when one of the doctors at the hospital says, in that lovely Spanish-accented English he speaks, that Guadalupe comes up with “an idea every two seconds.” Of course, he is exaggerating, but watching our hero move around the hospital and interact with the patients, it is easy to believe that his declaration might not be much of an overstatement after all.
Elsewhere in the video Guadalupe says that seeing all the suffering going on in Juarez, Mexico, which lies just across the border from El Paso, her city of residence, makes her feel like she wants “to fight.” It occurs to me that she is fighting but in her own way. She opposes despair with hope and fear with courage.
The message of her work is that everyone can (and should) get involved. We can all make a difference, in whatever way we choose to do so. Guadalupe’s own life makes this perfectly clear.
I don’t know about you, but I feel calmer just listening to the soft-spoken Geshe Lobsang Tenzin speak. He certainly is the ideal spokesperson for meditation and its benefits.
His message about “compassion meditation” is exactly the one we all need to hear. In this age of ANXIETY and CONFRONTATION (Haves versus Have Nots, Red America versus Blue America, Tea Partiers versus Progressives, Wall Street versus Main Street, Men versus Women, East versus West, North versus South, the New World versus the Old World, etc, etc, etc) what we all need to relearn—yes, “relearn” is the right word because it’s clear we’ve forgotten—is that we’re all in this together.
Mindfulness (or awareness) is the first step in understanding our basic interconnectedness. Unfortunately, our busy lives and our culture often work against us in trying to develop this attentiveness. We rush around. We get caught up in our private problems. Our awareness of things larger than ourselves is diminished and then our perspective shrinks. We end up feeling all alone and crushed under a heavy weight.
It doesn’t help that American culture prizes independence so much—perhaps it’s the same for those who live in other parts of the post-industrial world? We all grow up learning that self-sufficiency is the greatest virtue. If a person can’t make it on her own, then something’s wrong with her. This emphasis on independence is good for providing us with the drive we need to be economically viable, but it can also leave us feeling alienated from others.
After watching this video and thinking about its message, I’m going to try to cultivate a little quietness and compassion in the weeks ahead…
This video reminded me of a conversation I had recently with a fellow academic, someone who teaches at AUC but in a different department than the one I work in. She is at least ten years younger than I am and thus at a different point in her teaching career. We were talking about how things were going, and she reported that she was really busy with all sorts of stuff, mostly consisting of projects she was doing to (and now I’m quoting her) “score some CV points.” Because of all these activities she was involved in, she rarely saw her husband, felt exhausted all the time, and talked about herself in such a way that I sensed she was being swept along by forces she had very little control over. I remember feeling a little sad as she told me her story.
I guess my colleague is proof positive that Dr. Laura Carstensen, founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, is on to something. Youth is a time of great stress. It’s a period when ambition sometimes gets us looking way out there, into the distant future, so that we often miss what’s right under our noses.
This video also surprised me. Before watching it, I, too, would have guessed that younger people are happier than their elders. As a matter of fact, I’m still not entirely convinced by what Carstensen says. She makes the point that youth is a time of great uncertainty. But aren’t all people, of every age group, uncertain, especially given the times we live in?
Anyway, she’s got me curious, so much so that I’m bound and determined to conduct my own experiment. I’m going to ask everyone I come in contact with if they agree with Carstensen’s conclusion. I’m truly interested in hearing what people have to say about this issue.
If she’s right, it’s certainly good news for someone like me. Actually, it’s good news for all of us.
