Don’t be Afraid

My school was in a “temporary” building that had been there since the 1950’s. It was finally rebuilt in 2008. The old building had its charm, however, because the kids decorated the outside with art projects (officially) and graffiti (unofficially). My favorite was on the wall just as you approached the school: happiness is only real if shared.

There are so many things that are scary at the moment. COVID-19 is one, but all the repercussions for the economy are also frightening. There are so many things to worry about: climate change, oligarchs and dictators running half the world and tech giants the other half.

Meanness is in the air. This is to be expected. More and more people are going to need to share fewer resources. We’re going to fight over them, because that’s how humans have always been.

There is only one way out. We must work on being kinder and caring for one another. We are only as strong as our weakest members, and the best measure of success is how well we take care of those who are vulnerable.

Here is one solution to that. Every generation learns from what has come before. We don’t start out having to reinvent the wheel all the time. We send kids to school so that they learn what has come before in the realm of physical knowledge: the periodic table, thermodynamics, human biology, math, art, music, literature. We don’t start over from the beginning.

Why can’t we learn to do that with emotional intelligence, too? If we’re going to survive, we need to make that a priority. We’re smart, folks, we can do it!

It’s a prickly subject, but it’s worth looking into.