Everyone Take a Deep Breath

When I joined the Peace Corps I knew I would have a unique experience. But I didn’t expect part of that experience to include watching the changing climate of American politics and events at such a distance. And from where I’m sitting, I think everyone just needs to take a deep breathe and relax. Please, for the sake of your own sanity and mine, take a step back and watch some cat videos.

Understand that I don’t mean to diminish the seriousness of any particular event or issue and I definitely don’t mean to trivialize anyone’s feelings. I completely understand why people believe this to be a critical moment in American history and that heightened emotions are completely natural. But it’s important to remember that you can choose how to handle yourself. You can react emotionally or you can respond reasonably. I see too many people choosing the former.

I had a unique perspective on what happened in Charlottesville because I was able to form my opinion without any outside input. I only get to visit an internet café once every few days at most and even then I can’t devote a large portion of the time to catching up on world events. Instead, I download podcasts and catch up on them days later to stay informed. But I happened to be in an internet café the morning of the protest and there was a headline about the upcoming rally. The article said that the demonstration for a statue the night before had created such a stir that people were coming from all over the south to protest and it was expected to attract 2,000 people to form the largest hate speech rally in 30 years. Initially, I felt some astonishment and began to be upset by it. But as I always try to do (often to a fault) I pushed the natural emotions aside and you know what I felt then? Happy. Let me explain.

The generations before me fought hard for equality, both legally and socially. They were outnumbered and had little institutional power. My generation has continued that fight and made great strides on a variety of fronts and for new demographics of people. Unfortunately, more often than not, we struggle to measure - and thus to think about - the impact. But here we have the largest hate speech rally in 30 years, a measurable metric, and it was a whopping … 2,000 people (and reports since have indicated there were significantly less than that). So while my initial reaction was, “this is despicable – who can I scream at for this,” as I removed my natural emotions my response became, “Wow, we’re winning and it’s not even close.” So I thought, let those people sit in front of their statue because it is literally and metaphorically coming down.

Once the story started growing to the point of being a moment this country won’t soon forget, emotions were high and people were upset. Emotions are natural and as I said earlier I’m not saying they aren’t completely valid. I’m simply saying that we should let go of them before we try to tackle any issue directly or we risk all sides throwing gasoline on a fire. But instead what I see time and time again, with Charlottesville as no exception, is people’s emotions getting the better of them. And when one person is emotional, it makes everyone else raise the level of their emotions, even when they are on the same side of an issue. They scream when they should speak. They argue when they should discuss. They call people names when they should be listening. I’m worried that the next step is that people will fight when they should love.

What we have to ask ourselves is what our goals are when we engage in dialogue about important topics. Are we trying to change someone’s mind? Do we want to learn something about our neighbors while trying to teach them something they may not know? Or do we simply want to be heard and have our opinion represented? It’s a difficult question with no single answer, but all of them are more effective when we can remove emotion from the equation. I think about some of the anger I’ve seen tossed towards the original protesters as well as anyone perceived to be standing near them and it’s not that I don’t understand wanting to spit fire their way. I just believe we should be able to win a war of ideas because our ideas are better, not because we screamed louder and called them worse names.

One of the most deeply introspective moments I ever had was when I watched an All American Rejects music video that showed real "PostSecret" submissions. One of them (appearing at 1:24 in the video) said, “I hate people that remind me of myself.” That one rang home for some reason. Those that know me well know that I can get emotional during arguments and perhaps that’s why I get so frustrated when I see it in other people. I’m not claiming to be righteous here – what I’m asking is something I need to improve on myself. But I promise I’ll continue to try to get better if you all promise to try too. So here's a cat video we can all watch the next time we feel our emotions creeping up while engaging in a discussion about a difficult topic.

BONUS #1: Here's a good video that shows how removing natural emotions can render such positive results that I think about from time to time. No one would have blamed the pastor for reacting with anger, frustration and/or fear, but he chose a different response and had a huge impact.

BONUS #2: A day after I wrote this, I happened to be listening to my intellectual hero Sam Harris' podcast with Robert Sapolsky and they discuss how emotions and rationality are biologically connected. On some level it contradicts my blog post because maybe what I'm asking is actually impossible, but I actually view it as a supplement. Acknowledge your emotions and then forgive yourself for them because it's pure biology that you felt the emotions to begin with. Extra credit if you listen long enough for them to get to freewill, which is also fascinating.