Seeking humanity in times of conflict: a skill

Growing up, I would watch the news and hear bold declarations of right and wrong, with scary stories and even scarier pictures convincing me the world is a dangerous place.

From time to time I would get wrapped up in a single stance, adopt a lens, and see the world through the side I had chosen. I would become angered and judgmental about entire groups of people and their viewpoints - taking everything quite personally and using it to fuel my own fears.

When I would try to engage my father in a conversation or debate, he would simply wave his hand dismissively and state, “It’s all just politics.”

Some perspective

My father grew up in the middle of a civil war in South Lebanon. This war took place only 50 years after another conflict which debilitated and ultimately killed half of the country - the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The civil war itself was ultimately a religiously-oriented, politically driven war between the Muslim and Christian political parties within Lebanon, however it was made much more complicated by the Palestinian - Israeli relationship which, for a variety of reasons and in a variety of different ways, created more fighting and violence within Lebanese borders.

When my father was a child, a bomb hit his home while my grandmother and her children were inside. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. The family fled across the country and rode out the next ten years in disjointed groupings dispersed to different locations - as my father and his eight siblings grew up.

If anyone has a billion reasons be angry at and suspicious of humanity, it’s my grandparents. The one incident with their house was not a unique situation, and in many cases family members and loved ones of theirs died at the hands of the fighting going on around them. For decades, they lived through the worst of what humans can create.

And yet, my grandparents are two of the most charitable, kind, loving people I know. My grandmother will, until her dying day, feed every single mouth that comes to her house and give money to every single person who asks. My grandfather insists on driving an extra 15 minutes to a gas station in a neighboring village because they gave a portion of their proceeds to charity.

These are just a few examples, but they highlight a clear choice that my grandparents made and continue to make. Even though their lives were disrupted, uprooted, and scarred by the war, they saw it for what it was - politics. And they refused to let the politics impact how they show up to the world as human beings.

We have a choice to make

Many of us are seeing politics play out in huge ways that we may not have ever personally experienced in our lifetimes. It can be chaotic, confusing, and painful. Each day brings more people to be angry at or pass judgements about.

And hey, I get it. I see it too. Even if you aren’t totally sure of exactly what’s going on, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that real damage, and real danger, is occurring.

However, it’s important to also understand that even we aren’t adding fuel to the fire through external actions, living exclusively in the anger and judgement can be just as damaging. When we let fear and vitriol build up within us, we are left feeling more afraid, more enraged, and most importantly - we start to believe that we are alone.

We may even begin to hoard our humanity - not out of ill will to others - but due to a survivalist mindset built on the misconception that other humans, as a whole, are dangerous.

I have been there, and I know others who have as well. It’s not a pleasant place to be. And even in the worst of situations, hoarding our humanity is entirely avoidable.

How do you want to show up in this world?

To take a page out of my father’s book, a lot of the pain we are experiencing right now boils down to politics. Pure and simple.

Are politics important? Yes. Many of you able to engage regularly on a political level and help shift the course of our future. That is crucial and amazing.

Can politics negatively impact our lives? Undoubtedly. And it’s really important to contextualize this entire conversation within the awareness of the very real impact politics can have on our environment.

However, even though humans steer politics, politics are not synonymous with the concept of humanity. Humanity is about, well, the human being. It’s about how your neighbor is a human being with joys and struggles and a family. And their family is comprised of human beings with their own set of joys and struggles.

Choosing to see humanity in a sea of political conflict is about seeing the person in front of you for what they are - a fellow human with successes and failures and good days and bad days. It’s about focusing on the similarities first, before acknowledging the differences (not vice versa).

It’s definitely a practice, and it’s not always easy.

Sometimes the fear, chaos, and pain of the moment can convince us that if we practice engaging with our own humanity and relating to the humanity in others, that we will be condoning all of the damage that person is contributing to or directly causing.

But that’s just not the case.

Plus, this isn’t about them. It’s about you.

The more you practice focusing on the human beings around you, on acknowledging them for who they are, on lifting them up when they’re down - the less isolated you will feel and the less afraid you will become.

And a reminder that a huge part of giving to others is receiving from others. So, if you are depleted and exhausted and are the one who needs lifting up - make sure that when others offer help or support that you take it. Often times, our own discomfort with receiving can lead us to lift others up at our own expense, which then perpetuates that feeling of isolation and fear. That’s not what we are going after here.

Leaning into your humanity means both giving and accepting help. The two are not mutually exclusive and both need to happen to complete the circuit.

I do not know what will happen next week, or next month, or next year. No matter what happens, in the midst of all the noise and chaos, we all get to choose how we are showing up to the world and who we are being in it.

It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be confused. It’s even okay to be bitter. But the more that you can develop a connection to your own humanity and the humanity of others - especially in the dark moments - the more you’ll actually have access to walking through this world in integrity with your own values.

At the end of the day, when it comes to your life, that’s really what matters.