Episode 25
a pile of sorries
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Transcript
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. When I was
Leela Sinha:in college, I read Ntozake Shange's 'for colored girls who
Leela Sinha:have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf." And it
Leela Sinha:transformed the way I thought about theater, the way I thought
Leela Sinha:about public writing. It felt more like my writing, not that
Leela Sinha:my writing is as good as hers, but it felt more like my writing
Leela Sinha:than almost anything I'd ever read in academia. And it felt
Leela Sinha:for the first time like, maybe I could have a place in
Leela Sinha:literature, in writing, in poetry, in the creative lexicon
Leela Sinha:of the world. And then I shoved that feeling as far down as it
Leela Sinha:could go, because I was at a high powered liberal arts
Leela Sinha:college and everybody knows that poets don't make money. But
Leela Sinha:somewhere in there is a segment, a piece, a piece of the piece
Leela Sinha:called "sorry," a stanza called "sorry." And it's about how you
Leela Sinha:can keep your sorry. Because she can't use them anymore. She's
Leela Sinha:got too many of them. They're everywhere. And they're
Leela Sinha:meaningless. You should really go find that segment of that
Leela Sinha:show. It's gorgeous. And I've been thinking about sorry, and
Leela Sinha:shrugs, and thoughts and prayers, and the helplessness
Leela Sinha:that so many of us are feeling right now. And the way that we
Leela Sinha:want to be present with each other, at least, and so we do
Leela Sinha:this thing where we like, heart react or care react, or offer a
Leela Sinha:virtual hug, or... and, and I'm not saying that presence is, is
Leela Sinha:not supportive, because many people- religious, academic,
Leela Sinha:psychological people- have studied that and being
Leela Sinha:witnessed, having someone be present with you, all of these
Leela Sinha:things, these are elements of pastoral care. They're elements
Leela Sinha:of psychological care. There's clearly benefit to being held in
Leela Sinha:community or in another human beings presence, when you're
Leela Sinha:going through something hard. That's, it's not nothing. And
Leela Sinha:yet, sometimes it really isn't enough. And sometimes it drives
Leela Sinha:the spike of isolation, even deeper, the spike of
Leela Sinha:hopelessness even deeper, because, because what are you
Leela Sinha:going to do with sorry? What are you going to do with I see you?
Leela Sinha:or I hear you? or I feel you? or-- even that's valid, like:
Leela Sinha:thank you for acknowledging my expression of distress. And
Leela Sinha:also, what do I do with that? That's not going to pay my rent.
Leela Sinha:And sometimes, that's all people want. You know, there's this
Leela Sinha:whole joke about how men are fixers, and women are like
Leela Sinha:presence-ers, and the number of unnecessarily gendered nonsenses
Leela Sinha:in that stereotype is mind blowing. And I can't get into it
Leela Sinha:here, or I'll get mad, and I'll talk for three hours, and nobody
Leela Sinha:wants to be here for three hours. But what we do know is
Leela Sinha:that some people do jump straight to fixing some of us
Leela Sinha:are more solvers, and some of us are more accompany-ers. And yet,
Leela Sinha:in certain moments in certain places in life and time and
Leela Sinha:history, the
Leela Sinha:solvers run out of solutions, like we don't we don't know the
Leela Sinha:answers, we don't know, right this minute, what we can
Leela Sinha:actually do, what will actually affect useful change. Or we know
Leela Sinha:what would if we could get enough people to do it, but we
Leela Sinha:haven't been able to get enough people to do it. And so even if
Leela Sinha:we know that a certain number of legal changes, or administrative
Leela Sinha:changes, or regulatory changes would halt climate change, we
Leela Sinha:can't seem to get the right people together to do it. Even
Leela Sinha:if we know what would keep the legal system of the United
Leela Sinha:States from making a mockery of itself., we can't quite figure
Leela Sinha:out how to do it. And as a result, our faith in ourselves
Leela Sinha:and each other and the system we're in starts to fall apart
Leela Sinha:and so even fewer people than usual are willing to offer
Leela Sinha:solutions, partial solutions, support of that kind, because
Leela Sinha:the problems feel insurmountable and insoluble and instead
Leela Sinha:there's this pulling back. And this "I'm sorry, I hear you."
Leela Sinha:And then silence. And you know what? That doesn't work. Like,
Leela Sinha:we can't, we can't just pile up sorries around somebody and
Leela Sinha:expect it to do something. We we've got to, we've got to come
Leela Sinha:up with a better answer than that. And I don't mean, you
Leela Sinha:know, substitute hugs for sorries, I mean, we need to
Leela Sinha:actually come up with something, to do something of ourselves
Leela Sinha:that we can offer. And when we're depleted, that seems
Leela Sinha:impossible. It seems impossible. And for some people, prayer is
Leela Sinha:doing a thing. And for others of us, we have an experience of the
Leela Sinha:universe, that prayer is less intercedent than most people
Leela Sinha:would like. And if you don't believe in that kind of
Leela Sinha:intercedent, sacred experience, then you're unlikely to be able
Leela Sinha:to feel it as support by itself. And so that's not really
Leela Sinha:helpful. But, but more to the point when somebody is asking,
Leela Sinha:when somebody is asking for help by describing a problem, it can
Leela Sinha:be useful to ask them if they would like a listening ear, or
Leela Sinha:if they would like solutions, or if they would like somebody to
Leela Sinha:get in the blanket fort with them and shut up. There's a
Leela Sinha:great dinosaur, I think it's a Dinosaur Cartoon. No, it's not a
Leela Sinha:Dinosaur Cartoon. It's a different cartoon. There's a
Leela Sinha:great cartoon that goes around periodically, of you know, well,
Leela Sinha:are you feeling sad? Yes. Well, you know, would you like to
Leela Sinha:raaaarr about it? Or would you like to, what would you like to
Leela Sinha:do about it, and the person like, runs off a string of I'd
Leela Sinha:like to do this, and then this and then this, and then they,
Leela Sinha:the other person says, okay, and starts doing those things with
Leela Sinha:them. It's good to ask, it's good to know what the other
Leela Sinha:person wants. I'm not saying offer advice where it's not
Leela Sinha:wanted. But I am saying when someone says to you, I need
Leela Sinha:help. Says to you, I need ideas, Says to you, I need something. I
Leela Sinha:need something specific. I need food, I need rent money. We all
Leela Sinha:have power. I know I keep saying that on this show. But it's
Leela Sinha:true. We all have power. We all have resources, we haven't
Leela Sinha:thought about how to tap. And in the... in the idea that you're
Leela Sinha:supposed to, you know, provide support to the person who's
Leela Sinha:hurting the most. And then if that distresses you, go get
Leela Sinha:support somewhere else. You can tap your network for ideas for
Leela Sinha:how to help the person in the middle of the circle who's
Leela Sinha:having the problem. You can say, Gosh, this person needs rent
Leela Sinha:money, how do we get them rent money, this person needs a
Leela Sinha:wheelchair, how do we get them a wheelchair. In my world, so
Leela Sinha:often, the problems are that concrete. It's five hunder bucks
Leela Sinha:between this person and mobility. It's five thousand
Leela Sinha:bucks between this person and mobility. Let's get them what
Leela Sinha:they need. I don't have five thousand bucks, but I have a lot
Leela Sinha:of friends. And they have friends. And maybe everybody
Leela Sinha:will pass it around. And if we get a thousand people to throw
Leela Sinha:five bucks in the hat, guess what? We've gotten this person
Leela Sinha:their mobility? And yes, we shouldn't have to do that. Yes,
Leela Sinha:we should have better public health services, everything,
Leela Sinha:everything but okay, but here we are, right? And this person
Leela Sinha:needs mobility now. And so how are we going to get them
Leela Sinha:mobility now. And other times, the questions are harder. Other
Leela Sinha:times the questions are more complex. Other times, the costs
Leela Sinha:are harder or their ongoing, which is harder to fundraise
Leela Sinha:for, because people like to give to something they feel like they
Leela Sinha:can complete or win, much more than they like to feel like
Leela Sinha:they're giving to an infinite bucket of need. But the problem
Leela Sinha:is humans are kind of infinite buckets of need. We all are,
Leela Sinha:we're just variously blessed by what we have access to and how
Leela Sinha:we can solve the problem.
Leela Sinha:We need to start piling up sorries at the feet of people
Leela Sinha:who are having problems that are concrete and solvable. And
Leela Sinha:instead, we need to provide whatever we can provide.
Leela Sinha:Sometimes what we can provide is in our heads, sometimes what we
Leela Sinha:can provide is in our houses or in our yard, sometimes what we
Leela Sinha:can provide is a refrigerator for someone who's about to
Leela Sinha:become houseless, but needs their insulin stored properly. I
Leela Sinha:almost did that for someone once that person died some years
Leela Sinha:later, possibly because of a power outage and a lack of
Leela Sinha:refrigeration. And I just wasn't in touch with them at that time.
Leela Sinha:And I didn't know they needed it and I don't know if they asked
Leela Sinha:for it again. Sometimes it's very concrete needs. Sometimes
Leela Sinha:it's complicated needs. Sometimes the thing that is
Leela Sinha:needed more than anything else is the ability to look at the
Leela Sinha:situation from outside of it. Or the ability to say, Listen, it's
Leela Sinha:okay to spend this money on this. Or if you need to spend
Leela Sinha:this money on this, let's talk about how you're going to find
Leela Sinha:it. Let's talk about how we're going to find it. You're not
Leela Sinha:alone. You don't have to raise the money alone. You don't have
Leela Sinha:to find the accommodations alone. You don't have to solve
Leela Sinha:the problem alone. We'll work on it together. We've got you. It's
Leela Sinha:not you. And it's not just you and your nuclear family. It's
Leela Sinha:everybody that all of us can muster. And together, we're
Leela Sinha:going to solve this problem for you. Do I wish that together we,
Leela Sinha:as the United States, would solve problems? Yes, yes, I do.
Leela Sinha:I wish we had universal basic income. I wish we had universal
Leela Sinha:health care. I wish we had bodily autonomy for people with
Leela Sinha:uteruses. But we don't. Right now we don't. And that doesn't
Leela Sinha:mean that people in those situations should have to solve
Leela Sinha:those problems alone. It means that we stop throwing a sorry,
Leela Sinha:at the foot of the statue and walking away and instead...
Leela Sinha:Instead, we find something to do. We find something to do. We
Leela Sinha:ask them what they need. If they don't know. We help them
Leela Sinha:brainstorm through it. We help them figure it out. Because when
Leela Sinha:the people you ask for help, act helpless, you start to believe
