Episode 25

a pile of sorries

Transcript
Leela Sinha:

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. When I was

Leela Sinha:

in college, I read Ntozake Shange's 'for colored girls who

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have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf." And it

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transformed the way I thought about theater, the way I thought

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about public writing. It felt more like my writing, not that

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my writing is as good as hers, but it felt more like my writing

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than almost anything I'd ever read in academia. And it felt

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for the first time like, maybe I could have a place in

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literature, in writing, in poetry, in the creative lexicon

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of the world. And then I shoved that feeling as far down as it

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could go, because I was at a high powered liberal arts

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college and everybody knows that poets don't make money. But

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somewhere in there is a segment, a piece, a piece of the piece

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called "sorry," a stanza called "sorry." And it's about how you

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can keep your sorry. Because she can't use them anymore. She's

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got too many of them. They're everywhere. And they're

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meaningless. You should really go find that segment of that

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show. It's gorgeous. And I've been thinking about sorry, and

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shrugs, and thoughts and prayers, and the helplessness

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that so many of us are feeling right now. And the way that we

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want to be present with each other, at least, and so we do

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this thing where we like, heart react or care react, or offer a

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virtual hug, or... and, and I'm not saying that presence is, is

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not supportive, because many people- religious, academic,

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psychological people- have studied that and being

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witnessed, having someone be present with you, all of these

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things, these are elements of pastoral care. They're elements

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of psychological care. There's clearly benefit to being held in

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community or in another human beings presence, when you're

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going through something hard. That's, it's not nothing. And

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yet, sometimes it really isn't enough. And sometimes it drives

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the spike of isolation, even deeper, the spike of

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hopelessness even deeper, because, because what are you

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going to do with sorry? What are you going to do with I see you?

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or I hear you? or I feel you? or-- even that's valid, like:

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thank you for acknowledging my expression of distress. And

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also, what do I do with that? That's not going to pay my rent.

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And sometimes, that's all people want. You know, there's this

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whole joke about how men are fixers, and women are like

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presence-ers, and the number of unnecessarily gendered nonsenses

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in that stereotype is mind blowing. And I can't get into it

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here, or I'll get mad, and I'll talk for three hours, and nobody

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wants to be here for three hours. But what we do know is

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that some people do jump straight to fixing some of us

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are more solvers, and some of us are more accompany-ers. And yet,

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in certain moments in certain places in life and time and

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history, the

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solvers run out of solutions, like we don't we don't know the

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answers, we don't know, right this minute, what we can

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actually do, what will actually affect useful change. Or we know

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what would if we could get enough people to do it, but we

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haven't been able to get enough people to do it. And so even if

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we know that a certain number of legal changes, or administrative

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changes, or regulatory changes would halt climate change, we

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can't seem to get the right people together to do it. Even

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if we know what would keep the legal system of the United

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States from making a mockery of itself., we can't quite figure

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out how to do it. And as a result, our faith in ourselves

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and each other and the system we're in starts to fall apart

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and so even fewer people than usual are willing to offer

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solutions, partial solutions, support of that kind, because

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the problems feel insurmountable and insoluble and instead

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there's this pulling back. And this "I'm sorry, I hear you."

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And then silence. And you know what? That doesn't work. Like,

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we can't, we can't just pile up sorries around somebody and

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expect it to do something. We we've got to, we've got to come

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up with a better answer than that. And I don't mean, you

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know, substitute hugs for sorries, I mean, we need to

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actually come up with something, to do something of ourselves

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that we can offer. And when we're depleted, that seems

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impossible. It seems impossible. And for some people, prayer is

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doing a thing. And for others of us, we have an experience of the

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universe, that prayer is less intercedent than most people

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would like. And if you don't believe in that kind of

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intercedent, sacred experience, then you're unlikely to be able

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to feel it as support by itself. And so that's not really

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helpful. But, but more to the point when somebody is asking,

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when somebody is asking for help by describing a problem, it can

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be useful to ask them if they would like a listening ear, or

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if they would like solutions, or if they would like somebody to

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get in the blanket fort with them and shut up. There's a

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great dinosaur, I think it's a Dinosaur Cartoon. No, it's not a

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Dinosaur Cartoon. It's a different cartoon. There's a

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great cartoon that goes around periodically, of you know, well,

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are you feeling sad? Yes. Well, you know, would you like to

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raaaarr about it? Or would you like to, what would you like to

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do about it, and the person like, runs off a string of I'd

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like to do this, and then this and then this, and then they,

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the other person says, okay, and starts doing those things with

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them. It's good to ask, it's good to know what the other

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person wants. I'm not saying offer advice where it's not

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wanted. But I am saying when someone says to you, I need

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help. Says to you, I need ideas, Says to you, I need something. I

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need something specific. I need food, I need rent money. We all

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have power. I know I keep saying that on this show. But it's

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true. We all have power. We all have resources, we haven't

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thought about how to tap. And in the... in the idea that you're

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supposed to, you know, provide support to the person who's

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hurting the most. And then if that distresses you, go get

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support somewhere else. You can tap your network for ideas for

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how to help the person in the middle of the circle who's

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having the problem. You can say, Gosh, this person needs rent

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money, how do we get them rent money, this person needs a

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wheelchair, how do we get them a wheelchair. In my world, so

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often, the problems are that concrete. It's five hunder bucks

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between this person and mobility. It's five thousand

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bucks between this person and mobility. Let's get them what

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they need. I don't have five thousand bucks, but I have a lot

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of friends. And they have friends. And maybe everybody

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will pass it around. And if we get a thousand people to throw

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five bucks in the hat, guess what? We've gotten this person

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their mobility? And yes, we shouldn't have to do that. Yes,

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we should have better public health services, everything,

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everything but okay, but here we are, right? And this person

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needs mobility now. And so how are we going to get them

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mobility now. And other times, the questions are harder. Other

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times the questions are more complex. Other times, the costs

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are harder or their ongoing, which is harder to fundraise

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for, because people like to give to something they feel like they

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can complete or win, much more than they like to feel like

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they're giving to an infinite bucket of need. But the problem

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is humans are kind of infinite buckets of need. We all are,

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we're just variously blessed by what we have access to and how

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we can solve the problem.

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We need to start piling up sorries at the feet of people

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who are having problems that are concrete and solvable. And

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instead, we need to provide whatever we can provide.

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Sometimes what we can provide is in our heads, sometimes what we

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can provide is in our houses or in our yard, sometimes what we

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can provide is a refrigerator for someone who's about to

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become houseless, but needs their insulin stored properly. I

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almost did that for someone once that person died some years

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later, possibly because of a power outage and a lack of

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refrigeration. And I just wasn't in touch with them at that time.

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And I didn't know they needed it and I don't know if they asked

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for it again. Sometimes it's very concrete needs. Sometimes

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it's complicated needs. Sometimes the thing that is

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needed more than anything else is the ability to look at the

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situation from outside of it. Or the ability to say, Listen, it's

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okay to spend this money on this. Or if you need to spend

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this money on this, let's talk about how you're going to find

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it. Let's talk about how we're going to find it. You're not

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alone. You don't have to raise the money alone. You don't have

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to find the accommodations alone. You don't have to solve

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the problem alone. We'll work on it together. We've got you. It's

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not you. And it's not just you and your nuclear family. It's

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everybody that all of us can muster. And together, we're

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going to solve this problem for you. Do I wish that together we,

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as the United States, would solve problems? Yes, yes, I do.

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I wish we had universal basic income. I wish we had universal

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health care. I wish we had bodily autonomy for people with

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uteruses. But we don't. Right now we don't. And that doesn't

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mean that people in those situations should have to solve

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those problems alone. It means that we stop throwing a sorry,

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at the foot of the statue and walking away and instead...

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Instead, we find something to do. We find something to do. We

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ask them what they need. If they don't know. We help them

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brainstorm through it. We help them figure it out. Because when

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the people you ask for help, act helpless, you start to believe

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