More or Less?

Leela Sinha: 00:00:04

The world seems to have an awful lot of trouble

Leela Sinha: 00:00:06

staying out of trouble these days. When I was a kid, I

Leela Sinha: 00:00:13

learned this thing called "Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board".

Leela Sinha: 00:00:16

It was a party game of sorts, a holdover, probably, from ancient

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magic passed down through children's hands and children's

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eyes. And we would all gather around one child and chant

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"light as a feather, stiff as a board, light as a feather, stiff

Leela Sinha: 00:00:33

as a board," and each lifting with just two fingers, one on

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each hand, we would lift their body up into the air, and it

Leela Sinha: 00:00:40

would seem weightless. Weightless. Of course, it's

Leela Sinha: 00:00:46

weightless. If you take a small child, and then you lift them on

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the fingertips of ten or twelve children all squished shoulder

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by shoulder next to their body. It was never clear to me how

Leela Sinha: 00:01:03

much work the child being lifted had to do to stay stiff. I don't

Leela Sinha: 00:01:08

remember if I ever got my chance in the center of the circle or

Leela Sinha: 00:01:12

not. And if I did, how much work I put into not collapsing. But

Leela Sinha: 00:01:18

it was like magic.

Leela Sinha: 00:01:24

Recently, there were several more mass shootings. Several

Leela Sinha: 00:01:27

more, as though it was several more strawberries that I found

Leela Sinha: 00:01:31

at the farmers market, or several more pieces of trash

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that I had to pick up off the street. But this was several

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more mass shootings with dead bodies, many racially motivated

Leela Sinha: 00:01:42

killings. And history comes back around to repeat itself and

Leela Sinha: 00:01:52

comes back around, and comes back around, and comes back

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around. And it has at this point, come back around so many

Leela Sinha: 00:02:01

times, and I have been so disappointed by people that I

Leela Sinha: 00:02:05

believed could and should know better and do better. That this

Leela Sinha: 00:02:11

time I just looked at the news and said "yeah." That's all I've

Leela Sinha: 00:02:17

got. That's the only word I have left. Yeah. Yeah, that's

Leela Sinha: 00:02:22

happening. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Every day. Yeah. Yeah.

Leela Sinha: 00:02:25

Several yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. I start to

Leela Sinha: 00:02:29

sound like one of those, those creatures from the Muppets,

Leela Sinha: 00:02:32

those aliens that moved around the house going "uh huh, uh huh,

Leela Sinha: 00:02:36

yep. Uh huh." Yep. Uh huh.

Leela Sinha: 00:02:47

And people are sick of me saying, "Yeah." They look at me

Leela Sinha: 00:02:51

when I say "yeah," and they act like I should have something

Leela Sinha: 00:02:54

else to say. But you know what? I am fresh out of words. Because

Leela Sinha: 00:03:00

at this point, this is not an accident. This is not

Leela Sinha: 00:03:02

happenstance, this is a choice. This is a choice that we are

Leela Sinha: 00:03:06

collectively making, to keep killing people for who they are,

Leela Sinha: 00:03:10

for going to the grocery store, for trying to breathe. This is

Leela Sinha: 00:03:15

our collective choice. And it pains me so much that I want to

Leela Sinha: 00:03:23

rip into the body of which I am a part and rip myself out.

Leela Sinha: 00:03:30

Because I cannot bear that I might be part of the heart that

Leela Sinha: 00:03:34

beats or the hands that hold the gun. This is our choice. This is

Leela Sinha: 00:03:42

our collective choice. And we must collectively choose

Leela Sinha: 00:03:48

differently. Because, "yeah," is not any kind of answer. It's not

Leela Sinha: 00:03:52

any kind of response. It's not any anything but it is what is

Leela Sinha: 00:03:57

real right now. Yep. Yep. That's how we act. Yes. That's how I

Leela Sinha: 00:04:01

expect us to act. No, it's not the best we could do. But it is

Leela Sinha: 00:04:07

the best we are doing. Because it is what we are doing. And we

Leela Sinha: 00:04:12

are here. And it seems impossible. It seems

Leela Sinha: 00:04:20

insurmountable. It seems as heavy as tons and tons of bricks

Leela Sinha: 00:04:28

dumped from tons and tons of distructions and bombings of

Leela Sinha: 00:04:36

brown and black bodies that didn't matter. Didn't matter

Leela Sinha: 00:04:43

enough to save, didn't matter enough to protect. But, but just

Leela Sinha: 00:04:50

imagine, just imagine. All of us. All of us gathered around

Leela Sinha: 00:04:58

that pile of bricks. That pile of bricks on a stretcher, that

Leela Sinha: 00:05:05

pile of bricks on a board. Imagine all of us gathered

Leela Sinha: 00:05:09

around the bricks, shoulder to shoulder as tightly as we can

Leela Sinha: 00:05:12

fit in, and then squeeze one more in and one more in because

Leela Sinha: 00:05:15

so many people want to be part of the lifting, and then we

Leela Sinha: 00:05:19

stick our fingers underneath those bricks and maybe we even

Leela Sinha: 00:05:22

use two fingers each because this is a heavy load and then we

Leela Sinha: 00:05:25

start to chant "light as a feather, stiff as a board, light

Leela Sinha: 00:05:28

as a feather, stiff as a board, light as a feather stiff as a

Leela Sinha: 00:05:30

board." Can we lift these bricks up? Off the people they are

Leela Sinha: 00:05:35

crushing? Is that worth more or less?

Leela Sinha: 00:05:48

Is that worth more? Or less?

Leela Sinha: 00:05:57

Than a cup of coffee at Starbucks?

Leela Sinha: 00:06:06

Or you being able to shut the door to your own heart?