Latest / Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett / We Still Belong to One Another

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We Still Belong to One Another · Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett

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  [music]
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: guys, welcome back to Infinite Threads.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Bob.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've spent this week asking one question.
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  SPEAKER_00: What?
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  SPEAKER_00: What is still human here?
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  SPEAKER_00: We began with the baby before the opponent.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then we talked about the things that people carry that we can't see.
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  SPEAKER_00: We remembered that every stranger is somebody's person.
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  SPEAKER_00: And yesterday,
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  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday,
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  SPEAKER_00: we looked at what reaches us through other people and asked whether all
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  SPEAKER_00: of it deserves to keep moving.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today, I want to bring the week home with the idea underneath all of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: We still belong to one another, and we do.
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  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that everybody has to agree either.
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  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that every relationship can be repaired,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it certainly does not mean that healthy boundaries should disappear.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean something more basic.
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  SPEAKER_00: Human beings become themselves through other people.
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  SPEAKER_00: Somebody taught us language.
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  SPEAKER_00: Somebody showed us what affection looked like.
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  SPEAKER_00: Somebody somewhere helped shape the way that we see the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: That begins almost immediately.
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  SPEAKER_00: A baby looks into another face and starts learning whether the world feels safe.
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  SPEAKER_00: Years later, we're still looking for some version of that same recognition.
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  SPEAKER_00: We want to know that somebody sees us.
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  SPEAKER_00: We want to know that our life matters somewhere beyond our own heads.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is part of why division hurts so much.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not only disagreement.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's the feeling that another person no longer recognizes anything human in us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Once that happens, conversation changes.
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  SPEAKER_00: We stop listening for meaning and start listening
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  SPEAKER_00: The other person becomes something
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  SPEAKER_00: to defeat instead of something to understand.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think, I think we're capable of better than that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not perfect agreement by any means, just recognition.
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  SPEAKER_00: You are here.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am here.
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  SPEAKER_00: Your life is real to you in the same way that mine is real to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: That alone changes the way that we can disagree.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can oppose something that you believe without pretending your whole life is worthless.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can protect myself from your behavior without erasing your humanity.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can decide,
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  SPEAKER_00: decide that we should not be close and still hope Something better becomes possible
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  SPEAKER_00: for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's not weakness.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is discipline.
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  SPEAKER_00: Contempt is easy once we feel justified.
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  SPEAKER_00: The harder choice is to hold onto your own humanity when somebody else makes us angry.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's part of belonging too.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't belong to one another because everybody behaves well.
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  SPEAKER_00: We belong to one another because none of us exists In isolation, our choices move outward.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our words affect people.
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  SPEAKER_00: The way we treat one person can change the way that they enter the next room.
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  SPEAKER_00: That, that is the weave in ordinary life.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is the person, it's the person who raised us.
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  SPEAKER_00: The stranger who helped us once and then disappeared.
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  SPEAKER_00: The friend Whose voice still lives somewhere in the way that we speak.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are made partly out of contact.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that means separation is never quite as complete as we imagine.
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  SPEAKER_00: Even the people that we disagree with are part of the same human world we are.
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  SPEAKER_00: We may want very different things.
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  SPEAKER_00: We may argue over how to get there.
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  SPEAKER_00: But underneath many of those arguments are recognizable human concerns,
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  SPEAKER_00: safety, belonging, a decent future for the people that we love.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those shared concerns don't erase our differences.
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  SPEAKER_00: They remind us that the differences are being carried by human beings.
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  SPEAKER_00: That matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because once we forget that, almost anything can be justified in the name of winning.
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  SPEAKER_00: But if I remember that you belong to the same human story that I do,
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  SPEAKER_00: there are lines that I become less willing to cross.
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  SPEAKER_00: I may still argue hard.
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  SPEAKER_00: I may still say no.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I don't need to become cruel to prove that I'm serious.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think we confuse cruelty with strength far too often.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're not the same thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the stronger act is refusing to become what anger is asking us to become.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that means stepping away before an argument turns ugly.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means admitting that we were wrong about somebody.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means refusing to repeat something about a group of people that we know is unfair.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those are small choices, but they help keep the human part alive.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I like the phrase, we still belong to one another because belonging creates responsibility.
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  SPEAKER_00: If another person's life has nothing to do with mine, Then I can shrug at almost anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: Connection changes that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to personally know someone before their suffering matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to understand every part of their life before I can care whether they're safe.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what empathy keeps teaching us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Other people are not real only after they become familiar to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: They were already real.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our awareness simply caught up.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what this entire week has been about.
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  SPEAKER_00: Catching up.
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  SPEAKER_00: Remembering what was always there.
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  SPEAKER_00: The opponent had a beginning.
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  SPEAKER_00: The stranger has a history.
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  SPEAKER_00: The person who hurt us may have inherited pain of their own.
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  SPEAKER_00: None of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: None of that erases responsibility, but it simply expands the picture.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when the picture gets larger, our response can become wiser.
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  SPEAKER_00: Human beings love simple stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: Us, them, good person, bad person.
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  SPEAKER_00: But real people rarely stay inside of those boxes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone can disappoint us.
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  SPEAKER_00: And still be capable of kindness.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone that we thought would never understand can surprise us.
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  SPEAKER_00: A stranger can show us more grace than someone that we've known for years.
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  SPEAKER_00: The categories just never quite hold.
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  SPEAKER_00: A label can describe part of a person, but it cannot contain them.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is why I wanted to call this week The Human Things.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because beneath all the arguments and identities,
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  SPEAKER_00: there are experiences that we recognize almost immediately.
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  SPEAKER_00: That we've been through.
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  SPEAKER_00: A parent frightened for a child.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone grieving a person they loved.
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  SPEAKER_00: A human being relieved to discover that they are not alone.
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  SPEAKER_00: We understand those moments because some part of us has been there too.
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  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't solve everything.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are serious conflicts that require serious decisions.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are people who will not respond to kindness.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are times when protection has to come before reconciliation.
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  SPEAKER_00: But even then, I don't want us to lose sight of what we're protecting.
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  SPEAKER_00: Human life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Human dignity.
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  SPEAKER_00: The possibility that people can become more than the worst thing they have done or
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  SPEAKER_00: the worst thing that they currently believe.
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  SPEAKER_00: If we lose that, guys, we may win an argument and lose the reason that the argument mattered.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, as we finish this week, I keep thinking about where we started.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where is that?
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  SPEAKER_00: It's the baby.
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  SPEAKER_00: The baby.
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  SPEAKER_00: Before the opponent, before the label, before there was an argument to win.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just a human life beginning.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then that life met other lives.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some brought love.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some brought pain.
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  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, that baby Became somebody standing in the world today.
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  SPEAKER_00: So did we.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the common ground.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not that we all agree, but just that none of us got here alone.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are products of connection and we continue shaping one another, whether we mean to or not.
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  SPEAKER_00: That gives us a choice.
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  SPEAKER_00: We can add more contempt to the world or we can choose to protect the human thread
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  SPEAKER_00: that still runs through it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that thread will be thin and sometimes we will barely be able to see it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I believe it is still there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think you do too, if you think about it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as long as it is there, there is something
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  SPEAKER_00: Worth reaching for.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not agreement at any cost.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not pretending everything is fine.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just the recognition that underneath everything else, we're still dealing with one another.
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  SPEAKER_00: Human being to human being.
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  SPEAKER_00: We still belong to one another.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I love you guys very, very much.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to have a great weekend.
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  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I need you to do?
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  SPEAKER_00: Go out there and pass that on, okay?
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  SPEAKER_00: Later, Gators.
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  SPEAKER_02: Bye-bye.
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  SPEAKER_02: Here
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  [music]