Latest / Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett / What We Send Into the Weave

Transcript

What We Send Into the Weave · Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: welcome back to Infinite Threads.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Bob.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, we started with a possibility.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: What if we're not quite as separate as we think we are?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: What if each of us is a distinct thread, yes,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: but still part of something larger,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: a weave made from lives touching lives in ways that we rarely get to see all
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: at once?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Today,
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to follow that idea somewhere more practical because if the weave is real,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then what we put into it matters.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not in some mystical scorekeeping sense either.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean the universe is sitting there with
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: a clipboard counting every nice thing and every bad mood.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that human beings carry things forward.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: We carry tone.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: We carry kindness.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We carry fear.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: We carry the way that someone treated us when we were vulnerable.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, without even realizing it, we hand those things to the next person.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Think about how easily a bad moment can travel.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Someone wakes up late, rushes out the door, and gets snapped at by a supervisor.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: That irritation follows them into lunch.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're short with the person behind the counter who has already had a rough morning.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Later, that person goes home with less patience than they had when the day began.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody planned any of that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: There was no conspiracy of misery.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: One little piece of hurt just simply kept finding another place to land.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: We know that happens.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: We've all experienced it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: What interests me is that the opposite happens too.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: A person walks into work already carrying too much and somebody notices,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: not dramatically and maybe they just bring them coffee.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they say, you seem a little off today.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Are you okay?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: That person breathes differently for the next five minutes.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Later, they have a little more patience with somebody else in the kindness It moves.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: It may travel through people who never meet the person who started it.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: that fascinates me because it means the effect of a loving act may not stop
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: where we can see it.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: The person we help may help somebody else.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: The child we treat with dignity May grow up expecting dignity to be part
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: of how people treat one another.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: The friend that we forgive may become a little less afraid of admitting
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: a mistake somewhere else.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: We may never know.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's one reason that goodness can feel so quiet.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Harm often announces itself.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: A broken thing gets attention.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Anger makes noise.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Cruelty leaves visible damage.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Kindness can disappear into a life so naturally that nobody thinks to trace where it came from.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: But disappearing from view is not the same thing as disappearing.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it simply entered the weave.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think we do this with language too.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Someone says something to us years ago and the sentence stays.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a wound.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're not good enough.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: You'll never do that.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to hear what you think.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: A few words can become a voice that we carry long after the speaker has forgotten saying.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we pick our words wisely.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: But there are other sentences.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in you.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Take your time.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be perfect.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Those sentences can stay too.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have one.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: A sentence that somebody gave you at exactly the right moment.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow it became part of the way That you kept going.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know I have them.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us probably do.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: That, guys, that is the weave.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not just people touching briefly, but people leaving things within one another.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that makes me wonder about the things I leave behind in a room.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not someday, but today.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: After a conversation with me, what does another person carry away?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: A little more ease?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: More tension?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Did I listen or was I only waiting for my turn?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of my problems.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Did I leave them feeling seen or did I make them feel like they were taking up too much space?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those things.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Those are uncomfortable questions sometimes,
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: but they're useful ones because none of us sends only love into the weave.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly don't.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: We get tired.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: We misunderstand.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: We speak too quickly.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: We drag yesterday's frustration into a conversation with somebody who had nothing to do with it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is part of being human, guys.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: The point is not to become frightened of every sentence we say.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: The point is to become aware that we have influence, even when we think we don't.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Awareness of this,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: self-awareness, gives us a chance to interrupt what should not keep traveling.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that may be one of the most important forms of healing that there is.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Something painful reaches us, and instead of automatically handing it forward, we stop.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: We look at it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: We say, this hurt me.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to make it somebody else's inheritance.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And doing that, that is powerful.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: A parent can do that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: A friend can do that.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: A whole family can change because one person finally recognizes an old pattern that
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And refuses to keep feeding it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: The original wound may not have been their fault.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: What happens next can still become their responsibility.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's not blame.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is freedom.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: We can't always choose what enters our thread.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: We have more choices about what we pass along.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think That's where love becomes more than emotion again.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Love becomes editing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that sounds strange, but we receive all kinds of things from life.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Some are worth keeping.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Some need to be understood before they go any farther.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some should definitely end with us.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: We inherit generosity, humor,
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: traditions, Ways of caring, little family sayings that make no sense to anyone else.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Keep those.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Those are to keep.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if what arrives is humiliation,
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: contempt,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: cruelty,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: or a habit of making people afraid, love can say, no, this thread changes here.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not erased, but changed.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that distinction matters.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: We can't pretend that wounds never happen, but we can refuse to make them instructions.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe healing is partly learning which things deserve continuation.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: That thought gives me hope because it means the weave is not fixed.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: We, we are making it now.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're weaving it now every day, not from scratch, Because we inherit a lot of material.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But our hands are still in it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: We decide whether old pain becomes new pain.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: We decide whether kindness gets another mile.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: We decide whether the empathy that somebody once showed us stops with us or keeps moving.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: That may be one of the most beautiful things about human connection.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: We can pass forward things that we did not invent.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody taught us patience.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: We use it with a child.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: That child grows up and uses it with a frightened friend.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the original person's patience has traveled decades and may be living
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: in people They never knew existed.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: How far does a life reach?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I asked that to you yesterday.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that there's an answer.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe much further than we think.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that should not make us feel enormous.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: It should make us gentle because small things travel.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: A harsh sentence might.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So might a moment of grace.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if I get to choose which one I want to give more momentum,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know which direction that I want to lean.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not perfectly, but intentionally.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's our choices, guys.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: We make the choices.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: We make the decisions.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's how the love force works through the weave.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't always arrive as some overwhelming experience.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it arrives as the pause that keeps a wound from traveling.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's in the kindness that does travel.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Love takes what reached us and asks,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: what do you want to do with this now?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's an ordinary question.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's an extraordinary question.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're not merely receivers of the weave.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: We are participants in it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: We alter what moves through us.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: We can soften something before we hand it on.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can add mercy.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: We can add understanding.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: We can decide that a particular form of harm has traveled far enough.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we can take the good that we've received And give it another life somewhere else.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: These are all choices we can make.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe nobody sees the larger picture while we're doing it.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all right.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll bet you'll start to see it as you do it.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: A thread cannot see the whole tapestry either.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: It only knows where it touches the next thread.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's enough.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I may not know where my kindness goes after it leaves me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I may never know who eventually receives some patience that began in a conversation
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: that I had years earlier.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I can still choose what I place into the weave.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so can you.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere beyond what either of us can see,
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: another life may be a little warmer because of it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys very, very, very much.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I need you to do.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Go out there and pass that on, okay?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Later, Gators.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome friends, enjoy the show.