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“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars...”
Let me tell you a story. Several years ago, I was on a plane out of San Francisco and headed for Los Angeles. My watch told me we weren't even halfway there when the plane started to backfire and buck like a bronco. All around me, people were in panic mode, and several were praying to God. I did neither. I wasn’t trying to act like the stoic CIA assassin, Jason Bourne; it’s just that I was going through a checklist of options. That's something I’ve trained myself to do over many years of dealing with adversity and it has become second nature to me.
I realized that I had three options, all of which were out of my control. My first option was that the plane would crash, and I would die. I had to believe that the pilot knew what he was doing and even if he didn't; I wasn't going to spend my last moments worrying about it. My second option was that the plane would crash, and I would end up doing a reenactment of Humpty Dumpty. That would mean months of recuperating and physical therapy as I struggled to bring myself back to my current physical condition. I had done it before, and I was confident that I could do it again. My final option was that the plane would land safely in which case, I had nothing to worry about.
I could tell that the woman sitting to my right was getting nervous as I closed the sliding shades on the window next to me. At the same time, I could see the sun slowly moving down the row of open windows across from me. We were turning and heading back to San Francisco. As you’ve probably guessed by now, we landed safely.
So why have I told you this story? Because the actions of the people on that plane were a perfect representation of how humanity reacts when faced with a crisis. Don't get me wrong, fear isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is an emotion that can serve as a launching pad for unimaginable acts of courage. When faced with a crisis or the threat of a crisis, basic human nature is to utilize fear over logic.
But fear can also cause us to become reactionary and illogical in the absence of a crisis, such as when political rhetoric and religious issues challenge our preconceived beliefs of the way things are or should be. We constantly fight over things we believe in and those we don't. It has been this way since civilization began. I'm pretty sure that at some point while sitting around the communal fire, cavemen realized that they could use their clubs in ways that had nothing to do with hunting for food.
As we get ready to enter a new year, I find myself asking the same question I ask every year around this time. Can we be fixed? Will we ever stop conflicts that erupt over present-day power, greed, religious, and political differences before they irrevocably destroy the futures of generations to come? To quote Shakespeare's ‘Julius Caesar,’ “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” I wish all the underlings who read this weekly blog, a very happy new year. I will close as I close every week — You’re not just a human being; you are a representative of the human species.
The Writer
