the Roam

A lot of people have asked me about what I have learned on the road this summer. The expectation seems to be I will respond with something insightful, spiritual and mystic.

The most important lesson I learned is more obvious.

A pattern developed in my interactions with people along my journey. Ironically the kindest people where the first to warn me of the others ahead. The others to be feared, to be careful of, to guard my possessions and well-being against. The neighborhoods of west Columbus, north Cincinnati, east St. Louis that I should go out of my way to avoid. I thanked people for their advice and of course never headed a word of it.

No one ended up threatening me or stealing from me. There are people who would do others wrong given the chance, but I only found people who were quick to fear these hypothetical threats and not the threatening people themselves.

This fear that limits our understanding of our fellow man, that labels them other, that aims to protect us against them, is not a fear I wanted to carry on my journey. It was too heavy a burden to carry with all the dictations to route and stress to psyche the fear entails.

If I had let myself be swayed by the warnings of others I would never have found a Civil War prison and training camp in east Columbus, or smelled the amazing BBQ pits of east St. Louis, I would have given myself a vanilla experience of same and safe.

Same and safe pit us against those who are different. Meaningless distinctions of race, class, nation gain power over our ability to reason. Everything becomes a fight, every other person becomes an enemy, and life becomes a struggle to selfishly protect what is ours.

Watch this clip from Louie. He says it better than I can.

We can’t spend our lives worrying about how much we get and fearing that others may take some of ours.

That is a struggle I don’t need or want. The results are too horrific.
We have seen all too well what happens when fear creates a government afraid of its populace and a populace afraid of those who are supposed to be their protectors.

Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Edward Snowden, Israel and Palestine, Guantanamo there is an endless list of horrible situations that arise from our fears, our pervasive us vs. them mentality.

We live in a world of dwindling resources, lacking in compassion and reason, and overflowing with conflict. We can’t afford to continue to indulge fear and seek to protect only our own brood, defined by race, nation or class.

We are not the 99 percent or the 1 percent. We aren’t Israeli or Palestinian. We are just the people. The people who damn themselves with their petty fearful divisions. We aren’t discrete wandering tribes anymore. Since the moment we sowed the first field we committed ourselves to communal living. So far we have done a horrible job with the opportunity.

I haven’t conquered my own fear. Every time I see a disheveled person on the street I’m scared, not for my well being but for them to waste my time and ask for me to share from my cup which runneth over and that is a shameful fear to carry. I can only do my best to work against it going forward.