A Good Read: Doing Something That Won't Compute
The following piece was written by ICC Steerer Priscilla Berggren-Thomas
The words of John Donne’s poem, No Man is An Island, keep running through my head. It requires a lot of translation for me with its man, man, man, mankind refrain. Yet, it speaks so eloquently of our connections to each other. Of how the loss of any life – I’d say not just human, but animal, plant, a species, a forest, diminishes all of our lives. “Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.”
No Man Is An Island By John Donne No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend’s were. Each man’s death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.
With all the commentary about Charlie Kirk’s assassination in the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about our interconnectedness and how the loss of any life actually does impact us because we are all connected simply by being alive. But what I keep coming back to is not how a death may diminish us, but what do our lives do? Our lives can diminish other people’s lives. Or we can endeavor to live lives that lift others up.
In the end how we die, when we die, matters less, I think, than how we lived. I want to be able to say at the end – or have others say – that my life enriched others. Whether that enrichment came through a career dedicated to helping, or dedication to taking care of foster dogs, or creating art that changed lives, or planting trees doesn’t matter so much. What matters is living a life that cared for someone else. That practiced kindness. That raised others up.
October 14th has been chosen by Republican congress members as a day to honor Charlie Kirk, a man whose life was dedicated to actively diminishing many of us. I’ve been trying to think of something else to do on the 14th – to as Wendell Berry says in his poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front:
So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor.
October 14th is also William Penn, Hannah Arendt, and George Floyd’s birthdays. Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, who said, “I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” Arendt, the German historian and philosopher, who wrote, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, or true and false, no longer exists.” George Floyd, who’s brutal killing at the hands of the police helped catalyze the Black Lives Matter movement. These are the people and lives we should be honoring every day.
Maybe this October 14th we should all do something that doesn’t compute: an act of service, a day of volunteering, planting a tree, anything that expresses connection and lifting others up. Or if a day of expanding your mind helps, read about Penn, or something by Arendt, or a book about Black Lives Matter – so that we can honor those whose lives made a difference for others.
A few suggested readings:
The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Sister Outsider: Essay and Speeches by Audre Lorde
The Summer of 2020 by Andre Johson and Amanda Edgar
Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis
Or read a poem by Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Amanda Gorman, Adrienne Rich, Ross Gay, Mahmoud Darwish, Miguel Morales, or Kate Baer. Let their words pull us up short, orient us anew, and move us toward an acts of kindness that only we can do.
