A Lesson from Lear

                            “Expose thyself, to feel what wretches feel.”  

-William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Act III, Scene iv

It’s good advice for any of us.  The only way to really understand the point of view of “others” is to walk a mile in their moccasins, experience what they experience, see life through their lenses. Truth is ultimately made up of our experiences, what we have seen and felt.  If we have never exposed ourselves to the reality of others, as well as our own, we will never have the knowledge to move closer to the truth.

Most immigrants seek to enter this country for reasons which have nothing to do with terrorism or destruction.  In fact, most immigrants would prefer not leaving their own homelands at all.  But the prospect of losing family members to the violence of war or the ravages of hunger will overshadow nearly any other consideration.  What wouldn’t you be prepared to do for the protection of your child, or spouse or parent?  Necessity is the mother of invention, perhaps especially when it comes to survival.

It might be instructive for the billionaire leaders of our new administration to encounter hunger or violence face-to-face, for a personal understanding of what’s behind many of the immigrants’ motivations.  For example, I have found sharing a meal of egg and tortilla- when such food might well represent the entirety of a host Nicaraguan family’s larder-  to be an educational, humbling and emotional event.  I’m fairly certain that our new President has never wanted for clean water, so maybe a visit to areas of Central America where clean water is an absolute rarity could provide an alternate view on trading water security for oil pipeline routing in the Dakotas.  (Along the way, he might find himself grappling with the question of why some of the pipeline was re-routed after wealthier folks to the north expressed alarm that the pipeline ran too close to their own properties and thus needed to be located elsewhere.  Like where the Native American reservations are.)  Actually, a second trip into Mexico could be a useful journey for the new President if, this time, the stay included a hike into a barrio where most of the inhabitants are poor; it could provide a different slant on Mexico’s ability to pay for a wall, one that would serve the U.S. border.

I like the idea of being “first.”    In many ways, it’s encoded in our DNA to strive and succeed.   Competition has been the engine which has brought about many of the most important inventions and discoveries in human history.  I readily confess to having lived a good share of my life in this mindset.  It wasn’t until my first venture into an impoverished world that I was able to truly “feel what wretches feel.”  The awakening might not have been pleasant, but it was important.

That experience provided the insight to understand that being first is not only a hallmark of success, but a label of obligation.  When we are first, we have the duty toward the last.  In fact, we need the last to be with us, to advance with us, to complete us.  How the poorest of the world’s humanity lives is not a reflection on them, but upon the rest of us.  It is not only the elite members of the new U.S. presidency who could use exposure to the rest of the world’s realities.  After all, a presidency is presumably a reflection of its constituents.  Rather, such perspective is needed in all of us, each of us,  who claim to be seeking truth as part of the human journey.

A shared vision is only possible with a shared experience….

 

 

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