No man is an Iland,
intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if
a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a
Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were;
any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
MEDITATION
XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne
~
“No Man is an Island”. The notion is that we are all an
essential part of a Whole, that the loss of any one of us diminishes us
all. Time and again, through the
recidivist folly of mankind we see this brought fully into the light, when we
fail to recognize the Islands, and cast them into the sea to make ourselves
larger. While aware that there is a Whole, we are wont to erode the beaches of
others, thinking that we alone matter. It is our nature.
It comes in small, and it comes in large. It comes in the
body politic wherever people gather, every single relationship a struggle for
power and control. It requires no words, though they are often slung against
reason as scythes, it can be a glance, an act, an attrition, “the silence of
our friends”, “the words of our enemies”.
It is out of the mind of the workplace psychopath, friend to all, enemy
to all, the one voted best in class while Machiavelli takes admiring notes. It
is in the murmur of underlings who despise the good Prince for being smarter,
more than they. It is in the eyes of the unaccomplished seeking station through
intrigue or rhetoric to make themselves whole, to assuage their insecurities. It
is the foggy bottom of kindness returned with disparagement, with the making of
another into a less than, the bully and the stone. It is in claiming the
narrative as one’s own. History is not writ large, but rather small and
perennial as we lack imagination and use the same hammer to strike at
everything we see as nail to build ourselves.
All of us have clods of ourselves shorn and tossed.
To the Island, however diminutive or expansive, complete or
broken, being part of the Whole is the reason for the sea, that we can be part
of it all, valued. How does this parcel come to belong, becoming an essential
element of the Whole? Who ordains belonging? Who outcasts the wretched? When we
work so hard and fearfully to gain union, why do we not miss a moment to wash
away another who is clinging to our shore awash in those same fears? Is it
human nature to stand on the necks, rather than the respected shoulders of
those around us? Eyes wide with empathy and compassion when someone else lifts
another, while in the next breath diminishing Sisyphus, placing our foot
against the rolling stone as he reaches the top of the mountain as if it is our
place. We are terrible beings capable of great things, stuck in the mud of our
own oppressive nature for fear of being less than.
Take no solace in being aware of this. Be not of the
character to shoot first, to gain the first narrative at all costs, to form the
chess moves in mind as you plan three, four steps ahead of another for your
gain and not theirs. See others taken off the board, tipped to the checkered
square, being able to do nothing but adapt to their lessened place in the game
in anger and frustration for having been leveraged. Have no wish to control
another to grow, but rather to make your respectful and graceful path towards
the Whole depending on others to do their heavy lifting as is their task,
lifting when it is yours. Whatever you
do, it is important that you do it well. If we depend on you, we will make
demands of you, and this does not make you less than, for yours are the
shoulders that all of us depend on, just as ours are there for you. That you
might feel less than is the chip on your shoulder, not ours. Do not project
this fault of your character as a fault of our character. It makes you base. Be
responsible for yourself, your success and failures are not always of your own
making, but they are yours to endure with grace. If someone hurts you, be
graceful, if you help another be humble. This is the mettle defines who we are,
not that we are adept at intrigue.
The rising tide lifts all boats. That we cannot appreciate
this is our weakness, for we fear that there is not just the success of others,
there are our own failures. Our character is the piecemeal assemblage of our
innate being, shaped, carved, burnished, into the person we are now. Those who
grow will not be that person tomorrow, but whether we are better, or not,
depends not just on us, but those around us, those other Islands who are the
Whole. An Island is warmed by the sun and blue sky, and then the hurricane
strips it bare, it is washed in rain and burned in fire, and yet it persists,
changed, better or worse. Do not for a moment think that, if the others cannot
stand your fierceness you should stand your ground, for by and large they will
bring you down to make you equal; there is no room for the eccentric now, no
place for the different, we all must pretend, act our part. How then does an
Island move to surround themselves with those who recognize their unique
colors, not as a threat but as a contribution to the palette? That… that is the
mystery of life. Finding it is the joy
of life.
So, when the bell tolls for you, in your time and place, if
you have done well, there will be so many who are better than you for your
having been, and you are not one iota less for having known your place. Be at
peace with that knowing that you helped someone else belong to the Whole. But
know your place, and do your thing well.
“In the End, we will
remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
~ Martin Luther
King, Jr.
“Whatever you do will
be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“No one can make you feel inferior without
your consent.”
~
Eleanor Roosevelt
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