ON ANNE FRANK.
“For over two years, Anne Frank and 7 other people hid in around 450 square feet. Keep perspective.”
I’ve read this in several iterations over the course of this quarantine. Perspective is a beautiful thing. It is something that I pray for often. It’s something I try to teach my kids. It’s a huge reason that I think every American who is able should try to experience another country (or heck, even a community very different from your own).
I’ve learned so much from the time I’ve spent in Uganda. It felt like another world and it gave me so much perspective on life, humanity, America, and myself. I learned how wealthy I was. I learned how much I take for granted. I learned how very American my ideals were.
When I spent time in Italy, even just driving, I felt a difference in the way lifestyles influence traffic. America is busy and rushed and very “me first.” In Italy, there was a sense of “we’re all just trying to get somewhere alive.”
Perspective is important. However, I’ve noticed this trend of competition and lack of empathy in a bid for encouraging perspective. For example…
Young girl: “I am so exhausted.”
New parent: “You don’t even know what tired IS!”
If that’s the game we’re playing, should someone let the new parent know that there is someone, somewhere in a dictator’s POW camp who is EVEN MORE TIRED?
Where is the empathy? Why are we so obsessed with minimizing the pain of others?
The worst physical pain I have ever experienced was birthing my twins NATURALLY (because I was young and insane and trying my best to be a hippie). It hurt. It hurt really badly. But I’ve never sawed off my arm with a pocket knife to escape being pinned under a boulder. I’ve never been tortured in a war. I’ve never been crucified. Do I not know pain?
Everyone’s baseline is different. Everyone’s life experience is different. Everyone’s body chemistry and past trauma and reality is different. For some, this quarantine is a welcome break, giving them a fresh outlook on life and family. And for some, it was so isolating and hopeless, it pushed them to end their lives.
Perspective is important. Yes. Anne Frank CERTAINLY had it worse. But we’re not living in the holocaust. We’re not faced with hiding or we could be gruesomely murdered and ripped from our families. Currently, there’s a weird sense of things ALMOST being normal except there’s this silent, invisible monster that may or may not attack you or someone you love.
There is space for both perspective and empathy. For knowing that the way WE experience life isn’t the only way life is experienced. This extends to times of pain, times of exhaustion, times of uncertainty, politics, race, worldview, poverty…all of it. Life isn’t a competition. We’re all just trying to get through it.
