"The Golden Rule, a version of which is appears in all major spiritual and ethical traditions, may be the most narcissistic of our moral codes, with its assumption that others want done unto them the same things we ourselves want. One measure of love — perhaps the greatest measure — may be the understanding that another’s needs, as incomprehensible as they may appear to us and as orthogonal to our own, are a fundamental part of who they are; that to love someone is to love whatever they need to be their fullest, truest self rather than a projection of who we imagine or desire them to be."
Who knew that a Biblical tenet most Christians take as a foundational principle of goodness, might not be that? So opines Maria Popova, the author of philosophical essays about poetry and life.
It's that season again, the first day of the last month of the year. I am reminded of a gorgeous image of the setting sun pictured here, one that I took standing on the balcony of Nepenthe Restaurant in Big Sur a few years ago. Most of us consider December an auspicious time to wind down, think about new beginnings, and plan our New Year's Resolutions.
I'd like to think about Popova's point, but before we can begin anything new, typically we have to let go of something else. I think that "something else" partakes of the desire to be "right" or "one up" on someone else. "Something else" is that kind of black-and-white thinking against which I've railed before, and which I am constantly struggling to diminish in how I think and write.
It also partakes of often not being aware that due to narcissism, when we want to connect with, or as psychologist's might say "attach to" others and get our way or the love we missed in childhood or think we deserve, we suffer. There is a quick way to get over suffering that I have found, and that is to realize as Popova says, that we often only imagine who the other person is.
This point was brought home to me recently by a close woman friend suffering greatly because of stress from incompatibility with her boyfriend. When he finally ended their relationship, she suffered more. However, I could easily see that she was not suffering from who he was, but from who she imagined and wanted him to be. In a reversal of the Golden Rule, she wanted him to treat her in the way that she perceived she was treating him.
Allowing someone to be who they are is an act of honoring them. So, too, is letting go of trying to control others.
A trans friend is stressing over a felt need to "come out" to her family. That's understandable, considering that transphobia is rampant, and evident in the current Republican party and President-elect No. 47. A significant number of Republican members of our federal House of Reps recently devolved into a tizzy and spent tax payer dollars huffing over which bathroom to assign to Sarah McBride. McBride (pictured here with President Biden) is the admirable, humanistic, well-spoken, first-ever trans Congresswoman (from Delaware). The flap transpired despite something under 1% of the US population being transgender.* (N.B. I purely appreciate this humanist-profeminist podcaster from the deep South, Tennessee Brando, who does a superlative job deconstructing the astronomically overblown transphobia of MAGA members who apparently are being duped by No. 47s opposite personal behavior).
Rather than continue in an endless loop of stress, I suggested to my trans friend that she let go of concluding in advance of any discussion that she would only get a negative response from her family. That expectation does not honor the independence nor expect the best, rather than the worst, of the recipient of her news.
I'm not suggesting in the New Year that she or we devolve into being Polyannas. An ounce of prevention - and realism - are better than a pound of cure. "Trust - but verify". I used to advise my clients when I was a defense lawyer, "before you decide to go to trial or to settle your case, consider if you can live with the worst case scenario and then the percent risk of that (any good, experienced lawyer worth her salt will be able to estimate risk for their client). Then make the best decision you can make."
Honoring others also involves just showing up, especially when we don't want to or know that we will suffer, too. The most gorgeous evocation of showing up I found in the words of Rabbi Sharon Brous. She described a Jewish ritual involving two circles of people, one moving in one direction, the other in the opposite direction. At a signal given when two individuals meet, the circle stops and the designated person briefly shares a current or recent sorrow. The other person simply listens then responds with a few words of support and empathy from the heart, then the circles move on until the next signal, and the ritual continues.
The Rabbi says that:
"Small, tender gestures (like in this ritual) remind us that we are not helpless, even in the face of grave human suffering. We maintain the ability, even in the dark of night, to find our way to one another. We need this, especially now."
I was inspired in my former blog about the Rabbi, to conclude that "showing up and listening are required. A ready diagnoses of others, or negative self-talk, are not apropos."
During this auspicious month of change and New Year's Goals (I don't write "resolutions"), I want to remember what is not apropos. I don't want to stress about downsizing a burgeoning closet of unneeded clothing and material goods, which must be accomplished in 2025 without fail, but focus on remembering what I write here.
After all, I generally write poems and blogs to cement and remind myself of a personal understanding and my values. Especially now, as the Rabbi says, in the current oft-depressing political environment that has negatively affected and disappointed so many of us humanists, I need this reminder.
I hope we each give and receive many tender gestures in the New Year. I wish you a bright beginning of a new day in 2025, like the one portended in this rare colorful sunrise in our typically foggy mornings in San Francisco.
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*I was fascinated to run into this Journal of the Medical Association October 21, 2024 article reporting on research about the percent of doctors and related medical personnel who self-identify as unspecified or no gender indicated, and it amounted to a bit over 1% for non-medical health personnel and well under1% for doctors.
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