DUKES FANS:
“If given a choice between facts and myth, most people will choose myth.”- writer Ishmael Reed
“It is the intangible things that matter most to people; that holds us together as individuals and as groups. Faith, hope, fear and love move people to do things they would otherwise be unable or unwilling to do.” - Anon.
When I was a teacher my 8th grade class was an interdisciplinary course focused on the history of civilization. It looked at this lifestyle from the first civilization that started in what is now Iraq until the fall of the Roman Empire. It also looked at how this lifestyle is similar no matter where or when or the planet it appeared. We started the course by brainstorming, reading about, and exploring ideas of just what it means to be a “human being,” and what it is that enables us to somehow hold together in groups and societies. We concluded that all humans need to be in groups, and that it was the need to survive that inspired us to form groups; we were safer and more productive in them. But we also realized that it was the intangibles of human behavior and thinking that helped us stay in groups. Things we couldn’t see or hold somehow lead us to trust other humans, work with them and even sacrifice for them.
In all societies one of the most important of those intangibles was the universal existence of “story "and “myth.” No, not “myth” in the sense of false or made-up, but myth in the sense of an essential set of stories providing identity, belief, a sense of place and belonging and a guide on how to live for humans living in groups. It can be called, religion, faith, belief, a practice, philosophy, or folklore; It looks different in different parts of the world, at different times, and depending upon who is doing the looking. But it is essential to being human. We need to do it and to have it, for what it does is give humans a sense of place in the universe and provides guides on how to maintain that place. It is one of the key parts of what we call our” identity, “and it enables us to hope.
I am thinking about that because in my last newsletter I mentioned Baltimore’s American Visionary Arts Musuem as one of my favorite and most inspirational places, and I provided links to some of their past exhibitions. The one that I have looked at a number of times over this past week is, The Big Hope Show, the exhibit that celebrated the start of the second decade of the museum’s existence and was probably one of its most ambitious offerings. My wife and I were very awed and affected by that exhibit when we saw it in 2016 and looking again at the introduction to it and some of the displays from it on the museum website brought back many of those feelings.
The exhibit looked at “hope” as one of the defining characteristics of what it means to be human and as something humans need in order to survive. Through a variety of media, words, and images, this exhibit fully explored that idea, linking people such as Emily Dickinson, John Waters, a survivor of an armed robbery, a person waiting over a decade for a kidney transplant, someone who spent decades in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit, and many more. It also offered definitions of what hope is and can be and provided examples of what it does to and for humans. Seeing this again had me vividly thinking about the ways hope has held groups together and inspired change in societies. The Civil Rights Movement and the constant movement of peoples from one part of the world to another are and have both been kept alive and driven by this thing called “hope.’ The idea that women can do what used be thought of as “men's jobs” is likewise driven by that. And that intangible has motivated change throughout all the centuries we have been on this planet and on every continent on which we humans have settled. It has led to and continues lead to important positive changes in all aspects of human life. life as we know it would not exist without it.
Seeing the exhibit again also made me reflect on the ways having the gift of hope has helped propel me forward throughout my life, whether it has been inspired by parents, family, spiritual things, my friends, heroes, books, and/or music. In fact, it has been and is all of these things and more that inspire it, and it continues to help me do much more than just “survive” in this universe.
Hope is one of those necessary intangible things that somehow turns up in all different ways and in all different times and places to help us humans. It is one of those things we can’t see or touch, but it serves to let humans be human. It keeps people alive and moving forward even in spite of all the logic and “common sense” that can argue against doing just that. It is one of the things that draws groups together, gives them strength, and helps maintain many of them, even in unbearable situations such as the Holocaust and the Cherokee Trail of Tears. It enables us to dream and act to become different and better people, different and better groups, and even different and better societies. I have a longtime friend named Charles who is a few years older than I am. When I see him and ask him how he’s doing, he often says, “I’m still becoming.” Hope, indeed.
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I invite you to look at the introduction and images from the Big Hope Show:
Here Is a link to a trailer of a documentary about Herman Wallace, the man featured in the show who spent over three decades in solitary confinement in Louisiana:
To those of you who are new to the mailing list and curious about previous newsletters, go to our website and click on “John’s Blog”
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