Apologies to Chiyo

With an upcoming trip to Tokyo, I decided to listen to a book I read a long time ago and remember liking —“Memoirs of a Geisha.” It is not easy to listen to, this tour of the ravages of Patriarchy and women’s complicity in salting the wounds of its cruelty rather than massaging each other and plotting resistance. The constant insults and beatings and just plain meanness that mark each day in this house training Geishas is testimony to the notion that human beings are the most wretched species to walk the face of this earth. Whether the setting takes place in Japan or China or South Africa, in Germany or Australia or Chile or the United States, our determination to make each other miserable all leads inexorably to two choices: 

 

1)    Our default setting is cruelty. We win the game by being the victorious attackers rather than the pathetic victims. Kindness is weakness, caring for others is ridiculous when you have to watch out for Number One. 

 

2)   Our deeper default setting that awaits our awakening is kindness. Cruelty is weakness, narcissism is toxic to both the community and the narcissist, deferring to meanness is cowardness.

 

Comparing these stories I read to my actual experience in the world and the quality of the people I meet and hang out with is what gives me hope that against all odds, we have evolved significantly and are continuing to move closer to our God than our Devil. Each day in my life is an indisputable testimony to this truth— especially in the classes I teach, but also in the neighborhood clean-ups my wife organizes, the alum teacher gatherings hiking out in nature, the No Kings Rallies I attend. 

 

The change we are all desperately awaiting does not just come from the voting booth, but from the switch in default setting that makes kindness the norm and cruelty the aberration. I’m not naïve— recent events expose how very far away we are from where we need to be. But also how much closer we’re getting. 

 

I only wish this had happened earlier for poor, suffering, abused, Chiyo in her geisha house.