The Grayness of Human Beings

A couple of months ago, a patron at a Chicago White Sox game made some very meanspirited and personal remarks to Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte, and the fan was subsequently banned from all MLB games indefinitely. Reports are that the 22 year-old was “very apologetic and remorseful,” which is promising; I hope he uses this unfortunate experience as an opportunity to recalibrate his life. I also hope that Major League Baseball doesn’t banish the fan for life, or even for a year, but rather invites him back to enjoy baseball with his regrettable indiscretion behind him.

People can be cruel. People can be dumb. The world is run by cruel and dumb people, for crying out loud. But I’d also like us to give people a little more leeway than what is often offered on social media, podcasts and YouTube. Lord knows that if I were held accountable for all the stupid shit I spouted as a 22-year-old, I’d be banned from all sorts of businesses, websites and homes – including my own! I’m wiser today, I’ve smoothed out some of the rough edges, and I try not to utter every stupid thought that pops into my brain.

As we look around the world today, on the news or on internet comments or social media, we’ll witness words and actions that exemplify the worst of humanity. If we look a little harder, we’ll also see words and actions that exemplify the best of humanity. It’s so easy to observe the worst in someone and use it to summarize their entire being. One false action, one slipup of a remark, one viewpoint that doesn’t correspond to our own, and WHAMMO! You’re now an asshole. A pariah. A “them.”

This isn’t the best way to go through life, for it too easily distills a complex human being into a one-word pejorative. I’ve had discussions with my children about this. There is a celebrity who’s done some amazing things but who’s also made some remarks that my children don’t agree with. This celebrity is now banished from their lives, relegated to the island of assholes who aren’t worth their time, which is unfortunate, because it doesn’t address the full human being; it cherry picks the one thing that they find abhorrent and ignores all the good they’ve done.

People are gray, sometimes impressing us with their words and actions, and sometimes letting us down. Goodness knows that I don’t always live up to my highest ideals. There are a multitude of words and actions from my past that I wish I could take back, but it would also be wrong for someone to take a few of those words and actions and make a blanket statement about who I am as a person. I am more than my missteps. I’m also more than a guy who holds a different viewpoint that you do about a particular subject. It’s OKAY to have an opinion that doesn’t align with yours.

People are numbskulls. People are geniuses.
People are despicable and amazing.
They’re pathetic and inspiring.
They’re disappointing and promising.
They’re mean-spirited and kind, cowardly and brave.
People are dishonorable and commendable, capricious and steadfast,
stingy and generous, hypocritical and trustworthy.
They’re hateful and loving. Weak and strong. Lazy and indefatigable.
They are painfully serious and side-splittingly funny,
They’re boring as hell and engrossing.
They are black and white and red and orange and yellow and brown and…
GRAY.

Let’s try to refrain from painting a broad brushstroke about someone’s entire being based on one or two things that we don’t appreciate. Okay?

A Christmas Carol and Embracing the Good We Do

Imagine attending a performance of the Dickens play, A Christmas Carol, except that this time it contained new information. Yes, Ebenezer Scrooge still finds his redemption toward the end of the play, but in a brief narrated postlude we learn that his kind and loving employee, Bob Cratchit, made a serious moral blunder just before dying at a young age. What moral blunder, you ask? Something short or child abuse, rape or murder, let’s say, but a detestable thing nonetheless, a very regrettable act. Which character – Scrooge or Cratchit – would we view in a better light? The one who brought misery to others for most of his existence except for a flash of philanthropy towards the finish line, or the one who lived a noble and loving life except for a flash of regrettable conduct toward his finish line?

Finish lines matter to us. When it comes to sports, it might be all that matters. I’ve often thought it’s a shame that as a fan you can experience jubilation for 8 ½ innings of baseball or 55 minutes of football, only to sour if the opposition scores six runs in the bottom of the ninth or two touchdowns in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, as if the previous joy you experienced never happened. It’s the ending that matters; the team that performed well for 90 percent of the game is a failure, and the team that performed poorly for 90 percent of the game is a success.

But what about human life? Is the finish line the be-all and end-all?

About twenty years ago I composed the following couplet:

Are we measured at the grave?
Or by the weight of equal days?

I had been contemplating the ability for humans to redeem themselves, to make up for past transgressions and finish life morally strong, perhaps with the hope that posterity will judge them for how they’ve completed the race rather than how they ran it. By contrast, if each of our days is weighed the same, then a poorly-lived life can never be overcome. If this is the case, then the legacy of a character like Ebenezer Scrooge would be far different than the one portrayed in the Dickens classic. Sure, we might applaud the miser’s late-life efforts, but we’d still condemn him for everything that preceded it.

I like to think that when it comes to the art of being human, we can view things less black and white than we do a sports game, granting ourselves and others a bit of latitude and allowing us to have it both ways.

Are we measured at the grave?

Yes. How horrible it would be to live life without believing in redemption, the ability to correct our errors, steer back on course, make up for past transgressions and strive to finish life with more wisdom and better conduct than preceded it. Without this, all of us at times would be unable to face another day.

Or are we measured by the weight of equal days?

Yes. How horrible it would be if we couldn’t take stock of the good we’ve done even after making a terribly regrettable act and happening to discover that our time has run out, that we’ll be unable to finish life the way we’d hoped.

As we begin the new year, let’s try to have it both ways: embrace all the good you’ve done and strive to do more good, and embrace all the good others have done, regardless of where they end up. After all, some never have a chance to redeem themselves. If Ebenezer Scrooge had died at the first site of Jacob Marley’s ghost, he never would have had a chance to rectify all the wrongs he’d committed.

Life can be tough. Let’s try to grant ourselves and others all the generosity we can muster.