Lest we forget how fragile we are

If someone were to ask me my all-time favorite song in the whole world, across all genres, the one that keeps coming back to me during different life stages, I would say “Fragile,” by Sting.

The instrumentals are haunting and ethereal, like floating through the cosmos or canoeing on a placid lake.

The lyrics are poetic, some of them a bit abstract, but its main message is the futility of violence and, as the name suggests, that we all share the undeniably human trait of being fragile.

And the beat, I just noticed, is a heartbeat.

Sting wrote it about an American engineer, Ben Linder, who was killed doing humanitarian work in Nicaragua, but Sting has said that the song’s meaning “changes yearly.” That seems to be the case for me, too.

Every single human on earth is fragile. The toughest skin on this planet can be pricked by the tiniest tip of a needle. We are all vulnerable. Our mortality gives all of us an Achilles heel.

We are varying degrees of fragile. Some try to appear less so, but nobody can escape it completely.

Is the answer to fragility more toughness?

Well, toughness is merely armor, and when armor is stripped down, only a fragile soul remains. The answer to fragility is acknowledging our common humanity and leaning into empathy, kindness, and compassion. True strength is seeing that the “other” person is just like us.

As a child, I was generally more sensitive and fragile than most. I’ve had to “toughen up” quite a bit, but there were times in my youth when I wondered if there was hope for me.

My kids laugh at me when I tell this story, but I think it’s relevant:

When I was in third grade, I opened the sack lunch my mom packed me. Inside, I found—rolled up in a swath of plastic wrap—an ugly tuna fish sandwich, made of a single, folded-over heel, and an appallingly small amount of tuna. I felt so sorry for the sandwich that I cried.

My classmates stared at me, and my teacher didn’t know what do after I told her several times, “I’m OK.” There was no way I was going to tell her why I was crying.

Here’s when my kids say, “You cried because the sandwich looked gross, and you didn’t want to eat it?”

And I say, “No, I cried because I felt sorry for the sandwich.”

Certain there must be more to it, they ask, “You cried because you were embarrassed about your lunch?”

Fair enough. The embarrassment theory wasn’t far off and was a persistent problem, but on that day, sympathy outweighed embarrassment. On that day, I cried because the sandwich was ugly, and I felt sorry for it.

“Mom, SANDWICHES DON’T HAVE FEELINGS.”

And I knew that, of course. I was an emotional child, not a stupid one. But at the time, I couldn’t quite pinpoint the cause for my tears.

As the years went by, I surmised some theories, and I took the opportunity to share those with my kids. Even now I feel vulnerable sharing them.

Maybe the sandwich represented my mom’s best efforts. She was so busy, frazzled, and tired all the time, her attention being tugged a million ways. Perhaps that sandwich was the best she could do in the moment, which to me felt overwhelmingly pathetic and sad.

Maybe the sandwich represented me, or rather, my mom’s perception of me. Was that sad little sandwich the best I deserved? I was the youngest child in my mom’s brood of ten. Was I an afterthought? The bottom of a long, long to-do list?

The sandwich triggered nothing less than a moment of existential crisis.

I don’t tell this story to garner sympathy. My parents loved me and cared for me. And they always fed me, presentation be damned.

I tell this story to illustrate a little bit about who I am, why I ache at the coldness of what I see happening in the news, and perhaps, to thank my lucky stars that I didn’t live in another time when I might’ve been locked up.

I’m like Sylvia Plath, who said, “I don’t know what it is like to not have deep emotions. Even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely.”

My sensitivity used to be a plague. Constantly being told, “You’re too sensitive,” and other such sentiments, coupled with the reality of living inside my head, made me believe I was deeply flawed and that my over-sensitivity was the source of all my problems.

I’m still a bleeding heart, and I own that, but I have hope when I see that I’m not the only one who cares about the state of things. Thankfully, the human trait of empathy is both emotional and analytical. Not just for us highly-sensitive folks.

I’m happy to have joined the protests, signs in hand, saying NO to these cruel ICE raids. NO to propaganda that has made immigrants the enemy. NO to unchecked power. NO to hateful rhetoric.

At the same time, it’s important to say YES to rooting out problems in society that need to be faced head-on. YES to radical humanity. YES to being a force for good. Things could change tomorrow if enough of us say…ENOUGH.

I have to believe, as Anne Frank did: “In spite of everything, I still believe people are truly good at heart.”

My sensitivity is a double-edged sword that will never let me live in peace. Sure, I cry for ugly sandwiches and cause myself a lot of grief, but I also can’t look the other way when needless suffering is happening in our country. When corruption is rampant and human rights are being violated.

It motivates me to DO something, however small, like overshare my thoughts on my blog, even though it will make me vulnerable and open to criticism. These days there are a million other things I’d rather be writing about, but I can’t. My Happy Fun Blog will be interspersed with shots of reality. It’s just going to be that way.

Maya Angelou said, “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.”

It seems I have empathy in abundance; it’s courage I’ll need moving forward. We all will. Courage to be wrong about some things. Courage to change our minds when necessary. Courage to love our ideological opposites. Courage to show our humanity.

Will we be brave enough to be fragile?