Nourishment
sinking ships, imploding submersibles and what this has to do with us
There’s a note on a torn piece of paper I found in the bathroom of a bar I worked in that says the following:
“Offer nourishment to others whenever you can; it will only make your plate more full.”
-Veignetti
Now, if search engines didn’t exist, I’d think Veignetti was a philosopher from a time before. But since search engines do exist, I can tell you that the closest I’ve been able to get is the name Mario Vegetti, and the quote, so far as I can tell, does not exist. At least, it is not attributed to him.
Nevertheless, I have carried this note around with me for the better part of seven years, first in my wallet, then on my nightstand, and now it lives on the fridge. It’s made its way into my canon.
I found it slid between the mirror glass and frame as if it were waiting for me. Perhaps it was.
This week, five people died aboard a submersible off the coast of Canada while chasing a dream. Thousands of miles away, in a different sea, hundreds of people died trying to escape a waking nightmare.
Most of my news feed has been reporting the same stories, one after the other: first, the missing submersible; next, the outrage at the rescue effort being made for five billionaires as compared to the relatively small rescue effort being made for hundreds of refugees; next, reports of a debris field and the closing of a case; finally, the full story of human beings, desperate to escape tyranny, met with further disaster on an overcrowded fishing boat.
This has been the week of June 19, 2023. I don’t need to tell you that bad things happen, or bore you with my opinions on what should be happening and for whom and when and how. There’s plenty of that. Public opinion is loud, just open your own news feed.
Lots of jokes about orcas.
What I do want to talk about is this snippet of paper I’ve been carrying around.
Reports say there were pathetically few attempts to rescue the people aboard the trawler off the coast of Greece. They also say there were 13 hours between when authorities became aware of the boat and it sinking.
That’s a lot of time. Plenty of time, in fact.
The reasons the tragedy reached tragedy status are listed in the news, and they are
unpleasant to entertain, legal concerns not the least among them. Survivors tell of neglect, mishandling and being plainly ignored. Hunger, panic, terror, violence.
My first observation is that the incident in the Mediterranean happened five days before the incident in the Atlantic. It was half a world away, which may be a grain of salt. One might argue that distance contributed to the time it took for American media to get a hold of it.
But news travels fast.
My second observation is a question: what if? What if the submersible had not gone missing, therefore eradicating the comparison between the two?
If we let each stand alone rather than comparing the rescue efforts, I think each incident says a lot about our cultures.
In the United States, we like impressive things to the point of overlooking quality. We’re always following the dangling carrot, and the worst part is we know it. To some degree, I think the feeling of invincibility is bred into us.
If you can buy it, why not buy it? One might say capitalism has blinded us to the real cost of things. I’ve written about this before and I’ll write about it again: the customer is not always right. The customer is very often a glutton–for clothing, for food, for the satisfaction of being waited on. The customer likes to feel important.
This is not value. This is greed.
Which brings us to a small handful of very rich folks boarding a small vessel in hopes of getting a glimpse at something very few people have ever seen. The Titanic rests at 12,500 feet below sea level, where sunlight cannot even reach it. I understand the novelty.
It was a joy ride gone wrong. What I’ve seen and read suggests the risk was clear and evident, and these folks decided to go anyway. Their choice.
Meanwhile, fueled by desperation, several hundred refugees boarded a trawler in the Mediterranean. The risk of overcrowding a boat outweighed the cost of staying in a place where safety does not exist. In the United States, few of us understand the weight of that kind of desperation. This was still a choice, but it is not the same.
When faced with starvation and worse, I might have chosen to jump aboard an overcrowded fishing boat as well.
What does this have to do with nourishment?
One of the most difficult parts of being young, for me, has been accepting that cruelty plagues the human race. Not accepting cruelty, mind you. Accepting that it exists.
Nourishment is the opposite of cruelty. Where cruelty aims to destroy, nourishment aims to feed, which leads to growth. Growth is not always quick. Cruelty often is. Growth is not flashy, does not happen as a show. Cruelty is on stage.
How do we accept the fact of cruelty? And then, how do we begin to nourish this system away from it?
We’ll likely have to get pretty quiet. We might even need to walk away from Omelas, as I like to say. Setting dollar signs aside and instead opting to nourish one another on an individual basis and, slowly, on a global scale.
Less raging on stage, more putting our money where our mouths are.
I’ll offer this last bit of nourishment going into this week, the week of June 26th, 2023: no matter who is drowning, dying or suffering around the globe, the first link in the chain of evolution is yourself.
Growth cannot be forced. As Alduous Huxley urged, “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly.”