A Spectrum of Behaviors
All of us who are tuning into news and/or media are seeing the photos. Depending on where our political and social views are at, some photos will make us angry while others will fill us with hope and gratitude. You’ve seen the images. On one side there are the mask-shunning, partying crowds on beaches and in pools. On the other side there is the grandparent & grandchild separated by a pane of glass, with masks and distancing prominent and on proud display. Or, if not a parent & child exactly, some sort of brave and compassionate person, perhaps a healthcare worker, suited up to fight the war against COVID-19. Images, images, images…set up and captured to evoke strong emotions about what is happening and who/what is to blame and whom we should praise (and quite successfully so, I might add).
Then there are the images in between, which you probably don’t see as often on news websites or social media, that are far more likely to be seen “live in person” by you (they’ve certainly been seen by me lately). These images are more nuanced and harder to summon a lightning-quick, emotional reaction to…maybe the backstory is much more complicated than the eyewitness can possibly know, or maybe the line of sight is poorly lit or harshly angled so as to render the scene more dramatic (good or bad) than it actually is. If the scene is a social faux pas (e.g. mask off, standing too close, or rubbing one’s face), maybe that is the one 3-second mistake the otherwise flawless person has made all day…and maybe there are good reasons behind the mistake that I don’t know about. If the scene is heroic or at least mildly admirable (e.g. giving others wide berth, or masking up even when inconvenient), maybe the person is normally a wretched, inconsiderate, spitting, spewing bag of germs most of the time…and maybe the heroic act is far more self-serving than I will ever know. The point is we can’t know a person from a few seconds, even a few minutes, of observation. And unless we happen to perfectly witness the person committing a crime or saving a life, we certainly aren’t in a position to deliver a profound judgment on them, whether good or bad, whether high praise or damnation.
But we do anyway. We judge. That’s just human nature, just as it is human nature to make mistakes, become complacent, or even convince ourselves however momentarily that this is all just a manufactured crisis and there aren’t any real consequences to going around maskless and unwashed because have we ever actually seen anyone die from COVID-19 with our own two eyes? The point is we are human, and I have to admit as bad as quarantine is it is making me see the humanity of all the millions of strangers surrounding me. It is making me see that each of us is far more complex, robust and dynamic than a snapshot or Tik Tok can convey (isn’t Tik Tok just Vine remarketed for kids?), whether that snapshot is of us at our best, our worst, or in one of the trillions of spots in between.
Maybe the next time I want to rush to judgment on a person, I will remember this. And maybe the next time I’m tempted to stumble or sit down, or I’m slow to jump up and do what’s right, I’ll put myself in the position of observer and wonder what I would think of myself, if this was all of myself that I could see.
Bike Newbie 