66. Embarrassing Joy

Day 66. Embarrassing Joy

     I heard about something rather disturbing the other day. My Mom asked me if I had heard about the woman who was bullied on the bus by young boys. I hadn't, because unless it has to do with rainbows and butterflies...I simply cannot handle it at this point in my life. I cannot watch the news. I cannot look at any kind of news websites, and sometimes, even things posted on Facebook are alarmingly disturbing to me. We live in an age where we are constantly bombarded with negativity. We as a people are plagued with too much information. And that, in my humble opinion, breeds fear. I mean, think about it, you can't even buy a container of Morton's salt anymore without having the word: CANCER plastered in huge pink letters across the front. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for organizations that raise money to find cures for things like cancer. However, I just feel like it's information overload. You can't go through one day without being reminded that there are terrible things like cancer, flesh-eating bacteria, shootings, murders, child molesters...the list is literally ENDLESS. It is exhausting. To constantly be bombarded with fear, doubt, and information.

     So, naturally, I hadn't heard about this poor woman. After talking to my Mom, I watched a short portion of the video. I turned it off halfway through...around the part where the woman started crying. I was in awe. Dumbfounded. How. How are there children like this out there in the world. The answer is simple. Adults. Parents. Elders. We are raising a generation of children to be fearful, to be negative, to be selfish, to be mean. To think of themselves before all others.

     After watching the short bit of video...I recalled something I had read by Douglas Adams. In his book called, The Salmon of Doubt, there is a short story called, "The Rhino Climb." I am not normally a fan of science fiction...this book just caught my eye years and years ago. I'm glad that it did. This particular short story is about Adams and a small group of people that go to Kenya to support Adams's sister, Jane, who was doing work for Save the Rhino International. Their quest was to climb to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro taking turns wearing a rhino costume. He says that they come across this one village where,

"the whole village had turned out to greet us with enormous enthusiasm. We sat and watched, panting in the heat and sluicing ourselves with bottled water, as children of the village put on a display of dancing and choral singing that was, frankly, amazing. When I say children, I'm not just talking about seven-year-olds, I'm talking about seventeen-year-olds as well."

     They stayed for a bit, and when it came time for them to leave, this is what Adams writes about the experience. And it has always stayed with me, and struck me...these words,

"When at last we left, the children danced along with us for several miles, laughing and singing improvised songs--one of them would start, and the others would quickly pick it up and join in. The words seem oddly dated, don't they? It all sounds rather naive and sentimental to be talking about children laughing and dancing and singing together when we all know perfectly well that what children do in real life is snarl and take drugs. But these children/kids/youths, and all the ones we came across on our journey, were happy in a way that we in the West are almost embarrassed by."

    Perhaps...if we as a people could stray from the mainstream...and become like these children who were, "happy in a way that we in the West are almost embarrassed by," the world wouldn't be such a scary place. And things like an old woman being bullied on a bus wouldn't happen.


     I am so forever thankful that I have the family that I do. And for my daughter...who teaches me daily to forget the negativity, and to focus on joy in life. She is my inspiration. My sunshine. And she makes me want to laugh and dance and sing in a way that some might be embarrassed by.