11-19-18
Thanks to the current political state I find myself in yet another cycle of the West Wing. There’s a moment when Leo McGary, the Chief of Staff and supervisor to Josh Lyman, shares a little anecdote with Josh. He says:
“This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.
“A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.
“Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on
“Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.'”
That action is an astute description of compassion. Placing the comfort and security of another at the same or higher level than your own. It’s a remarkable feat. I’ve always appreciated the adage from above: over the years I’ve heard retold a number of different ways, with a myriad of other characters offering help, but this was the first way I had ever heard it. The specific use of the doctor and the priest resonated, as those archetypes with the strongest representations of authority for a good portion of my life. The symbolism of them offering no more that passive action correlated with what I would come across and see in real life. The friend being compelled to help their buddy out, that also makes sense.
We have all likely felt moments of strife where a little compassion has helped more than anything else would. It’s in actions like this that we also find our own personal resolve. In sharing compassion with others, we can hope to build the necessary tools to share compassion with ourselves.
Lyrics:
The rain, it started tapping on the window near my bed
There was a loophole in my dreaming so I got out of it
And to my surprise my eyes were wide and already open
Just my nightstand and my dresser where those nightmares had just been
So I dressed myself and left then, out into the gray streets
But everything seemed different and completely new to me
The sky, the trees, houses, buildings, even my own body
And each person I encountered, I couldn’t wait to meet
And I came upon a doctor who appeared in quite poor health
I said, “There’s nothing I can do for you you can’t do for yourself”
He said, “Oh yes you can, just hold my hand, I think that that would help”
So I sat with him a while, then I asked him how he felt
He said, “I think I’m cured
In fact, I’m sure of it
Thank you, stranger
For your therapeutic smile”
So that’s how I learned the lesson that everyone’s alone
And your eyes must do some raining if you’re ever going to grow
But when crying don’t help, you can’t compose yourself
It’s best to compose a poem
An honest verse of longing or a simple song of hope
That is why I’m singing, baby don’t worry, cause now I got your back
And every time you feel like crying I’m gonna try and make you laugh
And if I can’t, if it just hurts too bad, then we’ll wait for it to pass
And I will keep you company through those days so long and black
And we’ll keep working on the problem we know we’ll never solve
Of love’s uneven remainders, our lives are fractions of a whole
But if the world could remain within a frame like a painting on a wall
Then I think we’d see the beauty, then we’d stand staring in awe
At our still lives posed
Like a bowl of oranges
Like a story told
By the fault lines and the soil