On compassion

Good afternoon, Monday. I'm back in New York and worked on a fun shoot yesterday- but I'm weary and happy to be just hanging with Khan today, at home, in the air conditioning. We just walked the neighborhood and it's wayyyyy too hot to be out and about- so it's a perfect day to unpack my bags and chill out a bit.

On Friday morning, I woke up to catch my flight and heard the news about the Aurora shooting. As i watched the story unfold and packed my bags, I felt shaken to the core, as all of us did in the hours that followed. For some reason, I started thinking about my mom, and how her generation must look at what's happening in complete and utter disbelief. Senseless killings are not exactly new, but this mass killing of innocents by lost young people feels too much like a barometer of the times in which we live, this digital age of hyper connection on one level (24/7/365) yet somehow completely disconnected and void of real emotions at the same time. What have we done?

Inevitably, we think about things like the need for gun control, which I of course support, but if we take away the guns, there will be knives and who knows what else- and just because we tell people they can't have guns does not in any way mean they willl stop being able to get them. After all, we know drugs can kill and are illegal- but everyone knows how easy it is to get them if you really want to. I'm not sure this is just about easy access to firearms, it's way deeper than that, and it has penetrated our society like a plague.

As someone who does not have children, I may not be particularly suited to dispense parental advice. But we've become a nation of one uppers when it comes to our children and ourselves- it's all about getting into the right schools, eating the right foods, fixing our faces, shooting ourselves up with botox, saying the right things, having the right jobs, furthering our own careers, running marathons to get our bodies in peak shape, eating, praying, loving, and teacing our children to learn Mandarin. We are helicopter moms, long time breast feeders,play date bookers, and overschedulers. We are busy, busy, busy and can never find an hour, let alone a minute. Our lives are consumed by status updates, tweets, pinning and blogging. We are so busy downward dogging, burning the man, getting ahead, and burying our faces in our smartphones that we can no longer stop long enough to really see the world. Our mayors are banning big sodas and trans fats and as we keep up with the Kardashians, we can't help but stare gobsmacked at the television as yet a former fat kid becomes "transformed" and loses 200 pounds at the hands of alpha personal trainers and a steady diet of kale. There is so much vanity and self obsession that we honestly believe that if we buy this, wear this, or eat that, we're going to somehow be better people. And though I can relate to that and admire parents dedicated to giving their children a better life than they had, what's missing in light of recent events is the following:

Why are we not teaching our children compassion?

How can we let this native digital generation go out into the world without knowing what's right, wrong, ethical and paramount when it comes to the human experience? Why do we pick our battles to be the ones we fight over the bulge and the insane quest to be forever young? . Why is it always about winning, seeking, and the search for self fulfillment? How can we bring up children to not go into schools or movie theaters or public places and eliminate innocent people from this earth? We have to find a way out of this misery.  Instead of agonizing over whether to go to yoga or fill out another pre school application, give your children a much needed hug, or insist that their teachers find some time to talk about what it means to show compassion for your fellow man or woman, and maybe you should take them to help out in animal shelters or feed the poor as well. And yes, I am guilty as charged when it comes to my so-called (digital life), but  have learned compassion from having a dog, and  I never dreamed in my life that I could appreciate another living thing the way I do my pup- he is all love, all kindness, and free of malice- I know humans don't have that capacity, but we have to try and do better, and we have a huge chance to do so- violence will always exist but what everyone fails to see is that it's not necessarily our differences that cause hate and violence but our lack of compassion for each other- our sense that our own lives are more important than someone else's and that we don't have time to help others. Do we really care more about what our Facebook friends ate for dinner than each other? We have to make room for peace and kindness of we have no chance.

Like many of you out there, I happen to have made my career in the profession of cynics, advertising-  I've seen people begrudge their colleagues success and do nothing to support each other. No matter what ad agency I have worked in, the most popular catchphrase to describe somebody who gets you into trouble is "he/she threw me under the bus". And though that may sound dramatic when it comes to whether or not you sell more burgers, beer, or Audi wagons, it's not. It's the way that non-compassionate types will make you feel, or try to, and it should stop. Which brings me to another point- workplaces and HR departments should also teach about compassion, and how we need to be kinder to each other in corporate America as well.
And lest you think I'm here dancing around with bells on my ankles and stinking of patchouli, I'm not. I just can't help but think that we have lost something so vital, so crucial, to who we are as human beings. There is too much malice, too much violence, too much angling, and too much alpha stuff happening. All we want is to be thinner, younger, richer, and "better" when really we should be looking for ways to help others, be kind to our communities, and be mindfully compassionate. If we are able to have millions of people watch viral videos about dubstep cats, how are we not able to spread a more gentle approach to life and mobilize the world at large to just stop being so horrid to each other? As I watched that madman sit in court this morning with a head full of orange and red hair dye, his coldness and vacant stare was beyond chilling, but what struck me more is this was a young man, with his whole life ahead of him, who was intelligent and who somehow snapped into pieces and committed this horrendous act. I have no sympathy for him mind you- my prayers are with the families of the poor people he killed, but I'm puzzled by how a seemingly normal human being is capable of such madness- we also need better education about mental health in this question- as we take care of our hearts, cholesterol, and vital organs,more attention needs to be paid to mental health in general- with all of our soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, we can't afford to ignore the brain, and educate ourselves and our families on everything from post traumatic stress disorder to the importance of counseling for those that need it most.

In this wholly digital age, we have so much to be thankful for when it comes to technology. But instead of focusing on our texts and emails, can we think about how we can save this next generation of children to be more loving, more peaceful, more kind? I fear that all of this "diginess" is doing a lot of damage- and if we are to put the whole world in the hands of our youth one day, we need to teach them about how to be better human beings- from the second they wake up to the moment they go to sleep. What we're doing is not good enough- stop with the unrealistic expectations and focus more on some notion of spirituality- not religion, not sitting in ashrams necessarily but having a life guided by the desire to help others and treat all iving things with the respect they deserve.

I'm so sad for all of this misery and senseless atrocity at play in the universe. We have to get better at this thing called life- and we'll never get there until we come at life, no guns blazing, but armed with the greatest weapon we have to keep it all going- compassion.

And that's what's up this meditative Monday in the 718. My heart goes out to Aurora and to all of those that lost family members last week. I still can't wrap my head around it, but know something's got to change. And whether you're agnostic, atheist, or Orthodox, Buddha got it right when he said, "Our wounds and sorrows are only healed when we touch them with compassion". It's up to us to touch the world and make it a better place. XO