Often, especially at the start of a class, I get asked about what’s wrong with our country. Or, at times, students will struggle to understand how my expectation for them is one of self-reliance and hard work. For many, that is not something they reject—more tragically it is something they have never heard of. Over the past 2-3 months, a new thought as come to me as a way to explain what I perceive to be the problem.
Welcome to the land of the self-absorbed.
It didn’t use to be this way. We used to be better at noticing each other. Oh sure, we were never the Garden of Eden. As Thomas Hobbes correctly notes, we humans have a natural propensity for thinking of self first. That part doesn’t surprise me in our day…or to say it another way, it is not new. Yet, recently, it is clear that we are now following the path of the Greek character Narcissus. As the Encyclopedia Brittanica states, he thought he was so beautiful that “He fell in love with his own reflection in the waters of a spring and pined away (or killed himself).”
That’s us….so in love with ourselves (or I suppose our “selfie”) that we are literally killing ourselves.
Or, if not dying (and yes, that’s probably hyperbolic), we are now increasingly unaware of anyone else around us. Two events during the Christmas season really brought that to light for me. First, in early December, the City of Winter Park puts on its very nice “Christmas in the Park” celebration that shows the glorious Tiffany windows from the Morse Museum. The Back Festival brings its choir, orchestra and children’s choir. My daughters have sung with the choir for the past 4-5 years, and this was to be my youngest, Brynn’s last time…probably the end of our connection with the Youth Choir.
The event is huge, happily, with families coming for early dinner, the wonderful music and civic community connectedness. Previously, when the music began, everyone became quite typically silent as they enjoyed the concerts. This year, it was as if we were at the beach or some random collection of strangers who just happened to be sitting near one another. As first the orchestra played and then the youth choir came on stage, all around us, a cacophony of noise continued as people rudely kept up very loud conversations, often interrupted with raucous laughter. The idea of them having fun or enjoying one another would have been fine enough, of course, had we all just randomly came to the park. Yet, here we were enjoying a concert of music.
Both the orchestra and the youth choir was not loud enough to overpower the noise, though thankfully the full Bach choir was strong enough to somewhat mask the uncouth noise. Since it was my daughter’s last concert, I finally said something to a few people, but rather than them realizing how rude they were, they instead acted as if I had interrupted their reverie. A few couples did quiet down, but not others.
At one point, a larger group of 50-70 year olds, some with their backs turned completely from the stage, started making a loud protestation about a child from the group, a teen who wasn’t obviously present. One of the older ladies, certainly in her 60s, loudly and obnoxiously stated that the young man clearly was rude and had learned no values from the parents. What I wanted to say, but chose not to, was approach the lady to say “if this young man learned his rudeness, it apparently was from you who can’t seem to understand that a concert is going on.”
Welcome to the land of the self-absorbed. Rather than understanding they were with others, most of whom had apparently come for a concert, these many barbarians sitting around me rudely only believed the moment was all about them.
A week later, the same sort of experience happened while at the Bob Carr. The wonderful Orlando Ballet was again putting on its Nutcracker ballet, and my daughter’s were able to go with their school to the shorter matinee version. Now, the focus was on the children from the schools, so certainly I knew to expect the normal rustling and whispered questions that come with being with children. Boy was I wrong to assume the children might be an issue…nope! Once again the Barbarians came in from wherever, providing evidence of living in the land of the self-absorbed.
When we first entered, if you know the Bob Carr, you know there are excessively long rows (boy, I hope they fix that in the new Performing Arts Center). The poor workers from the Bob Carr were doing all they could to shepherd in the many school groups, keeping them together and yet needing to hurry in order for the ballet to start on time. So, as we entered, the poor worker simply and clearly said to move to the far other side of the row….which we did….till some elderly lady from our own group decided that she must stop front and center. No amount of prodding, cajoling and even reminding her of our Christian descriptor in the name of the school could convince her to simply submit to the leadership of the worker.
Thus, for a full 2-3 minutes, the entire line was held up as people were unsure what to do. As we got closer, this woman tried to justify her self-absorption by proclaiming that her daughter had been the one who “got all of you in here.” Which, would have made more sense had their been a dearth of seats, but there were not only scores of empty seats (where the sponsor could have easily sat with her family), but the view from every seat is in essence the same view.
It got worse. The ballet started on time, and before long, not one, not two, but three large smartphones were soon out as various parents in the closer rows started to film the entire event. Soon enough, throughout the auditorium, there were open cell phones taking pictures or film and I think a few just checking in on Facebook—“hey everyone…guess what…I am typing to you like a Neanderthal inside the Bob Carr instead of actually watching the ballet.” Had it been children then, well, maybe that’d be okay.
Nope…these were adults.
Focused only self.
Welcome to the land of the self-absorbed.
People wonder what’s happened to us. We spend millions, billions on test strategies but our students keep sliding down in the global rankings. We hear of someone shooting someone else for texting in the theater or while racing on the roads around town. Our national leaders can’t seem to get over themselves and the bitter rancor simply gets louder and louder.
The evidence is this—we could exchange our national symbol of the eagle for someone taking a selfie. We are Narcissus, ignoring all other things around us, focused on only self, and then we wonder why we missed the deadline for the test. We assume someone should just take care of that for us.
If we don’t wake up soon, we too will have simply wasted away to nothingness.