TUNISIA, MARTIN LUTHER KING AND MAIN STREET

My heart goes out to the family and friends of Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old fruit vendor who set himself on fire in Tunisia, and set off a series of events that led to the collapse of the government.

Bouazizi’s desperate act has changed the course of history in Tunisia, hopefully for the better, but from a personal point of view, what a tragedy, to reach such a low point in your life that you see no other way to proceed, other than to set yourself on fire and burn yourself to death.

Bouazizi was college educated, but unemployed, except for selling fruit. Because he had no license, the police stopped Mohamed Bouazizi from doing business and took, or stole, his fruit.

That was enough to push Mohamed Bouazizi over the edge, and the rest is history.

I don’t know the details of his situation, but Bouazizi was college educated. Somehow he got enough money together to buy the fruit for his business. It doesn’t sound like he was homeless. There are probably many people in his hometown and throughout Tunisia and the region who were and are much worse off than Mohamed Bouazizi was, but it was Mohamed Bouazizi who broke that day, and did so in a way that could not be ignored, and his countrymen responded.

Here in the U.S. things are nowhere as difficult as they are in Tunisia. Or are they?

I don’t think the actions of the Tucson shooter are a good comparison to those of Mohamed Bouazizi. There is no evidence that Mohamed Bouazizi was mentally ill, nor did he hurt anyone other than himself. One was an act of desperation and, possibly, protest. The other was an act of an unhinged mind.

I think many millions of unemployed or underemployed Americans can imagine how Mohamed Bouazizi must have felt, the sense of frustration, of beating oneself against a wall, of being underutilized—Bouazizi was college-educated, remember—of being mistreated, the feeling of life passing you by.

Please, I am not suggesting that anyone in the United States, or anywhere else, do anything that remotely approximates the horribly painful act of Mohamed Bouazizi. All I’m saying is that we can understand his frustration, and that many of us have felt similar, though hopefully less extreme, emotional pain. Many of us have known moments, even if only fleeting, where we’ve thought to ourselves, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

We human beings are, as is embodied in the Constitution of the United States of America, by our deepest nature, free beings seeking a full expression of life, liberty, and happiness. That’s who we are. We are like water seeking cracks and channels into which we might pour our energies, our capacities, our knowledge, and our expertise, and it can be unbearably painful when we have no effective outlet for expressing our gifts and contributing towards a decent life for ourselves, our families, and our country.

In contradistinction to Mohamad Bouazizi, we have the example of protestors like Nelson Mandela, and our own Martin Luther King, Jr., men of extraordinary ability who could have, in their time, felt thwarted at every turn, even to the point, in Mandela’s case, of being imprisoned for years. Yet they continued to fight day after day, but they fought, not by fighting, but by keeping the vision, and never giving up.

Mandela gave up 27 years of his life to a prison cell, though he does not seem to see it this way, but never gave up his dream. Martin Luther King, Jr. shot dead at age 39, terribly young, had half his life taken away from him, though he probably would not have seen it that way either, but never gave up his dream of a more just and equitable America.

In each of these three cases life offered difficult challenges.

No matter who we are, though our challenges may seem smaller, we have our challenges, nonetheless.

We may be unemployed. We may be ill. We may be frustrated. We may be old. We may be alone, or feel that way. We may be discriminated against.

We know the pain of life, because we’re human, and there’s no way to avoid it.

Someday pain finds us.

How do we deal with it?

Mohamed Bouazizi knew full well how discomforted he felt. And so he acted.

Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. acted too, but not like Bouazizi did. Their protest, their effective actions towards radical change did not require them to kill themselves, nor anyone else, though both were ready to die, if need be.

And as we all know, one did die, though his dream lived on.

We all can’t be a Mandela or a King, nor would most of us want to be a Bouazizi.

The difference, to my mind, is that I view Bouazizi as a man who had come to his end. His act was like that of a man who jumps out the window of a burning building.

He saw no other way out, no way forwards.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think Bouazizi thought his action would make a difference.

He was a man who had given up.

But it was Bouazizi’s pain and frustration, along with that of his countrymen, that inspired the people of Tunisia to move forwards.

Bouazizi was the catalyst, but it remains, as it always does, to the living to make the dream of a more equitable society, or any other dream, in Tunisia or elsewhere, a reality.

Life is in the living.

Some of us will not be able to bear the pain of living for one reason or another. Suicide has been with us for a long time, and will probably be with us always.

But for the rest of us, what do we do with the pain of our lives, no matter where it comes from, whether from inside us or from outside us? Pain, like love; anger, like hope; fear, like courage; sadness, like joy—both the positive and the ‘negative’ emotions—can be fuel for living and for transformation, rather than for collapse and withdrawal.

So, my heart goes out to Mohamed Bouazizi, and to his family and friends, and to all human beings who suffer, wherever they are, whether here in the U.S. or in Tunisia, Pakistan, Africa, or down the street.

           And my heart goes out to me, and to you, for though we may not be suffering today, like all human beings, we know suffering. We ask for the strength, the wisdom, the compassion, the insight and the guidance, from wherever it may come, to be able to take all that life offers us, the good and the bad, the joyous and the painful, and like Mandela and King, in our own way, live a life that makes things better for ourselves, our families, our country, and the world.                                  

            I can be reached at drjohnluca@gmail.com or 805/680-5572

CAN YOU REALLY CONNECT ON FACEBOOK?

His face popped up on the right side of my Facebook page, and he was suggested as a friend.

“You have 51 friends in common,” Facebook told me.

Which meant that we knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody, who knew each of us.

He looked familiar, and had a nice face, round, honest, and welcoming. As I so often do, I clicked the button, and off went my request to be his ‘friend’ on Facebook. And, as I so often do, I completely forgot about it. Facebook requests and suggestions come and go every day. 

“So-and-so wants to be your friend.”

“Bob Brown suggests that you become friends with so-and-so.”

“Your friend request has been accepted. You are now friends with so-and-so.”

And on it goes.

Another day, another batch of friend requests, and suggested friends thrown out by the Facebook algorithm letting me know how many ‘friends’ I have in common with people I may or may not actually know or have met.

My Facebook family tree was growing. My ‘friends’ numbered in the hundreds.

Another face popped up as a suggested friend, but I wasn’t sure if I had sent him a friend request or not. He looked okay.

“You have 62 friends in common”, Facebook told me.

So, I sent out another a friend request, and was on my way.

Click. Click. Comment. Scroll. Read. Post. And life goes on.

A few days later his face popped up again. This time I was sure I had seen it before and that I had sent him a friend request and that he had not responded.

“Humph. What’s up with that? Well, okay, then. I’ll try one more time. Now we have 72 friends in common. If he doesn’t want to be my ‘friend’ after this, well, that’s okay with me.”

             I clicked and off went another friend request. And once again, I forgot about it.

Just this morning he showed up once again on my Facebook page as a suggestion for someone I should become friends with.

I know who he is now.

One of my best friends in the real world told me a classmate of his had died. Then I received a group email from my alma mater. I saw his picture, the same picture that had been popping up every other day on my Facebook page.

He had committed suicide.

I didn’t know him well enough to know why. I wasn’t that kind of friend. I wasn’t even a Facebook friend.

Though we never spoke, I remember seeing him at school.  

“Hey Joe, I want to be your friend. Please be my friend. Come back. I really mean it. Not just online. I’ll drive down to L.A. We can get a cup of coffee, or some fresh-squeezed juice, or a shot of tequila. Whatever you like. Just come back.”

I know there are some real sad people out there, Joe’s real family and friends, people who knew and loved him. There’s going to be a memorial service. Joe had just finished a spiritually based program along with one of my best friends who said the program had changed his life.

But I guess for Joe the change wasn’t big enough or fast enough or of the right kind. For him, his time was up. He could go no further, at least that’s what he must have thought or felt.

I wonder how long his face will remain on Facebook? Will I continue to get suggestions to ask him to be my friend? Will someone inform Facebook?

“Dear Facebook, please stop suggesting Joe as a friend, as much as I would like for him to be my friend, the time for that has passed.”

Or do we just allow things to go on a usual with Joe’s face appearing now and then on our screens as someone we should become friends with, his face and name thrown out there by a computer algorithm that reminds us that we know people who know people who knew Joe? Or does someone take over Joe’s page, a friend or a family member, and handle it in Joe’s memory, making friends with people Joe might have made friends with had he lived?

I don’t know. I just wish I could have been Joe’s friend. I wish somebody could have been his friend in a way that would have tilted the scales for Joe so that he could have happily remained amongst the living. I know this is what must really be paining the people who knew and loved Joe.

“Could we have done anything to have kept this from ending this way?”

It's a very painful question after the fact, so I hope all those who knew and loved Joe can let him and themselves go in peace.

There will always be suffering. There will always be pain. There will always come a day when, one way or another, each of us will die. But there will always be life. For as long as conditions allow, there will be life. That’s true too. And though this stretch of the journey is over for Joe, we hope and pray that wherever he is, his suffering is lessened, and that he is continuing on his way.

In his honor, if we want to really be his friend, we must do what we can to lessen the pain and the suffering of the living.

Joe was gay. I’m not saying that’s part of the pain he suffered. I’m not saying that’s part of why he is no longer here. I did not know him. But I do know that as a people, a country, and a planet, we have caused our gay brothers and sisters a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

So, as we take a moment to reflect on the passing of a fellow human being, one we might or might not have known, we ask that we do the work that is needed so that all human beings, whoever they are and wherever they might be, are not caused to suffer unnecessarily by our own thoughtlessness, fear, greed, or prejudice.

Though we did not connect while he was alive, I feel connected to Joe now. In spite of all its faults and weaknesses, Facebook made that possible. Meaning and connection are waiting for us wherever we look, even on our homepage. We just have to take the time and make the effort to see it.  

Namaste.

I can be reached at drjohnluca@gmail.com 805/680-5572.

Men Don't Cry--They Die Instead

Manuel died day before yesterday. He was 39 years old. Stopped eating and started drinking a few months ago and didn't stop till his liver shut down. He was a decent man who could pick up rocks as big and heavy as a medium-sized safe, but he had a soft heart, and maybe no place to share it.

About a year and a half ago his relationship fell apart after twenty years. His step-son of twenty years wouldn't talk to him. His daughter was angry with him. He worked for me doing the gardening on two rental properties I own. I'd see him once a month when he came by to get paid. When I would ask him about how it was going, he would say, "It hurts, but I'll get through it." A few months ago his father died of cancer. He said that was really tough. He had worked with his dad since his dad had started the gardening business when Manuel was a kid.

Manuel told me that when he separated and moved to his new place, a young neighbor, a woman in her mid-twenties saw that he had been crying. "What's up with you? Men don't cry." He told her they did but they didn't show it, and walked away. I tried to get Manuel to come in to see me. I could have tried harder. Two months after his father's death, Manuel was dead.

There's a lot of pain out there--always has been. Do what you can to help. Of course, in the end we can only save ourselves, but we can make it easier for one another to get help, to find the right medication and people who can listen and support us and help us find our way back to life.

I wish that young woman had said something else, something that might have pushed Manuel to get some help rather than go deeper into the darkness inside. I wish I had reached out sooner and done more. I wish Manuel were still alive.