I don’t know how many people listen to The Moth podcasts… or how many people are listening to podcasts at all… but I do and I recently heard this one off my iPod while riding on the bus. It’s called “Ellie Lee: A Kind of Wisdom”, and you can either play or download her story above. Like any other well told story, “A Kind of Wisdom” is about many things at once: growing up as a Chinese American immigrant, her wise and quirky father, and the lessons that she learned as a youth in Boston. All in all it’s a great story and anyone could take something away from it.
But what I personally took away from her story concerns the lessons of community that are exemplified in her story. Without trying to give too much away, I can tell you that the essence of the Chinese American community is given identity here. Questions such as “What constitutes a community?” “Who comprises it?” “What is important to its citizens?” and “What are its assets?” are given answer to with simple declaration: the people are the community. The relationships are what comprise it. These are simple things that constitute an identity, yet they so often go overlooked. And yet, if one were to simply empathize with another, the full potential of the other will be brought into being.
Wait, am I talking about communities anymore? Or about people? Or about relationships? Or about myself, or you? eh, probably all of it.
I know that these questions were raised in my mind because a group of fellow Chicago students and I have undertaken a project, to create an “Asset Map” for the community of Hyde Park. We’ve spent the last two days organizing ourselves, and are ready to go into the community and discover what their assets are and how they can benefit the community.
Basically the important part of this project will be to realize what the nature of the community actually is. What is its identity? What does it have, and what draws it together? All identities, whether a person’s or a communities, can be either fractured by misunderstanding or honored and fulfilled by empathizing.
You know how good you feel when someone sits down with you and listen to you? When that person is really trying to see things from your perspective? And at the end of the conversation, when your listener puts their hand on your shoulder and looks into your eyes and says “Yes, I understand you. I validate you. Your experience, your flaws— all of it. I understand, and if I don’t, I know I want to.” Holycrappers that feels amazing. In my opinion it is that moment when someone else has connected with you and you feel understood that you feel the most human, the most alive. Simply consider the opposite, when we are alone and misunderstood. We then feel numb, emotionless, and dead.
So I hope to keep this in mind as I go about Hyde Park, asking to listen to its citizens as they try to explain the identity of their town. The essence of a community identity matter so much on their assets, whether it is an individual, a certain establishment, or even simply a cause worth fighting for. And there is so much to be done.
