Treat others as you wish to be treated. The golden rule we extol to children. At least in my culture, I remember there being a sign in my kindergarten class with a bright smiling sun. “Treat others as you wish to be treated.” With love and goodwill and grace. A parable so brief, so simple and yet, so difficult for grown folk to comprehend or accept. Or to practice, at least. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Full Stop, mic drop. End sentence. No ifs, no buts, no qualifiers or extenuating circumstances. A concept so basic about human decency, that there is a version of this phrase in numerous cultures and faiths.
Just now, I was able to google golden rule, multiple cultures and found hundreds of links with information. From all cultures, in all languages. We know more about how we operate as humans than ever before, technology is uniting us in ways we never thought possible. I can call someone in space. Video chat someone in Russia. Find information about anything I could possible imagine, without even getting off of my ass. I wrote this entire thing, connecting to my hundreds of Facebook “friends” from the comfort of my couch. There are worlds at your fingertips...if you choose to access them. And yet. Why. How. Is something so simple, so basic, so common and obvious as treat others as YOU wish to be treated so hard to put into practice. So hard to remember when the busy-ness of our lives takes its toll on our minds and makes us forget one of the easiest, purest concepts that children can understand. I want to believe, want to hope. I try being the change, loving openly, fiercely, relentlessly. Seeing the human in you and you and you. But then some days. Some days I want to forget too. Want to close myself off and play the game. I want to forget everything I know and everything I’ve seen and go back to believing the shadows are magic. Apart from drugs, from a lobotomy...how do I forget? My favorite thing about myself is my brain, the number of synapses and neurons that allow me to be infinite. To learn and understand and remember anything and everything I can get my hands on. To always be growing and reshaping and reforming. Infinite. But today, oh how today I rue this brain. I wish I could forget, not see the pieces that make up the bigger picture. Not know, not understand. Today I hate my brain. Because it can’t forget to treat others as I wish to be treated, even if the way I’m actually treated is awful. I will continue to treat others with respect and care and compassion and love. Even if doesn’t gain me anything, and it usually doesn’t. I don’t always get it right, but I will never forget to see the human in others. The human in you. To treat others as I wish to be treated. Or maybe. Maybe people actually do treat others as they wish to be treated, with violence and hate and despair. And how sad is that? Maybe people don’t now any other way to be treated. I wish I didn’t think about these things but I do. I’m trying to sit and eat bon bons, watch Catfish but instead of internet trolls I just see pain. See how hate plus hate equals more hate, resulting in a television show about people lying to each other over the internet desperately seeking some form of love and connection using this very means of communication. Sigh. This. Damn. Brain.
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