Pre-Reading Question- Which is more prevalent in our society: fear or hope? Why?
When people ask me to list my favorite movies, I never hesitate to include The Shawshank Redemption. Based on a novella by Stephen King, the film showed how Andy Dufresne, despondent about being wrongly accused of murder, relies on friendship, resilience, and hope while imprisoned at Shawshank State Prison. The poster for the movie advertises, “Fear can hold you prisoner, hope can set you free,” and it resonates with me to this day. Some people believe that hope is for fools—they want something tangible. I disagree. Hope—especially when combined with thought, effort, action, reflection, and community—can sustain us.
It seems we are stuck between two competing worlds. In one, we have our daily lives filled with family, friends, work, school, success, struggle, and stress. Everyone I know does their best to navigate our everyday challenges, but many are feeling frustrated right now. People are overwhelmed—at home, at work, in relationships, with health, and in our own minds. But most of us keep moving forward as we find the necessary moments of joy, laughter, camaraderie, and mini victories to get us to the next day. However, too many of us are surviving instead of truly thriving.
It seems there is another world—a small segment of society dominated by media, politicians, and out of touch multimillionaires—continuously seeking to distract and divide us in their pursuit of power. This world flourishes due to greed and does not care about everyday people. It appears the penultimate goal of this group is to keep us divided. They want us to think that our different races, religions, political ideologies, genders, ethnicities, sexualities, professions, ages, neighborhoods, fandoms, or other part of our lives define us more than our collective humanity. The rapid reach of technology and constant barrage of various forms of media have made it much easier to keep us distracted and divided. Although the inhabitants of this group are small in number, their power, wealth, and arsenal are vast. They keep us distracted and control the narrative, thus altering our perception of ourselves and one another. They want us to live in fear. They want us to hate each other. And it pains me to admit this, but they have been succeeding for far too long.
I don’t know any perfect people, but I know thousands of great people. From family, friends, and students with whom I have daily interactions to neighbors, co-workers, familiar faces at the grocery store, or random people with whom I share a brief interaction, it is typically easy for me to see something good in nearly everyone I encounter. I won’t lie—I also know a few rude folks, have crossed paths with a handful of bigots, and have had random negative interactions with inconsiderate drivers on the road—but the overwhelming majority of people I know are good and decent people. Throughout my life I’ve realized that most of us, no matter our differences, want the same things for ourselves and our loved ones: safety, health, happiness, opportunities, freedom, success, and peace. I would argue that every American, every human being, deserves these things.
I feel more exhausted than I have ever been in my life. Some of that comes from my daily attempts to be an exemplary husband, father, and high school teacher while also trying to be a good son, brother, friend and community member. However, much of my fatigue originates from the culture of tribalism, fear, hatred, and hypocrisy surrounding me. I may be the only one who feels this way, but I believe we are extremely unhealthy as a society. At this moment in time, we have the capacity to be better than at any other point in history, but we’re not. We are overwhelmed, anxious, bitter, angry, fearful, and hateful. Most of those with the largest platforms act hypocritically, set bad examples, and seem to want to pit everyday people against one another. We have an opportunity to be more connected than ever before, but in many ways, we’re being programmed by algorithms that feed us filtered information, not truth. So, we’ve become less connected as humans. We are being herded into various tribes that serve as echo chambers, and our collective progress gets stunted. In many ways we are being instructed on what to think and how to live by those who want to keep us divided. In turn, discourse with those who may have different thoughts, opinions, or experiences from our own has been replaced by insulating ourselves from one another.
But that brings me back to The Shawshank Redemption. I am full of hope because I feel like I know an unspoken truth. My various experiences throughout my life have allowed me to cross paths with people from every conceivable background and belief system. I attended public schools outside of Rochester, NY, lived in Ohio for four years while attending the University of Dayton, and have spent the last 19 years teaching amazing young young people around Baltimore, MD. I worked in retail for six years, spent summers working in unairconditioned factories, and have a side job bartending at a music venue where I get to chat with all sorts of music fans. I have traveled across this beautiful country and met so many kind and generous people. I know and love people from every imaginable background and belief. So, this hope that I possess fuels me because I know that social media, the 24/7 news cycle, politics, and the entertainment industry do not exemplify who we are. In many ways they deceive us, distract us, and limit our growth.
I know that our similarities as Americans and humans are vast, and that our differences are merely learning opportunities. I know that we are all imperfect, but that most people try to be good. I know that many people who experience immense suffering on this earth do little to deserve it, but are sometimes dealt challenging life situations such as addiction, poverty, trauma, or health issues out of their own control. We must improve the social contract so that every child in this nation has an opportunity to use their individual agency to flourish over time. However, we can’t accomplish real change unless we do it together.
I believe that diversity is one of our greatest assets, but I’ve observed that too often there isn’t a lot of cross-pollination between the various people whom I love due to multiple reasons. Many of the people I love don’t run in the same circles; they get news from different sources, follow different people on social media, listen to different music, work different jobs, say different prayers, and in turn have different realities. So, I understand why we misunderstand one another throughout our lifetimes. We talk about diversity a lot, but true diversity is much broader than the way some people think. There are socioeconomic, cultural, educational, ideological and personality spectrums, but we tend to surround ourselves with those who share similar interests or backgrounds. This evolutionary adaptation may have helped in the past, but it hinders our understanding of one another in the present.
In 2020 I co-founded Teach to Unite with a group of former students in hopes of building bridges between people from various backgrounds and ideologies through open discourse. I wrote a letter to my children, but my questions still haven’t been answered. Teach to Unite connected dozens of people ages 16-75 during the height of the pandemic through Zoom discussions that were powerful and illuminating. Discourse was always respectful, even when differing opinions were shared. We launched a podcast in which we interviewed regular people whom we admire. But, we’ve never been able to grow our audience. I’ve wondered if the majority of people are content with the status quo. Or maybe we’ve become cynical? I’m unsure, but we’ll try to reach a broad audience with this Substack. We aim to provide glimpses into the lives of everyday folks, all extraordinary in their own light, while also examining issues that affect regular people. As we try to promote healthy discourse and a deeper understanding of one another, our main goal is to slowly help people inch a little bit closer together from the extremes which we are being pushed. A guiding belief is that we can disagree with the opinions of others without becoming entrapped by the fear and hatred that some want for us. In stark contrast to the rhetoric that surrounds us, acceptance is always a central theme in what we do.
I will continue to choose hope over fear. I know that hope alone won’t change a single thing, but if enough people can begin to take time to understand one another we can send a message to those who push fear on us. Partisanship, blame, and fearmongering don’t solve problems. We deserve better. Regular folks from all walks of life hold the key to creating the true societal changes we deserve. I am hopeful that we can all channel our inner Andy Dufresne and prove to those in that world of greed and power that we no longer accept the fear and distraction that they use to imprison us.
Homework Assignment: Think of one person or thing that gives you hope. Write it on a post-it note and place it somewhere where you will notice it on a regular basis. Also, try to find a few minutes and listen to these:
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With love-Patrick
I believe that without fear you can’t have hope, and vice versa. Fear is generated from the ability to lose something we value (our lives, family, love, etc). You don’t fear something, when you have nothing to lose. Hope is a feeling that we get from the things that we cherish or desire, it’s the feeling that associates itself with love and expectations. When you fear something the first thing you do is hope it goes away. So to have hope means you have to have fear in losing that hope or the peoples or things that give you that hope.