Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes

            BS: Beyond Subsistence
    There must be a world that exists beyond subsistence. I recently visited a conglomeration of community programs in a city that’s about a six-
hour drive from Madison. The people are tied into a long tradition of helping each other that goes back to the early days of the previous century.
Volunteerism is woven into the fabric of things. There are countless people who work way more than 40 hours a week helping their neighbors
without benefit of pay checks to compensate them for their efforts. They give second, fourth and tenth chances to those who would steal from
even them – because they remember when they were in similar or identical straits. Maybe it was seven years ago. Maybe last week. No
matter. They remember and know that the way to elevate themselves is not by pushing their sisters and brothers down. Such action only gives
a false sense of height.
    Somewhere along the way I suspect they learned that working on behalf of your neighbor is the same as working on behalf of yourself
because the ebb and flow of good fortune is as predictably unpredictable as the movement of a teeter-totter. Sometimes you’re up and
sometimes you’re down and you can’t always tell when the balance is going to change. Just enjoy being up while you’re up with the
knowledge that your position will change. And remind yourself that you will be on top again when you find yourself on the bottom and can’t
even imagine or remember what it feels like to be on top. And through all the ups and downs there is one uncompromising thought that is
etched in your mind and that is that you have no interest in remaining on top at the expense of other human beings because that other human
being is your neighbor and the lines that separate you from your neighbor are imaginary. You are your brothers’ keeper. You are your sisters’
keeper. You will stand in the shoes of the person who lives across the way so you’d better treat them right.
    And the thing that’s getting me today is the inordinate amount of energy, faith and strength that it takes to enjoy the modestly glorious view
from the horizontal position on the teeter-totter a mere three-feet off the ground. I’m talking about people who have earned a view from the 49th
floor of a bank building that towers over just about everything else downtown. I’m talking about people who have earned — over and over
again — the right to breathe rare air from the 68th floor of the building that has the logo of the insurance company etched in copper over its
entrance. Yeah. I want my piece of the rock. And as Malcolm X said, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.” So be it.
My muscles are supple. My bones pliable. My spirit indomitable and fortified by all who have gone before me.
    I will point the way as I free myself of the weight of the rock, the weight of oppression. And there are a few things I can share with you now
as I continue to struggle for my own liberation: 1) Complaining and doing are not one and the same. To complain simply means that you
recognize wrongs that have been done and you want to share your justified anger and misery with anyone who will listen. This is well and
good, part of the awakening, but it’s necessary to move from that place to a place of action and coming to grips with the question, “What am I
going to do about it?” 2) Whomever you consider to have power and control over your life will not relinquish that control because they’ve
suddenly discovered that taking their foot off of your neck is the right thing to do. You’ll need to appeal to something other than their altruism.
Just remember that your target is fairness and access to positive opportunity in forms that include economics, education and a voice in the
political process that, to a large degree, determines how our collective resources are spent. If you are still weaning yourself from war
analogies, please remember that voting and making conscious choices about where and how you spend your money are but two arrows in
your quiver. 3) I’m accepting, more and more, what I’ve known, on some level, for a long, long time: that there is a force, a power that is more
vast and more accessible than I have dared to imagine.
    The portals for entering this sacred place are not hidden, they are in plain view. They exist in every situation. Every environment. Every
breath. Every atom. It is ridiculously easy to be calm, even, unperturbed and forgiving while sitting in a cave or otherwise separated from the
world. Quite another matter to maintain equilibrium on days when your mail consists of three bills and you can’t pay the smallest of them; when
you missed the last bus that could have gotten you to work on time and it’s only your second week on the job; when your two-year-old’s
forehead feels warm to the touch and she has a mysterious rash on her cheeks that the daycare provider is bound to notice which means that
you’ll have to pull alternate childcare arrangements out of thin air. But we must persist on these difficult days because we have been blessed
with an abundance of them.
    I’m very agitated today. I’m out of balance. I’m annoyed that so much energy, talent, perseverance, strength, brilliance and sustained hope
are required for some to survive while others appear to coast to the highest heights with one-tenth the effort. If only some of
subsistence/survival energy could be diverted to other purposes like education, learning to swim, starting a business, reading a book, taking
a vacation, or just plain breathing without fear of having the lights turned off, car repossessed or a boyfriend or girlfriend returning from prison
angrier than they were when they went in. If I strike out, if I let my rage take the reins of my life — I lose. This much I know. If I hurt my brother
— of whatever color — I hurt myself. And I will have a long time to think about my transgression while sharing a small concrete room with a
man who is likely angrier than I. But I grew up in the projects. I know about small concrete rooms and geographically and mentally condensed
anger. There is a place beyond subsistence. I think it has to be realized inside before it manifests outside. But I am confident that it exists, that
it is glorious and that it is accessible this very second despite persistent attempts to conceal it.