I was on a call with entrepreneurial leaders from cities across the US and Canada, and we were talking about what we lament and hope for our communities. It was real, vulnerable and incredibly raw as we all shared about all that is so broken around us. As we were wrapping up, my friend and fellow Praxis Venture Partner, Philip Lorish, said:
“There is power in being able to tell the truth.”
That statement stopped me in my tracks. We don’t often think of power and truth this way. But it’s exactly what we need to do. Especially now.
Today’s digitally-enabled, network-driven world allows new forms of power to manifest in entirely new ways — from who has it and how it can be accessed to what those wielding it can do with it and who benefits from putting it to use, our highly connected world has transformed who has the power to create and how ideas spread.
In fact, much of the chaos we feel today is a direct result of old power and new power battling to determine “who governs us, how we work, and even how we think and feel.” Power is about who gets to make the rules and who gains from them.
Where old economy power benefits from being institutional, hierarchical, closed, inaccessible and jealously guarded, new power gains by being open, shared and transparent. It requires a willingness to be vulnerable rather than guarded, expose what our instincts say we should protect, give away what we formerly hoarded, and collectively listen, hear and acknowledge one anothers’ feelings instead of digging in and defending our own.
Things many of us aren’t particularly good at.
Our always-on, socially-media addicted culture encourages us to put a glossy veneer on our lives. Refrains of the Lego Movie song “Everything is Awesome” echo in our ears as we post our successes and sweep our hurts, fears, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and failures under the rug (and, ironically, that song was written by someone feeling decidedly not awesome when he wrote it). We wield tech’s tools to shout our own viewpoints and attack others who don’t share them.
Doing this is making us angrier and angrier, pulling us away from one another and spiraling us further into echo chambers that reinforce our views. It’s also making us lonelier than ever, keeping us from taking the risks necessary to build deep, trusted relationships with one another, and preventing us from hearing each others’ pain. Now, COVI9-19, stay-at-home orders and quarantining are showing us just how empty our lives actually are.
The ability to lament, to reflect on our own grief and hear one another's sorrow, is a critical practice of community and crucial to understanding and fixing our brokenness.
How do we begin to pick up these broken pieces and repair these fractures in our own lives and our communities? The process begins with lament. The ability to lament, to reflect on our own grief and hear one another's sorrow, is a critical practice of community and crucial to understanding and fixing our brokenness. Sadly, we’ve forgotten how to do it. Now, more than ever, we need to remember, re-learn and master it.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen people who are beginning to remember. Space and attention have been given to Black Americans to share their stories of pain of police brutality, workplace cruelty, profiling trauma, and fear for their safety. Crucially, more people have opened their ears and their hearts to hear these stories and feel the sorrow of their fellow neighbors and citizens. Through this process has emerged a greater willingness to take action to relieve the pain and fix the underlying problems causing it.
For sure the window has cracked open only a tiny bit (despite what media coverage might suggest) but there is an opening that can be seized now and replicated so we all can be reminded of the power of being able to tell and hear one’s truth.
Resources
For a deeper dive into how lament can fuel your creative engine, listen to Donna’s discussion on the podcast Vivid.