Books on tape were a constant source of entertainment and education as I grew up (aka audiobooks, now, for any young'uns out there). I also got lost in the world of old radio shows like The Life of Riley or Abbott and Costello's work and even the one and only The War of the Worlds broadcast. These productions had a way of capturing my attention while simultaneously releasing my imagination.
Listening was always a way to connect with these pieces in a way that felt different than reading the text. There was also one particular way of listening that is unequivocally my favorite thing in the whole world: having a family member read to me.
My sister has been generous enough to indulge me to this day, reading various fiction and fantasy novels to me. No longer in the same house, we have had to do this asynchronously through a video chat app. She'll read a few chapters and I'll catch up. Initially, I didn't think the magic would translate when we were no longer in the same room—we couldn't snack on popcorn together, laugh riotously, or insert our commentary as the plot thickens.
Due credit to her, though, for continuing to insert those moments into the video reading. She still does voices, she still complains about long lists of items in a paragraph. And this time, she did something that took my breath away.
We've been reading the newest book from The Hunger Games series called, "Sunrise on the Reaping," by Suzanne Collins. It is utterly devastating. It has so many poignant moments in the book as it follows Haymitch Abernathy (Katniss's mentor and only survivor of the Hunger Games from their district for decades) as he is thrown into the Games as a teenager. There aren't tons of surprises, because we know how it ends just by having read the original series. And yet, expounding upon the torturous situation of the the Hunger Games made my heart break as I empathized with this character that I didn't really like from the books before.
It doesn't help that there are real images of real children starving and suffering in Gaza right now. It doesn't help that there is political and legal instability challenging what we thought was sacred, foundational, and untouchable. It doesn't help that in very real ways, there are horrendous and inhumane frameworks, structures, ideologies, and systems that exploit, terrorize, demonize, diminish, degrade, oppress, and indoctrinate in every corner of the globe. I do not make light of these realities. The Hunger Games is just fiction, but for me, it's a way to explore these situations and to pull these realities closer to my own—they're not far off things in far off lands happening to some people. These realities are human, they are tangible, they affect me personally and they should affect me; affect us.
Async Humanity
As I was tidying up my desk and catching up to the final chapters of the book, all of a sudden the reading stopped. One second passed: Maybe she’s taking a drink. Three seconds passed: Did I accidentally pause the video? Five seconds and I finally realize my sister is struggling to continue reading.
My short-term memory spat out what we just read and what we were about to read: yet another tragedy from the slaying of a small child. Yet another battle of survival against the threat of the attacking child. Tears had come. The words were there but they couldn’t be said.
I sat there in distress. This was something I’ve struggled with for so long: allowing my sister to be hurt, to be sad. I’ve never wanted her to feel those things, and even when I’ve been the one teasing, I feel immense guilt. I’m supposed to protect her.
But I can’t do anything—this sadness, this hurt, it has all already happened, because this is a recording. All I can do is sit there “with” her, feeling the pain, feeling the sadness—not just from the book, but also from my sister’s experience with the book.
It’s a lesson my therapist has been trying to help me understand: I can’t fix the discomfort or distress or sadness or pain of other people. I have to just be there with them.
Granted, this may not have been helpful for my sister—I can’t speak for her experience being so vulnerable for so long on the video. To me, it was powerful because I realized this couldn’t have happened on a normal audiobook experience. When I’m listening to an official recorded book and start to cry, the performance moves on without me, and I end up suppressing the emotion, burying it for another time. But this time, it was baked into the experience. Fast-forwarding was an unthinkably violent act. There was no way out but through.
An audiobook of silence was when I heard the most.
Cyborg
It is a cruel paradox to live in this world, knowing that anywhere many people are suffering, all the time, for all possible reasons, and still having to live life yourself. The horrors we inflict upon each other affect us all—there is no purity of cause, no true righteousness, because you can always pull on a string that leads you to yet another system, yet another travesty, yet another incomprehensible situation.
If we can’t escape and we can’t fix it (as individuals), then what are we even doing here?!
I’m not a therapist, so this isn’t advice, but I think something that I’m learning is that I must slow down. It’s not just about mental health, nor curbing addictive content feeds. It’s about tapping into humanity.
I couldn’t console my sister—it was literally impossible. I can’t fix the famine and oppression in Gaza; I can’t save the people who are terrorized just because of their ethnicity or race or queer identity; I can’t heal the sick.
The only thing I can do is witness and weep.
After that, I can do what I can do to humanize those whom I have seen—really seen—so that we can start to reconnect and abandon the follies that got us here.