Scale

I had my first root canal two weeks ago—it was an acute situation, where my face was swelling and I was in considerable pain for 4-5 days. I had never experienced any tooth pain like that; if you have, you know how deeply uncomfortable and frustrating it can be.

Luckily, my dentist was able to refer me quickly to an endodontist, a lovely young woman who walked me through every step of the process in her clean, brightly lit office. The dental assistants were sweet and reassuring. While it was obviously an unpleasant experience, I left after a long appointment with some relief, prescriptions for painkiller and antibiotics in hand.

As I gazed out the window while we waited for the Novocaine to take full hold so she could start the procedure, I had a flash in my mind—there is someone in Gaza who needs a root canal, who needs a tooth pulled, who needs a cavity filled, and they are sitting in excruciating pain. The infection will spread if they don’t get care.

I got that guilt pang that a lot of us get, I think, when we think about how our problems feel small in the scale of the worlds suffering. I’ve dealt with these feelings my whole life, of course, but early in my career in Social Work was able to really root myself in a reminder that we cannot compare suffering, but rather need to hold the truth that everything has scale, everything is on a spectrum. Me not getting my root canal doesn’t mean someone in Gaza gets dental care. Going to therapy to talk about relationship issues doesn’t end war, going to the movies with your friends doesn’t end homelessness, buying a coffee won’t prevent climate catastrophe.

So what do we do? Yes, we have to go on with our lives. But we interrupt injustice when we see it, we use our full throats to speak our truths, and we remember that nothing happens in isolation. And we take the small steps we can, and we remember that under capitalism and colonization everything we do as individuals is just that—individual. But most of all we build our base, we organize and write and sing and march because we know that holding the nuance of BOTH AND is the only way to prevent madness.

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Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)

by Muriel Rukeyser

I lived in the first century of world wars.

Most mornings I would be more or less insane,

The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,

The news would pour out of various devices

Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.

I would call my friends on other devices;

They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

Slowly I would get to pen and paper,

Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.

In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,

Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,

Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.

As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,

We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,

To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile

Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,

Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means

To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,

To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.