This is important.

I am going to talk about the bystander effect right now and you listen the hell up because it could be a matter of life and death.

Definitions

Bystander: A person who is present at an event or incident but does not take part

Effect:1. Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result. 2. The power to produce an outcome or achieve a result; influence

Bystander Effect: The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present.

For some reason or another, when we get together we get stupid. It happens in our house all the time. We start in on the Bridesmaids quotes and the voices and we become interwoven and indistinguishable from one another. It can be a form of solidarity to have those things, those jokes and moments that make collective memories and form a knowing. We start quotes with the expectation that someone else will finish them.

Now and again (ok, quite often, hypocritically), the group think gets to me. I realize that it is exclusive and somewhat obnoxious and repetitive and limiting. I participate, of course, in this friendly collective thought process, but that is because I have found it to be mostly harmless. Until today.

Today, as I sat in a coffee shop doing homework, a girl had a seizure 5 feet away from me. She fell on the ground hard. Her mug shattered on the floor. Shards everywhere and she was convulsing in them. But thanks to many hours as a kid spent pouring over EMT books and living now with a group of passionate premed/nursing majors, I knew what to do. I'm sure I was not alone in these faculties. My knowledge base is hardly more than common sense.

BUT. In a matter of seconds I was the one on the ground, clearing her airway of vomit and turning her on her side.

Let me be clear about this: I did not want to be the one in charge of this situation. I am not medically qualified to handle anything of the sort. There were 10 other people and 2 baristas in the coffee shop. And yet there I was, crouched on the ground, holding this girl's violent body and taking the lead because everyone else was looking at one another for direction.

THIS. Is un. acceptable. There were 5 grown men in the coffee shop. The girl was kicking a table, and I had to tell them to move it so that she didn't break her leg. Everyone had a cell phone, but it wasn't until I specifically instructed someone to call 911 that anyone acted. There were sharp bits of porcelain everywhere, but until I barked for a pillow, I was holding this girl's head in my arm so that she didn't get cut.

She eventually came too and the EMT's took it from there, but NO ONE else who had been present could give them any information. Here is what I assessed in the midst of the ordeal: She seized for approximately 2 minutes, had possible cuts due to the glass, could have sustained a head injury from her fall, had a pulse of 160 and was not wearing any medical tags.

Unfortunately, these situations are not uncommon. But for the first time today, I realized the importance of thinking as an individual. Solidarity is great, but if we spend our life looking for cues that tell us what to do in any given situation, we will not only miss opportunities for boldness, but possibly endanger one another. When there is an emergency at hand, NEVER expect someone else to "handle it". Life is not a knock-knock joke. It is not the start of a quote that we can depend on others to finish. You have to finish your own quotes. You have to be the first responder.

I am in Love--

And I don't care who knows it!

Rousseau, where have you been all my life?

"Prudence! Prudence which is ever bidding us look forward into the future, a future which in many cases we shall never reach; here is the real source of all our troubles! How mad it is for so short-lived a creature as man to look forward into a future to which he rarely attains, while he neglects the present which is his? This madness is all the more fatal since it increases with years, and the old, always timid, prudent, and miserly, prefer to do without necessaries to-day that they may have luxuries at a hundred. Thus we grasp everything, we cling to everything; we are anxious about time, place, people, things, all that is and will be; we ourselves are but the least part of ourselves. We spread ourselves, so to speak, over the whole world, and all this vast expanse becomes sensitive. No wonder our woes increase when we may be wounded on every side. How many princes make themselves miserable for the loss of lands they never saw, and how many merchants lament in Paris over some misfortune in the Indies!

Is it nature that carries men so far from their real selves? Is it her will that each should learn his fate from others and even be the last to learn it; so that a man dies happy or miserable before he knows what he is about. There is a healthy, cheerful, strong, and vigorous man; it does me good to see him; his eyes tell of content and well-being; he is the picture of happiness. A letter comes by post; the happy man glances at it, it is addressed to him, he opens it and reads it. In a moment he is changed, he turns pale and falls into a swoon. When he comes to himself he weeps, laments, and groans, he tears his hair, and his shrieks re-echo through the air. You would say he was in convulsions. Fool, what harm has this bit of paper done you? What limb has it torn away? What crime has it made you commit? What change has it wrought in you to reduce you to this state of misery?

Had the letter miscarried, had some kindly hand thrown it into the fire, it strikes me that the fate of this mortal, at once happy and unhappy, would have offered us a strange problem. His misfortunes, you say, were real enough. Granted; but he did not feel them. What of that? His happiness was imaginary. I admit it; health, wealth, a contented spirit, are mere dreams. We no longer live in our own place, we live outside it. What does it profit us to live in such fear of death, when all that makes life worth living is our own?"

-Jean-Jaques Rousseau, Emile

And so it has been, that by spending my life making future plans out of fear, I have spent my waking days in the very death I planned to escape. Truth be told, I fear life more than death. Creatures of habit hate the unknown.

But here's what's real. You don't have to be PERFECT for life! Life does not require your readiness. I don't have to be "there" to live right now. Because that doesn't even make sense! There is no there. Not one I'd ever want to reach anyways.

Such is the knowledge that kills fear.

So begins my political love affair with life.

Tweet tweet and C h i r p !

I was born from a whistle. Freed by that sound I make with my teeth that is so seemingly sourceless. I will whistle you a concerto if you'd like. 1812 overture is a personal favorite. I can whistle with the clarity of a piccolo or the soul of Aretha. I can whistle with my retainers in (see mom, I DO wear them!), when it's cold out, after 7 hours of jaw surgery and with the birds in spring. People know me by my whistle. It is something I do without thinking, when singing requires too much effort and talking is superfluous. Inspired by my grandma, taught by my siblings, it is something I will always have. And I like that about myself.

Worth the risk?

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be b r o k e n. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

To isolate from love would be a hellish thing indeed. So H a p p y V a l e n t i n e s d a y. May you never fear this thing called love.

"I never knew a time more fit than the present"

-Machiavelli, The Prince

lets try this again.

I am in a season of second chances. Rekindling abandoned friendships. Extending my hand towards family members. Giving myself the grace to mess things up and the strength to relinquish my desire to fix it all. I will take my brother out to lunch. I will help my grandmother sort old photographs and go through the memories she treasures. I will sing with my sister and learn about the things that are important to her. I will spend time really listening to my friends. I will travel with my uncle and see the family farm. I will call my parents and visit home. I will let my heart's Melody know that she is loved--that her life is not a failure.

I will be someone who is dependable. I will make that commitment to the people I love.

God has made it clear that I am to steward my relationships. I cannot save, fix, or heal, but I can embody joy and love. I can appreciate what I have been given and the love that is around me. I do not have to be a victim of circumstance. I am not the poster child of tragedy.

From Genesis to Exodus and back again. I have been given a new beginning. Hold me to it. Help me share it.