It was a volunteer recognition dinner supported by several of the non-profits I've worked with over the years. My attendance was purely political, and I certainly wasn't expecting to enjoy myself. When they started recognizing the volunteers, I was listening to an adult literacy tutor who has two students. This guy volunteers over 300 hours in the course of a year and he's not alone. He and others like him are working one-on-one to make someone's life better. One individual person. No fanfare, no applause. Just one person helping another.
The reason I love Sorkin isn't West Wing or A Few Good Men, it's the show he did in between called Sports Night. One episode is called "The Quality of Mercy at 29K". Dan, one of the anchors, donated some money and wound up on a list. Now he is inundated with requests for contributions for everything from the Alabama Symphony to Cystic Fibrosis. Meanwhile, the show (Sports Night, as in a 24 hr cable sports channel's signature news show) is covering a story on a team climbing Mt. Everest. Meanwhile, Dana the producer has to take her niece to see The Lion King on Broadway, a chore she's dreading because she's not a fan of musical theatre. (She went to a musical once, there was a hoe down.)
These isolated incidents begin echoing each other in a beautiful way. Dana comes back blown away by what she saw on stage. "This woman, this woman with a voice like… she summoned the animals, she summoned the animals with her voice." The show - the music - the experience - just blew her socks off. And she exclaims "I didn't know we could do that." Dan, still trying to figure out what disease or homeless shelter or cause to support, hits the same note. We can cue AIDS. We can cure cancer. We got polio. We've got small pox. And we'll get this. If we set our minds to it, it's toast. The team on Everest goes silent, then we get the signal again when they're in sight of the summit. "Look what we can do."
If you ever want to feel like an absolute idiot, try tearing up at something on a fucking sitcom. But I do, every damn time.
We have such incredible potential. Some of us can write music - out of nothing - out of a blank page and total silence, they make this STUFF that can lift
the soul. Some of us can use our minds to understand how the world and our bodies work to elevate the suffering of their fellow human beings, and some of us
"just" give a few hours a week making someone's life better by teaching them to read.
It's so easy to forget that. Let's be honest, there are a lot of shits out there, and it only takes one or two to make you lose sight of it.
When you get that reminder, damn. Wake up call.Look what we can do.
