U = Understanding

We all want to understand things—the world around us, the “whys” of different behaviors, but especially ourselves.  When we don’t understand something, we rationalize our way out of our dilemma with phrases like:

“No one understands everything!”

“Some people/things defy understanding.”

“Not everything is able to be understood.  Some things just have to be accepted.”

Or the infamous—“It is what it is.”

Yep.  When we are having trouble grasping something and it throws us into a regular frustrated tizzy, we take the defensive position or try to shrug it off.  The following is a true example. 

Our Black Literature instructor told us to pick a hate group to write a paper on for our final college term project.  We had to research, show the pros and cons of the ideology of said group, and offer a valid argument for or against the group.  No one in the class was too keen on this, so he proceeded to assign a hate group to each of us since we avoided picking our own.  I was assigned the KKK.  I was appalled.  Cons about the group?  No problem.  Pros?  He had to be kidding!  I left class stunned.  After the initial shock, I started digging for other topics so I could get out of researching the KKK.  The next class, I presented him with my list of topics, i.e.., slaver owners, presidential slave owners, southern racists.  He smiled at me and said, “Sorry.  You are assigned the KKK.  And I suggest you get started since it is due in three weeks.  Remember, 15-20 pages with bibliography and works cited.  Later.”  I stayed, begging to not have to do it and pleading my case.  He listened patiently and said, “I hear that you hate them as a hate group.  I hear all your arguments against writing it.  So I ask you, don’t you want to fight them? Their ideology?”  I adamantly gave him a resounding “YES!”  He leaned back in his chair, seemingly amused, and said, “You’ll never adequately stand against or fight something you do not understand.  Once you understand, you know HOW to fight, where the soft spots are, where the fallacies lie.  You want to see them go under?  Understand where they are coming from and show them they are wrong.  You can’t defeat an enemy you know nothing about except they anger you and you want them gone.  Got it?”  I threw in one last plea and he shook his head no.

Well, though I hated what I was doing, I wrote that paper, meeting all his requirements.  He, my teacher, was a wise and knowing man.  The more research I did, the more I began to understand the ideology of the KKK, the more intelligent and heartfelt arguments I could present against them.  AND I could see where their refusal to try to understand their faulty logic left them as nothing but an empty shell of hate with little hope.  In a much larger sense, I saw that to understand was its own empowerment.  Like I said, true story.

But then something came into my life where I couldn’t understand and realized I didn’t want to even try to understand.  It had to do with a child molester.  Advice was given to try to understand what motivated a child molester.  My mind threw up a block simultaneously with my heart.  No part of me wanted to understand what pain and grief the child molester caused because of background or personal quirkiness or even biological bent toward molesting children.  I didn’t care about it being projected blame or revenge or a power struggle the molester was going through.  At that point, understanding was simply a word with no meaning.

Conclusion?  It is a truth that some things can be understood and that we can better work with or against them through that.  It is also true that we can be so overwhelmed with pain caused by others that we no longer care to know the whys, the instigating reasons, or experiences.  We simply want it to cease to be, to exist in any form.  In some respects, this, too, can be good.  It creates a system of right vs wrong with right striving against wrong.  But understanding has a long term effect on the one trying to learn and the one who is striving to be understood.

We each have our own limitations, our own barriers, and our own goals to reach with our fellow persons…how far will we reach beyond ourselves to understand?  I will always respect, admire and even love that teacher who forced me to understand.  It has helped me in the current state of our country.  Some things I still have no desire to understand as I rail against them.  But people change, enlightenment happens.  I do believe that it is through understanding that our world and its people and animals can be saved, as well as our earth.

I’ll try.  And I hope you will, too.