When it seems that as a society we are going to ruin and there is nothing to do, a child gets on the subway and stands up to seat a grandmother who has just gotten into the car. When everything seems to be going well, a woman lets the man behind her pass in line at the supermarket when she realizes he is in a hurry. When the worst predictions for our shared organization come true, the postman knocks on a boy’s door and the boy in question comes down so that the postman doesn’t have to go up the three elevator floors between them. When apathy seems to set in among us, a woman cries while sitting on a bench and a stranger asks her if she is okay, if he can do something for her. When everything goes wrong, someone leaves and, without knowing or wanting it, shows you that many things go wrong, but not everything.
Something is going right when the woman in front of you holds the door for you to pass. Something is going relatively well when the man in the light brown jacket chases the bag that the wind moves from side to side, manages to grab it and throw it in the garbage. Something is definitely going right when the blue-eyed boy runs after the curly-haired lady to give her back the banknote that fell to the ground.
While Trump and his imitators around the world destroy the concept of democracy, a large group of people gather every first Tuesday of the month in the great hall of a civic center to participate in the neighborhood assembly. While the kings of disinformation kill the truth, members of an entire editorial team leave their jobs to protest the censorship imposed by their boss to please one of the newspaper’s advertisers. As states acquire more and more weapons, more and more people take to the streets to demand peace.
We have many reasons to think negatively about ourselves, our way of acting and our way of being in the world. Many reasons to think that we are in evident decline; infinite reasons to surrender to the mediocrity that we ourselves have built. Because yes, in general we did everything very badly, but in concrete terms we still have reasons for hope. The revolution is possible thanks to the anonymous passerby who shares the umbrella with a stranger. There is a small possibility of a future thanks to the young woman who helps a father load his child’s stroller onto the bus. We are still standing thanks to the neighbor who transformed the street tree bed into a geranium garden for all the neighbors to enjoy.
Clinging to the empty positivity of Mr. Wonderful cups won’t help anything or anyone. Going out into the street and warning someone that they’re about to step on a piece of poop on the ground will do it. He will do it because that “be careful!” In the face of that poop, it is an altruistic, supportive and collective action, because small-scale mutual care defines us, lays the foundation for everything else and reminds us, as much as it may be for some, that community care is our natural form.
