I may be a nice guy, a smart guy or a reasonably fun guy.
But I am no one without my causes. It’s clear from the moment I found my first cause — likely the defense of Judaism on the playgrounds of Nebraska and Texas — that I approach wholeness only through my passions.
Knowledge of an issue offers one power, and power begs responsibility, and responsibility takes your time, and time consumed to great degrees means that people always know you as the “[issue] guy.” In college I was the March of Dimes guy, in New York I’m the Israel guy. The very word “causes” is popularized by the Facebook application: a badge of membership, detailing who we’ve recruiting and how much we’ve raised. I define my facebook page by the things I care about. (And irony is not a cause, friends. Sorry, I don’t roll that way.)
I am defined by my causes because every day I wake up and existing just isn’t enough — it’s boring, even at its hedonistic moments — but there is more existential angst here than just an effort to find life meaningful.
I’m not a great person without my causes. My gregariousness, creativity, stories, and relationships I create all originate in how I proceed through life, working on a cause. Even my humor is laiden with a politican bent, a purpose of shifting the sensibilities about sex, race, religion and politics to a more healthy place. There isn’t a joke for the sake of joking! Every joke expresses a point of view that needs more air time. Even this one:
Q: What’s a frog say when it’s knee-deep in water?
A: Knee-deep!
I tell that joke also with a purpose — it’s context is to give people a G-rated joke they can tell in mixed company (or even an interview!) in order to do well in the world, to succeed, to get hired, so that our little movement of good people gets further in this world. I’m just teaching, but I want you to be better, funnier, whatever. Even this inane little joke is told from a place of great purpose: we progressives need to be more, bigger, better.
And this is nothing to say about my Holocaust jokes, occupation and Israeli-Palestinian jokes, and the black humor of racism around the world. “Brown people” is the punch line of so many good jokes, like a liberal “Yo, Mama” or “That’s what she said” joke. It’s a tired line, but that’s the point — brown people are tired of it all, too.
There are parts of me which are dead when I’m not on duty, so to speak. My sense of initiative and entrepreneurial excess are useless without the outcomes of it all. Are we building community, stitching great new people together and fostering right relationships at home and abroad, or no?
I tell both my friends and my dates that they’ll never know the true me until they witness me give a speech. The patient boy gives way for the righteous indignation, the poetry, and the volume which is secreted away and bottled up. We wouldn’t want to be overly dramatic everyday now, would we? I save it — and it’s a huge part of me only given space to vent by my causes. I might very well blow up without them.
My schedule, my friends, my prayer, my relationship to God, my job, my volunteering, my spending habits, my clothes, my food, my reading, my academic interests, my writing (of course), my dating preferences, my pride and my shame, my idea of success and pleasure.
Me.
…All of it wrapped up in my causes to the point that I may be little else than a framework for changing something about this world, every second, every day. And to even rest, to justify relaxing, is almost painful. To be less useful is painful. We all want to be wanted — and my causes leave so much to be wanted, they want my contributions terribly badly.
I am my causes. When the (majority of the) Middle East conflict is over, maybe I’ll be delightfully left without a self. An empty frame, bereft of content. Maybe that would be nice.
I am no one without my causes. Perhaps I’m in a race to be a nobody. After all, nobody should be free from doing this work. =-)