I slowly made my way to row 12 of our flight from Brussels to Dublin. I had just made sure everyone from my tour made it onto the plane. A young man, about 30, sat in the aisle seat. I could sense something wrong with him. A palpable anger emanated from him. As I had the window seat, I had to get past him. “Excuse me,” I said jovially. He was staring at his phone, texting. Without looking at me, he moved his knees sideways, so I had to squeeze past him to get to the seat. “Thanks man,” I said, equally jovially as I slid past him. He kept his face on his phone, slouched and brooding.
The Aer Lingus flight attendant was a man his age. As we were sitting in the emergency exit row, he had to tell us about the law and how we needed to be prepared for a potential emergency. I looked at the attendant, because I wanted him to know I was listening to his words. I also knew we were about to fly over the North Sea and the Irish Sea before landing in Dublin. Part of me was concerned that I did indeed want to be ready in case there was an emergency. I didn’t want to be that idiot who couldn’t open the emergency door.
As soon as the attendant started talking, the brooding young man with the phone said “Yes” in a monotone voice. The attendant was taken aback and then started in again. “Yes” said the brooding man while the attendant was talking.
“Excuse me,” said the attendant. “Stop cutting me,” which in American slang would be interpreted as “cutting me off.”
“I am not,” said the brooding man.
“Yes, you are,” said the attendant. “I am telling you about the emergency row and you are cutting me.”
“I said, yes” said the brooding man in a righteous tone, now looking at the attendant. “Isn’t that what you want to hear?”
I looked at the brooding man with disbelief.
“You are in an emergency row,” said the attendant. “When I ask you to listen to me, I need you to listen.” With that he moved away.
Two ladies behind our row, clucked their tongues, oblivious to the brooding man’s actions, but observing the standing flight attendant. “Oh, he woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” said one.
The brooding man turned to them, eager for their approval.
“I told him I said yes.”
He didn’t turn to me, because he knew I knew.
I took out the emergency pamphlet and hummed to myself as I studied it slowly. I took my time so the brooding man would see that I was looking at the pamphlet.
And, when I put the pamphlet back, I sat and thought about how we all are adjusting to an era of The Enemy Within. Within our communities, our families, our very selves.
The Enemy Within is self-righteousness.
The Enemy Within is apathetic for others.
The Enemy Within goes to victim when confronted.
The Enemy Within mocks authority.
The Enemy Within is self-absorbed.
The Enemy Within is not in touch with the world.
The Enemy Within lives a fiction through social media.
The Enemy Within has disdain for life itself.
We live in an era in which never before The Enemy Within has been given so much power.
The power has been handed over, because what is offered in return is a feeling of being in control in a world that constantly denies control. We gave aid and comfort to The Enemy Within with these thoughts and practices:
I can distort my own reality through selective social media.
I can be right in my opinion without questioning it.
I can assume others are wrong in theirs.
I can go rogue in the world because my own needs matter most.
I can ignore others' sufferings, because there are enough others who won’t.
The brooding man who sat a seat away from me, seemed to encapsulate what is wrong today.
His actions are what foments violence in the world. It is what terrorists and dictators feed upon.
It starts with self absorbed indifference. The brooding man could have moved to a seat where he could brood without endangering others. But that would have required effort.
Being good in the world takes effort.
It takes being present in the world. He was not.
The demand to be in the other’s shoes. His own shoes were enough for the Brooding Man.
We tend to see The Enemy Within as something foreign. All the conflict in the world seems to prove that it is. The Enemy Within isn’t foreign. The Enemy Within is usually right in the seat over in the emergency aisle, oblivious to others and when the emergency comes, unable to help. Or it is in us, oblivious to our own biases and prejudices.
To fight The Enemy Within we need to be present for others, to do good in the world, in any capacity possible. We need to stand up for our truth and admit when our truth needs to adjust with new revelations.
We need to practice the art of embracing good. The author Salman Rushdie, himself attacked by The Enemy Within, sums it up best. He will be releasing a new book, The Knife. Rushdie, now crippled in one hand and blind in one eye from being repeatedly stabbed by an extremist, said that he needed “a way to take charge of what happened and to answer violence with art.”
We all need, in this era of The Enemy Within, to take charge. We all need, in our own way, to answer violence with art.
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