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This week’s question comes to us from Shani Jayant:

What’s the right amount of heartache in times like these?

I hope my heart never stops breaking.

Earlier this week cops murdered a baby over stolen diapers. And I could tell you which city, but by the time you read this it might’ve happened again in a different city. I could tell you the name of the baby, but by the time you read this we could be talking about a different baby. And I’m almost reluctant to mention diapers because one, it doesn’t matter what someone was stealing, and two, by the time you read this we could be talking about a different thing altogether. Cops murdered a child, who was in a car, getting away from the place where the child’s mother had stolen the diapers from. Cops murdered a child to avenge the corporate loss of a pack of diapers.

I hope my heart never stops breaking. Because I am surrounded by heartbreaking acts. And I’m so afraid of what would happen if my heart stopped recognizing that. I’m so afraid of what would happen if my heart became inured to what is happening. I’m so afraid of what would happen if I could shrug off cops murdering a baby, or even the mother of a baby, or the father, brother, sister, or cousin of a baby.

If my heart stopped breaking I might become the kind of person who looks for reasons why murdering a baby over the corporate loss of a pack of diapers would be justified, instead of the kind of person who asks why we have money for genocide but not for free diapers. If my heart stopped breaking I might become the kind of person who blames a mother for bringing her baby with her to steal diapers, instead of the kind of person who wonders why we have money for bombing schools and hospitals, but no money for a national daycare program. If my heart stopped breaking I might become the kind of person who jumps on social media to defend the murder of children by the very people who are supposed to be protecting and serving us, instead of the type of person who needs it to stop, prays for it to stop, even though deep down inside I know it will never stop, as long as people, who are not you and are not me and are not that mother and are not that child, keep benefiting from it.

I hope my heart never stops breaking.

I hope I feel every horror. I hope I feel the pain of every neighbor that is kidnapped. I hope I feel the despair of every family that is searching for someone who suddenly disappeared from their lives. I hope I feel the fear of every child running through a school hallway to outrun gunfire. I hope I feel the anguish of every parent staring at a phone wondering if it will ring. I hope I feel the anguish of every trans person coming out to their family, hoping for love and understanding, and being met with fear and hatred. I hope I feel the dread of every Palestinian looking towards the sky, wondering where today’s bombs will fall. Wondering if the next bomb will take them to the only place where they can still hold their children, who were lost to yesterday’s bomb.

I hope my heart never stops breaking. I hope it shatters daily. I hope that every shard has a name or an event or a memory attached to it. I hope to remember every single one of those names and events and memories. I hope to spend my days attempting to piece my heart back together. Even as I know it will be impossible. Even as I know the pieces will never fit together the same way again. Even as I know that every atrocity only rebreaks it, often while I am still trying to mend it from the previous atrocity.

We are born with hearts that are whole. We are born with hearts that are simultaneously full of love, and wanting more. We are born with hearts that are destined to break, because it’s the piecing together of the human heart that makes us fully human.

I want my heart to break loudly. I want pieces of my heart to lodge onto your heart, and I want pieces of your heart to lodge onto mine. I want to feel what it is like for a mother to need to steal diapers for her child. I want to feel what it is like for a child to hear that their father was taken away. I want to feel what it is like when the parents who were supposed to keep you safe, turn out to be your biggest monsters. (I actually know that one.) And I want you to feel what it is like to feel safe. I want you to feel what it is like to be loved. I want you to feel what it is like to know that you are in the right place, surrounded by people who love you. I want that for all of you so hard.

In 1971, the philosopher John Rawls published A Theory of Justice, a great big thick tome on social justice, constitutional democracy, and the like. One of the exercises in the book was something he called “the veil of ignorance.” And I know that we’re used to thinking of ignorance as a very bad and stupid thing, because it usually is. But that’s not how he meant it here. The veil of ignorance is an exercise for building a more just society by allocating your role in that society after you’ve had a role in designing it. For example, you don’t design a society where a mother has to steal diapers if there’s a chance that you’d be placed in that role. You’re more likely to design a society where diapers are readily available. You also don’t design a society where one very sociopathic individual is allowed (yes, I’m using that word very intentionally) to hoard a trillion dollars when a large percentage of that society has to live without a roof over their heads, or the guarantee of their next meal. The odds of a dice roll putting you in the latter group are too high. So you design a more just society, where resources are allocated fairly. You design a society that guarantees you the safety of a home, the necessity of a meal, the proximity of other humans. None of whom are suffering from a lack of the things that you have access to. And if we are going to define that as a more just society—which I very much think it is—then we have to define what we are living in now as an unjust society. Which I very much think it is.

We are living in a society where cops kill children over a pack of stolen diapers.

And that breaks my heart, as it should.

But there are pockets of society where justice, equity, and love can be found. I have seen it in neighborhoods. I have seen it on corners. I have seen it in meeting houses. I have seen it in the grocery store. I have seen it in our championship parades, and barber shops, and marches, I have seen it in the faces of care workers. I have seen it on the bench outside neighborhood cafés. I have seen it in bike lanes. I have seen it in places where people realize that pain is shared, and in the sharing alleviated. I have seen it in the broken shards of this society that we keep piecing together, a little bit at a time. I have seen it in places where people with broken hearts find each other, see each other, and heal each other. Or at least help each other piece their hearts back together. Each piece with a name, or an event, or a memory. Every piece previously belonging to someone else’s previously whole heart. Patched together to make a new heart. A bigger heart. A piece of evidence that we are human.

I hope my heart never stops breaking. Because when your heart stops breaking that’s when you begin to accept the injustice around us as they way things should be, and they are not. They are heart breaking. And I hope the next time my heart breaks you are there. I hope a piece of my broken heart lodges into yours, and that a piece of yours lodges into mine. I hope we both realize that we are a new community.

And I hope we seek vengeance for those whose pain we are feeling.

❤️‍🩹

🙋 Got a question? Ask it! I might just answer it.

📣 The next Presenting w/Confidence workshop is slated for June 25 & 26. Humility is expensive and does not pay your rent. Get in here.

📓 On July 9 I will be doing another virtual book tour event. This time with America’s Favorite Printer, Amos Kennedy Jr! Amos is amazing and this will be fun!

🍉 We are still murdering children in Palestine. Please help if you can.

🏳️‍⚧️ If there is a trans person in your life, please let them know how much you love them. And… donate what you can to Trans Lifeline.