A Need To Belong…
Lately, I’ve been thinking of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs and about how just above our basic need for safety, we have a basic need for love and belonging. We can’t move into self esteem or self actualization without first feeling this sense of love and belonging.
For these reasons, I have concerns about how we presently frame “belonging”. Our current cultural language is necessarily focused on inclusion, equality and freedom of choice. We’re appropriately using language foundational to the premise that our bodies are all precious, and that our personal choices with our bodies should be respected. We’ve been telling each other that we’re equal, amazing people who have a voice and the most importantly, we have a right to use this voice.
It therefore seems very confusing to those like me, who are brokenheartedly confused by this red flag of a contradiction.
The governor of the beautiful state I live in (Washington) recently publicly played out specific rules for the segregation, yes… for the segregation of people, based on whether or not they’ve been vaccinated for Covid-19.
Regardless of our opinions and personal decisions about the Covid-19 vaccine, what we 100% cannot deny is that this vaccine is NOT yet officially approved. The recent news that the FDA will likely approve these vaccines by the end of summer raises questions about the scientific process, considering that (as of May 2021), the clinical trials won’t be completed until the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023.
“Were there’s a risk, there must be a choice” should forever stand, and for these reasons, YES, I’m very concerned about vaccination segregation.
I thought, that…if anything at all, we could agree that segregation of any kind moves us away from being “all in this together”. Intentionally and publicly separating people into two distinct categories, with category 1 being rewarded with more freedom, more employment, more opportunity and category 2 being subjected to the removal of said freedoms along with group shaming and chastising is disturbing. To say the least.
I sit here and observe what’s happening in plain sight and I try to find the language to remind my kids that discrimination of any kind is still completely unacceptable…except, apparently in this case.
I try to talk to them about the fact that they can make all decisions regarding their own bodies, and that “my body, my choice” is legit, except apparently as it relates to being injected with something that, for the moment, remains experimental. I want them to know that there’s nothing FINE about being forced to be injected in return for the right to receive a public university education, to travel, to go to a concert, or to attend an MLS soccer game.
I don’t understand why this conversation is so taboo. Why can’t we have an intelligent dialogue around the fact that above all, our bodies are ours and ours alone. That maybe we should put on the breaks for a moment and look at the past decade of mRNA vaccine research and immune system malfunction problems associated with these previous studies and trials.
Can we contend that we have no information on what this means for us a decade or two from now and that for these reasons, we should advocate for our kids by excluding them from any mandate until we have long term safety studies?
There are so many questions which remain unanswered. It’s incongruent to teach our kids to ask questions and never stop, while we demonstrate, quite loudly in fact, that asking certain questions poses the threat of repudiation. Why DO these questions raise such anger?
Was Ben Franklin censored for suggesting that “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority”? Was he referred to as “anti-science” for always encouraging questioning?
I suppose Elenor Roosevelt really had it going on when she said “Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway”.
At the risk of sounding cheesy…with all the love in my heart, I really do hope we can get through this together. I hope we can find our roots and manifest the most respectful, loving and inspiring versions of ourselves so we can simply come to understand each other.