Do Something!

Issue #3.7 ~ August 31st, 2024

Do Something!

In 1996, one of America’s most influential Buddhist teachers, Sylvia Boorstein, published a book with the catchy title “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There”. Boorstein’s clever inversion of the classic scold “Don’t just sit there, do something” was, and remains, a useful reminder for aspiring meditators that your actions should always be informed by the mindful awareness you cultivate while sitting on your meditation cushion.

Last month, one of America’s most influential public leaders, Michelle Obama, in her inspiring address to the Democratic National Convention, issued this eloquent appeal for her audience to take what would seem to be a very different, if not in fact opposite, approach …

This is our time to stand up for what we know in our hearts is right. To stand up not just for our basic freedoms, but for decency and humanity. For basic respect, dignity and empathy. For the values at the very foundation of this democracy. It’s up to us to remember what Kamala’s mother told her: Don’t just sit around and complain, do something.

So if they lie about her, and they will, we’ve got to do something. If we see a bad poll, and we will, we’ve got to put down that phone, and do something. If we start feeling tired, if we start feeling that dread creeping back in, we’ve got to pick ourselves up, throw water on our face, and what? [Crowd chants back: “Do Something!”]

We only have two and a half months, y’all, to get this done. Only 11 weeks to make sure every single person we know is registered and has a voting plan. So we cannot afford for anyone, anyone, anyone in America to sit on their hands and wait to be called. Don’t complain if no one from the campaign has specifically reached out to you to ask you for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness. You know what you need to do. So consider this to be your official ask. Michelle Obama is asking you — no, I’m telling y’all — to do something.

So, is there a contradiction here?

I don’t think so. What we have instead, I propose, is an apparent “either/or” covering up a deeper “both/and”.

Our meditation instructor is not advising us to sit rather than do something; she’s telling us to sit first and then do something. She simply wants our actions to be informed by our awareness.

Our former First Lady also wants our actions to be informed by our awareness. In this case, it’s the awareness of the existential threat a second Trump presidency would pose both to the country and to the world at large that should inform our actions. Awareness still comes first, it’s still important; but then, it’s imperative that we act, that we do something.

There’s really no contradiction between Sylvia’s advice to sit and Michelle’s clarion call to action. But there is a huge difference between them, nonetheless. Only our former First Lady’s call carries so much urgency; only hers foreshadows such a looming existential threat.

So, just for the moment, and continuing throughout the remaining days until November 5th, let’s consider transforming Sylvia’s catchy book title back into the phrase that inspired it - “Don’t just sit there, do something!”.

Or, better still, we can paraphrase the rallying cry that Tim Walz has been ending his campaign speeches with, “We’ll sleep when we’re dead!”, into the more hopeful promise “We’ll sit when we’ve won!”

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AfterWords

• A very helpful resource for learning which current political campaigns to support either with your financial donation or by volunteering your time is Simon Rosenberg’s daily newsletter here on Substack, “Hopium Chronicles”. You can check it out here, and become a subscriber if you so choose.

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