Monday, November 16, 2009

On Guilt, Responsibility, and the Power of Story: Notes from the Field

Josh McManus, CreateHere’s Co-founder and Creative Strategist, recently returned from a 25-day tour of seven European cities through the Marshall Memorial Fellowship. With two feet on American soil, Josh sends us this dispatch about the importance of responsibility.

Guilty, guilty… that’s all I could think about on while I shuttled across the world on a series of trains and planes. I was working my way across the Netherlands, Germany and almost half of the Northern Hemisphere on my long trip home, and the guilt wasn’t a sharp, cutting type (the kind just above your stomach… you know the type), but the slow-rising full body tension that finds its way to the back of your throat and sits for days on end. 

With a bit of distance between now, and some convergent reflections brought on by the twenty year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as Veteran’s Day, that wound of guilt is healing to a scar of responsibility, and I’m finding ways to express its source.

It started while riding in an overnight train from Amsterdam to Berlin, appropriately foreshadowed by the previous week’s activities. From Belgrade, Serbia, we flew to Munich and then Leipzig, Germany. Leipzig, a former East German city, offered our first real glimpse into what the life divided had been like. We toured the former Stassi (East German Special Police) headquarters and saw some of the tools of manipulation and fear mongering the Stassi implemented first-hand. Honestly, the relics of repression were somewhat surreal for someone that grew up in such a starkly contrasted free society.

After seeing the Stassi tools, we sat down with Reinhard Bohse, a leading figure in the peaceful revolution of 1989 and listened to his story of determination and commitment. As we left that discussion, the stairs we descended were the same that once sheltered thousands of candles during the revolution: the candles were a sign of peace from the people who were feeling unrest to those who were bound to perpetuate a failing system. Pictures of the burning candles are one of the most powerful metaphors for non-violent change that I’ve ever been witness to.

Leipzig led us to Berlin for the Marshall Forum on Transatlantic Affairs. Of course, the focus of the Forum was the Fall, twenty years later, and the ramifications thereof. The air in the conference rooms was rather heady and academic, though perhaps the lack of distance from the events makes formality a cloak of comfort for discussion.  

In spite of the formality, we heard from amazing change-agents who had led dissenting movements from various platforms. The stories ranged from pragmatic and logistical to heartfelt and cathartic. A former physician, biologist, and activist, Jen Reich gave an opening address that closed more powerfully than most addresses I’ve ever heard. The call for eternal vigilance towards the pursuit of liberty from a survivor of oppression will forever haunt me.

Still, I was not truly moved, not reflecting, and not feeling guilty. Shortly, Berlin was over, and it was time to visit the Netherlands for rest and recovery. Contrary to the popular conception of Amsterdam, I found it culturally enlightened, architecturally fascinating, and distinctive for reasons far superior than the city’s famed “coffee” shops. A city that has 1.5 bicycles per person and the largest bike parking garage in all of Europe is near to my heart for that reason, and the canal system (rivaling that of Venice) is an engineering feat that our own Gulf Coast could learn from. Thanks to good food and some much needed sleep, Amsterdam too was over in a moment.

We boarded a train for Berlin at 7 am, and made it almost five hours before we were awoken by a young couple in their late 20s. They were distinctively German in their features and obviously a bit timid sitting across from an imposing American and my friend Scott, who hails from Alaska. We were a foreign sight.

After some uncomfortable silence, the Beck’s beer the man across from me was drinking finally kicked in. “You are from the States?” he asked. From there, we were off to the races.

He was a bit older than me and she a bit younger, and they were heading back home to Leipzig from Cologne where his pictures had been featured in an exhibition. For all superficial purposes, we were much alike. He loved skating, I love biking. They were both creatives, which is where I focus my work. The latter half of our conversation traversed foreign territory for me: they shared stories of growing up in Communist-controlled East Germany. had never considered what life could be like without popular media, without culture that wasn’t infused with propaganda, without color in both the literal and metaphorical ways. Their stories were matter of fact and they both shined when they spoke of the fall of the wall. This told me all that I needed to know of what the transition meant to them: there lives had been half lost in to the repression of others and that’s an extremely foreign notion to Americans, and myself in particular. As our conversations wound down and we shook hands and parted, the first pang of guilt hit.

That sense of guilt grew as I bounced from place to place, slowly approaching home. The closer I got to home, the more I knew that I would never be the same again. As introspective as I’d tried to be in the past, as worldly as I’d been in my views, I realized: it had all been a failure. I had never truly understood how incredible my life circumstances have been. I’ve always known freedom, I’ve never seen war, and I’ve always been able to question, speak and move freely. As I said in opening, that guilt came from the shared stories of my new friends, a guilt now scarred into responsibility. I send this final Marshall Fellowships dispatch to anyone who’s out there reading as a call to action. Think now about what you take for granted, and make it so no longer. I know I will.