O P I N I O N

THE SOAPBOX

Stand up. Speak up. It’s your turn.

There is something fundamentally wrong with society today, and the idea that empathy or compassion are weak is at the root of the problem. 

I’ve been a New Hampshire resident for most of my life, and I grew up in Concord. I remember when there was only one visible homeless person (Norman). I remember eating donuts after mass at St. John’s every Saturday, and later, when I was fourteen, riding my bike to work at Ballard’s Ice Cream (a job I got mostly to eat free ice cream). I remember when people on the street were kind to one another. People cared about their neighbors—we shared resources, had impromptu dinners at our friends’ houses, and when we heard someone was sick, we rallied around their family.

My best friend in early elementary school was David Ryan. David got diagnosed with cancer when I was six, and he died when I was seven. I don’t have many vivid memories from that time: a hospital visit here and there; helping him move his wheelchair when he got too weak to push the wheels once… mostly just sitting with my friend, wondering how long we had. I remember asking if he could come with me to the playground, and my mother telling me no, with tears in her eyes. I also remember how our community rallied around David and his family. We held fundraising events, businesses donated to his memorial fund, people ran races in his name and brought dinners to his grieving family.

We now live in a society where our elected representatives are voting to take money from child cancer research. They are doing this in front of our faces, and we are all too numb or too busy or too scared to say anything. And I get it—as a mother and a state employee, I can’t afford to lose my job. I can’t afford private health insurance for my daughter and myself, and luckily we own the house we live in, because I wouldn’t be able to afford rent either. If we could even find an apartment. I took my job with “The State” because it was supposed to be reliable, and I stayed because I grew to love my co-workers and the work we do.

My mother worked at New Hampshire Hospital for over 30 years. She got spat on, hit, screamed at, so that she could afford to raise me and hopefully give me a safe, stable life. I went to the state-run preschool on the hospital grounds. I took Taekwondo lessons in an auditorium there– heavily discounted for state employees and their families. Our apartment on Joffre Street was $300 a month for a one-bedroom–which meant I slept in the living room– but I always had my cavities filled, and I got new eyeglasses each year. We were poor, but it wasn’t all bad. My friends had generous parents, and there was always a sleep over, or an after school snack (thanks, Doug & Bonnie McNutt). 

I’m telling you all of this because without empathy and compassion, none of my childhood would have been possible. None of any of our childhoods, because without the compassion and empathy of our parents, we wouldn’t survive. How I treat my daughter dictates how she allows herself to be treated in the future, and how my daughter sees me behave is the way she learns to be a person in the world. What are we teaching our children now? That the compassion we were raised to admire—that has helped us advance as a society, helped us build safety in our communities, helped us provide for our families—is…weak? 

In my first philosophy class we were asked the question, “If you could have a million dollars, but someone on the other side of the world had to die for you to get it, would you take the money?” The anonymity of the person in question became a key part of each student’s answer: “Is it someone I know? Or a stranger, whose family I’ll never meet?” Over twenty years ago, every member of my class struggled to decide if they were willing to be responsible for a stranger’s death for money. This is, in effect, what our legislators are doing every single day. They are deciding what happens to each and every one of us, but without taking the time to ask follow-up questions, or gather information about the possible fallout of their decisions. We are all strangers to them– our lives, casualties of “necessity”.

I know I’m only one person, one stranger, and it doesn’t seem like anyone cares about one person anymore. We care about what impacts our daily lives, and that’s really all we have the energy to process. It’s hard to care about other people because our society isn’t set up for it. We’re increasingly isolated: preoccupied with social media, AI, streaming videos– we rarely have meaningful conversations with each other. The anonymity makes it harder to make the effort to care about our neighbors, coworkers, other drivers on the road. It’s easy, though, to feel like you’re winning, if you align yourself with people who openly don’t care about anyone else. Caring is exhausting, and being selfish comes easily, especially when we’re all under duress.

The NH Senate Finance Committee’s recent meetings are a great example of this. Among the many issues the Senate has been tackling regarding HB1 & 2, is a small, financially insignificant budget issue regarding the State Council on the Arts – where I work, until June 26th, 2025, according to this committee’s latest decisions. 

Since March of this year, staff and I have been struggling to continue to do our jobs in the face of a seemingly off-hand comment made by Rep. Joe Sweeney, of Salem. His remarks regarding the State Library and the Arts being “wants, not needs,” have caused a ripple effect throughout the Arts across the state, and even the country. I’ve had countless conversations with NH residents who will likely lose their jobs as a result of this– including my coworkers, one of whom just returned from maternity leave– people who work hard, and do their best to connect with organizations and individuals to provide support, so they can in turn support their own local communities.

I watched the YouTube livestream on May 21st, as Senator David Watters, Senator Dan Innis, and Senator Cindy Rosenwald stood up for the Arts in New Hampshire. I held out hope that their points would be well-received, and I saw how quickly the room turned against them. Screaming at my television, I thought of my coworkers, our grantees– many of whom regularly check in with us to see how we’re doing–and I thought of my daughter. I watched Senator Lang say that volunteers could raise money for the Arts in our state, and I wondered how someone in the position to make decisions about the future of my job could have no idea what my job actually is. 

The problem, again, is a lack of empathy. It’s increasingly rare to engage with friends and family that may have different beliefs, and so we are all living in our own “bubbles.” In not talking to each other as much, we’re not sharing as much about our own lives. We are keeping our struggles private, while not allowing others the opportunity to see our grief and possibly understand us, to avoid all of the uncomfortable feelings that come with that. It takes vulnerability for compassion to grow, and we are all so heavily guarded. But I’m tired of acting like it’s normal. The community that nurtured my goodwill toward my neighbor is in danger, and we all need to care– about our ability to function as a free society, with freedom of expression, freedom to live and love the way we want, and freedom to empathize with our fellow human– before it’s too late for us. 

I often find myself saying to my daughter, “People like different things, and that’s okay.” I tell her this because it’s true, and because it’s useful to understand as a person living in a democratic society. I also tell her this because I refuse to believe that personal preference negates our responsibility to support others, whether that is emotionally, or financially; privately, or publicly. I try to live my present so my daughter will be proud of me in the future, and so, regardless of who reads this or what effect it has, I can’t be silent anymore. Loud, influential strangers are attempting to convince us that having understanding and compassion for each other is weak–that some people are more important than others–so they can dismantle the parts of our society that support our freedoms, while we are distractedly building our cases against our neighbors. Let’s teach our children to be open-minded and humble. Let’s teach them that the freedoms we have enrich us; that liking different things is what makes our community stronger. Let’s teach them by example, if we can do nothing else.