Replacing The Handshake: A Modest Suggestion

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This is the fifth in a new series of blogs written for our website by Humanity Project Founder, Bob Knotts, a playwright, poet and author of the book “Beyond Me: Dissecting Ego To Find The Innate Love At Humanity’s Core.” These blogs offer a more personal perspective on the goodness and inherent value of humanity, ideas that are the foundation of the Humanity Project’s work.

Let’s bring back the peace sign. I’m talking here about the hand sign used by the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s to express feelings of gentle peacefulness toward each other. I remember. I was one of them.

But now, as the Age of COVID demands new rules of social interaction for the immediate future, the handshake is a memory. So are charming habits such as freely hugging anyone who seemed they might enjoy it and kisses on the cheek, so common in many cultures outside the United States especially.

So yes, today the Humanity Project humbly offers a solution drawn from the hippie past. The two-finger vertical peace sign, which of course can double as a V for victory over COVID. (According to the Daily Mirror newspaper in the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill was far from the first to use that famous World War Two symbol for victory over the Nazis: “This is because the ‘V sign’ was first used by English longbowmen in the 1415 Battle of Agincourt to mock the defeated French army. The longbowmen relied on these two fingers to fire their arrows to deadly effect upon the enemy, which was a key factor in the victory. It represented a show of defiance and derision by the English soldiers, and showed the French army that all they needed was these two fingers to win the bloody battle.”)

Once the martial V evolved into the 60s peace sign, I loved that sweet symbol of togetherness, of a caring humanity. I flashed it often back then, especially when greeting or leaving the company of other long-haired folks of the period. And I find myself using it once again more and more often in recent years, spontaneously and sometimes even to my own surprise. To me, the peace sign still means “hello friend” or perhaps “goodbye friend.” I think it’s a beautiful display of bonding among people.

Not that the peace sign ever really has quite gone away. Some of today’s youth already use it, even turning the upright fingers on their side when the mood strikes them. I like it.

But for an all-purpose, post-Great Lockdown, socially distanced method of demonstrating our affection or friendliness or just general pleasantness as at a meeting, why not that wonderful holdover from the peace-and-love decades? The traditional vertical two-finger peace sign. I have for many years felt that we have yet to tap into the large reservoir of loving social consciousness that was one hallmark of the hippie era. I’ve floated the idea of creating a Humanity Project task force formed wholly of Baby Boomers who still want to make a contribution. We may yet try that. But for now, oh yes, let’s bring back the peace sign. Let’s each begin to use it. Maybe share this blog on social media and with friends or family. Who knows where this may lead. Or not. I’ve learned there’s no telling in advance whether an online campaign may go viral. That’s in the lap of the gods.

Still, the world needs something joyful, something widely understood and widely shared to replace the handshake, the hug and the cheek kiss, doesn’t it? The peace sign just could be it.

Carrying Us Through COVID

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When the COVID-19 crisis began, so did The Great Lockdown. This social isolation instantly made survival a challenge for many individuals, businesses — and nonprofits, including the Humanity Project. Enter Our Fund Foundation. Within days their amazing CEO, David Jobin, had reached out with vital questions to all the agencies they fund: What can we do to help? What do you need most?

Our Fund Foundation supports agencies that work to improve life for the LGBTQ community, with the Humanity Project among them. Of course what we needed was no different than most of those other nonprofits: funding to get through the lockdown.

Not long after, the Humanity Project received word that Our Fund had created a Resilience Fund of $150,000, looking for a donor match of that amount or more. As it turned out the always generous LGBTQ community and allies quickly came through. And the Humanity Project received a check for $5,000 to help us survive the crisis.

We can’t thank Our Fund Foundation enough, along with David Jobin and his great team. They wisely delivered this much-needed funding to us and the other nonprofits with a minimum of conditions or paperwork. Just use the money as needed, they told everyone. We can assure you, that’s just what we’re doing.

We hope you’ll take just a few minutes to watch this lovely brief video that Our Fund Foundation put together to thank those who donated to the Resilience Fund. Like Our Fund itself, these individuals made an important difference. And we are grateful, very grateful. Watch the Our Fund Foundation Resilience Fund video.

Viral Survival

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This is the fourth in a new series of blogs written for our website by Humanity Project Founder, Bob Knotts, a playwright, poet and author of the book “Beyond Me: Dissecting Ego To Find The Innate Love At Humanity’s Core.” These blogs offer a more personal perspective on the goodness and inherent value of humanity, ideas that are the foundation of the Humanity Project’s work.

I vividly remember the days and weeks after 9/11. Those memories have taught me something about coping with the current coronavirus pandemic.

I was fortunate enough to have been untouched physically by those horrific terrorist attacks, as was everyone I knew. No family member, friend or colleague of mine was killed that day. But like nearly all the people I cared about, I was wounded by the jetliners of September 11, 2001.

I mourned the senseless loss of life, felt it viscerally, deeply. This came over my body like an illness that drained and weakened me. But I also suffered greatly from fear. I was afraid, very afraid for my nation, for all of my countrymen and countrywomen and for all those I loved. And I was afraid for myself. Very afraid indeed.

And so today I think of the coronavirus as something so new it’s old. Yes, COVID-19 is the latest threat to humanity’s health, both physical and mental. This fresh strain of disease seemed to materialize as though from the clouds, suddenly raining down upon our everyday lives. But it feels disturbingly familiar too. The coronavirus has brought with it the return of that same fear. Fear not only for the American population this time but for all the people of the world and, yes, for all those I love. And, of course, fear once again for myself.

That lingering bonedeep terror comes over us whenever we endure some especially jarring trauma. Our reaction is understandable, it is human. It is the nature of our imagination. Perhaps the greatest of all humanity’s gifts turns against us at such moments — our ability to conjure detailed thoughts about things that don’t exist. We dwell on the sudden new threat, letting the possibilities simmer and bubble into a dreadful stew. This kind of dark worry, of dread, is predictable enough. We need only look to our past.

As a journalist I interviewed dozens of men and women who survived the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Many recalled for me the weeks immediately afterwards, their wild fears inflamed by rumors of new enemy assaults and networks of spies stealing around Oahu. But their fears were unjustified. There were no further attacks, no vast spy networks. After 9/11, I was among those who worried obsessively: Would the terrorists hijack more planes? Would they launch car bombings? Would they poison our water supplies? Soon enough, an anthrax scare had many of us washing our hands after touching the letters in our mailbox. But all these fears came to nothing. No more hijackings, no bombings, no poisonings … and no anthrax in the mail delivered to our homes.

I recount this history for a reason. It should offer a reassuring reminder that our imaginations just now may be our biggest problem. Will I get the virus? Will I pass it to others? Will I end up in the hospital? Or worse, will I die from the coronavirus? What about the economy, our jobs, our income? And can life ever really return to normal? None of this is meant to suggest that we should be anything but extremely cautious, just as those who study pandemics suggest. Wash our hands often, of course, and use hand sanitizers. Avoid touching our face unless we know our fingers are clean. Keep a sensible six-foot or more social distance. And so on — by now, no doubt, you know all the good advice.

But we can also relieve our psychological distress to some considerable degree by remembering our previous trauma-induced fears. As so often, Mark Twain left us an observation that’s both witty and insightful: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened,” Twain noted.

No one yet knows what COVID-19 will bring to us, individually or as a family, as a nation or as the human race. But it seems safe to say that the future for the vast majority of people is unlikely to turn out anywhere near as terrible as our thoughts. We may know our worst troubles, but for most of us they will never happen.