
UBUNTU (An Un-Seeing Exercise)
The stress of coping with the effects of the global pandemic in 2020 and beyond – social distancing, forced quarantines, and travel restrictions as well as the awkward and unsettling changes in day-to-day living and the resulting changes in our accustomed lifestyles — led many of us to re-examine what makes our own lives meaningful.
I suppose it should not come as a surprise that making connections with other people and working on keeping these connections going and growing will always play a large part in adding meaning and richness to our lives.
For many, the job went away or morphed in ways that made it difficult to maintain old ways of walking.
The result of the strongly suggested retreat behind our physical shields – our walls and our masks – and clearing spaces around ourselves seems to be a noticeable uptick in impaired and deteriorating physical and mental health among the ones who are most isolated.
Physical and mental isolation is not good for us humans. The ancients and the smarty pants down through the ages have told us this and so do those folks in the white lab coats.

ONLY CONNECT
There’s a lot of advice out there about how to cope with the effects of isolation, pandemic-induced or otherwise. A lot of them seem to involve either:
- distracting yourself from your fears by getting ultra-busy doing stuff or making things or taking walks or self-comforting regimens or working on some other life-improvement project;
- staying focused on your “mission” if you’ve got one or developing a mission if you don’t; and/or
- building up your social networks in new ways that don’t involve face-time, skin contact, and coughing or sneezing on each other.
The problem is none of these solutions will actually satisfy our deep-seated human need for high-quality connections with other people that convince you that those other people probably do have your back.
“High-quality” connections are the ones where positive, short-term interactions between two people occurs, says Emily Esfahani Smith in her book, THE POWER OF MEANING: Crafting a Life That Matters.
“High-quality” connections happen when each person is tuned into the other one and both reciprocate positive regard and care.
The warmth of a shared smile, a handshake, or a hug; the mingling together of the sounds of our easy laughter and joyousness with those of the people we like; and participating in soft and heartful conversations by people who care about each other have always been touted as part of building our sense of belonging, our sense of togetherness and unity.
And for most of us, belonging and community do matter.
As academic research professor turned best-selling author and leadership guru Brené Brown says,
“A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to.”
We know this stuff already. The pandemic response just helped us see it even more clearly.
AN OLDER WAY OF WALKING
The Archbishop Desmond Tutu was one of South Africa’s best-known human rights activists. The first black Anglican Archbishop of both Cape Town and Johannesburg, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in helping to resolve and end apartheid. This lovely man died the day after Christmas in 2021.
In this 2013 YouTube video, “Ubuntu: The Essence of Being Human,” the archbishop, a much-loved icon, gives a beautiful, brief explanation of an old African mindset, ubuntu. It was uploaded by the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, it says here.
In 2014, Carnegie Hall put together a festival celebrating South Africa’s musical tradition. The following YouTube video, “UBUNTU – Concept of ‘Ubuntu’,” has two of the participating artists trying to explain the idea further.
When I browsed through all of the different vlogger and blogger takes on ubuntu, it struck me that this concept has as many interpretations, explanations, and even some blatant exploitations as an ancient Polynesian concept, aloha.
I found similar echoes in other ancient wisdoms as well — in various Asian, native American Indian, and in the shamanic, Jewish and Celtic traditions that I’ve explored.
The interdependence of people, wise guys all over the world and through the ages say, is a given. You cannot be a human without other humans.
PUTTING ON YOUR WALKING SHOES….
The little snippet doesn’t tell you what to do, but the guy wrote five books, all of them best-sellers, about how you can walk in the world as it is and get to the place you want to be without turning into a me-Me-ME monster.
Another interesting resource is a book by author and yoga instructor Arthur Jeon, CITY DHARMA: Keeping Your Cool in the Chaos. This book about how to cope with the challenges of urban and suburban life has gotten mixed reviews from the crowd at GoodReads.
For many, it isn’t Buddhist enough or too New-Agey or something. I like it because it is so ordinary. Life-hacks that work tend to be that way.
FINAL THOUGHTS
When you’re into self-improvement, you can lose sight of the fact that every move you make (or don’t make) may not have a lot of impact on or meaning for the rest of the world.
You are, after all, a tiny little bit of the world.
It’s like making coffee, it seems to me. One grain of a ground-up coffee bean swimming around in a cup of milk doesn’t do much. You need a whole lot of ground-up grains from a bunch of beans to get a decent cup of latte.
And that can be a very good thing.
CENTER
Well-a-day tra-lah, tra-lay,
Here I am, by myself again.
No matter what,
This is where
It always goes:
Me sitting here
By myself again.
All the fancy-dancing,
All the moves –
To be seen
To be heard
To be noticed –
And then this:
Sitting here alone,
By myself again.
Why is that?
I don’t know.
There’s no crowd,
No one noticing
Your every move,
Your every word.
No eyes watch.
No ears listen.
No voices cheer.
There’s just me
Sitting here alone,
By myself again.
By Netta Kanoho
Header photo credit: “Self” by Magdalena Roeseler via Flickr [CC BY 2.0]
……
SOME OTHER POSTS TO EXPLORE:
(Click on each of the post titles below and see where it takes you…)
……
Thanks for your visit. I’d appreciate it if you would drop a note or comment below and tell me your thoughts.
12 thoughts on “UBUNTU (An Un-Seeing Exercise)”
Hey there Netta,
Great article on Ubuntu and how the pandemic has affected our lifestyles. I am proudly South African as well and the pandemic has impacted my life greatly where it has taken a toll on my family and my relationship with my wife.
Staying positive and motivated has been really hard but we are working on it and your article will really help me stay focussed and positive.
Lawrence, thanks for the visit and for sharing your thoughts. I’m glad you found the post helpful.
Please do come again.
An excellent post, certainly the pandemic has taken a toll, but I keep asking myself is the cure worse than the disease?. Increased isolation becomes a magnet for criminals and other opportunists. The lonely with no where to go, and too scared to venture into their pandemic stricken neighborhood with empty streets, where they once happily walked to get a morning cup of coffee.
Social interaction between friends, often interrupted by the appointed and self appointed “carers of our health” who stop at a distance and yell “where are your masks”.
The third worse pandemic in 650 years is taking its toll. The elderly with underlying conditions are passing, the young are sharing the pain by having to close their businesses and lay off staff. Many never to reopen a business again. Leaving a void in the choices we make, the choices of children of the young (and now broke), as to what career to follow.
Thanks for your visit and for sharing your thoughts, Michael. It is a truth that the pandemic response has been hard on all of us.
It is a good thing to remember, I think, that we humans have a history of surviving worse things and have very often come through pretty okay. Mostly, we just keep on going, doing what we can, hopefully with some modicum of grace.
It also helps to ponder the uses of adversity and how we can keep on trying to walk in a way that keeps us humane.
Please do come again.
Wow! All I can say is wow! You hit the nail on the head with this site! It’s exactly what myself and others are thinking for sure! For so many people talking about mental health is not something we can do but loneliness is a killer and isolation really needs to be discussed
Thanks for the visit and for sharing your thoughts, Nathaniel. It’s a truth. Loneliness shared gets less lonely when when there’s empathy and compassion as a response.
Heck, even the misery-loves-company crowd like to do their moaning and whining all together. (I, personally, don’t have much patience with self-pitifulness, but commiseration between people of good will does also have its benefits.)
A good thing to remember, I think. Reaching out to other people, acknowledging them, and gifting them with your attention and your time can be a really good thing — for them and for you.
Please do come again.
For me, this is an article about healing our souls after experiencing tragedy and loss in our lives. This article provides the ways and means for society to help itself and connect with our better selves and our tribe.
I enjoyed reading about the philosophy of “Ubuntu” that I can embrace with this meaning of “humanity toward others.” This term is in direct opposition to the experiences that result from “man’s inhumanity to man.”
The reference from “The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters” by Emily touched my soul as I reeled from the tragic death of a young man so like my grandson.
I was searching for ways that humans can serve others and not hurt each other.
The answer to the question was found in that book: Purpose “We all need a far-reaching goal that motivates us, serves as the organizing principle of our lives, and drives us to make a contribution to the world.” May your voice continue to be heard…
Thanks for the visit and for sharing your thoughts, Virginia. I do appreciate it.
Please do come again….
Thank you very much for this article, it was very enriching for me and I really enjoyed it.
I just urge everyone not to get discouraged but especially to stand strong in difficult situations. I’ve been through some tough situations and I take comfort in the fact that everything will work out for the best.
Patron P, I do appreciate your visit. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Please do come again.
Being South African, the word “ubuntu” prompted me to click on the post and read more. Desmond Tutu was a great public figure and human being, and what a great video, where he talks about the essence of being human. And having harmony. Very inspirational!
The pandemic has certainly changed many things and taken a heavy toll on my marriage. There is now a “new norm”, with seemingly less physical contact between humans, something that I really miss. Being part of a community, has become even more important to me now, than ever before.
Thank you for sharing this thought provoking post and poem.
Thanks for the visit and for your thoughts, LineCowley. I always do appreciate your thoughtful responses.
Please do come again.