Mural reminds us we share strife, joy

To look for Doya’s mural to shine a single ray of happiness on an individual life misses the point.

I read with great interest Alyce Carrelli’s May 31 letter, “Fern Street Mural a Depressing Sight.” I agree with Carrelli that strife is an unwelcomed human condition, and its reminders are less than joyous. I understand her frustration with a large urban mural she walks past daily being dedicated to this aspect of humanity. It was also compelling to learn from Carrelli that the Goddess of Love would be her preference.

Love is the essential element of healthy humans. Without it, we are lost, left searching for something with an uncertain place and time. With it, we are content and happy, and far less likely to be destructive to ourselves or those around us. In fact, the search for love is possibly the single most discussed topic throughout centuries of literature and philosophical debate.

If it were possible to add to Carrelli’s thoughtful prose, I would offer a couple of concepts that come from the ancient Greeks that founded the world’s first democracy nearly 2,700 years ago. The Greeks believed that love and hate (good and evil) are forces within the universe that we humans can accept or deny. Our relationship with them is, therefore, not passive but an active one that challenges us with the obligation to make less strife for those around us. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

Jr., in his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” echoed the ancient Greek scholars when he called for the forgiveness of those who imprisoned him and brutalized African-Americans; because responding to them with anger and hatred would allow the evil that was within them to grow and infect others.

The Greeks are also responsible for the notion of the common good that is the foundation of America’s democracy. Plato advocated for a sufficiently educated society that could reason beyond individual interests and flourish under a construct that prioritized individual obligations over individual rights.

Both of these notions require us to transcend beyond ourselves and to live in this world as a shared place. Strife, therefore, like love, happiness, and joy, is a shared experience. Joy is more joyous when shared with friends and neighbors. Strife is less burdensome when it is shared with family and community.

Beauty is one of those wonderful road maps that can, if we choose to follow it, guide us to a transcendent place where these notions are clearer. Danny Doya’s artistry is spectacular. It is a mistake to want it to serve merely as a source for a preferred human emotion. It is so much more than that. It captivates, draws us in, and, like our shared humanity, reminds us that the strife of others is ours to heal with smiles, waves, warm greetings, friendship and love.

We are not alone in this world. We are not islands in a sea of unwanted strife. To look for Doya’s mural to shine a single ray of happiness on an individual life misses the point. When one person suffers, the world suffers with him, and there is no greater joy than to ease the suffering of another person.

Maybe tomorrow Carrelli will see the mural through the eyes of the common good.