I want to translate something from English….into plain English. As we help prevent the spread of Coronavirus around the world many of us are in isolation or near isolation. It’s weird. It’s overwhelming. It’s challenging. This quote is from The Social Construction of Reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. It is a book I’ve been meaning to give focus to forever. Don’t worry about this quote not making sense. That’s what I am here for:

“While the social products of human externalization have a character sui generis as against both their organismic and their environmental context, it is important to stress that externali­zation as such is an anthropological necessity. Human being is impossible in a closed sphere of quiescent interiority. Human being must ongoingly externalize itself in activity.”

Ok let me translate that, as the idea is important. In their 1966 book, hailed as one of the five most important sociology books of all time, Austrian-born writers Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann suggest that being human is only possible through activity and connection outside of our inner selves. Berger and Luckmann explain that humans create reality (this is what they mean by the “social products of human externalization”). We, in turn, are molded and shaped by that reality. This is what they mean by “human being.” Being is an active word here, not a noun. Human being is something we do, not just something we are. When we are living actively in the world we’ve agreed upon, when we connect with others, and when we are externalizing the conflicting feelings, emotions, ideas that fill our minds and hearts….that’s when we are being most human. That’s three ways in which we come into the fullness of our humanity. We engage, we connect, and we share. We are alive in the reality we’ve created and things tend to make sense for us as a result. We know where the borders and edges are. We know where we stand.

So what happens with a human creature in isolation who doesn’t know what’s happening? Or more to the point, as my phone buzzes with a text from a close friend who is telling me, “I’m already so bored,” after just a day of social distancing: what happens to a creature who is trying to still be human when the modes it is used to for that being have been curtailed and aren’t as familiar all of a sudden? Berger and Luckmann talk about reality as being made up of the familiar patterns we’ve collectively gotten accustomed to over time. There is a huge threat of loss right now as many of us are feeling distanced from one another and from our normalcy. We are so used to being with people and defining ourselves through our interactions in the world. And even the introverts amongst us are in unfamiliar territory socially as normal constructs shift. But now, as the familiar is gone, rather than get overwhelmed psychologically, we need to keep figuring out ways of being by redefining what it means to put ourselves out there and externalize even as times are tough. Its easy to crumble. We need to build from within.

There are a number of methods we can use to externalize amidst this (hopefully temporary) new reality. For me, typing this. For you, reading this. Figuring out creative ways to support one’s community (someone just posted the idea of buying leftover perishable food stock from restaurants which are closing). Reaching out to marginalized people, using whatever resources are available to offer support. Painting or drawing something and bringing art, no matter how brilliant or how bad, into existence. Weeping to a friend. Connecting with someone electronically. Getting outside for a walk and feeling the sun. Expressing frustration and fear. Breathing deeply and audibly to work through tension. Marking out a new plan for a failed business. Imagining and sharing with others what we can do socially as we prepare for the next crisis. All of these are not just ways to pass the time; they are ways our human beingness survives.

Taking this time to interact differently with the world requires some creativity. Sure, we want restaurants and bars open (especially if we own them!). We want to be going to shows and living socially (especially if we make our living through public gatherings!). However, according to Berger and Luckmann, if they are right, as I think they are, our human being depends on us finding new ways to externalize during a time when the socially agreed upon measures of what constitute reality are not available to us. This is a perfect time to expand in new ways. It is essential that we do. We will create new patterns and a new reality together.

Given financial terror, the seeming collapse of this system, fear abounding, and imposed isolation, we must start rebuilding society from ourselves first and foremost. We can not collapse inward. Externalization (read that as reaching outward and expressing ourselves to others and figuring out new ways to be in the world), is how we be human. It’s not just a means of overcoming an unusual time. It means much more than that. Sinking completely inward - as I did yesterday while reading too much of the sensationalized news - is literally self destructive. If anything is going to save this planet moving forward, it’s a redefining how we expand not how we shrink. Berger and Luckmann would likely say that this work is done together. Following simply as a junior interpreter of their brilliant lead, I’m suggesting that this work - society and reality building together - starts with us first as we take the first steps. We’ll blend our versions of reality together later and figure out what this all means.

We often hear it said that to change the world, we have to change ourselves. These days are where that is being put to the test. If our reality is indeed socially constructed, agreed upon, and defined by us together, then we are in a perfect position to craft this world into what we want it to be, but we have to start getting creative if we are going to keep our humanity intact. The media is intense. The president doesn't care about our well-being, or any being other than himself. The barrage of information can overwhelm us. All this, yet I am writing from the perspective that humanity still has value especially if we can continue to be less destructive as we interact with the world. And, especially if we can keep sending energy out, and come together even as we are physically apart.

The new definition for what society will be in the aftermath of Coronavirus is as yet unwritten, but the first thoughts, words, and building blocks of it will be felt, penned, and fashioned from individuals who have not lost their sense of self amidst this, but rather from those who have come more into being as a result of it. When we crumble inward we lose everything. When we breathe, write, listen, hear, think, reach out, expand, we gain back an essential part of ourselves which would be otherwise lost, perhaps forever.

No matter the conditions, we must continue to look outward, move forward, and connect more deeply, however that manifests. We were a part of creating this world, whether we feel like we were or not, and we will be a part from this moment moving forward of refashioning it into something new. It starts with us not collapsing inward. It starts with us being.

Psychoanalyst Otto Rank said in the early 1900’s that humans have the unique capacity to make the unreal real. He meant that humans have the ability to imagine something which has not yet existed and bring it into existence using our intelligence and ability to think symbolically. Following Rank, Berger and Luckmann let us know that we indeed make the unreal real, and it’s a group effort. Our reality is fashioned by a collective agreement, passed along and down over time, and synthesized until it is this reality surrounding us that we know and understand: the reality of here and now. We are in an incredible moment in time in that no one really knows what happens next. No one has any idea what the world or our being human in it will look like. It might be the same as we’ve known. It might be fundamentally different moving forward. But each of us has a role to play in fashioning whatever that is going to be. We have to stay present, grounding ourselves in any way we can, staying healthy through exercise, movement, communication, and calm even as the world seems to crumble. We need to be as in touch as we can with what we feel, see, know, and imagine, no matter if that’s painful, scary, or unsure….and then expand outward and share. We need to be building reality, together.

Our being, our human being, and the future of the world we live in and agree upon, depend on it.