A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. [. . .] My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Not only is each of us a mystery to every other one of us, as Dickens says in the passage above. Each of us is no less a mystery to ourselves, as well. Wherever we go and however long we stay there, we always and everywhere remain alone together.
We are all outcast and untouchable, each of us at our core, the level of who we truly and absolutely are. We can, to be sure, become who we are; however, we can never know just who that is.
Nor have we any need to know. With all due apologies to Socrates, our universal human goal should not be to know ourselves. It should be to become ourselves — something that the very endeavor to know just who that iscan all too easily block, rather than facilitate. Indeed, it is only in forgetting ourselves, letting go of any concern with ourselves and opening to others, that we find ourselves, as has often been told us all by various voices over many centuries.
Once we find the way opening before us to become ourselves, all we can do is keep drumming away on ourselves as we walk along our way, one step at a time. Just drumming along that way befits us all as the pariahs we are and have always been—as the entry below, extracted from the Online Etymology Dictionary suggests to readers with any ear for drum-beats.
pariah (n.): 1610s, "member of a low caste in southern India, shunned as unclean," from Portuguese paria or directly from Tamil (Dravidian) paraiyar, plural of paraiyan "drummer" (at festivals, the hereditary duty of members of the largest of the lower castes of southern India), from parai "large festival drum." "Especially numerous at Madras, where its members supplied most of the domestics in European service" [Oxford English Dictionary]. Applied by Hindus and Europeans to any members of low Hindu castes and even to outcastes. Extended meaning "social outcast" is attested by 1819.
A family of Dalits—an “untouchable” caste — in India (CNN)
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What sort of society creates pariahs by excluding some from full community membership?
The answer to that question is as clear and concise as a drum-beat. Indeed, the question answers itself, if one will but listen to that question attentively — listen “with the ear of the heart,” to borrow a famous expression from the opening lines of the Prologue to St. Benedict’s Rule for monastic life. The sort of society that excludes some from full membership is always and only an exclusive society. Said just a bit differently: it is any society in which some are counted as special and accounted privileges in honor of their presumed specialness, privileges denied hoi polloi, classic Greek for “the people” but given the derogatory sense of “the masses,” “the low-class,” or “the rabble” by those who consider themselves special — hoi polloi are “the great unwashed,” as some elitist self-aggrandizers have sometimes enjoyed putting it.
It is just such elitist excluders who actually deserve exclusion, however; and it is only they who do deserve it. All such elites and elitists should be excluded from membership in the universal human community, the community of all us pariahs, none of whom is anybody special, entitled to any privileges denied any others.
Excluding such excluders excludes no one. Rather, excluding excluders includes everyone.
Regardless of what excluders strive to think that they think, nobody at all anywhere at any time is anybody special. All of us everywhere at all times are all alike in that each one of us is no less a nobody than Emily Dickenson attests to being in the following short poem, which I have cited before on this blog:
I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! They’d advertise — you know!
How dreary — to be — Somebody! How public — like a Frog — To tell one’s name — the livelong June — To an admiring Bog!
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Perhaps we should start a new international group for all of us humans everywhere, without exception. We could call it “Pariahs Anonymous.” The format we could use for our meetings might begin this way:
FORMAT FOR PARIAHS ANONYMOUS (PA) MEETINGS:
TO MEETING CHAIRS: Guidance for you to conduct the meeting is given within brackets (like this: [. . .]) below.
Welcome to Pariahs Anonymous! My name is [say your name], and I’m a pariah, just like you. We meet here regularly to share our experience, strength, and hope with one another. Anyone is welcome to attend and share.
Our PA preamble more fully articulates the purpose of our meetings:
Pariahs Anonymous is a neighboring of human beings with one another that they may encourage one another to stay human and help everyone to accept their pariahdom. The only requirement for membership is a desire to be human. There are no dues or fees for PA membership. We just mutually support one another, each as each’s capacity allows. PA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution; neither endorses nor opposes any causes; does not wish to engage in any controversy. Our primary purpose is to stay human, and to help other pariahs embrace their humanity.
NOTE TO READERS: In May of this year (2021), my daughter Freya, who uses the professional name Cellista, expects to release a new multi-media production entitled Pariah, consisting of music, poetry, dance, video, and prose. An album and accompanying book will be available for purchase. The book includes a story I have written under the same title as the overall project: “Pariah.” Indeed, it was my daughter’s work, and my own work in writing that story, that inspired me also to write today’s post on “Pariahs Anonymous.” When Cellista releases the album-book combination, I will post a connection on this website for purchasing it. Meanwhile, here is a link to another, different album she just released last week:
https://cellista.bandcamp.com/