“That memories are recovered — that is, that the suppressed truths do reemerge– is the basis of whatever hope one can have for justice and a modicum of sanity in the ongoing life of communities.”

Susan Sontag

At the beginning of Susan Sontag’s essay, “The Wisdom Project,” published in her essay collection, Where the Stress Falls, she reminds us of the familiar Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” (I find the days in which we currently live so interesting sleep often escapes me.) Writing in 2001, she uses the work of accomplished Polish writer Adam Zagajewski as a touchstone for a conversation about cultural memory, writing, and aesthetics.

She quotes Zagajewski: ” ‘I did not witness the extermination of the Jews, I was born too late. I bore witness, though, to the gradual process by which Europe recovered its memory. This memory moved slowly, more like a lazy, lowland river than a mountain stream, but it finally, unambiguously condemned the evil of the Holocaust and the Nazis, and the evil of Soviet civilization as well. (Though in this it was less successful, as if reluctant to admit that two such monstrosities might simultaneously coexist).’ ” In unpacking the time in which Zagajewski wrote those words, Sontag explains, “In those heady days, poetry and activism rhymed. Both elevated, heightened; engagement in a just cause, like service to poetry, made you feel larger.” 

I want to suggest that artists and activists also rhyme in our times. In our times, we are asked to recover and elevate our suppressed truth, our complex story, in the pursuit of justice and love. That is where gratitude and wisdom meet – justice and love. They meet when social media guides revolutions. They meet when criminals are held to account. They meet when people have access to health care. They meet when caring for our earth becomes a priority. They meet when peace comes to all war zones. Here is my thought: if the river of memory of Zagajewski’s time gradually, eventually, and unambiguously condemned the Holocaust, then our river of memory can wake up once again, condemn the pain we must face, act differently, and begin to heal. For that wisdom, I am grateful.