Noah Mayer
Moreau First Year Experience
Integration Assignment One
10-15-2021

I Won’t Be Kept Down

I believe that the world is fundamentally flawed and broken.
I believe that it is impossible for me to fix the world.
I believe that I am called to fix whatever I can.

	I believe that the world is fundamentally flawed and broken. In many ways, I was sheltered growing up, simply because I was an upper-middle class white male. But despite this, or perhaps to counteract this sheltering, my parents made an intentional effort to show me the way the world really was. They did not shy away from reading me books that dealt with hard truths, or explaining news stories to me in ways that, while allowing for my youth and lack of understanding that came with it, were still frank, truthful, and not sugar-coated. When I went to school, I began to encounter brokenness  personally for the first time. I saw the disrespect and contempt my classmates had for my teachers, for each other, for the girls in my class. I saw their thoughtlessness and ignorance up close. And I began to see the brokenness in myself as well, the ways in which I was ignorant and thoughtless and the ways in which I was weak, in which I gave in to temptations I knew were wrong. My awareness has only deepened with time, as I saw millions of self-proclaimed Christians bow down to an idol of power in the 2016 election, as I saw my classmates progress from crude jokes to alcohol and sex and drugs, as I saw myself falling into temptation again and again, or else misstepping from ignorance or thoughtlessness, or giving in to implicit bias, as I saw a man crying for his mother while those who were supposed to protect and serve him knelt on his neck. Even here at Notre Dame, I continue to see brokenness. The simple fact that we are required to read texts and watch videos on unhealthy relationships and relationship abuse is proof that our community here is incomplete and flawed (5 Signs You’re in a Toxic Friendship, Olivia T. Taylor, Grotto, Moreau FYE Week 4), and I have seen examples of those flaws myself in how my hallmates talk about their female classmates here. Here at Notre Dame, I’ve been confronted with more people of color and other minorities than ever before, and its made me more aware of my own implicit bias, as has my experience in the classroom (How to Think About ‘Implicit Bias’ – Keith Payne, Laura Nieme, John M. Doris, Scientific American, Moreau FYE Week 7). I know that there is goodness and beauty in the world, I’ve seen much of it myself, but I won’t ignore the mountain of pain and suffering that still exists in the world. I cannot and will not turn away from it.
	I believe that it is impossible for me to fix the world. The world is broken to an extent that is impossible for any one person to fix. There is only so much I can do about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or the mess that is Afghanistan, or racial injustice in the US. To some extent, I think I have always known this, but it’s only been recently that I have been able to articulate it. This may seem a bleak belief, one of cynicism or depression, but it is in fact a liberating belief. As my pastor says, not every need is a calling. There is a mountain of pain and suffering in the world, but that does not mean all of it must fall on my shoulders. In knowing that I cannot do everything, I am freed from that burden. I can release that responsibility. And as we talked about in our third week of class, I rest easy in my faith and hope that, although I cannot fix everything, there is a God who can and will one day (Faith Brings Light to a Dark World, Professor David Fagerberg, Grotto, Moreau FYE week 3).
	I believe that I am called to fix whatever I can. The fact that I cannot change everything does not excuse me from not changing anything. To quote GreeNDot, no one has to do everything, but everyone has to do something. My parents impressed on me that I have power. Maybe not great power, but some power. And with any power comes the responsibility to use it well. So when I see injustice happening before my eyes, it is my duty to do what I can to fix it. If all I can do is publicly name it for what it is, then that is what I will do. If I can actively step in and intervene, then I will do that too. After all, what is the point of educating either the heart or the mind if I do not use those things to better the world around me (Fr. Sorin letter to Basil Moreau, Moreau FYE Week 5)? What does that look like for me? It looks like lending an ear to a friend in distress, and doing what I can to comfort them. It looks like calling out misogynistic language when I see it used in my dorm. It looks like giving my time freely to help my classmates through their homework. It looks like using my strengths to help those around me (VIA Character Strengths Survey, Moreau FYE Week 2). It looks like being unafraid to be vulnerable, to let others see me both so that they may learn from me and grow and so that in seeing how my actions in the world reflect who I am I can better know myself and continue to grow in my own self (The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown, TedxHouston, Moreau FYE week 1). It has not been easy. It is not easy now. So often, the temptation is there to just sit back, not make a stir, let things be the way they are, pass the responsibility on to someone else. We read an article in my sociology class this semester about the lack of diversity in the fashion industry, and how everyone inside the industry passed the buck to someone else, saying they would do something about it but the others did not want them too. Well I refuse to be that person. I may fail. I will fail. I have in the past. I will fall. I have done that in the past too. But I refuse to let those falls and failures defeat me. I refuse to stay down. I refuse to let the world strip me of hope, my faith, or my principals (Where I’m From Poem, Moreau FYE Week 6). The shadow may drag me down again and again, but every time I will rise again. I won’t be kept down.