Every day, we confront situations that challenge our sense of self and imperil our complacency.  What if, and stay with me here, what if those challenges are not threats? What if they are opportunities for self-discovery and growth.
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I readily acknowledge that these challenges could very well result in the destruction of our sense of self-satisfaction and self-confidence. But if so, wouldn't that suggest that these self-assurances were unwarranted to begin with or fundamentally flawed? A more beneficial outcome would be to treat such challenges as a chance to stress-test our sense of identity and make adjustments to strengthen it through self-assessment and build resilience.

The challenges I speak of are too myriad and varied to list or describe, but they are common. Most often, they arrive in the form of of questions or criticism from other people or they occur within as self-doubt.

Always, though, how we receive them is entirely within our control.

Yup. I wrote that, and I can hardly believe it either. Frankly, I hate when people say things like "Oh, so and so is criticizing you? So what? Don't let it bother you. You're just giving them power." The reason such so-called advice is so annoying is because it shifts the burden to the victim and makes nonreactivity seem easy, within reach, and we all know how hard it is not to become defensive in the face of challenges to the self, which is only natural and, to a point, appropriate. And let's face it, other people can do horrible things to us. When I review just my past year, I can quickly compile a litany of grievances born of injustices, so I get it. But I also know, when I am being honest, that those grievances are all inside me. In fact, a little candid reflection reveals to me that the very people who committed injustices against me in the past year likely all congratulate themselves for having done some great service to the world in taking me on, for they, like me, are the heroes in their own stories. And knowing that fact makes the injustice sting all the worse. My ire rises, and my ego, beaten and battered, swells like like a welt on a bruise on an abrasion. Let it go? How can I?

​A short while back I wrote about the power of decency, but what about the superpower of decency?

Dr. Nichols' patient was struggling to breathe and begging the doctor to save his life. When his shirt was removed for treatment, the medical team, which Nichols described as "a Jewish physician, a Black nurse, and an Asian respiratory therapist," could see that his body was defaced with Nazi symbols, including a swastika tattooed prominently on his chest. As they set about treating the patient, Nichols reflected that a man with such emblems of hatred inked on his skin had likely devoted himself to devaluing, or worse, the lives of the very people working to save his. Nonetheless, the team prepared to intubate their patient, a procedure that would expose them to considerable risk of contagion in this age of COVID.

The scene Nichols paints deserves further rumination.

Think about it. Here we see a patient whose naked flesh proclaims his raw hatred for these individuals who risk their own health and lives to preserve his life even as they know their success would free him to continue to promote his noxious views and threaten their wellbeing and that of their families and loved ones.. 

Nazi tattoos are not some deplorable cosplay fad. They indicate a commitment to white supremacy and to classifying specific groups of people as subhuman or not quite human and decidedly intolerable. His Jewish doctor even recognized one tattoo as the insignia of the SS, who were responsible for designing and executing the "Final Solution," otherwise known as the Holocaust. Perhaps, you may argue, this patient had an explanation for the repugnant tattoos, such as he got them in prison because he needed the protection of a gang, or some such thing. Perhaps he had or would come to regret them. But why so many? And why keep them? 

Reasserting the Human in Humanist

Nichols describes himself as a humanist in his Twitter profile, which can indicate a number of things. Based on his story, I would guess that he means that he derives his morality from serving humanity rather than from the doctrine and mores of an established religion, dogma, or code. If I am right, Nichols' humble commitment to the service to others is a stellar example of humanist morality in action. Clearly, the point of his thread is not to garner praise for himself and his colleagues for doing their jobs. Indeed, the narrative culminates in a moment of crisis when, exhausted by months of battling COVID in the face of those who deny its existence and reflecting on the hatred this particular patient expresses via his body markings, Nichols hesitates. 

Again, the story is about Nichols' moral dilemma in the fog of his exhaustion. 

​It is a story of human decency decently told in 280-character bites. It even starts in medias res. For Nichols and his colleagues, this nightmarish scenario is just the quotidian, the day-to-day routine. Worn down as he must be, he still constantly does the right thing, the decent thing, no matter his feelings. His story is a companion to that of Jodi Doering, a nurse in South Dakota who told her tale of moral outrage in the midst of gruesomeness on Twitter and CNN at around the same time. She spoke of patients who deny the existence of COVID and call her names even as they are dying of the disease. Like Nichols and his team, she continues to care for them in the face of their hateful contempt. Her Twitter profile, which now apparently lists her name as Jodi Orth (@jodiorth), has a banner that reads "Be a Good Human," sadly an increasingly radical stance. In fairness, I must note that her testimonial has been disputed as exaggerated. Whatever the case, as Nichols observed, simply continuing to treat patients in the midst of COVID denial and hostility to medical personnel from a wide swath of the population is demoralizing in the extreme, and even more so in a place like South Dakota where the governor herself has abetted the spread of the disease and openly contributed to the widespread denial and consequent contempt for medical professionals.

These tales of frontline medical professionals, but two samples standing in for an untold number of told and untold stories, are more extreme than what most of us will ever experience. Still, they are clear instances of the power of decency, of remaining "a good human," in the face of horror.

I would go even further. For those of us in other walks of life, it is hard to imagine having to face anger, unreason, resentment, and hatred every day from the very people you are committed to serving, be they patients on a gurney or governors in the statehouse. Practitioners in other professions may confront similar dilemmas, (law enforcement officers, teachers, and, yes, even lawyers come to mind), but not perhaps in such stark terms and under such constant duress.

​In this way, maintaining basic human decency, being a good human, is not just a power, but it is a superpower. It takes an extraordinary amount of fortitude to assert decency day in and day out even without the onslaught of abuse and offense that medical professionals, these human beings, face. Maintaining decency along with its attendant virtues of integrity and compassion is simple but not easy, for it is not enough to declare "I am an honorable person, a good human" or to merely intend to be a virtuous person. Decency demands constant vigilance, vigilance that itself is enervating, which is partially why Nichols flagged for a moment before proceeding to work on his patient.

Human decency, being a good person in the face of it all, is indeed a superpower. It is an act of heroism that may just save us all. While it is not as cool and fanciful as the ability to fly or turn invisible or punch through brick walls, it remains the only superpower that challenges our humanity and thereby the only one that can help make us fully human.