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“Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.”
–Derek Walcott, Nobel Lecture, 1992
“Inspired by our gods…
We will survive to see a brighter day…
Nothing conquers the will of [wo]man.”
–“Survival”, Mighty Sparrow
It is customary for people around the world to wish each other ‘Happy New Year’ at the turn of the calendar. Sometimes, we even make resolutions. But, why does the notion of happiness appeal to our humanity?
Writing, in The Art of Happiness, 22 years ago, when more than 40 million people in the United States suffered from depression, Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler observed that “the very motion of our life is towards happiness.” Yet, since the pandemic, a US Center for Disease Control report shows 
considerably elevated adverse mental health conditions associated with COVID-19 in the USA. And, a recent UNICEF report reveals that the pandemic is “having a significant impact on the metal health of adoloscents” in the Caribbean and other parts of the developing world.
Yet, in spite of lack of resources, people in the Caribbean are not simply waiting for the trickle-down benefits of western ‘science’ to erase the pangs of disaster but are rising to the challenge by releasing their own ingenuity and grit steeled through resistance in overcoming incessant historical downpression.
Even Caribbean youth, embracing their self-agency, are fashioning informal ways to battle the debilitating aftershocks of the ongoing pandemic: Kristian, a 17-year-old Jamaican female–attuned to the arch of critical self-love–outlined her formula for surviving in these times, thus, “I have kept myself busy, I have exercised more, I have maintained a great attitude”. As such, by framing her own pandemic meditation she may well be underscoring how youth throughout the region have, in the face of limited professional help, been embracing their native wit and imagination to mitigate the psychosocial afflictions of the pandemic.
On Earth Day 2020–flowing from our cultural matrix/values of cleanliness is next to godliness–we highlighted the inextricable link between a clean and safe environment and happiness. We anchored this view in the imperativeness of protecting our Caribbean Sea and land resources from reckless activities. It is well-established that a clean environment is a sine qua non for good health.
Very early in the pandemic, BDN recognized the indispensability of tapping into our cultural memory bank as a coping mechanism to help navigate and guide us through the epidemic. Hence, from early in the crisis, the evergreen work of Bob Marley and other Caribbean artists were the go-to therapeutic instrumentalities.
Today science is finally catching up with our intuition and indigenous knowledge, regarding the holistic benefits of music therapy, indicating that listening to music can lower blood pressure, heart rate, and especially anxiety. And music can, even, distract one’s body from pain and loss so prevalent now.
Little wonder that Mighty Swallow, one of our indigenous scholars refashioned, in song “Man Must Live”, an aphorism that Caribbean people have tapped into as a means of overcoming adversity. Big Drum Nation is committed to facilitating social intercourse through the engagement of our home-grown, fountains of knowledge as encapsulated in Tanya Stephens’s “What a Day” … “when …life is finally worth its cost”, as we begin the healing process by reassembling the fragments in COVID’s wake.
Join the Dialogue…
Martin P. Felix & Winthrop R. Holder
For BDN Editors