Fifty years ago, I rode my Kawasaki from Portola Valley onto campus, usually squeaking into class just on time. While much has changed since then, one thing has remained constant: our humanness. We still search for meaning and need connection. We still have dreams and we still screw up. In the last 50 years, as I’ve changed careers and locations, I’ve never stopped appreciating and observing my fellow companions. So, “Ask Boomer” anything. Surprise me. Life is short. Let’s add on to it.

— Helen Hudson ’74

Reach out to Helen at [email protected]

We are living in a time of disconnection and chaos that I could never have imagined 50 years ago. In a world with no cell phones, we talked to each other. We wrote letters. We waited patiently for answers and looked things up in card catalogs. Life moved slowly. Yes, it was often boring but we didn’t shoot at each other just because we could. Life was sacred. 

Now that the pace of communication is fast and furious and entails no real consequence, people feel free to be crass and cavalier. They hide behind emojis and aliases. If a disagreement pops up in real life they shout and run. I live in a city of gun-toters and flag wavers. I live among many people whose ideologies I am so opposed to my stomach turns.

As a therapist I know well that you cannot change anyone’s mind. What you can do, though, is listen. Even if what comes out of their mouths is preposterous and illogical, you can listen. If you listen long enough, I promise, you will find some thread of commonality that you can hold onto.  You take hold of that thread and connection begins. That is where Peacemaking begins. 

I would like to bring a Peacemaker Project to the Stanford community. It is a volunteer program that you can belong to which shows that you prefer peace over conflict. Listening over shouting and kindness over cruelty. By aligning with our peacemaker community, you would receive a shirt with a single tree on the back. Alone, we are a single tree. Once we stand together, we become a forest.