Curtis Sliwa and One Million Dogs
A symbol worth dying for
Curtis Sliwa is having a hell of a moment for providing some of the best political highlight reels of the modern era. He was the man who stood up against all odds and said “Every parade has the right to exist”. But every time you watch a video of him, you’ll notice the funny little red hat that sits on top of his head. This hat, despite all of the fantastic things to love about Curtis, is my favorite component of his aura.
See, Curtis Sliwa was the founder of a group called the Guardian Angels, who made it their duty to protect people on the New York City subway system during the 70’s, when NYC streets were wild. Crime had risen 4-5x above previous decades, and over 1,700 people were killed in that city in 1979 alone.
Curtis and the boys would offer protection in a time when people were scared, focusing on maintaining a strong presence, training self-defense, and helping homeless people. It’s like if everyone in the movie The Warriors was looking out for your grandma.
But they weren’t paid. They put their lives at risk and sacrificed their free time, just to protect other people. A great thing, no doubt. But uncommon.
We all know at least one person who devotes quite a bit of their time to helping the less fortunate and doing good in the world. But how many people do you know that clock out from a shift and decide to get into bare-knuckle brawls against bad guys on dirty subways, just because of their patriotic sense of duty? Sacrificing their bodies for the love of the game?
If you ask me, Curtis and the boys were probably happier getting punched as an act of service than most people might ever be when they do something good, no matter how many times they donate canned food at the grocery store or scoop soup at a local shelter.
All because of what was symbolized by the little red hats.
Symbolism and Purpose
Let me ask you this: do you have anything you would die for? Beyond another human you know personally, is there any cause in the world that you see as more important than your own existence? An issue that you would give your own life to change?
If you can’t think of anything, doesn’t that make you sad? And if you can think of something, why aren’t you doing anything about it? If it’s worth more than your life, surely it’s worth more than whatever else you do with your free time?
As a straight line of thought, this Socratic-y series of questions makes technical sense and makes you look like a bad person. You’re not. (And spoiler, I hate the Socratic method). But there is a disconnect, right? Why don’t we sacrifice more for what we claim to believe in?
Humans are really bad at abstraction, is why. In the same way that we can’t really fathom a million of anything, we generally can’t fully get our brains around massive problems. The phrase ‘End homelessness’ means almost nothing beyond the words; it’s too big and nebulous to interact with. Since we can’t really have a connection to the concept, it fails to draw emotional resonance from us. ‘Children are beaten’ is something we all know happens, but it just sits there as a fact. Things are different if you see your neighbor slap their kid around. Then it’s real.
‘Subways are dangerous’ is another big idea that people know as a fact but generally take action against. What Curtis did to make it tangible was to invoke one of the oldest tricks in the book for getting people to relate to an idea they can’t touch: Curtis created a symbol.
Symbols are static, so to first-order believers, they mean the same thing all the time. Symbols are a representation of reality, and specifically of your perception of that reality. A Boy Scout badge means something. Motorcycle jackets mean something. When people wear them, they embody what the symbol represents, and wear the traits of the symbol in their behaviors and identity.
In the Stanford Prison Experiment, which group of kids started acting like authoritarians, almost immediately losing empathy for their peers? The ones wearing symbols of authority. Once they were given the regalia and titles of power (both symbols), they began to differentiate themselves from their subjects. The default view of someone decked out in tie-dye and peace symbols is not of someone who calls for war. Sometimes we have an identity and then externally showcase it with a symbol, but sometimes the symbol is given and we become worthy of it.
Put on the red hat, become a Guardian Angel. Guardian Angels put duty before self. Thus, you put duty before self.
So why are they happier?
People want purpose. They crave it with every fiber of their existential being. In the face of eternal nothingness, we want to know that we did a good job with our short time and that we were Very Good People while we had the chance to be.
But there is no handbook for living, and no one will instruct you on what you were uniquely made for, much less what you were even kinda good at. It’s mostly a free-for-all, where everyone is so focused on themselves, they fail to even acknowledge your haircut.
So how do you find your life’s work? Start with listening. Listening very intently to what you already know about yourself, to what has shown itself time and time again. The little whisper behind every magnetic pull you’ve experienced. The natural link between events that catch your attention.
By your mid-twenties, you likely have a sense of what calls to you, beyond the eyes of your peers. The things you are drawn toward in your own head, the directions that are yours alone and that seem to repeatedly find small versions of themselves in your other work. In the grand world of opportunity that you’ve been exposed to, what continues to tug at your soul?
What makes you irrationally upset to learn about when it happens? What creates joy that you don’t seem to find anywhere else? What sort of system is mirrored across everything you fully participate in?
Notice yourself from above and start to connect the dots towards the thing that puts fire in your spirit. Many people get an inkling of their truest passion and then….stop. They end up ‘wanting to help people’ and feeling real cozy about all the things they could have been and would have been. In another life, they would have been a psychologist, or written the Great American Novel, or taught blind kids to swing dance. But they never do it.
Don’t let this be you. Define your purpose as a firm belief held loosely, then hold yourself to that identity. By that, I mean take the thought of ‘I will be someone who helps others’ and make it your identity (your firm belief) and then move in that direction, while being open to how it adapts (held loosely). Do something valuable, something real. Don’t stop moving towards a goal, step by step, marching forward towards something with purpose. It becomes a firm belief, but held loosely enough so that it can grow, adapt, and change over time through action.
But humans are not machines. We waver, we weaken, we get busy, and we lose steam. That’s the beauty of a symbol, because though the flesh tires, the concept stays true. As a symbol, Jesus Christ is a guiding star for Christians. The Nike swoosh is a symbol of athleticism, even if a sponsored athlete loses. Guy Fieri is a symbol for being a super rad dude. All of these are untouched by reality, a firm embodiment of specific characteristics. Symbols stay strong when you are weak and bond the believers in a shared connection of appreciation for that symbol.
Over my life, the one thing I keep coming back to is animal welfare. It’s the only thing that makes me care over, and over, and over again. Hearing about human wars does not viscerally affect me in the same way that deforestation does, as I picture thousands of animals being forced from their home, likely to die from things they cannot even begin to understand. If I’m going to do one thing before I die, it’s improve the lives of animals on Earth.
Great, so I start at the ‘I want to help animals’ baseline, but how do I make sure I don’t stop there? If I don’t do something about it, does my intention ever even matter, or is it just a story I tell myself about what I would have done in another lifetime? A way to defend the idea that I have a warm, nougaty center of goodness?
So right now, I have a loose set of results that I want to see happen, a direction for my purpose, but no action. There’s no symbol for me to get behind, no defined set of values, intentions, and behaviors that I can use to mold myself towards the biggest end result I can muster.
And frankly, if this is the thing that calls to me, the thing that would give me peace on my deathbed, why wouldn’t I shoot to make it as big as possible? Why wouldn’t I seek to gain as many experiences and skills and resources in that direction, which result in my being as close as possible to the version of me that pulls the whole thing off? If I’m going to do the damn thing, I might as well aim big and see how far I can get along the way.
That’s great and all, but I don’t know where to start, at least not quite yet. So I will start by just getting started.
What I do know is that saving animals is not profitable. Capitalism has not really rewarded the act of making kitty cats comfortable, and animal shelters are full of critters that need kindness. People have limited time to help, rescues are understaffed, and no matter how many days in a row you feed an animal, it will be hungry again the next one.
But, I also know that when a capitalistic society fails to provide a direct financial reward, the thing that keeps people coming back to the buffet line is purpose. Big ol’ suitcases full of feeling like what you did today actually mattered.
So as a capitalist who wants to do good in the world, I’m going to quantify the reward and adapt the same system. If Purpose is the transactional reward that people are receiving for their time and effort, how do we ruthlessly maximize that Profit of Purpose? If the shareholders are abused and abandoned animals, how do we make sure we’re giving them dividends, stock options, and whiskeys on their lunch breaks?
By creating a product so good people keep buying it. That product is defined and inarguable purpose that this work is worth sacrificing for.
I don’t quite know what all this means yet, but since it’s the biggest project I’ll take on before I die, so I’m willing to put in decades of time and effort here.
Powerful symbols are not designed, they are found. Humans take actions, embody values, then place those values into the symbol. I will start with the actions, not the intent.
As of this moment, it would be foolish to try to project what I think an animal service worker’s life is like. It would be a lie to pretend to understand the emotions, motivations, struggles, and rewards that an animal rescuer goes through, and how can one create a symbol to embody what they don’t understand?
They can’t.
So I will be leaving this right here, with a plan. I am moving to San Francisco full-time in April. Once there, I will be looking for an animal rescue. Then I will give my time, in several different capacities, for as long as it takes to learn what it means to be someone doing the work.
Over time, I will need to understand the resources, the limitations, the criteria that people have that makes this low-paying, high-purpose work worth it. I need to feel it deep within myself. Then re-assess.
But for now, the first steps of a long journey have been decided and I can honestly say that giving my life a direction based in service for something beyond myself has genuinely made my happiness increase.
With love from me to you,
Deacon Santiago
Note: No AI was used to write, edit, or otherwise modify this article.