Ubuntu, not furniture

Consider yourself at home
Consider yourself one of the family
We've taken to you so strong,
It's clear we're going to get along
Consider yourself well in
Consider yourself part of the furniture

These words were chiming forth from the back seat of my car. My children were practicing for a show while I was dropping them off at school. As they picked up the tempo and emphasis for the crescendo...Consider yourself, one of us!...I did a double take on “consider yourself part of the furniture”.

Is that nice? To be considered a part of the furniture? Sure, being a part of the furniture is better than being bullied. But sitting around being invisible, like the bofa on the sofa, can’t be a ton of fun.

The opposite of being a part of the furniture may be umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. This zulu saying translates, roughly, to a person is a person only through other people. This saying is a part of a South African philosophy called ubuntu, about the inter-connectedness of humanity. This reminds me a little of the traditional Hindu namaste, which means I recognize the divinity in you. Ubuntu seems to have an added element of reflexivity, or self-reference, to it. Like, maybe, re-framing Descartes, I am because I recognize the divinity in you.

I first came across umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu in a management handbook called The Fifth Discipline. Peter Senge welcomes readers to his book with umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, to say that the meaning and value of the book is derived entirely from what we readers get out of it. Since then, Bill Clinton has advised the Labour Party to embrance ubuntu. There is a Linux operating system called Ubuntu.

And, praise the lord, there is even an Ubuntu fair trade cola. They really should quit treating Oliver like a part of the furniture, and should buy him an Ubuntu fair trade cola instead, to recognize the divinity within him.

I’d like to buy the world an Ubuntu... its the real thing.