Meeting Larry

During my week in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, I heard a couple people talk about their experience on the reservation or with the Project. I loved listening to everyone talk. I learned a lot, and I plan on using the information I learned in the future. While everyone was great, one person stood out in terms of what that person had to say. That person was Larry Fiddler.

Larry Fiddler is a Lakota man who works at Habitat for Humanity in Eagle Butte. If you ever find yourself there, say hello to him. He is a very friendly man who was great to talk to about life and stuff. On the final day of my stay in Eagle Butte, Larry came to the Project and talked to us about his experiences and gave some pretty good advice. In terms of his experiences, I don’t know everything about his life. He and the group I was with did not have enough time to listen to him recount all of his life experiences, but what he did tell us was emotional and interesting. Larry has gone through a lot in his time on Earth. He has experienced hardship, happiness, enlightenment, and grief. And hearing him tell us all of this just gave me an enormous amount of respect for him. What’s more is that his experience has provided me with more information about past life on the reservation along with current life on the reservation. I understand that his story is only one story and does not represent everyone. Still, his experiences highlight some of the trouble that has occurred under the reservation system and with the policies that the government enforced in the past.

Larry also gave everyone some great advice. One thing that he said was that everyone should follow their heart. I heard this in the past, but no one said it quite like Larry. He noted that logic and the mind are great, but they influence our lives a little too much. We should follow our heart more often because it will lead us to great things. This advice really spoke to me. I am a guy who has been operating with a logical mind in all aspects of my life. After utilizing his advice though, I believe logic and my mind can be utilized in some areas, but in the rest, I should just follow my heart. I have been doing this for the past week, and I have never felt better. This reexamination of my life has brought welcome change. Overall, all of the advice that Larry gave was great. It was not great because of who said it. It was great because I needed to hear it, and it had wide applications to life in general.

Listening and talking to Larry has taught me some important lessons. Larry mentioned that he was proud of our generation (I’m talking about 20ish year olds here) because we were more accepting of others, and we were trying to fix the errors made in the past. This is important to remember because if our generation has the opportunity to make the world a better place, we should take that opportunity to do so. Historical mistakes can be bettered, and I want to help do that. Another important lesson, as Larry mentioned, was that we can try to understand that issues of the reservation and the issues that Larry’s generation went through, but not being Lakota or another form of Indian hinders that. He is right. I am not from a reservation, so I will never understand what it is like to grow up on one. But this is where empathy comes in to play. I will never have those experiences, but I must still try to understand them. It is by knowing of these issues and how they affect people that I, and my generation, will help not only Native Americans but also the world.