2018 Year-end Letter
El Castillo
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Year-end Letter December 2018
With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.
C. S. Lewis
Dear Friend,
Once again, another year has come and almost gone, and while the passage of time seems forever to be speeding up, the one aspect of it I look forward to is the opportunity it affords to review and reflect on the year that is closing out. Not surprisingly, much of my mental review involves David and the impact of his absence. I’ve thought about whether it is appropriate to include so much about this in my letter, but in the end I decided to for several reasons. First, as I divide the letter into sections, anyone reading it is free to skip over those segments. There are two more significant reasons, however. First, I in large part write this letter to and for myself – even if not a single other soul read it it would be a worthwhile exercise in getting a handle on my life. It is an attempt to make sense of what is going on with me – the deep forces affecting me and how to move forward in a difficult environment. Secondly, many friends who might read this are roughly my age and either have faced a similar loss or inevitably and sadly will do so. Perhaps my reflections, while highly personal and specific to me, will provide some support in someone else’s struggles to surmount such a terrible loss. Without further ado, I proceed.
SOME MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS RELATING TO DAVID
Matters relating to David fall in to two categories. The first is about tasks and projects I undertook this year that relate to his life, his role in my life, and keeping his memory alive in some way. The second, to follow in the next section, is what it has felt like for me to enter into year two post-David.
I feel quite proud of several significant undertakings that I completed this year, one of which represents a major accomplishment for me. So let me begin with that.
For several reasons, I had always known – even before David died – that if I survived him I would move to a smaller apartment at El Castillo. Two important practical reasons were that (1) it would significantly reduce my monthly fee, the bulk of which is the “base rate” for one person. A second person is charged a “supplemental” fee. Going from the two of us to just one represented a very substantial increase for me. The only way to get that down was to move to a smaller apartment. But a second reason was that I was determined to do a major downsizing of my (and our) belongings myself, rather leaving “the mess” to whoever got stuck with the task once I had passed on. I felt we had a lot of good stuff and I was both ethically and personally committed to finding “good homes” for much of what we had, to the extent possible. Rarely is another person as willing to spend the time and effort on such a daunting chore.
I decided I needed a minimum of two years after David was gone to do this kind of downsizing in a methodical way. I indicated to the administration at El Castillo of my eventual plan to move to a smaller apartment and I did my own survey of suitable apartments in terms of quiet, light, view, etc. I figured with 7 or 8 candidate apartments, something might turn up fairly soon once I was ready. Well, it did not quite work that way – in late April I was informed that an apartment was available and it was mine if I was prepared to make a quick decision. After about a week I committed, which meant I would have only a few months to plan the move, do major downsizing, and stay on top of the renovation of the new apartment. So why did I upend my original timeframe so dramatically? Several reasons, but most important, this apartment had its own private little garden and patio where I could design the space according to my ideas and have a tranquil place, in warmer weather, to be outdoors. This was the only smaller apartment with such a set-up. So though a ground floor apartment is darker than one on the second floor, this amenity was so important, it was the deciding factor. The apartment was also the only “one bedroom plus” rather than a one bedroom, and the “plus” meant I would be able to comfortably accommodate my office. It is a corner apartment and exceptionally quiet, even isolated, from the rest of El Castillo, a stunning contrast with the one David and I lived in.
I was given only until the beginning of August to be completely moved out and settled in the new place – a very short, even tight deadline. Adding to the pressure, I was about to leave for a month’s trip to England! Needless to say, while under enormous stress, it somehow all got done. One thing that helped was the renovation of the new apartment was not completed in time, despite absolute confidence from the Administration that it would be, so that gave me a bit of breathing room. And enormously helpful was that most of the move could be done a few cartons at a time, allowing me to set up slowly and carefully and think about where items and furniture would go. I did something I have never done before: I hired a “downsizing consultant” to help me plan the set up of the new apartment – everything from lighting to electrical outlets to what furniture I could take with me (focusing on pieces that meant the most to me) and how they would be arranged. While I did not follow the consultant’s proposal slavishly, it helped me make a start at a time when I was feeling enormously pressed upon, so on balance I believe it was a wise move.
The renovation itself was an endless litany of confusion, miscommunication, re-do, and unexpected problems - all the usual problems involved in such an undertaking. It is not worth going into but suffice it to say it was one screw-up story after another. In the end, it came together but it emphasized the importance in my mind of the customer always being present to “supervise” and make sure that his or her intentions are being followed. My first night in the new apartment was August 22. I immediately began taking breakfast and lunch in my new little patio and being absolutely charmed by a sense of being far away in the country, surrounded by big old trees and other lush greenery.
Between targeted donations, thrift shops, consignment stores, Web sales, and giving numerous items to friends and family, I was very satisfied at how well it all turned out. I was able to use more in the new place than I anticipated. What I discovered was that the process of letting go of many things that had powerful associations with my younger life and especially with the years with David, was extraordinarily painful. The initial loss of David last year was very tough, but the experience of letting go of things came in a close second. I did not realize how badly it would rip me up. Fortunately, once these items were out of sight, they were pretty much out of mind – it is the seeing it go that is so difficult.
A great help was that before I was offered the smaller apartment, I had already donated much of the art and folk art to museums and there was nothing further to be done in regard to that. This is an arduous task and I never could have done it once I was in major downsizing mode with a tight deadline to wrap everything up.
My initial experience of being in the new apartment was tremendously positive. For one thing, the apartment, once filled with my possessions and arranged as I wanted (with inevitable further tweaking) turned out to please me beyond my wildest expectations. So initially it felt like I had transitioned to the other side of a watershed and was able to make a fresh start, something it is said we all need to do after a great loss. I have found that with the passage of a few months it is somewhat more complicated, psychologically, than that, and I have still not figured out the emotional turmoil I am feeling at having left the apartment behind that David and I created together and being in “my own” place. There is much carry over from the former apartment, but in an odd way, I feel I cut David off, abandoned him, left him behind and I am struggling with that, irrational as I know it is. It will all, presumably work itself out over time but these early months are not all positive, as I at first I thought. One good friend has reminded me that David would be proud of what I accomplished and of the look of the new place and that provides a modicum of comfort.
I suspect it is an aspect of aging, but now that I am in my smaller apartment I view my reduced possessions as still far too much and increasingly realize that the task ahead is to learn to shed more and more and live with less but enjoy what remains more intensely. Once you have experienced letting go of so much that felt essential as I have so recently done, you appreciate how much more can go and you can still live a rich, abundant life. So I hope that over the years ahead I will let go of a lot morey “stuff” and pare it down even more to the essentials. The task is to figure out what the “essentials” are but a good life, in part, is the continual journey to work such things out.
Another major accomplishment, not quite on the same scale, was going through the e-mail correspondence David and I maintained for the first sixteen months after I moved to New Mexico (in June 1992) while David stayed in Washington to complete a professional contract and to sell our house there. I had never re-read these e-mails (most of what I have is David’s messages to me) and it was a revelation to go through them thoroughly. David came alive for me in those writings even more palpably than hearing his voice or seeing photos of him. David was a master of the English language and even our e-mails back and forth brought out so much that was absolutely “him” – when I would spend a few hours reading a small portion of them, David came alive once again – he was absolutely “there” in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. While I discarded many of them, I also retained quite a number that shed light on our relationship or important events or emotional states we shared each with the other.
Reading this correspondence inspired me to take on a similar but even larger correspondence – my letters home (typewritten) from when I first went away to college (September 1958) until a month before I earned my PhD at the University of Wisconsin (April 1967). What an experience it was to get a window on myself from 60 years ago – my excitements, my insecurities, my passions, my silliness, my obsessions. I was both entering into the world of another person and at the same time seeing in the young me a connection with who I am now. Memorable were those letters that discussed major cultural figures who came to my undergraduate and graduate universities, the Kennedy assassination, my first backpacking trip, courting the woman who became my wife, etc. Again, I weeded out a lot of the letters but kept a substantial number that shed light on me and my experiences or on the times.
Yet another significant accomplishment relating to David was my commitment to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden’s capital campaign to expand the beautiful garden it is creating on Santa Fe’s Museum Hill. One part of the expansion is a natural area called the Piñon-Juniper Woodland, presently under construction. It will have one principal trail going through it with several regular wooden benches spread out along the way as well as a few large semi-circular benches. I have “bought” one of the large benches and this past summer, walked through the area with the Garden’s Executive Director. I was shown where the large benches would be sited and was thrilled that my first choice location was the one I got. It has an unobstructed view of the mountains surrounding Santa Fe. I will be able to put two dedicatory plaques on it, one containing all or part of a short poem David wrote to me that has always been the finest gift he ever gave me. The other plaque will explain that the bench is in his memory. The Woodland should open to the public in May 2019. Because David was cremated, I see this bench as a virtual gravesite, a place I can regularly go to get in touch with his spirit and feel his presence. Needless to say, I am very excited (and emotional) about this.
The year closes out with one other accomplishment I am very excited about. David undertook many big schemes– one of his characteristics was that he was always serious and thought on a grand scale. From 1993 – 2003, using the resources of the Library of Congress’ Music Division, he retrieved many of what he called the “forgotten songs from Broadway and Hollywood” – fine songs written by the great American popular song writers of the 20th century (e.g., Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen and many more) which had been cut for one reason or another before the show or movie was released. The songs were great but simply didn’t fit the larger picture of the production and thus were excised. David recorded these, using first a fine pianist in Washington, DC and then a topnotch jazz trio in Santa Fe (he, of course, did the singing with his fine baritone voice). The recordings originally came out on 12 cassettes, later mastered on to 6 CDs. I have felt all along that this is a true contribution to our cultural resources and shouldn’t disappear into a black hole, which it would do once I was no longer alive. Through meeting with Library of Congress staff and getting some names, I eventually learned of an organization called the Musical Theatre Project, based in Ohio, which releases classic American popular song and theater music on its own label (Harbinger Records). The founder loves David’s book on American popular song, uses it all the time, and was excited when I told him about David’s “forgotten songs” project. Tentatively it appears he is prepared to issue the entire recording project on Harbinger, perhaps in the latter half of 2019. While I do not have an absolute commitment, it is all looking very promising. I feel very good that I am able to contribute to preserving David’s wonderful legacy.
YEAR TWO POST-DAVID
Everyone who has experienced a profound personal loss deals with it in a unique way. Time frames and feelings of one person are not at all what some one else will go through. One woman I know whose husband died a number of years ago told me that looking back, the second year was the hardest for her. I am finding it difficult also, but in a quite different way than the first year. For one thing, the immediacy of David’s presence with the corresponding realization that despite that “presence” he is in fact not “here” is not predominating any longer. David is a more distant presence – it is almost as if we had been in a spaceship together and he went outside the capsule and got disconnected. In the first year, what was foremost was the powerful sense of just having lost him, sensing him both here and not here, seeing him clearly outside the capsule. In the second year he has drifted far away into outer space, a tiny, tiny distant speck. Most of the time I can look at the photos of him on the wall of my apartment (“the David corner”) and not be wracked with devastation. Now his absence is a dull throb, always there but without that violent immediacy. There is a sense of resignation on my part – my life is to wake up each day alone, go through the day alone, go to bed alone. I am to be without him – that is my fate now. Life seems very empty without him but there is a kind of weary acceptance that this is the way it is and it not going to change.
All the same, I have moments when I am still in disbelief that he “died on me” – how could he do that to me, dammit? It passes but it still rips me up. And as with almost anyone going through a major loss, moments come out of the blue that with lightning speed remind me of what we once had together, and I am twisted with pain for a few moments. A trivial example: I had taken a nice shirt of David’s on a trip a few months ago (I kept most of his clothes because they fit me perfectly, they’re really nice, and it makes me feel good to wear his things), and then not long after, my screen saver, which rotates through every photo I ever took of David, popped up with a photo of him in that shirt. Seeing that photo just knocked the wind out of me for a second! That kind of experience happens all the tim
In short, I have discovered that like many of us who have gone through the deep loss of a long term partner – the pain, the longing, the emptiness, the unquenchable sense of missing someone that can not be fulfilled – will go on forever. It changes over time, perhaps there is some circling back, but in one form or another, it is always there.
READING
Reading continues to be a great comfort and pleasure, and though I never have enough time to read books, I do find time to do a fair amount, especially when traveling, whether visiting friends in the U.S. or on overseas trips.
My commitment to read all of Proust”s In Search of Lost Time, one novel a year (thus, a seven-year commitment) continued this year with my reading of The Guermantes Way, the 3rd in the series. This novel is almost exclusively focused on social manners and interactions of people I would probably find excruciatingly boring in their self-centeredness, but despite that, reading Proust is filled with endless delights and insights into the human condition. I will give a few examples from this novel (in the classic Scott Moncrieff translation).
On the hour of our death:
We may, indeed, say that the hour of death is uncertain, but when we say so we represent that hour to ourselves as situated in a vague and remote expanse of time, it never occurs to us that it can have any connexion with the day that has already dawned, or may signify that death — or its first assault and partial possession of us, after which it will never leave hold of us again — may occur this very afternoon, so far from uncertain, this afternoon every hour of which has already been allotted to some occupation. You make a point of taking your drive every day so that in a month’s time you will have had the full benefit of the fresh air; you have hesitated over which cloak you will take, which cabman to call, you are in the cab, the whole day lies before you, short because you have to be at home early, as a friend is coming to see you; you hope that it will be as fine again to-morrow; and you have no suspicion that death, which has been making its way towards you along another plane, shrouded in an impenetrable darkness, has chosen precisely this day of all days to make its appearance, in a few minutes’ time, more or less, at the moment when the carriage has reached the Champs-Elysées.
The sensation of the body:
It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourself understood: our body. Say that we met a brigand by the way; we might yet convince him by an appeal to his personal interest, if not to our own plight. But to ask pity of our body is like discoursing before an octopus, for which our words can have no more meaning than the sound of the tides, and with which we should be appalled to find ourself condemned to live….If the morbid phenomena of which her [his grandmother’s] body was the theatre remained obscure and beyond the reach of her mind, they were clear and intelligible to certain creatures belonging to the same natural kingdom as themselves, creatures to which the human mind has learned gradually to have recourse in order to understand what the body is saying to it, as when a foreigner accosts us we try to find some one belonging to his country who will act as interpreter. These can talk to our body, and tell us if its anger is serious or will soon be appeased. [These “creatures” are, of course, doctors.]
Description of an oral thermometer, as only Proust could describe it:
A thermometer was fetched. Throughout almost all its length it was clear of mercury. Scarcely could one make out, crouching at the foot of the tube, in its little cell, the silver salamander. It seemed dead. The glass reed was slipped into my grandmother’s mouth. We had no need to leave it there for long; the little sorceress had not been slow in casting her horoscope. We found her motionless, perched half-way up her tower, and declining to move, shewing us with precision the figure that we had asked of her, a figure with which all the most careful examination that my grandmother’s mind could have devoted to herself would have been incapable of furnishing her; 101 degrees.
I began the year re-reading The Iliad, this time in the classic Richmond Lattimore translation, which many still consider the best for capturing the Homeric sense. While initially one’s sensation (or at least mine) is one of endless battle and killing, the epic acquires power through what individual deaths mean to those who care for them. Nowhere is this in a more extreme form than Achilles’ broken-heartedness and subsequent fury over the killing of Patroclus, his closest friend (lover?). Another highlight of the year was Alex Ross’ large book on the history of 20th century serious music The Rest is Noise. Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker, has written what may be the best overall survey on modern music. A novel that he frequently cited because of its influence on so many composers was Thomas Mann’s great late work, Dr. Faustus, which attempts to understand Germany’s descent into utter barbarism in the 20th century. While I read a lot of Mann as a young man, this was the first time in decades I returned to him. Dr. Faustus is definitely heavy going, but even in translation, wonderful to read, just for its old-fashioned literary qualities, though written in the 1940’s.
TRAVEL
This was the year I returned to international travel, after a hiatus of almost two years relating to David’s condition. One of the true highlights of our relationship was how wonderful travel together was, how each trip built on our accumulated history of previous trips and our ability to relate past and new experiences. So for me the challenge was to find reward in travel without David in the picture. Further, his absence was too recent for me to be ready to go off on my own. So I made it easy for myself by booking three quite different trips all involving some form of group travel. The idea was to give myself a break – at least in 2018 – from having to figure out what travel in the future should look like.
I started off the year with my first Road Scholar trip, an exploration of Vietnam from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) with stops both along the coast and in parts of the mountainous interior. The trip was described as involving “spirited walking” which meant that each day we walk from 3 to 5 miles, whether in a large city or out in the country. Road Scholar puts together good trips, well-organized and good value for the money. In retrospect, though I felt it was a perfectly topnotch experience, I came away thinking I am not really a group traveler when exploring a country or a city.
My next trip was for about a month in May-June with REI Adventures. REI has an adventure travel component that offers many trips at all different levels of difficulty. This trip was hiking highlights of England’s most famous path, the Coast-to-Coast Walk that crosses England in the far north, from the Irish Sea in the West to the North Sea in the East. While the Walk is almost 200 miles long, we did 52 miles over 8 days, covering the most scenic segments, the parts that went through three national parks, Lake District National Park, Yorkshire Dales National Park, and North York Moors National Park. REI trips are expensive but very well run and we stayed in lovely small inns that were noteworthy for their fine restaurants offering regional cooking. Our weather could not have been more perfect – cloudless days and comfortable temperatures, day after day, with a few minor exceptions. Of course, increasingly Great Britain and Europe in general are having “non-normal” weather – either warm (and with increasing frequency, extremely hot) dry, drought-type weather, or torrential rains. Early and mid-summer in Britain this year was characterized by high temperatures and very dry conditions. Before and after the REI trip I stayed with friends in London, and made some side trips to visit other people.
The final trip was a Sierra Club birding trip in Israel in November. Israel is on the flyway for spring and fall migration between Europe/Asia and Africa, and November is when many species return to Africa, and thus a wonderful opportunity for viewing a great variety of avian creatures. On the way to Israel, I spent a week in Barcelona on my own – a first trial run of independent travel once again, a kind of trial run for the future. Barcelona did not even feel like Spain and was a phantasmagoria of a unique kind of Art Nouveau. In Israel I visited with friends who go way back. In addition, the Sierra Club offered an extension with a Jordanian outfitter to visit Petra and Wadi Rum (the spectacular desert outpost of sand and rocky crags, through which Lawrence of Arabia, with the Arab League, surprised the Ottomans at Aqaba, attacking from the land, rather than, as expected, the sea). Petra is one of the great ancient sights of the world, tombs and temples carved from the rocky cliffs, described in the romantic 19th century poem Petra, by Englishman John Burgon as …a rose red city half as old as time.
Several aspects of traveling in Europe and the “Western” world strike me repeatedly. First is the widespread competence of much of the populations in other countries in speaking adequate to excellent English, whereas it is the rare American who is fluent in another language, except for a particular reason (e.g., child of an immigrant family). I cannot help feeling how enriching it is to speak one or more languages well, other than one’s own. Second, is the superiority of infrastructure such as public transit systems and airports, as well as telecommunication systems. I flew back to the U.S. from Tel Aviv via Rome, using its new Terminal E. Architecturally striking, it had superb signage, beautiful but functional restrooms, Announcements were occasional, low key and a sense of tranquility prevailed though it was a busy terminal. A complete contrast to arriving at Newark or changing planes at Dallas-Forth Worth!
I also did a month’s West Coast friends visit in March, analogous to my two-month friends visit on the East Coast in the fall of 2017. It kicked off by my older granddaughter’s Bat Mitzvah in the Twin Cities area, which I attended. From there, I took Amtrak to Washington State to visit friends in the Pacific Northwest, and then Amtrak again to go down to the Bay Area, where I visited more friends. As with the East Coast trip, it was a varied and very rewarding experience to re-connect with a great variety of people in my life. I did only one of my two annual 7-10 day camping trips this year – the spring trip, as the friend I do this with, for personal reasons, had to back out of the fall trip. Our spring trip involved two very spectacular Texas state parks in the Panhandle, not an area one normally thinks of as terribly attractive, but these two parks are really quite magnificent – Palo Duro State Park and Caprock Canons State Park
I do have some ideas for major travel in 2019 and will probably return to independent travel, albeit in most instances, solo. For the time being, I have not actually booked anything.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Between a busy travel schedule and the transition to a smaller apartment which consumed at least 4 months, I did not get as much involved in community activities as I would like to have. Nevertheless, I led a number of outdoor events (hikes, auto tour) for the Santa Fe Botanical Garden. As I do each summer, I was a guide at this year’s Crested Butte Wildflower Festival in the heart of the Colorado Rockies. I contributed a little time to help elect New Mexico Democratic candidates in a “get-out-the-vote” effort in October, both door-to-door canvassing and phone banking. And I am a regular volunteer for three of Santa Fe’s major musical organizations, doing either Will Call or ticket taking or ushering. Of course this is not entirely altruistic as I get to attend the performances gratis! I sometimes volunteer for one-time events which don’t conflict with travel plans. And as I have done for many years, I continue to give travel-photo talks on my selected foreign and domestic trips, both at El Castillo, where I live, and at our local travel bookstore.
Inevitably, with each year, a few more friends and acquaintances slip away. Slip away not only to death but as a result of mental decline, which, it could be argued, is a more painful loss – for those afflicted and for those who care about and love them. For me, one’s own mortality looms ever larger in the picture.
THE NATIONAL AND WORLD SCENE
Ah me! What is there to say any more that is not totally dispiriting? I think it is pointless to share or go over, once more, the horror stories of our present situation – “our” being our country, but also “our” being our world. I think a great many concerned citizens are incredulous and appalled at what we are seeing, not believing that the figure who embodies the entire country in a single person is so beyond any acceptable standard, not just as a President, but simply as a human being. That is, someone so far below any ethical, moral or intellectual standards we were raised to believe in. No parent would ever knowingly allow his or her child to get anywhere near such a deeply flawed person, a person for whom lying, bullying, humiliating others, cheating friends, never accepting responsibility, is routine. I do believe the dignity of the office of the President – as a position and a role – which has survived many ups and downs, has been permanently lost. What has gone on in the past two years has gone into uncharted territory, and once opened up, there is no returning.
Also, I am intentionally not saying anything about the mid-term elections. While the results are somewhat encouraging, there is much uncertainty whether left-of-center politicians can woo a substantial number of voters away in the long haul. I always like to mull over the Chinese leader, Zhou Enlai’s famous response, when asked what the impact was of the French Revolution: Too early to tell.
Rather I am trying to understand some larger issues that emerge, for me at least, from what I see happening. I have a couple of conclusions, not necessarily at all related to each other but ones that seem important to me.
It appears we are in a period of worldwide reaction. I would not call it a swing to conservatism because this sort of right wing attitude is not conservatism. I am well versed and well read in classical conservatism which I believe has much that is relevant to the human condition and the building and functioning of human societies. Instead, what we are seeing today – certainly in the U.S. but similarly in many democracies around the world, is anger and tiredness at the political, economic and social directions since World War II – internationalism, globalism, free trade, open borders, etc. Long-established groups in various countries feel threatened, their way of life having disappeared along with their economic security. Fear of “the other” looms large. So what is going on in the U.S. is replicated in many places, places where it seemed democracy was flourishing – Hungary, Poland, Italy, Turkey, Israel, the Philippines, Brazil, even Germany and France as well as England. On a global scale, it feels very much like the mid-1930’s a number of years before World War II broke out. I suspect that in 1935, few people (though undoubtedly some) realized the world was already on the slippery slope down into the worst human conflagration in history. The trends we are seeing now seem ominously analogous to those times, which admittedly I did not experience myself. In the U.S. there is another analogy – the temper of the country in the years leading up to the Civil War. The partisan divide then seems to have been as wide as it is now between pro-slavery and anti-slavery populations. Many of us were young during a “golden” period when we thought we were on an upward trajectory to more and more progress in human affairs. This is a major wake-up call to remind us that throughout history there have been cycles.
I think we always underestimate the fundamental, central role of race and racism as the formative factor that explains more of American history than anything else. Not only are we not post-racial, as we thought during the Obama era, but the Obama era actually heightened a great deal of racism that had lain dormant (but very strong and deep) and as numerous observers have pointed out, Obama made Trump possible. Race plays the key role in almost every aspect of American life and continues to govern our elections and judicial decisions, our legislation and our regulatory governance. We hate to admit it, but we are all deeply affected, whether horrified by it, or using it for advantage.
An important observation I come away with is the importance of compromise in a political system. I think the major issue is that we (in the U.S.) find ourselves at a point that few political figures are willing (or able) to compromise. While I believe the worst extremes are on the part of Republicans, angry Democrats (who have every reason to be angry) want to implement their form of pure progressivism. I don’t know how we find, anymore, a middle ground, where those in power (whatever the party) are willing to not get everything they want, in order to create some crossover. Personally, I believe that if I can get a lot of what I think is important, I am willing to settle for less than everything if that brings in some folks from the “other side” who are also willing to give a little. I understand that with our present system, extremism is fostered and almost impossible to get away from. I attribute this situation to several causes: 1) social media and our various forms of digital communication; 2) the role of unlimited money in political campaigns; 3) our electoral system (e.g., the Electoral College, gerrymandering, voter suppression). So I am not very optimistic for any change along the lines I believe necessary. Without such change, we are going to be stuck where we are or likely descend much further.
As the Founding Fathers (and they were all men) understood, a written Constitution is only as good as the willingness of the society governed by it to respect it and live by it. The Constitution guarantees the most elevated protections but in our long history we already know that it has been violated in any number of fundamental ways (again, look at our history of institutionalized, official racism, of broken treaties and even attempted genocide of Native peoples), putting American citizens in concentration camps in World War II and much more. What we see today is that a significant portion of our population is undisturbed, nay supportive, of official corruption and the denial of basic rights to others in our country. If there is no accountability for gross violations, the Constitution becomes essentially meaningless. That is the crossroads we are at now. No country is guaranteed to go on forever, and we, after only a few centuries (much less time than the Romans) may already be on the slide downhill. May you live in interesting times!
Something that has become more apparent to me with each passing year is the elusiveness of justice in this world. It was crystallized for me by one single event, hardly the worst but it still manages to bring home the point forcefully. This was the brutal, grisly murder of a reporter, the Saudi Arabian, Khashoggi, living in the U.S. Those in positions of absolute power have the freedom to act in ways for which lesser mortals are harshly punished. I think of the countless thousands locked away for life for murder and then we have the leader of Saudi Arabia and his henchman carrying out a psychopathic killing and getting away with it. And for reasons of ‘”national interest” other nations will not react too strenuously, if at all. It all depends on who you are. There is no absolute standard of justice. One gags on this realization, and yet there is nothing to be done about it. It is the oldest story in the human storybook.
Another great concern for me, as for many others, is the accelerating threat of climate change. To address it requires massive worldwide coordinated effort, and even the political leaders most committed to reduce the threat are not prepared to take the radical steps needed. The reality is that by and large the world is not willing to get serious. Coal plants are being built in many countries, the Amazon basin is being deforested, and many other activities are proceeding. We are already in a perilous situation and we are hastening, not slowing down, the day of reckoning. I fear that even the very next generation after mine will soon face challenges we have never seen before.
AND SO, IN SUM
I hope you were not expecting an upbeat year-end report. Few of us feel terribly optimistic, so I don’t think I am letting the air out of anyone’s balloon. What I will say is that when I learn of some kind, positive human gesture, or meet a truly gentle, loving soul, I am greatly heartened and reminded of how much good there is in the world – something all too easy to overlook. I recently read a quote from the historian Howard Zinn that sums up as well as anything I have felt lately on how to keep our heads high in dark times. Perhaps it will give you comfort too and seems a good note to end on
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage and kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.
If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world into a different direction. And if we do act, in however a small way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite secession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, it itself a marvelous victory
And with that, I close. Yours in the New Year,
Ken