El Castillo
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Year-end Letter December 2016
Dear Friend,
This year’s letter is the hardest one I’ve ever written, as will likely become obvious as you read on – should you decide to read on. I’ve been composing and sending out a year-end letter for over four decades, as it represents my own opportunity to reflect on the year, in terms of my own life, those close to me, and the larger world of which I am a part.
But I had wondered if I could even get up the mental energy to sit down and put some thoughts together. In the end, as you can see, I decided to go ahead. If you decide to read on, perhaps it will have some meaning for you.
The two major events to be covered are, first, David’s health, and what that will mean for our future together, and second, the experience of the electoral campaign and the very personal impact of its outcome on me, as I am sure for every one else in the country and the world.
DAVID AND OUR FUTURE
There has been absolutely nothing in my life more central or important than my 30-year plus love affair with David, whom I have been able to also call “husband” for the past 3 years, but effectively we’ve been married, in spirit, for much longer than that.
Thus it was utterly devastating when we learned in late September that esophageal / stomach cancer was diagnosed, and particularly in early October, when a PET scan revealed it was advanced stage 4 (that is, metastatic) with no possible cure. In short order, David began “first-line” chemotherapy, with a 50-50 chance of benefit, benefit being defined as some shrinkage of the tumor and some prolongation of life, though the remaining time is thought to be relatively short, and we do not want to speculate on precisely what that means.
We are, of course, not the first loving couple to experience this kind of event disrupting our lives, but for each individual and set of individuals, it is a unique occurrence, and everyone deals with it in his or her own way. My first observation is that one’s entire world changes, seemingly overnight, with all the routines, plans for the future, and relationships with others altered dramatically. For someone like myself, so set in my ways, I’ve been surprised how the sense of the briefness of time and the tenuousness of life change all perspectives. I’ve gone through a complete shift on what is important.
First off, I cancelled a major outdoors and wildlife trip I had booked with friends to Ethiopia, shortly before my scheduled departure. Under most circumstances, this would have seemed like a major disappointment, but measured against spending time with David and being both helpmeet and caregiver, it seemed almost insignificant.
I’ve had no trouble giving up a busy cultural and outdoors life, which does not mean becoming a hermit, but does mean letting go of the need to focus on participating in the kind of activities that had filled my days before. Days are now busy with medical appointments, follow-up calls and whatnot, but because I am spending them with David, I am in a strange way happy about it. We are concentrating on tasks that need to get done and which David himself is in the best position to take the lead while he is up to it. His drawings collection has been given, over the years, to the Clark Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and will continue to be. New Mexico art will be going to the New Mexico Museum of Art. The New Mexico School of the Arts, a charter high school for students from all over the state who have an aptitude for the performing arts has received a large collection of art and music books plus a huge collection of sheet music. Scholarly books are going to the School of American Research, a prominent institute here in Santa Fe. All the same, a lifetime of work has been discarded, and this is something that causes great pain on David’s part.
Perhaps most special during these difficult times is the tenderness that has entered our relationship. We know the remaining time together is brief on the scale of time we had once thought remained to us. Our time with each other now has a distilled sweetness beyond anything I can previously recall. If there is any silver lining to this terrible situation, it is the specialness and intensity of these moments together, the caring, the warmth, the love that has multiplied all the good aspects of our relationship up to a higher realm.
The year 2017 is likely to be even more momentous, as there is the very likely possibility it will be my last one with David.
THE ELECTION (also see the section Thinking about the U.S. and the World)
As if the personal developments with David on the home front were not bad enough, we had the November 8 election and Donald Trump’s winning the Presidency. There is not much I can add to the shock and horror so many of us feel that this could ever remotely happen in the U.S., especially following on the heels of such an upstanding, intelligent, thoughtful, deeply complex, honest, and humane President as Barack Obama. Like everyone else, I became far too addicted to the sickening spectacle of what was going on in the course of the campaign. It was so unbelievable I could not keep from indulging in reading countless articles about the phenomenon. While deep down I feared that what happened could happen, my rational self kept reassuring me that this country was too sane to ever do something so stupid, not to say evil.
I find myself immensely angry at the media, for whipping up a circus of empty-calorie coverage, and for failing to make an adequate distinction between what Clinton did with her e-mails and the Clinton Foundation and the whole different of order of magnitude of behaviors when it came to such a pathetic scumbag as Trump. For a pathological narcissist to be rewarded with this ultimate prize will only feed his sickness beyond anything I can imagine. That small number who actually read or listen to “real” news are upset that the media got it so wrong. The reality is that mainstream journalism, as well as editorials and op-ed pieces, even at their most penetrating and revealing (in the best tradition of journalism) had virtually no impact on the voters who elected Trump. There are two camps in this country and we can no longer even agree on what reality and facts are. The situation has reached a kind of dead-end.
Immediately after the results became known, I made a decision to not expose myself unduly to the political developments we are in store for. I fear the destruction of everything I care about when it comes to crucial issues such as race relations, inequality, health care, women’s rights, climate change and the environment, civil liberties, education, and foreign affairs. So I must insulate myself from political news and focus on finding inspiration and support in my local community, in the arts and the outdoors. As of the day after the election, I swore not to listen to radio news (typically NPR) and my focus in reading my New York Times subscription (hardcopy and digital) is on social trends, business, the arts, science (plus obituaries, of course) and the like. I simply cannot bear to keep up with dismantling of laws, protections and institutions of importance, along with reading about the people whom I despise taking the reigns of government. I know it will be horrible and I don’t have the emotional strength to deal with it. My reaction and decision seems to be widely shared, I have discovered. We are all trying to understand what this tells us about the country – and our countrymen – and until we can move beyond the sense of disbelief, none of us has or wants to have anything to say to any one else.
This certainly has helped me understand in a visceral way how it could happen that Germany could democratically vote Hitler to power. However angry segments of the American population have been (and I have been, too) in my mind there is no excuse for the kind of wanton irresponsibility that can justify a U.S. citizen voting in a man so damaged, disgusting and unqualified. I’m no longer talking about someone I intensely disagree with. I am talking about someone who is manifestly unfit for any kind of office, much less the Presidency. I always thought that somehow, in the end, people would back off, but instead it has really, really happened and in a sense I feel like a stranger in my own land. I am also worried about the ugly forces he has and is likely to continue to release and stoke.
Unlike the 1930’s, there were, I believe, some very specific factors in contemporary American life that facilitated how this election turned out. A few prominent ones are first the role of massive amounts of money behind campaigns and the role of well-funded interest groups, free to spend large sums however they wish. The internet and social media have altered how we communicate and receive input that influences most voters. The declining role of traditional newspapers and the corresponding rise of media sources that reach people who already agree with their opinionated positions is another important factor. What one factor that was the same as in the 1930’s was that if a big lie is repeated baldly and often enough, it will be believed.
What this means for the future of the American experiment and the Constitution remains to be seen, but I have great concerns about its viability. I think what has happened this year is a watershed and an unprecedented catastrophe.
READINGS
Each year, I read some books that I find particularly worth discussing and sharing with others, and this year was no exception.
However, first I want to call your attention to several articles I read that I feel were exceptionally important in understanding “the other half” and the mindboggling division that has developed in this country, leading to the electoral outcome we have witnessed. Two articles come particularly to mind as doing an excellent job of capturing the essence of what has been going on, and if you haven’t read them, and are interested in this topic, I highly recommend them. First is a fantastically well-written piece by George Packer in the October 31, 2016, New Yorker, titled The Unconnected. Read it at: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/31/hillary-clinton-and-the-populist-revolt
The second article appeared in the November 10, 2016, issue of the New York Review of Books, an extended review by Nathaniel Rich about what appears to be an interesting book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild. The review itself (titled Inside the Sacrifice Zone), like the Packer article, gets into the heart of what has been going on for some years and has confused and dismayed many of us who are better off. Go to: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/11/10/american-right-inside-the-sacrifice-zone/ to access the review. On a related note, a book I have not read, but am on the waiting list to obtain from the library electronically is Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. I have heard nothing but raves about this book and the insights – from someone from the inside – of what is going on in the poorer, forgotten parts of this country, especially the South and the Rust Belt.
I remain convinced that the essential story of America, the very dark and troubling heart of our history, is race. I have written this before and as the years go by, I am more and more convinced of the centrality of this issue to everything that defines our history and who we are as a people. So, as race relations moved front and center in the Obama years, I kept hearing James Baldwin’s name mentioned and his writings quoted. I bought the Library of America edition of all his great essays. While I have not read everything, I have now completed Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, and I am part way through Nobody Knows my Name, which represent his most important non-fiction. First off, I have to say that this is some of the most brilliant writing, as writing, I have read in a long time – absolutely beautiful use of the English language. But what truly amazes me is that these essays were written in the late 1950’s to the early 1960’s and they are spot on in their total understanding of what it means to be black AND white in America. Topics that are only seemingly emerging now in the wider society’s debates were covered and fully understood and called out with a forthrightness that knocks me for a loop. This is stunning work, and I now understand why Baldwin, who became somewhat forgotten for many decades is being looked to once again for his burning understanding. He is someone who, despite the seething anger, does not lose his ability to write with complete clear-headedness and honesty. I read several other important books on race in America that I strongly recommend: Between the World and Me (which I discovered is a phrase in one of Baldwin’s essays) by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Marble Manning, and Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Institute and a McArthur “genius grant” winner.
I’ve tried to spend some time reading “non-political” books as well. Two stand out. One, collectively speaking, is the much-talked-about Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante. I’ve now read the first two of the four novels in the quartet, My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, and have begun the third, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. This is a series that follows the lives of two women friends from the time they were small girls in a 1950’s Naples slum up to their adulthood as women of 60-something. It is a stunning exploration of friendship and the hopeless relationships and confusions between men and women. The other “project” I have embarked on is trying to read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, seven dense novels. This is tough going, but all my life, Proust’s magnum opus is mentioned in countless writings. This year, I have only read the first novel in the set, Swann’s Way. My hope is to try to read one each year. There are various translations and I am trying to carefully select what might be the best one by general consensus, but the truth is, there is very little consensus.
Finally, in the realm of sheer delight, let me mention two wonderful books that lift the spirit, both autobiographies but very different. One is Dandelion Wine by the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, a beautiful, touching remembrance of his early childhood in a small Mid-western town. It has a kind of Father Knows Best mythic (and so one could say, false) perfection about it, as recalled from a small boy’s perspective – charming and wistful. The other book is Act One: An Autobiography by Moss Hart, a story of his rise from Depression-era poverty in New York to one of the great playwrights of the Broadway stage.
AS LIFE GOES ON
Inevitably, with each passing year, we lose people we know. This year was particularly tough as two very close friends in the Santa Fe area passed away. There is a sense of a shrinking world as people we felt a special connection to gradually go out of our lives, one by one. We also lost my sister-in-law’s 104-year old mother, a true force of nature, filled with vivacious energy, bursting with laughter and optimism.
There are two exciting publication projects that were in the works before all the bad news about David came our way. First, David has worked, for some years, on shaping a manuscript based on his correspondence as a teen-ager and young man with his very oldest friend, who is still alive but lives in a different part of the country. These letters are filled with witticisms and witty comments about many of their intellectual experiences, as well as sharp and insightful analyses of some very difficult works (e.g., Rilke). It is exciting to read, especially when you compare their command of the English language and cultural insight with most young people these days, wedded to 140-character tweets and Facebook abbreviated messages. After much effort, David found a small serious publisher in Santa Fe, and the book should be out in 2017. It is titled Two Smart Boys (sounds the same as Too Smart Boys, of course) and I’ll notify you when it is published. A modest and targeted publicity campaign is being developed for carefully selected venues.
The second project, undertaken by me, was inspired by David’s upcoming 80th birthday in June 2017, which we hope and pray he will be here to celebrate. David is a fabulous poet (most of his poems are posted to my Web site) and I decided that one of the most special birthday gifts I could give him (we had a number of other plans) would be to publish a set of his poems. David knows about the project, as he needed to be the one to select and sequence the poems. What he does not know is anything about is how the actual book will look, i.e., cover art, font, page layout, etc. I have engaged the best art book designer in Santa Fe, owner of our finest art publishing house (and David does not know anything about whom I am working with either) and when the book appears, it should be very nice indeed. Again, I will let you know about its appearance in print.
With growing older I realize, despite my best efforts, that I am becoming a real dinosaur, and that responsibility for how society works and for the fate of the world has passed on to a younger generation. (I suppose voting still gives me a tiny stake in civic affairs). I created Facebook and Twitter accounts, but rarely use them. I am still a hold-out as far as a cell phone goes, though I suspect that I will have to cave fairly soon (and would only consider a smartphone once I do.) I simply don’t “get” why it is necessary to be connected through social media, but I do understand that this is the way the world now operates – people obtain their news this way, conduct business and daily affairs through their phones, learn of spontaneous gatherings, become part of a viral network that has real influence (killings of black people by the police would certainly be one prominent example). While I want, in principle, to remain part of the action, in my gut, I find myself unable to step into this world.
SPECIAL PROJECTS
One big project I set myself to complete this year was a detailed outline on aging and dying, a kind of compendium of all the useful information I had gathered, in bulleted form, on key points to be aware of and to consider in facing the inevitability of aging, declining powers, sickness and death. Ironically, this project was completed only a few months before getting the terrible diagnosis about David. However, I am very pleased that I put this together, because I think it will be extremely useful for myself, David, anyone for that matter, getting up into the older years. It is chockablock with pointers, reminders, useful links, and resources.
In the interests of sharing I posted it on my Web site. Should you care to look at or consult it, you can find it at:
https://sites.google.com/site/kensruminations/Home/miscellaneous-meditations/aging--dying
I obtained substantial input and recommendations from two important books, Being Mortal by Atul Gwande, and Knocking at Heaven’s Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death by Katy Butler, though I gathered ideas and information from numerous other sources as well. I will keep it up-to-date as I come across important new points, but it is substantially complete as is.
Another undertaking, going on for several years now, might prove of interest as well. I have a section of my Web site’s travel reports section devoted to practical tips on certain places we have spent a fair amount of time and know reasonably well, most particularly, Rome and New York. I have endeavored, on my page of practical tips for New York, to create a comprehensive list of every museum, academic gallery, institute, and cultural center that puts on exhibits in New York. I venture to guess that it may be the most extensive list anywhere for New York. For every institution I include the name, address, hours, and admissions policy, and a link to its Web site. Should you want to consult it go to the New York City page and scroll down to the appropriate section on museums, etc.:
https://sites.google.com/site/kensruminations/Home/trip-reports/new-york-city---practical-notes
TRAVELS
Before everything went to hell, and even a bit after, this was a year of some great travels. The biggest trip that we did was a 5-week-plus circuit of North Central Italian cities – 20 in all, from small to medium large – that with a few exceptions, we had never visited. We went at the start of May and returned home in early June. We visited largish cities such as Genoa and Bologna, down to small towns such as Volterra and Montepulciano. Everywhere in Italy is a marvel of art and architecture, and this trip was no exception. David already knew, prior to the trip, that something was not right with him, but we made adjustments for his energy level and inability to eat as before. All the same, we both felt it was a fabulous trip. We found, in particular, that Assisi was such a beautiful small city that we decided to celebrate my 75th and his 80th birthdays by settling in to Assisi for 4 weeks next spring (preceded by a week in Rome) and just enjoy the town, plus take Italian at a wonderful linguistic academy I stumbled on. Obviously, that will no longer happen.
I was also due to spend 6 weeks in Ethiopia in the late fall – early winter, which I cancelled. However, I did get away in late October for one week in the Washington, DC area, which was originally to be the first week of my 7-week trip, the remainder being in Ethiopia. It was a wonderful, rewarding opportunity to spend unstructured time with several old friends, and while they were busy I spent two full days at the just opened National Museum of African-American History and Culture, at the recently re-opened renovated East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, and the Holocaust Museum, which I had not been to since it originally opened.
But I did a number of small trips throughout the year – two extended camping trips with the friend I do this with each spring and fall. The spring trip was an exploration of some interesting places in West Texas and southern New Mexico, and the fall trip focused on southwestern Utah. I visited my brother and sister-in-law in April to join them for the FullFrame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC, a major festival of documentary film, which all three of us enjoy immensely. There was a visit to a friend in Oakland, California and two summer weeks in Colorado, mainly serving as a guide at the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, but also meeting up with a friend near Independence Pass to hike and camp for three days after the Festival.
What I was especially happy about is that even though we got the first bad news about David’s condition in late September, David and I went forward with a planned 8-day trip to New York that month. It was essentially a farewell to experiencing New York together. We packed in all kinds of wonderful experiences: theater, dance programs, museums, guided walks and our own architectural explorations, and a number of wonderful meals. Perhaps most special was a beautiful lunch we had at the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park on the day we left – an exquisite restaurant set on “The Lake.” The weather had been overcast most of our trip, but as we walked through the park that last afternoon, the sky cleared to reveal an exquisite early autumn day. We made a snap decision to have lunch there, on an elegantly covered platform set against the Lake with a classic romantic New York view. David knew it was unlikely he would ever return to New York, so this was a very special goodbye.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Volunteering continues to be important to me, but contributing in ways that make a difference takes real effort, I have discovered. But I have found several quite worthwhile organizations to become involved in. One is Community in Schools, an organization that places tutors into public school classrooms to help teachers with pupils who need extra assistance or individual / small group tutoring in math and reading. Another important activity I became involved in (after a fair amount of training) was the Solace Crisis Treatment Center, a vital organization that provides resilience assistance to those experiencing various types of trauma, primarily sexual abuse, sexual assault, and child abuse. I now volunteer several times a month to staff the Crisis Advocate phone line (shifts are from 6 – 13 hours, depending on the day of the week and the time period). This is something I can do from my home phone, which helps a lot.
I continued serving on the Board of the Directors of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, which has grown, over the past few years, to be a major force on the Santa Fe and New Mexico scene. This is because of a very energetic Director and a high-powered Board. This year saw the opening of Phase 2 of our major botanical garden, located on Museum Hill (so named because of the numerous museums located nearby). The Museum Hill Garden, designed by a world-class landscape architect, is now the location of important sculpture shows, performances, festivals, as well as private functions such as weddings. I also led the Garden’s first wildflower hike in the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
This year I trained to be, and then became, an official hike leader for the local chapter of the Sierra Club. It was not my intent to do frequent hikes, but I managed one in early summer and one in the fall. It all began, for me, when I realized that the hike schedule was increasingly dominated by very strenuous hikes (which I am no longer able to do) or very easy hikes (which I found boring). So I agreed to become a trip leader to offer moderate hikes for many others who wanted something intermediate. In addition, I volunteered for the second phase of a National Smokejumpers Association one-week service trip that I was on in June/July 2015, to finish clearing a trail that was about half completed last year. Last year I somehow drifted into being the camp cook. So this year I was invited to be, officially, the cook, and I accepted. These hulking retired smokejumpers all seemed satisfied, and I figured if I could please them, I probably could pass muster anywhere, even though I have hardly cooked at home in ages.
I continued volunteering for a variety of one-time and occasional events, such as serving as Block Captain for the 3-day International Folk Art Market, and ushering concerts for several local organizations, Santa Fe Pro Musica and Serenata of Santa Fe as well as the occasional Botanical Garden event. This year, as in earlier Presidential election years, I served the county as a Presiding Judge at one of our polling places (where all went, I should add, very smoothly, but it was a neighborhood where Clinton got 92 votes and Trump, 13). In Santa Fe over 50% of registered voters voted early. I also gave quite a number of travelogues based on various photos I took (e.g., Greenland, North Central Italy, Autumn in northern New Mexico) at El Castillo and our local travel bookstore.
What I had to do late in the year was to back off from some of the above, because I just couldn’t focus on them due to the fulltime job of being David’s caregiver. I resigned from the Board of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, and took a leave of absence (if you will) from Community in Schools. I have stuck with covering the crisis line of Solace, since I can do that from home.
THINKING ABOUT THE U.S. AND THE WORLD
Picking up on the discussion of the election results, there is much else to think beyond the specifically electoral, political, or how the country will be run (e.g., new legislation, court decisions).
One reaction – and forgive me for saying it this way – is the utter stupidity of much of the American public. This is a country drowning in 24 hour news (admittedly of the most superficial kind) and yet a huge percentage of the population believes nonsense that is not true. For example, to take just one of countless instances, most people believe voter fraud (the type where someone impersonates someone else) is a significant problem, whereas, factually, it is close to non-existent. Thus, most citizens support voter ID laws that have disenfranchised countless thousands of eligible voters to prevent a minuscule problem and which also significantly affect the outcome of some elections.
Strangely, I personally am likely to be harmed less by soon-to-be developments than the angry voters who gave Trump his victory. When I read the demographics, it is clear in countless ways that not only am I, economically, part of the “10%” but I fit into social and cultural categories that will be less impacted by where we are probably headed. I am reasonably sophisticated financially speaking, I get my health information from reputable sources and follow the advice given, I am alert to various kinds of scams, so I am much more insulated from the vagaries of contemporary American life that are assaulting the average person in this country. So if the Consumer Finance Protection Board is abolished, if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, I will not be as impacted as those who need these things most but voted against their own interests. The real issue is: Americans go for someone who stirs them emotionally, whether he or she says anything remotely truthful, than they are by a cool, rational, uninspiring candidate who could be far more effective. Given the appointments so far, and the policies they represent, I fear for violent civil unrest in the years ahead.
I know I shouldn’t make generalizations, but after years of societal stereotyping of blacks, native Americans, Latinos, gays, I don’t feel terribly guilty for feeling contempt for one significant block: white males (perhaps because I am one, I get a little slack) and also white females. I completely understand that the working class has gotten screwed for decades, thanks to the Republican Party and less so, because of some components of the Democratic Party. But that anyone, no matter how badly screwed by societal and global changes, is absolved from recognizing a pathological liar, cheat, ignoramus, and narcissist, and not punishing him, that I cannot forgive. Here is a person who violated virtually every ethical and moral norm that we all say represents our values, and he gets away with what no one should get away with. The willful ignorance to believe such a man will make their lives great again is unforgivable, in my opinion.
We keep hearing that the country is becoming more and more diverse, and is about to become majority minority. And yet, election after election, the triumph of dumb white males gets more and more extreme and the country moves further to the right. I have completely stopped believing any forecasts about where the country is headed and what it is likely to look like made by social scientists, professors, pollsters, statisticians, and the established media. It has the same credibility as those surveys that report that Americans really care about the environment, but then you look at whom we vote for, and it is clear the environment counts for nothing.
I have come to a few conclusions over the years and at this point they are really firming up. The Republican Party and its many non-Party operatives have been very strategically clever in essentially sewing up all the levers of power, regardless of their lack of statistical preponderance. I have little hope that a center left majority, even if it exists, can prevail any time in the next many decades. Careful analysis of trends makes this clear. First, there is the historic tilting of our system – Constitutionally based – towards rural, low population parts of the country. Most prominent is that every state gets two Senators, but there is a built-in bias even in the structuring of districts in the House. Then one adds in extreme gerrymandering, countless voter suppression measures, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, mass incarceration combined with the loss of voting rights for convicted felons (often for life), court shopping to nullify executive actions, sitting on court nominations made by Democratic Presidents, and we have a situation where regardless of how the majority of the country feels, an increasing minority – corporate interests and the old white guard – maintain a firm grip on in every branch and at every level. For those of us in the lucky 10% (such as myself) things should range from “not too bad” to “pretty good.” I predict that for the other 90%, on every important social index, critical indicators will show even greater decline in the years ahead than has already occurred. We are becoming an incredibly unfair and unjust country, going in the wrong direction on almost every important quality of life issue. This can go on for quite a while, but eventually such societies explode.
If I had to distill the current situation to a few major themes, this is what they seem to be. First, the level of greed that pervades our society is greater than I have ever known, and perhaps exceeds that which characterized “The Gilded Age.” Secondly, extreme inequality with the prospects for the forgotten majority getting ever worse. I kind of sensed that Trump would win the election when I read a comment by a lower class white unemployed worker from Appalachia to the following effect. Though he was long-term unemployed, his wife had slowly clawed her way up to a $12/hour position at Walmart. He said he’d be damned if he would vote in politicians who would raise the minimum wage to $12/hour! It had taken his wife years to get up to that level and all those other struggling folks would get it right away. How brilliantly our society has pitted the totally deprived against the ever so slightly less deprived. Ergo, Trump!
In fact, I have reached a point in my life where I have almost completely given up on justice as something that exists in the real world. We all know what is just and fair, and yet, what is just hardly seems to operate in the real world. Not only in the U.S., but in the Middle East, in South Asia, in China, wherever one looks. What, I ask myself, is justice? What is so intolerable to me about the situation we find ourselves in nationally is that it shoves in my face that accountability and just rewards do not exist and rarely prevail.
I continue to believe, as mentioned earlier in this letter, that racial issues are the core story of America – it infuses everything about our shared national life. Reading Baldwin, writing 60 years ago, only further confirmed this view. It was re-affirmed by the two days I spent at the new National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Following the 400 years of black people in America, as presented in the museum, is a daunting story, with a few uplifting scraps against a story of immeasurable brutality, terrorism, cruelty, emotional pain, denied opportunities to live a full life, and human ugliness as ever seen in the long terrible story of the human race on this planet. We have people who worry that desperate Syrian refugees might bring terrorism to our shores? You want to know about terrorism? Have a conversation with almost any black person in this country!
While I will make every effort to not immerse myself in the unfolding horror story of political life in our country in the coming years, I do predict the likelihood that inequality will grow even more extreme than it is now, that the white working class will not find its situation any better than now (and almost certainly, far worse), that average life span will continue to decline and that infant mortality, already the scandal of the developed work, will continue to rise. We will see incalculable harm done to our common heritage of Federal lands. The headlong rush to climate catastrophe will very probably accelerate. I assume that we will only want to get serious about the global disasters that are already happening and will only get far worse, when it is far, far too late to do anything about it.
I suppose I am feeling it is time to throw in my towel. In 2017 I turn 75, and given what I am seeing, it is time to move over and let others, younger and with some remnants of optimism take over and try to make the world a better place. It seems to me there is a point when one has to let go and leave it to those with more energy and hope to fight for a better world. I do believe I can contribute, in a small way, within my immediate environment, and I will continue to try to do that, but others, with a more optimistic outlook, must take over. My time is past.
HOW TO END?
I know this has been a pretty dark letter, but 2016, on all levels, has been a very discouraging year – perhaps the most discouraging I can recall, for reasons documented above.
But lest I give the impression that that is all there is, I remind myself that even in the darkest of times, the most beautiful art and music and literature has been created – works that live on far beyond their age and lift us up in the privacy of our hearts and minds. Shakespeare gave me the gift of making the English language come alive for me as no one else has ever done, and yet he lived in a time of terrible religious persecutions with many innocent people meeting terrible ends. He rose above the muck of human affairs and created literature that sends chills of beauty down my spine time after time. And there is always a sunny day and a deep blue sky, the mountains, the ocean, and the lilting song of a bird.
So even more than ever before, I will look for beauty, solace, comfort, and peace, in unexpected corners of daily life. It is there – it will always be there – and one must be even more open to experiencing it than ever before. Our relations with others become far more important in these somber times. I only dread that I will have to make the journey alone much sooner than I ever expected.
Yours in the New Year,
Ken