The drug deaths of so many celebrities and the the drug cheating of so many athletes is neither a recent nor a random affair. Simply the latest chapters in a Gothic novel whose first lines were written a thousand generations ago...!
Once our ancestors first discovered nature's ways of escaping the pain of human existence, they've been trying to perfect the escape ever since. One of the few societies still not using psychoactive substances are the Eskimos, and that's only because you can't grow them there. Otherwise from the cannabis in the ancient Middle East to the opium poppy of China to the cocoa leaves of the Incas to the alcohol, steroids, morphines and amphetamines of today, this mass escape has remained a mass habit.
And while this may seem to be a legal problem, something both deeper and higher is going on at one and the same time. Deeper, because of the craving desperations the user suffers from; higher, because of the altered states of consciousness the user seeks. Drugs have been and will be part of the human race so long as it continues to exist this side of the mythic accomplishments and raptures it dreams of.
Some say the alternative of religion is the only real cure. Others insist that instead of curing we should be embracing. The only fact history can report for sure is that psychoactive substances may help explain the actions of powerful figures from the emperors of ancient China, to the Kings of the Incas and Aztecs, to the pill-popping Hitler to the brandy-swilling Churchill, to the Dr Feelgoods of who knows how many of today's heroes and headliners.
Not exactly a portrait of the human race at its most sublime. And yet, isn't a kind of sublimity what the user is trying to reach? To be pain-free, sorrow-free, inferiority-free? From the simplest cup of coffee or power-drink to the most exotic herbs, pills or lines, we Children of Eve seem to be hardwired to somehow remember our lost Paradise. When life here outside the gates grows toilsome, we want it back.
That may tell us these substances are not so much a new habit as they are a very old hope....
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
A SLIVER OF A SACRIFICE
There's usually a sliver of soap in my soap dish which leads some of my children to ask: "That looks silly, why keep just a sliver of soap?" To which I answer, "Because my Mother told me never waste anything...."
Her admonition was a common one during the Depression of the 30s and the War of the 40s. The notion of sacrificing something for "the cause" was a given in those hard-times days before children learned the bravado and bounty of America is forever. Several wars and recessions in recent years have done little to dissuade them from this illusion. Or to help them realize every society comes with an expiration date on it.
Saving soap and tires and sugar and tinfoil back then didn't cure the depression nor win the war. But what these small sacrifices did was allow everyone to feel they were part of a common cause. Like the football grunts on the line get little of the quarterback's glory, grunts working with other grunts can at least know they've helped make the glory possible.
Some critics call upon our leaders to demand similar sacrifices today. The problem is the disconnect between us grunts and today's causes. Professional armies fight our wars far from our everyday shores... economic experts manipulate our economy far from our everyday understanding.... political leaders may try to rub elbows with their constituents, but their decisions are made far removed from our everyday life.
John Locke wrote, "What worries you, masters you." And so most of us grunts are mastered by our worries about worry. The worry that we don't really understand what's happening in our complex, globalized world; and that just maybe even our quarterbacks don't either!
Notice the summer kids with their little lemonade stands...? Whether they know it or not, they're practicing capitalism. Well, more of us grunts sacrificing some of our excesses would be practicing democracy. We would be substituting the angry ravings of today's self-indulgent birthers and end-of-lifers with the sacrifices of those old fashioned put-up-or-shut-uppers. Like Mom.
Sacrificing personal indulgences in the midst of national struggle will always be worth a hundred times more than spewing collective invectives. The second takes angry words....the first takes real work.
Her admonition was a common one during the Depression of the 30s and the War of the 40s. The notion of sacrificing something for "the cause" was a given in those hard-times days before children learned the bravado and bounty of America is forever. Several wars and recessions in recent years have done little to dissuade them from this illusion. Or to help them realize every society comes with an expiration date on it.
Saving soap and tires and sugar and tinfoil back then didn't cure the depression nor win the war. But what these small sacrifices did was allow everyone to feel they were part of a common cause. Like the football grunts on the line get little of the quarterback's glory, grunts working with other grunts can at least know they've helped make the glory possible.
Some critics call upon our leaders to demand similar sacrifices today. The problem is the disconnect between us grunts and today's causes. Professional armies fight our wars far from our everyday shores... economic experts manipulate our economy far from our everyday understanding.... political leaders may try to rub elbows with their constituents, but their decisions are made far removed from our everyday life.
John Locke wrote, "What worries you, masters you." And so most of us grunts are mastered by our worries about worry. The worry that we don't really understand what's happening in our complex, globalized world; and that just maybe even our quarterbacks don't either!
Notice the summer kids with their little lemonade stands...? Whether they know it or not, they're practicing capitalism. Well, more of us grunts sacrificing some of our excesses would be practicing democracy. We would be substituting the angry ravings of today's self-indulgent birthers and end-of-lifers with the sacrifices of those old fashioned put-up-or-shut-uppers. Like Mom.
Sacrificing personal indulgences in the midst of national struggle will always be worth a hundred times more than spewing collective invectives. The second takes angry words....the first takes real work.
Monday, August 3, 2009
THE RAFT THAT NEVER MOVED
As Huckleberry Finn could explain, rafts were meant to travel. Say the Mississippi. But my raft never moved. Instead of being a way to go places, it was the place to go...!
This all happened a long lifetime ago in a weedy little pond called Lily Lake. It's still there just south of the town of O'Henry, Illinois. During the Great Depression, our extended family shared a tiny lakeside cottage there every August. And while the lake had far more weeds than lilies, the most teachable thing it had was this little wooden raft about 200 yards out. It became and has remained the heaven of my youth.
The assertion calls for some explanation. If not for you, at least for me these 70 years later.
Getting up on those green, summer mornings was to rise into a land of white mist. It silently cloaked the knobby hill poking its way down from the cottage to the little dock. The wooden dock was about as old as the wooden cottage, making them both some turn-of-the-century leftovers from whatever family once found refuge out here. However, the dock was not the object of my affection. It was only the jump-off point from which my agile older cousins would dive.
Day after day, scrawny me watched invincible them swim out to the raft where they spent the morning lounging, sunning, laughing, and occasionally jumping into the cool waters. Can you see why I called it the heaven of my youth...? It was that faraway place that promised a paradise of pleasures once you got there.
But those 200 yards -- so far and so hard. I learned early how heaven can be as difficult as it is desirable. Ever since, life has continued to feature little floating heavens often just out of reach. You can see them, you can plan for them, but it's the dive that counts. Taking the plunge and surviving the swim. Watching my older cousins do that morning after morning was such inspiration. And yet such intimidation. I simply didn't think I could make it.
This month -- 70 Augusts later -- I remembered my way back to the family's long ago cottage retreat. Ever since the War broke out in 1941, there would be no more summers here. But surely I would find much the same about the place. Memories are so good about that. However -- this one proved false. The cottage was gone, the dock was no longer there, and the raft had long ago disappeared.
When we re-visit our youth this way we find a rummage-sale of second-hand remembrances. Some sweet, some sour, but all indispensable to what we have become. And so -- like you? -- I can't and I musn't forget that raft. That metaphor for every dream you've ever had. And even though you may never have reached it in your youth, surely you have several times since.
Not every dive was strong enough to reach there. But the ones that were, were worth the risk. And no matter how many years later, it's still true for all the dives we still have left.
This all happened a long lifetime ago in a weedy little pond called Lily Lake. It's still there just south of the town of O'Henry, Illinois. During the Great Depression, our extended family shared a tiny lakeside cottage there every August. And while the lake had far more weeds than lilies, the most teachable thing it had was this little wooden raft about 200 yards out. It became and has remained the heaven of my youth.
The assertion calls for some explanation. If not for you, at least for me these 70 years later.
Getting up on those green, summer mornings was to rise into a land of white mist. It silently cloaked the knobby hill poking its way down from the cottage to the little dock. The wooden dock was about as old as the wooden cottage, making them both some turn-of-the-century leftovers from whatever family once found refuge out here. However, the dock was not the object of my affection. It was only the jump-off point from which my agile older cousins would dive.
Day after day, scrawny me watched invincible them swim out to the raft where they spent the morning lounging, sunning, laughing, and occasionally jumping into the cool waters. Can you see why I called it the heaven of my youth...? It was that faraway place that promised a paradise of pleasures once you got there.
But those 200 yards -- so far and so hard. I learned early how heaven can be as difficult as it is desirable. Ever since, life has continued to feature little floating heavens often just out of reach. You can see them, you can plan for them, but it's the dive that counts. Taking the plunge and surviving the swim. Watching my older cousins do that morning after morning was such inspiration. And yet such intimidation. I simply didn't think I could make it.
This month -- 70 Augusts later -- I remembered my way back to the family's long ago cottage retreat. Ever since the War broke out in 1941, there would be no more summers here. But surely I would find much the same about the place. Memories are so good about that. However -- this one proved false. The cottage was gone, the dock was no longer there, and the raft had long ago disappeared.
When we re-visit our youth this way we find a rummage-sale of second-hand remembrances. Some sweet, some sour, but all indispensable to what we have become. And so -- like you? -- I can't and I musn't forget that raft. That metaphor for every dream you've ever had. And even though you may never have reached it in your youth, surely you have several times since.
Not every dive was strong enough to reach there. But the ones that were, were worth the risk. And no matter how many years later, it's still true for all the dives we still have left.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
THE CONSPIRACY TO CONSPIRACIES
There's a new best-seller out called "Family." Another well-documented, investigative report aimed at convincing you we walk in a world of conspiracies....!
This one is about the secret network of evangelical politicians who are organized to use the fiery sword of the Bible as the way to re-shape America. Scary. Like all conspiracy stories.
Take your pick. The 1941 Pearl Harbor attack conspired by President Roosevelt...the ET's who landed in Rockwell New Mexico in the 1950s but have been hidden by the FBI...the grassy knoll conspiracy theory to the Dallas assassination of President Kennedy in 1963...the staged moon landing by NASA in 1969....the government's secret bombing of the Twin Towers in 2001....and now the birthers babbling about Obama not being a natural born citizen.
Then of course we always have the conspiracies by those handy international Jewish cabals who have been blamed for everything from World War I and II to the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II (oh you hadn't heard that one? well, I just made it up, because it sounds so perfect!)
The point to mankind's eternal fixation with conspiracies is they explain the unexplainable. While there are always enough authentic conspiracies to go around, the really big ones help us wrap our confused minds around the really big events that otherwise make no sense. In point of psychological fact -- conspiracies can be comforting.
Whenever you're inclined to buy into one, here's how futurist Alvin Toffler put it. A man got on his usual commuter train in the morning, and began reading his New York Times. After awhile he sensed the train was rocking on the rails. Later he sensed it was speeding up. After a few more fearful minutes he nervously worked his way up to the front car to ask the engineer what was wrong. When he finally reached there and knocked on the door of the now hurtling train he discovered ...
....that's right! There was no one at the controls!
Today's globalized world is rushing forward at ever more furious speeds, and no one, neither president nor prime minister is actuality in control. As Uncle Walter might have ended this report: "And that's the way it is."
This one is about the secret network of evangelical politicians who are organized to use the fiery sword of the Bible as the way to re-shape America. Scary. Like all conspiracy stories.
Take your pick. The 1941 Pearl Harbor attack conspired by President Roosevelt...the ET's who landed in Rockwell New Mexico in the 1950s but have been hidden by the FBI...the grassy knoll conspiracy theory to the Dallas assassination of President Kennedy in 1963...the staged moon landing by NASA in 1969....the government's secret bombing of the Twin Towers in 2001....and now the birthers babbling about Obama not being a natural born citizen.
Then of course we always have the conspiracies by those handy international Jewish cabals who have been blamed for everything from World War I and II to the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II (oh you hadn't heard that one? well, I just made it up, because it sounds so perfect!)
The point to mankind's eternal fixation with conspiracies is they explain the unexplainable. While there are always enough authentic conspiracies to go around, the really big ones help us wrap our confused minds around the really big events that otherwise make no sense. In point of psychological fact -- conspiracies can be comforting.
Whenever you're inclined to buy into one, here's how futurist Alvin Toffler put it. A man got on his usual commuter train in the morning, and began reading his New York Times. After awhile he sensed the train was rocking on the rails. Later he sensed it was speeding up. After a few more fearful minutes he nervously worked his way up to the front car to ask the engineer what was wrong. When he finally reached there and knocked on the door of the now hurtling train he discovered ...
....that's right! There was no one at the controls!
Today's globalized world is rushing forward at ever more furious speeds, and no one, neither president nor prime minister is actuality in control. As Uncle Walter might have ended this report: "And that's the way it is."
HOLDING HANDS IN A CHICAGO SUMMER
Chicago summers mean no more gloves. So what better to do with our hands than hold onto other hands? If you look around, you can see this going on all over town....!
But be advised, hand-holding is not simply some one-size-fits-all habit. It's an art. If you're going to study it properly, you need to consider the art in all its exquisite forms. Particularly in how these forms range all the way from automatic to ecstatic.
Take the young lovers strolling Michigan Avenue or city parks this August. They're holding hands mainly because they're two wanting to become one. The touch may be light, but the bond is strong. You see, not all passions have to flame; sometimes they simply warm. A little more hand-holding like this might actually warm a world frozen by too much power and greed.
Notice, though, old lovers hold hands too. Perhaps more tightly, for their love has ripened from desire into dependence. And yet a good kind of dependence. Tested by time, their love has learned that our culture's pride in individualism often yields much better results in collectivism. Nothing wrong, cowboy, with learning to depend on someone or something else out there on the range.
Of course, the way parents hold their children's hands is this art taken to one of its most sublime forms. Little fingers tucked inside the strong squeeze of a father or the soft protection of a mother are being led into a future that's not theirs alone. For just as these parents hold these lives today, so will these lives emerge as the citizens of tomorrow. No nation is any greater than its next generation, so watch this particular form of hand-holding this summer. It's got destiny written all over it.
Oh and then there are the hands of those six Marine together hoisting the flag over Iwo Jima in bloody 1945. But if you visit the celebrated monument in Washington DC you will find 13 not 12 hands. When asked, the sculptor explained the extra hand was the hand of God. (Ask any WWII GI for details).
So here's a fine summertime idea for Chicagoans that's actually good all year round. Grab someone's hands that count in your life, and try not to let go. The more hands that hold other hands, the more likely this city and this country get to where they're going...!
But be advised, hand-holding is not simply some one-size-fits-all habit. It's an art. If you're going to study it properly, you need to consider the art in all its exquisite forms. Particularly in how these forms range all the way from automatic to ecstatic.
Take the young lovers strolling Michigan Avenue or city parks this August. They're holding hands mainly because they're two wanting to become one. The touch may be light, but the bond is strong. You see, not all passions have to flame; sometimes they simply warm. A little more hand-holding like this might actually warm a world frozen by too much power and greed.
Notice, though, old lovers hold hands too. Perhaps more tightly, for their love has ripened from desire into dependence. And yet a good kind of dependence. Tested by time, their love has learned that our culture's pride in individualism often yields much better results in collectivism. Nothing wrong, cowboy, with learning to depend on someone or something else out there on the range.
Of course, the way parents hold their children's hands is this art taken to one of its most sublime forms. Little fingers tucked inside the strong squeeze of a father or the soft protection of a mother are being led into a future that's not theirs alone. For just as these parents hold these lives today, so will these lives emerge as the citizens of tomorrow. No nation is any greater than its next generation, so watch this particular form of hand-holding this summer. It's got destiny written all over it.
Oh and then there are the hands of those six Marine together hoisting the flag over Iwo Jima in bloody 1945. But if you visit the celebrated monument in Washington DC you will find 13 not 12 hands. When asked, the sculptor explained the extra hand was the hand of God. (Ask any WWII GI for details).
So here's a fine summertime idea for Chicagoans that's actually good all year round. Grab someone's hands that count in your life, and try not to let go. The more hands that hold other hands, the more likely this city and this country get to where they're going...!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
OK, THE WOMEN WILL HATE THIS!
Can you be counter-culture and pro-intuitive at the very same time? Maybe...!
The counter-culture premise here is the un-popular assumption that in gaining more liberties, we may have lost something even more important. Namely, the comfort of pre-meditated social roles. You know, the days when blue-collar jobs were usually performed by men, elementary teaching and nursing was traditionally done by women, husbands earned the family income while wives raised the family, being Irish in Boston meant thinking about the police academy and being Polish in Chicago suggested prospects for the seminary... well no need to go on. You're already annoyed!
Recalling such days may be antiquarian, but not necessarily antiquated. Psychology has revealed time and time again the efficacy of having social comfort-zones in our lives. There's something intuitively comfortable about feeling there's a place waiting for you. A pre-arranged welcome mat you know you can cross anytime you wish. Not pre-determined as in class-structured cultures, but at least pre-available.
It's almost -- not quite -- too late to pose the question. Just like the returning dough-boys from World War I sang: "How you going to keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen gay Paree?" Likewise today, how can a society undo what it's done?
Society can't, some individuals are. Especially some working mothers who are finding their new "freedoms" have translated into being free to work harder and longer. Now as both mother and earner, homemaker and competitor. What some of them are saying is, "Yes, we should and can have it all...only not all at the same time!"
Which invites the question: Were the old roles really constraints or comforts? A great many experts are researching that question as they re-examine the emancipations and liberations of our times. I imagine there will be as many conclusions as there are studies. For me, I work from my own anecdotal research.
I asked Mom -- the quintessential stay-at-home mother of the 30s and 40s -- how she felt. Her answer was instructive: "If I had to do it over again, I might not do it the same way. But until I knew otherwise, I was really happy...."
The counter-culture premise here is the un-popular assumption that in gaining more liberties, we may have lost something even more important. Namely, the comfort of pre-meditated social roles. You know, the days when blue-collar jobs were usually performed by men, elementary teaching and nursing was traditionally done by women, husbands earned the family income while wives raised the family, being Irish in Boston meant thinking about the police academy and being Polish in Chicago suggested prospects for the seminary... well no need to go on. You're already annoyed!
Recalling such days may be antiquarian, but not necessarily antiquated. Psychology has revealed time and time again the efficacy of having social comfort-zones in our lives. There's something intuitively comfortable about feeling there's a place waiting for you. A pre-arranged welcome mat you know you can cross anytime you wish. Not pre-determined as in class-structured cultures, but at least pre-available.
It's almost -- not quite -- too late to pose the question. Just like the returning dough-boys from World War I sang: "How you going to keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen gay Paree?" Likewise today, how can a society undo what it's done?
Society can't, some individuals are. Especially some working mothers who are finding their new "freedoms" have translated into being free to work harder and longer. Now as both mother and earner, homemaker and competitor. What some of them are saying is, "Yes, we should and can have it all...only not all at the same time!"
Which invites the question: Were the old roles really constraints or comforts? A great many experts are researching that question as they re-examine the emancipations and liberations of our times. I imagine there will be as many conclusions as there are studies. For me, I work from my own anecdotal research.
I asked Mom -- the quintessential stay-at-home mother of the 30s and 40s -- how she felt. Her answer was instructive: "If I had to do it over again, I might not do it the same way. But until I knew otherwise, I was really happy...."
DO YOU IIKE YOUR NEWS STRAIGHT OR WITH A TWIST?
Comedy Central's Jon Stewart has apparently taken Walter Cronkite's crown as "the most trusted newscaster" according to 44% of Americans surveyed. And he reports fake news...!
The real news anchors didn't do nearly as well. NBC's Brian Williams got 29%, ABC's Charles Gibson 19% and CBS' Katie Couric 7%. Which has to tease the question: Do Americans prefer to laugh or cry over their headlines?
Two recent real news reports may help you make up your mind:
* The Town Council in Fort Meyers, Florida fired its $100,000/year city manager when they learned his wife was a porn star. They insisted her career was not the issue. Rather, "it was a vote on the credibility and livelihood of our town."
* The British government issued guidelines for civil servants who useTwitter. Twitter message are limited to 140 characters; the government document is 20 pages long.
Perhaps what this tells us is that sometimes we can laugh and cry over the news at the very same time. But then you read the story about childhood Roland McKitrick and Lorainne Beatty. They met 88 years ago in the third grade at English Ridge Public School in Wisconsin. After graduating in 1926, they drifted apart. Recently they met again, and decided it was finally time to marry. Roland is a dashing 93 and Lorraine a mere 92.
Maybe it's true after all. Fact is not only stranger but sometimes sweeter than fiction. And that's the way it is...!
The real news anchors didn't do nearly as well. NBC's Brian Williams got 29%, ABC's Charles Gibson 19% and CBS' Katie Couric 7%. Which has to tease the question: Do Americans prefer to laugh or cry over their headlines?
Two recent real news reports may help you make up your mind:
* The Town Council in Fort Meyers, Florida fired its $100,000/year city manager when they learned his wife was a porn star. They insisted her career was not the issue. Rather, "it was a vote on the credibility and livelihood of our town."
* The British government issued guidelines for civil servants who useTwitter. Twitter message are limited to 140 characters; the government document is 20 pages long.
Perhaps what this tells us is that sometimes we can laugh and cry over the news at the very same time. But then you read the story about childhood Roland McKitrick and Lorainne Beatty. They met 88 years ago in the third grade at English Ridge Public School in Wisconsin. After graduating in 1926, they drifted apart. Recently they met again, and decided it was finally time to marry. Roland is a dashing 93 and Lorraine a mere 92.
Maybe it's true after all. Fact is not only stranger but sometimes sweeter than fiction. And that's the way it is...!
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