Another campaign. Another time to leak dirty little secrets.
Past affairs, past lies, past deals, past birth certificates &
resumes. But the relevant word, my friend, is "past." All usually in the
person's past. Long ago, far away, and probably totally disconnected
from the current campaign. Besides, if we were to score the two
nominees, their secrets will tend to cancel each other out. So lets
start from here and now, more than then and there.
Next, there's
you and me. Running for no public office, but also hoping to keep
private a few of our own dirty-little-secrets. Hey, secrets come with
the territory. Three of the most universal:
* That PERSON in your
life who seemed to come out of nowhere, drifted away to somewhere, but
for those few intervening weeks or years made an immortal difference. To
your feelings, your beliefs, your visions, or maybe most lasting of all
your heart. Funny how we often forget. Even funnier, how often he or
she probably still remembers!
* That IDEA in your life which
broke into your consciousness one unpredicted day with a swift sure
insistence. Birthed perhaps in a classroom, a book, a pulpit, a march.
No, you didn't see it coming, for it was so totally foreign to your
values. Yet, those values have never quite been the same since!
*
That lucky BREAK in you life which remarkably and freely landed there
in front of you on a route you thought you had mapped out for yourself.
Fate? Karma? Destiny? God? The name makes little difference; the impact
does. In our most brutally honest moments, we can ask ourself: why in
all the world did that extraordinary turn of events turn up in my life!
And
so, my fellow secret-keepers, while the political secrets start to fly
thick and furious....maybe a little down-time to remember some of our
own. And how they got us here.....
Monday, May 28, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
WHAT'S WRONG WITH BEING BEST...? A LOT!
Socrates is always a good guy to quote: "Beauty is a short-lived
tyranny." Ask any Hollywood glamor girl to explain that. Next, consider
this twist to Socrates: "Being best is also a short-lived tyranny."
By all accounts, America is "the best." At least in terms of wealth, power, productivity, and global influence. But where does the tyranny thing come in? In the relentless pressure to remain the best. Like the fastest-gun in the Old West, there isn't a saloon or a hotel bed where you can rest easy. You know there's always someone out there who's hungry to out-draw you and thereby claim the crown.
But now here's where this tyranny is so diabolical. Most of this pressure to produce is self-inflicted. Pride always drives the best to remain the best. And at first that seems so perfectly natural and right. After all, who wants to be second best...?
Before that felicitous cliche is allowed to wobble on its own merits, re-consider those merits. Throughout the history of the modern Olympics, the difference between the winner and the runner up has always, always been in the half minutes, seconds or even mili-seconds. When they return home, Silver eats, sleeps, loves and dies no differently than Gold. More to the point, when a Sicilian farmer tucks his children into bed, he is no less proud or fulfilled than the Wall Street CEO. Really! Unless you're counting their respective number of bathrooms, iPads, cars and migraines.
True, all this is fiercely counter-intuitive to everything in the American DNA! Our impetus is always to go, to excel, to win, to be-the-best. In the light of that arguable wisdom, today most Americans will embrace without question our need to: increase productivity [regardless of layoffs]...slash spending [regardless of who suffers]...compute faster [regardless of how the brain can no longer keep pace] ...build bigger armies [regardless of the military-industrial-complex of which we are all now brutally aware]...oh, and lately this idea of by-passing the intellectual experience of college to go directly into the wealth of Silicon Valley [regardless of how few Steve Jobs there really are out there].
Tyranny, once unleashed, never rests. Like the gunslinger in the Old West, the American Goliath of the New West keeps running faster and harder. Because...well, that's what you do when you're in the lead and have never thought deep enough about what losing the lead might actually mean to you. No, not to your industries and stock markets and missile launchers. But to your less-threatened peace of mind at night tucking your children into a bed few others lust to steal, because your bed and your home is not all that much different than theirs.
You know -- that illusive, counter-intuitive thing prophets and poets have always tried to preach.
By all accounts, America is "the best." At least in terms of wealth, power, productivity, and global influence. But where does the tyranny thing come in? In the relentless pressure to remain the best. Like the fastest-gun in the Old West, there isn't a saloon or a hotel bed where you can rest easy. You know there's always someone out there who's hungry to out-draw you and thereby claim the crown.
But now here's where this tyranny is so diabolical. Most of this pressure to produce is self-inflicted. Pride always drives the best to remain the best. And at first that seems so perfectly natural and right. After all, who wants to be second best...?
Before that felicitous cliche is allowed to wobble on its own merits, re-consider those merits. Throughout the history of the modern Olympics, the difference between the winner and the runner up has always, always been in the half minutes, seconds or even mili-seconds. When they return home, Silver eats, sleeps, loves and dies no differently than Gold. More to the point, when a Sicilian farmer tucks his children into bed, he is no less proud or fulfilled than the Wall Street CEO. Really! Unless you're counting their respective number of bathrooms, iPads, cars and migraines.
True, all this is fiercely counter-intuitive to everything in the American DNA! Our impetus is always to go, to excel, to win, to be-the-best. In the light of that arguable wisdom, today most Americans will embrace without question our need to: increase productivity [regardless of layoffs]...slash spending [regardless of who suffers]...compute faster [regardless of how the brain can no longer keep pace] ...build bigger armies [regardless of the military-industrial-complex of which we are all now brutally aware]...oh, and lately this idea of by-passing the intellectual experience of college to go directly into the wealth of Silicon Valley [regardless of how few Steve Jobs there really are out there].
Tyranny, once unleashed, never rests. Like the gunslinger in the Old West, the American Goliath of the New West keeps running faster and harder. Because...well, that's what you do when you're in the lead and have never thought deep enough about what losing the lead might actually mean to you. No, not to your industries and stock markets and missile launchers. But to your less-threatened peace of mind at night tucking your children into a bed few others lust to steal, because your bed and your home is not all that much different than theirs.
You know -- that illusive, counter-intuitive thing prophets and poets have always tried to preach.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
JOIN ME NEXT TUESDAY NIGHT AT PBS FOR SOME BALING WIRE
Next Tuesday, prominent historian Nial Ferguson hosts Part II of his PBS documentary "Civilization: The West and the Rest." Part
I showed how the West has dominated these last 500 years because of
such assets as capitalism and science. Now he'll have to explain why our
scientifically sophisticated capitalist Goliath is showing signs of
weakness in the face of new rivals like China, Brazil, India.
Just guessing here, but likely the reason is that only one of our 5 national institutions -- the Military -- remains a strong unifying force among our 330 million diverse citizens. The others -- Government, Law, Schools, Media and Religion -- no longer provide the same baling-wire effects they once did.
Our energetically diverse population -- like wild bales of cotton or wheat -- requires something that can hold and bind us together. These 5 institutions have been around these 500 years, performing their job as best they can. But lately not as bast as they could!
Here's guessing Ferguson next Tuesday will tells us what we should already know. Government is now held in suspicion more than admiration...the Law is seen working for the rich more than the rest ...Schools are using more money to produce poorer results...the Media is slanted by whomever owns them... Religion, well it's no longer something we can all reverently agree on as once we did.
This Memorial Day we will witness grand celebrations of Americans coming together in honor of their nation. What we will not see are those same Americans returning home as patriotically bound together as they just were at those events. Four of the five strands of baling wire are simply not holding as well as they once did.
Join me the next night to hear how Ferguson explains our national problem. Lets hope the gang in Washington and Wall Street and Silicon Valley are listening too. Not because Ferguson has all the answers, but because they really need to start thinking historically not just politically. Otherwise, their grandchildren and ours will be reading about the American Empire right along with all thos
Just guessing here, but likely the reason is that only one of our 5 national institutions -- the Military -- remains a strong unifying force among our 330 million diverse citizens. The others -- Government, Law, Schools, Media and Religion -- no longer provide the same baling-wire effects they once did.
Our energetically diverse population -- like wild bales of cotton or wheat -- requires something that can hold and bind us together. These 5 institutions have been around these 500 years, performing their job as best they can. But lately not as bast as they could!
Here's guessing Ferguson next Tuesday will tells us what we should already know. Government is now held in suspicion more than admiration...the Law is seen working for the rich more than the rest ...Schools are using more money to produce poorer results...the Media is slanted by whomever owns them... Religion, well it's no longer something we can all reverently agree on as once we did.
This Memorial Day we will witness grand celebrations of Americans coming together in honor of their nation. What we will not see are those same Americans returning home as patriotically bound together as they just were at those events. Four of the five strands of baling wire are simply not holding as well as they once did.
Join me the next night to hear how Ferguson explains our national problem. Lets hope the gang in Washington and Wall Street and Silicon Valley are listening too. Not because Ferguson has all the answers, but because they really need to start thinking historically not just politically. Otherwise, their grandchildren and ours will be reading about the American Empire right along with all thos
Friday, May 25, 2012
IF YOU'RE SUFFERING FROM ON-SET ADULTHOOD, TAKE THIS WITH A WARM GLASS OF MILK
A Secret Garden...? You had one. I did too. We all did.
But somehow, with on-set adulthood, we lost it. This is how it is with
very serious 21stC rational adults. And yet, somewhere the fragrance of
our childhood's Secret Garden still giggles in our thoughts.
Far too many of us permit those gardens to languish in the mists of ignored memories. Others, like me, recall them with a furious affection. Not embarrassed by them so much as enthused. After all, that Garden was most likely the most rapturous hideaway we shall ever know. May I share excerpts from a colleague [Emily Fox Gordon] whose furious affections help reassure me I do not giggle alone:
"The happiness of childhood is existential. Not psychological. Adults forget that, probably because of envy....As a small child I was wildly, unconditionally happy. By that I don't mean I was 'well adjusted;' I mean that all my receptors were attuned to the world...I was happy because I felt myself to be safe and free, but also because I managed to maintain three happy, if unsubstantiated and mutually contradictory, beliefs...I believed in fairies, in God, and in history....What I feel when I summon up those images is my aboriginal happiness, magically retrieved....It's true my happiness was founded on a childish misunderstanding of reality. Nevertheless, I was happy, and my happiness was real. Only in stories can conflict and sadness be recorded, but when I was small, my life had not yet become a story. It was not made of incidents, susceptible of being linked into a continuing narrative. Instead, life was simply a succession of moments of radiant apprehension...Where I grew up is still in my mind, absolutely intact and eerily accessible. But only to me. The purer the happiness, the less communicable it is....Now as an adult, the story I tell over and over is the one everyone has learned for themselves -- the story about how happiness is lost."
I wish I had written that. But no matter. I once lived that. If you were lucky -- in some tight little neighborhood -- you and your peers lived it too. And if you are extraordinarily lucky, you can still share your garden with special others. After all, what else are special gardens for...?
Far too many of us permit those gardens to languish in the mists of ignored memories. Others, like me, recall them with a furious affection. Not embarrassed by them so much as enthused. After all, that Garden was most likely the most rapturous hideaway we shall ever know. May I share excerpts from a colleague [Emily Fox Gordon] whose furious affections help reassure me I do not giggle alone:
"The happiness of childhood is existential. Not psychological. Adults forget that, probably because of envy....As a small child I was wildly, unconditionally happy. By that I don't mean I was 'well adjusted;' I mean that all my receptors were attuned to the world...I was happy because I felt myself to be safe and free, but also because I managed to maintain three happy, if unsubstantiated and mutually contradictory, beliefs...I believed in fairies, in God, and in history....What I feel when I summon up those images is my aboriginal happiness, magically retrieved....It's true my happiness was founded on a childish misunderstanding of reality. Nevertheless, I was happy, and my happiness was real. Only in stories can conflict and sadness be recorded, but when I was small, my life had not yet become a story. It was not made of incidents, susceptible of being linked into a continuing narrative. Instead, life was simply a succession of moments of radiant apprehension...Where I grew up is still in my mind, absolutely intact and eerily accessible. But only to me. The purer the happiness, the less communicable it is....Now as an adult, the story I tell over and over is the one everyone has learned for themselves -- the story about how happiness is lost."
I wish I had written that. But no matter. I once lived that. If you were lucky -- in some tight little neighborhood -- you and your peers lived it too. And if you are extraordinarily lucky, you can still share your garden with special others. After all, what else are special gardens for...?
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
LIFE'S BIGGEST JOKE ON US
Uncle Harry used to give me a little wink: "Essere
intelligente...! Be smart, kid, and learn it now. You gotta live life
forwards, but really you can only understand it backwards." And yet I
ask you, who's smart enough at 13 to understand one of life's biggest
jokes? The Uncle Harry's of the world can warn us, but to get it we
gotta live it. And somehow we all do, don't we.
Love...? Looking backwards, when she married him he was a time-bomb; now with him ticking even faster but with four kids still in school, she can't really undo what's been done!
Lifestyle...? Looking backwards, why didn't he eat more vegetables and smoke less cigarettes like mom always said; now, fat with emphysema, time's run out!
Career...? Looking backwards, she should have gone to med school even though women back then weren't welcome; now with a dead-end job, it's too late to start all over!
War...? Looking backwards, invading Iraq was like breaking something in the store you now have to own; what was I thinking!
Margaret Mead observed: "It's cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age." Like Uncle Harry told me, if only we could be smarter sooner. And yet here's the thing. They say we only use 5 to 10% of our brain's capacities. So why can't we do better.
A few recommendations. More and better education for children...more and better psycho-therapy for adults....more and better respect for the wisdom of elders. Unlike ages past where humanity dwelled in ill-informed ignorance, today there's no excuse. We have instant, fingertip access to a hundred million information sources from Astronomy to Zeitgeist. No excuse for not better transforming humanity's past regrets into present progress.
Oh wait. A warning!
Too much information can be just as counterproductive as too little. How many different reports are we going to keep getting about coffee and chocolate, vitamin B and vitamin E, good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, PSA and no PSA, inoculations and no inoculations, having children and not having children. With our new Information Age has come a whole new species: The Expert. Generating expert information by the bazillion bytes every day.
Here's a counte-intutiive thought. Instead of giving up coffee and chocolate, maybe it's time to give up reading. At least until the experts can remember: "Essere Intelligente!"
Love...? Looking backwards, when she married him he was a time-bomb; now with him ticking even faster but with four kids still in school, she can't really undo what's been done!
Lifestyle...? Looking backwards, why didn't he eat more vegetables and smoke less cigarettes like mom always said; now, fat with emphysema, time's run out!
Career...? Looking backwards, she should have gone to med school even though women back then weren't welcome; now with a dead-end job, it's too late to start all over!
War...? Looking backwards, invading Iraq was like breaking something in the store you now have to own; what was I thinking!
Margaret Mead observed: "It's cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age." Like Uncle Harry told me, if only we could be smarter sooner. And yet here's the thing. They say we only use 5 to 10% of our brain's capacities. So why can't we do better.
A few recommendations. More and better education for children...more and better psycho-therapy for adults....more and better respect for the wisdom of elders. Unlike ages past where humanity dwelled in ill-informed ignorance, today there's no excuse. We have instant, fingertip access to a hundred million information sources from Astronomy to Zeitgeist. No excuse for not better transforming humanity's past regrets into present progress.
Oh wait. A warning!
Too much information can be just as counterproductive as too little. How many different reports are we going to keep getting about coffee and chocolate, vitamin B and vitamin E, good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, PSA and no PSA, inoculations and no inoculations, having children and not having children. With our new Information Age has come a whole new species: The Expert. Generating expert information by the bazillion bytes every day.
Here's a counte-intutiive thought. Instead of giving up coffee and chocolate, maybe it's time to give up reading. At least until the experts can remember: "Essere Intelligente!"
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
SECURITY - GUNS, GUTS, OR GOD
Chicago's recent NATO Summit is one more example of how our
species -- from caves to skyscrapers -- still huddles together seeking
security in a dangerous world. For all our bravado with fast cars, big
homes, and large portfolios, scratch bravado's surface and you find a
desperate need for security.
The evidential numbers are staggering: guns...locks... alarms...gated communities...police patrols... security systems and alliances of all kinds. Big Sur painter Henry Miller has a lusty opinion about our fixation: "The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones that will give him no pain or trouble."
It is spoken in the true spirit of the American West with its colorful history of the lone rider conquering all with only his gun and his guts. And yet even the mythical Cowboy had to learn that once you leave the land, you'll need something more.
That "more" comes with a network of safeguards from stoplights and pedestrian crossings all the way to standing armies and international alliances. We are no longer riding tall in the saddle, master of all we survey. As much as we long for -- and enjoy watching -- our favorite Clint Eastwood or George Lucas hero-movies, we leave the theatre just one small member of a very large scared population.
Two questions. How much of our independence should we surrender for our security...? How much independence do we really have to surrender...? Once we've shored up our sense of Independence with enough cars, homes, and portfolios, the second question stands larger than even the first. Its answer will be different for different people. And yet won't it always come down in the end to what we ourselves believe about ourselves? How, deep in the recesses and sanctums of our best being, we perceive our personal strengths and weaknesses?
Some call these recesses and sanctums the Self. The Id. The Consciousness. The Essence. The Soul. The precise name for them isn't all that important. Precisely how we confront those questions IS.
The evidential numbers are staggering: guns...locks... alarms...gated communities...police patrols... security systems and alliances of all kinds. Big Sur painter Henry Miller has a lusty opinion about our fixation: "The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones that will give him no pain or trouble."
It is spoken in the true spirit of the American West with its colorful history of the lone rider conquering all with only his gun and his guts. And yet even the mythical Cowboy had to learn that once you leave the land, you'll need something more.
That "more" comes with a network of safeguards from stoplights and pedestrian crossings all the way to standing armies and international alliances. We are no longer riding tall in the saddle, master of all we survey. As much as we long for -- and enjoy watching -- our favorite Clint Eastwood or George Lucas hero-movies, we leave the theatre just one small member of a very large scared population.
Two questions. How much of our independence should we surrender for our security...? How much independence do we really have to surrender...? Once we've shored up our sense of Independence with enough cars, homes, and portfolios, the second question stands larger than even the first. Its answer will be different for different people. And yet won't it always come down in the end to what we ourselves believe about ourselves? How, deep in the recesses and sanctums of our best being, we perceive our personal strengths and weaknesses?
Some call these recesses and sanctums the Self. The Id. The Consciousness. The Essence. The Soul. The precise name for them isn't all that important. Precisely how we confront those questions IS.
Monday, May 21, 2012
NOW THE TRUTH BEHIND HOLLYWOOD ICONS CAN BE TOLD
We exist in a world bristling with pleasures and pains. Of the
pains, cancer is arguably the worst. However, there is no argument about
which pleasure is the best. The female orgasm. Science has gone to
astonishing MRI lengths to quantify this fact..
Perhaps that explains why the intoxicating pleasure of sex is woven into 95% of every major film produced. The look...the embrace...the clinch...the final fulfillment. Somehow -- even in the middle of the most horrific war in the most remote jungle or planet -- somewhere there will be a man and a woman. Brought together to satisfy the audience's need to believe that everyone-anywhere-can- know-love!
If climactic love scenes are iconic in our culture, there are others. Almost as required to winning an audience. Among these -- the quintessential car chase. I mean, if passion is the name of the game, car chases are one of the trumps you play along the way.
As rigorously choreographed as Kabuki Theater, Hollywood car chases feature four essentials:
* There must be a hero we can care about, and a villain we can snarl about. The hero usually is driving along minding his or her own business. Suddenly the villain roars out in a black sedan or, whenever bigger dangers are called for, an ugly 18 wheeler!
* If this is happening in the countryside, the highway needs a minimum of a dozen sharp curves stretching over the most cinematically dangerous cliffs the advance team could locate. If this is happening in the city, there must be a credible maze of side-streets stuffed with food carts, fleeing pedestrian stunt men, and at least one smashed display window. An occasional erupting fire hydrant is always a nice touch!
* The crash -- to satisfy the audience's now ginned up energy level -- there has to be some kind of climax. Fiery crashes are the standard. If in the city, well they just crash. Ah, but if in the countryside, they will always screech off the edge of those cliffs and tumble ton after ton into the ravine below. Where California wreckage services are hired to clean up the results at a very nifty fee!
* The payoff -- and this also is playing to the audience's appetites -- is either the hero survives [one or two broken limbs are acceptable, but if possible not the face for the later clinch]; or the villain dies while the hero looks down triumphantly [but not too triumphant so as not to appear cynically happy]!
And you thought car chases just sorta happened. Next time a close look at another American cinematic icon -- the Western gun fight.
Perhaps that explains why the intoxicating pleasure of sex is woven into 95% of every major film produced. The look...the embrace...the clinch...the final fulfillment. Somehow -- even in the middle of the most horrific war in the most remote jungle or planet -- somewhere there will be a man and a woman. Brought together to satisfy the audience's need to believe that everyone-anywhere-can- know-love!
If climactic love scenes are iconic in our culture, there are others. Almost as required to winning an audience. Among these -- the quintessential car chase. I mean, if passion is the name of the game, car chases are one of the trumps you play along the way.
As rigorously choreographed as Kabuki Theater, Hollywood car chases feature four essentials:
* There must be a hero we can care about, and a villain we can snarl about. The hero usually is driving along minding his or her own business. Suddenly the villain roars out in a black sedan or, whenever bigger dangers are called for, an ugly 18 wheeler!
* If this is happening in the countryside, the highway needs a minimum of a dozen sharp curves stretching over the most cinematically dangerous cliffs the advance team could locate. If this is happening in the city, there must be a credible maze of side-streets stuffed with food carts, fleeing pedestrian stunt men, and at least one smashed display window. An occasional erupting fire hydrant is always a nice touch!
* The crash -- to satisfy the audience's now ginned up energy level -- there has to be some kind of climax. Fiery crashes are the standard. If in the city, well they just crash. Ah, but if in the countryside, they will always screech off the edge of those cliffs and tumble ton after ton into the ravine below. Where California wreckage services are hired to clean up the results at a very nifty fee!
* The payoff -- and this also is playing to the audience's appetites -- is either the hero survives [one or two broken limbs are acceptable, but if possible not the face for the later clinch]; or the villain dies while the hero looks down triumphantly [but not too triumphant so as not to appear cynically happy]!
And you thought car chases just sorta happened. Next time a close look at another American cinematic icon -- the Western gun fight.
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