Time's a funny thing. In many ways the only thing. The only
thing each of us -- great or small -- has in absolute common. At least
for as long as we have it.
It's said that at times, time stops.
I'm not sure about that; but like you, I know there are those
intersections in which it pauses. In those treasured pauses, both our
heads and hearts are touched and tinged in ways that affect the rest of
our lives. Biographers carefully report them in their stories of
prophets and kings, saints and sinners. We are none of those. But they
did happen to you. And to me. Remembering them might help us better
understand the people in power in our world.
In my case, it was a
small lake in Wisconsin. Geologically it was millions of years old.
Chronologically I was 18 years old. But my heart...ahh in that
summertime pause, my heat was for a time eternal.
She was older,
about 24 or 25. I had never seen her before. But I had known her
before. Every-time I dreamed of meeting the-girl-of-my-dreams while my
buddies bragged about theirs. My heart and my hormones had been
promising her to me. Now -- now on this starry night sitting on this
grand white wraparound porch -- there she sat. Wearing a frilly gingham
dress over a lean tanned body. Long auburn hair lifting slightly under
the wings of a lake wind that smelled of peonies and promise.
Perhaps
I'd seen too many movie love-stories back home. But wait...! Perhaps
this was my love story at come true. Too careful to ruin the pause, I
never said a word to her. I would sleep on the dream, and find a way to
join her at breakfast. Yes! Cool and cautious was the best way to
approach a pedestal. After all, there was an entire summer ahead.
But
there was no summer ahead. The girl-of-my-dreams wasn't at breakfast.
Someone reported she had checked out early. Why? Where? How? I'd live
long enough never to know. Only to wonder. To pause and wonder about one
of those what-if's that lace our lives. Especially when we're 18.....
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
THERE'S A PARK BENCH OUT THERE READY TO BE TESTED
Walk in any bar, turn on any talk show. You've got a fistfull of
faces telling you how America is ripping apart at the seams.
Politically, racially, economically, spiritually. But think about that.
It doesn't take genius to recognize there will be monstrous differences
in a country this monstrously large.
Which is why Benjamin Disraeli's comment to Parliament 150 years ago still applies: "Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius."
Our challenge is how to aim our desperation. There are plenty of big voices aiming at the big issues. Jobs. Taxes. Entitlements. NASA. Iran. That's thinking globally. Yet it always remains true you then have to act locally. Where the soaring platitudes come down to earth and the rubber hits the road.
What rubber? What roads? How about the Park Bench Rule...! One of the simpler tests for how well a country is holding together not ripping apart. The rule goes something like this: "On the next sweet summer night, how safe would lovers and families feel sleeping under the stars in a city park?"
If you just laughed or sneered, you're probably too young to remember the Chicago many of us grew up in. The country was also ripping apart at the seams back in the 1930s [Depression]...1940s [WWII] ...1950s & 1960s [Cold War]. And yet, our city parks were still relatively safe to spend the night. Why? Probably because the threads that held the fabric of our culture were still strong enough to bind together the rips.
Threads like the cultural cliches we may not have practiced perfectly, but felt were right to believe: Family is essential...government is good...teachers, preachers and cops are to be admired...God, flag and mom's appie pie are sacred. Remember the film director Frank Capra? He made classics like "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Mr Smith Goes To Washington." We still love those movies. Why? Capra explained it this way: "I love America and I call my movies Capra-corn."
A little more corn, please, and we might just find parks at night safe again......
Which is why Benjamin Disraeli's comment to Parliament 150 years ago still applies: "Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius."
Our challenge is how to aim our desperation. There are plenty of big voices aiming at the big issues. Jobs. Taxes. Entitlements. NASA. Iran. That's thinking globally. Yet it always remains true you then have to act locally. Where the soaring platitudes come down to earth and the rubber hits the road.
What rubber? What roads? How about the Park Bench Rule...! One of the simpler tests for how well a country is holding together not ripping apart. The rule goes something like this: "On the next sweet summer night, how safe would lovers and families feel sleeping under the stars in a city park?"
If you just laughed or sneered, you're probably too young to remember the Chicago many of us grew up in. The country was also ripping apart at the seams back in the 1930s [Depression]...1940s [WWII] ...1950s & 1960s [Cold War]. And yet, our city parks were still relatively safe to spend the night. Why? Probably because the threads that held the fabric of our culture were still strong enough to bind together the rips.
Threads like the cultural cliches we may not have practiced perfectly, but felt were right to believe: Family is essential...government is good...teachers, preachers and cops are to be admired...God, flag and mom's appie pie are sacred. Remember the film director Frank Capra? He made classics like "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Mr Smith Goes To Washington." We still love those movies. Why? Capra explained it this way: "I love America and I call my movies Capra-corn."
A little more corn, please, and we might just find parks at night safe again......
Saturday, April 28, 2012
HAVE YOU HEARD? GOD'S IN TROUBLE AGAIN!
Ever since people began believing in God [that's like forever],
skeptics have questioned the big guy. Atheists poke holes in the
god-thing by Logic. Lately, they have Science to help them [especially
the brilliant science of Evolution].
But while evolutionary biology has suggested our species doesn't need a God to function effectively and behave morally, most Americans still tell Gallup they believe in God [even if they don't spend a lot time worshiping Him on weekends].
At first that sounds like a draw -- we kinda admire God as we do any other nice useless icon. Until, that is, we keep reading dramatic reports God is outmoded. Consider the latest,"The Moral Molecule," by Paul J. Zak. In it he says: "After centuries of speculation about human nature and how we decide what is the right thing to do, we at last have some news we can use. Empirical evidence that illuminates the mechanism at the heart of our moral guidance system: Oxytocin."
Zak and others argue levels of this brain chemical can determine how morally good and social we are. If true, presto God and centuries of prophets and messiahs are fairly expendable! Enough biochemical and genetic engineering, and just maybe we can create a brave-new-world. Biology trumps theology...!
Some will say where's the evidence this is happening? After all, most scientists are not exactly preaching this. However, others will say, the more people read proponents like Zak, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, the more no one will have to PREACH it. We'll just begin to BELIEVE it.
If you remember, in the first brave-new-world by Aldous Huxley, drugs like "Soma" didn't work out so well. In Zak's envisioned second brave-new-world, "Oxytocin" is likely to prove no better. But here's the kicker. If we erroneously kill God on the way to that new-world, how would we ever get Him back?
But while evolutionary biology has suggested our species doesn't need a God to function effectively and behave morally, most Americans still tell Gallup they believe in God [even if they don't spend a lot time worshiping Him on weekends].
At first that sounds like a draw -- we kinda admire God as we do any other nice useless icon. Until, that is, we keep reading dramatic reports God is outmoded. Consider the latest,"The Moral Molecule," by Paul J. Zak. In it he says: "After centuries of speculation about human nature and how we decide what is the right thing to do, we at last have some news we can use. Empirical evidence that illuminates the mechanism at the heart of our moral guidance system: Oxytocin."
Zak and others argue levels of this brain chemical can determine how morally good and social we are. If true, presto God and centuries of prophets and messiahs are fairly expendable! Enough biochemical and genetic engineering, and just maybe we can create a brave-new-world. Biology trumps theology...!
Some will say where's the evidence this is happening? After all, most scientists are not exactly preaching this. However, others will say, the more people read proponents like Zak, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, the more no one will have to PREACH it. We'll just begin to BELIEVE it.
If you remember, in the first brave-new-world by Aldous Huxley, drugs like "Soma" didn't work out so well. In Zak's envisioned second brave-new-world, "Oxytocin" is likely to prove no better. But here's the kicker. If we erroneously kill God on the way to that new-world, how would we ever get Him back?
MARILYN -- HERE'S LOOKING [UP] AT YOU, KID!
Strolling up Michigan Avenue you can't miss our towering white
statue of Marilyn Monroe. Nor can you miss the knot of camera-clicking
tourists staring ga-ga up at this massive American metaphor.
Marilyn IS a metaphor, you know. For beauty, sexuality, desirability, resentment, and whatever other repressed feelings she stirs in you. The studio made millions with the metaphor. In a moment of cruel honesty, one of their execs said of her untimely suicide: "The babe's greatest career move!"
But watching the gawkers here, you realize Marilyn is also a metaphor for everyone's secret Look-At-Me syndrome. Billions of us walk all our little lives in frustrated anonymity. And yet there's Marilyn. Goddess of fame with everyone still looking up at her. Why not me? Just for a little while?
The appetite for fame helps explain everything from legions of starving actors, to would-be American Idols. From zany pedestrians waving at every TV camera in sight, to all-too-many serial killers. And you can add years-of-training Olympic athletes, volunteers for the next survival-of or housewives-of network schlock show. Look, sometimes we get tired of living dreary lives of quiet desperation.
And so is born a reverse-desperation to catch one of these mercurial spotlights. No one is totally immune from the siren call of Look-At-Me. It's true from neighborhood punks looking for police-mug glory, to aircraft-carrier-landing presidents. We're all just a little too human to resist.
But then...! [Life is so damn filled with "but's"]. But then once some of us get it, like Marilyn, the time comes when we'd do anything to just be safe and private from the nattering crowds and glaring spotlights. Are we never satisfied...? Are we human...?
Marilyn IS a metaphor, you know. For beauty, sexuality, desirability, resentment, and whatever other repressed feelings she stirs in you. The studio made millions with the metaphor. In a moment of cruel honesty, one of their execs said of her untimely suicide: "The babe's greatest career move!"
But watching the gawkers here, you realize Marilyn is also a metaphor for everyone's secret Look-At-Me syndrome. Billions of us walk all our little lives in frustrated anonymity. And yet there's Marilyn. Goddess of fame with everyone still looking up at her. Why not me? Just for a little while?
The appetite for fame helps explain everything from legions of starving actors, to would-be American Idols. From zany pedestrians waving at every TV camera in sight, to all-too-many serial killers. And you can add years-of-training Olympic athletes, volunteers for the next survival-of or housewives-of network schlock show. Look, sometimes we get tired of living dreary lives of quiet desperation.
And so is born a reverse-desperation to catch one of these mercurial spotlights. No one is totally immune from the siren call of Look-At-Me. It's true from neighborhood punks looking for police-mug glory, to aircraft-carrier-landing presidents. We're all just a little too human to resist.
But then...! [Life is so damn filled with "but's"]. But then once some of us get it, like Marilyn, the time comes when we'd do anything to just be safe and private from the nattering crowds and glaring spotlights. Are we never satisfied...? Are we human...?
Friday, April 27, 2012
GO AHEAD...MAKE MY DAY!
Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, and Adolf Hitler all suffered
inordinate levels of testosterone whenever they came face to face with
what their male-ego decided was a threat. Oh, don't pretend it's only
the "other guy." For instance, that very same testosterone is bubbling
every time someone cuts us off in traffic. So we all start this topic
with the same fire-in-the-belly.
Anthropologists can explain our ancestors' fight-or-flight instincts; psychiatrists can explain our psychic fire today. As Carl Jung advised: "Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people."
Most times most of us can control the darkness and tame the beast. That's what is meant by "civilization." However, this primeval stuff oozes out time and again. Some handy examples in ascending order of danger:
* Sports fans ~ These bare-beer-belly crazies in the stands need some outlet for their repressed rage with their bosses, their wives, their world. The nearest high-paid athlete is their hysterical target
* Homophobes ~ Gay-bashing has an especially dark breeding ground. University of Rochester psychologist Richard Ryan tells LiveScience.com that many homophobic spokesmen are "at war with themselves, and turn their internal conflict [about their repressed homosexuality] outward." Examples include Rev Ted Haggard and far too many members of Congress
* Enforcers ~ From generals to beat cops, the self-righteous anger boiling inside many of these men is what helps them choose such dangerous professions. When in check, they are our defenders; when unchecked, they can become our oppressors
* Neo-cons ~ These are those modern conservatives who sincerely believe that power is the best way to resolve conflicts. Dick Cheney, no matter how many different hearts he gets, will always be one of their most intransigent spokesmen. So far, though, few wars have ever meant real victory
Aah but there's some good news. Since H.W. Bush, every president has been a graduate of either Yale or Harvard. This election it will be Harvard vs Harvard. Eight Harvard graduates have served as president thus far, and we are advised Harvard trains men to be temperate. Here's hoping...!
Anthropologists can explain our ancestors' fight-or-flight instincts; psychiatrists can explain our psychic fire today. As Carl Jung advised: "Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people."
Most times most of us can control the darkness and tame the beast. That's what is meant by "civilization." However, this primeval stuff oozes out time and again. Some handy examples in ascending order of danger:
* Sports fans ~ These bare-beer-belly crazies in the stands need some outlet for their repressed rage with their bosses, their wives, their world. The nearest high-paid athlete is their hysterical target
* Homophobes ~ Gay-bashing has an especially dark breeding ground. University of Rochester psychologist Richard Ryan tells LiveScience.com that many homophobic spokesmen are "at war with themselves, and turn their internal conflict [about their repressed homosexuality] outward." Examples include Rev Ted Haggard and far too many members of Congress
* Enforcers ~ From generals to beat cops, the self-righteous anger boiling inside many of these men is what helps them choose such dangerous professions. When in check, they are our defenders; when unchecked, they can become our oppressors
* Neo-cons ~ These are those modern conservatives who sincerely believe that power is the best way to resolve conflicts. Dick Cheney, no matter how many different hearts he gets, will always be one of their most intransigent spokesmen. So far, though, few wars have ever meant real victory
Aah but there's some good news. Since H.W. Bush, every president has been a graduate of either Yale or Harvard. This election it will be Harvard vs Harvard. Eight Harvard graduates have served as president thus far, and we are advised Harvard trains men to be temperate. Here's hoping...!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
IS THERE NO SHAME...? NOPE!
A lot of this started with Shakespeare. You know, this Roman
thing...! The many tales about its mighty empire, emperors, courtesans,
slaves, and especially gladiators. Their trained warriors have become
synonymous with the idea of cunning and power; with today's NFL warriors
their modern counterpart
Men -- young and old, strong and weak -- love to identify themselves with our helmeted gods of the turf. Not only for their animal prowess, but surely for their imagined bedroom prowess. Women too harbor their own private images of the burly sex gods. And now -- drumroll! -- the NFL is turning on every klieg light and marquee they can as they glamorize their prized beasts of glory for television.
This year it all starts in New York's fabled showplace, Radio City Music Hall, where the NFL draft picks will be paraded while thousands of viewers breathlessly watch. So showy is this event, it made this morning's front cover of the New York Times where beefy 350-pounders are shown being custom-fit in tailored suits for the runway.
Someone, somewhere, please give me a break!
American males have a passel of people we love and honor. Cowboys ...astronauts...firefighters... Seals ...Cary Grant....Clint Eastwood. But we love them as they are. In their own skin. That's all part of the vicarious thrill. However, now the flamboyant members of the Hollywood myth-makers are getting into the act. Tailors, hair dressers, a dab of makeup for the cameras, and -- to be sure! -- their very own contract lawyers.
Personally I can't picture Jesse James in a three-piece Boston suit. Or John Glenn on Dancing With The Stars. Oh but wait....! This is only April.
Men -- young and old, strong and weak -- love to identify themselves with our helmeted gods of the turf. Not only for their animal prowess, but surely for their imagined bedroom prowess. Women too harbor their own private images of the burly sex gods. And now -- drumroll! -- the NFL is turning on every klieg light and marquee they can as they glamorize their prized beasts of glory for television.
This year it all starts in New York's fabled showplace, Radio City Music Hall, where the NFL draft picks will be paraded while thousands of viewers breathlessly watch. So showy is this event, it made this morning's front cover of the New York Times where beefy 350-pounders are shown being custom-fit in tailored suits for the runway.
Someone, somewhere, please give me a break!
American males have a passel of people we love and honor. Cowboys ...astronauts...firefighters... Seals ...Cary Grant....Clint Eastwood. But we love them as they are. In their own skin. That's all part of the vicarious thrill. However, now the flamboyant members of the Hollywood myth-makers are getting into the act. Tailors, hair dressers, a dab of makeup for the cameras, and -- to be sure! -- their very own contract lawyers.
Personally I can't picture Jesse James in a three-piece Boston suit. Or John Glenn on Dancing With The Stars. Oh but wait....! This is only April.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
YOU AND I WALK BY NIGHT WITH A CAST OF GHOSTS
Time Magazine this week features an article:"Shhh! Genius At
Work." It walks us through some of the amazing mysteries to sleep. Both
religion and science have been intrigued with these mysteries ever since
the Bible described Adam falling asleep in the Garden, later the Greeks
saw in dreams messages from the gods, later still Shakespeare had
Hamlet learn secrets from the ghost of his father.
Science considers mysteries such as these as problems to be solved. Religion and playwrights tend to engage the mysteries they meet on their own terms. You and I have a choice each morning waking up to the question: What was that crazy dream all about...?
Psychiatry has helped explain how dreams are REM moments in which faces and plots from our waking world collide into our sleeping world. Putting aside the mounds of jaw-dropping theories, one part of our dreaming seems simple and clear. The cast of characters we encounter in our waking world somehow cross the stage of our sleeping world. Usually in disguise.
They are disguised in different appearances...situations...relationships...purposes...and connections with us as we move, triumphantly or terrifyingly, through our dream's plot line. And while all this has become more understood when it comes to the important people in our lives, what is less understood are the occasional entrances of various bit or canceled players.
They appear in the action without much reason or rhyme. Your third grade teacher...your mail carrier ...that cashier at the supermarket...a long-dead cousin...a boss you once had and hated...a young girl you once dated and loved...your children, but now all younger...your dead parents...oh and Mickey Mantle and President Obama. What's going on here?
Unqualified to answer that question, may I simply leave this thought. You and I are also "bit and canceled players" in the dreams of friends and strangers alike. So know this. Tonight, you and I are likely to appear for a mysterious moment in someone's dreams. A someone we haven't seen for years or who we can't even remember meeting.
Ready for your entrance...? Cue that dream! And remember in some mysterious way, we and the other 7 billion of us are all part of the same dream.
Science considers mysteries such as these as problems to be solved. Religion and playwrights tend to engage the mysteries they meet on their own terms. You and I have a choice each morning waking up to the question: What was that crazy dream all about...?
Psychiatry has helped explain how dreams are REM moments in which faces and plots from our waking world collide into our sleeping world. Putting aside the mounds of jaw-dropping theories, one part of our dreaming seems simple and clear. The cast of characters we encounter in our waking world somehow cross the stage of our sleeping world. Usually in disguise.
They are disguised in different appearances...situations...relationships...purposes...and connections with us as we move, triumphantly or terrifyingly, through our dream's plot line. And while all this has become more understood when it comes to the important people in our lives, what is less understood are the occasional entrances of various bit or canceled players.
They appear in the action without much reason or rhyme. Your third grade teacher...your mail carrier ...that cashier at the supermarket...a long-dead cousin...a boss you once had and hated...a young girl you once dated and loved...your children, but now all younger...your dead parents...oh and Mickey Mantle and President Obama. What's going on here?
Unqualified to answer that question, may I simply leave this thought. You and I are also "bit and canceled players" in the dreams of friends and strangers alike. So know this. Tonight, you and I are likely to appear for a mysterious moment in someone's dreams. A someone we haven't seen for years or who we can't even remember meeting.
Ready for your entrance...? Cue that dream! And remember in some mysterious way, we and the other 7 billion of us are all part of the same dream.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)