There are worse hoomans than my Smelly Old Man. He loves me. I know, because he says so about 723 times a day. He gives lots of kisseses. He lets me get up on his lap when he is trying to do his worksers and when he has to talk to other hoomans whose faces show up, but I can’t jump on them and give them kisseses.
He’s too tired now to get crabby when I make my poopsers in The Room By The Outside. He just picks them up when there’s enough of them for it to be worth bending over to get them. He always uses all four of his paws when he trieses to get up. Sometimes he has to try more than one or two times. He falleded down the other Sunshine Time when he triededed to stand up. I gave him kisseses and then he could do it. Speedy Shine Kisseses have poopernatural powers.
I’ve been with him now for two Cold Times and a Warm Time. I make more poopsers in The Room By The Outside in the Cold Times because I don’t like to be in The Outside then. I get all shivery. But then I jump in The Smelly Old Man’s lap, and he warms me up.
I’ve met 9 other hoomans. He was here for 5 of them. Smelly Old Man gets mad at me when I jump on them, but I have to because otherwise they might not know how much I love them, and then that would be bad. Everyone needs to know that Speedy Shine loves them. That’s what I am here to do. Except one time for a minute when I was having a pee-pee time and one of the other hoomans thought she could pick me up, so I tried to bite her. I told her I was sorry later, but she wouldn’t let me give her any kisseses. She went away after that. Other hoomans never stay here for the long time.
When we have Sleepy Time, I get under the coverses and cuddle the Smelly Old Man. He tells me that I’m The Best Cuddler. Nobody else ever cuddles him, though, so how would HE know?
Sometimes during Sleepy Time, Smelly Old Man’s chest stops moving, so I have to jump on it. I put my whiskerses on his face, and sometimes I put myself under his paw, so he has to pet me. When he wakeses up I give kisseses and then I go back to sleep. He doesn’t get mad because he has Sleepy Time whenever he wants.
My other hooman before him used to get mad at me lots and lots, especially when I would chew the floofers in the soft things, so then he took me to The Place With The Other Dogsers. I was in a little cage. Smelly Old Man took me out of there, and now he’s mine. You can’t have him.
I’m living, as you’ve probably deduced if you’ve listened to my last few episodes, in an untenable situation. The cheapest place to rent where I live is $1500 a month, unless I want to rent a room from someone. Those run around $600. I won’t survive that experience. I do very poorly around others. I need to be alone.
My Disability, after having taught Elementary School for 29 years, is $1363 a month. I can’t possibly get another job. My body simply won’t tolerate it. I was on the precipice of another trip to the hospital this week with Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I didn’t do anything outrageous. I spent some time getting up and down from the floor trying to make my monitors work with the beautiful new desktop on which I’m writing this. That exhausted me. At 4 PM I woke up when my alarm went off. It’s to remind me to take my Lantus, which is a long-acting form of insulin, and to call my mother. I felt like I had been run over by a steamroller. Everything hurt. I was nauseous. I called Mom and faked my way through it so she wouldn’t know I was sick. I took my Lantus. I checked my blood sugar. It was 521.
For those who don’t know, doctors want your blood sugar to be between 80 and 120. Anything over 400 is almost always going to turn into DKA. I’ve been in the hospital with that condition 15 times in the last several years. My doctor described it to me as my blood turning into acid and trying to kill me from the inside. It generally requires a minimum of 3 days in the hospital. The first two are usually spent in Intensive Care. Statistically, most people don’t survive more than 4 incidents of DKA. Had I gotten any sicker and survived, I would have made it 4 times as long as science expects me to live.
There was a physical aspect to my flirtation with death. There was also an emotional aspect. My PTSD was in full force, set off by someone being incredibly kind to me. I’m going to refer to her as Lady Dalrymple. (Read some Jane Austen.) She has bought me incredibly expensive groceries I could never possibly afford. She bought me a crock pot in which to cook the spareribs I can’t cook in my oven because it doesn’t work. She sent Speedy Shine 40 pounds of kibble and more than a dozen cans of fancy food. How could anyone be any kinder than that? She found a way.
She’s heard my show. She’s read my work. She doesn’t believe I should have to live this way. She offered me the downstairs portion of her house, rent-free, for as long as I want. It’s a beautiful home. It has a fenced backyard for Speedy Shine. It’s everything I could want. It’s Paradise. So, how could this be a problem for me?
Those who have been around a while will recall that just a little over a year ago, someone else made me the same offer. I was properly skeptical. When something seems too good to be true… Nevertheless, after much discussion, I accepted the offer. I haven’t been in a position to decline a place to live for more than a decade. The results were disastrous. The rent-free home with a fenced backyard turned into a $750 a month trailer with water that needed to be changed twice weekly. The privacy I had been promised turned into thrice daily assaults on my character. I spent 64 days hearing about my faults. I spent a lot of money to get there, and when the gun came out and the only friend who had the audacity to visit was threatened, I spent what was left of my Disability backpay to escape. Without the help of my friend, I would certainly have died there. I arrived here broke, and I promptly went to the hospital for 3 days because I went into Diabetic Ketoacidosis.
My California “Home”
I’ve been safely installed here for just shy of a year.
I told my best friend I wanted to talk to her last night because she is the only person with whom I can discuss something this huge. It went poorly to say the least. She was repeatedly interrupted while I was experiencing a low-level panic attack, and my Rejection Sensitivity kicked me in the teeth. She and I have discussed that at length. She is well aware of my condition. All I had time to get from her was that it would be better for both her and her ex-boyfriend, who is being kind enough to rent me this place at a price I can afford and that, thankfully, covers the internet and all the utilities, if I left.
This underlined in flashing neon lights that I am a liability. She can’t get married with her ex-boyfriend living with her since few men feel good about such an arrangement. He can’t sell this place and move on with his life if I’m here. I live on their charity. This has been discussed at greater length in earlier episodes. I won’t go any deeper into it here.
That night, Speedy Shine held me together, and only barely.
We finally had an opportunity the next night to discuss it without interruption. We’re thinking of trying to find me something called Section 8 Housing. All I know about Section 8 comes from M*A*S*H, and I’m really not Klinger.
What was the problem?
The thought of moving somewhere far away and living for free obviously brought back my feelings of terror from a year ago. I flashed repeatedly on images of my cell phone vibrating and sounds of its beeping to tell me that another assault on my integrity was waiting to be read. If I ignored it, you could be sure the landlord would walk the 100 feet from his house to my trailer to tell me what was wrong with me. And he would yell. If I tried to defend myself, I would be called a “fucking liar,” and the yelling would increase. I learned to be quiet. I haven’t been confident talking to anyone beyond my best friend, my mother, and the man who pulled me out of there, since. I don’t believe I ever will be again.
When you hear me talking to you here, you may be sure every word was carefully written, proofread repeatedly and ineffectively, (I can’t tell you how many times I have to correct it during the recording, or, worse I find an error on my Word Press site.) and edited repeatedly. If you hear it on my show, I promise it’s gone through not fewer than 5 drafts. I communicate carefully because I want to be sure I’m saying it as honestly and accurately as I can. I can’t be sure to get it right in a conversation.
I’m perfectly comfortable at my keyboard. It allows me to make mistakes without any more complaint than the little red or blue lines it uses to show me where it thinks I’m wrong. It doesn’t tell me I’m The Scum of The Earth. It just suggests what it believes, often erroneously, is a better way to write something. I’m grateful when it catches typos. I won’t, just yet, substitute an algorithm’s judgment for 50 years of writing experience.
I am going to spend quite some time considering the offer, but first I have to remember that most people are genuinely kind. Most people are caring, compassionate, and empathetic. The evidence to back that claim is overflowing throughout the last 6 years of my life. My friends have saved me, in various ways, more times than I can count. I think someday I may make an Excel sheet in which I try to record them all. There would be at least 15 entries for saving my life by getting me to the hospital when I went into DKA. That doesn’t count the times they have given me money to save my car, to pay my rent, to put my dog to rest, to buy me groceries, or just because they wanted to help me out. At the same time, the memories of California keep haunting me and the Prosecutor Who Lives in My Head keeps taunting me, asking me how stupid I am. Am I really dumb enough to make the same mistake twice?
The Prosecutor
Prosecutor: You’re blaming me for your problems… again?
Fred: I’m simply pointing out that you like to tell me what’s wrong with me. It’s much less pleasant than one might think.
Prosecutor: Without recognizing your flaws and faults, you can’t possibly hope to correct them. I keep you from hiding from reality. And the reality is that you’re a liability. Your existence costs everyone around you money. You are a pathetic dependent child. I understand why you’re tempted by The Offer, but are you also going to be stupid? Mr. Scott told you more than 40 years ago, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” You’re inviting shame… Again.
Fred: Lady Dalrymple has already shown me she is capable of great kindness. She’s not Anthony Tagonist. There’s no reason to believe she’s lying to me.
Prosecutor: She doesn’t need to be lying to you. It’s a question of how much anyone can tolerate you. History shows that it’s never long. And then you will be stuck again. You must find the means to be independent. It’s your only chance of survival.
Fred: I can’t imagine how I could do that. There’s no job I can possibly do. Someone offered me some proofreading work, but I still miss things in my own writing. I couldn’t make that work, and I’ll embarrass myself. It’s not like I can go work at a convenience store or something. I wind up in DKA from nearly any physical exertion.
Prosecutor: We’re pursuing the means to do that at this very moment. Your podcast.
Fred: After 3 years, I’m managing to put between 3 and 400 dollars a month into the bank. I could stop supporting other artists, but the difference wouldn’t be enough to provide me with any sort of independence. It would just allow me a few more days before I run out at the end of every month.
Prosecutor: Then there appears to be only one solution.
Fred: I tried that the other night. I went into the bathroom and got my Humalog pen. I took it into the bedroom so I could say goodbye to Speedy Shine. He turned his back on me for the first time in his life. He was obviously feeling angry and betrayed. I told him my best friend would find him another family, but he jumped off of the bed.
Speedy Shine: I need your love, not someone else’s. I give you all the loves and kisseses and cuddlers you ever needed, and you want to leave me. That is not is a good Fred. I need you. Just my Smelly Old Man. Nobody else for Speedy Shine. That’s all.
Speedy Shine
So, I don’t know what to do. I see only one reasonable alternative. I don’t believe it will arrive in time to help me. We need some form of Universal Basic Income. We need to change our priorities from money to people. The question, “Who’s going to pay for it?” has become offensive to me. There’s no question that we have the resources to ensure everyone has their basic needs met. I don’t even want a car. I would just like to be able to live without depending on the kindness of strangers. I contributed what I could to the world. I continue to do that in the only way possible for me.
This would be the solution for me. It would be the solution for countless millions of others, as well. Many people are in worse shape than I am, but you probably don’t know them. The argument that this would cause runaway inflation has not only been disproven repeatedly, but it also says that money matters more than people. It doesn’t. Not on this Porch.
This country began in an effort to throw off the power of a King over the citizens of this country. The first three words of the preamble are, “We The People,” and they’re written larger and prouder than all the rest. The idea was to give freedom to all of us. We wanted to end the idea of serfs and feudal lords. We wanted everyone to be able to live their lives in freedom.
We’ve certainly made progress, but we live with an economic system that makes meaningful freedom impossible for millions of people. Unless I begin to earn $2000 a month from my podcast, I will be dependent on others just to live. This is no sort of life. And my life is better than many others. It doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.
Change begins with imagination and conversation. Perhaps we can get enough people talking about Universal Basic Income that it finally gets the attention it deserves. This might prompt a politician to advocate it. That might actually change the world.
Absent that, I am doomed to live a precarious life, contingent entirely on the kindness of strangers.
What could we do to help? We can talk. We can advocate. We can vote. We can try. I’m begging you to do what you can. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I don’t know how much longer I can. I’m not alone in this. This world doesn’t work for far too many of us. Please… please help to change this in whatever ways you can.
I’m Disabled. How disabled I am is open for debate. There are those who claim my disabilities are insignificant. There are those who think I am nothing but my disabilities. This is probably the case for every disabled person. People want us to fit into their neat little boxes. Unfortunately, we can’t do that for you. If disabled persons have nothing else in common, one thing we all share is that we are more than our diagnoses.
There can be no doubt that I have physical disabilities. I need both hands to stand up. I become more worried about being able to do that every week or so. My diabetes has all but destroyed my body. I have to nap, ideally, every six hours. When I get lost in my writing or my recording for the podcast, I might go as long as 9 hours. After that, there’s more than a good chance I’m going to pass out at the computer. If I don’t watch my blood sugar carefully, any day can be my last.
I’m emotionally disabled. I have a diagnosis of depression. I fight it in all the ways I can. Perhaps, however, I need to learn to accept it, as a friend of mine on Facebook suggested. This is our conversation on that topic.
As you know Fred, all things come and go. Including your depression. Depression often includes certain thoughts that can be very compelling. These thoughts, however compelling, are even more transient than the feelings of depression. We are drawn further and further into the vortex the harder we struggle with these feeling and thoughts. Stopping the struggle, ceasing doing battle with the demons of depression seems like the exact wrong thing to do, but it is also the best way of caring for yourself. You may have to stop the struggle a thousand times, or ten thousand, but like anything the more you practice the more skilled you become. This is the way I learned to dance with my depression. If I feed it with my life energy by struggling with it, it gets stronger and stronger. If I stop the war, it eventually burns itself out, just like any feeling or thought.
Name Deleted that’s the most difficult part of depression, I think. I expect myself to be happy, and when I’m not I treat it as a problem to be solved instead of an experience that is a part of who I am. I feel guilt about being unhappy. I feel weak. I feel cowardly.
I need, it seems, to accept it in the same way I accept diabetes or having blue eyes. It simply exists. There may be things to learn from the darkness if I would allow myself to live there without feeling the need to escape.
Name Deleted
Fred Eder It is absolutely normal to want to escape experience that is unpleasant – anything from a finger prick when you are testing your blood sugar to the deepest darkest abyss of depression – to push away that which is unpleasant and grasp at and pull in what is pleasant. We begin to learn this probably even before we leave the womb. It is the hook that leads us to a lifetime of struggle trying to have more and more pleasant experiences. Each experience ends to be replaced by new experience in the ceaseless flow of experience that is life. Whether grasping onto pleasant experiences to extend the feelings of pleasure, or struggling, fighting, battling to push away pain (physical or emotional), the effects are the same. It is an unending struggle to obtain something that is, by the very nature of existence itself, not possible. All experience is transient – radically transient. We have no control over any of it. Influence – yes. Control, never. Your expectations (learned thoughts and ideas) for “happiness”, “guilt”, “feelings of weakness and cowardliness” keep you tied to the very thing you want to kill. Like Ahab bound to the gigantic object of his hatred that is dragging him down into the abyss – Melville’s metaphor is perfect. If we are trying to get rid of something unpleasant, we have to grapple with it, fight with it. The question is, can we simply relax the fierce desperate grasp we have on the object of our desire (yes, getting rid of the pain of depression is THE desire), and LET GO of it – NOT get rid of it. Can we stop hating it? Stop wanting it to go away? Can we, just as you say, accept it as it is and not trying to make it go away? And in your case, not punish yourself for having the experience? Can you accept that depression IS a part of what you are? Something that comes and goes like the other vast expanse of moments that make up your life. What if Ahab was able to release his hatred of the white whale? How would his life and the lives of so many others (including the whale) have been different? Maybe the white whale would have continued to come into his life at times, but without his hatred, it would have likely journeyed on.
Perhaps some of the things you might learn from the darkness is self-acceptance – how to live there without feeling the need to escape. These are HUGE lessons in and of themselves. The kind that liberate us.
I suspect that I am somewhere on the Autism Spectrum, but no doctor has ever confirmed this. I have many, but not all, of the symptoms. I undoubtedly think differently than most people do. I almost certainly don’t process emotions the way you do. Something will bother me, and I will say nothing about it because I don’t want to burden anyone else. It will just sit inside me, getting worse and worse, until finally I am forced to confront the feeling in some way. There is debate over whether Autism is even a disability. Google tells me it is considered a disability from both a medical and legal standpoint, if you have a doctor’s diagnosis. One of our producers, Scott Knight, said this on my Facebook page.
Autism in the past was less of a disability and more of a weird neighbor who did strange things and didn’t talk much, but what they did do they did perfectly. Autism with several comorbidities can be disabling no matter what the structure of society is. Disability is a condition that leaves you physically, intellectually, emotionally, or in any other way disadvantaged to the point where it makes it difficult to impossible to function within the parameters society expects from you. Some accommodations allow disabled people to still participate in society, but they rarely create the same ease of access that non-disabled people experience. Some disabled people cannot participate in society no matter how many accommodations are made.
Accommodations for autistic people rarely help me with any of the things I struggle with. I am disabled by society because I am autistic.
I believe I may also have Rejection Sensitivity Disorder. I learned about this only in the last few months, but I exhibit all the symptoms I’ve been able to find associated with this condition on Google. These are the symptoms I have found most frequently.
low self-esteem
avoidance of social settings
fear of failure
high expectations for self
frequent emotional outbursts after being hurt or rejected
I do my best to control the most negative aspects of this by avoiding any situation in which I may come in contact with another person who may feel hurt by my behavior. I rarely, if ever, leave the home in which I live. I get nervous when I take the trash out across the parking lot. I went out to lunch with my best friend last month, and I needed several hours to recover from the fear I spent the whole-time masking. I love her, and I almost never see her, so I was willing to pay this price. I probably won’t do it again for quite some time.
Here’s the thing about being disabled. Many people believe it’s our own fault. Part of this has to do with what is called “Just World Phenomenon.”
In psychology, the just-world phenomenon is the tendency to believe that the world is just and that people get what they deserve. Because people want to believe that the world is fair, they will look for ways to explain or rationalize away injustice, often blaming the person in a situation who is actually the victim.
Instead of recognizing that poverty isn’t a lack of character, or that failure to comply with a police officer shouldn’t be a death sentence, or that disabled people somehow deserve what has happened to us, many people will convince themselves they are immune to oppression, persecution, or any debilitating condition simply because they do all the right things. Bad things happen only because someone did something wrong.
The total tonnage of advice I have received about how to “cure” my depression and my diabetes would be enough to stun a team of oxen in their tracks. If I would only do what they tell me, my problems would be gone. They want to make me all better so they don’t have to deal with the fact that it could happen to them, too.
I would have no objection if someone cured Diabetes tomorrow afternoon, but I’m not sure I want to change the rest of who I am. I don’t really want to be someone else. I’m sorry if someone is uncomfortable with who I am.
I will be the first to admit to a list of flaws that go on nearly endlessly. I just named a few of them. I’m different from you. I don’t, however, think that makes me worse than you. I don’t know that I need to be cured of my Autism, and the efforts made to cure me of my depression have been ineffective. Prozac has the effect of numbing all my emotions. I fear becoming sufficiently depressed that I finally end my life, but I’m not afraid of being dead. I’m afraid of hurting others who, for reasons passing understanding, love me. They’ve done nothing to deserve the pain that my demise will bring. The price of love is always pain. I just don’t want to charge you any earlier than necessary.
Seth MacFarlane, in The Orville makes this point: “People who try to take their own lives are unable to distinguish the future from the present. There is no problem so immense that it can’t be solved in time.” The Orville is obviously an offshoot of Star Trek. I don’t think anyone makes any effort to hide that fact.
Although one of my friends said, rather smugly, that she doesn’t worship at the Altar of Roddenberry, I have no trouble saying that I do. Star Trek is an effort to show us that the kind of world of which I dream could be a reality. And Star Trek does its best to address disabilities intelligently. Sometimes it does it very well. Occasionally it misses.
In the episode, “Loud As a Whisper,” a person who is deaf and mute is brought to The Enterprise to negotiate a peace treaty between two warring factions. The legendary diplomat, Riva, uses a chorus of psychics who can hear his thoughts to express himself. When the members of his chorus are killed, it appears all is lost. As a deaf mute, he has no means of communicating with the aliens. It is only when he decides to teach both sides sign language that the peace can be made. His “disability” allows him to solve the problem.
In the same episode, Riva asks Geordi LaForge if he resents being blind. Geordi, of course, was born blind, and he uses a piece of technology called a VISOR that allows him to see, albeit in a different way than most people. Geordi tells Riva he doesn’t resent it at all. It’s part of who he is, and he likes himself. There’s nothing to resent.
In the episode, “The Masterpiece Society,” it’s Geordi’s blindness that allows him to save a planet that is going to be destroyed by a fragment from a disintegrated neutron star that is going to move too close to their planet. Captain Picard wants to evacuate the human colony there. The society, however, has been genetically engineered and selectively bred to ensure optimum efficiency and happiness for everyone. There are no disabilities on Moab IV. If they leave their planet, their society will fall apart. Geordi uses the same technology in his VISOR to devise a way to move the fragment and save the planet. He finds it ironic that his disability allowed him to save a planet on which someone like him never could have been born in the first place.
A disability doesn’t define who someone is. It’s merely a part of us.
We’ve all been brought up in a society that finds disability distasteful. Sometimes we look at someone with pity when we see them in a wheelchair. When we do, we are seeing only that one part of them. We’re missing the rest. Stephen Hawking did some remarkable things from a wheelchair using an adaptive device to allow him to communicate. While I don’t envy him his disabilities, I absolutely admire his extraordinary contributions to the world. The same can be said of Helen Keller.
It’s easy to miss the fact that I’m disabled. For a depressed, Autistic, diabetic who suffers from RSD, I seem exceptionally capable. I write, record, score, and Horace a podcast every week. I communicate with people on Facebook, and from time to time, on the phone. I seem fine. Thank you for that assessment. I’m grateful that you can overlook my disabilities.
I don’t believe they detract from what I do. I believe they make it possible. First, from a strictly financial point of view, there would be no way I could do this show if I had to work 40 or more hours a week just to pay rent. My Disability check is tiny, and it keeps me from getting a job, assuming a job for which I could get paid even existed. If I tried to work a 40-hour week at anything other than what I do, I would certainly be dead within a month. You’d be surprised how few employers want a worker who needs to nap every six hours.
They also make it possible from the Artistic point of view. My depression is the author of “Horace’s Final Five.” My experiences have made me into the man to whom you are currently listening. My social disabilities have helped me to learn empathy. I know what it’s like to be ridiculed for being different. My insecurities help me to imagine how others may feel when they’re abused in some way for being different from the norm. One of the reasons I argue so passionately and so frequently for the rights of marginalized groups is because I am a member of so many of them. That sounds odd coming from a straight white male, but there is more to me, and to you, than conditions we never chose.
I’m also socially awkward, at the very best. I’m a member of that group. We’re easy targets, and we have to tolerate the laughter at our expense.
I’m also a member of the group that can’t deal with rejection. It’s easy to say we’re melodramatic, and for this reason we are not to be taken seriously. But just as a lost Teddy Bear would mean almost nothing to most adults, to a 3-year-old it can be as devastating as the loss of a family pet. The fact that other people don’t experience the world in the same way we do doesn’t mean their experiences are to be discarded. The suffering is real.
I’m not, however, a member of the most notable marginalized groups. I’m White. That eliminates me from a vast number of marginalized groups. I’m straight, and I have never felt the need to change my gender. I’m also male. My disabilities are nothing compared to those who are oppressed in groups of which I have never been a part.
That’s a fair point. It’s also irrelevant. It’s Whataboutism. It implies that because other things are worse than my disabilities, mine don’t count. I should stop complaining. I’m actually not complaining about my life, though. While there are many elements of it that suck, it’s mine to do with as I see fit in the time I have left to me. Many people’s lives are better. Many others are worse.
I like to think I can feel empathy for those who are oppressed because, even though I’ve never experienced the specific abuses they must endure, I have an understanding of what it feels like to be mistreated for things that aren’t your fault. I do what I can to stand up for them whenever possible. I would like all people to live lives that are free from unwarranted judgments, and in which all their basic needs are met. I would like mine to be the bottom of the scale instead of anyone being worse off than I am. I work for that in all the ways I can.
What would I like you to do? I can’t speak for all disabled people. My experience with disability is mine. Other people’s experiences are different. It seems to me, however, that the best thing we can do is to accept people as they are. Try not to be repelled by variations. Embrace them. Celebrate them. Recognize the richness of experience that comes from us all being so different from each other. Don’t ridicule those who aren’t as attractive, or as intelligent, or as athletic, or as quick-witted, or who can’t walk, or see, or hear, or feel the same way you do. Recognize our unique circumstances grant unique perspectives. The more ways we see the world, the more paths open up for us to find meaning and Truth in the world.
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations will create a painting of the world that is more beautiful, more honest, and more complete than anything we can produce while seeing through our single lens. Before you hate someone, ask yourself what it must be like to be them. Try your best to feel for those you normally reject. This is how we will create the world in which everyone is loved, respected, happy, and alive all at the same time. Isn’t that what we all really want?
I’m writing in Real Time today because I can’t take my feelings public yet. There are too many moving parts, and I need things to be within my control to the extent they can be. I normally prefer to wait until I’ve thought everything through, and I have come to some conclusion I think is worth sharing. I have no such conclusion today. I simply have fear. Last week I asked, “Are You Scared?” This week the answer is an unequivocal yes.
I call my Mother every night at 6:05 PM. I have an alarm on my phone for that purpose. I called last night (nearly 17 hours ago), and I asked, as I always do, if my mother was available. The man said she was not. She was in the hospital. I lost control of my bladder.
Mom fell yesterday, and she broke her ankle in three places. She needs to have surgery today. Mom is 91. There is no such thing as minor surgery at 91. I asked the man to which hospital they had taken my mother. He instructed me to call my sister for that information. This is the place where I face a difficult problem.
I never speak negatively in public about anyone who is not a public figure unless I can hide that person’s identity. I suspect anyone who really wants to know can figure out who my sister is, but she’s not on my Facebook page, and I won’t use her real name. In the Horace stories, I call her Jan. I will do that here. I will refer to her husband as Jason, and my brother as Sheldon. I am going to refer to my nephew as Harold, and his mother as Ann. None of these are their real names.
When I called Jan last night, immediately after hanging up with the Group Home, her husband, Jason, answered the phone. He told me what I already knew, but he declined to tell me where my mother was. He said they didn’t want me to call her and disturb her. He said she was supposed to have surgery this morning.
Naturally, I was upset by this. I immediately tried to contact my nephew, Harold, on Facebook Messenger. We haven’t talked in quite a long time, and I didn’t have his number anymore. When I couldn’t connect with him, I tried the same method for contacting his mother, Ann. She didn’t answer, but in a couple of minutes, she sent me a message asking if everything was all right. I told her it wasn’t, and we began discussing the situation. In a couple of minutes, I was talking to my nephew as well, and everyone was trying to find Mom.
Harold called Jason. Jason declined to give Harold any information. Jason told Harold he would tell me the name of the hospital in the morning. Harold told me to call Jason again. I did.
Jason promised to text me the address this morning, so I could sit in the waiting room while Mom was in surgery. It’s 11:00 AM. I texted at 9:15 to ask when the surgery was scheduled. His reply was, “We have not received a call from the hospital yet.”
I need to explain how I’m feeling. That’s the point of writing this.
I’m angry. The source of anger is fear. I’ve covered that in “The Problem of Anger.” (That’s Episode 123, if you want to listen.) I’m afraid of Mom going into surgery without me there. I’m afraid of Mom not coming out of surgery alive. I’m afraid of going to the hospital because I’m afraid of people, in general, and of my sister, in particular. She has Power of Attorney over my Mom. Jan can cut off my access to my Mother any time she chooses. She has already restricted it significantly. I can’t take Mom to lunch. I can visit Mom only if Jan is present.
I’m angry that I don’t have the chance to be where I need to be today. I called more than a dozen area hospitals last night. My nephew, Harold, found the numbers for me, but he made the point that Jan would almost certainly have told the hospital not to give me (or anyone else) the information that Mom was there. I was unsuccessful in locating my Mother.
If I find out where my Mom is, I can go see her, but to do this requires getting a ride there from my best friend’s boyfriend. He’s a good man, but I don’t always think he’s much of a boyfriend. Nevertheless, he has been helpful to me on more than one occasion. He brought in the wood and bricks I needed to construct my bookshelves. He fixed the sliding glass door in the back of my house. I can’t open it, but at least it’s closed. We get along all right, but we see the world very differently. He is not on the ever-shrinking list of people with whom I would willingly choose to spend time. He is, however, my only way of getting there. My best friend has been on another vacation, this time in California. I’m expecting her back tonight.
Assuming I get the information, and assuming I can get the ride, I have to make myself appear to be a member of your species. I never like to do that. It makes me uncomfortable. It means I will almost certainly be found lacking in public.
This is all the more true because my sister has found me lacking all of my life. The only people to compete with my sister in truly hating me are Anthony Tagonist and his family. I’m not sure if I would rather be in the hospital waiting room with my sister or the trailer on Anthony’s property. (Listen to Episode 124, “Unlocking The Gate,” for details.) No matter how this day goes, it won’t be a way I like.
If I can’t get to the hospital, I will feel like dirt.
If I get to the hospital, I will have to face the hatred of my sister and her husband.
I didn’t sleep well last night. That should come as no surprise. You wouldn’t have either. I woke up around 2 AM, and I could feel that my blood sugar was way too low. My brain was, at best, half functioning. I made the trek to the restroom to ensure I didn’t empty my bladder in an unwelcome place again, and then I went to the kitchen to test my blood. My blood sugar was 44. For context, I’m including this information.
What is Low Blood Sugar?
Low blood sugar is called hypoglycemia. A blood sugar level below 70 mg/dL (3.9 mmol/L) is low and can harm you. A blood sugar level below 54 mg/dL (3.0 mmol/L) is a cause for immediate action.
My brain was still working, for reasons passing understanding, well enough that I knew what I needed to do. I have glucose tablets in the bathroom, and I have ice cream in the freezer. I need to consume those things to get my blood sugar to a safe place.
For a moment, I didn’t want to.
I realized I had less than 5 minutes to make a decision. After that, I would no longer be able to do what needed to be done. I would lose consciousness, and I wouldn’t wake up. I took a solid 20% of that time to think things over.
Obviously, Marc Antony is not going to approve of suicide. (If you haven’t heard “Horace’s Final Five” you won’t understand. You need to listen to it. I’m not going to try to explain here. That’s not where my head is today.) The thing is, though, that suicide implies an act. If I intentionally inject myself with too much insulin, that’s suicide. I didn’t do that last night. I was simply unable to eat anything.
All I needed to do was nothing. I could decide I didn’t care, go get back in bed with Speedy Shine, and I wouldn’t be in this position this morning. My best friend, when I talked about it with her this morning, called it Suicide By Apathy. That’s a fair description.
I didn’t bother with the glucose tablets that would help get my blood sugar back up promptly. I went back to bed where Speedy Shine was waiting for me. He saw, for the first time in his life, tears in my eyes. He cocked his head to the left just a little, looking at me as though he was confused. I tried to smile at him, but that part of my soul had been vanquished by the evening. He hopped over to me and started kissing the tears off my face. I gave him some loves, and he started whining in a way I’d never heard before. He gave me another look, and I understood what he was saying.
In the last seconds before losing the ability to control my own actions, I went to the bathroom and took several glucose tablets. I waited until I was steady enough on my feet to walk, and I went to the freezer and got some ice cream. I shared it with Speedy Shine. Today I can write about it.
My other fear is the hatred I’m beginning to feel. I can’t let it infect my soul. It is toxic. It will keep me from doing what I need to do. It will dissipate my ability to love. It will stop my emotional growth. I can’t have that. I have to replace that hatred with love, so I’m listening to helpful music, I’m giving Speedy Shine extra cuddles, and I am talking to people I know love me. I’m pointing the camera of my mind at things that feel better for me.
The hatred comes from my anger and frustration that I have no access to my mother. I feel insulted by the assumption that I represent any type of threat to her. I am frustrated by my own powerlessness. I am afraid that Mom is upset I haven’t talked to her. I’m scared that she will forget who I am. I’m worried that she is feeling alone and abandoned because she didn’t get her simple five-minute phone call. I feel sorry for Mom’s pain. I am worried about her inability to walk, even in her walker.
All of those things are out of my control. I need to focus on what I can control. I can’t do anything about Mom’s pain, but I can reflect on my own feelings. I can’t control those either. They exist. What I do about them, however, is in my control. I’m not responsible for my feelings; I am responsible for my behavior. I’m choosing to write about it, so I can see it in black and white. It allows me to examine my feelings more objectively. It allows me to recognize what they are, and it helps me to find ways of soothing them.
I’ve learned now that they’ve decided surgery is not a good option for Mom. Obviously, no one consulted me. I like the decision, though, I think. I can’t help but be scared of putting a 91-year-old woman under general anesthesia. The possibility of not being able to pull her back is significant.
She will, I’m told, be going to a rehab facility whenever the insurance approves it. I’m not allowed to know where that will be. I’m still not going to be allowed to talk to my Mom. Yes, that causes me more fear and anger. It’s also out of my control. It requires more music, a little weed, and some more time at the keyboard.
There’s a part of me that wants to scream at my sister and call her any number of unflattering names. A case could be made she deserves it. No good, however, will come of it. It won’t help Mom. It won’t help me. It would, in fact, hurt everyone involved. No one will come out in better condition than they were in before I yelled. You might suggest I will feel better for having gotten that out of my soul, but I don’t take pleasure in hurting others. I need to exercise self-control.
How will this all come out? I have no idea. I have no power to control it. What I know is that, in one way or another, I’ll come through the other side. Dying isn’t going to help anyone. There’s a fair chance it would hurt a few people. I’m going to do it anyway, so there’s no reason to rush it. I can contain ugly and painful feelings. I know this because I’ve done it dozens of times before. I’m not 17 anymore. I’ve known pain, suffering, fear, heartbreak, and poverty. I’ve also known love, redemption, hope, success, and pride. I know I will get them back someday. It’s just a matter of surviving until then.
There’s a good chance you’re dealing with your own challenges today. I’m hopeful that you’ll handle them without hurting yourself or anyone else. I hope I managed to distract you from your pain and fear for just a little while. Perhaps the distraction was helpful.
If nothing else, please know that regardless of what else is happening, I still love you.
UPDATE: Jason finally gave me the address of the Rehab Facility. I still can’t call Mom, but my best friend drove me out to visit her. This is a photograph from that visit.
There is an innumerable quantity of reasons to be upset about the world. Freedom is under attack. Democracy nearly ended a year and a half ago. Rents are spiraling out of control. The world is perilously close to nuclear war. If you’re upset, I promise I understand.
Each of us has our own set of problems about which to be upset. I walk the diabetes tightrope every single day. My depression is a threat to my very existence. I will never be loved romantically again. My dog still tries to eat my furniture. You surely have your own, some of which are probably worse than mine.
I won’t pretend there are no reasons to be sad.
On the other hand…
“It’s very important to remember that there are good people in the world who are doing good, in lots of ways. Goodness exists, even when it can’t be seen. So do beauty, and love, and the light of faraway stars. The good will show itself in time.”
— Nanea Hoffman
Somewhere on this little planet in one of the billions, or perhaps, trillions of galaxies that make up our universe, at this very moment… right… now… a baby is being born. It’s taking its first breath. All of the world, in all of its beauty and wonder, is beginning in front of this new life.
A few minutes ago, a child heard Mozart for the very first time, and she experienced a joy that will make her into an Artist. She’s learning about the miracles human beings can create simply with our minds and our hands. Some time in the not-too-distant future she will create something of lasting beauty that will change someone else’s life.
“No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.”
— George Chakiris
An hour ago, a boy just got his first real kiss, and he’s reeling in ecstasy, wondering if his lips will always feel so oddly chapped as they do right now, and whether she will text him today. He’s excited to be alive.
Yesterday, an old man like me just got a dog that will love him unconditionally for the rest of his life. He’s cuddling with him right now. The dog feels a contentment it never experienced before. It’s warm, safe, dry, and loved.
“I still believe
In the Goodness
Even when it’s hard to find”
— Sara Niemietz and WG Snuffy Walden
Last week a painter sold her first canvas, and she feels like a real Artist for the first time in her life. Her dreams seem real, and the flame of her creativity has been ignited. In less than a year, she’ll be having her first show at The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. A hundred years from now people will continue to gaze in awe at her painting.
In August, a new teacher will step in front of his class for the first time. His career will span more than 25 years, and children still unborn will remember him for the rest of their lives. One of his students will grow up and make a difference in ways the teacher never imagined, and it will be because of what the child learned in his class.
“I see your head Is hanging low low low Doing all you can To keep the spark inside your soul Wish you could see You like I do You’re original You’re powerful You’re something new Can’t wait to see Just where you go I do believe You’re gonna let them know”
–Niemietz – Taylor
A couple of weeks ago, humanity gazed deeper into the universe than we ever have before. We’re learning more about the beginnings of life as we know it than we ever could have known before. We’re gaining a deeper understanding of our origins. By gazing into the past, we are creating a better future. Thirty years ago Voyager 1 showed us our place in the universe from 4 billion miles away. Carl Sagan helped us to understand.
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Sometimes, for the preservation of our own mental health, we need to think about the possibilities that life still holds. Love still exists, even when it’s hard to find.
I believe in The Power of Love. Love is the only reason I’m still alive.
It is the love of people who know me that has saved my life from the best efforts of my diabetes to kill me on nearly two dozen occasions.
It is Speedy Shine’s love that gives me that gives me the strength to fight the depression that threatens my existence more often than I like to admit.
It is the love of my best friend and her ex-boyfriend that allow me to have a home. I would survive as a homeless person for less than 48 hours.
It is the love of a friend from so many years ago that allows me to eat well enough to survive.
It is the love of The People on The Porch that gives my life purpose so I can feel that I can make a difference even while I’m not capable of doing anything to earn a living. Their financial assistance keeps me from complete poverty, and their attention to my work makes me feel that I’m living instead of merely surviving.
It is the love of my Facebook friends that keeps me from feeling entirely alone, even while I do all I can to avoid leaving the house. They allow me to feel some connection to the rest of the world. They help me to control my fear of other people.
I believe it is love that will finally save us from losing our freedom. I believe love is stronger than hate. I could be wrong. I remind myself of that several times a day. But I will hold on to my belief in the power of love until the stars grow cold.
Love is my religion.
My true religion, my simple faith is in love and compassion. There is no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine, or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple. The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are – these are ultimately all we need.
— The Dalai Lama
Of course, I’m an atheist, so how can I have a religion?
A great Rabbi was once asked, “Why did God create atheists?”
The Rabbi said, “Atheists are the most important example for all who believe in God. When an atheist is moral, and good, and kind, and compassionate, it’s not because he believes God commanded him to be so, nor because he fears any kind of punishment for being bad. An atheist performs acts of righteousness because he knows it is right to do. And where is God in this? If He is in the atheist’s heart, or guiding him, it doesn’t matter. The atheist helps regardless. He helps because he believes there is nobody else, no power that can or will act without his own deeds. So when someone is in need, in our times of crisis, you shouldn’t say, ‘I’ll pray for you, ‘ or, ‘May God help you.’ Rather, in this moment, you should be as an atheist. Believe there is no God who can help, and say, ‘I will help you.’ In this way the atheist is closest to God, and so must we be as well.”
Captain Kirk taught me, in April 1967, when I was not yet five years old, that the three most important words are not, “I love you.” The three most important words are, “Let me help.”
Where is the love in your life? I promise there is some, even if you can’t find it at the moment. I know mine isn’t what you probably want, but you have it anyway, even though we’ve probably never met and almost certainly never will. If you’re a human being, I want you to find happiness, meaning, and love in your life. I want you to have enough to eat, a warm bed in which to sleep, and somewhere to handle your bodily functions in a sanitary way.
I’m willing to bet you feel the same way about nearly everyone. On the other hand, I just turned a straight, and the player to my left rivered a full house, so I should probably not be gambling so much right now. Perhaps you are battling the Hatred that is poisoning your soul, and if that’s the case, I hope you win the fight. It’s not helping you to feel any better, I promise you. It’s hurting you. It’s hurting the object of your Hatred. No matter how well deserved that hatred is, take a break from it for just a little while. It will still be there when you’re ready to come back.
Sometimes we need to lose things in order to learn not only their value, but also their weight. Loss is a brilliant teacher that way; it can show us what’s important simply by creating space where it once was.”
— Mark Groves
It was 111 degrees here today. My best friend loaned me the courage to leave the house, and she took me out to lunch. I put my dog, Speedy Shine in the backyard with two trays full of ice cubes, and lots of water, and I filled all his toys with that cheese spread you get from PetSmart. I told him I loved him, and I would be back soon. I was gone for just over two hours, and when I returned, he jumped on me for nearly 5 uninterrupted minutes. It was as though I had been gone for a year. And there was an extra jolt of love from both of us.
And even in the middle of the summer, I couldn’t help but remember this Christmas story from what is, in my view, the greatest series ever to appear on television.
“Every year, when I was little, Daddy told me a story about The Great War. How on Christmas Eve an English soldier started singing “Silent Night,” and from the other side of the trenches, the German soldiers joined in, and then they crossed the enemy lines and vowed not to fight each other the next day. But the sun rose, and their commanders told them to charge, and they did. I don’t know why that story makes me feel hopeful. Maybe it’s that Good Will exists. Even if it’s small and weak, there’s a chance it may grow up one day.”
— Barbara Hall in “I’ll Fly Away” Season 2, Episode 11, “Comfort and Joy.” 12/11/1992
That’s been with me for just shy of 30 years. It will be with me until I am no more. And now it is with you.
Search for the Goodness. Seek the Kindness. I promise you, no matter how dark the skies, there are little lights of love still to be found.
Carl Sagan warned us about Mutually Assured Destruction 40 years ago. If we do survive a nuclear war, the condition of our planet will be such that any life afterward will be miserable. We humans have spent trillions of dollars in an effort to learn to kill each other more effectively, quickly, efficiently, cheaply, and remotely. We have a massive war industry. And War is the polite term for mass murder.
Already in Ukraine, as of March 17, 2022, more than 100 children have been killed as a result of Putin’s attacks. Children. They have done nothing to deserve death. They are children. This is sickening. This is immoral. This is wrong in every possible way. It is unforgivable. There is no defense for this state of affairs.
Yes, there is! They are the enemy. The enemy needs to be killed. That’s the way the world works.
Perhaps it is. But it shouldn’t be.
There are certain undeniable truths that we need to understand. One is that there is no Them; we are all Us. Everyone who dies in a war is someone’s son or daughter. They are people just like you and me. They may have different ideas. They may have different beliefs. They may have very different lives. But they are human beings who are here for an incredibly brief time, and we have shortened it by killing them. We can make up reasons to decide it doesn’t matter when someone dies, but it still does. We don’t feel the deaths of strangers as deeply as those close to us. We shouldn’t. If I felt every death as deeply as I did the demise of my Dad or my Dog, I would spend all my time curled up crying in a fetal position. That doesn’t mean the deaths don’t matter. Of course they do. And nearly everyone who dies has someone who feels the death as painfully as I felt the loss of Melanie.
The second fact about which there can be no debate, is that we are all living on the same planet at the same time.
More than 40 years ago, when I was an adolescent running around in as much of a hormone haze as I now am surrounded by the Fog of Idealism, I was as madly in love as a boy could be with a girl whose intellect and compassion I admired nearly as much as her physical form. When you’re 16, it’s difficult to see much beyond appearance. Or, at least it was for me. Perhaps today’s adolescents are more enlightened than I was.
Among the reasons I fell in love with her was her Idealism was seductively attractive to me. She was a member of a religion of which I had never heard, called Baha’i. I had, even then, no supernatural beliefs, but I loved the idea of unity that was at the core of her religious beliefs. She had on her car a bumper sticker that has the unique status of actually affecting me. It said, “One Planet, One People… Please?” I have never forgotten the words. Now, I believe, she’s off living with her husband on a farm somewhere, and we say hello to each other occasionally on Facebook, but we don’t really have a serious friendship anymore. Her influence over my thinking, however, has only grown in the intervening decades.
She was the water and sunlight that made the seed planted a decade earlier grow and flourish. What planted the seed? It was Star Trek, of course. In Star Trek, we are all one people sharing one planet, and we’re not only working together as humans, but we are also working with species from other worlds. We spend our time trying to better ourselves and the rest of humanity. It is cooperation and exploration at its best.
I believe if we could all embrace the idea that we are all deserving of life, that all of us matter, that there is more we share than there is that separates us, we might find wars would stop.
There is much debate right now about what the United States, and/or NATO should do about the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. I wish that I were wise enough to tell them what to do, but I honestly don’t know. I have no knowledge of military tactics. I have no expertise in winning a war. Should we use our military to stop Russia? I don’t know. If we do, will this lead us to World War III? Will it lead to a nuclear holocaust that could destroy most of the species, and leave behind a cold and barren horror story in which to live? I have no idea.
What I do know is that people are being murdered on a massive scale. I know that to be true of every war ever fought by anyone on this planet at any time in history. I know that it will be true of every war we fight in the future. We count the value of war by determining the number of lives saved against the number of lives extinguished. If the United States hadn’t bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how many lives would have been lost in the continuation of the war? Had Japan or Germany won the war, how much more horrible would the world be than it is now? I don’t know. I can’t know. I’m not Q. I have no power to view alternative time lines. I can guess. I can speculate. So can you. So can people much smarter than we are. No one, however, can know.
What can we know? We can verify that nearly 200,000 people were killed by the atomic bomb. How many people is that? To put it in a personal perspective, I have nearly 2,000 friends on Facebook. There may be 20 or 30 I’ve actually met. So… everyone I know would be 1% of the loss caused by the atomic bomb. Assume I’ve met at least 2,000 people in person over my 59 years in wandering this planet. That brings me to 4,000 people. Fifty times that many died because we used atomic bombs. That’s more than enough to leave me utterly alone in my life, fifty times over. That would knock me out of human contact for this and, if we get reincarnated, the next 49 lives. I’m guessing your numbers are different from mine, but not substantially so. Everyone you have ever known, and everyone you ever will know is almost certainly dwarfed by 200,000 people. And today’s weapons are infinitely more powerful. The damage we can do to each other is unimaginable.
Why, God, why do we insist on mass murder? Why must we be consumed by homicidal hatred instead of united by love?
Arizona’s Governor, Doug Ducey, had this on his Facebook page:
In Arizona, we will secure our border. With advanced equipment & drone technology, we can bolster surveillance and stop the criminals in their tracks. Discussed some of these tactics with Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR and defense-tech company Anduril Industries.
I posted a comment that I thought was fairly obvious:
When someone commits a crime that hurts someone, by all means, arrest them. No one is hurt by someone crossing the border. They are human beings. They deserve the best life they can have. If they come here, they can, and often do, help us to build a better world.
Don’t waste resources, please, on keeping decent people out of our country.
This set off a firestorm of hatred directed toward me. I suppose I ought not to have been surprised. They dragged out the same old arguments: They have, they told me, nothing against immigrants, but they should come in legally. That’s a legal argument, not a moral one. If I were living 200 years ago, I could have owned another human being. It was legal, but, guess what? It was immoral. I don’t think any rational person would argue to the contrary in the 21st Century. The Law has little to do with Morality. The process of becoming a citizen takes years, it’s expensive, and, like anything else that involves our government, can be delayed or even shut down due to nothing more than paperwork errors that are no fault of the person applying for citizenship. All the while, they are trying to pay rent and put food on the table, just like the rest of us are. And they live under the constant threat that they will be removed from their homes and shipped like so much cargo to another country as though we were returning a defective DVD to Amazon. Legalism is an excuse for doing what we know to be wrong. Laws can be changed; this one ought to be.
I heard about drug cartels and human trafficking. Yes, those are conditions that exist. They are evil. And they have nothing to do with the vast majority of people coming to America in search of a better life. Statistically, immigrants are less likely to be criminals than those of us who were To The Manor, Born. If they engage in human trafficking or commit other crimes, we arrest them for those crimes, not for stepping over a line. There is a Tom Cruise movie in which people are arrested for crimes they’re likely to commit in the future. It’s an obscene idea. It suggests that we can’t change our minds. It’s Orwell’s Thought Police on Steroids. Could we please wait until someone does something to hurt us before we deny them the liberty about which my students chanted, hands over their hearts, every morning for 29 years? Is that really an unreasonable request?
Immigrants are fleeing Ukraine as I write this. Fortunately, there are other countries that will let them in, just as we used to do at Ellis Island. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries all that was required was a health check. If you were unable to pass it, you were held in isolation until you were no longer a health risk to the rest of society. You weren’t constantly living with the threat of deportation. You could join the Pursuit of Happiness, at least to some small degree.
There were the arguments concerning the use of our resources by people who were not Us. More than one terribly clever person suggested I take them in and support them, somehow equating the roughly 1,000 square feet of my condo with the 105.8 trillion square feet that make up the United States. That argument is too absurd to engage. In case you haven’t heard me say it 105.8 trillion times yet, there is no Them; we are all Us.
This is what we need to understand more than anything else. If we can feel for each other just the slightest bit of empathy, if we can learn to lead with love, we can change the world.
I’m going to end this episode with the piece that made a friend suggest I start a blog (I didn’t even know what a blog was at the time. I was just posting my writing on Facebook hoping someone would respond. It was the fact that my Rhiannon (see The Haunting of Horace for details) reacted that prompted me to keep writing.) that led to this show. I think it’s relevant now.
Empathy and Art
My earliest memory of feeling empathy is Christmas 1969. I was 7 years old, sitting under a tree with an obscene number of gifts I had just opened, and feeling truly ecstatic, when I noticed my Mother had no Christmas presents. Not one. I burst into tears of guilt. My father took me to a drug store, and we found Mom a candle, and it was my first present to her. Neither Dad nor I had any ability to wrap a candle, so we gave it to Mom to wrap. And when she opened it an hour or so later, she loved that candle as she loved her children. She got candles from me for decades after that, and for nearly every occasion. It took several additional hours for me to recognize that Dad hadn’t gotten any presents, either, and Mom took me to the drug store to buy Dad a pipe. I gave him most of the pipes he used to smoke. These Traditions were the product of Empathy.
I have, and I would guess most of you have, wept for Tom Robinson. I have cheered for Sherlock Holmes. I have spoken with Hamlet repeatedly about the value and meaning (or lack thereof) of life. I have felt joy for Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars. I learned Friendship from Sam and Frodo, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I learned courage from Santiago and his marlin, and morality from Atticus Finch. I have faced George’s agonizing moral dilemma concerning his best friend, Lenny, when George tells him to think about the rabbits. These are all other examples of Empathy.
I believe Empathy is essential to being Human. Too much Empathy is dangerous, of course. You can’t possibly grieve for every tragedy in the world. No one has that vast an emotional landscape. But, the inability to feel for others is, in my mind, the root of evil. You don’t kill people not because it’s against the law, but because you can feel for someone besides yourself. You won’t commit most acts of violence or cruelty for the same reasons. You can imagine how you would feel if it happened to you. You can’t do something you believe to be evil because you can experience the emotions of Others.
I believe an exposure to The Arts is essential for increasing a person’s Empathy. It’s in books, movies, music, paintings, poetry, dance, and other forms of Art that we find our own feelings. And it’s where we learn to feel the joys and pains that our fellow travelers on this little ball in space are likely to feel, themselves. It’s in catharsis that we learn the most about ourselves and each other.
When we can understand each other, we can dispense with the idea of Us vs. Them. We can move forward together, as a species, and this is a product of Empathy. I care about you because I recognize some of myself in you. I hope you can see some of yourself in me, too.
You can’t change the world; only your corner of it.” — My father, Alan Eder, quoting my grandpa, Enno Schuelke, September 12, 2001
“We’re on track for a million illegal aliens to rush our borders. People hate the word ‘invasion’ but that’s what it is. It’s an invasion of drugs and criminals and people. You have no idea who they are.”
Donald Trump
Invaders,
by definition, need to be stopped. They are almost invariably met
with violence.
Look
at the examples of the usage of the word.
“To enter forcefully as an enemy; go into with hostile intent: Germany invaded Poland in 1939.” – Dictionary.com
If
we believe the mythical “Others” are invaders, the logical
response is to kill them, isn’t it?
This
is the leadership we have. We are told we are being invaded. How
can an American who believes this President be expected to act
differently?
We
can argue about gun control, but it’s a blind alley. We’re never
going to make meaningful changes in those laws. If we didn’t do it
after children… CHILDREN!…
died at Sandy Hook, we certainly won’t because of a few “others.”
But,
why do we have to accept the idea that those whose skin is darker,
whose national origins are different, or whose sexuality, or gender
identification, or religious beliefs are other than the majority are
somehow bad? I’m sick to death of the argument that Mexicans are
welcome if they come in legally. That’s bullshit, and the person
making the argument knows it. It takes years to become a citizen, if
you can do it at all. The first step is to determine eligibility for
naturalization. That step alone can take 3 to 5 years. There are 9
additional steps.
What
they really have in mind is keeping America filled with people who
are like them. We want only white people. If that’s not true, why
are we building a wall at the Southern border, but not the Northern?
We don’t seem to mind Canadians coming in.
My
plea is really to give up our hatred. The most important question is
who is better off for this?
I
am better than some people. I am not as good as others. This is
determined by my abilities and my behaviors. It has nothing to do
with my race, gender, sexuality, religious or political views. The
same is true for everyone else.
If
you want to hate me, and there are many who do, then hate me for what
I do. Hate my liberal opinions, but not the fact that I’m straight.
Hate my Idealism, but not my religious views. Hate my speaking out
against Hate. Hate my writing. Hate my reaching out for help.
Those are all choices I have made. They are open to scrutiny. I was
born male. I had nothing whatever to do with that. I was born in
America. I deserve no credit for that.
Why
should I hate someone because she’s female, or because he is
homosexual, or because her children were born in Guatemala? Who is
better off for that? How is my life better because the lives of
others are worse? I don’t become taller by pushing someone else down.
I don’t become richer by denying wealth to someone else.
We
don’t need to be told to hate.
Hate
leads to fear.
Someone
else is going to get something that should have been mine. I know
that these people are bad because they weren’t born in America. It’s
because of them that my life is no good. I am afraid of them
invading and taking what is supposed to be mine.
Fear
leads to violence.
I
can’t let them invade. I have to protect what’s mine, and what
belongs to the rest of my tribe. They don’t belong in my country any
more than a cockroach belongs in my house. The only thing to do when
you’re invaded, is kill the invaders.
Violence
leads to suffering. My
mother, my son, my wife, my best friend… someone… is dead. I
won’t see them again. No more laughing together at jokes that aren’t
really funny. No more hugs and love. No more of the joy of seeing
their eyes light up when I walk into a room. No more breathing for
this person I love. And this hurts like a bitch.
Haven’t
we had enough suffering yet?
What if we realized that a person had no choice about being born? No one chooses where or when to enter the planet. No one chooses the color of his skin (beyond tanning, I suppose). No one chooses her sexual orientation. No one chooses his gender. Is it reasonable to hate someone for things over which he had no control?
Hatred
can be useful. I hated Osama bin Laden, not because he was from
another country, not because his religious views differed from mine,
and not even because of his sexual identity. I hated him for
stealing my sense of security by slamming planes into buildings and
killing thousands of human beings who were every bit as deserving of
their next breath as I am of mine.
But
I didn’t generalize that hatred to include all people who shared his
religion. As it turns out, there are millions and millions of
perfectly nice Muslims in the world. I have no cause to hate them.
And it doesn’t do much to make me feel better to hate anyone. Do you
enjoy hating others? I find it’s kind of a burning sensation in my
chest that I would rather not have.
Again,
it’s worth asking, before you do anything, “Who is better off for
me doing this?” Sometimes, it’s something small. If I make a
burrito, I’m better off for doing it because my blood sugar won’t
drop, and I won’t be so hungry. But when it’s something that has the
potential to hurt someone, it becomes a more serious question.
I
understand, to some extent, the need to blame someone else for the
conditions of our lives. I certainly don’t like mine. There’s at
least a 70% chance I’ll be homeless on September 1. That makes me
afraid. I would love to blame someone. But… who will it help? I
still have the same problem to handle whether it’s the fault of
President Trump, “The Others” (whomever you may choose), myself,
my roommates, or the landlord who is selling the house in which we
live. Blaming someone won’t get me a new habitation. Since I don’t
like being angry, I don’t see any point in wasting emotional energy
on hating someone else. I’m no better off for it. Neither is the
subject of my blame.
If
we can stop looking for scapegoats and start looking for solutions to
our problems, we are more likely to be happier. It is intellectual
cowardice to decide that someone else is responsible for our lot in
life.
I’m
told that there are websites called 4chan and 8chan that are
dedicated to promoting Hate Speech. They have the absolute right to
do this. I would never want to take away Freedom of Speech from
anyone. Since I can’t stop them from spreading their message of
hate, what can I do? I can fight their words with mine. I do what I
can to spread a message of Love and Acceptance. Just as those sites
incite violence, so I hope to incite peace.
We
can legislate all day and into the night, and we won’t end the
problem of gun violence because its root – Hatred – can’t be
killed by laws. If we want to end this we have to stop the hatred.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said it better than I can, so I will leave
you to ponder his words in the context of mine.
The
ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending
spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy Instead of
diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may
murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the
truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do
not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it
goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding
deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness
cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot
drive out hate: only love can do that.
Will
you join me, please, in advocating Love over Hate?
U.S. Border Patrol agents conduct intake of illegal border crossers at the Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, Sunday, June 17, 2018.
“The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are – they are concentration camps – and if that doesn’t bother you…”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Right
off the top, people are disagreeing. Concentration camps are where
the Jews were held by the Nazis during World War II. What we’re
doing at the Southern Border doesn’t involve gas chambers pretending
to be showers. We’re not murdering six million people. The language
is inflammatory. It’s divisive. It’s offensive to Jewish people the
world over.
Right…
why, exactly, is that?
Frankly,
I don’t care if you want to call them Concentration Camps, Detention
Centers, Holding Facilities, or Holiday Fucking Inns. The fact is
that they exist in The United States. Today. Right now. These
aren’t the Japanese Internment Facilities of the past, before most of
us were alive. These exist in America today. They are morally
wrong.
“Well, you liberals want to blame Trump for everything. These were started under Obama, and where was your outrage then? You’re just a Trump Hater.”
Okay.
Fair enough. We won’t blame President Trump. You may blame
President Obama if you would like. You may blame Hillary Clinton.
You may blame Nancy Pelosi. You may blame AOC, Santa Claus, The
Tooth Fairy, or me personally. Whose fault it is doesn’t matter in
the least. What matters is that it’s happening.
Let’s
look at some facts. The following is from the Inspector General’s
Report on one of the better facilities located in Newark, New Jersey.
These are their recommendations from February, 2019.
Recommendation: We recommend ICE conduct an immediate, full review of the Essex County Correctional Facility and the Essex County Department of Corrections’ management of the facility to ensure compliance with ICE’s 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards. As part of this assessment, ICE must review and ensure compliance with those standards addressing: 1. Unreported security incidents; 2. Food safety; and 3. Facility conditions that include ceiling leaks, unsanitary shower stalls, bedding, and outdoor recreation areas.
Those
are the conclusions of the Department of Homeland Security, not the
conclusions of liberals, democrats, or socialists.
Facilities in Texas are worse. “Many of them are sleeping on concrete floors, including infants, toddlers, preschoolers. They are being given nothing but instant meals, Kool-Aid and cookies — many of them are sick. We are hearing that many of them are not sleeping. Almost all of them are incredibly sad and being traumatized. Many of them have not been given a shower for weeks. Many of them are not being allowed to brush their teeth except for maybe once every 10 days. They have no access to soap. It’s incredibly unsanitary conditions, and we’re very worried about the children’s health.” –
A law professor who recently visited the facility, Warren Binford of Willamette University
These are children. They are no different from your son or
daughter, or your niece or nephew, or you and your siblings. They
cannot possibly be guilty of any crime.
If their parents didn’t want them in this situation, they should have stayed in their own countries. It’s the parents’ fault, not ours!
Again,
I couldn’t care less about whose fault it is. It does nothing to
excuse the atrocities of the way we are treating human beings. We’re
kidnapping children from their parents’ arms. They can’t be traced
later, so reunification is exceptionally difficult. The children are
housed in areas intended for adults, and the overcrowding is such
that children are sleeping on top of one another on cold cement
floors.
“Gialluca and a slew of other lawyers have been meeting with children and young mothers at facilities across the state this month as pro bono attorneys. At the McAllen center, Gialluca said, everyone she spoke with said they sought out Border Patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande so they could request asylum. Gialluca said the migrants, all from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, told her they aren’t receiving proper medical care and children don’t have enough clean clothes. Unable to clean themselves, young mothers reported wiping their children’s runny noses or vomit with their own clothing, Gialluca said. There aren’t sufficient cups or baby bottles, so many are reused or shared.”
These are not
conditions under which any human being ought to be living. We are
experiencing this crisis in this country at this moment. It needs to
end. It needs to end now.
Okay, Mr. Bleeding Heart Liberal, how would YOU end it? We have borders for a reason, or do you think we should throw open the door and let everyone in? Is that what you do at your house, or do you lock the door every night?
First,
in my Ideal World, we would be done with Us and Them. We would
recognize that every single one of us is a human being. We would
recognize that all human beings should be allowed to live some form
of decent life, and that one’s country of origin does nothing to tell
me if one is a good person or a bad person. Neither does one’s race,
gender, religion, appearance, economic security, or political ideas.
To determine if one is a good person, I need to observe that
person’s behavior.
Well, their behavior was to break the laws of the United States. That makes them criminals, and they deserve NOTHING from us!
I’m
afraid adherence to laws does nothing to tell me about a person’s
value. Harriet Tubman, for more than a decade, was breaking the law
by guiding people along the Underground Railroad. She was breaking
the law. She was also doing the right thing.
If
an immigrant does something to hurt someone – if an immigrant
assaults someone, kills or rapes someone, or steals from someone –
that’s a reason to remove him or her. But stepping across a line
does nothing to hurt me. It does nothing to hurt you, either.
The
arguments against immigrants are generally an effort to dehumanize
them. How could you do this to a child? Well… if they’re not
really children… if
they’re not my
children… then it’s okay to treat them badly because they, you
know, deserve it somehow.
But I think,
deep down, we all know that’s not true. We have to find a way to
make this normal so we don’t have to feel appalled. And when this
becomes normal, Death Camps aren’t far behind. And, it won’t be just
immigrants. They’re first, but others will join them in coming days.
We’ve been
doing this for centuries. We did it with black people. They were
obviously different. Their skin was a darker color. They were Them.
Good people, white people, were Us. We have to subjugate those who
are not Us.
We did it with
women. We did it with those whose sexual orientations were different
from the majority. We did it with those whose religious beliefs were
different from the majority.
Why?
Who is better
off for deciding that one group of people needs to be treated better
or worse based on their membership in that group?
I’m a straight,
white male. That makes me better than absolutely no one. Your
membership in whatever groups have been assigned to you makes you no
better than anyone else, either.
You’re better
or worse than other people based upon your behaviors.
The behaviors
of these immigrant children don’t earn them the hell we are giving
them.
I’m not a
politician. There are many very good reasons for that. I don’t have
solutions to America’s problems. But I can certainly recognize a
problem when it’s staring me in the face. We are moving down a road
we should all be able to recognize by now. Let’s stop where we are
and turn around and go back.
Can we afford
to give these people the help they need? I submit, if we want to
call ourselves human, we can’t afford not to.
In my Ideal World, there are no
borders. No, we don’t let strangers in our houses, but my house is
not the same as my country. My home contains my private property,
and a stranger inside it may represent a danger to me.
The country, however, is made up
of nothing but strangers and immigrants. I’m perfectly content for
them to find the best life they can here. In my world, everyone has
shelter, food, medicine, and sanitary conditions in which to live.
We all have a fair chance to make our lives better. We’re all
willing to give each other a helping hand. We all get a good
education, and we find joy in our lives.
Why is that world impossible?
Because you’ve been taught it is.
Let’s learn something new. Let’s
learn Love for All Humans. Let’s learn what a friend taught me when
I was 16 years old: “One planet, one people… please?”
Shall I play for you? Pa-rum pum pum pum Pa-rum pum pum pum Mary nodded Pa-rum pum pum pum The ox and lamb kept time Pa-rum pum pum pum I played my drum for Him Pa-rum pum pum pum I played my best for Him Pa-rum pum pum pum Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum Then He smiled at me Pa-rum pum pum pum Me and my drum”
There
are those who have extra. They have all of their needs met, and they
still have some left over. They never worry about paying rent this
month, or whether the electricity is going to be shut off, or the car
repossessed. They have plenty of food, and they can always get
another pack of cigarettes. I have never, in my life, been among
them, with the exception of almost a year after I retired, and I
pulled the little money I had. I lived on it, and I had more than I
needed, for a little while. And it was glorious.
It
has been suggested that my choice was irresponsible. That may well
be true, but I would never make a different one. The money I had
would never have been enough to sustain me throughout the rest of my
life. And, if I hadn’t done what I did, I would never have had the
experience of living the life I wanted. I will never have it again,
and I know that, but I’m grateful that I got to have it once. No
matter what happens for the rest of my life, I lived a life I wanted
for a little while. I saw people and places I couldn’t have seen
otherwise. I wrote a damn good screenplay that still needs work. I
made some fantastic videos. I slept until I wanted to get up. I
worked until all hours of the night when I wanted to. I was never
out of cigarettes or soda, and I ate properly. It was a Wonderful
Life. George Bailey would have approved.
I
have no money to offer anyone, anymore. I did for a little while,
and I helped out anyone who needed it. I allowed a couple of
convicted felons to live with me rent free for several months until I
couldn’t afford it anymore, and we were close to eviction. They
needed help, and I could offer it. I regret that, I suppose, in some
ways, but, for the most part, I’m glad I did what I did. It was the
right thing to do. And, for a little while, I had their Gratitude.
And, that is what made the difference.
When
I felt that I was making a difference in the lives of people who
needed my help, I got something from it. I got to feel that I
mattered. I got to believe that someone was better off because of
me. Is that arrogant? Perhaps. I still enjoyed the feeling. It’s
the feeling I sought when I became a teacher. It’s the feeling I
have always most enjoyed. When they began to take it for granted,
and they refused even to try to find work, I admit I grew resentful.
I
like to recommend focusing on one’s reasons for Gratitude as often as
possible. Not only do other people get something from it, but more
importantly, you can keep yourself from feeling entirely defeated.
You must be of some value to someone, or they would never do all the
things they have done for you. That’s worth remembering when
fighting off your Depression.
I’m
at a place in life where there is little I can give to anyone,
anymore. I’m too old to teach Elementary School, and my diabetes has
made those kinds of days impossible for me. As I loathe what has
happened to public education, I don’t think I would want to do it
anyway, but I have noting but respect for those who carry on the
profession. The world needs you. And, I’m grateful to you.
I
think Gratitude may be the last, best thing I have to offer. And, of
course, I recognize (daily) that I have much more for which to be
grateful than many people. I have a home. I have enough to eat. I
have a car. I have a cell phone. I have this computer. More than
those things, though, I have people who I love and who love me. And,
of all the things I value in my life, it is the people I value most.
There
have been several occasions in the past several years when I should
have been without a home. My nephew was the first to save me from it
by getting me an extended stay hotel room until I could get the money
together to rent the tiny studio apartment I was trying to get.
Without him, I would undoubtedly have been living in my car.
Before
I could get out of the 2 week rental of the hotel room, I wound up in
the hospital with Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I should have been not
simply homeless, on that day; I should have been dead. But, a friend
called to check on me, couldn’t get me to answer, and became
concerned. She communicated with my nephew, and somehow the decision
was reached to have the Mesa Police break into my room if necessary
to do a Welfare Check. When they arrived, I was mostly dead. They
took me to the hospital, and I woke up a couple of days later.
By
the time I got out of the hospital, the room rental had run out, and
again, it was people who saved me. One of my colleagues at Alorica,
who had called me every day of my hospitalization, offered to let my
dog and me live with her and her wife until I could work out my new
place. And, it wasn’t long before the three of us, plus their three
cats and my dog, were all sharing their place. I wasn’t going to be
homeless.
I
managed to contribute enough to the household that we managed to
avoid homelessness for the last couple of years, although, again,
only because people stepped in to save us. My friends and relatives
have saved my car, kept me from eviction, saved my life, and made
sure I knew I still matter. So have the friends and relatives of my
roommates.
I
feel now like The Little Drummer Boy. (Although, I have to swap my
Writing for my Drumming. I’m not even good enough to be considered a
mediocre drummer anymore.) He went to see the newborn king, but he
had nothing to bring. Everyone else was bringing cool stuff: Gold,
Frankincense, and Myrrh. He was, like Jesus, a poor boy. All he had
was his ability. He couldn’t feed the baby. He couldn’t offer him a
place to sleep. He had none of those things, himself. But, what he
had to give was his talent. And, when the kid played his drum, the
baby Jesus smiled at him. I like to believe that when you read my
words, you smile.
I
think, if I were The Little Drummer Boy, that smile would have been
more than enough to repay me for my performance. Why? The kid knew
he made a difference. He made a child smile. He felt Gratitude
from the baby.
I
can never pay back the people who have helped me, unless, of course,
Steven Spielberg decides he can’t wait to get his hands on my
screenplay, or I win the lottery, which I can’t afford to play,
thereby reducing the already incredibly small odds greatly.
What
I can hope to give to others, though, is the feeling I have most
valued in my life. I do my best to give my friends and family, and
all the people who have helped me, the feeling that they made a
significant difference. And, for many people, this seems as valuable
as the smile was to The Little Drummer Boy. I do this by explaining
precisely how they helped me. I want them never to doubt my Genuine
Gratitude. I hope to return the Glowing Feeling they have given me.
Sometimes it comes from someone sending me something, and sometimes
it comes from something as small as Clicking Like on a post or a blog
entry. I glow with Joy. I hope you do, too, when I express my
thanks.
They
continue to help me all the time. Last week my bed was destroyed by
the incontinence brought on by my blood sugar dropping below
detectable levels. I mentioned the incident on Facebook, and by the
end of the week, people were sweeping in to change my life. I didn’t
wind up only with a new mattress that I couldn’t have gotten for a
couple more weeks, and then, only at a Thrift Store. I wound up with
the most beautiful bedroom set I’ve ever owned. There are new sheets
and comforters coming from someone else. There are pillows on the
way. People have thrown in some cash to help me. And I asked for
precisely NONE of those things. (Well, I did send a close friend a
message asking if she could help me out to get the bed… and she
came through in an over the top way. And she and her husband kept me
afloat just a little while longer. It meant Everything to me. I
hope I made her feel that.)
I
did my very best to let all of these people know that what they did
changed and improved my life significantly. When I got out of the
hospital a couple of years ago, all I had was an air mattress on
which to sleep. And I was grateful for that. It was all my Little
Drummer Boys had to offer, and it kept me alive and going. Today, I
have a king bed, a massive mirror, special lights above the bed, and
matching bedside tables and a dresser. This was completely out of my
ability to obtain, ever again. I feel as though I’m living in The
Lap of Luxury.
I
know I will never be able to return to people the money they’ve given
me from time to time. In the past 3 years, my record for earning in
a single month has been $1600, and by the end of that month I was in
the hospital with DKA. I usually make just shy of $1000, though I’m
hoping for more from the raise I recently got. It won’t be much, but
it will make a difference. I’m hoping to train for a new job that
would pay me even more, but that’s up to my employer. I’ll do my
best.
But,
if I can give them the feeling that they made my life better, and let
them feel that in a way that is completely free of ulterior motives,
so that they can see and experience the difference for themselves, I
think I will have given them some little bit of Joy. I know how good
I feel when I know that I made someone’s life better. My favorite
part of my Facebook page is when a former student pops up to tell me
about the way I inspired, excited, influenced, or helped them in some
way. Their Gratitude is worth more to me than my paychecks were. I
get to feel like I matter. I love that feeling.
This
morning, I took $11.00 to Wal Mart to get enough Diet Pepsi to make
sure I wouldn’t run out before my roommate gets paid on Thursday.
I’m addicted to caffeine, and to be without is not a pleasant
experience. The headaches alone are beyond description. I spent
$10.44 on the soda, and I had 56 cents left in my pocket.
On my way back to the car, a man who was, based on his attire, in much worse condition than I am at the moment, asked me if I had any change. I recognized his state, and I recognized that I could very easily end up being him in the not too distant future. I have, fortunately, never yet been required to stand in a parking lot asking strangers for money. There’s nothing to say I never will be. And, I can only imagine how horrible that must feel. He was trying to get a bus pass or something, and said he was short. I gave him the 56 cents. And, he was genuinely grateful. The feeling inside of me was worth way more than the quarters, nickel, and penny he got from me. He told me that was great, and he was really close now. I don’t believe for a moment I changed his life. But, Life is made up of Moments. And each of us gave the other a Pleasant Moment by exchanging what we had. I had a little bit of money. He had a little bit of Gratitude. I’m sure there are capitalists among my readers who think what I did was wrong. If I’m so damn broke, what am I doing giving money to strangers? I’m Making a Difference.
Today,
for those of you who have helped me, I want to you to know that you
matter. I’m doing as well as I am today, in large part, because of
you. Without your help, whether it was financial, or emotional, or
in the form of something you gave me, or something you did for me, I
wouldn’t be where I am today. No, I’m not at The Top of The World,
but I AM on the Green Side of the Earth, and that’s a good beginning.
I can keep working on pulling myself up a little bit at a time
because of the people who love me.
Generosity of Spirit is as valuable as Genuine Gratitude. I offer mine.
If you would like to help out a bit, I will be able to offer you my Gratitude, too, even if all you do is click Like. It will make me glow. If you have a couple extra dollars you would like to contribute to paper and ink, I’d be glad to have that, too, but please don’t feel remotely obligated.
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
Hamlet Act 1, Scene 5
Yesterday,
not for anything close to the first time, I should have died. I woke
up to find a strange woman standing over me while I was lying in bed.
She was a paramedic. She had just brought me back to consciousness
when my blood sugar had dropped so low that it was undetectable by
medical equipment. I’m alive because my roommate checked on me,
found me irretrievably unconscious, and called 911. She has done
this more than once.
I
should have died, in what I think would have been a beautifully
appropriate way, a couple of years ago when my blood sugar went so
high that it was off the scale. I was alone then. There was no one
there to save me. One of my friends, though, became concerned when
she couldn’t get me on the phone, and, though she was out of town,
she sent the Mesa Police to do a wellness check, and they took me to
the hospital. I had gone into Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I would,
undoubtedly, have died alone in a cheap motel room had she not
interfered. Frankly, that would have been, at the time, my preferred
way to shuffle off this mortal coil. It didn’t happen, though.
Someone kept me alive.
This
has happened at least half a dozen times in the last four or five
years. I was at a place where I was unable to help myself, and
someone came to my rescue.
When
I posted about yesterday’s incident on Facebook, more than one of my
friends suggested that there is a reason that I keep cheating Death.
Their reasons are, whether they say it directly or not, supernatural.
God, or some other force like Him, is not letting me die.
I
love my friends, but I reject that answer. Why, Fred? The evidence
is there. Some force keeps intervening to keep you alive. It must
be God, in some form or other.
Why
must it be God? I believe you’re making what is commonly called The
God of The Gaps Argument.
What’s
that?
The God of The Gaps is defined, as follows, by Wikipedia.
The term God-of-the-gaps fallacy can refer to a position that assumes an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon, which is a variant of an argument from ignorance fallacy. Such an argument is sometimes reduced to the following form: There is a gap in understanding of some aspect of the natural world… (God is required to fill that gap.)
Wikipedia
I’ve
been guilty of committing this fallacy, myself, on more than one
occasion. How else can one explain the Genius of Mozart or
Shakespeare? They are light years beyond what any human being should
be capable of doing. Yet, they do. This can only be some sort of
supernatural result. They have connected with Something Beyond.
But,
that is simply intellectual laziness on my part. Their work exists.
It was produced by humans. Therefore, we know, by definition, humans
are capable of such feats. They even managed to build the pyramids.
We’re one hell of a powerful group, we humans.
Does
this mean I entirely reject the idea of there being Something Beyond?
No. I don’t. Hamlet tells Horatio, “There are more things in
Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” I’m sure
he’s right. I have absolutely no doubt that there are forces in the
universe that I don’t – or can’t – understand. And when Science
shows them to me, I’ll accept their existence.
I
have, from time to time, felt myself, for as much as a week once,
connecting with Something Beyond. I simply had everything working.
I was in my stride. My writing was at its best. My social skills
were on the mark. Women liked me. I knew how to earn more than
enough money to survive. I was feeling music acutely. I was moved
to tears by Mr. Banks singing “A Man Has Dreams” in Mary Poppins.
I could feel the Jedi Force flowing through me.
However,
that doesn’t require a supernatural explanation. It’s a part of
human experience. How do I know? Because I’m human, and I
experienced it.
I
had no special powers. I could levitate precisely nothing. I was
unable to fly without the assistance of an airplane. I was entirely
unable to read anyone’s mind. I simply was making everything work,
all at the same time. And it was beautiful.
I
think Mozart and Shakespeare were able to make their Art work all the
time. I can’t imagine how wonderful that must have felt. Mozart
rarely even did second drafts, that rotten bastard! You will never
read a word of mine that hasn’t been through at least 3 or 4 drafts.
And even if I did 3 or 4 thousand, it could never approach the level
of Shakespeare. That’s not false modesty. That’s an understanding
of what Shakespeare is.
So,
if I’m not willing to accept a supernatural explanation, what
explanation do I accept? I’m not sure I’ve found one yet. But,
there is one I’m considering. It has to do with Love.
If
you’ve spent any time with my Blog, you’ll see I’ve had more than a
little to say on the subject of what Love is. It’s best, and most
succinctly, defined as the feeling that someone else’s happiness is
at least as important as your own. Well being falls into the same
category.
In an upcoming story about my secret alter ego, Horace, his Grandpa tells him this about love:
I guess you might begin to suspect there’s something going on when you can’t stop thinking about some girl. Although, more often than not, that’s just a case of overactive hormones. But, it is a part of it. If you think a girl is really pretty, and you think about her all the time, and if you wonder if she has enough to eat, and if she’s safe, and when nothing makes you happier than making her happy, and all of that sort of thing… well, maybe, just possibly you’re in love. But, I wouldn’t count on it.”
Fred Eder
Love
is also a Force. It compels one to do things as certainly as gravity
does. When you love someone sufficiently, you can’t tolerate their
suffering, and you will take what ever action is necessary to stop
it. It really isn’t a matter of choice. It’s just what you do. You
can’t keep from doing it any more than you can keep your heart from
beating.
The
one common thread I can find in all of the incidents of my Salvation
is that someone I love was involved. I have reason to believe those
who saved me also loved me.
After
quite nearly plummeting to his death, Captain Kirk tells his best
friends, “I knew I wouldn’t die because the two of you were with
me. I’ve always known I’ll die alone.”
Love,
in its most powerful form, continues to keep me alive.
But,
why should I keep living? Yesterday one of my friends said, “Fred,
there’s a reason you are still alive, clearly. Something you need to
investigate, learn about, before it’s too late. Any idea what it is?
I have an inkling…”
And that is a pertinent question. What is it I need to do with my life while I still have it? This was my reply:
I think I need to learn to write in a way that can help the world see its commonality. Someone I love very much guided my thinking on that idea 40 years ago when she said, “One planet, one people… please?” (It was her.)
I’m trying to figure out how to make that dream a reality. I have no delusions of grandeur. I don’t believe it’s any more possible than it was for Atticus to get a Not Guilty verdict for Tom Robinson, or for Santiago to get his marlin back to shore, but I admire those men for making the effort.
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what,” (as Atticus told Jem.)
I believe in that.”
Fred Eder
What
does My
Life mean? What is the purpose of my continuing to suck up everyone
else’s oxygen?
I
think Captain Kirk began to teach me in April, 1967.
Edith
Keeler tells Kirk, “Let me help.”
Kirk
replies, “A hundred years or so from now, a famous novelist will
write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words,
even over ‘I love you.‘”
I’ve
often hoped that I might get to be that famous novelist. Since he
was talking to Edith Keeler in 1930, I have 11 more years to get
there. If I can live that long. Of course, I would have to be
living on “a planet circling the far left star in Orion’s belt.”
But, hey, one step at a time.
The
idea of Let Me Help has guided most of my life. I was an Elementary
School Teacher for just shy of 30 years. For me, my classroom was
the Enterprise. And, arrogance be damned, I was an extraordinary
Starship Captain.
I
retired in 2016. I thought, like Kirk once did, that I was done
making a difference. As it turns out, I wasn’t. I have found that
my words can still make a difference. I can still be of help with
them. I can sometimes move people. I can sometimes make them think.
I can sometimes reinforce their beliefs. I have even, from time to
time, been able to inspire someone.
If
I can find a way for my words to help bring the world together, to
make the Dream of “One Planet, One People… Please” a reality, I
will have made a difference. I don’t know how to do that, yet, but I
promise you I’m working on it.
What
yesterday most revealed to me was that I still have a desire to live.
This is new for me. I’ve been ready to die for several years now.
In fact, the last time the paramedics showed up, I was a little
disappointed they brought me back. Hamlet tells me, “The readiness
is all,” and I felt ready.
I
lost a little of that readiness yesterday. It occurs to me there are
still things I would like to do before I’m gone. There is Love still
to be experienced. There are words I still need to write. There is
Music I still want to hear. I find delight in small things people
do. I need to talk to my Mom every night at exactly 7:37 so she
knows I’m okay. I hope to have another pastrami sandwich someday. I
want to have a little ice cream before bed. These are all reasons to
want to live.
And
my friends have given me those reasons. And those reasons are a
product of Love. So… what keeps saving me? I believe it’s Love.
You
may believe it’s something else, and I respect your belief, even if
we don’t agree. But, for me, Love is the most powerful Force in the
Universe, and I believe it’s why I’m still alive.
I’m
working on finding the Meaning of My Life. I hope my thoughts might
have helped you to find the Meaning of Yours.
I believe that all Mothers, simply by giving birth, qualify as heroes. I don’t for a moment claim that all Mothers are good people. Some of them are obviously not. We’ve all seen Sybil, whose Mother abused her so horribly that Sybil developed multiple personality disorder to be able to cope with the stress. And Norman Bates’s Mother certainly would not be in the running for Sainthood.
But, what is a hero? I
maintain that heroism requires sacrifice and some form of danger, and
that it is an act to benefit someone other than oneself. The fireman
who runs into the house to save a child is sacrificing his safety and
is facing the very real threat of a horrible death. The kids that
jumped in front of their friends in the school shootings this week,
as well as those who did the same in the Jewish Synagogue, are
heroes. They sacrificed their lives to save others. The benefits of
their actions were not necessarily their own. (This is not to say
there are no benefits to Motherhood. But not all Mothers get those
benefits for any number of reasons.)
A hero might also be an
artist. This is someone who has accomplished something you admire
deeply. Some of my heroes are Shakespeare, Aaron Sorkin, Snuffy
Walden, and Gene Roddenberry. None of them, to my knowledge, faced
any particular danger, but don’t believe for a moment they
accomplished what they did without sacrificing their time, their
energy, and their efforts. And their accomplishments benefit me, and
millions of others. I’m not sure if these are the same sorts of
heroes as firefighters and those who stop shooters. So, perhaps the
word has a broader meaning for me.
But, a Mother certainly fits
any reasonable definition. She sacrifices her body, her comfort, her
well being for the benefit of another. I’m told that even the
easiest, least painful birth is excruciating. Having never given
birth, myself, I don’t really know. But, I feel sure it’s less fun
than lying in bed reading a good book. Giving birth is dangerous;
women, even today, die in the process. They do this to benefit
another person. They bring life into the world at the expense of, at
the very least, physical pain. That, for me, is heroism.
Some Mothers continue to be
heroes, in lesser or greater ways, throughout the rest of their
lives. Others abandon the status promptly.
Regardless of whether your
Mother was as good as mine (and mine is as good as anyone could
hope), or she was horrible as Sybil’s, she sacrificed herself for
you. You owe her your life. If not for her, you’re not here. I
think, sometimes, that’s worth remembering.
“Don’t say that, Governor. Don’t look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time. If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: ‘You’re undeserving; so you can’t have it.’ But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I’m playing straight with you. I ain’t pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that’s the truth. Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what he’s brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until she’s growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.”
– George Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”
What
makes one person “Deserving” and another “Undeserving?”
Certainly we would all agree those who hurt others deserve punishment
in some form or other. Can we also all agree that, simply by virtue
of having beaten incredible odds just to be born, we are all
deserving of food? Shelter? Clothing? Medical Care? No, probably
not.
The
Puritan Work Ethic has trained us all to believe that a person
deserves only what he or she can earn by trading their time, and some
form of effort, for rewards. To the extent we can contribute, we
deserve something. This made sense for America’s earliest settlers.
If Per Hansa and Beret didn’t work hard, frequently, and faithfully,
their family would certainly perish. And their hard work was
rewarded with the necessities of life. They were fed, clothed,
sheltered, and to the extent possible in that time, granted the best
medical care available. (If you haven’t read “Giants in the
Earth,” I recommend it. It’s the story of Norwegian immigrants who
settled in the Dakota territories in the 1870s.)
But
even they depended, to some extent, on other families in the area to
help them from time to time. “Man is by nature a social animal; an
individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either
beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that
precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common
life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does
not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” That’s not
new information. That’s Aristotle. We need each other from birth.
Few and far between are the infants who can survive entirely alone.
So,
it seems to me, that at some point, we must grant a person the right
to rely on others. We do this, without much debate, at the beginning
of life. The overwhelming majority of humans are born into some form
of society. It may be a good society or a bad one. The infant has
no control over the society into which he or she is born.
We
have a choice, as adults, about the society in which we live. We can
either accept it, reject it, or something in between. We may
criticize it, or we may seek another one in which to live. We may
also seek to improve it.
Some
place between birth and adulthood we give up the right to rely on
others. Is this morally right? I don’t know, but, at least in The
United States in 2019, it seems to be true.
Now,
we must not only contribute to society in some way, but we must find
a way that society values highly enough to pay us a living wage.
None of us, anymore, is Per Hansa, chopping down the trees in the
area to build the house in which his family will live. We rely on
each other for roads, for the production of food, for schools, for
military and police protection, for fire departments, and a host of
other things. We are a social animal. We cannot live entirely
alone. Our work is not for our benefit alone. It is to benefit the
society in which we live.
If
someone is unsuccessful in that effort, we seem to have decided, that
person is undeserving. And that’s where I have my problem . Why is
a person undeserving?
We
seem to have declared that one must live a life within certain
boundaries and norms. We now have the resources to treat every
living person as though he or she were a newborn. We can provide
everyone with all they need to survive.
Robert
Frost is a great poet. He made a living writing poetry. That poetry
certainly improved my life. J.K. Rowling is a great writer. She
made a fortune writing books that certainly improved my life. I have
great respect for both Frost and Rowling.
I
feel sure, though, they would both tell you that there are other
poets or novelists of whom you have never heard, of whom you never
will hear, who are their superiors. And those poets and novelists
will work at whatever jobs they can find to support themselves. They
weren’t fortunate enough to get published. They weren’t fortunate
enough to become popular successes. But they contribute in the same
way Rowling and Frost do. Do they truly deserve less? Why?
We’ve
moved from philosophy to economic theory. Now we will hear from
critics about the virtues of capitalism. It certainly works for
some. There are those who amass great wealth under that system.
There are others who simply can’t do as well. And so long as we
subscribe to the idea that they don’t deserve any more than their
skills and efforts allow them to earn, it’s not a problem that many
people are poor, underemployed, and not able to pursue what matters
most to them because they are required to try to find the funds to
survive.
But,
what would life be if people didn’t have to do that? Why do we
insist that they earn little pieces of green paper to be deserving of
a decent life?
I
was fortunate to have what I think was an excellent childhood. I had
parents who loved me, supported me, taught me, understood me as much
as any parents can understand their progeny, and protected me. They
allowed me to figure out who I wanted to be. And not surprisingly, I
wanted to be Batman. That didn’t work out. I wanted to be Atticus
Finch, Santiago, Holden Caulfield, and Aaron Sorkin. None of those
worked out, either, though I like to think there are pieces of those
men inside of me. Sadly, there’s not a trace of Batman to be found in
me. There might be a little Captain Kirk, though. I also wanted to
be a teacher. They helped me to work that out. I managed, after a
fashion, to make a living.
But,
does that mean I deserve more than someone who had no parents, or
whose parents were child abusers, or criminals, or simply didn’t love
them? How is that the fault of the child? Why does she deserve less
than I do?
Certainly, we don’t all deserve jet planes and swimming pools, but is it really unreasonable to ask for the necessities of life for all people when it’s so easily given? If we could be done with, “I got mine; you get yours” I feel like we could begin to make the sort of society of which we can be proud. We provide for our babies because we love them. Is it really unreasonable to ask that we love everyone at least enough to let them live some sort of life?
“You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will live as one.”
When
I’m down to my last cigarette, and a stranger asks me for one, I’m
going to deny him. I’m never going to make it all the way home
without it. If I just got a new pack, absolutely, he can have one.
I think that sort of sums up my feelings about selfishness. But I
will explain it in more detail for those who require Deeper Thought.
First,
selfishness is not an absolute evil. I am required to take care of
myself because if I don’t, I can’t do anything for anyone else. If I
give away all my food, I will starve, or, more likely, go into a
diabetic coma. At that point, your tax dollars will go to saving my
life, or I will die. Conservatives don’t like that, so it’s best
that I reserve enough for myself that I can save their money.
That said, there comes a point where one has enough to get by. Some of us probably have far more than we need. I’ve never had much more than I need, but I’ve been lucky enough to have extra in my life. And I’ve been fortunate enough, from time to time, to be able to help others.
With
money, it seems to me, there is a point at which one can have more
than one can ever use. If I won $400,000,000 in the lottery, no one
in my family, and none of my friends, would have a house payment
anymore. That would be more money than I could ever need, and I
recognize my ability to help those who have less. (And if you have
more than $400,000,000 and we’re friends or family, why in the hell
am I still paying rent??)
I
completely understand why people want to make money. That’s the way
our world has decided to run. It didn’t have to, you know. There
have been civilizations that thrived without it. In our world,
however, we will do quite nearly anything to get our hands on little
pieces of green (usually) paper that allow us to get things we want.
And the larger your collection of those little pieces of paper, the
better people believe you to be. There are even those who believe
the myth that you have worked harder, that you have done something
greater than those who have a smaller collection, and you deserve
that. Ancient Egyptians believed that about their Pharaohs. They
were wrong. Sometimes, someone has; many people deserve their
wealth. But it’s hardly earth shaking news to discover that’s not
always the case.
I spent my life as a teacher. I’m not
going to bother to explain that what I did was valuable to the world.
I believe that to be self evident. But I was unable to collect a
lot of pieces of green paper. This isn’t a complaint. I managed to
live acceptably. I was paid well enough to eat, own a car, and have
enough soda to get by. Most of all, I earned the right to believe
that I made the world a better place. I’m an arrogant bastard, so
that’s important to me.
But
we all know of people who did nothing of any particular merit who
have stacks of green paper well beyond any imaginable needs. And
they insist that they must have more, and that I have to give it to
them. So do you. And THAT is Unwarranted Selfishness. And that’s
unacceptable in my mind.
Is
it naive of me to think there ought to be a limit on how large one’s
green stack is? I don’t have a clue what that limit should be, but
there are people who spend their entire lives hoping to make rent,
hoping to come up with the food to feed their children, hoping
against hope that someday they can live in a nice place. At the same
time there are people who have more than they can ever possibly need.
That makes no sense to me.
I’ve
seen Fox News criticize people who get government assistance. They
suggested many of them don’t really
need it. One of the stats they used was that 93% of them even had
refrigerators. Jon Stewart quoted the stat, and added, “Those food
chilling mother fuckers!” Why should we decide that some people
aren’t suffering sufficiently for us to help them?
We
help others not because they are suffering beyond the point that
someone has, somewhat arbitrarily, decided is too much, but because
we recognize ourselves in them. I wouldn’t want to live a life
without food, shelter, clothing, and the other necessities. Neither
would you. Neither would anyone else. Since I can imagine how I
would feel without those things, I don’t want others to be without
them, either.
We
live in a Post Scarcity World. That sounds like an intimidating term
to frighten those who are not economists, but it’s actually really
simple. It means that we are now capable of producing enough for
everyone to have what they need. The only reason – the ONLY
reason
– that some people suffer economically is that someone has decided
they don’t deserve as much as someone else. Why don’t they deserve
as much?
They
don’t work hard enough? I know people who work 60, 70, and even 80
hours a week, and they are barely hanging on. You probably know
people like that, too. Ah, but those people should go to school to
get better jobs that pay them more. That’s a lovely thought. I’m a
huge fan of school. On the other hand, I did go to school, and I
worked long and hard for 40 years, and I don’t have much of anything.
Yes, Fred, but you should have chosen a profession that pays better.
That may be true. Let’s tell that to all teachers. Let’s tell it,
also, to the people who work at Circle K, at McDonald’s, at the
overpriced clothing store in the mall, or at Wal Mart. Tell it to
custodians, garbage collectors, and delivery drivers. But here’s the
thing: we need these folks, too. In fact, I need all of them much
more than I need any CEO.
If we can produce what
everyone needs, why shouldn’t everyone have what they need? The
Puritan Work Ethic, or the idea that we are only good if we work
hard, was valuable in its time. Hard work was essential for
survival. It’s not, today. This isn’t to say no one needs to work
on anything. Of course we do. It’s not only necessary in order to
ensure the world keeps functioning, but it gives us a reason to live.
We live because there
are still things we wish to accomplish. I, for example, still want
to change the world. I want to move it just a little closer to being
truly free. That means not only freedom from restrictions on one’s
movements, but the freedom to choose. A large part of the freedom to
choose comes from being aware of the choices available to you.
That’s the function of education. You can’t choose to read To Kill a
Mockingbird if you can’t read, or you’re unaware of its existence.
But, Freedom will be the subject of another essay.
But,
what we’re discussing so far is things that come in limited
commodities. I don’t have an endless supply of money, or food, or
cigarettes. I can’t give more than I have of those things. But,
there are things where we all have a larger supply. It may not be
infinite, but we can all give Kindness in larger quantities than we
often do. The only limit to one’s Kindness is one’s mood, or one’s
soul. The only limit to our Compassion is the limit we impose in
order to maintain our own sanity.
Even
if you disagree with everything I’ve written concerning the economy,
(and I’m well aware many of you will call it liberal or socialist
nonsense) I would hope we can agree that Kindness and Compassion need
not be in short supply. If you don’t want to give others the means to
live, perhaps you can at least give them your Kindness. Perhaps you
can feel some Compassion for others. To reserve those things for
yourself seems to me to be the height of Unwarranted Selfishness.
They don’t deplete your stack of little green pieces of paper. And,
if you know what you’re doing, it’s just possible it will increase
your happiness, as well as the happiness of those who are receiving
it.
If
nothing else, can we agree that all lives are of equal value? Can we
agree that human suffering is bad, and that Unwarranted Suffering is
morally wrong? And, if we can agree on those things, can we finally
agree that Unwarranted Selfishness is what Lincoln called tyranny? In
the Lincoln – Douglas Debates he said something that is equally
true now as it was then.
It
is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and
wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have
stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue
to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other
the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape
it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You toil
and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what
shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to
bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their
labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another
race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
Abraham Lincoln
Let’s
see what can be done about ending the tyrannical principle of
Unwarranted Selfishness.
“…you shouldn’t blow the chance When you’ve got the chance to say I love you…”
Olivia Newton John
There
are 2 people to whom I say I Love You daily. There are 2 others to
whom I say it almost daily. There are 3 cats and a dog who hear it
from me several times a day. There are 7.68 billion people to whom
I never say it at all.
I
don’t recall the last time I said it in a romantic sense. It’s
almost certainly been a decade. It’s been at least that long since
I’ve heard anyone say it to me in that way. I wouldn’t be surprised
if I never say it or hear it that way again. Nor would I be unhappy
about that. It’s gone badly for me in almost all cases. I can be
done with that now.
Why
do I say it and hear it so rarely?
Let’s
begin with what I believe I Love You means. For me, to love someone
means that their happiness is at least as important to you as your
own. It means you will, whenever possible, act in ways designed to
increase that person’s happiness.
Now,
it’s absurd to think I could feel that way about 7.68 billion people.
I will never see, let alone meet, well over 99% of them. How can
their happiness really be at least as important to me as mine? In
any meaningful way, it can’t.
But
what can I feel about the rest of the humans who share this planet
with me? I would prefer none of them suffered. I would prefer that
they all practice and receive Kindness. To a greater or lesser
extent, I can empathize with them. Whether it’s an impoverished
mother from a tiny tribe in Africa, or the richest woman in a high
rise in Manhattan, no mother wants her baby taken away without her
consent. I can imagine how that must feel. It’s basic to being
human. Their experiences are different from mine, but there are
certain aspects of life that we all share. Our hearts all, I
suspect, feel joy and pain about many of the same experiences. We
are more alike than we are different.
But
do I love them?
I
don’t think I do in the deepest sense of that word. But I recognize
that their happiness is, if not necessarily to me, as important as
mine, as yours, as anyone’s, at least to them. I hope others love
them too. There’s no reason you, or the person next to you, or
someone who has never seen a cell phone deserves less from life than
I do. So, while I might not love them, individually, I love their
existence.
I
find I enjoy being able to say I Love You. It makes me feel good.
Perhaps that’s because I can empathize with the person to whom I’m
saying it. I like to believe hearing or reading it makes that person
happy. It may make me feel good because I can feel the reflection of
their happiness. Or, maybe it’s just that I enjoy it in the same way
I enjoy pastrami. I don’t get enough of that, either, anymore.
I
loved my Father deeply. But, I think I can count on one hand the
times, after my childhood, that we said it to each other. We didn’t
need to say it; it was always clear to us both. He is gone now; our
love continues unabated.
It
isn’t necessarily clear, however, to the rest of the planet that I
love their existence. Either you or I may be gone tomorrow, too.
That makes today the ideal time.
I
probably don’t know you. I’ll almost certainly never meet you. And
if I do know you, we’re probably not in the habit of saying it to one
another. (There are, as you know, only about 4 people out of the
7.68 billion running around, with whom I regularly exchange that
phrase.) So, let me say what I can.
I
love your existence. It’s at least as important to me as my own. I
do my best to act in ways designed to increase your happiness. And,
if you are nothing more than your existence, as some would posit,
then I suppose it would be fair for me to say, in a very general way:
My
earliest memory of feeling empathy is Christmas 1969. I was 7 years
old, sitting under a tree with an obscene number of gifts I had just
opened, and feeling truly ecstatic, when I noticed my Mother had no
Christmas presents. Not one. I burst into tears of guilt. My
father took me to a drug store, and we found Mom a candle, and it was
my first present to her. Neither Dad nor I had any ability to wrap a
candle, so we gave it to Mom to wrap. And when she opened it an hour
or so later, she loved that candle as she loved her children. She
got candles from me for decades after that, and for nearly every
occasion. It took several additional hours for me to recognize that
Dad hadn’t gotten any presents, either, and Mom took me to the drug
store to buy Dad a pipe. I gave him most of the pipes he used to
smoke. These Traditions were the product of Empathy.
I
have, and I would guess most of you have, wept for Tom Robinson. I
have cheered for Sherlock Holmes. I have spoken with Hamlet
repeatedly about the value and meaning (or lack thereof) of life. I
have felt joy for Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars. I learned
Friendship from Sam and Frodo, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I learned
courage from Santiago and his marlin, and morality from Atticus
Finch. I have faced George’s agonizing moral dilemma concerning his
best friend, Lenny, when George tells him to think about the rabbits.
These are all other examples of Empathy.
I
believe Empathy is essential to being human. Too much Empathy is
dangerous, of course. You can’t possibly grieve for every tragedy in
the world. No one has that vast an emotional landscape. But, the
inability to feel for others is, in my mind, the root of evil. You
don’t kill people not because it’s against the law, but because you
can feel for someone besides yourself. You won’t commit most acts of
violence or cruelty for the same reasons. You can imagine how you
would feel if it happened to you. You can’t do something you believe
to be evil because you can experience the emotions of Others.
I
believe an exposure to The Arts is essential for increasing a
person’s Empathy. It’s in books, movies, music, paintings, poetry,
dance, and other forms of Art that we find our own feelings. And
it’s where we learn to feel the joys and pains that our fellow
travelers on this little ball in space are likely to feel,
themselves. It’s in catharsis that we learn the most about ourselves
and each other.
When
we can understand each other, we can dispense with the idea of Us vs.
Them. We can move forward together, as a species, and this is a
product of Empathy. I care about you because I recognize some of
myself in you. I hope you can see some of yourself in me, too.
Fred's Thoughts 