Category: children

My Generational Fallacy

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Maxwell and Finnegan

I am a middle-aged white man. And I can recognize some, but not all, of the societal privileges afforded to me for no other reason than I am a white man. I feel it is important to establish that upfront. I have accomplished things in life partly due to my efforts and partly because of my accident of birth. Accident of birth. What else can I call it? In addition to being born a white male, I was also born in the United States. Again, not of my choosing. But here I am, and I accept the failings in my life as my burden, my fault. I take full ownership of my failures but share my victories as being due to my efforts, others’ efforts, white privilege, and the combination of those factors occurring here in the United States.

The paragraph above is enough to exclude me from the Libertarian party, who believe they alone are responsible for the air they breathe, and they’d like you to thank them for making enough for you like it’s Reardon Steel.

With that backdrop established, let me tell you a little about my upbringing. My first best friend was black. We shared the same first name. When he or I moved away, I’m not sure what happened (I was young and cursed with a terrible memory), my next best friend was Jewish. And the thing is, it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. Or I hadn’t learned from society to hate yet. The only thing I now hate is willful ignorance. I learned so much from my friend about Judaism, its holidays, and the amazing food! I was raised Catholic (as was most of the state in which I was raised). I assumed everyone was Catholic. It wasn’t until much later that I learned Catholicism was itself but a branch of Christianity and Christianity a branch of organized religion.

Throughout my life, until I was probably 30 years old, I assumed that the problems of the past were destined to be solved by my generation. Racism being foremost in my mind and the easiest to solve. It was just wrong! That’s easy to fix, I thought. It was, I thought, the low-hanging fruit of justice, and I assumed I no longer lived in a country responsible for strange fruit (listen to the song). I also thought later in life that gun violence in America would be easily fixed after 26 first and second-graders (and educators) were slaughtered at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT. In both situations, I learned there was a generational fallacy in my thinking. I assumed my and subsequent cohorts, armed with better information, compassion, and the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, would see the obvious path to social justice. How I was wrong! Chronological snobbery? Maybe. I now believe it is a combination of regional biases and willful intransigence that prevents solving society’s problems.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be 94 years old now if he had not been murdered at age 39 in 1968. What he did, what all who fought for civil rights in America in the 1950s and 1960s, and accomplished, cannot be appreciated using today’s time prism. The Overton Window has undoubtedly shifted on civil rights and many other topics.  What they accomplished then, at great personal risk and, for some, with their lives, is monumental. However, the Overton Window is not a slider moving in one direction but a pendulum constantly swinging between the warmth of progress and the cold intransigence of those benefiting from the status quo. “Make America Great Again” is the most recent example of this philosophical ossification. “Progress” is seen as a threat to their privilege. Equity and equality are, ironically, seen as unfair. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs are seen as nefarious as Affirmative Action. After George Floyd was murdered by the police, DE&I programs blossomed nationwide, and workplaces and communities benefited from new thinking. Unfortunately, today we see the pendulum swinging the other way and DE&I programs being cut in red states all across an even more divided America.

I saw an interview with Martin Sheen recently. He has been arrested for protesting more times than he can count. And it has cost him roles. He said, “If what you believe doesn’t cost you anything, then you’re left to question its value.” He is 83 years old now. And I couldn’t help but appreciate his passion.

I confess to being a West Wing fanatic. I adored that show (especially the first four seasons written by Aaron Sorkin). I think the season finale of the second season (Two Cathedrals) is the best episode of television ever created. That said, and while I remain a devout fan, I also think it ruined politics for me and a generation of those like me. I assumed life was a meritocracy and not the plutocracy and cleptocracy it truly is. I appreciated the sincere debate depicted in the show and assumed that was how politics worked. Today, there is no debate, only sound bites, social media gotcha’s, net zero wins, and tribalism, where a foundation of facts cannot be agreed upon. We can’t even agree on what is a fact!

Martin Sheen lives how Aaron Sorkin writes.

Contrast that with today’s news that 25-year-old NASCAR driver Noah Gragson was suspended indefinitely for liking a disgusting meme laughing about George Floyd’s death. He’s 25 years old. So, no, I no longer believe my generation will solve society’s ills no more than I think my children’s generation (or Noah Gragson’s) will move us forward.

They say the first step in solving a problem is acknowledging there is a problem. We haven’t graduated from that simple first step.  There is no low-hanging fruit when those on the other side will embrace any atrocity rather than let you “win.” And for that, society loses.

My generational fallacy has cost me. Not as much as those in the fight every day. It is a cost for which I feel the need to apologize. It has cost me from seeing the issues clearer. Evidence of that is easy to see. Reread this and count the number of times I say a version of “assume.” However, contrary to the familiar American saying, in this case, it has only made an ass out of me.  I hope to do better. I dream of our country doing better. And now, not generationally.

Lost

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A sentence in The Silence of the Lambs has always stuck with me. Playing a cat and mouse game with young Clarice Starling, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, in his burgeoning respect for the young FBI agent, slips in a clue to the identity of “Buffalo Bill” by saying, “We begin by coveting what we see every day.”

In other words, what we know, what we’ve experienced, is our “normal.” Every child knows only one childhood, and while the grass is always greener at your friend’s house (because you don’t see their life behind closed doors), we only know our life as “normal.” We are all “middle class” in that respect. In the simplistic world of childhood, we understood that there were kids who had it better than we did and kids who had it worse. We, regardless of who we were, were in the middle. Normal.

In genuine Monty Python “Four Yorkshiremen” tradition, I now look at children today and lament the ease with which they can communicate (email/cell phones), their easy access to information (the internet), the societal shifts in the Overton window concerning LGBTQ+, race relations, and other socioeconomic changes they now see as “normal.” However, I also cringe that my generation didn’t fix enough of the outstanding issues plaguing the America of my youth (and compounded the incomplete list by adding so many more complicated problems). If the goal of every generation is to leave the world better than we found it, we have failed. We are leaving behind a world that may not be inhabitable because of climate change. “Here, kids! Apply this SPF 1,000,000 suntan lotion before going outside, and don’t forget your space suit when walking to the bus stop.”

And it goes far beyond climate change, as catastrophic as that is. Children today see cheating (from Trump on down) as the way to get ahead. And that’s because there are no consequences for bad behavior—quite the contrary. We reward bad behavior with advancement and success (unless you lose to someone less moral than you). Drive 100 mph? No problem. Police are only on tv and in movies. Cheat on your wife? No problem. It must have been her fault. Lie at work? No problem. Blame someone else. There are no negative consequences for bad behavior, only the promise of advancement over those suckers following the rules. And that’s the flipside. Those who are moral and adhere to societal rules are “sheep” destined to be led to slaughter by those not afraid to wield the knife. So, not only are there no negative consequences for bad behavior, but there are negative consequences for good behavior. Think about that.

And don’t come at me with, “It’s because of the lack of God in the classroom.” Evangelicals are the most hypocritical flock around. Already willing to accept the bible, angels, and demons as real (while ignoring Trump’s egregious mendacities, viciousness, and megalomaniacal march toward dictatorship), their unfailing support for him is genuinely disgusting and devoid of logic. Fiction is real and facts irrelevant—Trump’s army of pretzel-twisted moralists.

The “Lost Generation” was so named because so many born between 1883 and 1900 had their youth and young adulthood stolen by World War I and death, and survivors were disenfranchised wanderers condemned to see their children fight and die in World War II.

Our failure to address the problems we inherited, coupled with our selfishness and abdication of responsibility, have created a new Lost Generation. This is a generation born into the normalcy of school shootings, movie theater shootings, grocery store shootings, church shootings, concert shootings, club shootings, (insert setting here) shootings, open carry, concealed carry, constitutional carry, and societal harikari, racism, hatred, whataboutism, science is bad, education is worse, bullshit.

This Lost Generation will raise future generations further devoid of responsibility, racing toward an uninhabitable planet with no backup available and mass shootings so commonplace journalists will no longer cover them. “Thoughts and prayers” will be reserved for events not “baked into” American freedom and exceptionalism. There will be ever more rule-breaking, selfish predators advancing through the devoured crowd of ethical chumps still inhabiting the remnants of civilized society—shame on us. We, Generation X (1965-1980), failed in our mandate to leave the world better than we found it. And we learned it from the generation before us, the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), who taught us excess, greed, and self-centeredness as a winning formula. It was our “normal,” it was what we coveted. So, too, the generations after us, the Millennials (1981-1996) and Generation Z (1997-2012).

“We begin by coveting what we see every day.” It is our normal. And we are raising a new lost generation on a dying planet. We covet that which we know. And all we know is wrong.

Sunshine

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We are a broken nation. Short of another insurrection, we are living in a cold civil war. One side is armed with guns, bullets, and hatred. The other side is armed with reason, truth, and awe at the dissension one man (Trump) could release. Republicans will win at any cost, including the nation’s destruction, if it means Democrats win a skirmish. Democrats eat their own and want a group hug with Republicans.

It is difficult to find the silver lining, the momentary oasis from hatred and paralysis during these times. It is hard to imagine “normal” life existing outside our echo chambers. Stochastic terrorism and dog whistles from the right. Infighting and inertia on the left. However, I found it about six months ago.

While scrolling through the division and vitriol on Twitter, I came across a neuroscientist at Concordia University in Montreal. Yes, Canada, where stereotypes abound of civility and courtesy. Dr. Nadia Chaudhri posted about a fundraiser she had organized, called the Nadia Chaudhri Wingspan Award. It awarded scholarships for minority and historically marginalized students in neuroscience. It was inspiring to see in the age of Black Lives Matter, Oscar’s so White, and other diversity and inclusion awareness campaigns.

Dr. Chaudhri was more than a neuroscientist and associate professor. She was also a wife and mother. And she was Pakistani. Born in Karachi, she attended Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania on a full scholarship, becoming the first woman to win the Williamson Medal for outstanding academic and extracurricular achievement. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburg and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of San Francisco. She was also dying of ovarian cancer at age 43.

As we whittle our list of “acceptable” people with whom we agree on everything, it became clear reading Dr. Chaudhri’s tweets that she was a tireless advocate for the Wingspan Award and an incredibly loving wife and mother. Living in Canada didn’t matter. Being from Pakistan didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was a good person. She was just a good person trying to do the best she could for those she cared about in an impossible situation. I never met her, but she was a good person. And that mattered. I enjoyed reading her tweets about her husband Moni (who she called her Moon) and her son (who she called her Sun).

When the chemotherapy no longer worked and the clinical trials failed her, she tweeted that she was entering the inpatient palliative care program at McGill University’s Health Centre and was meeting with her six-year-old son to tell him she was dying. Yes, memories flooded my brain of my late wife and I having that discussion with our children, but I wept for her, her son, and her husband. My son is getting married in a couple of weeks, and my daughter is recently engaged. I cried because I knew her young son would have to enjoy his significant life events without his mother there just as mine have.

She continued to raise money for the Wingspan Award by having people sponsor her to shuffle through the palliative care ward each day. She posted them on Twitter. As her Twitter account swelled, so too did the donations. She raised over $615,000 (CAD) from 8,600 donors. From her hospital bed, she replied to every person who donated. She posted paintings she did, usually of cards or gifts people had sent her. In one painting, she depicts her husband and son burying her ashes under a tree, hoping that her son would understand her wishes and come to peace with what was to come next in his young life. On September 9th, she was promoted to full professor. She celebrated with her husband, son, and the hospital staff with coffee ice cream.

When her legs no longer supported her daily fundraising shuffle, she danced in place in bed, the focus always on the scholarship.

Even when the inevitable happens, like a fool, I feel caught off-guard. Dr. Chaudhri died on Tuesday, October 5th. I sobbed. I sobbed because I would now be without the sunshine she brought with her inspiring tweets. I cried because the underrepresented in STEM lost a champion. I wept because I knew what her husband was feeling. I sobbed because I knew the world her son would now grow up in without his loving mother. It didn’t’ matter that she lived in Canada, that she was from Pakistan, that she advocated for the coronavirus vaccine for everyone, that she was excited she could vote in Canada’s recent election. It mattered because she was a good person.

Find those that inspire, that bring sunshine into this increasingly dark world. Better yet, be that sunshine for someone else. Thank you, Dr. Chaudhri.

Father’s Day

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Yesterday was my 27th Father’s Day; however, it was different from any other because it was also my first as stepdad. It was also the seventh without my father. 

Every job a man takes has its challenges, victories, and defeats; however, none are as humbling, daunting, or rewarding as being a dad. I can, through observation, not experience, assume the same holds for women.

“It probably takes many years of monastic practice to equal the spiritual growth generated by one sleepless night with a sick child.” ― Douglas Abrams.

I have always held that it is better to parent a child rather than be their best friend because, in the end, it is the adult they become that I want to befriend. 

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Someone once said to be a father is to fail every day. I’m not sure I entirely agree, although there is nothing as humbling as seeing your failures play out against the vision you had of being a parent or witnessing the heartbreak in your child’s eyes.

“It is the most miserable thing to feel ashamed at home.” ― Charles Dickens.

Paul Anka may have written (and Sinatra crooned) “Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.” But I’ll bet everything I own he was not talking about being a father because I have memories/failures/regrets I’ll take to the grave with me that I wish I could erase. Regrets and shame I carry like Marley’s shackles.  

I am wounded. I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” ― Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Fatherhood is more than parenting; it is an obligation to become the person your children need you to be. And while there are regrets (and there may be daily failures), every father is required to get up the next day and try again to be the best he can be.

“I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!” ― David Bowie.

I believe each successive generation takes the parenting process adopted by their parents and tweaks it a bit where perceived injustices existed. Too often, the course correction is understated or overstated, resulting in a perpetual pendulum of adjustments, none of us ever achieving the centerline of success. We judge from afar the parenting of people we see in restaurants or malls, oblivious that the most potent spotlight we wield points inward. However, as children, at least initially, whatever homelife we experience is our “normal,” regardless of how extreme.

Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older, they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.” We tend to think our parents had the parenting manual denied us. We forget that they were experiencing parenthood at the exact time we were experiencing childhood. There was no dress rehearsal, no second take. 

We never get over our fathers, and we’re not required to. (Irish Proverb)” ― Martin Sheen

There are inevitable disagreements and fissures. And while we can not bequeath our experiences to our children, neither can we be expected to endure repression of our growth from our parents. We must be allowed, as is natural, to fly from the nest. As a parent, then, it is our job to comfort the adult child when they fall and inflame their passion to slam into the next wall in pursuit of their dreams.

“Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement.” ― George Eliot.

This Father’s Day was different for several reasons. My son is now living in Texas, my daughter in Connecticut. My stepdaughters are at home with my wife and me. I spoke with my son via telephone late in the day and, while I missed being with him, as always, I enjoyed the witty conversation. After a year of social distancing, I was able to hug my vaccinated daughter when she joined us for dinner. After such a long time, it felt as if I appreciated a future I’ll never see, and at the same time, it felt like an embrace of generations past. My older stepdaughter gave me an engraved, metal guitar pick that read, “I couldn’t pick a better stepdad.” As the sentimental one in the family, it took everything in me not to break down. My youngest stepdaughter painted me a Father’s Day card with all the attention to detail and love an eleven-year-old can generate. I raised (in no way alone or even as a 50% contributor) two grown children. To become a stepdad now allows me to do the finetuning and course corrections usually reserved for generational levels. Will I make the same mistakes, will I overcorrect? I can only promise to try my best, to enjoy each day, and hope I can have some modicum of effect on the adults my new daughters become. 

I have no right to be this happy. To have two grown children (adults) with whom I want to befriend and two stepdaughters who fill our house with laughter is more than I ever expected at this point in my life. In many ways, I thought my wife’s death was the closing chapter of my life’s mile markers. But life had other plans for me, and when I remarried last December, I allowed my life to continue, allowed myself to be happy again, and it allowed me a chance to see life’s mile markers get posted by all of my children. I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I don’t even know all of the questions. All I can promise all of my children is that I will try; try to understand, try to grow, try to forgive, always to love.

And a special shout out to every single mother working to be both mother and father. That’s a strength I can acknowledge but never know.

Happy Father’s Day!

A Note To My Children Upon Their College Graduation

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First off, let me say congratulations. You have both earned this special day. I know you have worked incredibly hard over the past four years under unusually stressful circumstances. College was always in the cards for you both. There was never any indication that you wanted anything other than to pursue a degree. It was always my dream for you both to find your passion and pursue it relentlessly and you’ve both done that. I know you can’t count the number of all-nighters, papers, quizzes, tests, books, textbooks, or notes you have endured, but know that they were all worth it and combined to make your college experience whole and worthwhile. I know you’ve had your share of bad professors and unfair grades, but you’ve seen them for what they were. There was no handholding for you in college. You went to one of the biggest and best public schools in the country, and you survived. No one can take that way from you. But beyond that, you made it your own and thrived.

When you went to college, I asked that you get as much out of it as possible. That this was a rarified environment in your lives when you were branching out on your own and becoming the adults you would carry forward into your life. I know that you did get as much out of the experience as possible. You worked hard, you went to football games, and you made friends. Now that it is behind you, no one can take those experiences away from you. You earned everything for which you worked so hard.

Second, I’m very proud of you. And Mom would have been so incredibly proud of you too. The fact that she didn’t survive to see this day in no way diminishes your accomplishment or her determination to see it. She loved you with all her heart and wanted nothing but everything for you. She was so proud of how hard you both worked and always knew under how much pressure you lived. The fact that we were also in a strange state far from home and everything you knew while watching her slowly slip away only makes your accomplishment that much more amazing.

We never hid the facts from you. When we knew something about her case, we shared it with you. The fact that you were able to stay focused on your work and obtained the terrific grades you did (increasing your GPA almost every semester from an already impressive beginning) speaks to your work ethic and determination. You learned how to think, not what to think. You learned to think fast and argue a point. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed our conversations over the past four years as you’ve learned something and applied it. You’ve both become incredible adults before my eyes.

Third, both of you have incredibly bright futures. I know this will be another year of uncertainty as we move back to Rhode Island and you both work on your portfolios in preparation for graduate school. I don’t know where that will take you or how far away, but I do know that the hard work gene is well implanted in both of you and you will make the best of our situation and do your best to get into an excellent graduate program in your respective fields. What you’ve endured over the past four years in college under this particular set of circumstances makes you incredibly strong individuals. There is nothing you can’t accomplish.

It has been my privilege to be your father and to watch you both grow into such amazing adults. I wish nothing but the best for you going forward, and while I hope that things will settle down for you, I know that you will be able to handle whatever life throws at you, kick its ass, and thrive. I love you both.

 

Sharks and Cancer

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quint

So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest…”  Quint, Jaws

It has been a very difficult year and a half. First, in November of 2014 my father died after a brief but excruciatingly painful fight with lung cancer which had spread to his bones. Almost one year later, last September, my wife died after a long fight with breast cancer which had spread to her lungs. And then only six months later, my dog died after a painful fight with a soft tissue cancer which had spread to his bones. One year, then only six months, part of me wonders what horror will befall us in three months. But I have to believe that the pain and suffering have ended now.  I can’t help but appropriate Quint’s quote to, “So, five of us went to Texas, three of us come home, cancer took the rest…”

Cancer has targeted my family for far too long now. I don’t want it to have any more power over us. My children have spent fully one-third of their lives living under the threat of cancer taking their mother and then their dog. Almost their entire teenage years, years difficult enough without cancer moving in to live with us, has been spent living under that dark cloud. They are 21 years old now and, in spite of these added pressures, will both graduate on-time from the University of Texas at Austin, each with over a 3.5 GPA. How they have been able to stay focused amazes me and is a testament to their strength of character.

I know people have had it harder than we have. I don’t claim to have a corner on suffering. And I am grateful for the seven years we were able to steal from cancer by moving to Texas and seeking treatment at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. I’ll never regret that decision. But if we could have a break from any additional pain for a short time, that would be great.

Each of us is dealing with these losses in our own individual manner. Certainly, grief counseling has helped, but we still face a world in which neither Lisa nor Delbow will walk with us any longer. We have had long discussions about faith, heaven, philosophy, and all of the accompanying topics. We disagree as much as we agree but the discussions are always lively and fascinating. I hope that we can each find some comfort in our positions.

Finally, there is the issue of moving forward. The house, already quiet from Lisa’s absence is now even quieter without Delbow’s rambling about. The kids are on spring break this week, so I have a respite before facing that still house alone. I now have six months of experience without Lisa and living alone. I hope this serves me well when the kids return to school. But before we know it, school will be over, graduations will have been concluded and we will be packing up for our trip back to Rhode Island. I hope it goes well and we can begin our new lives healthy. No sharks, no cancer.

Doubt and About

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sharing

I seem to be suffering from a philosophical breach between the correlation of the concepts of equality, fairness, and justice.

Equality, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities.”

Likewise, fairness is defined as, “Treatment of people equally without favoritism or discrimination.”

And justice is defined as, “The quality of being fair and reasonable.”

It has always been my belief that these three ideas are interchangeable and, indeed, their very definitions weave the three words between themselves. The concept of heads and tails played out in words.

Ah, but life, they say, isn’t fair. In fact, William Goodman even went so far as to say that, “Life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.” I can think of nothing so completely inaccurate! Is there anything fairer than death? Is not death the greatest equalizer of all? Jim Morrison may have said it best when he said, “No one here gets out alive.”

But does that mean that life must be unfair? Our parents teach us to be fair to our siblings. Our teachers urge us to be fair to our classmates. The concept of sports is based on the rules of fairness. But as adults, we see fairness fade into a utopian panacea of equality we strive for but which few believe can be achieved which is itself then distilled into the feeble concept of justice we settle for and call law? Fairness is bastardized into law and laws are created by a political system that few trust. So then the answer is yes, life is unfair, unequal and unjust.

And so far, we have only touched on that which man can control. Nature is even less concerned with fairness. Here, biology, astronomy and the rest of the sciences are even less concerned with fairness and more concerned with physics and laws which pay no mind to humans or human suffering. The mechanisms of cancer in the human body, despite our best efforts, still march to orders little understood by medicine and unconcerned by fairness, wishes, or prayer. Cosmic gasses coalesce according to galactic influence, forming stars which burn, explode, collapse and die – again, all without concern for mankind’s wishes or prayers.

Ultimately, do we do our children a disservice when we tell them to treat each other fairly? Are we setting them up to become fodder for those less concerned with equality; leaving them to the sieve we call law, knowing too it is manipulated by the same usurpers who discard equality for their own benefit? And if so, what happens to society?

Governments, economies, races, religions or sexes, whenever we try to label an entire group we get into trouble. The United States is not a democracy; it is a constitutional republic on paper (with oligarchic underpinnings). There is no such thing as a purely socialist economy just as there is no such thing as a purely capitalist economy. A purely socialist economy will always fail because individual people are greedy. A capitalistic economy will only survive if it convinces the masses that they are all capitalists and not simply feeding the greediest at the top. And so labeling situations as purely fair or unfair for our children sets the expectation that, as adults, neutrality is the norm and justice is equality. Perhaps we are better off calling it what it is: building the flock.

We all want our children to succeed, but by engraining fairness into their moral and ethical DNA we are setting them up for economic failure, casting them out into the sea as chum for those sharks concerned with neither equality nor justice; acquiescing to our “better angels,” knowing that our children will be less “successful” but people we can call fair, equal and just.

And so they too will question the definitions of fairness, equality and justice as they struggle through life, seeing those less just than themselves achieve more than they and those more deserving struggle with less, as disease and misfortune picks off their beloved without warning or justification and the bigoted and ignorant thrive. The circle of an unfair life. But you can’t take it with you.

Aaron’s Wishes for 2015

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December 18, 2014

Hello. My name is Aaron. I am six years old. I am a second grade student in Miss Vasquez’s second grade class at John F. Kennedy Elementary School. Our class has been cutting out newspaper headlines all year and last week we had to go up to the board with each headline and put it under one of the headings we had created. When we were done, we had many headings, but only a few had lots of headlines under them. The heading with the most headlines under it was Fear. Under this heading we had headlines like Ebola, the shooting in Ferguson, the chokehold death in New York City, the police protests, the midterm elections, the open carry marches in Texas and the Bundy ranch standoff.

December 29, 2014

Fear is a paralyzing emotion and emotions are amazing things, but they cannot be the sole basis upon which decisions are made. For example, my mother’s grief often manifests itself in her binge eating, and while it may feel good enough in the moment, I’m sure you will agree that a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food does not a meal make. Nor does letting a dozen casseroles spoil in the refrigerator because she’s “not hungry” qualify as taking care of herself.

My wishes for 2015 are for fear to give way to reason, for paranoia to give way to compassion and for hatred to give way to understanding. These are my wishes because I am six years old and I will always be six years old. I will always be six years old because our neighbor gave in to fear and bought a gun and accidentally shot at his daughter when she came home late last week. Thankfully, he missed her, but there is a hole in my head where my right eye used to be and tomorrow morning Mommy will bury me.

Tipping Point of Possessive Pronouns

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I read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point when it was first published in 2000. At the time, my children were 6. This past weekend, I attended a gallery opening for my daughter whose work from her summer studying in Tuscany was being displayed along with her peers.

At exactly 6:30 on September 19, 2014 I witnessed a seismic tipping point in my life. You see, at that point, the second sentence of the first paragraph ceased being exclusively true. No longer was she “my” daughter as much as I was “her” father. This shift in possessive pronouns is significant in that it, while it may not have closed out my paternal protectionism (that will ever dissolve), it forced me to acknowledge that my daughter is a fully functioning member of society, a woman upon whom the planet can lean for guidance, joy, art and direction. In short, just what the world needs.

The Romans warned us to “cave ab homine unius libri’ (beware the man of one book). Today we call this epistemic closure. We only talk to those who agree with us. We only read (if we read at all) that with which we already agree. The deafening din in America today of people talking over one another instead of to one another is both disheartening and a recipe for stagnation and anger. Congress is the best example of this. The last congress, the 113th, passed just 108 non-ceremonial laws due to infighting among Republicans and the Tea Party and among Republicans and Democrats. Essentially, the Republican/Tea Party mantra became one of “whatever the President wants, we’re against, consequences be damned.” And that included shutting down the government! We don’t debate one another anymore. We don’t discuss anything or seek common ground. “Compromise” seems to be a naughty word now. Every one is screaming and no one hears anything.

My son wants to grab the world by the throat and drag it gurgling and choking into a rational, logical future. I fear most of the world may need this approach. My daughter will need to lead the rest of the world into that same, better future with art and compassion. They will use different tools, but both will move the world toward the same beautiful, peaceful future. And then I will truly be “their” father, “their” friend, someone who has an autograph from way back when, an autograph in crayon with the “a” written backwards, where the foundation of their genius was still forming and I was a fortunate passenger. I am proud of “my” children. Proud to be “their” father. Excited for their future.

Today’s Assignment

~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

IMG_2989Your assignment today is to watch two videos and then think.

The first video is of a group of people openly carrying their long guns in order to “support the second amendment.” Listen to their words. Ask yourself if this seems either reasonable in a civilized society or in any way appropriate. Consider that it was filmed on the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza in Dallas Texas. That’s right! Celebrating guns at the sight where an American president was shot to death. If only President Kennedy had been carrying a gun… Oscar Wilde said it best, “Irony is wasted on the stupid.”

In a copy of the speech President Kennedy never lived to deliver to the Trade Council on November 22, 1963 are written the following lines:

“In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason — or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.”

 How often do we hear the illogical argument for supporting the second amendment above all others as “the second protects all the others”? Philosophers have summarized this disconnect between correlation and causation as post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). Soren Kierkegaard summarized it a bit differently when he wrote, “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” George Carlin described it a bit differently when he said, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”

The second video is from a commentator for the NRA, Billy Johnson, who tries to come across as an intelligent hipster and only succeeds in coming across as a demented, illogical apologist. Essentially, everything John Green is not. He somehow equates a government’s subsidizing that which it considers valuable (education, healthcare, food, retirement) as a reason for allowing citizen access to government owned shooting ranges and a yearly allotment of government supplied ammunition. This is the same group that fears governmental overreach and registration of guns, but please, sir, may I have another round?

He touts “Gun Required Zones” instead of Gun Free Zones. We have those already! They are called war zones. Enlist! Have at it. Take your pick. There are always conflicts into which you can insert yourself and your huggy-huggy-boom-boom stick. And the government will give you unlimited ammunition!

Perhaps most disturbing (it’s like ranking the aroma of various feces samples), is his notion that we should not only make firearm training mandatory in school, but that sufficiency be the basis for grade advancement. At a time in our history when we are being outsmarted in math and science by many areas of the world, rather than mandate education, Johnson suggests we dilute an already watery system to “readin’, writin’ and riflin’.” I would point him to Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn’s quote, “It’s an universal law– intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” Or to Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Or to Bertrand Russell who said, “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” Or to Benjamin Franklin who wrote, “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” Or to William Shakespeare who wrote, “A knavish speech sleeps in a fool’s ear.”

Your homework is due by the end of the day.