Hope in these times

For some of us, it's been tough to stay hopeful in these political times.

The rancor of the long campaign, the fear of the continued inability of congress to work together, the ongoing stoking of fear of people who practice a different religion (or none) or who weren't born here or have a different color of skin--all these weigh us down. The maddening rantings of the political commentators on both sides tire us out. Even the people who are happy with the election results continue to be angry. It can make a person want to take a Rip Van Winkle length nap.

But, I think politics are inevitable and important. I think democracy (or a republic as we have) is a superior form of government. I think these tough times are a natural part of the cycle of all societies. Our fortune in the United States is that the cycles are relatively short--our good times come around more often and our bad times don't last for decades. Sometimes when things are dark, it can be helpful to take a longer view.

These words from Melville's Moby Dick are as relevant today as when written in 1856.

"Take shelter from the storm; stay not too long in the sun. Prayer is the shelter from despair; good work for others is the obligation of joy at home."

Envy

I am almost 54 years old and sometimes I feel like a two and half year old saying, "I want, I want, its mine, I want it." When will I grow out of it, when will I mature, when will I be content, when will I learn?

The things I want aren't necessary and sometimes aren't even objects. I want decent affordable portable medical insurance so I'm not tied to my current job. I want a great backyard patio without mosquitos or overuse of chemicals, I want a canoe, I want more books, I want more time to read books, I want more people with whom to talk about books,I want new bedding, I want a new refrigerator with an ice-maker, I want to be debt free, I want, I want, I want.....

And then I start seeing what other people have and I want even more. This person's house is always clean and organized, this person has the library of my dreams, this person has a houseboat, this person got a huge bonus at work, this person has travelled so much more than me.. I want, I want, I want......

Aristotle says, "Envy is pain at the good fortune of others."

In the book, The Geography of Bliss, the writer, Joseph Epstein, is quoted from his writing on envy as saying, "Once unleashed, envy tends to diminish all in whom it takes possession."

And the Bible, in Proverbs 14:30, "A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh but envy makes the bones rot."

Strong words.

Envy. It is a beast that lurks within and must be guarded against. I know better. I have no excuse.

Commonplacing

Thomas Jefferson liked to spend time alone, reading and taking notes on what he read. He called it "commonplacing". I had never heard the term before so when I looked it up saw that it referred to copying passages or quotes from things you're reading and a commonplace book would be a notebook that you wrote them in.

I've been doing this for years but didn't know it had a name other than "oh, I better write this down so I don't forget it". As I've been cleaning the attic this weekend I've found some old notebooks and folders with bits and pieces of commonplacing in them. I definately tended toward the religious and absolute when I was younger. I'm not sure how I would characterize what I copy down now.

The Ipad and computers keep teasing with apps and programs that will lift and save the quote or text for you but I haven't really been able to do more than hightlight text yet. Regardless, I think the act of writing it down, copying the words and the author of the words, putting it side by side with the other jottings in my current commonplace book, is more satisfying, more real. It just feels good to write it down.

Now, Thomas Jefferson, when he was copying a passage, if he thought he could improve it, he would copy it with his changes included. I think you have to be Thomas Jefferson to get away with that.

What the heck?

math word problems
magnets
economics
plucking eyebrows and then drawing them on again
daylight savings time
people who aren't passing in the passing lane
E=mc2
computers/cell phones etc.
why Johnny Cash's birthday isn't a national holiday

There are so many things in life I don't understand. I try to take advantage of the information available out there about some topics, some I remember trying to learn about in school (a long time ago), some I think about again and again to no avail---there is just no bright light of understanding coming forth on certain things.

But other than the Johnny Cash National Holiday (well, and the slow driver's in the passing lane-but don't get me started) I don't really have to worry about these issues much. That's one of the nice things about not being a student. I was reminded of this when my daughter, a college student, sent this quote from one of her readings for Art History,

"...'art' will be best understood in its fullest sense as the instrumentality
or metalanguage of the museum's historiographical and psychical confabulations, as well as that confabulated world of objects itself."

What the heck? No wonder college kids drink.

the Fun of Statistics

According to a Gallup Poll thirty-eight percent of Americans report that they believe it is morally wrong to engage in premarital intercourse. However, depending on which study you use, 90-95% of people have sex before they get married.

For some kind of juvenile reason, I love these kind of statistics.

Another favorite is that the Red Sates (aka Republican, protector of family values) have the highest rates of on-line pornography usage. How can that not make you chuckle?

And divorce rates are highest in conservative Fundamentalist churches (where the women obey the men etc...!)

And Utah has one of the highest rates of white collar crime--because the Mormons trust other Mormons so much --but apparently some of them aren't as honest as the clean cut image would have you believe.

When the "high and mighty" or self-appointed judges of the rest of us fall short--it makes me happy. I want to say, "nana, nana booboo".


But, I'd hate to seem less mature than my 50 plus years should have made me. Josh Billings, a humorist and writer, second only to Mark Twain in the late 1800's, wrote "I don't never have any trouble in regulating my own conduct, but to keep other folks' straight is what bothers me." Clearly, Mr. Billings could have been talking about me and a lot of other people. Still, makes me chuckle but I'm aiming for a more mature sounding chuckle.

One of these days

Over and over, I am amazed with the abundance of fine people in my life. This week has been full of reminders that these connections with people are what save this crabby middle aged "antisocial misanthrope" (see last post) from an empty, sad and misspent life. It would be wonderful to be eloquent enough to tell people what their presence in my life has meant--but it seems that the words often fail or sound cliche.

I'm not a hugger, I'm not good at remembering birthdays or other special days, I'm not good at thoughtful gestures or gifts but:

"One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down
and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
And I'm gonna try
and thank them
for all the good times together
One of these days"
Neil Young

Am I a "Antisocial Misanthrope"?

In the April 20 issue of Newsweek there was an article, by Jennie Yabroff, about reading. Apparently, fiction reading is on the rise but there are some people, labelled in the article as the "self-appointed literary police" who are concerned that the fiction that people are reading is too easy, not good enough (in a literary sense) or too commercial. The article talks about the "gateway drug" theory of literature--"that once introduced to the pleasures of reading, a child (and maybe an adult) will work her way through increasingly difficult and, presumably, increasingly more edifying texts....implicit in this theory is the idea that at some point reading should stop being a pleasurable diversion and start being work."

I have to confess that I've been guilty of that kind of thinking. I have a good friend who reads nothing but romance novels. She reads one to two of them a week and I tease her mercilessly about it. Let me try to lay out the plot for you girl meets boy, they run into a bit of trouble but fall in love and live happily ever after--EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!! My sister and I love mysteries. And just like romance books, the plot is always the same. Someone gets killed, someone else figures out who did the killing and why.

My kids don't read as much as I always dreamed they would (this would be the same pre-natal dreams where they never talked back, kept their rooms clean, dressed in clothes I approved etc...). But when they do read I have to hold myself back from suggesting or being too opinionated about what they "should" read. Maybe they subscribe to Mikita Brottman's theory she put forward in "The Solitary Vice: Against Reading" "Brottman challenges the accepted wisdom that reading is inherently uplifting, arguing that it turns us into antisocial misanthropes who would do better to be out in the world than home with a book."

I say, maybe the world is better off without us.

Noisy and Messy

Molly Ivins was one of my favorite columnists. She wrote for several publications but finished her career in Texas at the Fort Worth Star Telegram. The following quote is attributed to her:

"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice beloveds but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin'ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."

And so ends another election season. Although the mud-slinging got tiresome, the money spent overwhelming and the rhetoric hard to believe--it was as it should be. From the President of the United States, to Congressional races, to local county and city contests-never should such big decisions be made quietly. This democracy is a noisy, messy business isn't it?