Nasty and Brutish

Don't know much about philosophy, but....

I have vague recollections of skimming the works of great thinkers, and most of what I remember comes to me in sound bites. He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. The ideas all seem pretty obvious; the brilliance lies, I think, in the pithy elegance of the phrases.

Without rules, without a sovereign to enforce those rules, Hobbes told us four hundred years ago, life would be solitary, nasty, brutish, and short. The pessimism always seemed a bit disheartening, but as I watch the accelerating and insidious fraying of our hard won social contract, I marvel at the ancient insight.

My tendency toward cynicism aside, I truly believe in the words of Anne Frank, a child, and a far more modern philosopher, extraordinary mostly for her ordinariness. I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I believe this, when I talk to my friends, when I live, every day, in my community -- both real and virtual. When I hear the stories of extraordinary ordinary school teachers and coaches. I believe more people know right from wrong than not, and try their level best to act in kind. And kindly.

Nasty, brutish, and short, if not in stature, then on just about everything else. Our new sovereign, and all those who enable him, for reasons somebody like Anne Frank, hiding in a cramped attic from an unspeakable reality, could never understand. I listen to folks talking about their own pocketbooks, their right to own guns, their God given right to possess America and keep others out. A greedy carnival barker speaking directly to them, the biggest "me-ist" to all the other "me-ists," social contract be damned.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command. Guess we messed up on that one. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. Ah, if only.  

Anne Frank again: How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.I believe this, as I watch children from a high school in Florida rise up, find their voices, call out those who will turn a blind eye to just about anything if it serves them, personally. I believe this, as I watch these children, wise well beyond their years, painfully aware they cannot undo their own losses but finding, somehow, the strength to save others.

The old philosophers said some cool stuff, but it's the children who keep me cautiously optimistic. 

We Have All Dropped the Ball. We All Need to Grow a Pair.

A troubled boy, sporting a "make America great again" cap, spews hatred and murderous fantasies on social media. He boasts of his arsenal of guns, and shares pictures. There were warning signs everywhere, but now 17 young people are dead. The boy is in custody.

A troubled man, over a year ago, announced to the world that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and nobody would care. He promises to make America great again, and he tucks his bizarre orange hair into his signature cap. There were warning signs everywhere, but now our country has become a laughing stock. The man is in the Oval Office. Except when he is on the golf course.

The political finger pointing has begun in earnest, but the truth is we are all to blame, in varying degrees. Our attention spans are short, and we become desensitized all too quickly. Grainy videos of teenagers being led out of school like criminals, hands up over their heads. News reporters asking parents the most ridiculous questions -- how did it feel when you stopped receiving text messages from your child? Your child who was hiding in a closet with twenty-five schoolmates and a teacher who was supposed to know how to keep everyone safe and calm because she had done a few drills? Did you ever think it could happen here? Here. Where you are, precisely because bad things don't happen.

Two years ago, I met a lady whose grandchildren were at Sandy Hook Elementary School when twenty young children and six teachers were murdered. Life had gone on, for her, but she was forever changed. I vaguely remember the outrage, five years ago. I remember how certain we all were that something would would have to give, that rifles would no longer be as accessible as a carton of milk. I donated once, to a a charity set up in a dead Connecticut child's name, and I occasionally receive a new solicitation. The picture of the beautiful child haunts me, the frozen in time snapshot of a life's worth of lost promise. I ache for his parents. I wonder why nothing has changed, and I donate again. And I move on to wring my hands about something more immediate and petty. Desensitized.

Florida's governor, the guy who firmly stated, two years ago, that the Second Amendment doesn't kill people, said he would do what he could do to keep kids safe. "We cannot let this pass without making something happen that hopefully, and it's my goal that this will never happen again in my state." Whatever that sentence means. Not once would he acknowledge that gun control would be part of the solution. Nope, guns are not the problem. Apparently, as far as Governor Scott is concerned, the FBI director is the problem, because he actually admitted that somebody in the FBI dropped the ball. Aha! Guns don't kill people. The Second Amendment doesn't kill people. The FBI director kills people. Never mind that we will never know how many people are saved, every day, when the ball does not get dropped.

If this happens again, if another troubled individual with a legally acquired rifle manages to commit mass murder in a school or at a concert or in a nightclub or anywhere, we are all complicit. Just as we were complicit, by virtue of our sheer apathy, in allowing a big buffoon in a Make America Great Again cap to sit in the White House, the house that slaves built. Just as we are complicit, by virtue of our inaction, in allowing him to stay there, while a never ending laundry list of crimes and misdemeanors seem to roll off his Teflon hide. Enough is enough.

Roots and Wings

I recognized my old friend immediately when she walked into the chapel. Her face was as girlishly cute as it always had been, with freckles scattered around her little (especially by Brooklyn Jewish standards) nose. It still amuses me that she is so tiny -- she had towered over me in elementary school -- but I am no longer surprised by it.

It took my mother an additional moment or two, but she smiled quickly enough. I didn't recognize you at first, she told my old friend. I love your hair blond! I panicked. It's bad enough my mother is deaf; I am not prepared for her to be blind as well. My friend's hair is no longer brown, the way it always was, but it is certainly not blond. It is gray. A delicate light gray, so soft looking it almost begs to be touched. She has done what I have always promised myself I would do, let her hair go where nature takes it. I have kept my promise when it comes to wrinkles and fat pockets and all the other indignities that come with age, but I have been weak about the gray. The whitening of my hair started pretty late, but I cannot seem to give up on the battle, every six weeks, to conceal the truth.

Hours later, when my mother again mentioned how she had at first not recognized my friend with blond hair, I broke the news to her.  She was adamant. It's not gray. It's blond. It looked pretty. My mother is always right, except when she's not. Usually, I just let it go, but this was important.

I don't like it, she said, when she finally backed down. I reminded her she had said it looked pretty. Apparently, it did look pretty when it was blond. Not when it turned gray though. I don't like that my daughter's friends can be gray. 

I get it. I don't like that I was in New York for my other dear old friend's husband's funeral. At 60, he had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, a most deadly kind. Two years later, he was gone. My friend is far too young to have lost her husband, the love of her life for so many years. Her two beautiful daughters are far too young to have lost their father. As one of them said, during her eloquent eulogy, he had marveled once when, watching her do what she does, that she had "become her own thing." It's what's supposed to happen, that our kids become their own "things," but we are supposed to be able to stick around to enjoy it, and also to be there just in case they need a little bit of reassurance. With luck, we should be able to stick around to watch our children turn gray, whether they hide it or not, whether or not it reminds us how fleeting life is.

My friend's daughter also mentioned a saying that had always hung on the wall in their home, something about parents giving their children roots and wings. The roots grow out, and the wings sometimes take our children farther away than we'd like, but the roots are always there and the wings are a good thing. It's just that sometimes, if only to make ourselves feel better, we see things the way we want to see them.