History mostly seems to be the accounting of events and the major figures who drive them.
This is the history I would like to read.
The History of Love
The History of Poverty
The History of God
The History of Seeds
The History of Dancing
The History of the Human Brain
The History of Mental Illness
The History of the life of Common People
How the Pencil Changed the World
Seduction and Power
The History of the Purpose of Children
Dreams are just the other universes that you’re living in. They bubble up to remind you of the other possibilities you became.
All across the world, there are governments led by autocrats, dictators, and political thugs. These men are able to create and control networks of bureaucrats and military who dutifully follow them. These leaders do not represent their citizens and in fact repress them and build great wealth off the suffering of their citizens.
There must be a predictable, even obvious, strategy used to gain such power. So how can this happen over and over without the larger world community being able to prevent it? Putin doesn’t represent his people. The same is true of Xi and Kim and all the similar men who are, in the end, filling their empty egos. While they sit well fed and comfortable in their palaces, their people suffer and struggle and even starve.
Breaking news:
President Biden has put severe sanctions on Vladimir Putin so that he will have no access to any male sex enhancement products.
Vladimir Putin told reporters that once his goals are reached in Ukraine, he will reward himself with chest hair and nipple implants to improve his shirtless horseback look.
Look at your hand. Ask it how much it knows.
Look at your heart. Ask it how much it knows.
Look at your brain. Ask it how much it knows.
Look at your mind. Ask it how much it knows.
Look at your soul. Ask it how much it knows.
Then do what you have to.
Dear my fellow Russians,
Suffer. Keep your mouth shut. You are lucky to bask in the glory of my wealth and power. I am getting my Mother Russia merit badge for the glory of all to see. I am surrounded by those who adore me and fear me. My people, tough luck if you struggle and sacrifice. It’s all for Mother Russia and for me, of course.
Be proud you have a leader who is willing to destroy his own economy, become a pariah on the world stage, waste the energy of the world, cause the deaths of many, cause the disruptions of many families and destroy a country.
Now that I have accomplished this great feat, do not try to call me. I will be riding shirtless on the steppes.
Your pal,
Vladimir
So here we are. The glorious species. Just below the angels, clutching after our gods. Most of us live in some kind of peril to our lives, our health and our futures, but the few can always take refuge in their mansions, their yachts and their banks. We are intimately linked by technologies and viruses, but we hang on to the tentacles of hate and privilege. The messages of the great sages hang in the air, but we don’t have the courage to grab on to them. We can’t muster the big love or find the great beauty needed to build the world the angels wanted for us.
We got to this place because we’ve always been in this place. Giotto’s angels have never stopped crying. The human world was always beginning and ending. There were always saints and thugs, the beauty-hungry and the power-hungry, people filled with love and people empty and hollow, people who exploded with life and people who collapsed under its weight, people who loved their children above all else and people who should never have had them.
So here we are. Playing our roles in the drama, wondering when the circus will close down for good. We’ll ignore our souls and miss all the beautiful things they populate. We’ll act like our gods are just nostalgia. The glorious species.
A bully on the playground would be called into the principal’s office, his parents would be brought in, he might be suspended, but there would be a punishment. Most times, that would limit or end the power of the bully.
There seems to be no principal’s office for the bullies on the world stage. Duterte, Bolsinaro, Kim, Madero and now Putin. The list goes on. At the hands of these bullies, millions suffer, millions die, millions are repressed to fill the ambitions of power of these men who lack humanity.
The saddest thing is that this is a drama of our species that keeps being repeated.
What if resumes looked like this:
I am a person of character and integrity.
I always pay my taxes.
Someone calls me “sweetheart.”
You can trust me.
I want my work to be a calling.
I got my college degree to learn how to be a human being.
I speak up for others.
I have a sense of humor.
I ask myself if we’re not becoming just a bunch of cats mindlessly chasing a laser dot. Or maybe we’ve become so numbed that it takes spectacle to get our attention. And the spectacle has to get bigger and bigger. Are we so seduced by empty freedom that we fancy ourselves as little pockets of anarchy? Are we just too tired and distracted to think for ourselves?
I have to remind myself that integrity doesn’t need a marching band, and love doesn’t need spectacle. I just have to get beyond the noise and listen to the quiet.
Corporations, schools, governments and non-profits are all engaged in programs attending to racism, diversity and inclusion. These programs are centered around the law and the achievement of equity in the workplace. In the end, it’s difficult to know how helpful or effective these programs are.
To my mind, these issues are moral issues to be confronted on a moral, not legal, ground. I don’t believe it’s naïve to seek the solution in the practice of love, mature and authentic love. We are fed a diet of mushy, sentimental and romantic love. Those who teach us about authentic love, we assassinate.
We need to understand that the practice of love, like the practice of any great human endeavor, is challenging, demanding and transformative. Worth the effort for the way it makes us human. Why not teach love?
The Big Bang didn’t anticipate you and me. Evolution didn’t either. We are just part of the glorious explosion of life that we continue to discover in the most unexpected places. We may not even be the most interesting or durable. But we are at the top of the food chain, where we gobble up one another with great abandon.
We are warned that we will soon destroy the planet. We are not that powerful. We will just destroy ourselves and take some other life forms with us. After all, life has had too much practice and is too persistent to disappear.
So we will do what we always do: consume, love, kill, imagine, die, hope, lie, cheat, build, believe, misbehave, dream, create reproduce, all the human things that will accompany us to oblivion.
All over Africa, South and Central America and Asia, we are confronted by the financial and human costs of the ego-driven decisions of autocrats. The latest is Vladimir Putin, acting like a royal bastard. He is a small man who needs big actions to convince himself he’s not a small man. His acts are triggering awful instability in Ukraine, extensive demands on resources in all involved countries, international actions in support of Ukraine. This is nothing the Russian people asked for or want.
We live in an interconnected world, but it’s too often interconnected by fear, abuse of power and governments that represent the interests of the few and not of the people.
Death is the only promise birth can keep
Evolution decided that from life’s invention
But in between are countless stories
Not all human, mystery everywhere
An anthill or a coral reef
A few miracles, some sublime
Most never noticed by any history
Death occupies all the stories
In the empty space after the grave
Live all our most inventive conjurings
Because where else would we store our dreams
We all want a good education for our children. We want love for our children. But love seems so disrupted in families. Love seems so sentimental and flabby in entertainment. Love is tossed around so casually in marketing.
Authentic love is not an innate human quality. It requires work, sacrifice and giving. It has to be learned and practiced. That’s why it seems to me that love should be taught in the K-12 curriculum. It has historical, cultural and even mythological dimensions. Give each student a foundation for understanding why and how to love.
On this Valentine’s Day, in an unprecedented bipartisan effort, the US Congress has passed, and the President has signed legislation, creating the Department of Love. The Department of Love will oversee the implementation of the Armed Forces of Love. Every American, upon turning 16, must report for love training, followed at 18 by a 2-year term of service in the Armed Forces of Love.
Service in the Armed Forces of Love will be guarantee either an annual salary plus cash bonus or an annual salary plus support for college tuition. Any member reaching the rank of Captain of Love will receive an additional pay bonus.
Candidates are currently being considered for the position of Secretary of Love
Love is unpredictable, and it’s not easy. Romance is too flabby to be love. Infatuation doesn’t endure. Sex is not particularly reliable. Love doesn’t pay much attention to gender, race, ethnicity, class, status or side of the railroad track. Love is at the same time ordinary and rare. The way it happens, it could just be in the air. It’s best when it’s lived. It pays off well when it’s invested in children. It’s not on most people’s list of New Year’s resolutions, but it should be. Love can look different, but it acts the same. Love is measured in the other. Whether it’s big love or little love, it’s love. Love is never finished with its work. Love is in all the body parts, not just the heart. Love brings courage with it as part of the deal. Love absorbs small transgressions and mediates big ones. Love never goes untested. We cherish the world’s great lovers.
Did you hear about the man who walked around Cincinnati and gave every homeless person a picture of Joe Burrow? Or the parrot who can sing the entire Bengals fight song? The news reported that a business owner has given all his employees a pair of Bengals socks. Paula Toti has secretly admitted that she doesn’t look good in orange. Mike Brown asked the Cincinnati Art Museum to hang all the artwork they own with orange and black in them during Super Bowl week. Additionally, if the Bengals win the Super Bowl, Mike Brown would like a new field, a new scoreboard and a dome put on the stadium.
Go Bengals.
An NFL game requires a stadium, a field, fans in the stands, two teams, uniforms and equipment, coaches, support staff and all kinds of technology.
A masterful work of art can be made with a pencil and a sheet of paper.
I will watch the Super Bowl and enjoy it. I’ll cheer the big plays and eat snacks during the boring parts. I hope the Bengals win, and I think it’s been good for the city and county for this opportunity for folks to come together around this event.
But I will still remind myself that the Bengals are a business and not a public service, a business the public has supported with a stadium and all the renovations Mike Brown asked for over these more than 30 years. That the NFL is a money-making machine that has dealt with concussions, sexual harassment, discrimination and more only when being called to task. That the sale of tickets for the Super Bowl will bring in half a billion dollars or more. That on top of rings and spectacle, there will be a star-studded awards show. The news will have an orgy of Bengals interviews and trivia non-stop.
If only our community could come together this way on feeding children or quality education or mental health issues. Or if money could flow from pocketbooks as freely for needed tax levies as it does for Bengals tickets and sportswear.
Go Bengals.
You’ll never discover who you really are--your best self--by just sticking with the okey dokey.
There is no wisdom without pain.
There is no wisdom without failure.
There is no wisdom without love.
Naked
Naked with one another
Is more than skin
It’s all we are, exposed
Freely as if flesh could speak
Scorching words don’t burn
Touch is tentative but honest
And says we will enter
One another, in no way strangers
Unafraid because it’s love
The soul has a tough skin
Because it always tells the truth
Can we become naked in our souls
Love begins in an explosion of hormones and circumstances. The lovers are falling in love, lacking balance and unsure of their steps. Love slowly grows with nurturing, testing, meeting obstacles and sharing until it finally becomes sure of itself and its ability to endure.
The same is true of creativity. An initial idea comes from nowhere, not knowing where it will go. Slowly it’s tested, fine-tuned, critiqued and finally becomes sure of itself and its ability to endure.
This is important to recognize in this time of the quick fix, the empty spectacle and superficial relationship.
It seems to me that some of the dark aspects of being human, like fear, anger, greed, contentiousness and even lust, could be forgiven because of the evolutionary drive for self-preservation and preservation of the species. But hate is another story. Hate is a tool of power gone mad. Hate is poison. Hate makes fear destructive.
Two thoughts
Science will always bang its head against the mystery of the universe. The arts will always bang its head against the mystery of the human condition. That’s why we will always need mythological narratives.
I grew up with a God out there in heaven, waiting to judge, waiting to be prayed to, waiting to be adored. This left me confused and uncertain. Time and life gave me a different perspective. If I saw God as authentic and emergent in myself and others, then it was completely within me and up to me to make and measure the life that comes out of this awareness. Finding God is finding myself.
Step into your concrete boots
And complain that life is difficult
And slogging tires you out
Or
Slip on your silk straightjacket
To hold in those troublesome emotions
And explain that life is too empty
Or
Build a little box around your mind
With a little brass lock
And say time again that life is boring
Or
Put on your dancing shoes
And dance with your dreams
As if they were your life partner
Our actions and choices are what determine our cultural values. Right now in America, we have to admit that our values are consumerism, spectacle, celebrity, superficiality, me not us, fear, materialism, anti-intellectualism and freedom without responsibility. What can a future for America look like built on these values?
I understand the accomplishments of athletes like Novak Djokovic, Tom Brady and Serena Williams. I don’t deny their effort, focus and ability. But the rewards for them come in money, sponsorships, fans, notoriety, medical care and the assurance of a comfortable retirement. They get celebrity and a payday in our society. The news reminds us of this over and over.
I’d rather the news tell me more about the individuals who work under difficult circumstances to help the hungry, homeless and hopeless. They have to beg for money and support. Or the policeman who works in demanding neighborhoods, risking life every day. Their salaries are only modest for the work they do. I’d like to hear about them from the news before they are shot to death. Or the teacher who’s taught 30 years, low salary, pension in jeopardy, own money put into the classroom, juggling curriculum, admin and parents. I’d like to hear more about them.
These folks may not be as sexy as professional athletes, but it’s among them that we can find our real heroes.
How can I be expected to understand your life? I can’t even understand mine. That’s exactly why we need to have a conversation, a conversation about the humanity we share. Hopefully, empathy will come to both of us from this time together. From this, compassion will result as a signal to act. Isn’t this the most sensible consequence of two human beings talking like human beings to one another?
