HERO

“I write to understand as much as to be understood” - Elie Wiesel (1928-2016). I think most are familiar with Wiesel and his story; a Jewish, Romanian teenager survives Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald to become a great scholar and humanitarian. The written record serves posterity but the act of framing the language and getting it down, it archives that story in the writer’s understanding. I think that’s what Wiesel meant with “I write to understand. . .” and his story never lost its way. 

I identify as a writer, not that I’m accomplished but the mere fact that I frame language and get it down. That process, just doing it, it etches meaning onto my own understanding. So the connection with my hero is made real in his quote, “I write to understand . . .” Always in need of a metaphor: standing in a downpour, under a big umbrella so you only get wet from the knees down. But to live the story and to own that story, you need to be soaked from head to toe. Words are clear enough but visuals and feelings are in there too, somewhere between the lines. 

Elie Wiesel is one of my heroes, and in my experience the whole idea of heroes gives way to imagery of the tide’s ebb and flow rather than caricatures on pedestals. Being one of my heroes depends largely on me and my process so their ebb and flow is to be expected. Some days it’s Mark Twain with his razor edge sense of secular morality and other days it is Kurt Vonnegut’s rejection of national narcissism. MLK Jr. is a hero for his Christ like sense of duty, knowing they would kill him and other times it is secular humanist Jane Addams rising with the tide. I love them all and of them all, none jog my conscience more often than Ellie Wiesel. Who had more cause to hate and take revenge than Elie Wiesel? But he lived a life that spoke of reconciliation, awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 1986. His heroics were parceled out consistently over a lifetime, in the best interests of oppressed people he had never met. So it’s not just about our connection as writers but also about both humanity and inhumanity and which side of that line you want to place your feet. 

I do not idolize or exalt sports stars, not for stardom and certainly not for the sake of sport. Neither do I glorify celebrities who use that status to advance an ideology. I never cared much for John Wayne. He was cast in heroic roles where he could simply be himself and he rode that character into legend. When he used that leverage to advance conservative politics it validated my apathy there in. Even though I understood and agreed in principle, in my view, Jane Fonda was no better.

Leaders in government have an incredibly difficult row to hoe. Some come to it with heads and hearts in the right place but politics is blood sport. At the onset, winning elections is the means to a noble end but in the end, those means become the new end. When public service morphs into a career, slide of hand with smoke and mirrors seems unavoidable. I don’t think here are any heroes in government, just performers with personal agendas. With both sorrow and conviction I concede to the axiom, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As appealing as the opportunity is, no need to beat up on the President. He is the product of his environment and he can’t help himself. The great flaw in the democratic process is that a vulnerable electorate can and often does elect terrible leaders, even demagogues. I’m afraid everything he does is purposed to increase the value of his brand and, like Saddam Hussein, he wants to be President for life. I think the public at large is turning to human nature’s darker side, believing his self righteous hyperbole. The appeal of crushing your enemies is too much to resist. You don’t have to move your feet, just let inertia do the work. If it hadn’t been DT it would have been some other wannabe god. 

I tend to be a harsh critic of human kind but sometimes a personality surfaces with a breath of fresh air. When that happens I take courage, hope for something I can take to heart, take to the bank, make my own. Today, Eli Wiesel’s, “I write to understand. . .” Tomorrow, Helen Keller, Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela; who knows, maybe George Carlin. 

WHAT THE #%@! - 4

     Starting trouble does not figure into my game plan, neither does waging arguments with conspiracy theorists or ideological extremists. I take comfort in the wisdom of, “It takes all kinds.” Writing a collection of arguable assertions under the cover of, “What The #%@!” seemed like a way to broach controversy without stirring up angst. It simply is what it is. I don’t want to wear it out with my hang ups but then again I would like to share story that might challenge someone’s thinking. That would be a good thing.

     Yuval Harari, author of “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus”, both best sellers, is a scholar in the area of Human History, from The Stone Age to the present. In “Sapiens” he explores how an insignificant species, of no more consequence than any other mammal, how they could advance so rapidly and take over the planet. That’s exactly what we’ve done in roughly the last 10,000 years. 

     He tells the story of how bees exist in a tight social construct. They cooperate in very large numbers which makes them unique. Thousands of bees function for a common purpose, say making honey. But in a split second they can redirect their collective effort to a different task, defending the hive or break off into smaller groups to nurture larva in the bee nursery or fan air to cool the hive. The way they go about each task is literally, carved in stone. No new ideas in the bee hive. E.O. Wilson (world authority on social insects) calls this ‘Super-socialism’. There are only a dozen or so super-social species. A small contingent of ants can not go off exploring and start a new ant colony like the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. In super-social communities the entire community succeeds or dies as a group. All but one Super-social species are insects: Homo sapiens is the other. What sets people apart from bees and ants is that we certainly do cooperate in very large numbers, (voting in elections, holiday shopping, driving cars at rush hour) but we do so with flexibility (new ideas). Voters can write in a name that is not on the ballot, shoppers can change their mind and switch gifts at the check out and drivers can disregard the GPS and exit sooner rather than later to avoid traffic. Some mammals are flexible but only in small groups. Dolphins cooperate in herding fish up into shallows, creating a bow wave that pushes fish onto the bank where they are gobbled up. But it only happens in family groups. One chimpanzee pulls a limb down so another can collect low hanging fruit and then they share. But those examples only happen with small numbers. Tens of thousands of soldiers stormed French beaches on D-Day with a single purpose. Still, small groups changed tactics as situations required, either advance or dig in, return enemy fire with machine guns or throw hand grenades, etc. Humans are the only species that cooperate both flexibly and in large numbers.  

     At first, his accent and frail appearance belie his story telling skill. Harari was speaking to a group in Stockholm, Sweden. The story went like this: Only a few hours earlier, he was at a hotel in New York, didn’t know a soul there. A bellhop took his bags down on the service elevator and loaded them into a taxi, driven by another stranger. He checked out at the desk, returned his key, again to someone he had never met. Of all the places in NY the cabbie could have gone, he takes Harari to the airport where another stranger takes his luggage and checks it in through security. He shows his identification, answers key questions and proceeds to his gate where another stranger scans his ticket. He boards a plane where another stranger seats him beside yet another stranger. A new, different attendant provides food and drink during the flight and people wait patiently as those seated nearer the door deplane first. His luggage is taken to a hotel by someone from the university while another stranger drives him to the auditorium. Then, standing in the spotlight on an unfamiliar stage, he shares a story about Human History with hundreds of strangers. 

     Harari stops to sip water from a bottle, surveys the audience and stretches the pause to emphasize the moment. “I want you to know,” he said, “never, ever, will an African chimpanzee leave his familiar troop of 20 to 30, mostly relatives, leave his territorial patch of rain forest, ride in a taxi driven by an outsider to the air port, board a jet with a crew of alien chimps, fly halfway around the world, surrender his possessions to another unfamiliar chimp to take to his hotel and walk onto a strange stage by himself, in front of hundreds of Swedish chimpanzees to share with them a story about bananas.” 

     The audience loved the story. As if it needed a second verse he begged the question: “What do you think you would get if you put several thousand chimpanzees in an a basketball arena for the Chimpanzee World Championship? How would they organize, who would put on players uniforms, who would be referees; how would food vendors take orders and make change, what about ushers, spectators? People could connect the dots and make it happen. Chimpanzees can cooperate creatively but only in small, family groups.  It would be chaos.” They got it. Humans are not only able to cooperate by the millions (religion, nationalism, war, sports events, etc.) We are both creative and flexible in the ways we transition from one role to another, sports fan to religious devotee, situation to situation. Add language which facilitates story and dexterity to make and use tools, we have evolved from paleo-humans who functioned very much like troops of primates to civilized cultures and ideological sects. We send people to the moon and bring them back but also dictate, all across the world, when the Faithful pray and how they go about it. Cooperating in very large numbers, flexibly, that’s how we came to dominate planet Earth. 

    Consider this, one highly visible, nationally known celebrity chooses to kneel in protest rather than stand for the national anthem and the reverberations are, years later, still making news. Nearly every American got the news within a few hours and judged the situation according to their own moral compass. Opinions ranged from one extreme to the other. He should be banished for his treachery or he should be revered for his courage. I don’t care much about flags, don’t value programmed, manipulated, wanna-be patriotism. I think he showed courage to put himself in harms way for an unpopular but noble principle. But What the #%@!, the point is, a chimpanzee could not have made that choice.

WHAT THE #%@! - 3

Most years by this time I’ve had to mow the yard but the weather has been up and down so much we’re late on that part. I am yet to mow. Some of the weeds are going to seed already and outside my kitchen window in the grass by the patio, a solitary red tulip is in bloom. I’ve never noticed it before, probably because I mowed before it could shoot its flower. I have a run-away imagination that won’t let me leave things alone. So seeing something that seems out of sync with the rest of my experience, it sends me off on a tangent where imagination and possibility go off their leash. The tulip’s leaves are not pretty at all but the blossom is. It started me thinking which usually spins off into a story.

So I start an anthropomorphic conversation with the tulip: “What are you doing there? You are supposed to be out front with the other tulips.” There is no flower bed, just a spot in the grass where former residents planted bulbs for curb appeal. No mulch, no border, just something the realtor told them to do. They bloom early and when they are finished I mow it over and forget about them again until the next spring. They are blooming now but then I was expecting them. The red tulip in the back yard is an anomaly. I wonder if it feels out of place, all by itself, reaching up above the clumps of rye and blue grass like a homeless sapling in the middle of Nebraska. I’ll leave you alone until your petals fall. Then I’ll treat you like a weed and John Deere will bring you down to 3” along with the grass.” 

But I identify with the rogue tulip. It was Kermit the frog who said, “It ain’t easy being green.” Being different isn’t bad necessarily but too much different or off in the wrong direction, someone will notice and take you to task. I will default to some of my own, self inspired wisdom in that ‘Pushing back against you own culture is incredibly difficult.’ Nobody had to explain, I did the math myself. ‘Birds of a feather. . .’ that axiom holds up under fire, it is natural for us to feel comfortable, to prefer people who look, act and believe the same as we do. But what the #%@!, when your tribe adopts an attitude where Muslims = terrorists, African Americans = lazy & dishonest, where we need a wall to keep Mexicans out of the country; I can’t resist pushing back. I’m not a big protester, maybe passive aggressive but I get the message; I’m not good enough either. In my own terms, I’m a doubting unbeliever but religious  citizens would say I’m a Godless reprobate. I love my country but obviously, not enough. Americans I see in everyday places remind me of my son when he was learning to assert himself, behaving badly in the process. I don’t go places where I have to stand for the national anthem before they can begin; not so much an issue about the anthem or the flag but I don’t want to identify with narrow bigots, with their hands over their hearts, believing conformity makes them patriots. They would say it’s not about conformity but I know better. Patriotic hyperbole is all about conforming to a desirable stereotype.  

I don’t hide my feelings but I don’t flaunt them either. One’s position on moral values and beliefs, they stem from feelings, (and we don’t get to chose how we feel) not logic or reason, certainly not intelligence. We are driven to action by well established emotion long before reason, reason has to begin at the beginning before it can connect the dots, emotion is preprogrammed. Intelligence after the fact lets us feel like we’re in control. People take pride in moral decisions with righteous certainty but in fact it’s like taking pride in a sneeze, not a decision at all. The greater the moral element, the bigger the sneeze. Anthropomorphizing again, a self driving car has a human behind the wheel who thinks he is in control. As long as the car makes the same decisions the human does, the driver doesn’t know the difference. But when the car stops unexpectedly to avoid a crash, the driver’s only explanation is, it’s a timely malfunction.

I’m no smarter than anybody else. What makes me different is that my emotional compass isn’t calibrated to my culture and I know it. I act on emotions just like everybody else. Believing one can over ride emotions in favor of a rational response is ‘iffy’ at best. The morality caveat just compounds emotional influence in the process and I have already touched that base. Being an American right now is not comfortable by my experience. My pushback is only a bandaid so I can feel maybe, not so bad. I’m too old to expatriate to Canada or New Zealand and my family is close by. So here I am, trying to appear as if I belong, like a red tulip in the grass. But if I sound too much like a Godless heretic or less than patriotic, John Deere may mulch me like an unauthorized weed. 

WHAT THE #%@! - 2

Etymology is the study of the history of words. The ‘logy’ part of etymology is easy enough meaning ‘the study of’’. The ‘etym’ part traces back to Old French, through Greek and Latin, even  to Sanskrit, associated with, ‘in the true sense’. But do you think, for a second that primitive, modern humans (Is that an oxymoron or what?) back when humans were new to the planet, making them primitive in a relative sense but modern in that they were fully human, not human-like, but having all of their fingers and toes, able to imagine, to make up stories and speak, big brain, invent and use tools, etc.; do you think they sat around mumbling, sounding out new words so they could embellish their story with adjectives and adverbs that were more precise, more eloquent than the ones they had? (How’s that for a run-on sentence?) I don’t think they did. But I appreciate a big vocabulary. As much as I struggle with grammar I know, without grammar, trying to get the story down on paper would only yield more cave paintings and petroglyphs. And I thought it would be easy, throw some words at the page and call my publisher. Just when you think it’s making sense you realize that language has its limits and communication, even with the best of words, can be muddy and vague; that apparent compliment is actually an insult. 

I need all those words to think about Human History, how we evolved, really long time spans; what about us is remarkable and what is not. An old Greek philosopher, Epictetus, made the observation, “There is neither good nor evil but believing makes it so.” That wonderful, logical, emotional, creative brain is likewise dedicated to some pretty dreadful propositions. Before mankind unleashed our collective brain power there was no good, no evil, nothing beautiful, nothing righteous. Those kinds of ideals don’t surface until after we create the story. Without humans there is neither good nor evil, like the sound of a tree falling in the forest. We’ve been able to agree, for the most part, on etymology, about what words mean. But the stories (beliefs) we come up with, they keep us at odds with each other even though we have the capacity (but not the will) to live together peacefully and pursue common cause. 

The English language, like DNA, is comprised of only a few fundamental components. But by rearranging those letters and spaces, our language has mushroomed and it just keeps growing. New words are added every year but even as other words go out of style, they are never retired. They stay on the books, available on the chance that an eager etymologist might need to check their pedigree. I get hung up on lots of words, my short list could be a dozen deep. But right now with the Human Story in mind, the word for the day is ‘Narcissism.” It is a uniquely human attribute. To be so fixated by the image and the idea of ‘Self’ that you ca not disengage from it; no other creature has the brain power to love the self so profoundly. At that, when we recognize it in someone else it is not a good thing, rather a character flaw. But when narcissism runs deep in the course of human nature, in all people, all the time, we (collectively) revel in it. It feels too good so (by our nature) we require a failsafe, some justification for our narcissistic indulgence. Prejudice and the ‘Common Sense’ fallacy may have served us well since we came down out of the trees but civilization is moving on. We need a rational, objective way of seeing self. It seems to me, the bridge between the two has been manifest in a  mythical deity and Faith based religion. We are so special, so beautiful, near perfect because God made us in his image. With that caveat in place, humans embrace narcissism under another name.

But“What The #%@!” what do I know? I am just  a low level doubter, disappointed that my kind is no better than our wars and our deceit. Sometimes we feed thee hungry or donate to the SPCA but it’s as much penance as it is good will. Still, bettering our nature is like good and evil, at the end of the day it is whatever I’ve been programmed to believe. Epictetus’s revelation has faded from most of our memories but I’m afraid he was right. Somehow I’ve dodged the bullet, I have no pride at all. I’m a dirty, rotten scoundrel but I’m beautiful. Seriously, the only reason for me to be here is simply to pass my genetics on to another generation. Life at all levels, all species; it just seeks after itself. If I am content with my condition and have enjoyed the ride then I’m a lucky man. I’m a high functioning animal, no better - no worse than any other animal but I have a kick-ass brain. I can connect dots, make up stories that inform and entertain. In that endeavor the only eternal truth I can speak to is that life is after all, pretty good. 

WHAT THE #%@!

Imagine; 40,000 years ago, coming out of Africa, two hunter-gatherer Homo sapiens look up at the stars, ponder the same big questions that modern philosophers still struggle with; Where did we come from, why are we here? In a split second, a meteor streaks across the sky and burns out. The Dude asks his Amigo, ”What the #%@! was that?” Amigo doesn’t know but falls back on a story. “That” he said, “was moon dust. The reason the moon gets smaller from one night to the next is that moon dust blows away. But when it’s all gone, it starts blowing back, little by little until we see a thin crescent of the next new moon. That was moon dust and seeing it is a good omen.”  Dude says, “Wow, but how do you know?” Amigo replies, “My dad told me.” That was thousands of years ago. My mom told me it was made of cheese and that a mouse nibbled at it until it was all gone. After all, imagination and story are truly what sets people apart from other animals; we conceptualize experience, transform it into language and create stories.

The more I learn about human history the better the story gets. My purpose here is to share some of that story with a minimum of ‘Teacher Talk.’ Regrettably, this kind of story requires some technical language/academic vocabulary but if I can endure that, so should the reader. My need to share this story was prompted in January, 2017, at a RV rendezvous in Arizona. I was in an otherwise cordial conversation with a lady who was more comfortable with myth and magic than with the nature of scientific inquiry. Our conversation spilled over onto how much time had lapsed since the mountain we were standing on was uplifted from a dried up sea bed and to humans evolving from lower forms. Her take on the whole thing was an enthusiastic affirmation of her evangelical, Faith based commitment to Creationism. The ‘Gong’ factor, as with the gong in a Buddhist temple, was her dismissal of evolution. She concluded, “It’s just a theory anyway.” Without a thought, my reaction lept out of my mouth like a frog’s tongue on a bug; “If evolution is just a theory” I replied, “then Algebra is just a theory, algorithms that generate accurate nightly weather forecasts are just theories, the earth’s magnetic field is just a theory . . .” Her mouth and eyes went full-open and from that moment we could not find common ground to continue a conversation. I don’t think she knew what an algorithm was and she didn’t want to ask. If it wasn’t explained in the bible, she didn’t need to know. 

Evolution doesn’t need to be defended, it works. In our case the story picks up maybe two million years ago with primitive, chimpanzee-like apes, getting along very well in African rain forests. Today, their descendants network on social media, in cities and rural settings on every habitable corner of the planet. From Danny DeVito to Arnold Schwarzenegger, humans display vast diversity of anatomical traits and mental capabilities. Like Danny and Arnold, we all employ the same alphabet but flesh out as very different stories. The mystery of how we be so different and alike at the same time and why we behave like we do; mysterious as it may seem, it is a better story than, ‘In the beginning. . .’ 

Traditional myth has great appeal to people who need the assurance of a universal, absolute truth, right now. Unlike supernatural beings, Scientific inquiry does not employ a  crystal ball or deal in revelations. Scientific inquiry depends on patient process, discovery, critical, unbiased examination and time consuming review that moves at its own pace. So I lump those traditionalists together in a category that I call; ‘Don’t confuse me with data, math and probability, I know what makes me feel good and I’ll stick with that.’ I have no axe to grind with them but my purpose is to stretch the comfort zone to a carefully calculated probability that may or may not please me. I remember telling someone once that “I would rather know and be disappointed than go on in the comfort of not knowing.” At the time, I didn’t know how deeply that observation was rooted in my psyche. I’m not finished with "What The #@%!". I’ll have to collect my thoughts on where I want to go with it. The only difference between Dude & Amigo and the rest of us here and now is a very long, shallow learning curve and more accumulated knowledge than one can imagine. 

BY THE DECADE

Life by the decade: 

1st: 

Mom, food, toys & play, run-jump-climb, girls, read & write, wanna be 16. 

Teens: 

Me-me-I-want-I-want! Algebra, narrow minded adults, wrong-about-girls revelation, drive cars, imprint the work/reward correlation.

20’s: 

Sex, job & money, more sex, adrenaline rush, own a fast car. Champion a worthy cause, one that not only feels good but right as well.

30’s:

Career, sex, family (60% responsibility & 40% joy), hobbies, vacations. Not enough hours in the day. Play hard. Expand social & work networks. 

40’s/50’s: 

Family, think about sex, concede to consumer culture, mid-life revelation, aging denial, expensive toys. Play hard. Think about saving for old age.

60’s: 

OMG I’m old already and I didn't save enough, remember sex, play smart, anticipate onset of  obsolescence. Family (25% duty & 75% joy). Simplify, downsize. 

70’s: 

Concede to diminishing eye sight, loss of strength & coordination. Family (10% moral/material support & 90% affection), focus on healthy life style, remember when you thought about sex, rethink mortality. Seek new experiences, travel is more appealing than insurance premiums.

80’s +: 

Day to day, take naps, work at good health. Live the way you want to be remembered. My habit is to associate songs with my own feelings and ideas. In my 80’s it would be James Taylor: “Father & mother, sister and brother, if it feels nice, don’t think twice. Shower the people you love with love.” Then you draw from what is within your reach and let the rest go.