Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Two related articles appeared in our local paper the other day, both of which were tucked a bit back from the front page. Back beyond the article dealing with the late president Gerald Ford’s 100th Birthday; well back of yet more coverage of the GOP’s ongoing uncontrollable urge to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies; well past Eagle Scout achievements; well past yet another letter on gay marriage and Biblical interpretations; past, too, yet another chapter in the tired saga of our nation’s Rat Fink #1, Edward Snowden. Back there, on page 9, I found a disturbing article, one that highlights our evolving national demographic and the implications this holds for the economic future and strength of this nation.  “Culture Change Needed” draws attention to the growing non-white majority in this country, a majority that is too often being raised in poverty and without opportunity. Then, on the next page, we find the second article, a smallish item entitled, “Robots to revolutionize farming, ease labor woes.”

Believe me, in 25 years these may well be the only two articles that should have captured our attention, consideration, and political efforts way back in 2013. Careful reading would have informed us that the foundation of this country is largely being ignored. Large cracks and holes in the human masonry are being left untended while we push, push, push to make certain our personal beliefs and opinions as to the quality of our nation’s moral fabric take center stage. We worry over our privacy, national security, and other people's personal choices while the very basic resources needed to fuel the strength and stability of this country are left to wallow in poverty, disadvantage, and ignorance—left to become adults ineffective at working to support this nation, a population unable to grow a future, incapable of contributing to the support of the hundreds of thousands of healthy, long-lived retirees who will be dependent on entitlement programs funded with tax dollars. Instead we worry about the consequences of Mr. Snowden’s actions, misinformed as they may be. It’s easy, gossipy fun and entertainment to read and hear stories of leaked secrets, of battles over abortion, to hear clergy rail from the pulpits and editorial pages about same-gender relationships. Items we find so very important are largely distractions allowing us to ignore complex issues like childhood poverty, ethnic inequality, and the growing numbers of uneducated and disadvantaged. Religion, so-called morals, and a rose colored view of past abundance seem to be the fuel of our social and political engine these days. Youth, race, and poverty are—well—nonissues when it comes to getting elected. They don’t vote.

Another of the popular rallying cries in this era is employment.  We elect “job creators.” We seek out and support those who promise to return us to a robust economy where men and women work at decent jobs for decent pay. Remember, then, that second article in 25 years. In 25 years when everything from a ripe peach to an arthritic knee is subject to a robot’s precision, efficiency, and competence. For the first time in history automation is now eliminating more jobs than are being created.  Where they can’t be exported overseas, “labor woes” are being automated right out of existence. Anyone who thinks the youth of this country simply need a proper work ethic and the will to apply strong backs and callused hands to create and secure their future is delusional. To paraphrase: It’s education, stupid. Brains, not brawn.

Education is the only reliable vehicle to the future. This country had a premier system of public education and a national conscience that embraced that system. The loss of our national support of comprehensive public education is tragic but, hopefully, not fatal. We need to re-invest in education like it is the lifeline for our future—if for no other reason than it is, in fact, just that.

The most difficult problem this country faces, the greatest threat to our personal and global safety, security, ethics, and morals is our failure in the care and keeping of our youth. Not chioce. Not the intrusion of cyber technology. Not sexual orientation. Not even gun control or Al-Qaida. It’s the millions of kids so many of us don’t see. Walking, talking, hungry kids, growing up without opportunity, without resources, without education, without direction and faced with the growing loss of traditional labor related jobs. The very same kids who, in just a few short years, will be expected to economically care for us, and this country.

On Losing One's Pony

My daughter is one of the luckiest people on earth. Literally. She lives a life filled with opportunity. She is accomplishing great things that should provide her with a lifetime of satisfaction, the kind of deep fulfilling satisfaction that carries one the full course. And yet, things happen and sometimes it's hard to see any of it. This weekend, while she was away, she lost the pony she's had since she was two. And, dammit, she was sad. And that got me thinking about sadness and just how incredibly powerful, thoughtless, and damaging an emotion it can be.

Sadness. It strikes me that sadness is one of the most intensely personal and palpable of emotions, the weight of which can physically hold you down, pinned under its emotional mass. And while the event that precipitates sadness can be shared by many, the actual impact and character of the emotion can be so very different, one person from another.

Sadness is a greedy emotion. Too often in its voracity it swallows up all other emotions, a giant vacuum of infinite capacity, pirating every other possible emotion, every other reasonable perspective, and blocking all exits in the course of its action. Recollections of happiness, adventure, growth, and satisfaction are swept up and away. All views of opportunity are effectively obstructed.

And, too, sadness is one of those emotions that has radar. It seems to know when to strike. Somehow, inexplicably, sadness pounces when a person is most vulnerable, when they've had enough, when all they really need is a break. Or, to the contrary, when everything seemed so great, to have finally started to come together. Ha!

I am reminded of an old Austrian waiter we got to know a few years back. He would always remind us that, no matter how good or bad one’s life can be, we should always be grateful for our good health and the wellbeing of the family. Funny how that sentiment is so easy to overlook when everything is going your way and so hard to appreciate when everything seems to be against you. And that’s the problem with sorrow—it tends to consume a person, sometimes seemingly with an insatiable appetite. If happiness is a launchpad, sadness is quicksand.

To the bystander, even the intimate partner or compassionate parent, a loved one’s sadness is able to generate such incredible feelings of inadequacy. You can encourage, console, comfort, distract, and support—but you cannot necessarily fix. And while support, comfort, and consolation are the proper things to do, they don’t excise the emotion. Nothing is fixed by saying it will get better. Nothing stops because you say how sorry you are. In spite of best intentions, the monster that is sadness always seems to get its due, never leaving the table half full.

The older I get the more I do come to realize that time, in fact, does heal all wounds. Sometimes a scar may remain, some more visible than others, but it always does get better. Thankfully, in most cases time does heal and, like the scraped knee that seemed catastrophic as a child, the pain is gone, there is no scar, and the event itself has lost all significance aside from being just another memory, scrubbed clean and tucked away where its force is only able to generate a faint smile and a shake of the head. At the same time, we are once again able to appreciate the good that came, the value, the pleasure, the happiness that sorrow had so heartlessly stolen.

Sorrow takes. But it will only keep as much as a person allows. In short, it does get better. Just like your dad said. And in the end, it’s your health that matters, just like your waiter said.

Social? Media

Walking around Chicago this weekend I saw it a half dozen times: A group of people standing around together where fully 3/4s of the group had phone in hand checking messages, mail, texting, and tweeting. And I looked at this and I had to wonder how much our social fabric is being changed by these incredibly sophisticated and distracting devices.  People on the road behind the wheel are still looking down at their phones, thumb plugging away, in spite of the many studies showing the risk that their activity could seriously injure or kill someone. The most absurd are driving with a 16 ounce cup of something in the left hand and their phone in the right.

Despite the obvious safety issues associated with the latter example, I am curious as to what type of social structure this media is creating. There seems to be a parallel universe evolving that contains the electronic connection of people to an imagined reality. Or, an imagined reality that is becoming real. For godssakes, I sat next to a doctor at a medical staff meeting the other day-- a meeting where important policy was being considered and acted upon-- and she was cruising through her Facebook page on her iPhone.

So what happens when people are no longer able to exclude that other reality? What happens when we can't sit and visit without remaining connected to the constant stream of crap that flows through social media and the vast majority of text messages? All I can say is the guy sitting at the table next to us at dinner Saturday night must have really badly wanted to get laid: There's no way in hell I would have put up with her constant checking and responding to text messages through dinner. (Then again, given the guy she was with, we thought maybe she was fishing for a rescue text.)

All humor aside, and acknowledging how convenient and valuable tex messaging can be, I have to wonder if there isn't a button we've pushed deep within the human brain. It's the button that gives assurance one is needed, wanted, relevant, important all based on the fact you are being chosen to receive information from others. It doesn't matter if it's a WTF, lol, or BTW, it's for you. You matter.

In the meantime, we have neither the ability or desire to carry on a complex conversation. We are no longer able to eat by ourselves in a restaurant, looking around at the amazing cast of characters and life going on around us. We are no longer able to sit at a dinner table with others and create conversation. Suddenly we have become a species that sits around staring at our palms, waiting for the next auditory alert that we are, indeed, important.