Thoughts on 2024 ...

A "thought experiment"

I apologize for not making books the focus of this newsletter. The letter will serve, rather, as a “thought experiment”. While it feels a bit “bloggy”, I must get beyond my preoccupation with 2024 before retreating to my “garden” – books.

“Happy New Year” did not roll off the tongue with any ease this new year. It felt both pollyannish and darkly comic. I cannot see how this year can unfold in the global sense in any “happy” way and so one wee hour in the morning I broke down the various ways I might handle it. Thus … the “thought experiment”. (NOTE: I will address several books in my next letter)

Each of the following represent my options for managing a year that opens with: very likely the most divisive (that says a lot) election year in our history, the very real possibility of a greater Middle East War, the rise of antisemitism (always the canary in the coal mine signaling that things are going off the rails), the sense that Putin may carry the day in one horrific form or another in Ukraine, the lack of snow and all the other creeping signals of climate change. Not included is Taiwan, immigration chaos and the loss of one third of our birds. All of this tidal wave of bad news can be found in just a few days of reading any prominent newspaper or periodical. Given the hysteria that grips all the news at ALL the outlets, my “experiment” lies in how to best address this infected world.

OPTION #1. Full Body Contact … keep reading each day and forward articles to friends and read what is forwarded to me, watch the PBS Newshour in the evening and, in a state of emergency only, CNN. This is how I handled 2020. It was much easier then as all news, no matter how disturbing, had to get through the pandemic filter - a filter that either offered perspective or distance or some combination thereof. It was also a lot quieter.  I did increase my already far from moderate drinking and never got off my frenemy, my smartphone. In this more nakedly glaring year, I must avoid this option for all kinds of health reasons. It is the one I might default to so it will require an AA degree of discipline to avoid.

Option #2. Viking River Cruises … I am a prosperous, well-educated American that won the global Lotto at birth and lives a life of great good fortune despite the curve balls in the night and the realities of getting older in our shaky 21^st century. As such, I could travel – a lot. I don’t own a yacht to drift off into a watery state of denial but I have LOTS of miles. Nothing like living in a constant state of logistical jet lag – the perfect metaphor for “stepping away”. And … why not? What are you going to do? You will vote, buy an EV, eat less meat and, I hope, pay the taxes you owe. Regardless of your virtuous choices, all will unfold with or without you. The siren song of escape grows amidst such anxiety and powerlessness. Thus, the cruise ships refill after the pandemic and airport lounge offers no comparative relief. There is a whole crowded world out there waiting to be Instagramed and it may be just the cure. With children scattered like wind-blown leaves from the home they were raised in, we have lived this peripatetic life. Even with the pandemic timeout, I soon realized that, except for the imperative of family, this option will not work for me. There are too many people in the world. For me, the romance of travel, no matter how comfortable, has been stripped away by the numbness of homogeneity, the plague of numbers and the fading of wonder. I will travel only because I must.

Option #3. Xanax … the drug is my favorite non-alcoholic controlled substance. I try to keep at arm’s length. Anxiety dissipates under its influence. What was keeping me awake at 4:00 in the morning retreats to a safe distance. A non-pharmaceutical version can be found in Voltaire’s fictional character, Pangloss. Despite the relentless misery and confusion that marks the world of Voltaire’s Candide, Pangloss wakes each day like man’s best friend. All is good, food awaits and the possibility of catching a squirrel remains as real as … yesterday. Many people say that “it will all workout” with a serenity I envy. I can sustain that state only with the help of various attractive substances, otherwise, it is as foreign to me as Mandarin. A thinking man’s version of the Xanax option is the glass half-full argument and this I take VERY seriously. There is so much to be grateful for and not just from the perspective of a prosperous silver-spooned aging Boomer. Life expectancy in India passed 70. Population growth rates are plummeting. You are 100X less likely to die in a war and despite the rhetoric, your daily lives are safer than ever. We are awash in plenty and do not know it. That’s the rub to the glass half full exit. We are too self-absorbed, too awash in our presentism and hindsight biases to look at that glass that way. If we did, we might be grateful, even generous, pay more taxes, slowdown, and light candles of thanks. It does not, however, feel like we are going that direction. Maybe we never have.

Option #4. History as Pepcid … to read a professional columnist’s version of the following paragraph, please look up Jennifer Rubin’s column in The Washington Post, “Get Real and Read Some History. The Past was Worse.” As I wrote in my book, I have managed much of my relationship with the world through my love and deep engagement with history. This intimate partner in life found its full fruition in teaching. What I did not understand was how important it would be after the classroom doors had closed. There is much comfort to be found in our troubled and complicated history. Elections have never been easy and many were plagued by corruption and scandal. Politicians, as Baz Luhrmann tells us, have always lied or, in the least, disappointed us. No Founding Father thought the newly minted republic would survive. It has … for a very long time. Many horrors litter the sides of the road and we still refuse to drive with the aid of a rear-view mirror. History is tough comfort but perspective is always hard earned. This newsletter and my website are my modest post-classroom effort to embrace this option. With fake news and all forms of pedantry and orthodoxy as present as ever, historical perspective has never been needed more. Its weakness, however, is always the weakness of the cerebral. It dissipates in the glare of headlines, in the urgency of the present and in the faces of your children and the futures they must navigate. Which leaves me with …

Option #5. The Garden … Voltaire’s Candide serves as a timely rumination on how we manage reality if we cannot be Pangloss. An advisor to Kings and Emperors, a vain, brilliant, and corrupt man whose relationship with life can only be explained as “full” in every sense, Voltaire concludes that given our infinitesimal and all too mortal footprint, we are best served to “tend our garden”. This may seem a six-pack short of denial and, yes, some of that ingredient is required. I might prefer to clothe it in discipline but so be it. What is your “garden”? To each his own but in my case, it is as literal as it is figurative. There are real gardens to care for, meals to make, bookshelves to order and homes to clean. Then there are friends to stay in touch with to remind you that friendship is one of life’s dividends for trying. Then there are children and grandchildren to love, visit, help, listen to and learn from. Finally, for many, there is a marriage or a relationship that is meant to be seaworthy, an ark amidst rising waters. Tending your garden means you are not alone, that it takes “two’ and a village. Nurture what you can touch, hold, and love. Put the phone down. Turn off the news. Stop whirling around. Take solace in the garden of your own making.

Okay … wish me luck. All of this resolve may share the fate of most new year resolutions. Meanwhile, off to putting together a newsletter about books. Reading certainly can qualify for each of the above listed options … part of its charm

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