Most of the time I try my best to be that little Buddha you see above, tucked away unobtrusively amidst the foliage of my everyday life, venturing out on occasion to sail along on the seas as they present themselves to me, be they roiled, calm, utterly crazed or just churning along at a steady forward clip.
Other times—especially in these times—I find myself in a perpetual Code Blue, frantic and aghast at the array of emergency situations that I know in my bones are far too numerous and potentially deadly for my everyday Buddha to possibly track—or even let into his orbit.
Underneath all that, a fear, a gnawing doubt about my right to carry on with my everyday life, given that the very ground I am walking and laughing and loving on has been set ablaze, is burning under me as I and everyone I hold dear colludes in the fantasy that we can (or should) still lead a normal life when so much about that life and the lives of our children and grandchildren is at stake in a bare-bones, fundamental way.
This tension—that we are witnessing in real time the sustained corrosion of our democracy in a way we couldn’t, wouldn’t, have dared to imagine in the Before Times, and that we don’t know quite how to react to and live within its maw—invites itself into most every conversation I have with like-minded souls in my cultural milieu.
If we do manage to avoid The Topic, we invariably do so with nervous laughter, congratulating ourselves on our restraint. Even so: before departing, we wind up launching anyway into a truncated version that we just can’t bear to totally avoid for fear that we become like those Germans in 1935, assuring ourselves that this, too, shall pass, nothing to get all deranged about…
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Part of what fuels these wrestlings is the sound and fury that now seems embedded into our political conversation as a permanent state of affairs. It’s a fury that then takes an almost natural next step, like water seeking lower ground, toward an astonishing, dismaying indecency that should shake us to our core but instead becomes just another day’s headline, sucked back down below our gaze as every new day’s darkness descends.
One among countless cases in point: United States Senator Mike Lee of Utah. A devout Mormon and former missionary, Lee responded recently to the assassination of a Minnesota House of Representatives member and her husband (along with a separate shooting of an assembly member and his wife, both of whom survived) in their own home by posting two separate messages on his personal X (formerly Twitter) account.
Here’s the first, which also included a photo of the alleged shooter: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”
That was a Sunday, when we can assume Senator Lee would have been attending church services at which the centrality of decency, compassion and mercy are always prevailing themes.
The post elicited immediate blowback for both its heartlessness and inaccuracy, since news reports within hours of the incident had been detailing the alleged shooter’s fervent anti-abortion stance, support for President Trump, and other issues dear to right-wing politics.
Undeterred, Lee shifted to taunting mode with a second post. It featured another photo of the alleged shooter, to which Lee added the caption, “Nightmare on Waltz Street.”
Joy, you ask? Hell, yes: JOY. And even inner peace and tranquility and the mercy of humor in a dark time. How dare we? I think I have come around to an answer: How dare we not?
The post not only stood as a tongue-in-cheek play on the campy horror movie series, “Nightmare on Elm Street,” but also as a reference to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, whose name Lee misspelled.
Walz knew the victims (all of whom were in the hospital or the morgue by then) and had been going about the business of consoling his shocked constituents while dealing with his own grief and horror at the events of the day.
A full two days later, Lee deleted the tweets, but had made no statement about them. This was even after personal visits from Minnesota Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, in which they sought to convey the grievous hurt Lee’s comments had caused them, the victims’ families, and countless others in their state and beyond.
On that Wednesday, the “Deseret News,” the Mormon-affiliated newspaper in Lee’s home state, ran a strongly worded editorial imploring Lee to issue a formal apology. These 10 days later, Lee has never retracted nor apologized for his numbingly offensive tweets, though he did eventually push out a boilerplate statement on his official Senate X account condemning “this senseless violence, and praying for the victims and their families.”
Lee’s president, for his part, kept true to his basic sensibilities and style of governance with this nugget in response to reporters’ questions about whether he had called Governor Walz in the aftermath of the shootings:
“I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I’m not calling him. Why would I call him? The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?”
My own response to these sentiments? Not so much anger as a creeping sense of despair.
How can we possibly find our way out of this thicket, this miasma of nonstop vitriol, when the likes of these two prominent public figures quoted above see fit to respond to a national heartbreak by descending deeper still into a muck of hateful, heartless rhetoric?
What are regular, normally neurotic but not indecent people—which I am still convinced represent the vast majority of the American population—to do?
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And yet:
I found myself conflicted and irritated in the days after the 2024 presidential election when outgoing President Joe Biden hosted President-elect Trump in the Oval Office. There, in front of a roaring fire while the cameras rolled, Biden offered up a warm, almost jolly “Welcome back” greeting to the person who had refused to observe even the most minimal similar protocol when Biden defeated him in 2020.
I shall not belabor here Trump’s subsequent actions and the reminder they will always be of the strains placed on a democracy when politicians refuse to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
At one level, I knew that Biden was just being himself, following basic institutional and social customs that call for grace in trying circumstances and respect for other human beings and the office of the presidency.
At another, more primitive level where my cantankerous, vengeful self takes up more space in my soul than I’d like, I was feeling contemptuous of Biden for being a “sucker,” for extending Trump all the decency that Trump has always refused him and militantly, crudely, denies to everyone, all the time, whenever they dare to cross him.
The encounter presented a clear example of the unique challenge that a conscience-free, profoundly indecent human being such as Trump throws down to decent people whom he gets, for whatever reason, into his rhetorical gunsights.
Try to give back as good as you get from him, and he has gotten you down to his level, “proving” his point that you, too, are as indecent as he is; it’s just how this game of life is played. He says as much in his last statement in the tape above, though he couches it in “politics,” as if purely transactional, political calculation doesn’t suffuse every dimension of life to him.
Resolve to honor basic human protocols of decency and respect instead, and he will accept it in faux appreciation as he does above—before running all over you by the time he has left the premises. It took only hours after the Oval Office meetup for Trump to resume his drumbeat denunciations of the “radical left Marxist” and “lunatic” Biden, who was “the worst president in United States history” and responsible for virtually all the country’s current ills, which are legion and horrible and only able to be fixed by Trump himself.
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So: do I have a tidy answer for the conundrum these historical circumstances have foisted upon everyone who wants to do the decent thing and remain a decent person through what appears to be a profoundly indecent age?
No, I do not have an answer for the conundrum these historical circumstances have foisted upon everyone who wants to do the decent thing and remain a decent person through what appears to be a profoundly indecent time…
(And I should add that this conundrum faces some Trump voters, too ,in their own wrestlings with conscience; I know plenty of them, and can vouch for their decency.)
The conundrum engenders additional questions: What do we owe our country, our ancestors, our heirs, ourselves?
I do know that shutting ourselves off in drink or drugs, in beach reads, in sports, in exercise, in a bigger house, even potentially in religion that can wind up minimizing the sufferings of the world, is no answer. Which is not to say that some of all of those might not help get us over humps, provide moments of much needed respite that refuels empty tanks and fills them back up again with a modicum of joy.
Joy, you ask? Hell, yes: JOY. And even inner peace and tranquility and the mercy of humor in a dark time.
How dare we?
A legitimate question, but at least in this matter I think I have come around to an answer: “How dare we not?”
We have but one life, after all. How shall we use it—and let it work through us?
I know that everyone has different tolerance levels for how much darkness and indecency they can contend with while still maintaining their sense of sanity. Different capacities, different people, at different times. But if there is one overarching challenge we are asked to confront, it is in facing the necessity to carry on with normal, decent lives doing normal, decent things while also fighting, as best we can, the intrusions and injustices of an abnormal, indecent time. And not letting the second half of that challenge overly compromise the first.
Not fighting the contradiction, but immersing in it, in a non-binary way, seizing both its planks and hoisting ourselves atop of them, where the view is more encompassing and even accepting, with all the equanimity we can muster, of the challenges before us.
Challenges, we should not forget, that have been faced and overcome by now countless generations before our own.
Perhaps we will fail, or our country will go sideways for a long while despite our best efforts. Hard to say.
What we know for sure is that sinking into escape, despair or our own vengeful indecency will do nothing to prevent that from happening, and will only add fuel to an already dangerous fire.
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There are moments I feel like Odysseus. Do I tie myself to a television mast and listen to the sirens’ destructive songs that too many find seductive? Do I plug my ears with wax and block out the disturbing noise like Mike Lee’s cruel tweets? Do I journey to beautiful places for a week or two (hopefully not 20 years) to get away from all this ugliness? Maybe, like the sea Odysseus sailed, while treacherous and deadly, ended in reunion. Perhaps, we can as a nation come together and restore decency to our shores. Afterall, history has always been like a sea, an ever-changing ebb and flow. Aristotle argued that balance is the key to life, and happiness is achieved by sustaining a Golden Mean between two extremes.
Yes and the Buddha points to the ‘middle way’. The opposite of “both sides” which is blame oriented and cynical, and rationally incorrect. Another term used to silence those who would point out the terrible actions of maga
Great piece Andrew. We always knew there were some cracks in the democracy we grew up with, didn’t we? We’ve watched them suddenly turn into chasms. Waiting for decency to win out feels like waiting for Godot. So yeah, I find some joy in the moment when I can. There are even times when the absurdity puts a sharper edge on the joy. I take any good fortune less for granted. “You’re a lucky bastard,” I remind myself when despair looms. Even as the devil on my other shoulder whispers, “so far.” Chop the wood. Pet the dog. Carry on, mate.
That is what I do. Every sleep, every wake, every annoyance and all of the neutral and fabulous moments I am allowed to live. Middle of the night thinking is relieved by repetition of loving kindness phrases.
I deeply appreciate this post and the comments by Robert and Dennis. I am so grateful for the life I’ve been given: family, friends, good health, and the daily opportunity to spread some joy even in the most mundane ways.
Robert, every time we think our situation special, we take a gander at history or at the history of mythology and see it has all been lived, imagined, expressed and endured for thousands of years now, thousands of times. One inclination may be to yawn at it all, but that would undercut the particularities of our own experience, and our right to declare the reality of our own suffering and our thrashing around to get on through it. Odysseus is a delicious guide to much of that, many thanks for getting him & his cohorts back in front of me for some rollicking fun and perspective on a Sunday summer afternoon!
Dennis, you’re getting more pithy, poetic, and dryer with age, my man—love those cracks & chasms, the tragedy & absurdity, and our mutual friend, the sly reminding devil on your shoulder. What & where would we be without him?
Kevin, that’s a short recipe you cite for a fine, upstanding and, dare I say, “religious” life. It really is that simple, no matter the trillions of gallons of ink that have been spilled trying to get at essentially the same thing since about forever. Reminds of Rabbi Hillel: “Whatever is hateful and distasteful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary. Now go and learn.”
I feel frustrated bedaue it seems there is a nothing we can do to persuade the senators, congressmen, supreme court judges, and all those that support the indecent comments, actions, and immoral decisions they make. Do the demonstration marches, protests, songs, movies, and all the other types of media and art that speak up about this indecency, war, starvation, genocide do anything at all? Because these baskets of deplorables won’t listen to reason or history, or consider the future of our children, or our health and welfare. So what actions do we take without crossing the lines of decency. This frustration manifested itself in many ways before, but was it the violence that got it all changed? Did Malcolm X or the Black Panthers bring the fight for racial equality into focus, or blur the efforts. Because many people today are speaking out but their words fall on deaf ears. As many of you know my favorite song is by Bruce Cockburn….”If I had a rocket launcher,” which my dear friend Kevin took me to his performance in Healdsburg. This song is a perfect example of a musician expressing his complete exasperation with the atrocities on the refugees in Guatamala. So much so, that he abandons his morality and wants to get a rocket launcher and “watch some son of a bitch die!” And yet, these strong words were just that, even though masterly crafted and accompanied by his virtuoso guitar playing, did they change anything except reinforce the morals that decent people have? So the frustration is coming to a head. The question is, can we channel it in a way that perserves our human decency, morals, and peaceful values? The difficulty is simply put with, “Can you walk the walk, or just talk the talk?”
Perennial questions, Kirk, for which the answers are slightly different, I think. It seems you are asking both about the role of violence vs. peaceful demonstration in fostering change on one hand, and then whether either one works at all on the second hand. The first is complicated, I think, and the second is easy.
Yes, I think violence can sometimes help bring about change, but it can also hurt the change you seek. It can certainly help galvanize attention and maybe signal a point of exhaustion with the status quo that helps finally resolve an intolerable situation, but it can also alienate even those who broadly support your goals but have moral qualms about violence injuring innocent people, with the backlash leading to even more oppression. Did Malcolm X and race riots help black liberation? I’d say yes, it contributed, but it would not have done so without the road being heavily paved before and alongside him by MLK and all the restraint of the non-violent protest movements over many years..
Historically, the American Revolution was an obvious case of violence leading to change. But just as or more often, it has a negative effect, as seen in various liberation movements around the world where the revolutionaries turn into despots themselves, Iran being among many examples on that long list.
Your question about Bruce Coburn is a bit tricky, because it was a protest song about violence, but Coburn never did buy his own rocket launcher, did he? In my view, he believed—and still does—in non-violence but was channeling/reflecting the great anger and impatience that can follow from oppression and the slow pace of non-violent change, even as he uses non-violent talk to express it.
Is that weak because he only “talked” in a song rather than take a rocket launcher out to a battlefield? I don’t think so. I think in the end, “talking”—in song, print, blogs, films, videos, paintings, and chants in marches and protests— IS the “walking” that one does to exert influence and effect change. It worked to finally drive the British out of the colonies, drive Nixon out of office and the U.S. out of Vietnam, and even to drive Trump out of office in 2020, only to see him return on the strength of his talk on key issues that changed a lot of people’s votes in 2024. That’s democracy for you—messy as all getout, which Trump is now trying to suppress with all the profoundly anti-democratic means he can. Will he succeed? Maybe. The battle is still joined, but I think the only thing that will stop him is his own over-reach combined with all the “talking” millions of us are doing and must continue to do—loudly, clearly, and persistently. It’s at the very foundation of democracy—and it’s exactly why despots work so very hard to suppress it.”Talk” is dangerous, otherwise Putin, Xi, Kim Jong, and the Mideast despots et al would not be imprisoning or killing those who use it effectively to expose them.
And after all those words, the sign here says it all, Bro!
Another luxuriously intellectual journey, thanks for inviting me along. As you well know, the conundrum is a constant companion of mine as well. I’m proud of us both for our ability to strike a balance and invite none other than the Buddha into our lives. But (sorry) let me just acknowledge a pang of guilt at my good fortune. That I can (CAN) take respite in the things that give me great joy, as I know and see you do too, I can’t help but feel kinda…ya know…. privileged. I am hearing from others much closer to breaking under the pressure and that only adds to the deep gratitude I feel each day when I can still channel the Buddha that lives within. These are my hot off the presses-first reactions to your piece. As I said, intellectually luxurious time spent with my friend, the writer….the thinker. I’m most grateful for the time and for the friendship. (Gotta be 25 years eh?)
Ahhhh, my man: 25 years—could that even be possible? I’ll have to look through the FXQ & email archives, but it’s definitely more than 20, and since memory usually shortchanges such matters, it may indeed be 25. Mazel tov, pal!
I’m glad you surfaced the slightly queasy guilt issue, which merits a lot more discussion here & everywhere. When I started this piece, the grappling with that was uppermost in mind, because as apoplectic as I get for what is befalling our country, I also know I’m at a stage (age, actually!) where it’s not likely to affect me materially all that much, and my life and the lives of my cohorts will be able to pretty much carry on as they always have. All, however, as the ground keeps shifting under all of our feet in a way that will have profound effects in the long term—just in time for the two generations behind us to bear the brunt. I’m scared for them, for the world we are leaving them to navigate, for the ugly tenor of our times.
So yeah, I think in many ways we had the world handed to us in an era of unprecedented opportunity and prosperity, and are stuck with something at least resembling guilt for still having it pretty darn good while the world we knew may not be available, may be worse by most any measure, for those with their whole lives still ahead of them. I don’t want or need anyone to be cueing the violins on my behalf for that, but it does leave me wondering exactly what to do and how to do it from here onwards. How to make amends, after a fashion. Write, march, gab, kvetch, support good causes, brighten days for all who come into our orbit? That enough for what remains of a life? Chuck it all and move to France?
And at the end of all that, I still don’t see how we get around our debt to posterity in the form of grabbing all the joy we are able to in the time we have. Funny how that keeps creeping back in, no matter the dark places we sometimes go, eh? It happened again in this post, even though I didn’t have it in mind when launching in. But I think joy is the unifying thread of all the richest relationships we maintain; it truly, in the end, fits the hoariest of cliches: It makes life worth livin’!
So thanks again for this prompt, not sure I’ve gotten any further along on the topic du jour, but it’s been good exercise (!!), so as Dennis says above: Carry on, mate….
I was actually a bit concerned about playing that guilt card. I didn’t want to catch you off guard. So glad it didn’t sneak up on you and…. Sorry for thinking it might. So this whole discussion implicates that which originally brought us together…. FX, adversity unexpectedly entering ones life, and how different people react and adapt. My point being that the Buddha lives within us all, not dependent upon income or relative comfort. Finding the beauty, striking the balance, even in the face of the depravity de jour IS possible and IS IMHO one of the secrets to living a good life. Back to FX…. THAT adversity, that bomb that exploded in my life, was what imparted this wisdom to me and it has continued to pay dividends every day since. Arlene and I call it the gift of adversity… of FX. We often remark, upon meeting a certified asshole, that the poor sole must never have had real adversity enter their lives. I’m also fond of saying, but for FX, I, could have been a certified asshole. Soooo, I come around to disavowing guilt or privilege. My ability to rejoice in the simple pleasures around us has been hard fought, hard learned, and anyone can do it if given the gift of adversity.
Whoa. I just blew my mind☮️
No worries, pal, that “guilt card” was the inspiration for the entire post; I’m just thankful you picked up on & elaborated it.
So: who & what would we be without our burdens, our tragedies, the challenges dumped in our lap from the void—and some deep, unbidden gift of wherewithal to make something of them, to spin their dross into some version of grace and fairydust, to ultimately welcome and be gratified for their input, as you were with FX? So both strange and obvious to recognize it as gift, yes? Not in some one-dimensional “God’s plan” way, but in a “Here’s what I did with what I was given” way, which implies human agency, adaptability, dignity, intention. And the choice to put it all to use in not becoming a “certified asshole”—that is very big too! :-)
My guess with Trump and his ilk is that something very bad happened to them in a highly soulless upbringing, and whether they lacked some genetic trait or some personal intentional fortitude to turn away from that legacy and become a more decent human being as a result is the mystery of it all, ultimately unknowable.
But we are stuck with them, and at this point we need enough decent brave people to stand up en masse in opposition or we will surely go down together, and have to settle for “a kingdom not of this world,” to quote an ancient bestseller… In the end, I trust that kingdom can still be found regardless—among our people, our tribe, the like-minded souls still found in abundance, no matter what happens in the world around us.
What is FX if I may ask?
Dear Andrew, it was such a blessing and edification to read your commentary this evening. I was especially touched by your ability to refocus my thoughts and feelings back where I left them on January 2025. I am profoundly thankful for pulling me back from the edge of the abyss.
Much water has flowed under the bridge since we last shared thoughts. I hope we can pick up our friendship again. But I should tell you that I have suffered the slings and arrows of old age. But I will say more at a later time.
If you are so inclined send me a message or a text and reconnect. I would love to hear about how you’re doing. In the meantime fight the good fight.
Blessings and salutations your old friend Bob.
Bob, so very very good to hear from you; I feel like we’ve been on a fraying tether for maybe a decade now, and buffeted by winds all the while (as indeed we have!). I think you’re still on my subscription list, last I checked, and I assume you accessed this post through the usual notice, so I will reach out to you via email very soon and let’s see if we can find the time for a nice catch-up phone chat.
Meanwhile, I’m gratified that you found something of value in my words; that’s a huge bonus atop the value I get from just trying to string those words together in something resembling coherence and sanity in a challenging time for both! Cheers, my friend.
If I could put all of my thoughts into words I could write forever, so it helps to know a blog that can express a lot of it for me :)
What to do? As an activist since 2016, I do have a list.
First, a constant monitoring of what info I let in.
Second, learn how to do the self-talk when the unhelpful thoughts come, like anger, blame, internal conversations going on with my maga neighbor that I will never have. I tell myself I see that road but not taking it today. Or the well known example from Portia Anderson’s poem about learning not to fall into that same hole on the sidewalk (https://www.mindfulnesstherapy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/autobiography-in-five-chapters-portia-nelson.pdf).
Three, stay busy with human-facing activism. We have had an explosion of Indivisible and similar groups in IL and around the country. We make sure we have plenty of in person actions, socials, monthly meetings, family friendly gatherings, following local politics and keeping our local government healthy, postcards, informational zooms, regional gatherings, protests, you name it. Being with like minded people is the surest way to some good feelings when one realizes all the good out there. (Yes I have a job but I squeeze these activities in as well as monitoring exercise and food so I don’t go overboard on anything). Plus, we get them in the pipeline for direct conversations with neighbors. It does ‘help’ in the margins of elections. It’s ‘worth’ doing and if I weren’t doing it, what would I be doing instead, watching more TV?
Four, when I feel like crying, if at all possible, I do. The rain comes and goes constantly, but how do you think Scotland stays so green? (disclaimer, just went to Scotland, very grateful. Now there’s a people with a crushing history of maltreatment, so many peoples have been tortured in this world).
Five, become more brave about speaking out in our personal interactions. This one is hard but it must be done. Stop worrying about whether I ‘like’ someone or they are a ‘good person’. I can’t really know that. But I do know what I stand for and I am pushing myself to stand up for it out loud. I invited an evangelical ‘friend’ for coffee. Haven’t heard back but thought I’d try.
Six, sometimes I swear like a sailor but I’m not going to worry about it, and usually only to tolerant friends (never on a poetic blog such as this!)
Seven, for right now, get involved in any voter project, registration etc. They are pushing voter restrictions of all kinds. See what is happening in your state. Check out Mark Elias for news on that.
Eight, stay compassionate. That and love are the only life rafts we have right now.
Lastly, as most on this blog know, get in nature, stay committed to the arts and the community, your own tiny one, expanding outwards, never stopping.