The Day After

November 9 2016

Perhaps writing my thoughts will serve as a pressure release and keep me from going on off on someone who starts talking about Trump’s victory, in the next few days.

I feel like I was on a wild roller coaster ride screaming with joy only to have it malfunction and slam to a halt, threatening to kill me and all the people I love who were on there with me. In my simile, I cannot say it killed any of us, since no one I know has actually died as a result of last night’s debacle. There, that’s the good news I was looking for. No one I know is actually dead this morning, as a result of Donald Trump now being President-Elect Trump. I think it will help me that I was able to type those words: President-Elect Trump. So, I typed it again, just in case it really does help.

All of us Hillary supporters seem to have been victimized by the mass euphoria that came with the idea of the first female president and of denouncing Donald Trump for his racism, sexism, bullying, and all the other awful things he does – is - represents. Even President Obama was all swaggy during his appearances on behalf of Hillary, saying things like: “Come on man” and “They took away his twitter,” for laughs. I can understand him being giddy at leaving what must be the most difficult job in the world, after eight long years; and he can be forgiven for believing along with so many of the rest of us, that Hillary was destined to be his successor, but when I think back on his demeanor, it’s like when I think back on so many things leading up to this awful end – it makes we liberals, those of us still basking in the glow of having help elect the first black president – look smug and overconfident.

I want to be angry at her for not fighting back when they called her crooked, criminal, nasty; but I know the pundits will do it without my help, for the foreseeable future. They will pillory Hillary the same way they gore Gore and bury Kerry. Striking out at the “loser” is as predictable as a knee jerking when it is hit with a mallet. I suppose they are searching for the same thing I am, someone or something to blame, that helps the universe appear to make sense. She deserves great respect, though, even for her restraint. Her calm under fire may have helped –oddly enough- lead to her defeat, but she can walk away from politics with her head high - and to paraphrase Michelle’s mantra- while those who falsely accused her, may someday be brought low. That’s the way the world works, right? Justice comes later if not sooner? Please say yes.

I have a nagging feeling this morning, of knowing I could have done more. I could have made phone calls to voters in Ohio, when they emailed me to do so. I could have been more vocal with the people I know; and I could go on with the could haves, relating to the campaign. But there is another sort of woulda, coulda, shoulda feeling I have, which is much deeper, more personal.

As I look back at my life, I can see how I have – at times- been sort of Donald Trumpish in my approach. At times in my life, I have been arrogant, cocky, I have no doubt come across as something of a bully, I have been sexist; treating the women I interact with, with less respect than they deserve. I must have seemed hollow or shallow to others at time, people who would not tell me so, either because they love me or – I shudder to think- because they were afraid of my reaction.

I think that is what I want to try to take away from this whole thing. I want to try to fully grasp who I am by holding up Donald Trump as a comparison; to see where I can improve. That is available to all of us now, and it will be for at least the next four years, unless something even crazier happens and his time is cut short.  

Bullies will have him to remind them how ugly that behavior is. Racists, bigots, religionists, etc. might be shamed into understanding how unfair it is to use one fact about someone to define them; by watching Donald Trump do it on the international stage – hopefully with results that might even make him at some point, feel ashamed.

We will have a woman president someday, we will have another African-American president, and who knows, we may even get to the point that we can elect Michelle Obama to that office. Meanwhile, I think we all understand, we are entering -what I hope is a relatively brief – modern-day version of the dark ages. A woman’s right to choose is imperiled, as is Obamacare, as are seats on the supreme court – I mean, Trump has all of congress and most of the statehouses on his side, so he will be able to inflict maximum damage on: science in general and as it pertains to global climate change, decency, civility, and diversity. He will be able to continue our long nightmare of corporate-controlled government and thus, to keep the gap between the haves and the have-nots at its piteous high.

Nonetheless, I still believe in the enlightenment, the renaissance and perhaps most importantly, evolution. In fact, my hope rests mainly in evolution. Human beings did not have the capacity to reason until relatively recently. Perhaps it was predictable we would exhibit cognitive dissonance about critical reasoning – evidenced-based thinking- since it requires us to suppress our basest instincts, our superstitions and tendency toward grand conspiracy theories. When people are sad, they get afraid, when they get afraid, they get angry, when they get angry, they lash out at the world – and in this case, the “whitelash” as Van Jones called it – will have national and international ramifications.

But just as we will continue to evolve biologically, we will evolve socially and psychologically; until which time humans will be able to think of all sentient beings on this planet as their kind, as their brothers and sisters and their in-group. I doubt if I will see this in my lifetime and I can now see it was probably a pipe dream to imagine I was about to see it soon. I am strong, as are the ones I love who are feeling the same pain I am today. We will not only get through this, but some of us might even live to witness the time when we claim higher ground as a species; and refuse to give it up.

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The Power of Love

When a person is in love, she could keep her hand in ice water until it is frost bitten; lift a car off a toddler – not even her toddler; eat 50 hotdogs in under 30 minutes; give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to an anteater; walk across burning coals; run across the Mohave Desert in a wool coat and so on like that.

Corporations should hire only people in love, fire them when they are no longer in love and replace them with other people who are in love. If everybody who worked for a company was in love, the company could get away with sexual harassment, pay people far less than they are worth, and repeatedly ask them to do things near the limit of their capacity. Not that we want our companies to do those things, but they could, if everyone was in love- and no one would hardly notice.

If everyone on the planet was in love, global climate change could be soon solved. Those who lived in cold climates would never complain about the cold, they would just cuddle up with the one they loved, without needing to produce greenhouse gases to stay warm through energy use. Those who lived in warm climates would never complain about the warmth and not care about air conditioning, because they would want to spend all their time looking at the body of the one they love in its relative state of nakedness.

Of course, if we were all to stay in love, we might have to give up one of our long-standing traditions – monogamy. It is not easy staying head-over-heels in love with the same person for more than a few months or years. So, for everyone to maximize the amount of deep love they feel over the course of their lifetime, we would likely need to be polyamorists.

You may think it a strange thing for a marriage and family therapist to be advocating polyamory, but let me explain. Sure, it would be devastating to our families, our children, even our economy, for everyone to shift immediately away from monogamy. However, what if all of us were constantly seeking to improve ourselves, to the extent that every few years the people who knew us before could not recognize the new us. This could mean those who loved us before might be able to fall in love with the new us, especially if they too were evolving and becoming new people.

What sort of “new people” should we seek to become? We should seek to become the person we fantasize about being, the person we find most admirable, most attractive. We could constantly roll out the new us, excited and refreshed, ready for the person who once loved the old us to find the new us, and fall in love with us once more.

As long as we are all moving ahead with our lives, finding excitement in now, in tomorrow and at future prospects; the odds of the person with whom we are in love falling out of love with us, would go down dramatically, I would suspect. Science could be done to either bear me out on this, or not.

The more we all stay alive and fresh to what life has to offer, the more likely it is the person with whom we are in love, will stay in love with us and we with them; without having to become polyamorous – in anything other than the new way I am proposing here- or otherwise jeopardizing the social order that makes traditional families possible.

I know, you hear it all the time, that being in love is always temporary and you should not look for love to sustain your marriage but rather you should look for something like compassion or commitment or some other word beginning with C. I say, that may be, but since we all know love has a singularly strong-positive effect on human beings. Why not figure out a way to stay under its influence for as much of our lives as we can?

In some ways, I think we are given this proposition by life: if you want to increase the likelihood of staying in love, sign a mutual change pact between yourself and the one with whom you are in love.

Time: the Father of Us All

            There is no way to slow time, the father of us all, absent father at that, leaving little bastards from sea to shining sea, even words vacuumed from pages into this swirling orifice smaller and smaller until too many and too small to read. People have tried everything from Retin-A to Rogaine to a mixture of Vodka and valium. Ponce de Leon or was it Vasgo de Gamo, searched for the fountain of youth. Try alcohol, fountain of age, but at least you can taste it going down. What an asshole he must have been, but then no more so perhaps than entrepreneurs of other sorts, speculating and not finding but continuing the crusade until the queen's money is spent. Unfortunately for him, he underestimated how universal the laws of time are. He was playing with fire, no with the sun. There is not a law for those who drink A and another for those who drink B, but one for us all, so drink up and shut up.

            He clutched the flowers to his chest and imagined it all to be different, she had not gone restless and found her way to Florida, necessity had not demanded that she begin to sell her body, and the man who had just called had not told him that she was dead and gone. Yes and JFK was back in Camelot, RFK was catching his passes, the good old paternal order of America was still blowing up Marilyn Monroe's skirt, and MLK was peacefully resisting.  That sort of thinking was good for a few minutes, or even hours. But as the effect wears off, the hangover has you scratching your head six inches too wide. 

            When Roosevelt died in Georgia, a slow train had brought him back north and thousands had lined the tracks. Gloria would come back north in a box provided by the great state of Florida, in the back of a late model Ford pickup with a camper. Truck beds are for fish, for dogs, for dry wall, but not for daughters.

            His little girl, the little blonde who dreamed herself of being president one day, talked openly of her ambition. The straight As all through high school might as well have been Ds or Fs. This message to parents everywhere, A does not mean always, it might just mean afterthought or asshole for believing the myth.

            What would they do with the videotapes? Capital idea, squander the film like it was another life. Why not, you only live twice, once for real and once on your loved one's videostream. Easter dresses and halloween faces, marching to Pomp and Circumstance. What a cruel joke, the videorecorder. They should all be cast into the sea of forgetfulness.  You never watch what is captured and if you do, those you love stare into the camera and mock, like washing your hair at grandmas and seeing your big nose in her Delta faucet. No video cameras would be allowed in Gray's Funeral Home, no one would try to sneak one in. Death shows it credentials at the door, no subterfuge or false hope or smiling for the camera. No green shaving cream turned foamy white.

            Go down Gloria, down by the river Jordan and be baptized with John and the other disciples. Take flight little dove and light on the shoulder of Jesus, my daughter in whom I am well pleased. Before I forget all the scripture I have ever read, be gone. Crank up the old Duster and glide into the southern heat, never looking back, just the way you've done so many times before. Call me with the little calling card we got you at Wal-Mart when you get halfway there. And then again when you get there and dial it direct. Let it ring just twice and we'll know it's you and not some telemarketer trying to sell us another line of credit.

            Here take this testament and this sack of half dollars with you. Use them if you get lost or better yet, turn it around at any time and drive back home.  No one ever seems to die on the way to see the family doctor. You died on the way to see a heart specialists. My darling, it must have been your time.           

The positive effect of project-related conversations on mental well being

My brother Earl, would never hurt anybody, and not only because he comes from the best family in the world; but also because he installs floors for a living. It’s not just the measuring, cutting, laying, nailing, and other things that he does, that makes him a good person; it’s the conversations he has about doing those things.

Try being an asshole with other people when you are talking to them about installing new floors in their house, putting a new roof on it, or mowing the grass around it. Sure, you might get away with not being nice a little while, but pretty soon it will destroy your name - the word of mouth around you and your business- and you will find yourself looking for another line of work, one that does not involve conversations with people. But it is not simply an image or personal-brand issue, there is more to it than that.

Try this. Catch yourself mad about something and then while you are still mad, go to the hardware store and talk to someone who knows a lot about a project you are trying to complete around the house, let’s say, repairing a ceiling after a water leak in your attic. See if you can stay mad. No cheating. If the person you are talking to is angry or unreasonable, that does not count. But if the person is concerned about your project, offers good advice and shows you where to find the tools and supplies you need, I would be shocked if you did not leave the hardware store calmer than you entered it.

No disrespect to my friends who work in the field of psychology as researchers, professors or practitioners; but I would be willing to bet it is hard to find any better therapy than a conversation about doing something useful, particularly something with your hands.

How many accounts have you heard of a self-employed electrician spending all week solving household and commercial electrical problems, only to find himself shooting up a crowded theater on Saturday night? He might wind up falling in love with one of his customers, which of course, is a problem in itself; but he is not apt to hurt one of them.

I am not sure what to call what I am talking about, maybe something like: the positive effect of project-related conversations on mental wellbeing. 

The effect I am speaking of, starts when you walk into a hardware store. Just getting out of your truck or car and making your way in the door, calms you down. Then when you ask a clerk how to find something or how to do something, and you get the information you needed, you are reminded the world is not so bad after all.

A couple of years ago, around midnight during a winter ice storm, a huge tree fell on our house – actually our house was largely spared, but it hit our screened porch pretty flush and cut gashes in our siding and tore off the gutters. During the ensuing three or four months, I must have had a dozen or more conversations with various people on getting the tree removed from our yard and the repairs done to our house. Several times I felt like one of the contractors could have done his part faster or better, but every time I caught myself wanting to get angry or impatient, we would have another conversation and I would be peaceable again.

The guy drives into my driveway and gets out of his truck with the radio still playing and a younger assistant waiting on him, and walks up to my front door. I greet him and he tells me he is there to talk about getting the tree removed from my fence. We agree it was a big tree, although not the biggest one he has seen. In fact, he says he had one a few weeks ago two men together could not wrap their arms around; that fell on a house and took out part of the roof. We agree I was comparatively lucky. He tells me they will probably take a backhoe through my gate and into the backyard and have a guy stand in the shovel while they hold him up to the roof and let him use a chainsaw to cut through one of the big limbs keeping the tree up on my roof.

And sure enough, in a few days time I am standing in an upstairs family room window and there is a guy not two feet from my face, standing in the shovel of a backhoe with a large chainsaw, cutting through the limb. When he makes it all the way through the limb, the tree falls to the ground and the limb he has cut, swings wildly, but he is out of harms way – just barely- and the guy operating the backhoe lowers him down to the ground. I am thinking, better them than me.

Drawn like a moth to a flame, I go out on the porch and I hear them yelling above the sounds of the tractor and the chainsaws – there are other men with chainsaws cutting other parts of the tree – and during one of the breaks in the noise, one of the guys waves at me and smiles. I give him a thumbs up and say something like: “That’s a pretty rough job.” And he yells back, “Nah, all in a days work.”

Then he yells to one of his coworkers to be sure to steady himself on the limb he is on. A couple of the other guys are on the ground watching for a minute, taking in what they have accomplished so far and planning their next line of attack.

When the tree fell that night, and it did not come through our bedroom window and end our lives, it brought with it a lot of rigamarole; but it also brought the promise of weeks of project-related conversations. They say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That may be, in part, because recovery is a social process.

Thinking back to the good old days when people had better memories

People don’t remember things the way they used to. When I was growing up, if somebody went to the store, they by god came home with what they went for. Nowadays, you never know what people will forget when they go to the store.

Back in the day, remembering things seem to be people’s second nature. They would just be sitting around thinking about the past and all of a sudden something important would come into their minds and they would tell you a story and you would be like, yep, that’s the way I remember it too.

I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody forgot something important around me in the last few weeks. I would be a rich man. I blame it on the internet, calculators and GPS systems. People used to take pride in remembering, now they are ecstatic if they can just put one thought in front of another one.

I remember one time I was trying to remember this guys name. It was on the tip of my tongue. He was somebody famous and I swear, everybody in the room where I was at the time, piped right up and gave me the answer almost in unison. I was blown away. I thought, now this is the good life. I got all my faculties, I am young, and everybody still cares about remembering stuff and can do it when it counts. I would be afraid to try something like that now. Everybody would be rushing for their phones to see who could Bing it first. Half of them would get the wrong answer from their search and the other half would be asking me to repeat the question.

I can remember remembering things that nobody else could remember. That always made me feel so proud. They’d be like, “Oh snap, I just can’t remember” and I would be like, “blah blah blah” and they would be like, “Yep, that’s it. Damn, how did you remember that?”

If you think about it, you know what I am talking about. Try to remember back to when you were a little child. Didn’t people remember things better then than they do now? Now, if you ask people to remember even important things they will look at you like you lost YOUR mind.

Try this little experiment. Ask somebody to remember something and see if they can remember it. Chances are, they will have forgotten it. You know I am telling it like it is. Now ask them to think back say ten years ago. Ask them if they could not remember better back then. I bet you a dollar they will say: “Hells yeah, I could remember so much better back then.”

I think part of it was people did not have to remember as much stuff back in the day. When I was a kid, if I had to remember five or six things a day, that would be a hard day. Nowadays, adults and even little kids, have to remember fifty or sixty things on easy days.

Nobody expects older people to remember much these days, but I can remember my grandma… Remember? My goodness, remember aint no word. She would remember things little kids can’t remember this day and time and she was getting along up in the years. When I was little and me and my brother and sisters would stay at her house for the weekend, she would remember every one of our names and if we went out somewhere and somebody who knew us would see us, she would look at them like they were crazy if they could not remember our names. Let’s see your average grandma do that today. She would be like: “Who you are little boy?”

I honestly believe things will only get worse. I think the day will come when people will no longer remember anything. When that day comes, you might be talking away and all of a sudden forget what day of the week it is, Monday, I believe; anyways, where was I, oh well, but you get the point.

I think people are going to regret not trying harder to remember things. Back when we all remembered every little thing, people were happier. Oh, sure, you had the occasional suicide or somebody going crazy and blowing up a church or something; but for the most part, people were happier back when they could remember things. And why not, if you think about it.

Part of the problem now is that people take their memories for granted, present company excluded. I know how valuable my memory is and I work hard at keeping it strong. Sometimes I will sit around for hours just remembering things. I will even occasionally write down the things I remember. If more people would follow my example on this, it would be a better world.

Another part of the problem is that in the future, when people cannot remember as well, they will not remember how good it was back when they could remember better. That will be a sad time. There they will be, forgetting right and left and not remember this that and the other thing and they will not even know how bad it is to not remember, because they will not be able to remember back when they were able to remember so much better.

Maybe we should all just tell each other things when we remember them. Maybe that would help. If Jack told Jill something he remembered, there is a chance Jill might remember it, but even if she cannot, Sally may be standing nearby and she might accidentally hear it and remember it. And suppose Sally happen to tell Jim what she had heard. Who knows, Jim might remember it or at least, he would have a better chance of remembering it if he heard it than if she had not bothered to tell him about it. You get the point.

Anyways, I guess I am in one of those nostalgic moods, longing for the good ole days when we all remembered things and took pride in doing so. I will leave you with this thought-provoking question. How would you like to be the last person on earth who could remember anything? See, what I mean? That would not be too pleasant now, would it?