Two Little Words

I Am.

When you stop and think about it - I mean, truly give it serious contemplation - this is the most powerful, most profound, and most mystical of statements. It is the name that God (Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh) says is His name, when asked by Moses as to what He should be called. It is also the final definition of our Selves, when we look deeply into the dark well of our soul, seeking the answer to the awful questions of who we are, why do we exist, and what – if anything – does any of this mean.

I Am.

It is declarative. It is final. To fully possess the knowledge of ‘I Am’ is to be released from bondage of this world, to be enslaved no more by the mad, swirling maelstrom of the material. To know the Self - the pure, unsullied, clear-eyed, connected, radiant being that we all are – is to be unmoved by opinion, untainted by fear, unassailable in the strong citadel of your Being... immortal, quiet, and utterly at peace.

I Am.

Of course, I’m not there yet. I still like hearing that someone found pleasure and quality in my writing, or my acting. I am still subject to want and need, to worries, to lack of trust, to simple pain. I still feel loneliness when the cold winds blow at midnight, or in the small, hard, grey hours before the dawn, the bed empty except for a little white cat curled close up against the small of my back. I am, after all, only human, and am subject to the myriad indignities of physical existence.

What I’m beginning to understand, (apparently rather slowly,) is that it’s all right. My awareness seems sometimes like an old, wooden oxcart, torturously rumbling over an ancient, stone-filled road... the cart bounces and creaks, thudding heavily on the uneven pathway as it rolls ungracefully along. Often I must stop again and again to fix the rickety old wheel, but somehow I manage to keep going. I curse the cart, the road, the wheel, the journey itself. Stupid. Futile. Irritating.

Slowly, though, little by little, I find I’ve become used to the rocky road – the potholes I once chided have become familiar friends, the repairs a normal, routine task, and the travel itself filled with the joy of Being. Then I start to look at the countryside around me instead of fretting about the cart holding together, and, like a small child who’s eyes widen upon seeing their first spring leaf, am struck mute by it’s unabashed beauty, in both the individual and the whole. The trees, even though bare in winter, are vibrant and alive. The air, though cold and damp, is sweet and nourishing, bracing my lungs, clearing my mind. My fellow travelers have become teachers instead of irritants, each one magically placed before me to illuminate an as yet unlit corner of my being.

I do not need to be anything more than what I Am at this Very Moment, the Now... which is all there really ever is. The old injuries, betrayals, fears, and worries I lug in my cart like so much garbage can be jettisoned, and look! The wheel doesn’t shatter so easily any more, as it now bears the load for which it was made. The concerns about the journey itself – Will I ‘get there?’ What will happen? What will it be like? Am I ‘good enough?’ Will I be loved? – become foolish, as the inner peace of Being slowly becalms the inner waters once roiled by those angry, demanding, untutored servants, Heart and Mind.

There is time. There is journey. There is Love. The statement of our existence, like one small candle that lights the entire universe, shines it's undeniable truth. I Am.

And so, my friend, are You.

Tell Us What You Know, Mr. President

Sending more troops to Afghanistan can be justified from many points of view... bringing the war to a swifter end, bolstering an unstable government, bringing the battle to al Qaeda, going after bin Laden – but there’s a little voice inside that keeps nagging at the outside edges of my being, saying, “Is this trip really necessary? Is it truly important that the U.S. be there? Are we actually in that much danger?”

Clearly, our President thinks so, deciding to send an additional 30,000 troops to that sad, war-weary country, with the proviso that we leave in a couple of years... and we all know how meticulously deadlines are followed. However, Obama, unlike his odd little predecessor, is not a war-monger, nor does he appear to be one who is easily fooled or led.

Therefore, the question occurs... if our President truly believes that it is imperative we continue this seemingly endless conflict, at great cost of both our families and our treasure... what does he know that we don’t know that makes him believe so?

Raising this question is necessary because we’re being asked to send our loved ones to die in yet another country that clearly doesn’t want us there, for reasons that are becoming less and less clear. It’s necessary because, simply stated, war is extremely expensive, and we could well use that money at home. And finally, it’s necessary because war is failure – failure of wisdom, failure of patience, failure of awareness, failure of spirit. It should be the last resort, and never the first response, of any nation – and certainly of a nation that views itself as a great one, and while self-defense can be understandable as a justification for retaliation, it's been rather a long time since our actions in Afghanistan seemed remotely like self-defense.

Obama said, during his campaign, that his administration would be open and forthcoming, to contrast the hysterically paranoid tone of the previous one. I believed him, and I still do. Nevertheless, many of us - tens of millions of us - are uneasy continuing this war, and so the question needs to be asked, before anyone else’s son or daughter comes home in a box, before another billion is spent, before our belief in what we stand for is eroded any further... What do you know that we don’t, Mr. President? Tell us what you know.

Because I’m not convinced we need to do this.

Drive, He Said

The long, dark nightmare of the Bush Administration is over, and while we’re cleaning up the mess, I’d like to suggest that we allow ourselves a brief moment to sit back and ponder what lessons there are to take from what we’ve all just been through. We clearly are at a turning point in our nation’s history, and not just because we elected Mr. Obama as President. We’ve also seen some of our most cherished principles challenged, and our beliefs about ourselves confronted with some ugly realities. While ‘absolute’ statements may be premature, there are some important inferences we can draw from the years since the Reagan era, which will be useful to recognize when coping with the difficult times ahead.

Neo-Conservatism is dead. Like it’s old arch-nemesis, Communism, it needs to be quickly relegated to the trash heap of history. A mutant, non-viable offspring of classic Conservatism, it was a creature spawned on ideology rather than common sense. It’s underpinnings, a semi-religious fervor for Adam Smith’s ‘free market,’ was one of it greatest weaknesses. As the last few years have so well demonstrated, we can now see that no such creature truly exists. No market can ever stay free in the truest sense, because those who become successful in it immediately limit competition, raise barriers to entry, control the market through heavily-lobbied legislation, and over time become the well-entrenched oligarchies we see today in energy, finance, etc. This situation occurred in the late 1800’s with the Trusts, and it took – yes, the US Government to finally break them up, just like it took the US Government to bail our collective fannies out of this crisis. Without the regulations, oversight, and penalties necessary to control market forces, what rational person would assume that all of this would not happen again?

The myth of the ‘purity’ of the free market, so seductive to generations of reactive right-wingers, has been revealed to be a poor basis for a political philosophy, though not necessarily as an economic one. That distinction is critical. An economic system is just that – a system for handling our material needs... not a religion, not a philosophy, not anything other than a method for people to regulate the exchange of goods and services. Under certain conditions, the market is an excellent engine to drive production. However, under other conditions, it rewards cronyism, creates oligarchies, and denies basic subsistence to those not well equipped to operate within its confines. Though an excellent producer of wealth, it is, in social terms, a poor distributor, as anyone who’s observed the US healthcare system can attest.

Remember - any human system, capitalist, socialist, or otherwise - is inherently imperfect, subject to the full, rich palate of self-indulgent vagaries the human character possesses. As such, periodic adjustments to this factor or that policy are always necessary to ensure the health and stability of civil society. Neo-Conservatism, by eschewing political flexibility for a rigid, blinder-encumbered ideology, found itself unable to adapt to the needs of the society it purported to serve.

The metaphor of the automobile may prove an ironically apt one. Free market capitalism can be compared to a powerful engine that can crank out prodigious quantities of goods and services, but in and of itself has no steering mechanism. Up until recently, that function was accomplished by the abiding political philosophy of the times - a moderate, liberal, humanitarian overview that has prevailed since Franklin Roosevelt. Simply stated, it was that the price of living in a free society is that a portion of the resources generated by that system must go to assure that the needs of society as a whole are met, and that markets, in order to function for optimum stability, must be regulated. The counterbalance, or steering wheel, if you will, for the engine is this political philosophy as expressed by the will of society through its elected government. Every force needs an equal and opposing force to balance it, and whether one looks in physics or in society, the principle holds.

The popular emergence of Neo-Conservatism (as opposed to classic Conservatism, which was once a useful counterweight to the fiscal excesses of those wishing to be re-elected) in the 1980’s removed the steering wheel from the vehicle. Unaided by any moral guidance other than voracious greed, the automobile predictably wound up in a ditch, awaiting the government tow truck. This scenario is still playing itself out, and the full consequence of the unfettered markets of the last eight years has yet to be fully understood, much less repaired.

Nevertheless, even as rationality is slowly reinstated, it is of paramount importance that we take this historic opportunity, while the paucity of the free market as a political system stands fully exposed to public view, to reconfigure society in such a way that amoral market forces can never again be allowed to determine the welfare of our citizens, but rather be harnessed so that social stability is, and always will be, the order of the day. In other words, don’t toss the engine, but by understanding its nature and its proper role in society, it can be controlled in such a way that the benefits of it’s energy are enjoyed by all. By educating future generations to both the dangers of unregulated markets and the benefits of careful steering an able vehicle, we will have gone a long way towards completing the Driver’s Training course we apparently still need.

Do The Math

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will soon discover, if he hasn’t already, the corner into which he’s painted his country – for by brandishing the threat of a small handful of nuclear weapons in a world where the major players, especially the United States, already have tens of thousands, he has put his country on a mathematically untenable path, the long-term consequences of which far out-weigh the short-term political benefits.

North Korea, busily firing its little rockets into the sea, has done the same, though it is closer to its unintended consequences than Iran. Unless the saber rattling is mostly for domestic consumption, it’s hard to imagine a more foolish course for Kim Jong-Il to adopt than his current one. Public bluster is one thing, but execution of an implied threat is another. Should North Korea launch a nuclear strike on its southern neighbor, U.S. bases, or even Japan, it would leave itself open for a nuclear retaliation several hundred times as large, at the very least, one that it could not survive. Simply put, once a small, rogue state plays it’s nuclear card, the game is over. The world community would not condemn a nuclear response against such an act, and would, in fact, have a clear duty to defend itself in kind. Any country that defended itself in kind would feel no opprobrium after such retaliation. The Western world, now returning to rationality after a brief foray into political extremism, can once again be counted upon to not “go nuclear” first, but such restraint on retaliation would be removed should a small state use its few warheads in what could only be called a suicidal display of defiance.

A little simple math might be helpful. Current estimates put North Korea’s entire nuclear stockpile at 6-8 warheads. A single US Ohio Class submarine can currently carry 24 independently targeted missiles, each with five Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) warheads, each capable of striking a different target. Assuming only one such sub is stationed just off the coast of North Korea, should Kim Jong-Il launch a nuclear device, 110 North Korean targets would be obliterated within a scant few minutes. The logic of the math of this scenario is inescapable – the consequences of North Korea using its few nuclear weapons would assure it’s own destruction, utterly and completely. By joining the nuclear club, Kim Jong-Il has painted himself into a corner. He can’t possibly use the weapons he’s worked so secretly to create without assuring his own immediate destruction. With this perspective, the weapons’ value is not in its use, but in the threat of it’s use. If that threat is not credible, the weapon has no value, and in fact, becomes a liability. This is exactly the situation in North Korea today.

Similarly, Iran’s leadership now finds itself facing the same question. A single or even small multiple Iranian nuclear strike on Israel or US bases would signal that all restraints are off, all diplomacies suspended, and that nuclear consequences on the aggressor would be acceptable by the world community, as sad and unfortunate as that scenario would be. Though a larger country, Iran’s math would work out much the same. Ceasing to exist in a moment of madness and misdirection, the price Iran would pay for a few small strikes at an enemy, however devastating, would be too dear for any sane leader to contemplate. Yet, Ahmadinejad follows his current course.

This is obvious, to rational people, but it is clear that neither Kim Jong-Il nor President Ahmadinejad have much care for the consequences to their citizens, nor engage in a long-term understanding of the precarious nature of matters they’ve created for themselves. However well nuclear braggadocio may play on the domestic front, it has the opposite effect on the world stage. China, now a strong business partner with the West with a considerable investment in international stability, has nothing to lose and everything to gain by ridding itself of its troublesome “little brother,” though a certain amount of self-righteous public noise would have to be made. The Islamic world would also put on the face of bewailing the collapse of Iran, but with the exception of various highly vocal radical groups, most of the Middle East, including the Arab countries, would secretly be rubbing their hands with glee should Iran step off the precipice. Leaders of most countries, no matter what their ideologies, innately understand the value of civil stability, both for their own political futures, and that of the world community as a whole. Therefore, the isolation that rogue states bring upon themselves as a result of their actions results in an untenable political position, heady in the short term, but unsustainable over time.

Libya’s return to international cooperation and it’s accompanying benefits serve as an example when errant states correct their behavior. Though not yet a model citizen – Libya is still a transit and destination country for men and women from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia for purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation - it’s leader, Col. Muammar Qadhafi, has made great progress in normalizing relations with the west, having renounced terrorism in Dec. 2003, discontinued it’s WMD program and allowed international inspections. Economic sanctions have been lifted, business investment has increased, and the US and Libya have exchanged ambassadors in January of 2009, normalizing relations for the first time in years. The message here is simple – if Libya can do it, so can North Korea and Iran.

If these two states have indeed painted themselves into this corner, it is easy enough for them to get out - though at this point, it is easier for Iran than North Korea. The taste of crow is never enjoyable, but at least it’s a dish that everyone has tasted, including the U.S. In either case, the consequences of continuing down their current paths falls most heavily on them, not anyone else, and should these states make the error of nuclear engagement, their ‘allies’ would vanish in the mists, privately glad they’re gone. If these two countries do the math, sanity and peace might yet prevail.

Halfway, He Said With A Smile

I am going to do yoga tonight, which means I will embarrass myself once again in front of a few svelte twenty-thirtysomethings as they gracefully lift themselves, like mere feathers on a breeze, off the floor while barely standing on one athletically-bent leg, while I collapse in a sweaty pile, panting, and cursing years of carelessly-ingested cheesecake and roast beef. Apparently I have not yet aged sufficiently to understand that I will never be young again, and am willing to spend a few shekels to at least partially further harbor that illusion. Any cursory inspection of my physical being will tell you otherwise, of course, but it is either the curse or privilege of Baby-Boomers in the early part of the 21st century to believe, against all reason and evidence to the contrary, that they will live forever. As such, I'm trying to be consistent with my culture and follow in lockstep, blinders firmly in place, as we march like lemmings to the onrushing Cliff humming Dylan's "Forever Young." Happy idiots, indeed, as we struggle for the legal tender.

At 58 years old, I see things through different lenses. 3X readers, to be precise, but that’s not what I mean. My second grandson was born a couple of years ago to my eldest son and his wife… So now, there are amongst us two healthy, sweet-tempered little boys whose long fingers no doubt presage world-class piano or guitar players, or possibly, as my son insists, professional quarterbacks. I shall naturally surrender this outcome to the Creator and my son’s desire to sire his very own NFL line-up.

For me, however, lying on a smelly, black rubber yoga mat, watching an instructor bend herself into a pretzel (I, on the other hand, am more reminiscent of soggy foccacia bread), for me, the view is different. The sight of my son holding his son is an undimming promise of continuance, of enormous blessing from what, for lack of a better word, I call God. It's a gentle kiss of love and forgiveness that whispers tantilizingly of future years, new generations of babies with names I’ll never know, all running off, laughing, in a thousand million directions, just barely within earshot, like an old memory after too much wine, of lives yet unlived but still there, held like small yellow flowers in the eager grasp of a young hand. My father’s face suddenly swims into view, lined and saddened by years of unspoken grief, his life snatched away prematurely by alcohol, a vibrant personality changed and twisted by chemistry, his lion’s heart bowed by disappointment, his gentle warrior’s spirit weakened by the cruelty of too many betrayals. Yet, he says quietly, here is hope. Here, once again, is love. Why, my son, do you weep?

Suddenly, I cannot see. There are angels everywhere.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

The Bush administration elevated the art of Orwellian "Newspeak" to new heights... or depths. Rather than actually deal with anything, we merely redefined our issues into less politically-charged terms, spinning our language so that hunger became very low food security, domestic spying became terrorist surveillance, wholesale theft of our rights was called the Patriot Act, and imperial adventurism was called, without a hint of irony, the War On Terror. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and almost 5,000 Americans have killed in a war based on deliberately falsified information, trumped-up charges of Weapons of Mass Destruction that insiders knew never existed. The national debt has swelled trillions dollars in only a few years, with most of that going to a few wealthy Republicans in the defense and finance industries, while the middle-class is left to pay for this fiscal debacle - one of the largest single transfers of wealth in the history of humankind. The professional paranoia crowd kept us stupid and afraid by blaring the word "terror" every chance they got, and at the same time we were told that we were safer than we ever were, so shut up and shop. Our educational system has been deliberately degraded by a wealthy plutocracy that wants us capable of working, but not capable of independent thought - critical thinking is not a component of an educational model that teaches to the test. A university education, which has the potential to teach people how to think, is now all but out of reach of reach for the common folk unless they're willing to assume crushing debt, and credit laws are tightened to the point of ensuring the non-wealthy a life of fiscal serfdom.

The recent election put a bit of hope back in the picture, but remaining skeptical is a healthy point of view. Big corporations still own a good chunk of Congress, and their agenda will always remain the same. Ironically, an old Cold War-era phrase popular with the right wing now comes to mind..."Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." Never has it been more true than today.

Getting There is Half the Fun

I am noticing a disturbing trend in our society, one that has, I suspect, unintended consequences in molding our perspectives. I’m speaking here of the current obsession with ‘results,’ the idea that if something doesn’t produce quantifiable results, it is somehow not worth the effort. These results need to be expressed with numbers, it seems, so that a graph or bar chart be constructed to compare results with somebody else’s results, which will then inevitably lead to conclusions about who ‘won’ and who ‘lost.’

In some instances, of course, results are needed. If you are producing widgets, and you need to produce 1,000 widgets an hour to make a profit, then your production process had better crank out at least 1,000+ widgets/hour or the business will eventually fail.

Life, however, is not a business, and those that attempt to recast the meaning of human existence into what are essentially economic terms are, I think, the true lost souls of our times. It is comforting, when faced with the myriad uncertainties of being alive, to try to find certain benchmarks, certain criteria, by which one can measure things. One has so much in the bank, or makes so much per month, or has a house with so many square feet. To some, these are the benchmarks of what is called ‘success,’ an illusive, poorly-defined term meant to convey an aura of credibility and status upon the person referred as such. In terms of results, what does that mean?

Upon examination, however, a human life is, in fact, not so easily quantifiable, and in our rush to attain ‘results’ we can measure and compare to others to determine the winners and losers (for what end, one may ask), we have lost sight of the value of the journey, the process of living, that teaches us the lessons that gives us patience, wisdom, tolerance, and character. Education isn’t worthwhile because it produces x-hundred thousand children a year who can all read at such-and-such a level, solve these kinds of math problems, and score that level on a standardized test. For some children, finding their own way around on the bus system is a mark of success. For some, it’s being able to simply stand without help. For others, it’s saying “No,” to peer pressure, addiction, and hopelessness, and yes, for others, it’s the PhD and the beemer. The process of education, the journey through learning, has become side-tracked into seeking measurable results – test scores – at the expense of the joy of knowledge, the seduction of deep inquiry, the pleasure, excitement and challenge that seeking the truth brings. Yes, remember truth, from the old books? The term that fired the souls of human beings since time began, and urged our adventurous ancestors out of their trees and caves and prodded them to migrate over the ridge, the mountains, or the seas to see if life was better over there? We are, by nature, curious beings who wish to know about this world we live in, and our willingness to seek, experiment, question, invent, and look beyond is one of our greatest strengths. It must therefore follow that our recent propensity towards narrowness of societal vision, subjugation of basic human values to material desire, and submersion of almost all that elevate our species into the venal is not a healthy, sustainable trend, and needs to be reversed before we forget that it is our higher nature that has brought us even this far.