Rambling

I don't feel like writing about the "horse race" right now. It's important, but don't you need a break now and then? I thought so.

I just feel like rambling. Perhaps unintelligibly. I've got a lot on my mind, and I'm sure you do as well, and I feel like I'm learning more about how to roll with the shocks that are constantly provided by our modern world by taking time out for meditation. Even a good night's sleep can't do as much good sometimes as meditation, if you're having trouble trying to give your brain a rest. It's important to remember that if we're fortunate enough to be able to take a few minutes and set it all aside, we're blessed to be present right here, right now in this still breathtakingly beautiful place. It's important just to remember how much there is to appreciate and be grateful for. Some of you get on your knees and pray. I sit cross-legged, and try to forget about me and just listen. Maybe it isn't quite the same thing, but it's pretty close.

Of course, I've also done a whole lot of reading and study, so much that the ego pops up again, and makes me think I should be pretty impressed by myself. Well, a big part of that chip on my shoulder got knocked off in Manhattan bumping up against some of the finest minds and talents in New York theater, and a lot of the rest of that chip was shredded by the jaw-dropping intellects I've encountered in nearly a decade at Microsoft. I know full well that no matter how much I do, or how much I study, it's barely a blip on the radar of achievements. I don't think I need to worry too much about my ego getting out of control. I'm just glad all this material is out there to help me learn, and I hope many of you are reaching out beyond the largely mindless debates in the media to learn for yourselves. There are levels of understanding, you do realize that, I trust, and if I've advanced past a few plateaus in the last year or so, don't worry, I still can't look up and see the top.

You may know something about me, or maybe not. Most of it isn't important, except that I have no offspring to worry about (at least that I know of, haw, haw). I have my regrets about that, but at least it allows me to speculate a little more freely about the way our society is constructed. If you have children, I suspect there's an understandable tendency to short-circuit that kind of speculation a little bit, for fear that drastic change might endanger the future prospects for those young people. I would counter that I have no less concern than you do for their future, but maybe I can and do entertain some riskier notions than others might. Then, too, I would offer that serious risks are being taken on your behalf whether you want that to happen or not, and we're all feeling the fallout from them, so let's free up our minds a little and entertain some new possibilities. Your children are liable to thank you if you do.

Reports are coming out now -- one of them was the main headline on my Seattle Post-Intelligencer this morning -- about how many ways the ecology of the oceans has been damaged. Here's a link to the article in my paper this morning: Scientists fear "tipping point" in Pacific Ocean. It's about the massive deaths of sea creatures at the ocean bottom for lack of oxygen. There are so many similar reports, not to mention all the humanitarian crises in Africa and elsewhere, other threats of violence and war, and so on. My point is, this isn't working. More importantly, the United States has had its big hammy hands in a lot of places where they didn't belong to prevent things from working. We've been actively supporting the wrong things in the name of one overstated devil or another -- Communism, Socialism, Islamofascism, Illegals, whoever They might happen to be. We've propped up dictators, overthrown democracies who threatened the status quo, and generally promoted the wealthy elite throughout the world and exploited the poor, all in the name of spreading "democracy" and free trade. Now, about 1% of the population controls about 80% of the world's resources, and that little 1% is scrambling frantically to make it 90%, while the Pinochets, the Suhartos, and the Musharrafs of the world reign supreme. Once there was a Hitler, and he's left such a scar on the heart of humanity it may never beat properly again, but we have to try and recover. Another Hitler may come again someday, and we'll need to be prepared for him or her, but I think we need to start remembering how to have a little courage, how to live in the world with a sense of caution, not of fear.

We need to consider some serious changes. We really need to lift up the hood of this vehicle I'm using to represent our modern system, and see if the engine couldn't use a complete overhaul. It's certainly polluting the earth, its fuel drives both itself and world unrest, and many of its parts are ripped from the earth in a manner that leaves it with permanent scars. Much of the construction of these parts is performed in sweatshop conditions for less than a living wage, and the result is wrapped in an overpriced package to be sold for credit we don't always have for a price that we can't afford. It's insupportable, it's unsustainable, and it is on the whole inhuman and morally bereft. That we can still remain in touch with some grain of humanity in this unnatural bête noire is part of the joyous miracle of life.

Back when Eisenhower was President (and yes, I was alive then, just not very old), we had a lot of problems, but in the United States we had a fairly positive attitude, and we were really trying to work together, for the most part. There was still terrible racism, of course, and we had all the sophistication of the Grand Ole Opry, but we had the strongest middle class in the history of America, supported heavily by a very progressive taxation system that rose up to 91% for income earned in a year beyond what would be at least 1 million, I believe, in today's dollars. I'm sorry if that's imprecise or inaccurate, but I'm rambling, and I didn't look it up just now. I'm certain the 91% figure is correct; I just don't remember what the earnings level was for sure, or how that would figure in today's terms. I think it would take some serious doing to get us back to that point. We'd have to take most of Brady Quinn's bonus money away from him, and that would be hard. Besides, I'm not sure what the right approach is, I'm just sure that even when you add up all the money, there isn't enough for every Goldman Sachs employee to get a million bucks for Christmas and to feed all the starving people in the United States alone. We either start learning how to level it out a little, or folks will starve in increasing numbers. You might even start to notice it's happening without my having to tell you. Then it would be real bad.

Now, I like the ideas of achievement and success. I suspect that in even the most perfect world there will still be winners and losers, and perhaps that's as it should be. I think in a more perfect world we can provide a little cushion for the losers, maybe not a house in the Hamptons with servants, but enough to get by. There should be incentive for success, and rewards, percs and privileges, but not so much of all those things that it gets obscene. I think we can experience all the thrill of victory and agony of defeat even if the victor collects a little smaller handful of spoils. We could consider playing this game of life a little more for fun, a little less for keeps, and we'd still enjoy it.

What would become of excellence if we try to establish some sensible limits? I think that's a bogus concern if there ever was one. I believe that those who want to achieve excellence will do so whenever they can, and that part of us has never been all about money. I hardly think that the best in us will suffer if we try to lift up the least. The truth is, I think the best in us has suffered long enough.

Oh, the economy is so fragile, if we try to change things the whole world market will fall apart! All I can say to that is: Read, my friends, Read! The economy is not quite some mystical unexplained force; it can be unruly, but it is being and has been controlled, by and large, by those in whose private interests it's been to do so. This is the tricky part, though, those private interests. They don't seem inclined to play well with others. That's a lot of what makes this another chapter in a long, hard struggle, with no end yet in sight. But make no mistake, there is the potential for control, and there are ways that control can be exercised. This is just one more area where caution should be our watchword, and not fear.

If we can get past being afraid of the economy, and believe me, we should, we can begin to think a bit about quality. Quality was the theme of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I read over thirty years ago, and don't remember well enough now, but this blog probably has some echoes of the themes of Mr. Pirsig nonetheless. When I meditate, sometimes I'm actually able to let it go enough to get a sense of the subtle quality of this experience, the heady flavor of the never-to-be-repeated here and now, and sometimes I can even slow down enough to really appreciate it, just a little. I've lived long enough, and studied widely enough, to have rededicated myself to Zen meditation over this past year with high confidence that I was doing something worthwhile, something which has stood the test of time and won the respect of thoughtful people all over the world. There is a serious point to meditation, and it's not just playing around, and it's certainly not so I can gain some special power. I imagine there are many of you out there who could sit down for zazen for the first time and manage more relaxed and productive sitting than I've even approached yet, because maybe you're naturally more relaxed and spontaneous than I am. I don't have any illusions that with Zen I'm going to get anything very special that you don't have. I'm just trying to battle it out with some of my own devils, and recognize a little of my own silliness and stupidity, that's all. I just want to remind you that, when you take a moment and just try to appreciate the special quality it has, the world gets a little less complicated for a while. The things that really matter seem to be the ones we most quickly forget, and so much of that gets lost in the battle for superdelegates and votes in Texas.

Love thy neighbor as thyself. That's my definition of enlightenment, and I have no doubt that it's correct. When we look over the world for its greatest wisdom, there really is no serious disagreement. We may express it a little differently, but it's all the same. A Zen master might tell you that you should love everything as yourself, whether it's your neighbor, a blade of grass, or rancid butter. If we can brush aside the webs of all our distractions and just take it in as if we were one of the very first humans sitting silently by the first campfire and letting the magic and mystery of life show its full face to us in each moment, we might take quite a different perspective on the often insane predications on which we base our lives today. The magic's gone. Since I don't have children, I look at every child I see with a wistful glance, and feel some sense of a father's need to protect it from harm. I am sad for those children who will grow up in a world that has been so diminished, where some of the creatures that lived in my childhood have disappeared, and the fittest are left to survive be they man or beast in a world that's defined by a practical harshness of tone. I am sometimes also glad that I don't have children to leave in this world.

When I sit, I don't really try to direct things anywhere. If I'm thinking, ok, then, maybe it's time to think. If I can, of course, I allow myself to fall silent, and I've practiced enough that I can fall silent for a time. What happens at that point, I couldn't say, but I think that some of it connects to my old creative juices, the openness to that part of me that responds in a personal way, and it makes me want to meet all the moments of life with that same sense of shared adventure. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure when I look around, though, and see all the work that remains to be done. The best use I can make of meditation, at least for now, is as a constant reality check, making sure I stay in touch, or get in touch if need be, with my human self, and not allow it to be buried forever by a society that, as a whole, has left almost no humanity at all.

We need to change a lot. We shouldn't fear it. We've already lost so much, we should pause to remember and mourn all that. We are learning, growing, reaching out in hope, and we've been disappointed so often we fear that our hand might be lopped off as we reach out. I can't tell you that this year there'll be no more disappointments. If we go by history, then we're more likely to be duped again than not. But there is something this year that's special. Whether this is the year it can grow and flourish, or will be forced to recede again, I couldn't say, but if I've seen it before, and I think I have, I'd say that it has grown since I saw it last, and that's very good.