”Even through your hardest days, remember we are all made of stardust.” Carl Sagan
In 1952, Rachel Carson accepted the National Book Award for her book, The Sea Around Us. I was really struck by what she had to say, especially about all of us. Basically, she said we are so accustomed to looking through a telescope at all that is going on around us. “Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction.”
She was part scientist and part poet, as evidenced by her beautiful way of expressing the magnificence of all nature, the world we are all blessed to inhabit. Long before images of earth as a “pale blue dot”, taken by Voyager 1 on February 1, 1990, she had the internal vision to understand our unique relationship to the intricacies of the natural world. We are a very small part of a universe, well beyond our ability to calculate.
Today, the vision is so tragically nearsighted, we are blind to the damage we are inflicting on each other and every other sentient being we share this space with. Even more than the elected moron in our White House is his appointed psychopath, who epitomizes the heartless, ice cold beast of our nightmares. For a guy, who sends rockets into space, he only sees money and can’t appreciate the view. The vectors of this abhorrent behavior lie dormant in most of us, like a sleeping giant. It is a tribute to the genius of the human body that there are people, who can grow up without a heart.
The recipes for democracy and capitalism end up clashing with each other. One is about equality and having a say in governance. The other bows down to the free, unfettered market, which it turns out is not free at all. The accumulation of money brings with it the accumulation of power, inequality by any other name. I guess both are ideals and in a perfect world, there would be harmony. Power over others is a kind of poison, strangling the soul of true freedom. The disease is called oligarchy and here we are, in the midst of an epidemic.
I keep looking at what’s going on. I can’t figure out a way to deal with it, certainly in the absence of any voice to rise above the innocuous murmurings of those in the opposition. Rather than looking for someone, I started thinking about the message needed to fill this void, some kind of pushback that could resonate with those left out in the cold.
I love inventing phrases and words and the better they are, the more likelihood they exist already, a tribute to my illiteracy. Well, I pretty much did it again, while thinking about this shit show we are witnessing. The first phrase is “Bring Back America” and the second is “Who we are is who we were”. These are not to be confused with making the country great again or any of that stupid rhetoric. It is about the history of this idea called America and the genius of our forefathers.
The ideas and principles put forth nearly 300 hundred years ago are quite extraordinary, as are the people behind it all. Before I get attacked for singling out these incredibly prejudiced, white men, you have to give it context. Yes, many of these guys were slaveholders and women were not considered their equal. I am not even talking about the First People, here long before America was “discovered”. While they can’t be forgiven for their blatant bigotry, it was their normal, for better or worse. They were fallible, just like us, victims of their time and perspective.
My brilliant phrase, “Who we are is who we were”, was originally spoken by John Quincy Adams. Formally our sixth President, he spoke before the Supreme Court in1841. It was on behalf of Africans illegally enslaved on the Spanish schooner, La Amistad. I read some other speeches of his and it really anchored me to this unoriginal idea of mine. This guy was both brilliant and unbelievably eloquent. He spoke about this new country with an incredible reverence for its institutions and the inherent rights birthed by it. Evidence of the times influencing people, Adams ended up defending the right of these African prisoners to their freedom! A prelude to the coming schism.
Today, we have drifted light years away from the human chemistry that miraculously came together to create the rock solid foundations of America. I don’t think revisiting this crucial time in our history can be laid at the feet of either the Left or Right. My close, personal friend, the Buddha, often spoke of the Middle Path, one that eschews being pulled away from seeking the truth within, straight ahead.
Those folks risked everything and I mean everything, to voyage here and create a way of life that steered away from being under the thumb of a selfish and punishing royalty. I suspect, more than anything else, they wanted to protect this country from that fate. As I’ve said, just reading through some of Adams’ speeches is incredibly inspiring. For a moment, forgetting where we are today, you can be transported back to a time, when out of chaos, a kind of order was envisioned that had the promise of greatness about it. Today’s political rhetoric is brutish and Neanderthal. Although, It would probably even piss them off.
I remember at some point in elementary school, we were all taught about Washington coming clean about the cherry tree and Lincoln returning the sixpence he had overcharged a customer at his store. Kids are very impressionable, but so are we. There is nothing more powerful than an idea. We need to revisit how all this came about and how to reinvigorate it all these years later. Sure, it is too easy to be jaded about this stuff and call it mythology, but it is far better than that.
Many of the countries we deal with have histories and stories that go back at least a thousand years, often far longer. Yes, I know empires are nothing new to many of them and a certain kind of humility comes with flying high, then having your wings clipped, bringing you back down to earth. Understanding we are part of something far greater than ourselves, translates to our place in this world, as well.
History is the greatest teacher. “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” I love Albert Einstein. Sometimes, the truth is even obvious to idiots like me. In this case, history provides the answers we need in order to embrace our best future. I am hoping someone picks up the torch stolen from Lady Liberty and lights our way back to a time of great promise, which shows the way forward.
“When our stardust coalesces, the light is as bright as the sun.” Lawrence Allan Feinstein
PS: Trust me, I am not naive. We are plummeting into a fascist state and like you, I am not sure what do. I know calling on the ghosts of our past is wishful thinking, but I will take comfort anywhere I can get it. Blessings to us all.
LISTEN TO IT RIGHT HERE:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/16789038-the-long-view