Let No One Put Asunder

Years, decades ago, when the board of Santa Monica schools and the college split, my father considered running for the college board. My mom had been on the combined boards for some time. My dad had attended meetings because even after working a full day he loved to spend time with my mom, driving all the way into Santa Monica with her. He learned what the boards did and thought he could do a good job.

He went to one forum about running for the college board. At that meeting, a woman said to him, "Why don't you go back where you came from?" He was stunned. He replied he lived here now and his wife was on the board and running for re-election on the school board. The woman said it was good about my mom being on the board. She was going to vote for her.

After that my dad decided not to run. It wasn't worth it, dealing with someone like that. Dealing with that kind of obvious bigotry and subhuman hatred just takes the humanity out of everyone. My emotional response even now, as I talked to my dad on the phone about it, dehumanizes that woman. I'd kill her. I'd kill her children and put them in a cage. Right? No. I wouldn't. But that's the emotional response. And some weak-minded people, as well as the demagogues like Trump, fall victim to their own unexamined emotions and imaginary scenarios of difference and division.

That's not America. If we can claim any kind of greatness it is this: The value of all human beings is what we stand for and, in the immortal words of our founders, yes, for all their flaws and failings, We the people hold these truths to be self-evident, that all of us are created equal, endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There was no footnote with exceptions. There was no appendix with a hierarchy or a table with relative valuation of life and rights based on country of origin, sex, or religion, sexual orientation or any other false delineation used to dehumanize one group or individual. All of us created equal with equal rights is what the founders established in order to create a more perfect union.

E Pluribus Unum. From the many one is the familiar Latin phrase in our national parlance. Let us now add this: From Difference, Community. From Diversity, UNITY. Like the thin straws easily broken if separated but when held together unbreakable let us understand once and for all time that what has made this country exceptional is inclusiveness, and what makes us stronger is understanding of what we share matters more than what divides. That is our great common heritage, regardless of our origins and, yes, even of our differences. The differences are small when we understand them in the light of what share, what we have in common. We are all dedicated to the aspiration that our founders set forth on this continent. Let us continue in that common endeavor together. What our founders and their successors down to us have brought together let no one put asunder.

KLK
7/15/19

The Secret Life of Emotional Response

Walter Mitty Revisited

The original short story by Thurber does not lead to actual adventures in the main character's life. His fictional life remains ordinary. Unlike either the Danny Kaye or the Ben Stiller films, the story ends quite poignantly and defiantly delineating a permanent difference between the character's daydreams and his mundane days, filled with routine errands and awareness of his own short-comings; but his submissiveness to his wife and knowledge of his own lack of practical heroism or heroic capability are offset by his fantasies and a capacity to imagine himself heroic. His ultimate lapse shows he is a hero. His imagined defiance to the imaginary firing squad, as all his daydreams, is an emotional response. His final daydream is a metaphor for his defiance to his ineffectual and ordinary life.

This is the psychology most of us live with to some degree. Although we may not imagine ourselves doing grandiose things in battle, in the operating room, overcoming mechanical and natural challenges with aplomb while others watch in open admiration, we like to believe we are better than we are at what we do, and thought of more highly than we may actually be from moment to moment by our peers. We create these pockets of notions about ourselves moment to moment, and how we would like to be seen, in order to fend off the slights and errors of our ordinary life which seem outrageous to the ego and cause the id to writhe eloquent in emotional soliloquy.

On a further consideration, this psychological perspective is adolescent. That is, the desire to impress and be admired, the need to prove oneself and gain approval of others, ought to wane in adulthood and be eclipsed by a growing acceptance of actual limitations. As we age and mature, we learn to take satisfaction in what we can do. A mature person takes pleasure in the ordinary events of his or her life, and does not see them as something less than acts of physical bravery or publicly acknowledged excellence. Indeed, mediocrity replaces excellence easily in our minds, analogous to our pleasure with bad food over fine cuisine when we are truly hungry and happy to have something to eat at all. In the story, however, his wife's dominance and his submissiveness differentiate the character from most of us. The marital relationship indicates why the character has stagnated. He has a conflict in his choices, and his daydreams are paradoxically both a cause and a result.

Similar conflicts show up for most of us in how we respond to fiction. What stories grab our attention indicate what lapses into fantasy we use to contrast with our own limitations in order to bolster identity and stave off what we may believe subconsciously to be our short-comings. Movies, TV shows, books, songs, news reports, viral videos, and even a passing joke, can reveal what's going on under the surface. We all have a submissive marriage with reality and a secret life that keeps us going.  

This then is perhaps my secret life. As much made up of illusion as allusions, and of self-image imagined as of ideas expressed, I find satisfaction and comfort in putting words together in a way unique to me. This is a persona none may ever know or admire, but in my own mind I become the hero of my story. Whether it is good or bad does not matter in the end because I know the simple act of thinking makes it so.