So This Is Christmas

So this is Christmas, and what have you done?  ---John Lennon

This moment, right now, is the best part of Christmas Day.  My wife and I have had our coffee together, and she has retreated to the shower. The Christmas tree is lit, and has held onto its needles well enough to still look half decent.  Our “children,” who by virtue of age hardly qualify as such anymore, haven’t yet arisen from their beds to pierce the stillness with their bickering.    

Let me say up front that we are very, very fortunate, in many ways; and for that I am thankful.  Yet, 2012 has been a dog of a year, for so many reasons.  It seems we have entered a period of universal discontent.  It’s a bit of a paradox: by many external measures, at the national level, “things” are getting better: unemployment is ticking downward, and the economy is recovering, albeit painfully slowly.  So what explains the malaise that seems to afflict nearly everyone I know?

I am old enough to remember the Vietnam War, or more accurately, the tail end of it. It seemed then that our country was painfully divided.  We were hawks or doves.  In the 1972 election, we supported Nixon, unless we were from Massachusetts, in which case we supported McGovern {ahem… sorry, I couldn’t resist; disclosure: I was not, then, “from” Massachusetts, nor was I old enough to vote.}

I came of age in the 1970s, which by most traditional measures were terrible years.  There was the Watergate scandal, which forever changed the degree to which we were inclined to trust our government leaders. On the economic front, we had “stagflation” – persistently high inflation and unemployment, a terrible combination. There was the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, which led directly to the 1974 stock market crash.  The stock market went virtually nowhere for a decade. 

We faced gasoline rationing, with lines that snaked around city blocks. We groused, but waited in those lines for hours nonetheless, so that we could continue driving our behemoth Chevys and Fords, which in those early days of EPA-mandated catalytic converters, all smelled like rotten eggs.

There was disco.  There was cocaine.  There were Qiana shirts.  There was the Pina Colada Song.  There was no MTV.  There were no laptops, or iPods, or cellphones.  I believe I’ve made my point (OK, except for the cellphones, maybe) - the seventies sucked.

And yet, “misery index” notwithstanding, we did not turn against ourselves.  Despite our many differences, about which we were quite vocal at times, there was an unspoken camaraderie of sorts – we were all in it together.  We maintained, more or less, our national sense of humor.  We poked fun at ourselves with TV shows like Norman Lear’s All in the Family. 

Fast-forward to 2012.  What has become of us?  We have just witnessed one of the most divisive presidential elections in recent memory. We are a nation bitterly divided.  Battle lines have been drawn along countless dimensions.  Republicans vs. Democrats.  Red States vs. Blue States.  Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life.  Pro- vs. Anti- gun control.  Pro- vs. Anti-gay marriage.  Pro- vs. Anti-immigration reform.  Pro- vs. Anti-Keystone oil pipeline.   Belief vs. disbelief that global warming is real.  On, and on, and on, ad nauseum.

As I write this, we stand at the precipice of a so-called “fiscal cliff” that is likely more symbolic than it is consequential.  It displays, in sharp relief, the complete and utter breakdown of civil discourse in our politics.  The so-called “Super-Committee” failed miserably in its mission to resolve this economic quandary last year, and odds are good that we’ll soon see “Kick the Can 2.0” from our alleged leaders.

To quote an individual who, by virtue of his personal actions throughout most of his life, deserves to be relegated to the dustbin of history rather than immortalized by the likes of me, but for the fact that this is such a great line – I refer to the late Rodney King – “Can we all get along?”

Apparently not.

And so this is Christmas.  Where’s the Red Baron when you need him?  How do we move forward, now that the vitriol has become so very personal?  How do we get back to a place where, like Archie and Meathead, we manage to tolerate each other, recognizing that we have something, anything, in common?  And what would that thing, that common ground, look like?

Let’s begin by stating the obvious: we are all human.  We eat, breathe, struggle, love, die.  We nurture our beliefs, varied though they may be.  We make choices, good and bad.  We have dreams, of which some get shattered, some we abandon, some we can no longer recall, and some, perhaps, are realized.  We experience pain and sadness, illness and grief.  If we are lucky, in the sweetest of moments, we experience great joy.  We reflect and learn from all of this, or not.

I was awakened this Christmas morning by my wife, asking me to carry our beloved, elderly dog down the stairs.  Her hind legs are giving out, and on bad days she can’t do the stairs anymore.  I know, in my gut, that we will soon have a very painful choice to make. 

Later this week, we will drop our dogs off at a kennel, and drive a couple of hundred miles to visit family, including my 90 year old mother.  Though blessed with longevity, she, too, struggles against the limitations of a failing body.  Our visits are typically bittersweet, at once joyful and painful.  I’m acutely aware that any given visit may be our last.

The uncertainty is humbling.  We are reminded, daily, in a thousand small ways, of the fragility of life.  The media render this message unavoidable; our loved ones drive it home.

And so it is, I imagine, for everyone, in one way or another.  Each of us faces our own challenges, our own demons, our own motivators and calls to action.  Our biases and world-views take shape at a tender age, and are forged in the crucible of our life experiences.  None of this is new; it has always been thus. 

So what is it about this place and time that has rendered us all so rigid in our beliefs?  Why is 2012 so very different from, say, 1975?  I have theories, but this blog post has already grown way too long, so they’ll wait for another day.

I will instead offer this: We need to chill out.  All of us.  And what better time to start down a path of “Goodwill Toward Men (read: people)” than Christmas day?
 
Let’s take a moment, each of us, to think about our friend, our neighbor, our family member, our ‘frenemy’ – as a fellow human being, deserving of our respect and our kindness.  I’ll start.
 
Since starting this humble little ‘blog about nothing’ a few months ago, I’ve been gratified – and surprised – by the responses and kind comments I’ve received from readers.  I wish each of you well.  We may disagree, but that does not matter. Not to me, anyway.  More than anything, I wish for you and your loved ones: peace.

Jerry