Doom, Interrupted

When I was in my twenties I acquired a strong sense that I wouldn’t live to be thirty. (Later in life I found out that this delusion was not uncommon among young men of my generation, especially wastrels like myself)

Well, you can imagine my chagrin when I woke on the morning of my 30th birthday not only alive, but a family man. With a wife, multiple children, and a regular job to boot.

And me with the soul of a Byron, a buccaneer, a would-be surfer on the breaking waves of decadence.

However, since I was not dead, I checked the calendar and found that it was a Sunday morning. Good, I thought, at least I didn’t have to go to work.

Going to work frequently brought on an incompatible collision of feelings. The first was that I was a well-trained and competent physician perhaps at the peak of my game. The second was that I was a charlatan, a masquerading quack who knew so little he was a danger to society. Sooner or later I would be discovered and then it would be the stocks for me from then on.

But right at this moment it was Sunday, leisure was the plan, and with any luck it would be a day with cake in it.

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Only a week to go till election day, and what a ride it has been. As each day passes the differences between the opposing sides become clearer, almost extravagantly so. What this campaign has revealed about a large segment of my countrymen is ugly, but does not come as a complete surprise. To borrow from Mr. Freud, it’s like the U.S. is a single personality, and what we’re seeing now is our ego running against our id.

The history of human beings is filled with scenes of blood and horror. Violence between groups of humans, any that could be identified as other, has been the rule rather than the exception. The present-day Republican party has deliberately made itself into an avatar representing some of the worst traits of humanity, and Mr. Cluck (bless his heart) is trying to help us make informed choices by telling us that on a daily basis.

So what happens if Harris wins? My neighbor with the big Cluck sign on his garage door will still have been a proud member of this malignant cult, and how to trust him again, if ever?

Perhaps I can begin to do so if I keep in mind what I learned so well from Buddhism, and that is that the seeds of everything good are within me, and the seeds of everything not good as well. The choice that I have is which seeds to water.

I could have been the guy pointing out to the Nazis where Anne Frank was hiding or I could have been the guy who owned the house she used as refuge and thus helped hide her family.

My personal views and ideas have been shaped by the fact that the rooms I walked into during my life have contained more peacemakers and truth tellers than fearmongers and haters. Seeing what prominent roles chance and luck have played … it is difficult to feel superior.

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I don’t know why, but the above cartoon makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it

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I’m in the process of learning to speak Spanish, using the free online version of a program called Duolingo. I have heard that trying to pick up a new language at my age is difficult, due to memory issues. I don’t know why they say that. Why, I can remember what I’ve learned in a lesson for up to two hours after I’ve put the computer away.

Here – let me show you what I can say after only six months of working with Duolingo.

Buenos días, Señor Herrera, como está usted?

That’s it. A puny outcome, you say? My response is: one small step for man …

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