Category: Commentary

I am now mostly retired so any advice that I offer about finding ways to shed anxiety may seem moot to those who don’t know me well. I still teach and tutor mathematics two days each week. It takes time to assess student progress and create meaningful lessons beyond the actual hours of face time that I have with each of the young people with whom I work. I seem to fret and worry over them as much as I ever did with the students that I taught and counseled in public and private schools. 

I also run a household filled with aging individuals including myself. My father-in-law just turned ninety six and while we celebrate that he is still functioning well given his age, he is mostly dependent on me and my husband for just about everything. We have to sort his medications, prepare foods that keep him healthy, drive him to appointments, keep his environment clean and even do small tasks like addressing envelopes for him because his writing has become illegible. Aside from the added duties associated with his presence there is the concern over his well being. We have learned that his overall state of mind and body can change overnight landing him back in the hospital again. 

I also worry about my husband who has so many afflictions that we joke about visiting his doctors in the medical center as one of our forms of entertainment. Loved ones are also aging and encountering health issues that are worrisome. For now I’m still following an energetic schedule even as I have had to learn how to pace myself in ways that are foreign to my go getter personality. 

Then there is the general state of uncertainty in the United States. Each and every day since the inauguration of Donald Trump has brought chaos and worries affecting both loved ones and strangers. My tendency to observe and deeply feel the difficulties of others has left me drained from one day to the next. I have had to remember to engage in self care just to stay abreast to all of the duties and feelings that demand my attention. 

I have little doubt that everyone is feeling a bit anxious if they are paying attention to the troubles of the world or even just the concerns of the people around them. While I don’t advocate ignoring the realities of our lives or pretending that all is well when troubles are lurking at our doors, I do think that time outs are not just helpful but necessary. We each need moments to steal away from our troubles.

Over the decades of my life I have learned how to find solace if only for a few moments. For me silence is calming so I rise so early in the morning when it is unlikely that anyone will be awake to steal my moment of serenity. I have a daily routine that I perform just for myself. The homes around me are still dark when I open the blinds to let the rising sun slowly creep inside my haven. I prepare a small repast and ensconce myself on a lounger with my laptop perched on my knees. I play word games and then greet friends and family on Facebook. I listen as my neighborhood slowly comes alive and smile at the sound of children gathering at the bus stop just across the street from my home. I write my blog and and meditate until I feel strong enough to face whatever may come in the day ahead. 

When I am particularly run down in body and mind I retreat to my garden or my books. I lose myself in the beauty of nature or the wisdom of writers far better than myself. I feel part of something bigger when I do such things. I realize that people have endured far greater difficulties than my own. I gain perspective and feel a calmness sweep over my psyche. I’m ready to gird my loins and do battle again. 

Sometimes I just go off alone in my truck. I might drive around or stop to indulge myself in a chai tea latte. I might choose to walk through a park or wander around one of my favorite stores. I smile at people but mostly quietly observe them. When I return home I feel more inclined to continue to carry on as needed. 

I find exercise to be both a drudgery and an energizing activity. I force myself to begin and once I do so I find that I don’t want to stop. Everything about me gets stronger and I remember again how important it is to be kind to both my body and my mind. 

I often make quick phone calls to my family members and friends. I remember my mother reaching out to people every single day. I have found that a few moments thinking about someone other than myself is refreshing. I am reminded of what is really important and in doing so find great joy. 

I urge everyone to create a routine that allows “me” time no matter how busy your schedule may otherwise be. Keep a balance between your work and responsibilities but don’t just run away or attempt to drown the feelings that overcome you. Your emotional state is as important as your physical being. You must feed and exercise both your body and your mind. Find what works for you and then do your best to be your best when the good, the bad and the ugly come your way.  

Humans are naturally inventive. Even babies experiment with the environment, explore, try differing ways of interacting with the world around them. The human tendency to beautify themselves and the world around them is as instinctive and inevitable as early humans painting on the walls of caves. We use our intellect for scientific advancement and for artistic expression. it is not accidental that Leonardo da Vinci dabbled in both science and art. The two aspects of our brains are not nearly as different as one might imagine them to be. We humans have enormous capabilities to express ourselves with words, music, thoughts, and things that we build. We are at our very best when given a wide berth in which to use our unique abilities with only limitations in instances in which we might hurt ourselves or others. 

As humans we think about thinking. We are philosophers who ask questions and make suggestions about the best ways to live. Some theories of what is best for us are liberating and encouraging. Others are stifling and cruel. Historically we go back and forth between our desire for order and design versus an openness that allows each individual the freedom of expression. 

We ask ourselves who should be in charge. Over time we have shifted between assumptions that certain people were ordained my God to rule over us and beliefs that all humans should be equal with ideas that should be heard. To this very day we have both governments run by iron fisted dictators and shared policy making guided by elected officials. So far we have yet to find the most perfect ways of living together and honoring each other so that everyone is respected and given a voice that matters. 

In spite of ourselves we still waver about what kind of people and rules we need in order to insure that our daily lives will be safe and secure. We understand the human tendency to aspire to be angels is often balanced by a darkness that brings out our worst tendencies. We know that not every person has good motives. We have seen the evil that humans are capable of inflicting on one another. We also realize that we must be careful in characterizing and indicting people. Our fears can lead us to stereotyping and prejudices that blur the way we see whole groups of people. We can be unnecessarily frightened by ideas or actions that we do not understand. Our efforts to protect ourselves and those that we love can be so extreme that we spread too wide a net of fear. 

Innocents are hurt whenever we make sweeping decisions about entire swaths of people. History should have taught us to beware of propaganda that creates group think rather than using our wonderful ability to consider each situation individually. It is not just possible but most probable that there is no universal fix for the problems that plague us. Even our morals appear to sometimes differ from each other. We have tendencies to elevate one set of values over another rather than analyzing the veracity of what we believe. 

Human history vacillates between dark ages and times of renaissance, peace and war. We  have academics studying our errors and our advances. They seem to tell us that we would do well to educate ourselves and to consider the consequences of ceding our thinking to influencers who would turn us against each other rather than encouraging us to work together for the betterment of society. 

It is true that the moral high road has proven to be better for everyone than restrictive governing that focuses on denying the worth of certain groups. Whenever humans have asserted ascendency over those unlike themselves terrible tragedies have occurred. People have died in the name of God when their religious beliefs did not align with the current trends. People have died for the color of their skin or for being in the wrong tribe. People have died for their political beliefs. People have died because of restrictions on freedom for all.

A popular belief that runs throughout human history is that only those who possess property or wealth should have a say in how things should be. Such a closed circle has always insured that the majority of people must simply go along with the demands of those who already possess the most. Nonetheless heroes have emerged time and again to assert the ideas of equality, liberty, acceptance of diversity and the need to include all voices in our decisions. 

We are presently at a crossroad in the history of the world. Millions of people across the globe struggle under the thumb of tyrants. Wars and hunger plague places where the people are too often viewed as unworthy of having a voice in their lives. Nations are becoming more and more insular out of the kind of fears that pop up over and over again. 

We can be safe and happy and still open to the rest of humanity. We do not have to engage in a zero sum game in which we become divided into groups of winners and losers. It is doubtful that we will ever discover perfection but at the very least becoming more caring and accepting of all people will improve the values that guide us. 

Way back in nineteen sixty six I attended an English class at the University of St. Thomas with my high school mates. It was a recruitment effort that convinced several of my friends to apply for admission there. I was dead set on attending the University of Houston so I did not seek to attend the school even though they offered me a generous scholarship. Nonetheless, the visit there was quite memorable for two reasons. 

Firstly, we visited a professor in the music department who was the director of the choir. I have to admit that he was a rather charismatic fellow who made singing feel incredibly appealing even for someone like me who had no interest in using my ordinary voice to forge a future career. I vividly recall how energetic he was and how the students appeared to be very much enjoying their time with him. It would be many years later that I would hear about him again in a rather strange incident. 

He ended up leaving his post at St. Thomas and leading a rather strange cult that somehow believed that the group was destined to be picked up by alien beings who would take them on a spiritual tour of the universe. On an appointed day the members dressed in spacesuits and took enough sleep medication to kill themselves. They were supposed to then be transported to outer space for their journey beyond death but of course that never happened. 

I actually had a sense of why the individuals might have followed the leader who had once been a choir director. I had seen for myself how exciting he was but he still wasn’t magical enough for me to change my major and choice of university so I suppose that his pull was only minimally strong. Still, he managed to convince others to follow him into a rather ridiculous mass suicide. 

The other class that struck me even more and almost tempted me to apply for admission to the school was an English class in which the students and professor were discussing The Great Gatsby. I was incredibly well read by then thanks to my English teacher who required us to read and report on a book each week, but somehow the classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald had not found its way to my hands. 

After listening to the professor rhapsodizing about the brilliance of the book I literally rushed out to secure a copy and read it from beginning to end in a single sitting. It instantly became one of my all time favorite books, but in reading it at different junctures in my life I have reacted to the characters in many different ways depending on my level of intellectual growth. In spite of my own maturation and changing worldviews I found the story and characters more and more interesting over time. 

The Great Gatsby is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of its publication in 1925 and it seems never to grow stale. If anything it continues to have more and more universal appeal as readers react to the themes of our humanity presented so beautifully in the story. It forces us to consider the nature of power and wealth, unrequited love, societies of haves and have nots, issues as modern as today’s news. Somehow Fitzgerald tapped into the physiological and sociological natures of our American story, creating a tragedy that speaks to us all. 

The Great Gatsby is Shakespearian and modern in its depiction of characters and situations. it easily translates to new generations of readers from one era to the next. It has spawned movies and plays and much discussion in the years since it first came to be. Artists have used their own creativity with visuals and music to suggest new interpretations of the story. Both the depth and the shallowness of the characters might be credibly applied to our present times of materialism, struggles between oligarchs and common folk pressing to be accepted as equals. I suppose the true nature of the story that Fitzgerald wrote expresses all of our longings and disappointments in our efforts to be seen and accepted. 

After the visit to St. Thomas I went on to major in English at the University of where I encountered first class professors but few of them were as outstanding as the one that I witnessed on that high school field trip that so inspired me. I’ve often thought of the English professore who introduced me the a classic that seems to only become better each time I read it. I have been grateful for the inspiration that he demonstrated. I ended up teaching mathematics because of my minor but I did my best to put a bit more excitement into my classes because of what I had seen on that day and how it made me feel. I realized that it only takes a single moment to make a difference in an individual’s life. Such a moment has stayed with me to this very day. 

Folklore has been around for all long as humans have walked on the earth. The Greeks attempted to explain how things work in the universe with elaborate myths about gods fighting with one another and with humanity. The world of folklore is filled with with fantasy but it is also much more than fairytales and fables. Those Aggie jokes that go viral in Texas are featured in other localities as silly stories about Swedes and Finns. With or without television or social media folklore thrives in the human experience. 

We’ve all heard about King Arthur and wondered if there was ever someone like him who actually existed. Was he in fact a good man who had a round table of advisors to help him to understand the needs of the citizens? Was he sent afloat on a fiery raft upon his death. Was the story of his strength in freeing Excalibur from a stone true or just a metaphor for his greatness? Was he himself an invention so wonderful that his fame spread from word of mouth? Such is the nature of folklore but it can also be so much more.

Oral history from common folk is another form of folklore. Unlike the words of historians that are carefully based on verifiable facts, the stories from common people about the events of their lives present a look at how people are thinking in a certain time and place. What they see as important provides a psychological peek into individuals and groups. Thier stories invariably provide themes and rationales for how they see things. 

The songs that we sing in a particular era are yet another type of folklore. Their lyrics imply evidence about what is important during a particular era. They provide a personal and poetic view of what is important to differing groups. While folk songs are notoriously filled with human concerns the same can be said of religious hymns, rap, country music and patriotic tunes. 

A huge aspect of folklore involves ways of explaining things that we do not understand or that we even fear. We have many stories of sightings of Elvis because he was beloved by his fans and his sudden death was shocking. People have an urge to think that he might possibly still be alive but laying low so that he can enjoy life in privacy. They want to believe that he is not gone forever.

There are hundreds of beliefs centering on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Some thought that he actually survived the attempt on his life but was reduced to a vegetative shell of himself. The story goes that his wife Jackie protected him until his actual death by marrying Aristotle Onassis and nursing Kennedy on a private island until he ultimately succumbed to a more natural death.

The number of hoaxes regarding who actually killed Kennedy are numerous and legendary. as well. Some blame Russians. Others seem certain that the Mafia was behind the killing. Then there are whispered tales about angry Cubans hatching the plot to murder Kennedy, including a more recent accusation that the father of Senator Ted Cruz was part of the conspiracy. 

Of late our immediate access to thousands of informational sites is fueling folklore like never before and spreading lies and misinformation that actually influence how people vote. There’s the story of blood drinking Democrats whose headquarters is in a pizza shop in New York City. While that might sound so far-fetched that nobody would believe it, we have witnessed people insisting that it is absolutely true and the attempting to kill the people behind this evil cabal. An even more dangerous hoax is that autism is caused by vaccines.

During the Covid pandemic folklore ratcheted up like never before. Story after story led many people to believe that good doctors were part of a plot to hurt them. Confidence in treatments and preventions waned with many souls believing that efforts to control the spread of the virus were simply political cudgels designed to destroy their freedom and enrich Big Pharma and the doctors who prescribe their products. 

There is so much folklore poisoning our ability to know what is true and what is false that it takes time to research ideas and stories that appear to be out of whack. We are being bombarded daily by charlatans who are using our fears to enrich themselves with power and wealth. Even inside our houses of worship folklore has found a steady supply of believers being told things that are hurtful and wrong. Good people who do not take the time to fact check the rumors of evils seem to be all around us. 

An important rule of thumb would be to be cautious about anything that we read or hear that somehow seems to be ridiculous. We might be tempted to think that people of foreign cultures might in fact be killing and then eating dogs, and cats but before launching into indignant anger we might want to do a bit of research to find out how factual such stories are. Then we need to chide the people who spread such lies and be a more reticent in automatically believing them when they utter the next big lie. 

Folklore can be fun and might even help us to laugh or the handle difficult situations but when such tales appear to be hearting certain groups or individuals we should be wary. Dracula was a story and so is the tale of famous people feasting on blood in a pizza shop. Just as we can find the folklore we also have the capacity to find the truth. We just have to be willing to think critically about what we are reading or hearing.

It is true that most people have good hearts and simply want to live each day of their lives as best they can. Generally speaking most people will adhere willingly to rules that make sense to them. They obey traffic lights and drive on the proper side of the road. They pay for items at a store rather than stealing what they want. They work as a community, understanding that if we are to live peacefully each of us must be conscious of our obligations to each other. 

Sadly there have always been aberrations in human behavior. For one reason or another we have thieves and murders, greedy businessmen and dictators. These are people who spurn the rules and take whatever they want for themselves, more often than not without any sense of guilt. We have never been completely able to understand their behavior. We wonder if they were born that way or developed criminal tendencies from life events that left them tainted. Perhaps they result from both nature and nurture. What ever the reasons they are outliers in society whose behaviors rock the safety and security of our mutual agreements to live in peace. 

All too often such people end up in charge of companies and nations. They manage to curb their ugly tendencies just enough to avoid punishment and to portray themselves as saviors for the rest of us. They bully their way to the top and then inflict their poisonous ideas on the rest of us. Once they are ensconced we either meekly follow their rules or have to rouse ourselves from the comfort of our routines to take back our freedoms. Thus we watch the repetitions of history that should have taught us to be wary, but often get past us because we were not paying attention to the warning signs. 

We humans are complex beings. We are only beginning to garner some understanding of how our brains work. We do not yet know exactly why some among us develop mental illnesses nor how to control and treat those illnesses in the ways that we heal hearts. Perhaps in a glorious future we will find the ways to stop mental illness by repairing the mechanisms that create havoc in an individual’s brain. Until then we will grapple with the diseases of the mind that inflict so much harm on both the individual with the illness and those with whom he or she interacts. 

Humans the world over are mostly moral people but sometimes we entangle our personal beliefs with what is truly right and just. We use religious beliefs to judge others and sometimes even attempt to encode our thinking into laws that everyone must follow. Given that the many religions of the world do not always intersect in the same ways, attempts to create a one size fits all version of societal beliefs always ends badly. History is littered with the bodies of individuals who were imprisoned or murdered because their faith did not conform to the beliefs of those in control. 

We definitely need laws and courts and even fair punishments for crimes but we must be cautious in using the personal beliefs of a few to outlaw those with which they do not agree. Why should it matter to us who a person loves and wants to marry so long as we are not forced to adhere to their beliefs? Why can’t we simply live and let live? There are much more important issues to consider. Why do we attempt to criminalize an individual who has quietly changed his or her identity from that which someone proclaimed at birth? We don’t have to be them or even embrace them, but we certainly should not be punishing them. I truly doubt that anyone would choose to go through the hell that they too often endure just to be contrary. Why can’t we simply accept and love them without judgement?

There are movements all over the world to place religions and religious beliefs at the heart of governments. When that happens there will always be losers who will either abandon their own personal beliefs or live in fear of being discovered. Why can’t those who are praying in Congress and claiming to be sent by God simply enjoy their faith quietly. Do they not understand that the most effective way to influence others is by the examples of behavior? 

I know people of many different religions and all of them hold moral values that iIadmire. I do not feel the need to convert the Jews that I know to Christianity. I have never believed that Muslims have chosen the wrong path. It does not matter to me that the generous and loving Buddhists that I know have beliefs that differ from my own. I am a Catholic but I know and love Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, and non denominational Christians. Jesus is at the core of our beliefs but from there the variations are many. I know agnostics and atheists who are more loving and kind than some who adhere to strict religious dictates. I prefer keeping religions out of public schools, out of our government. 

It is not up to me or anyone else to judge how people live unless they do something horrid and hurtful. I am fully against all efforts to force individuals to conform to certain sets of religious standards other than the obvious crimes of murder, theft, and violence. Beyond that let people be whoever they wish to be without argument or hate. Protect people’s freedoms but do not enact laws that make criminals out of those who choose to follow a different way of thinking and living. If we really think about it, it should make perfect sense. Then we can get back to working on the things that really matter like making sure that every person on the earth has food to eat and a safe place to stay. It really is as simple as that.