Wisdom Wherever You Find It...

So, my embarrassing little secret of the month is that I am a true "Gleek" (which is a fan of the show Glee, if anyone has been hiding under a rock for the past 2 years or so). Glee is super big with teens and young adults, but actually ranks high with the entire 13-49 year old crowd. OK, I'm 52 and a bit out of the demographic, but I like it anyway!

Admittedly, I'm a closet Diva and I like nothing better than to sit at the piano all afternoon singing show tunes, so it's probably not surprising that I'd enjoy singing along to the show's amazingly well produced tunes and watching the dance routines. (How do they do so many week after week? One article I read said that they work 20 hour days when filming, and I believe it.) But, it's actually not the music that impresses me so much. It's really excellent drama, and excellent comedy. I like how, with it's over-the-top comedic format, the characters do and say the things that we all think but would never actually say or do. For me, it brings up those tricky little not-so-nice parts of me that I'd rather not admit to, and forces me to examine them. It also makes me realize that I don't think enough about all that might be motivating what someone else says or does. The show doesn't let you fall into the trap of thinking that you have any character all figured out, and it maybe even makes you reexamine the possibility of ever figuring another person out completely.

I especially like that the show treats both kids and adults sensitively and (within it's admittedly over-the-top format) realistically; with heart. It's all about kids around 15-18 looking for guidance and mentoring from a couple of 25-30 year old "semi-adults" who are still struggling to grow up themselves. I like that sometimes the students are the wise ones and it's the teachers, or the parents, who need the lesson. Yes, sometimes there's a "lesson" or some moralizing that is pretty obvious -- sometimes real life lessons are like that as well, I think. But, I like that the producers and writers have enough respect for the audience to leave things real-life messy and ambiguous in as many respects. Sometimes no one is particularly likeable and everyone's motives are questionable, and sometimes even the most despicable have a heart, or do something really courageous. I think the show displays a lot of wisdom.

And that gets me to my point today. When I tell people in my general age group that I like Glee, I have gotten a surprising number of people who react with the idea that if it's a show that's popular with today's children and young adults, it's can't possibly be thought-provoking, wise, or worthwhile. And I wonder why we are so conditioned to look for wisdom only in certain venues and predictable guises. Yes, there is certainly something to be said for age and experience... But in terms of experience, the youth of today are so bombarded with it. We do recognize how they have to grow up so fast, how they face so many more stresses and tough choices and expectations than we did at their age. We look for stress and disillusionment and burn-out in them from it all. But we forget to look for the flip side; wisdom, compassion, resilience. That's there too, in spades I think, but we might miss it if we expect it to come dressed up in our own filters and biases. Each generation has a different relationship to music, to language, to sexuality, etc. than the last. The newest generation basically has no choice but to understand and be able to navigate the world view of their elders and parents, since that defines the world they were born into. Although young people have forever been about the business of questioning and often rejecting what their elders hold dear, they really don't have the option of ignoring it. But sometimes the older generations don't give the youth the respect of acknowledging and trying to understand that they have their own world view. If we did, we might find out that they have more on the ball than we thought, and much of worth to say to us.

9-11 Overload

I finally completely overloaded on 9-11 memorials and remembrances this morning. Even all the comics, except a very few, were dedicated to remembering -- straining the ability to say anything new and/or relevant, and calling into question the patriotism of those who didn't refer to 9-11 at the same time. I could only sympathize with Doonesbury, which at least tackled the issue straight on and asked to turn to some other programming, because the 9-11 overload was simply too much.

The articles and speeches all try harder than the last to honor the dead and the responders, to elicit grief for the affected, to assert that we will never forget. The non-religious blame religion for the root of all evil. The religious emphasize the peaceful nature of their religions and many look for the common message of peace and love of humanity in all major world religions. But, it all still seems to me to be a pointing the finger of responsibility, or defending against the finger so pointed. We seem stagnated, unable to transform the experience into something new and positive...

Today the power went off all over town for about 3 hours. It was almost as though even the systems of our daily life were also protesting that it is all "too much." In the brief time between finding out that power was out all over for no apparent reason and being reassured that it was only a local phenomenon, I wondered what it would mean if there had truly been a repeat performance and some terrorist group had managed to strike at our power infrastructure and cause a major, perhaps continent-scale, power outage. What would it mean and how would I respond?

I was right in the middle of things 10 years ago; working 2 blocks from the Capitol, commuting through the Pentagon. I spent the whole day walking around DC after being evacuated, trying to find out what was going on, seeing the smoke from the Pentagon--trying to get home, trying to contact loved ones. Yet, in a way for me it was more of a day when nothing essential changed rather than a day when "everything changed." I was not a different person after. I went through a traumatic experience, yes, and I knew people who went through much greater trauma. I grieved, major day-to-day routines changed forever as the city adjusted to the aftermath, some friends suffered life-changing loss or psychological terror. But, those things are not limited to terrorist attacks. I survived, but if I had not survived, I simply wouldn't have survived. That happens every day too. Sometimes to one person at a time, and sometimes to a lot of people at once. Overall, life went on as life always goes on.

But, for some people everything did seem to change that day. There was a new bogeyman out there -- a new "them" opposed to all of "us," a new collective existential terror. Some people even seem to think this is good, and that it's the "them" that we should remember and continue to fear and to fight. But, I thoroughly reject this view. There is no nameless evil or completely external enemy, only the collective effect of a universe of individual responses to life; individual choices between compassion and community or fear, competition, greed, and the unknown.

This morning I realized again that nothing that really matters or is truly a part of who I am and what I believe about the world would change if we were again under attack. I realize that I am in a perhaps even more vulnerable position now. I wouldn't last long if we lost major infrastructure for longer than a few weeks, I am too dependent and not young enough or strong enough to take care of myself. Nor am I interested in being a survivalist. I would much rather think of myself sharing my final meal and letting go than of lifting my finger against another to preserve my life at the expense of theirs. I couldn't plan for a world where that was necessary. But, even that extreme eventuality would not really change who I am, how the world turns, what it important.

It's not religion, nor the lack of it, nor "them," nor protecting our way of life that is the issue. Each day, each moment, we make the decision how to live and whether to love, and how far to extend that love. That decision isn't subject to externalities, even the most extreme. It comes from choice and from the heart.

In something like 6.8 billion of such individual choices lies our single and ongoing opportunity to transform the world -- or not.