“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.”  – James Oppenheim

This Haitian Life: Doomsdaying

I'm a little behind on my podcast listening, but I am a devotee of Mr. Ira Glass, voice and brain behind an NPR show called "This American Life."  Every week, he and a team of investigative radio reporters start with a broad topic and delve into the illuminating details of topics that shape our collective culture.  Back in May, TAL ran an episode called "Island Time," which considers Haiti in the wake of the catastrophic January earthquake.  How is it, they ask, that the small island nation has been floundering for half a century while 10,000 NGOs and millions in foreign aid have focused attention on the place?

There were some really interesting quotes, my favorites penned and read by an author named Ben Fountain, who went to visit a friend of his in Haiti in the immediate wake of the disaster....

1.  "I've noticed it's as if God gives you 205 years to do something with Haiti, and if you fail, He passes it on to someone else.  The Spanish had it from 1492 to 1697.  Two hundred and five years.  Then the French from 1698 to 1803.  Two hundred and five years.  Then the Haitians from 1804 to 2009.  Two hundred and five years.  So what is coming next?  Maybe revolution."

The Mayans predicted a revolutionary shift to a new world order in 2012.  The timing is getting creepy... plus the weather is nuts here, Guatemala isn't having a great week, and Christchurch, NZ is as flat as it's been in 100 years after the weekend quake there.  In literature we call this "pathetic fallacy."

2.  "I've been hearing how backward Haiti is for as long as I've been going.  What about this?  What if Haiti is ahead of the times?  It seems to be on the leading edge of so many current trends: environmental degradation, serial ecological disasters, crumbling infrastructure, a population that exceeds resources, plus a skewed economic order that channels vast wealth to a privileged few while the great majority of people stagnate and struggle.  By any objective measure, Haiti appears well advanced on the track that the rest of the world seems hell-bent on following."

I don't want to get into politics.  Just reflecting.

3.  [observing the destruction of Port au Prince's cultural institutions]  " 'Art is finished in Haiti,' he said abruptly. 'After what happened here, art has nothing more to say to us.'  And he went on, 'The philosopher Hegel said that before the end of time there will be the end of history.  And before the end of history there will be the end of art.  Maybe this is what we're seeing here: the enacting of Hegel's theory.  Haiti is leading the rest of the world to the end of time.' "

 Buy art.  Buy books.  Support your local chefs, bakers, farmers, and potters.  Drink more fortified wine.   Go back to the land, because --dear Lord-- when the ground itself starts to move underneath us, what in heavens will we all hold onto?


****I am unabashedly plugging "This American Life."  Check it out and download the podcast for illuminating insight on subjects you didn't know were out there (ie. the competitive business of interstate rest stops.... pet life insurance... the hedge fund that shorted their own investments and made a killing just before mid-2008)  One could find worse reasons to walk around the neighborhood for an hour with your iPod.****

The Four Way Test

...of things we Think, Say, or Do....

1. Is it the TRUTH?

2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?

3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

The maxims of Rotary International: keeping me on the straight and narrow. Good words for us all to bear in mind.

Note: My dad, the single most upstanding and honest man I know, reads this blog from time to time. He astutely pointed out some things I might want to change for the general public (reputation and all), and I have dutifully done. He was probably in the right. Sadly at least two of the things I changed were lies in the first place. White lies. The line between fiction and reality is so blurry on the other side of the world, and I never intended to be a reporter, just a writer.

Some timeless thoughts on the subject:

"I hate things all fiction... there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric -- and pure invention is but the talent of a liar."
-Lord Byron (1788-1824)

"It's with bad sentiments that one makes good novels."
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Mr. Twain, brilliant as usual. And, Daddy, I love you very much. Thanks for looking out for me.

Question 25

Bruce markets a wine called Bruce's Middle of the Road Medley Red. All the wine is 2006 vintage. It is a blend of the following:
45% Shiraz from Lenswood
30% Grenache from Lenswood
20% Mourvedre from Piccadilly Valley
5% Mourvedre from the Adelaide Plains

(a) Bruce is thinking about renaming the wine, calling it Bruce's GSM, and increasing its price by 25%. The label blurb says in part: “This is a classic Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre blend...” Is this acceptable?

STUFF!

After a long and extraordinary process, I have finally received the five boxes of personal items I packed and shipped from Florida in January. My closet overfloweth. Frankly, I don't have sufficient room for everything now, largely because I only have shelves, no space for hanging things like coats and dresses.

Then, in my wandering across the interwebs, I stumbled on this admonition:

"Stop buying unnecessary things.
Toss half your stuff, learn contentedness.
Reduce half again.
List 4 essential things in your life,
stop doing non-essential things.
Do these essentials first each day, clear distractions,
focus on each moment.
Let go of attachment to doing, having more.
Fall in love with less."

I choose the word admonition judiciously. It comes from the Latin "ad" (towards) plus "movere" (to move). Generally admonishment connotes a sort of verbal punishment, a result and reaction after bad behavior as in, "I admonished Fido for peeing on the rug," or, "Dad admonished me for failing my chemistry test." As I considered the perfect noun for this little web-based poem, I realized that it is not meant as indictment but instead as motivation to move towards something.

"Move towards" reduction of these material constructs. " Move towards" clarity and purpose. "Move towards" simplicity.

Now, I'm not much of an ascetic, and am not about to renounce my worldly possessions, but there's something to be said for the freedom and clarity that derives from having little. If you can pack everything that matters into a bag, you can go anywhere you please. For several years now, I've denied myself the comfort of home and familiarity, actively replacing that stasis with travel and new horizons. I've been unfettered and unattached as possible. I've consciously sought to collect a life in the form of experience rather than things, and I've been deliberately unemotional about leaving behind places and people over and over again. Frankly, it's incredible, even depressing, to me that living this way I've still managed to accumulate so much stuff, mostly clothing. It's even more frustrating to know how upset I was at the long delay in its arrival. I like to think I was just desperate to get warm clothing for the winter.

Maybe what this admonishment is driving me to move towards is a different awareness of what exactly I'm collecting. With less material items, the mind focuses more acutely on more ethereal spoils of the road: friends, education, collected tidbits of wisdom, sunsets that cannot be photographed. Of course these things have long been my goals, but how often do I really focus on them? How often have I lost a moment by thinking ahead to the next one? I could slow down, I suppose... stay awhile.

And I won't run off to the Salvation Army with my boxes tomorrow. I'm so grateful to have a diverse selection of t-shirts and warmer winter clothes that I have been spending the last couple days dumbly smiling at the closet. But let's be realistic: I'd do just fine and dandy with half of all this. Or less. It is, in the end, just stuff.