Traveling to Find Our Holiday Lights

Over the years it has occurred to me, on more than one occasion that the energy and cost that travel requires may not be so important to a happy and contented life. Friends and family are the fundamental ingredients for a blissful existence. On the other hand seeing other places, and how their inhabitants occupy their environment, does enrich us in ways that are both subtle and profound. How do we know that, if our lives did not include a broad geosocial point of view, we could be as happy? Would there be the same feeling of fulfillment? How would we see ourselves had we not seen and listened to others with different opinions and worldviews? Many of us can blame the failed politics of the Cold War, Vietnam, and our local draft boards for our first exposure to the world beyond the innocence of youth.


Historically, Americans shared a very isolated refuge from the rest of the world. The United States had been formed by people who wanted, or needed, to escape from various forms of oppression. Our isolation was our security. Then along came Darwin and Malthus who upset the applecart with ideas that punctured the romanticized bubbles of closed-minded thinking that we humans are so capable of. Our growing literacy gave us access to greatly expanded ideas, along with a whole lot more. We wanted an a varied diet, better tools, stylish as well as functional clothing, greater variety of all kinds of thinking and stuff. We had united a rather large array of cultures in a rather large area that was rich in resources and ideas that could be traded for the benefit of all. Sharing goods and services throughout the world should be good for everybody, right?


Humans are social animals. We depend on one another for survival – men, women, physical strengths, mental aptitudes, and various combinations of these – we must have learned as cavemen that life is better when we work together. However, the antithesis is that we are not perfect animals. We have flaws and idiosyncrasies. Our ability to work together requires that we meet challenges, and we learn that our failures are very real. Thus, we are insecure about the very concept that makes us stronger. There is a yin and a yang to human existence that is complex and often incomprehensible.

Now, you are asking, during this holiday season, what is this about? The answer is simple. Our family, our friends, our acquaintances, frenemies, adversaries, our travels, and our exposure to others with their different ways of doing things, their ways of coping, are necessary elements in making us all better prepared for life’s challenges. Valuing our relationships in the world we live in is a key to finding real happiness.


It is easy to say that this is something that we’ve learned after decades of living, but that’s not true. We learn as we go and what we learn evolves with time and experience. Knowledge is defined by an array of things – who we have interacted with, when, what else may have been happening in our lives at the time, what we have read and learned before and after, and so much more. It’s complicated.

Most important is the realization that everyone that we encounter along the way has more than the potential to influence us in some way. With every personal association in our lives, we have gained context, as well as perspective. We learn sympathy, empathy, disdain, and respect. We learn that all contacts can turn on a light in our hearts and brains and provide meaning to something else. For this reason, the holiday season gives us an opportunity to reach out and tell others that we owe them our gratitude for making our lives better. The act of doing this makes us happy. Personally, I’m still not feeling content. There is no possible way that I can express my pleasure adequately. Maybe you won’t read this. Maybe you won’t read it in the spirit that it is meant. Maybe I should have realized sooner. Maybe I should have articulated sooner. Maybe next year.


To all the holiday lights in our lives, your brilliance shines every day. May the coming year bring both happiness, contentment, and light to you all.

Thank You for Your Service! – Breaking News: Veterans ARE NOT Heroes

Veterans’ Day is viewed in a variety of ways. Unlike Memorial Day, it is a day to celebrate those who have survived their military service. As a veteran, I like the idea of having a Veterans Day. It ought to be a National Holiday of the same stature as Presidents Day or the Fourth of July. There is much pride to be taken away from the concept of service to one’s country.

For me, Veterans Day is a day of reflection. I am proud to have served. I believe there is a value in service. I believe that we should all have a service obligation as part of our education and maturation process. That does not mean that we should all serve in the military.

There are many ways that we can and should serve. We need to look after the hungry, the cold, the sick, the homeless. We need to share our educational experiences both domestically and internationally. There are "haves" and "have-nots" in this world and without equality, we are all missing something. We have the Peace Corps, Amercorps, U.S. AID, UNISEF, Doctors without Borders, etc. There are many – both government sponsored, religious, and private organizations where one might serve. Like the requirement that children must remain in school until a certain age, there should also be a requirement that all youth should do public service. We might also make public service a part of our immigration policy – if you want in to American society – as a youth, as an adult or as an immigrant – you should be willing to contribute by serving.

This is, you might say, a rather idealistic way of thinking. Goals and ideals are tools for creating structure upon which we can seek improvement. Therefore, we need to continue to entertain such thinking and not simply dismiss it because we do not have solutions that might lead to implementation. Who ever said that this life was supposed to be easy. Service is actually a means of realizing that it takes effort to succeed in this life.

Back to the military veterans that we celebrate today – during my time in the military, I encountered all kinds. There were those who were drafted into service and there were those who volunteered. There were those from families with long histories and traditions of military service and there were those who got dragged into it by the political and diplomatic shortcomings of those who govern. There were those who were given the enlistment option by their local parole boards and family courts. There were those who could find no other work. There were all kinds. We were all tossed together into a pot and stirred. Some who did the stirring were better at it than others – they also ran the gamut of human imperfection.

We hated military service and we loved it. Sometimes those who loved it claimed that they hated it and vice versa. We all needed to get along. We couldn’t wait to be discharged and we couldn’t wait to advance. Every attitude and situation could fit into some kind of array that contained both good and bad; strength and weakness; success and failure. The variation and possibility was much greater than anything that we might have known before.

It is funny now to see that some of the biggest flag-waving patriots of today were the most troubled and difficult during their time in service. Others, who were obnoxiously gung-ho – not so much. Some avoided complete commitment in Reserve Units and others suffered the horrors of the battlefield. Some veterans will never feel that they have received what they feel is due to them for their service while others are embarrassed anytime that someone today thanks them. Most were not heroes. We were and are normal, everyday folk who served. 

Donald Trump is Our President-Elect – Now Stop Whining!

Donald Trump will be our President! We need to learn to accept this because he has been elected democratically by a system that is defined in the Constitution. 

Back in July, Michael Moore published an article warning that Donald Trump would be our next President. Many of us take Mr. Moore only half seriously. He doesn't fit our image of what an "expert" might be, could be, or should be.

I had been making a similar argument for some time and my friends didn't seem to accept the argument. I really didn’t like their position any better. 

It has been much too easy to express our outrage with Donald Trump and think that he is such a nutcase, such a buffoon, such a fool that there could be no way that the American people would vote for him. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had over the years with educated, smart people who were privileged to have access to many great books filled with intelligent ideas and written by authors who, like them, had very little experience with working class middle Americans who are sandwiched between our glorious coastlines.

Not being charismatic, I have gotten used to not being listened to, and I don’t talk to enough people anyway to make a difference. Michael Moore, on the other hand, has a much larger sphere of influence and guess what – most did not hear his warning either. The fact is that, even if people would have heard the warning, they would not understand it. Bernie Sanders might also be mentioned here.

Chris Offutt's essay in the November edition of Harper's Magazine offers a helpful insight into some of how many American's might think. While Offutt's opinion does exhibit his bias against Donald Trump, it is essential that we learn how others might see the the very same world and understand elements of our culture that we might not consider in the same manner.

Elections have become incredibly ugly in this country, and we are quite sick of listening to all the crap. We want to sink our heads into the nearest hole to avoid it. Donald Trump, very wisely, just kept pressing the hot buttons of Democrats and they, in turn, responded with their high and mighty, righteous, intelligent disdain. Common conservative folk reacted to this and rebelled – they mustered the energy to show up at the polls hoping to bring about change – any change. They might even be willing to see what Trump can come up with after the dust (dirt) raised in the campaign has a chance to settle. Is Donald Trump as crazy as he seems, or might there be some light beneath the bluster he used to successfully win this election? 

Hillary Clinton could not help but to be seen, in contrast to Donald Trump, as a representative of the status quo. I do not think that it is the fact that she is a woman that has stopped her ascent to the Presidency. Of course, I realize that I may be wrong on this (but hope not). This is too easily be an excuse to avoid being more introspective about our understanding of the society that we live in. Democrats are now going to have to find a way to conceptualize their faults, quit thinking that their occupation of “higher ground” entitles them to have things their way – especially since nobody really understands the complete picture and how the elements fit into some useful perspective. They need to focus their attention and energy on a positive and all inclusive approach (not just political targets such as Hispanics, African Americans, and the "poor". 

Perhaps the real solution to this problem is that we need campaign finance reform. The economic boom that is experienced by the media in terms of advertising revenue, and all the money floating around campaigns and politicians has corrupted the election process immensely. It needs to stop! There needs to be a very low, and very hard ceiling on campaign spending. Candidates need to be forced to be economical in communicating their platforms so that they cannot afford wasteful, meaningless babble (too often just bullshit or lies anyway). The media needs to take more seriously their responsibility to report on who the candidates are, what they represent, and report that information both deeply and honestly (oh sure, and how is that going to happen?). 

The American people need to realize that their inflated egos, laziness, mean spiritedness, and general stupidity will not fix itself. We need to stop thinking that it is someone else that is wrong. We need to open up our minds and participate in a dialogue that does not involve an attitude of narrowly defined right and wrong. We need to learn to respect those who think differently in order to earn their respect. We have to learn to compromise with one another before we can expect our political representatives and leadership to do so. We need to lead from the ground up – our representatives need to be made to realize that their privilege to lead depends on their constituents (not the other way around) – thus, they might lead their peers in the legislature (that's what leadership is all about).

Road Rage

How many of us have been guilty of some degree of aggressive driving? Certainly we all share the pressure of trying to live our lives as well as we can. This involves meeting goals, making deals, fulfilling promises, responsibilities, and obligations – often for things having to do with social relationships and not because of our own desires. Ugh!

We have driven faster than might be completely safe because we had a late start and needed to be somewhere by a given time. We have driven when we were tired, stressed, or distracted by a plethora of possibilities. We have driven because there was nobody else to do it.

All of these circumstances involve calculated risk. Probably more have been bad bets than we realize and luck has been a bigger factor than we think. Once we get beyond these challenges, we do not spend any time in retrospective analysis. We forget about them.

These are the factors that contribute to road rage.

Statistics are getting worse and we need to increase our awareness:

• Two-thirds of all traffic fatalities are caused by aggressive driving
• More than a third of aggressive driving incidents involve a fireare
• Teenage boys (under 19) are most likely involved
• Half of drivers on the receiving end of aggressive driving incidents admit to  aggressive responses
• Every year over 30 murders and nearly 2,000 injuries are caused by road rage

(Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

More: CBS News: Sunday Morning: "Trying to put the brakes on road rage" (May 29, 2016)