The Adult in the Room
American politics grinds on inexorably towards the collapse of empires, fascinating in the way that train crashes are fascinating. The DNC did what everyone suspected all along they would do (see Vivek Ramaswamay’s speech in November), by ousting Joe Biden so late in the election year that it left no time for the public to elect a candidate in a Primary. They took a dogleg around democratic process and Bobby Kennedy, and will no doubt host some sort of Putinesque sham of a candidate selection process in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile the RNC has become a cult to the personality of a man who, though doubtless a fine drawcard for primetime TV, is as far removed from Lincoln and Washington as any President in the history of the United States has ever been. The talking heads pivot to parrot new lies, the press rushes to squeeze out some gossip from the situation, and the world sighs at the melodrama of it all, and for the fun of it pretends that this is not exactly what we were expecting.
It’s scary how blasé we have all become. I don’t think any of us really expects anyone on TV to tell the truth anymore. I find myself asking, What are the honest people doing nowadays? How would a system founded on deception and the pursuit of power respond to the emergence of a Gandhi or Mandela? Marion Woodman often said that the Christian age was not over, as people asserted to her, but was in fact yet to come. An Indian saint said in the 1920s that he had “travelled to all the Christian countries, and met with not a single Christian.” If Jesus came to America, preaching forgiveness, charity, and love for one’s neighbour, would the Americans recognise Him? Or would they say they had already seen the second coming, and his name was Donald Trump?
But there are honest people in America. Even in American politics, there are people who sincerely want to do good. I count Kennedy among those people, and his running partner Nicole Shanahan, as well as, perhaps, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang. These are just the ones I have seen who have struck me as sincere. No doubt there are more, though the system seems to swallow them and hold them underwater. Is that the fault of the system, or the fault of us, who are so easily hoodwinked by it? In exit poles at the 1992 election, 40% of people said they would have voted for Ross Perot if they had believed he could win. But only 20% of people did vote for Ross Perot; the other 20% doubted their fellows, and chose to vote for what they considered the lesser of the two viable evils. Who would be the American President next year if everyone went to the polls on the fifth of November, and wrote down the name of the wisest woman or man?
I admire the people who work for justice in unjust systems, for these people move the world towards perfection. Most of us are either not wise enough or too afraid to simply do the right thing. We are confused, and worship false idols. Some people think money is balm enough to soothe all pains; others think fame lifts one above the ills of earthly life. Many men live into old age still believing that there is some sort of lasting satisfaction in promiscuity. Some people look for it in perversion (which is always based on power, which is the inverse of love), or addiction. Most of us have to consume our lives treading dozens of dead-end paths. But some of us are perspicacious enough to look down each path without having to walk it, and see its futility. These people reach wisdom while they still have energy - wisdom which says that love is the only lasting satisfaction, and love can be cultivated. We cultivate love by worship, we cultivate love by loving, and we cultivate love by working for the good of others. People who know this, and live it, grow to be trustworthy. They are whole, because their impulses do not contradict with their conscience.
A teacher of mine often reminds me that prayer is not a supermarket: you don’t come to God at night to ask for a new car and cheap travel insurance. Real prayer is an expression of the desire to collaborate with Life: it is saying, ‘Let me by an instrument by which Life can touch as many lives as possible.’ If you ask only for yourself, you become a dead-end; if you ask to help the whole, there is no limit to the amount of energy that might move through you. That, I believe, is wealth: not the amount of material you cordon off as your own, but the amount of creative energy which flows through you. Wealth is to channel treasure into life, not to sit safe in a cave and contemplate a pile of bullion.
The question ‘Why not me?’ has been recurring to me a lot lately, which is to say: Why should it not be me who lives a noble life? Why should it not be me who takes on the burdens of others? Why should it not be me who teaches? Why should it not be me who leads? Why should it not be me who is the adult in the room? And it is not pride - all the children squabble to be the most important, but there is a nascent wisdom in me that wants to serve. Though my friends pursue goals I consider childish, why should I not be the adult who rises above it? Though most people squabble for consequence and esteem, what evidence do I have to make me believe that I cannot live for greater things? Though other people live their lives superficially, why should I not greet each day with the vision of my own Death in my eyes? A human life is a brief and effortless thing - why should I scramble to protect myself? Is it just because everyone else is? Is it purely habit? Or the fear of sticking out? Is it a misplaced humility, which makes me think I should dull my light so as not to upset people who have chosen dimness? There have always been two truths - the truth of the mass, and the truth of me. For many years I have bowed my head in deference to the weight of opinion. Perhaps it is time, now, for me to stand up straight, and say what I mean. Not because I want to steal vindication from other people, but because I sincerely have no interest anymore in taking, and the time has come to give.
Swing of Things
James Michalopolous
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