Light and Dark Life

This morning I had a rare opportunity to watch TV for a few moments. I have satellite television, with the full package of pretty much every channel, so the odds are that I can find something to watch. Today, I spent a few minutes with CNN.

The story of the hour was about an 11-year-old boy in Atlanta who had committed suicide – that’s right, an 11-year-old took his own life – apparently because of repeated bullying by peers at school. I did the math – that works out to 5th grade. I can barely remember anything about 5th grade, and while I was certainly one of the most nerdy, geeky kids in the school, I was only bullied once, by another student who had problems at home, and I recovered pretty quickly.

Apparently, the world has changed, and in multiple ways. Schools are apparently much worse places now than they were when I went to school 30 years ago.  In my day, the worst thing you ever saw brought to school was a frog. Knives and mild drugs were just making their entry, as far as I knew, when I was leaving high school – and even then only as distant rumors at other schools.  Now, knives are obsolete, and heavy weapons and heavy drugs are the norm.

And let’s not forget the other side of the coin.  30 years ago, teachers and educational staff were much less educated about safety and student health and well-being than they are now, and yet today – even with increased training, established procedures, and regular school-wide lectures – the situation is still much worse.

How is it that the victim’s complaints, and the victim’s parents’ documented complaints, could go unheard? How is it that the school district’s response to this tragedy is a canned "We are reviewing our policies" statement?  I’m guessing that the bullies in question – those students who did the bullying – are mentally distancing themselves right now, convincing themselves that it wasn’t their fault, that they had nothing to do with it – and their parents are lock-step behind them.

The District Attorney is on the case, personally investigating what laws can be brought to bear against the offenders. Sadly, it seems that the staff cannot be held legally responsible.  Even more sad, the parents of the kids appear to not be liable.  I find that to be repugnant. They are the adults. They are in the position of strength. They should be held accountable for what happened there. But, as with so many things that are wrong with our country, they won’t. At least the bullies themselves will: the District Attorney is planning to charge the kids with assault, battery and related misdemeanors… and is planning to classify the charges at hate crimes… making those 11-year-old "children" some of the county’s youngest felons.

But, really, can 11-year-olds be held accountable? Should they? I was an intelligent kid, but in 5th grade, I had no sense of empathy or compassion – I didn’t know such things existed. It was a time of rapid growth, but certainly not a time of much wisdom or experience. And like my peers, I was shaped, sadly, by my relationships with my family and extended family.  Popular wisdom these days seems to favor age 8 as the beginning of accountability. Could these 11-year-olds conceive of the possible results of their actions? Can they even now that the worst has happened?  I don’t know, but I’m quite certain that they cannot understand it as adults would. Their understanding is limited at best, if it exists at all.

But their parents should know better. Those children are shaped by their relationships at home, first and foremost. I don’t even know who they are, or what their situations are like, but if statistics are my guide, the odds are that they are playing out behaviors learned from their parents.  It is likely that these children have been bullied themselves – either directly by parents or by older siblings with the parents’ tacit consent, and those parents should be held accountable for such abusive evil.

And yet, most of those parents probably believe that they’ve done nothing wrong.  And why is that? It is because hostility is becoming the norm in our society.  We have changed, and are changing, from a cooperative, welcoming society, to an untrusting, controlling, rude and hostile society. This must not be permitted to happen, but it cannot be stopped. We have brought it on ourselves as a country, based on choices we’ve made as a collective group over several hundred years, and we’re bringing it on ourselves as a world. We are learning to love to hate.

In his book "Friday", Robert Heinlein asserts that one of the key indicators of a dying society is "immense personal rudeness."  Certainly we are seeing rudeness and hostility everywhere. What does this mean for us as a country, a people, and a world?

It occurs to me today that, just as life is transient, so are our thoughts and memories.  There are many who believe that we should keep a journal for our posterity, and those others who come after us, and I do not disagree.  But I also take comfort in recording my own thoughts for myself – my future self – to read and recall. There is so much that I know I have experienced and forgotten – so many empty holes where memories once were – that I feel the ever-increasing importance of recording these things – if not for others, at least for myself.

But as I have said before, time is fleeting. With so many pressures facing us, how am I to ever find the time to write?  It is a difficult challenge at best. But no matter what the obstacles, I believe that taking the time to make a record of yourself, your thoughts, your experiences, and your life, is a worthwhile endeavor, and that such time is time well-spent.

Some of my close friends have often thought about recording our memories and our collective experiences. I hope we get a chance to do that soon. Technology makes it so easy – we should not pass this opportunity up.

Shortly after waking up this morning, I was interrupted by the sound of a loud bang, followed by the sound of a man groaning in pain just outside my house.  Grabbing my phone and running outside, I was shocked at the site that lay before me:  A bicyclist had been struck by a vehicle, leaving the bicyclist immobile on the pavement. 

I found that my left hand had already dialed 911, and I immediately got help started towards the scene.  The dispatchers kept talking to me until the police arrived.  Their questions were at once important, and horrific.  “Is the man conscious?” “Is he breathing?”  “Is he bleeding?”  “Is anyone else hurt?”  “Did anyone get ejected from the car?”  Questions that I answered quickly and mechanically, and did not stop to think about until after paramedics had arrived, carefully loaded the man into the ambulance, and departed.  Only then did I have time to recover myself, and begin to contemplate the larger questions.

In a way I envied the public safety professionals who were involved.  To them, this was something they were sadly familiar with.  They had jobs to do, procedures to follow, work to do and people to talk to afterwards.  For me, sitting at home on an early morning, there was nothing to do but contemplate, and ponder.

And yet, as my own day got started, the stark realities and sharp memories I had faced earlier in the day were driven from my mind, and I sunk into my own comfortable world of forgetfulness.

How tragic… and how normal. 

We are surrounded by transience.  It seems that almost everything is impermanent.  And, interestingly, I’m not quite sure what to do with that.

Today I celebrate the completion of 42 years of life: I turn 42 today, and begin, interestingly, my 43rd year of life. It strikes me as funny that we reckon the years of life in that way – it would seem to me that it would be just as logical to say that I’m now 43, since I’m passing through my 43rd year of life – but I will pass through year 43 at age 42, and such is our strange global tradition and custom.

42 is a number of good fortune, and is considered highly auspicious. For example, 42 is the number with which God creates the Universe in Kabalistic tradition. It is the angle in degrees for which a rainbow appears. Interestingly, 42 is an episode of Doctor Who, set in real time, lasting approximately 42 minutes. And, of course, if you’ve ready Douglas Adams, you know that 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Since my 42nd year of life (during which I was 41), rather sucked, I’m hopeful that AGE 42 brings with it better days. I hope the same for you all this year as well.

Those who know me well know that Tolkien has been my FAVORITE author since I was, literally, old enough to read, and so I will mention a quote from him. In his book, The Fellowship of the Ring, he writes, “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

Indeed he speaks for me as well. Time has passed, carried us away, along our own life paths, into our own worlds. My own life is quite busy and overwhelming. As a result, many of you I never got know as well as I wanted to. I never had the time to spend with each of you that I had hoped to have. And I don’t communicate with many of you very often at all anymore. To my GREAT sadness. Know, however, that I am grateful for the friendship and kindness you’ve shown me, and that you are not forgotten, nor will you be. My absence is not due to indifference, rather only to, well, the insanity of life.

In Tolkien’s world, the tradition is for people to give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as one might think; but it was not a bad system. Actually in most circles every day in the year it is somebody’s birthday, so that everyone in that world had a fair chance of at least one present at least once a week. And they never got tired of them.

This is a system I quite approve of, in fact. So although I have no way to give you all gifts, I will at least give you my wishes that this year, and every year, will be filled with goodness and all the things your hearts each desire… and my thanks for your friendship, past and present. Happy my birthday, to YOU!