Day 2

[estimated reading time 5 minutes]

Yesterday, I began the thirty-day writing challenge talking about what life was life twenty years ago for me. This is the second installment along that road and today’s topic is rainy days.

Unsurprisingly, given that I am still trapped in the hateful land of the United Kingdom with no hope of escape in the near future, it is raining, as it always is. In fact, there is ice falling from the sky as I write this but I would think of that as rain. It is painfully cold, even inside, with the damp and wind penetrating through poorly-constructed buildings and people in this place being uninterested in anything that makes life better, only things that cause immediate pleasure.

I have two memories that come to mind about exceptionally rainy and memorable days. One of them, I’ve already written about in my first book, actually, as a short story about my grandfather. I will probably tell the real story behind that story at some point but, as the other I have never addressed in public writing before and this is intended to be an exercise in either public writing or public humiliation — I’m not absolutely sure which yet — I shall share the other, as it portrays me in a far less gentle light.

I was visiting one of my closest friends in the middle of a fall rainstorm. It was only four or five in the afternoon but it was so wet and cloudy it felt like late in the evening. We were sitting around the table playing a board game, although I can’t remember which one — might have been Carcassonne or Catan. For that matter, it could have been Monopoly but I doubt I’d have put myself in such a boring situation as that without some serous persuasion — I have some truly odd and partially traumatic memories about playing Monopoly as a child with some people from my neighborhood and things getting rather awkwardly rough. While I was there, they got a call from another friend, another person I was very close to, saying that they weren’t going to be able to come and join us because they’d decided to go off-roading for the afternoon, which was planned, and gotten stuck when the rain turned the trail into a lagoon, which they had then tried to drive through. Unsuccessfully. Their truck was now summarily sunk and they were sitting in it, door-deep in mud. I could easily imagine the situation and I have had a similar experience — in my case, it was mid-door snow, actually, and it took an off-road digger nearly an hour to get my Jeep out of the snow that time but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, my friend being possessed of only a car but me having an old but reliable pickup truck with plenty of towing ability and off-road tires, we set off in my vehicle to yank the sadly-sunken truck out of its predicament.

When we got there, though, we were immediately met by two things — one was the general doubt of both occupants of the mud-lodged Jeep that we would have any luck whatever and that we simply didn’t know what we were doing. Ok, that I didn’t know what I was doing, as my car-driving friend was perfectly happy with admitting that her knowledge of such things was minimal and that she was mostly just along for the entertainment value of watching the progress. I still offered to be helpful, getting tow cables out. The second thing we were met with, however, was a person I later found was a family friend who had been asked to come to do the job that we had gone to do. It appeared that they were not the only people who believed that we wouldn’t be capable of rescuing the drowning pickup. Realistically, it wasn’t nearly as thoroughly stuck as I had imagined. They were likely far more gentle about off-road driving than I tend to be, as I’d likely have dumped the think far more deeply into a problem situation, given that opportunity. That aside, though, I tried my best to offer my assistance as my abilities and helpfulness were ignored but nobody noticed — nor accepted. Everyone else had a great time there and I stood and smiled. When it came time to leave, I said I was exhausted and had to head home, at which point I drove to a nearby parking area and cried for awhile. Ok, I cried for longer than what is typically associated with “awhile” but I didn’t keep track of the time. I just know that when I got home it was late, I was, indeed, exhausted, and people were rather worried that I had disappeared for awhile.

Anyway, this was a long time ago — probably about ten years, really, now that I think of it. And I have been intentionally vague about some of it, as even now it is quite possible that some of the people involved might feel either guilty or betrayed by the story. More importantly, if I was specific about more than that, other people who I’m fairly sure read at least some of my writing from time to time, although they weren’t actually there, probably know who was and I don’t want anyone to get hurt or be judgmental about things. I honestly don’t think anyone was trying to cause me pain, even though it has been a story that has kept me up many nights in tears in the intervening years.

The story does somewhat have a moral, although it may not be obvious to anyone reading this who is more neurotypical than me. For someone like me, though, if you ask for help, you’re going to get help if I am at all capable of it. And I won’t give up. I want you to ask for help and I’ll be completely honest about whether I can or can’t. If I make that commitment, though, all I ask is that you do two things — first, let me actually give you the help that I’ve promised. Second, don’t give up part way through. If you’re not going to see things through, don’t ask me to walk half way down a road with you because I’m going to keep going after you’ve given up and the whole thing will just make everyone feel miserable and, quite possibly, you’ll get annoyed. I am not an angry person. But I am easily hurt and I get confused by people who change their minds or lose interest in things. This isn’t directed at anyone, really. Actually, it’s not really about me at all. It’s more for anyone reading to perhaps give some thought to how they deal with “help”. I suspect there are far more people who are deeply hurt by those who refuse to ask them for help when it would definitely be offered, those who ask for help and then turn it down before it can actually come to anything, or those who give up on things before they’re finished. I have no doubt that many more such situations will continue to hurt me in my life and I know I will have to live with that. I’m not angry at anyone who causes me pain, just sad.

So there you have it, a story from a rainy day that ended in a wet-faced evening and many teary nights. The whole thing will probably sound incredibly silly to most people who are reading it and I suspect there will be some judgment of me as being something — controlling? judgmental? weak? obsessive? I’m not sure but I promise you I will hear some of those things in the next day or two about it. But that’s the risk I run for sharing, I guess. Anyway, until next time.

Day 1

[estimated reading time 7 minutes]

I’ve decided to try the thirty-day blogging challenge, writing a short post every day for a month. This is the first day and I’m starting a little before the beginning of February since it’s a month that doesn’t have thirty days in it. The idea is to take a simple question as a prompt and write a brief answer. The first one is how almost everyone seems to start these challenges and it’s a good beginning — where were you twenty years ago? (Sometimes this becomes ten or even five years but since I’m old and twenty years is totally reasonable for me, I’ll stick with that.)

January 2000. I was a student at Memorial University’s School of Music hoping to become an academic musician, composer and choral conductor — my uncle has been working for years as those things in particular and I’ve always looked up to him but my parents are both serious musicians, too, and music has always been a huge part of my life. It still is and I love singing, mostly choral music, whenever I get the chance. Sadly, my voice is rather deep and I always get relegated to men’s parts, as if music is a function of gender. That aside, I had managed to get in as an undergraduate and my instrument, no shock to anyone who knows me, was the only one that lives inside — my voice. During my time there, I was to study directly with two of the finest academic musicians I have ever encountered, Dr Douglas Dunsmore and Dr Jane Leibel. Sadly, I’ve rather lost touch with the music program on Canada’s east coast and have no idea what either of my former vocal coaches are up to now but I have no doubt they’re both still working with young musicians.

Music school is an interesting experience. For anyone who thinks it’s a relaxing place to be or some sort of vacation from the real world, I would suggest that’s rather a mistake. Having done graduate and doctoral work in other fields, I can say without a doubt that, while the academic requirements are certainly nowhere near as high as in graduate studies in humanities, for example, although I think they certainly should be, the amount of work required to be both a performing musician and an undergraduate student is a workload I have never experienced at any other point, either in the working world or in other academic disciplines. While I am no longer a part of the academic music scene in any practical sense, for reasons I may write about later, and ended up shifting to become an instructor in English instead, I have incredible respect for anyone who has put in the kind of time and brute-force effort required to master an academic discipline that has the requirement to perform, too. I don’t have to write poems and stories if I have a bad day — musicians have to perform regardless.

While I did get a generous scholarship to study at Memorial, I was also working (full-time, since it does appear that at that point in my life sleep was an unnecessary pastime) as a coder for a national tech firm (which I don’t think exists anymore) and doing some consulting for smaller companies and, at one point, even a bank. It’s an odd thing that’s been part of my life from the earliest I can remember, using computers. I’ve always been able to think like a computer — actually, that’s never been the problem, although I have rarely been able to turn it off and think like other humans, which is a different issue and one that I have long since given up trying to either justify or excuse, as I see the problem being that other people indulge their desires and moods and simply can’t communicate well and I’m not prepared to try any longer. I don’t know how old I was exactly the first time I wrote a software program but it was definitely before I started primary school. My parents encouraged me to embrace the technology that was absolutely brand new at the time (the early eighties!) and I did. I don’t know if I ever particularly enjoyed it but I know well that I understood even from that age that working with computers, not necessarily as a specialist but simply using them to perform everyday tasks, was a better way than doing things on paper, by hand. When I was in school, we weren’t even allowed to type most of our assignments because the teachers thought of it as some sort of cheating — how things have changed now that every student has a phone in their pocket and handwriting has become a useless historical anachronism. Hopefully some of those teachers who told me using a computer would just make me lazy and that perfecting my handwriting and manual research skills (with a card catalog) was a far better use of my time.

So there I was, studying music and singing by day (and comparative literature, which eventually did become my academic speciality) and writing enterprise software by night. The other part of the question that I’d like to answer, though, is about happiness. I was, in many ways, happy. I couldn’t stand the work and I think I hated working with technology more with every passing day. Sure, I love writing on a computer and I’d be lost without a phone. I’m certainly not anti-tech in the slightest. I’m just not suited to spend my life fighting against the software development machine. I’m happy to be an end user, at the cutting edge, but not to have to create the software. On the other hand, though, academic music was a match made in… choir, really. Reflecting, there were seriously good and bad parts of the experience. I think I wrote about it at the time but that was so long ago, not only can’t I remember but I’d never be able to find the article even if I wanted to.

First, what was bad about music school? Two things, really. One was the speed. The other was the program. Speed? Yes, exactly. I don’t mean tempo, not the way music was performed. I mean that if you knew things, you couldn’t just prove to someone that you knew them and move on. The course program was hierarchical and linear and it didn’t matter how good you were at anything academic — not only was nobody interested in any progress outside the standard timeframe, there was simply no system in place for anyone to do it outside the norm. That’s probably fine in some disciplines. In math and science, knowledge usually comes with practice and study. But in most pieces of music — composition and theory, for example — it’s much more about getting a concept and being able to implement it. Some people take a year to figure out the details of part-writing and others master it in a week. Yet you have to wait a year before anyone notices. That’s a serious problem and it is, I am certain, to this day still not in the slightest corrected. I’ve heard that it’s actually progressively worsened as the lowest-common-denominator approach to education has become more thoroughly entrenched in music schools across North America. The other problem was actually more troublesome, though.

I had some seriously good professors in Music School. Really, academic musicians as a whole have been generally the best instructors overall that I have encountered anywhere in the academic world — not just where I did my undergrad, either, somewhat generalized across all the schools I’ve studied and taught at. But there’s a real problem and one that I haven’t seen in non-practical disciplines. When someone’s good, they’re fantastic. But when they’re not, they’re so unbelievably awful that sitting in their class for ten minutes feels like a prison sentence. I had a truly marvelous pair of instructors for theory and composition. And on the other side, I had the worst professor I’ve ever encountered for music history. Not only did she have not the slightest grasp of history (musical or otherwise), she was fixated on stylistics and research methodology — where to put a comma made little difference to her in the body of a paper but in the bibliographic information it would be something to have a full-on debate over. Academics who lose sight of the importance of their discipline and focus on minutiae are a huge part of the problem with modern universities. This professor, however, didn’t just lose sight of the discipline but had no real knowledge of it in the first place and made up for it with unrelenting silliness over process and blatantly false claims about history.

The other one I found rather troubling was a composition instructor that I was thankfully able to escape from before the course change deadline had occurred. Everything was about experimental processes, electronic music, shock and awe. It appeared that in that class there was no such thing as expression of beauty, music as a positive, pleasant, happy experience. It was all about causing the audience to experience something bracing and, realistically, painful. Making the audience miserable appears to me to be the opposite of what music is for. I can’t imagine seeing a lot of people lining up to fill a stadium to see a performer cause them pain or shock them. They want music they can enjoy — often to sing along with and dance to. It’s these people who think that music is supposed to be unenjoyable who give academic musicians a bad name. Most simply want to prepare new musicians for a life of teaching and performing. A few want to make music a scientific endeavor and take all the beauty and art out of it. Hopefully these two instructors (and anyone like them) are long gone. But I suspect that if anyone was well suited to persevere in the cutthroat academic climate of a modern university, it would be these two and I wouldn’t wish their ridiculous instruction on anyone.

Why did I talk about the miserable parts, though? Because I’d rather leave you on a positive note. What was good about music school? There was one period in my life that was in some ways happier, which I’ll discuss at some point, if I can stop crying over its end long enough. But as things go, the time I spent studying music was the source of most of the positive adult memories I still have. I got to work with some truly amazing musicians, both my instructors (I honestly can’t say enough positive things about the teaching and performing abilities of some of these people, even after having left the east coast and entered the larger world, seeing how world-class some of them were shocked me and still does) and other students, many of who are now professional musicians, either academically or in the popular/indie scenes. I was lucky to count myself among them once, even if now my musical experience has been relegated to composition and the occasional performance with a choir. I got to tour and travel with some serious choral groups and participate in international festivals. I got to learn from people who were at the top of their field. And I got to see that the academic life truly was what I wanted to spend my life doing. There were certainly difficulties and there was hard work. But I fell in love in the only way that would ever feel real to me — falling in love with being an academic.

Arise

[estimated reading time 3 minutes]

The planet is dying. Quickly. And many of us want to save Mother Earth before she slips into a terminal coma — many but nowhere near enough. Yet our voices are loud and we demand change — and change doesn’t come. At least, not the real, sweeping change that would solve the problem. We have no fundamental plan to eradicate fossil electricity generation, even in highly-developed countries where this should have been a no-brainer decades ago. We have no mandated plan to replace gas-burning vehicles with electric ones in a specific future and continue to allow manufacturers to decide what to build rather than assigning them a goal of 100% non-oil-consuming vehicles in a decade. We don’t have even the loosest plan to shift from single-use plastics as the norm in manufacturing to a requirement for plastic recyclability. We are facing a global food crisis yet we still have no plan to impose a non-animal, sustainable food system in even one country. And we allow our schools to teach our children outdated curriculums that don’t focus on real current problems, leaving them apathetic and disconnected from possible solutions.

Yelling and screaming about a problem never fixed anything. Don’t believe me? Ask Ghandi what gets things done. A show of force is just a play without a stage. Protesting doesn’t work. It never has. It could, though. People are looking at demonstrations as the solution to the problem, though, not as the precursor. If you ask for something people don’t want to give you, not only will they say no, they’ll encourage you to continue to waste your time asking, knowing they’ll never have to give it to you unless you take it — and if you keep asking, you’ll never think to take it.

If you want change, you can’t ask for change. You can’t demand change. You have to live change. The more someone yells at you to change, the more defensive you’ll become and the more you’ll argue and fight back. And the louder and more frightening things get, the more most people will seek comfort in the normal, the status quo. There’s a reason that in periods of the most severe trauma the world has ever seen, tradition trumps ethics every time. World War 2 saw the bright beacon of liberal peace that was the United States sentence untold numbers of people of Japanese descent to camps in the name of traditional values. The Cold War saw the repression of academic liberals seeking equality and peaceful existence because tradition demanded fighting rather than accepting that both sides had it wrong, that neither capitalist greed nor state-driven Marxism-Leninism were the answer.

Democracy doesn’t work. The majority never wants real change. And the majority will never willingly give up their privilege of oppression. It’s silly to imagine there could ever be a society that’s not hopelessly divided with factions fighting and people being sentenced to lives of misery if you let people choose a collective destiny like that.

So what’s the value of demonstration? What’s the purpose of protest? It’s a wake up call and a warmup act on the stage of government. But it’s only useful if we make it very clear that we’re not asking government to act or change. We’re not asking people to get out there and vote. We’re asking people to get out there and force change. For protest to be useful to make sweeping, permanent social changes like the ones that could actually save our species from untold suffering and likely extinction in the face of global disaster, it must not remain in the streets, a simple demand in raised voices and waved signs. It must in no uncertain terms shift from popular action to popular revolution. Revolution has been in America a sacred ideal — the birth of the nation and the freedom it promised but has more and more failed to deliver was premised on eliminating a government that didn’t have the people’s happiness and safety in mind. Do we have a government that is working for what the people want or for what the people need, because these two things are almost never the same thing.

The answer may begin with demonstrations and protests. Peaceful civil disobedience can stop a pipeline and turn a waterfront industrial complex into a park. It can free a political prisoner and save the lives of children being overrun by a violent government. But we’re not just aiming to fix the desperate problems that occur today, are we? Please ask yourself if the government will ever be prepared to enact the sweeping societal changes, in other words, to make people angry and unhappy in the short term, truly and extremely angry and unhappy in many cases, to shift to renewable energy, eliminate fossil fuels, mandate animal-free food supplies and recyclable-only plastics? Revolution doesn’t have to be violent. It doesn’t have to be bloody. And it doesn’t have to be the result of grasping and emotion. We could truly have a mindful revolution. But we can’t keep asking for change.

We must take it.

(This article was originally posted to the Spring Waters Community, here.)

(Photograph by Sarah Trummer)

arrival

[estimated reading time 4 minutes]

(from the voice of one whose name still cannot be shared in collaboration)

i taste unfamiliar shores with the desperation of thirst while confusion surrounds my ears and loss bites with each breath of absence

you are not dead yet it feels that may have been kinder than to leave you in my wake as i take the risk you could not face to escape into arms anything but open to receive me and full of hate to crush any spirit still alive in me as i climb into a new world

idiot you screamed as if they’d want you and here it’s hell but your family loves you just keep your head down your hair covered your mouth taped and you’ll be as safe as any of us

and if they catch you running we’re all targets don’t think of yourself you selfish child we need you your father needs you to be strong when he comes home

but he is lost already dead i know but she will never admit not even after all the years a cell could never have held him long without his spirit desperately climbing for freedom would have left the flesh behind in a moment of rebellion

as if his tongue were prepared to shed his peaceful mask and tear his body to the pieces he once described to us as children at the kitchen table

the heart pumps blood

dear daughter my heart breaks for us and no longer freely tastes blood in captivity

the lungs breathe air

my child these lungs no longer serve me in this cell and my escape is impossible except in a voice you’ll someday use to sing my name from a place more free than i will ever be again

our minds speak our thoughts if we let them

small one the mind can never be caged yet here i write one last letter and while you may be small some day you will be a fire whose spark will shine far from here to speak the story of the lost and missing in lands where honey and milk are as sand and blood in our land

it is with your strength i walk into the land and face today with words on my tongue i thought i’d never have to speak but i know they came for you as the moon was setting and we had finally begun to dream

nighttime hallucinations being the only freedom left between the knocks at the door that echoed in the darkness of our hopelessness and were stories not quite believed

a single letter of your loyalty questioned after all those years of teaching the children of the state to be better

so many fighting arms raised for the glory of those who oppress in the name of something holy but who they see as vicious and barbaric demanding sacrifices as bloody as freedom and silences as harsh as any dying cry

yet your name is hidden in the depths of a palace where once you were beaten by unseen hands and lashed by tongues whose questions were knives in the secret places where men give in to their darker impulses and fight battles of delusion with enemies they have conjured behind their masks

i seek asylum

i speak a little english

i seek a safe place

i am not a terrorist

it’s a lie of course i speak no real words of english but their tongue even brokenly is a comfort to their ears and perhaps in my giving them my hopes of a future in their words they won’t hate me so much for the skin those words are wrapped in

and safety here amid guns and words of go home and if you want to pray to mecca it’s that way start walking and you dirty slut show me your hair or i’ll tear that scarf off your head

it’s a myth but the threat was far more real and sticks and stones have already taken far too many of my young bones in the streets where violence was more religion than god ever commanded and legions of soldiers of hate marched on walls of schoolchildren whose only crime was not yet knowing the punishment for questions was disappearance

their words bounce off the fire you kindled in me and while my tears are held back by a dam i had no idea you’d helped me build i walk away concealing the smile i inadvertently summoned from the darkness and know they are the ones truly afraid and they have nothing to fear from me

yet they see me as a walking bomb on their streets when i wish no blood and only a pillow and a bowl full of possible tomorrows

they try to tear me apart with their voices as once your captors did with their hands but i offer my heart as a sacrifice to them and tomorrow perhaps my softness will rub off on their stone hearts and government-impregnated minds

or not but you have taught me patience and someday i will write of this day when i have left escaping boats and immigration lines and quarantine tents far behind and i speak their words and taste their curious bland dishes as if they were my ancestral home

my heart once belonged to another place and they see me as another face to be feared a colorful scar on a pure white canvas

yet in a safety all too relative and adopted home impermanent in all but my most lucid dreams i take refuge in a place whose arms once reached out to hold a daughter whose father no longer could do more than write lyrics of rebellion from beyond the grave

i am here

i am safe

it’s a lie but please father thank them for me

they no longer hear my words in the noise of their own screaming fear and your whispers are the only strength i have left they might understand

Pure White?

[estimated reading time 6 minutes]

In many ways, it is not so much the idea that a person is “white” or “not white” that is at the root of much of the value-based discrimination in our world but the words we use to describe the races. White and black are the most obviously problematic but where do these notions come from? How do we associate skin tone with these colors that have little in common with those of the skin itself?

White is a symbol of purity while yellow denotes contagion, red contamination and black evil, brown the color of dirt and soil. While in modern speech we use words like Latinx, Chinese and Native-American, it is certainly not uncommon even in this age to hear people spoken of not just as white and black but brown, yellow and red.

The value of white is that it is pure. It is naturally pure and clean and beautiful — the result of all colors of light coming together, the light of the sun, the brightness that gives us our life and makes the earth the place we can live. It is not in the slightest confusion why people the world over, whether a member of that ethnic group or not, have an inflated sense of the importance of its virtue and how close it is to perfection. That is not surprising, given the level of privilege associated with being part of that particular group and there is an overwhelming historical motive to it. But there is also a linguistic one that needs to be challenged if the differentiation is to be overcome.

There will not come a time when black, yellow, red and brown are seen as being as valuable as white — not as people but as concepts and colors. We have an inherent bias favoring things that feel clean and pure, beautiful and simple, over those that are less so. The answer to this must come not from changing people’s personal views over whether white is preferable to brown but with the terms we use to identify the groups. I have met many people who identify as white who have skin of varying colors — pink, yellow, tan, cream but never, not once, anywhere close to white. I have met many native Americans with skin that varies from a beige tan to an ochre-ish hue but red is reserved for party balloons and rowboats. While those on the far-darkest end of the spectrum of Africans may disappear when they close their eyes on a moonless night, in the light of day it would be hard to mistake their skin color for the absolute absence of tone and luminance of ink and were a yellow warbler to land on the shoulder of a native of China or Japan, the skin would be far closer to that of someone ethnically white than the feathers in question. So where do these names come from?

Historically, the answer is quite simple. It’s about the church. Not that the modern Christian enterprise has any real connection to the problem, except that there are many who self-identify both as Christian and white-supremacist — something I suspect Jesus would have had just as much problem with as anyone in our modern day, perhaps more. But many centuries ago, the notion of the western world as the purifying (white) light to conquer, subdue and convert in the name of the Holy Mother Church all other (read, heathen) races in all other (read, barbaric) places was couched in the language of light triumphing over darkness — white light, white people, white causes, not to mention some very red others, not from their skin but from the blood which rarely stayed inside their bodies when the crusaders came calling or the inquisition was in town.

But to blame organized Christianity for our modern mental joining of “white” and “pure” or “good” or “correct” is both silly and inaccurate. This may be in many ways where it began but it’s not in the slightest where it ended. There was, some years ago, an ad for soap by a company we all know (and some of us love) whose name, tellingly, is Dove. The ad was about purity and whiteness. It was about white, clean, gloriously unscented soap. It’s nice soap. Not the best soap in the world but, hot damn, if everyone else would stop with the scents and colors, the world would indeed be a better place. The problem wasn’t the soap, though. It’s that they talked about how pure it was because it’s white. And that set off the ringing of racist bells in people’s heads. Were they right? Well, no. They were being silly beyond belief. It was, after all, an ad for soap and no racial diversity was harmed in the making of the ad (if not of the soap, which is a whole other matter, given where their production facilities are based). What was to blame for the overreaction (and any reaction was an overreaction, as neither the ad nor the product were in the slightest racially-controversial)? The equating of “white” the color and “white” the racial description.

There are many books that need to be written on this — and I am rather surprised at the lack of them already existing. What is already out there is neither academically rigorous nor intelligently presented and that saddens me, as it should everyone who cares about the idea of race disappearing as quickly as possible from our consciousness and equality finally coming home to live amid our thoughts. But let’s take a brisk stroll through the issue.

There are no real racial divisions. We know this. We should all know this and if you don’t already, you know now. The physical differences and genetic deviations simply don’t stop at the racial divides and someone whose skin is dark is far more likely to have more genetic material in common (in other words, have more common ancestors) with someone who is light-skinned than with those of similar colors and facial features. Just as a puppy’s fur may be vastly different from its parents and a horse’s mane may be pure white when its mother’s is dark brown, human coloring has far less to do with ancestry than we once thought. It’s not a negligible connection but, especially with intermingling of those from various physical locations more and more, the idea of racial divisions is as ridiculous as it is heinous.

Black and white are very different colors — as are red, yellow and brown. While they do not in the slightest really describe the skin colors of those from different areas, they do describe emotional concepts — black generally being a lack of intelligence or evil, white being light, brightness and purity, yellow a symbol of wealth but sometimes sickness, red for happiness or pain and brown for a connection to the earth but often being tied to it endlessly. Divisions between people are a societal construct, much like what party you vote for or your faith, what language you speak or whether you like to read books or watch movies. They’re not programmed into our bodies any more than whether we like to curl up with Shakespeare and DantĂ© or watch the antics of the Godfather and Rambo.

We need to separate the notions of color-motivated emotion from the long-outdated idea of race. While race is something that should be eliminated from our vocabulary and understanding completely, this may take some time. To help it on its way, though, we really need to do away with the color terms in the same way that it is no longer socially-acceptable to call someone a “red Indian” or “heathen moor” anymore. We need to recognize that it’s only perpetuating a stereotype by allowing people to refer to other humans as brown or yellow or white. White does symbolize better things, more enviable things, more powerful and ideal things. How is it possible that we can allow such a notion to be attached not simply to a color but to a group of people?

So, white allies in the fight for racial equality (or, perhaps better, racial indifference), what’s the answer? It’s not telling people they can’t talk about color or think about them — it’s about detaching color from racial identity. It’s about no longer thinking of anyone as “white” or “not white”. There are other words for it, I’m sure, although the problem with “caucasian” is twofold. One, it’s hard for most people to spell or say and it’s mostly the people who have little education who are going to be fighting the battle on the racial front, as you have likely already witnessed — those with more education, in many ways, have already won the battle and don’t want to talk about it anymore. Two, if you shorten it, nobody wants to be called a “cauc”, for obvious reasons. So we need a new term, one that we can use as a placeholder for those of western-European ancestry and light skin but that has no connotations of judgmental superiority. I’m open to suggestions — I’m all for outlawing from our speech and thought all notions of race but I know that’s not something that can be achieved for the general public overnight.

We are aware there is a problem equating these two, vastly different things — ancestry and color. What do we plan to do about it? If we do nothing, it won’t improve and we will simply leave it for generations to come. That seems more than unusually unfair.

A thought for a new year…

[estimated reading time 8 minutes]

As the sun passed another milestone and the earth was beginning another orbit, the Buddha gathered his followers together on the side of the mountain to tell them a story. A wise village brahman was known across the country for his ability to ask the right questions. While this may seem far less important than giving the right answers, scholars and teachers and lay people alike came to him for one reason — he had the ability to ask them questions they could answer themselves. He had no need to take a position or give his view but his questions would lead his audience to an enlightened answer, solving problems with words that others solved with money and force, the power of their office rather than that of their mind. He had begun as a teacher with little material wealth but after years of asking questions of the land’s most powerful rulers, his store of gold and silver and precious stones was beginning to rival that of princes — yet he still lived in a simple one-room dwelling on the edge of the forest. Rumors abounded that he buried his wealth between the trees but nobody had ever seen him so much as carry a shovel and even the most hardened criminal would think twice before stealing from one with such powerful friends so he could have kept the gold piled behind his hut and it would have remained safely there — yet he didn’t.

The mystery was solved unexpectedly when a elderly prince travelled several months with his closest advisors to see the brahman and tell him his troubles — the recent death of his three children from three sudden accidents, each in a different city of his lands. The wise brahman asked him a single question. “Who gains by their deaths?”, a question he had often asked himself but had been too afraid to answer. With his own health failing and his brother’s eldest son in line for the throne, the clarity that ensued and coincidences that now fell led the prince to prostrate himself at the brahman’s feet and offer him his own cloak of gold thread interwoven with silk. The brahman couldn’t refuse, although he tried, and bowed at the prince’s feet in return as he was showered with silver and gold and more precious stones than he imagined possible for one person to count in a lifetime. He left his hut the next day, that brahman, without leaving word where he was going and six months passed without his face being seen, many believing him dead and mourning his loss as someone truly wise and compassionate for the people he lived among.

His return was just as unexpected but far more welcome yet he had no gold, no silver, no gemstones and no fine cloak of gold and silk. Word began to filter through, though, with the arrival of travelers from other parts of the land of miraculous gifts appearing overnight spread among the poor from one end of the land to the other, not gold and silver but baser metals — the meaning was the same, though. Six months of trading gold and silver for more common things of value and pressing them on the poor to ease their suffering but not so much as would give them cause to find new suffering in greed. It was the cloak the people couldn’t understand, though. It was not something that could be easily turned into everyday goods or simply given to someone without attracting vibrant attention and commentary, not to mention the wrath of an incensed prince if his gift was not treasured as he imagined it should be.

The mystery was solved one morning when a traveler, on the road for many months, arrived from the far eastern reaches of the land, telling stories of a humble statue of Lakshmi who had overnight been given a beautiful cloak — what prince could possibly object to his clothes being worn by a goddess? A sign of wisdom, avoiding the pride of keeping the cloak while not bringing wrath down on his head by offering the gift to another. The statue was rumored to be the site of much devotion and healing power since her new clothes had appeared.

So there was no gold, no silver, no gemstones, no cloak. The simple-living brahman, on his death, was found to have had the most valuable gift of all, wisdom, but had kept no other beyond what he required to live. Every handful had been offered immediately to save the lives of those in the land around him. Suspecting this to be the case, as the brahman lay dying, the same elderly prince whose cloak now enveloped the shoulders of Lakshmi’s statue had made a pilgrimage to see his friend, two old men alone in the small hut baking in the late-summer sun’s evening heat. Reversing the roles, the prince asked his question, “why, when even the wisest of brahmans across the land take refuge in their wealth when they have been honestly given it, as you have been, have you given it away — not simply most, to ease the suffering of others, but all of it? Could you not have eased your own suffering somewhat and still been an honorable man?”

His answer was clear and his friend, the prince, left the next morning after the life had departed from the brahman’s eyes. “If I value the robe I wear as more than simply the comfort of covering my skin, it has become a source of pride and self and I must give it up or all the wisdom I have been given has been for nothing. If I cling to a single grain of silver when it would give comfort, it is no more than dogmatic allegiance, ritual where compassion would better serve. It was either to keep all and give up a life of service or keep none and smile at death this night.”

It is a new year and a new life. The Buddha teaches us that there is no past except in its effect but that we must make our choices now and live this moment. Each day is the beginning of our lives but it is customary to celebrate that newness in recognition once per year and in the west, that day is today.

So what do the teachings tell us in recognition of having woken into a new year — a new decade, in fact, by our calendar? I believe this story gives us three lessons, echoed in many places, that would be wise to reflect on. In spite of the fact that the brahman in the story is not explicitly a Buddhist, which he certainly couldn’t have been, as he predated the Buddha’s life likely by centuries, he is walking the path well enough that he is being used as an example by Shakyamuni-sensei himself.

1 – Practice is the goal, not reward. This one is rather obvious but I must admit that I often forget it. And I forget it for days and weeks and months, not simply for moments of confusion. Delusion is our humanly state, not something that only happens when one puts poisons like alcohol down our throats pretending it is permissible in recognition of a special day. I forget that it’s living this moment that is the point, not in preparing for tomorrow or next year. Enlightenment happens now and is not about achievement. It’s about accepting that every choice I make in this moment is mine and taking ownership of it, then using those choices to serve others rather than just myself. You indeed may not have forgotten this, or at least not nearly as often as I have, but I know I rarely get through a day when I do not. This is, I believe, my greatest weakness in the face of human delusion.

2 – Your robe is meaningless. Not the spirit in which it was given, of course. But we often take refuge not in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha but in ritual and dogma. How many times is the bell invited to sound? How many bows? Who addresses the statue and where is it placed? Does the bowl of water sit to the right or the left? Do I give offerings with my left hand or my right? How deeply do I bow? It is being a student of the Buddha that gives our lives meaning, not the names we put on it — priest, teacher, layperson, follower, Buddhist, arahant, bhikkhuni. Those are certainly noble pursuits and this is certainly not a judgment of those those labels apply to, myself obviously included. It’s not that being a teacher of the way is not how we should spend our lives — in many ways, that is exactly how we must spend our lives if we are truly to be of service and those who do this are worthy of our respect and thanks, our bows and words of praise. But there is a difference between practicing the way and being wrapped up in its traditions. Putting on your robe to meditate on a teaching may open your mind and prepare you and that is its goal. Hearing the sound of a bell lovingly invited to sound may remind you to stop and breathe and live the path in this moment, not be consumed by thoughts and actions that are habit rather than compassion and wisdom — the bell is our friend in ways mere humans often cannot be. But when we teach others “how to practice”, “how to get it right” and think of it as something we must learn, not the lessons of the Buddha and the wise ancestors but those of temple ritual, we have lost the path, strayed from the way. The Buddha would not be impressed with us. Buddhism is not a straightjacket, nor is it a cult, a religion or a tradition. I often find myself straying into uncomfortably deep waters here, losing my devotion to the path and the truth of oneness and interbeing in favor of the safety of three bells and three bows, familiar chants and recitations, incense offerings and silent sitting, as if those were more than the way to learn and get to know ourselves but an end in themselves, which they can never be — the bodhisattva path is service to others, not only to ourselves and when we serve only our own traditional desires and need for stability, we have lost our footing. I admit that this is my second-largest failing and hope that a new year will strip me of my error.

3 – Sitting meditation is not the answer, only the question. The wisest of our ancestors sat in meditation. The story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, pledging to sit under the bodhi tree tempted endlessly by Mara, the symbol of grasping and clinging to wealth and desire, until he found the answer (often read enlightenment) to human suffering, is the foundation of our belief in the power of self-reflection. And meditation is incredibly valuable, hence its preeminent position in Zen teachings. The Buddha practiced many different forms of meditation — contemplating specific questions, focusing on his breathing, watching a single spider spin a web for hours or a bird build a nest. Meditation is not about clearing the mind or being empty of thought. It is not about eliminating thoughts or anger. It is about letting our human nature, the monkey-mind, go about its work without having to acknowledge it, accepting our thoughts and feelings without suppressing, repressing or judging, finding answers for ourselves. It is not enough to simply sit — “just sitting” is worthless if we do not search for answers. Finding them, that’s a whole other question and one we often cannot accomplish but it is in the attempt that meditation finds its value. It’s not a workout or a physical exercise. If you are stiff, if it makes you sore, if you don’t feel like you want to sit for another hour when you are done, you are doing it wrong. We sit because we love to sit, meditate on koans or teachings, questions and answers, focus on our breath and our bodies, the beauty of a sunset or the sound of a river in the distance because it helps us to be more connected to ourselves and our path of compassion for the world. Meditation is not the answer but it is, if we do it right, a pair of winged shoes to wear as we walk the path. We should all sit. We should all meditate. We should all come together in peace, relax our backs and necks and shoulders and be on the floor, equal and as one sangha body, fluid both in our physical natures and in our minds. And I give thanks for the two teachings of meditation — that I must always take time to breathe and that I must never be rigid either on the cushion or in my life.

It is a powerful story and I see myself as the confused aging prince or the inquisitive villagers seeking the guidance of the wise brahman. More than two millennia after the Buddha walked his path among us, I still see my own blinders and traditions getting in the way of following him. This is my new year’s reflection. I offer its merits to you in the light of a new life just beginning.

May you walk in streams of peace and taste the love of compassion.

Creative Faith

[estimated reading time 11 minutes]

As a writer, I often get the most interesting commissions. I have had cause to write everything from song lyrics to product descriptions, biographies to scripture. But this one stands out as one of the most unusual from my recent writing experience. I have a dear friend who is active in the Christian church and who was seeking a rosary. This was written as a modernized interpretation of how to pray. I must admit that it is heavily Buddhist-inspired, as all of my writing necessarily is, but it is fully in keeping with Christian sensibilities, I believe. Anyway, if any of you Christians out there are seeking a rosary to recite, you are most welcome to this one.

A Modern Christian Rosary

With the sign of the cross, I give myself wholly to peace and love in this moment and into a future where all life flows from the living God within us all.

First – A decade of peace

1 Dear God within me, I ask the strength and wisdom to taste the peace of your teachings and the knowledge of the love I was made to embody. Please guide my footsteps on a path of acceptance, acknowledging my strengths and weaknesses with humility and understanding, as I encounter myself and discover the future.

2 Dear God within all life, I ask for the compassion and empathy that describes the most human of thoughts, in each of my choices today, that I may speak with your voice and love with your heart as I encounter those around me.

3 Dear God within all things, I ask that you give me the words to cherish this world that is my home and the peace within not simply to protect it from others’ deeds but from my own thoughts and doubts and feelings. Please let me see the beauty of my world and pour out my thankfulness for its every moment.

4 Dear God of the air and of life, I ask that with each breath in, with each breath out, I am freed from the passion of humanity and brought closer to the peace that in your name is the strongest foundation for love and interaction. Please give me the strength to walk away from the temptation of emotion and the resolve to understand its hold before I give in even for a second to its imbalance.

5 Dear God of the water and whose love flows through my veins, I ask simply that I understand the path on which I walk, a path of endless choices give to me by a world of infinite possibilities where I may always choose to act as a voice for peace and calm and quiet and move. Please give me the wisdom to let the flowing water of life burst from my mind as the teaching of love and harmony.

6 Dear God of self and strength, in a world of noise, please give me the strength to be quiet and still in darkness and in light, as I not only forgive those who hurt me but myself. Please give me the strength to let go of the past and live beauty into tomorrow.

7 Dear God of words and dreams, in a world of hatred, please give me the strength to be calm against the walls of division and the knowledge to scale those walls, not to fight those who stand on the other side but to work as their partner to turn walls to dust and embrace the equality of all as children of the living God.

8 Dear God of unity and oneness, in this existence hopelessly focused on self-interest and pleasure, please take me into a heart of other, not as separate from myself but as the whole of life, undivided from me and living within your image of peace and tranquility, harmony and mutual understanding, so we may stand together to build a future where all are equal and all are one.

9 Dear God of compassion and strength, in a world of the poor and alone, please give me the strength to speak against the acceptance of class and poverty, not in anger or judgment but in hope for a path through the mountains of differentiation to emerge into a new Eden of humanity as one image, your knowledge acted and chosen for a single humanity emboldened by love and one in peaceful coexistence.

10 Dear God of the moment and the timeless, in a world where so many turn away from your wisdom and love and walk toward paths of noise and violence, hatred and misunderstanding, give me the strength always to remember your calm voice in the panic, your peaceful words in the war and to taste the spirit of acceptance when harmony has been all but lost. Please never let me forget that you are always within me and that your life is mine as I walk with you.

Second – A decade of introspection

1 I pray that the love and compassion that is God within me lives in my every breath, my every choice and my every action. May the light of Jesus shine through each moment of my life here with others and they may see his face reflected in mine.

2 I pray that the peace of God radiate from my being and that I never stoop to the level of judgment or tribalism, bigotry or racial differentiation, that I embrace all others as Jesus did and live as one with all people I encounter, regardless of who they are or what they believe.

3 I recognize the things that I have done that have not always followed your teachings, that I knew were wrong, that I did not know were wrong, that caused harm to others and that are my fault. I admit them and feel them deeply within myself and ask forgiveness that cannot come from outside but only from the spirit within.

4 I humbly accept responsibility for the choices that I have made, both those that have been good and those that have been bad in their outcome and pray for the strength to forgive not only those who have harmed me but myself, as I see God reflected in my desire for better future and in my devotion to make better choices from this moment forward.

5 I pray that I will be worthy of being a child of God, an embodiment of scripture and living reminder of the teachings of Jesus. I ask only for the wisdom and strength to live a life that does not give in to desire and walks away from sinful thoughts and behaviors, knowing that you will give me that strength to act and wisdom to decide and that I have only to listen to your voice within me to make the right choice.

6 I ask that you never give up on me, that you see yourself in me and enliven and enlighten my spirit, give me the hope that tomorrow will not simply be a better day but the means to make that happen.

7 I pray for those who have gone before me, my ancestors and my loves, my family and my friends, who have been lost and who are still by my side, that I may give them the respect and caring, the acceptance and strength they require to continue to live.

8 I ask that I may be a light into all people, not simply those I meet but those who hear my words and see my actions reflected in others, that I may stand for the love of God and the peace of Christ not only in my choices but in my automatic actions, my responses to situations and my desires for the future. Please let me touch their souls with my peace and bring them calm.

9 I pray that you will live in me and walk by my side along the path that Jesus’ taught me to walk and that whenever I stumble you will guide my feet back onto that path, not in judgment but with the clarity of wisdom and the beauty of happiness in cleaning and purifying my life into a posture of love and compassion.

10 I pray that I will know how to accept the world around me, how to change myself to live a better life and how to merge with the unity of the Holy Spirit living in us all. I ask for the joy of peace and the understanding of harmonious interaction with each breath, each step and each word I take and give into the world.

Third – A decade of history

1 Spirit of God within me, I sing respect for my ancestor, Mary of Magdala. I pray for the understanding and compassion that she embodied, the willingness to sacrifice her desire and safety for the pursuit of greater equality and knowledge, a closer walk with the teachings of your child, Jesus. I wish no more than to walk in her footsteps, to take those teachings of pacifism and human life and share them in love with all around me. I ask for her to live within me so I may speak with her voice to this age and calm the riotous seas of modernity with the harmony of ancient wisdom.

2 I speak respect for Paul of Tarsus, the great teacher to those who wished to walk the path Jesus led. I pray for the leadership and conviction of his conversion and the words to awaken the hearts of those who look to me in this age. I ask to embody the certainty of Paul of the universality of Jesus’ teachings of unity, of one law in your name founded on love, compassion and respect. I give myself to speak those words with each choice in my life, to follow the path laid out in my life for all children of this wisdom.

3 I speak respect for John, embodiment of youth and clarity to speak a message of love in the face of conflict and peace confronted with tribal ignorance and historic animosity. I pray for the honesty and lyric compassion of his tongue. I seek within myself your teachings so that I too may reveal with my every breath the nature of humanity, to touch lightly all existence and give harmony where now there is suspicion and mistrust, to write with my life a new epistle to be read in my face, a revelation of honest respect for all children of Jesus’ wisdom.

4 I speak respect for Simon Peter, solid rock of faith and foundation of life’s beauty who shone the light of Jesus’ teaching into a world overrun with false belief and idolatry. I pray for the understanding and compassion to take those words and live them into this world of new idols built on the self and break apart the delusion that leads today into the abyss of separation and division, calling all your children together and casting off words of nation and prejudice, comparison and hatred to build a new church in the image you have taught, the beautiful law of living service.

5 I speak love for Mary, symbol of purity and embodiment of acceptance and submission. I pray for the wisdom to know when to stand for your teachings and when to submit to the necessity of the moment, when to speak the words of love that I find when I see your face within me and when to walk away from the hatred that fights against the pure understanding and compassion that she represents. I seek the strength to be a new Mary in this age, walking as a living sacrifice to find my happiness while I give myself to others in a relationship of mutual service and interconnected understanding.

6 I speak humble respect for Thomas as the embodiment of questioning wisdom, one who spoke not simply in acceptance but in doubt. I pray for the peace within myself to understand what the teachings of Jesus lead me to do and where I must doubt what I have been told, what is common knowledge, what is folk wisdom and society’s limited understanding of reality and to speak from a place of love and compassion to lead myself and those around me away from the darkness of competition and lust into a harmony of enmeshed community.

7 I sing love for Judas Iscariot, who more than any other symbolizes and embodies the willingness to walk a path of conviction to its extremes, to sacrifice in the face of popular wisdom and to speak against the norms not simply with words but with confident action. I pray for my future to be a complete rejection of all life that does not serve the goals you embody within me and to live in accordance with your new commandment of peaceful love, wherever that path may lead my feet to walk, with none of the fear of failure and all of the willingness to give up the accepted present to build a new future in your image that Judas was prepared to live through his single kiss of challenge and change.

8 I speak respect for James of Galilee, embodiment of language into the ears of those who had not yet heard and understood Jesus’ message. I pray for the confidence and strength, the words and music to touch the hearts of those I encounter each day in my life to understand and seek you within themselves, to follow the teachings of Jesus and embrace the music within their hearts and nature. I ask for the compassion to change my language to the one that will mesh with the ears of those who hear and to change my choices to be those that better fit my new life, from this moment forward, of equality, love and oneness in your image shining through me.

9 I speak respect for Mark and Luke, the teachings of flesh made word and the images of life lived in the service of new understanding and the breaking of division and inequality become the tongues of ancestral teaching. I pray for the beauty within myself that is you to be visible in each word I think and speak but more than this I ask for the wisdom to live in harmony and to follow the path laid out on that mountain as the promise of a new Kingdom of Heaven was created in each of us, without exception, to be created through our love and our acceptance, our peace and our wisdom. Please, dear God within me, Spirit of beauty and guide in every moment, build that new Kingdom in my heart.

10 I sing respect and love for Jesus, embodiment of wisdom and speaker of truth. I seek nothing more than to live the life of service as he taught, to seek equality and peace with all the lives around me and to embrace humanity without the self-imposed divisions and darkness of hatred and lust and possession, to take up the cross of challenge and follow his example to speak into the dark past and taste light apart from nations and wars and conquest and self-interest. I pray for the wisdom to overcome the present and the love to accept tomorrow.

Fourth – A decade of promise

1 I promise to live the love embodied by Christ and the peace and harmony of God within me.

2 I promise to walk away from passion and anger and to seek wisdom and freedom from prejudice in each action.

3 I promise to believe in a better way, far from violence or conflict, not to stand up and fight but to create peace in my every breath and footstep.

4 I promise to speak the wisdom of God within us all into a world that has forgotten to look for love or understand empathy.

5 I promise to live a life of understanding and compassion in the face of hatred and to serve those who need my help as once Jesus served and helped the least among the people of Earth.

6 I promise to confess my mistakes and give myself forgiveness and absolution in the name of the Holy Spirit living within me and guiding my footsteps in the way of peace and tranquility, learning from what once was accepted to create a better future.

7 I promise to speak light into the darkness and pursue the knowledge of God within us all at every turn.

8 I promise to take that speech to the people I love, those I care for, never for a moment letting anyone around me doubt the service that I offer in unity with them, as Jesus taught us all to serve at any price.

9 I promise to answer the call of a stranger in the night and give them peace, bring them toward humanity’s desire for harmony without exception.

10 I promise to walk with Jesus at my side and embrace his teachings at every step.

Fifth – A decade of choice

1 I choose peace at every turn and walk away from anger and confrontation.

2 I choose love in every moment and walk away from prejudice or judgment, hatred or tribal allegiance.

3 I choose humanity with each breath and walk away from self-interest and nationalist ideals.

4 I choose happiness with each footstep and search for a way to bring the knowledge of tranquility to each person I encounter on the path.

5 I choose harmony with each action I take, turning endless cheeks against even the concept of enemy and forgiving without exception.

6 I choose calm every day, seeking to embody the strength and wisdom of Jesus, walking a path between extremes and embracing this instant as beautiful.

7 I choose understanding within each thing I touch and see and feel, giving myself permission to make a better environment in partnership with those around me and never giving in to simplicity over stewardship.

8 I choose silence at each moment of conflict, seeking nothing more than peace when the alternative is disagreement. I will embody love and understanding and teach Jesus’ lesson that it is better to be weak in the face of others than to stand against them, that they may also learn the empathy and compassion inherent in that peace.

9 I choose knowledge with each question, not being afraid to doubt or inquire, to learn from mistakes not only my own and to walk through the scriptures not as one who seeks literal truth but to find the depth of meaning in a life embodying the God within, the Spirit of all life and the teachings of Jesus living within me without exception.

10 I choose acceptance with each word I speak and embody the love of God and the peace of the Spirit that lives in all of us, searching to announce its presence and live as one with all things.

Reflection

I pray that I may hold the love of God, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit living in my every breath and the peace of Jesus’ words throughout this day and my whole life.

Amen

Composed by Avi Sato for Ashley Ruby

Persepolis

[estimated reading time 3 minutes]

(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.)

So this is probably a bit surprising to anyone who knows me well here in some ways. I have always been very open (and quite outspoken) as to my deep love for Japanese graphic art, be it decorative or literary. So it is unexpected that the only graphic work on my list is not Japanese or even close to it. It’s Persian-French. Marjane Satrapi is an author/graphic artist from Iran who publishes in French (in France) and this is the story of a girl coming of age during the Iranian Islamic Revolution. The plot is what you’d expect of a revolutionary memoir. It’s the story of the revolution followed by her escape from (among other things) Iran as things become more and more extreme and problematic. It includes stories of personal rebellion, love, sexuality and it’s surprisingly light-hearted for a commentary on death and destruction, both of individuals and of what was a very culturally diverse and advanced society.

The beauty of language is an interesting one in this work. The dialogue is impressively personal and the characters are hugely identifiable by their speaking patterns but, unlike a book in only text, this is represented in their visual presentation. The words fit the pictures and that is no mean feat (read some comics from the major American production houses and see if you can say the same thing — I assure you, differentiating between characters without the pictures would be mostly impossible in the overwhelming majority of popular graphic fiction). The language is also contemporary and colloquial without being incomprehensible. You don’t have to be Persian or French to get the references and note the tonal variation. It’s culturally-specific but not culturally-exclusive.

The ethical question that is posed and addressed in depth is mostly one about seeing more than one side of an issue. A revolution is a wonderful backdrop for exploring the nature of perspective. If a government is doing horrible things, is it right to fight against it, to revolt, to rebel? And does that make the rebels good people with good ideals or, more importantly, good results? If the rebels are causing vast amounts of damage and suffering for the people, does the government suddenly become a force for good by fighting against the rebels? In this book, there is a fight between a few good and many evil people on both sides of a conflict where everyone has a vested interest — with the possible exception of the narrator, whose interest is definitely in neither side winning and simply being free to live.

Educationally, of course, the fact that this is a book specifically set during a historical revolution means that it can’t help but be insightful (especially as it is written both by someone who experienced the revolution and from a narrator who lives through it) about the events. It’s more generalized than that, though, the lesson that can be taken from it about how revolutions may start being about freedom and fighting tyranny and oppression but never end that way, how governments go from bad to worse and how nobody can ever be trusted. It’s a historical study but the future is destined to endlessly repeat the history even if it knows the score before the game is played.

There are many beautiful and worthwhile graphic novels out there. To mention just a few, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, Ichigo Takano’s Orange, Yeon-sik Hong’s Uncomfortably Happily, Isabel Greenberg’s The Encyclopedia of Early Earth and Carole Maurel Ingrid Chabbert’s Waves. This one, I believe, is in a league all its own and rises not just to the level of excellent graphic novel but one of the most important and significant books ever produced. Of course, I teach several different levels of courses focused completely on graphic novels and my love for literary art is profound but, if you’re only going to read one, make it this one. You’ll thank yourself for getting outside the realm of only-words for a little while.

[Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi on Amazon]

Red Storm Rising

[estimated reading time 5 minutes]

(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.)

As a hardcore pacifist and anti-military activist, this book might surprise all of you by appearing in this list. Not to mention, it’s old (as old as me, in fact, dating from the early 80s as do I) and it’s popular fiction, all things that most people would use as excuses not to put such a book on a list of best things ever written. But I assure you, it deserves its place here and its military-ness is more an example of why we shouldn’t have them in the first place than a glorified exploration of heroism. The point of the book is to show just how badly things can go wrong if people start fighting. And it succeeds. Tom Clancy is a serious military historian in many ways but his frequent argument (in this and other work, particular The Sum of All Fears) about the danger of a divided world and the presence of military forces is staggeringly and overwhelmingly pacifist.

The plot goes through a huge amount of twists and turns, technically speaking, but it’s quite a simple premise. There’s an energy crisis in the Soviet Union and instead of asking for help, it engages in a war that is designed to overwhelm the west and colonize the middle east. This is the story of how that plays out, much to everyone’s surprise.

Yes, the idea of the Soviet Union is a bit outdated, since it hasn’t existed in a number of decades but that doesn’t make the premise any less significant — in fact, in this time the notion of an energy shortage is far more realistic than people in the 80s would have thought possible and this book is a painfully clear reminder of what we might all have to face the day certain countries start to see their energy market dominance start to shift, not least the new Russian Empire.

But why is this book so important? Firstly, it’s incredibly popular and that from a time when culture was very much focused on audio and video media. This book took the world by storm, a technical and slow-burning contemplation of future warfare was not what most people would have imagined being a top best-seller. But it was and, unsurprisingly to me, still is. Of course, being popular doesn’t necessarily make something worthwhile to read. In fact, it usually means the opposite. But in this case, it’s definitely a reason to look at it more deeply. If this were another murder mystery or bitchy diatribe of sexually-unfulfilled bitterness, that would explain its popularity and likely consign it to mediocrity. Being an unusual topic and still highly popular means there’s probably something to look more deeply into there.

There is something to be said for name recognition and many people now read books by Clancy because they’re, you know, by Clancy. But that wasn’t the case then because this was an early book and he wasn’t particularly well-known. So why is this worth including in your reading and why should you list it in your course and recommend it to your students? Well, to put it simply, it’s beautiful — the technical language doesn’t descend to the level of banality or complaining about life. It is clear and concise but has a poetic quality to it that tastes like it’s been refined over many modifications but hasn’t lost its meaning. It’s pleasurable mostly because it tells an excellent story. Not all good stories are pleasurable and not all pleasurable experiences make good stories but this story, you will want to keep reading it. It doesn’t end quickly and with each new piece, we ask another question and want to know the answer. And it’s educational but that’s somewhat unsurprising.

On the first criteria, it teaches an interesting lesson about language. This is a study in how different types of people interact. Varied cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, there are many (and I really do mean many, even taking into consideration that this is an exceptionally long book for popular fiction) characters. They don’t get confusing because each has their own particular way of speaking, choice of words, approach to problems and distinct internal character. This doesn’t falter, not even once. In all those hundreds of pages, even my first time reading it, I felt as if I could have told you who acted or spoke a certain way without there being descriptive cues interspersed. Thankfully, many of those cues that drive me crazy in other books are left out in this and it is clear without them. One more “he said” in a lot of books and I’m ready to toss them out the window. The use of language also demonstrates that technical language doesn’t have to give up its beauty and that day-to-day experiences don’t have to be talked about as if you were sharing your daily complaints in a locker room. They can be discussed with flair and philosophical detachment and in this book that’s how nearly everything is approached.

The human lesson is very obvious. The moral question of whether war is ever justifiable is a constant throughout every chapter and the ethical dilemma of whether fighting for your people is more important than helping achieve a more generalized peace is what the war that’s described in it is about — the Soviets fighting for personal goals and the western world seeking peace but going about it all the wrong way. It’s far more complex than that, though, which makes it worth reading — with most of the Soviet characters being against fighting and most of the Americans being far more aggressive in general, it is a frequent question over ways and means. Is it more important to seek world peace but to do so aggressively or to be forced to fight for your country but be emotionally conflicted and try to stop it? Who is really the bad or good actor in these cases? There is no simple answer, not ever, and this is well reflected in the book.

The third lesson, that of how the world works, is showed in the vast individual character details but perhaps more significantly in the descriptions of how warfare works on a technical, individual basis. Most people truly have no idea how combat functions and those who do understand it are generally either very experienced military leaders or those who have been victims of war. Those who are in the military have a good grasp of their particular small piece of combat but, until they become responsible for a large group of forces, usually across multiple services, which would imply until they get to the level of a general officer, they likely have little comprehension of what others do in case of war. This is a beautiful demonstration of how the pieces fit together, even the civilian ones and while its accuracy is not always 100% and some is quite outdated now, the concept is one that can be held onto and will be valid well into the future.

Anyway, this is probably the most academically-interesting work of popular fiction I have ever encountered and whether you have an interest in the military, in history or just are interested in human nature and how cultures interact when things get more difficult, this is a beautiful example of how writing can inform and entertain at the same time — and all without having to resort to sounds and images.

[Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy on Amazon]

Sophie’s World

[estimated reading time 3 minutes]

(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.)

This is the book that I always answer with when someone asks me what I think is, without question, the best book in the history of literature. I have a few reasons for that but perhaps the most significant of them is that it is, of all literature, the book that I most would love to have written. If I had only ever written one book in my life and it was this, I would be far beyond satisfied. Sadly, it was already written before I published my first book and it’s one of those things that, once it’s done well, and in this case exceptionally well, it really doesn’t need to be done again. It’s inspired a lot of my writing both stylistally and thematically and I suspect it has had that impact on a whole generation of young authors.

Sophie is a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in suburban Norway. But she’s every fourteen-year-old girl in every place. Not to mention she’s also the embodiment of knowledge growing up. So it’s a coming-of-age story with the protagonist being Sofia, the goddess of wisdom. As the book opens, she is coming home from school, bored by its useless and meaningless rote learning and irrelevance to life, to find a letter from a philosopher who changes her whole understanding of the world. Through the book she reads and hears the history of western thought (and some eastern thought, although not enough for me but we have to remember it was written at a time when western knowledge of eastern thoughts was far less developed and there was no Wikipedia to fall back on) and experiences the questions of reality and existence on a deep and metaphysical level. Without getting overwhelmed by them and confusing everyone.

It’s a history book and a novel. Actually, it’s a novel with a novel inside it and that makes the whole thing far more interesting. As for the style, the language is relatively simple. It’s not particularly written for young adults but it’s perfectly accessible to even young teens. But the poetic descriptions and the use of striking images and harsh contrasts for people, for concepts and for the floating and fluctuating experience of life, reality and time, not to mention an exploration of the nature of gods and fate, all come together to be the literary equivalent of the perfect cup of hot chocolate on a winter night in front of a fire (which I believe might have been my reality when I first read this, having been given a copy from its first English-language version the Christmas it was released).

The entire book is an exploration of ethics and morality. Is controling someone ever justified? What about if they’re just in your imagination? And once someone else has imagined them, too, are they still just your creation or do they take on a life of their own? What is life? What is the relationship between fate and expectation and self-fulfilling prophecies? Is western knowledge correct and, given that it’s obviously not, to what degree are we required to explore the world outside our own history? Do we really exist? How can we know one way or the other or does it even matter? These are just the beginning, of course, but it is a whirlwind ride through existential introspection without getting mired in self-wallowing and self-denial (which can be beautiful, just ask Camus, but is not quite so pleasant as approaching the topic with the energy of young life exploring the world).

As for practical world knowledge, the book functions as a textbook on the history of western thought and a critique, at times a very harsh one, of being focused on generalized thought to the point of forgetting the world around us or having too narrow a vision — not understanding the other side of questions like immigration, racial prejudice, religious freedom or even things as apparently simple as what’s beautiful or what’s for dinner. In the first ten pages, you will likely experience more new knowledge than in most of the courses you’ve taken in your life.

There you have it. My favorite book, one I read probably once or twice every year since I first encountered it. But beyond being my favorite, it’s a tour-de-force of literary exploration. It’s an existentialist romp through history, a philosophical debate between thoughts inside a mind that doesn’t know whether it exists and a story of a girl waking up to adulthood only to discover that childhood might have just been an illusion to begin with. If you’re going to read one book, just one, for the rest of your life, this is the book. The other works that I discuss here are often things that are generally suggested to think about. This one, though? It will change the way you think about the world and about what literature can do.

[Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder on Amazon]

thank you for reading. your eyes have done me a great honor today.