|
|
New Writing  A Personal Journal August 25, 2008 The Political Cicada: Is Democracy Better Than Monarchy In Selecting Political Leaders? Does Anyone Trust the Democrats? And What Kind of Choice Is This Anyway? I am like a political cicada. My interest in all things electoral emerges periodically, then recedes. For awhile I am passionate about my views, I make predictions, I learn all I can about the candidates and the issues, and then, I lose interest. My loss of interest is partly biological. At times I awake from social hibernation, I look around me with blinking eyes, am disquieted by what I sensed, and feel the urgent necessity to take interest in the world around me. I suspect that some of this interest is manufactured out of temporary boredom with my own life and preoccupations. However, the more immersed I become in the political spectacle, the more tedious, repetitive, and inaccessible the political action and verbiage become. By comparison, my own life seems more interesting. At least it is unambiguous and I have some control over it. Of course, my interest in politics might be more abidiing if my presidential preferences were occasionally reflected by the winning candidates and election outcomes. That never happens. In all the elections I have seen, my favorite candidate has never even made to nominee. It is an ignominious record of selection futility. And of course, I believe that the best candidate has never even run for president. So when elections come, I always in the booth between the levers of two evils, agonizing of which is the lesser. This kind of participation grows tiresome. It's like trying to support one of two teams in the superbowl when you are indifferent to both. Fortunately , I have liked more teams that made it to the superbowl than I have presidential candidates who made it to the general election. Some would say my election ennui could be transformed to excitement if I got more involved. But I think this would only make it worse. It's like telling someone who likes their wine too much to switch to hard liquor. My problem is so chronic that it makes me wonder if democratic presidential elections are so great a political improvement over monarchy. Will mankind in 3000 look back and determine democracy was a political improvement overall? When taking all the authoritarian and democratic leaders into account, will electing leadersemocracy prove more reliable than the divine right of kings? I can't presume to know. What I do know is that a least with monarchy, you don't go through the motions of believing you have a real choice, that is someone you really like or trust or believe in, or that you are deciding between two disparate individuals. The king or queen are who they are--they are rich, they are pampered, they are lucky--and you accept them or ignore them. Whereas, in our system, you're always stuck with two strangers with two different faces that you have choose between, like two different faces, but always on the same coin. This charade of choosing a president in our system is exemplified by the risible uproar over Senator McCain's senior moment about the number of houses he owns. Chances are he has never lived in all his homes. Like the rich man in Satyricon, who cannot be bothered to look at financial records that are six months old, McCain has heavier matters on his mind than his precise wealth, like reaching the White House against a stiff Democratic headwind. And so should the Democratic leaders, who are also by in large far more prosperous than their rank and file electorate. Senator Obama is a multimillionaire, who resides in a multimillion dollar home and who vacationed in The Bahamas and Hawaii in the last five months. He spends a good amount of time raising money for his own election and he does exceptionally well at this. Do the Democrats expect us to vote for their candidate because he is rich, but not as rich as his opponent? Is one candidate with millions a priori more sensitive to the problems of the poor and middle class or better disposed to address them than his opponent who is worth tens of millions? The same presumptuousness infects the Democratic Party,as a whole. Democrats tout themselves as better equipped to fix the economy on the basis of very old historical credentials. With the exception of The New Deal and the Great Society, when have Democrats created jobs? The only opportunities Democrats have generated have been in government and in the industries that sell products to the government--mainly defense contractors. War and bureaucracy have been their most reliable economic generators and the armed forces their manpower. Republicans believe in a system that works well for very few. Their only virtue is that they are honest and consistent. The Democrats, meanwhile, pretend that they want to help and can help the many people for whom the system rarely if ever works. When they are elected, they fail to redeem their promises...and usually blame the Republicans for their failure. Voters always know where they stand with Republicans. It is a dismal place but it has clear signage: you know where you are and have no illusion that anyone out there will help you if you fall. With the Democrats, you often feel like the vulnerable person in a cycle of betrayal--believing, being deceived and let down. The Democrats are smooth-talking insurance salesmen who sell you a phony policy that never pays out when you need it...due to exemptions, extenuating circumstances or your failure to.read the fine print. Like the fraternity brother at rush who swears he will catch your stiff body when you fall backwards at the top of the stairs, then lets you fall. Ooops! July 12, 2007 My doctor had advised me to have this procedure done but I resisted. First, it was an act based on typical denial--of age, of the possibility that I had neoplasms growing inside my rotting guts, of the decline in my physical power, of my mortality.
Then it shifted to a child's fearful resistance against an unpleasant procedure and preparation. Prostate exams were humiliating enough with their drop-trow, bend-over, finger-butt protocol and the memento of vaseline on cheeks. The prospect of having a tube snaking a few yards up my bowel signified the end of dignity, the portal of emasculation. And if that was not enough, there came a day of fasting on the eve of the procedure like an act of contrition for the sin of eating, and a purge of vile-tasting osmotic GI flush euphemistically labeled"Golitely" (as if you could visualize Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly of Breakfast at Tiffany's evacuating her guts ad nauseum while singing Moon River).
Finally, a television feature on the number of New Yorkers presenting with advanced colon cancer due to a lack of screening convinced me that I was letting my fear of unpleasantness interfere with my responsibility to my wife and under-college-age daughter. I called my family physician and a gastroenterologist and scheduled a colonoscopy for five days later.
In the days between the set-up and the lie-down (which I identified in a countdown to the big day, as in 5 PC, or 5 days pre-colonoscopy) I was filled with speculative thoughts of how this procedure would play out and where it might lead me. Every passing moment increased my dread of impending death and each of my pleasant pastimes made me elegiac. By projecting myself into a hypothetical future of polyps, tumors, Gleason scores, and carcinomas I was indulging in premature nostalgic for the life I loved and would surely lose. Two days before the fateful diagnostic I met a woman while swimming who said she was afraid of getting jostled during lap swim because of her breast cancer operation. Of course, I interpreted this encounter as a portent of my fate. Had I set in motion a series of disclosures that would change my life forever?
Of course, I had no signs or symptoms of illness of any kind. In fact, I had never felt healthier. I swim a half-mile a day and eat lean protein and salads. I do not drink or smoke. (My mind is another story--that is pretty sick--but I keep a firewall between mind and body. Being Cartesian has its advantages.) However, instead of building my confidence about the test ahead, my robustitude intensified my sense of vulnerability and disaster. I have always subscribed to the pessimistic theory (irony-based) that every good day is followed by a bad one, every gain subtracted by a loss, and that you are most susceptible to catastrophe when you feel your best. "Of course, I am due for terrible health news," I thought, "I feel great."
I became more nervous by the day. But I also longed for the C-day to come so it would finally be behind me. On the eve of the colonoscopy, or 1 PC on my new calendar, I fasted. Despite the prohibition on eating I bought a pound of Napoleon cherries that I would forego for a day. Even the daily specials listed on the window of a greasy-smelling diner made me salivate. But I was strong and ate nothing. That evening I imbibed my preparation cocktails, two liters of "Moviprep." Why do they give these liquid purges Hollywood-sounding names? Is it a perverse joke to remind you how far you are at that moment from your dreams?
Colonic cleansers, such as Sonne's, work on the principle of gravity, evicting stools with heavy bulk. By contrast, osmotic sugar-and-electrolyte cleansers like Moviprep draw water out of the intestines and flush out the solid wastes. It's like pissing out of your ass. Even in the middle of the night, I was summoned out of my dreams to the lue by the inexorable pressure in my gut.
Finally, this morning I awoke, showered, and put on my best pair of underwear, which I had saved for the occasion (an epileptic co-worker once advised me to wear clean underwear in case I had to go to a hospital; as if hospital workers practiced a strange triage, treating people with good underwear better). I arrived at the GI clinic forty-five minutes early, did the paper-work, filled out a sheet on which I had to report whether my stools were solid, cloudy, or clear, and retired to the treatment area. There I was told to take off my clothes, underwear and personal effects and place them in a locker. I put on two hospital robes, one with the back open, the other with an open front, so I wouldn't have to walk around with my buttocks showing. I slipped on the little brown booties they gave me to keep my feet warm on the cold linoleum.
As I trudged out to the large room I felt like a true patient...stripped of clothes, without pockets, something now to be looked at and treated. Then I went to the chairs facing the Hudson River and looked out at the majestic view while a young nurse inserted a catheter into a vein in my hand. It popped out, so she tried it again. Another patient remarked what a beautiful day it was. To which I replied, "A perfect day for a colonoscopy."
I had never been in a hospital gown. I had never been under sedation and I did not know if I would be allergic to it. With my propensity for imagining the most twisted outcomes, I thought it would superbly ironic if I had no colon problems but went into a coma because of the sedative. So I asked the doctor to put me on the least amount and he agreed to give me only enough sedative to make me comfortable. I was eager to watch the whole procedure on the monitor. I was really enjoying it. And then it was over. And I felt sure that I had seen it all. But it went by so fast that I could not be sure. I probably went in and out of consciousness like an exhausted cinemaphile fighting to keep his eyes open for a 3 AM broadcast of Citizen Kane. At any rate, I saw enough pink muscle, yellow surfaces, and dark tunnels to know that I was looking at my guts.
The doctor pronounced that my colon was perfect. No polyps. I was wheeled out into the recovery room, which was also the dressing room and the IV-and-blood-pressure room. My wife came and I opened my eyes and read the sports section. The sedative they gave was great. It made me feel relaxed and sleepy in a warm midsummer under-the-trees rustic meadow way.
Now I feel great. I am a believer in colonoscopies. I recommend them to everyone. And the hospital where I underwent the procedure does indeed put patients first as their motto proclaims on nearly every wall. This is what a favorable diagnosis can do, how it can make you feel. This is also what happens when you approach the terrifying figure you see ahead only to realize that it is a shadow in which you have protected your fear. June 28, 2007 I believe that this web site is ready to sample. It is like a personal museum. It contains some of everything I have done in my life. Although I find myself chafing at many of the restrictions imposed by advertising, I have to admit that it has taught me a different way of seeing communication--in words and image--and has taught me the art of a layout. I found myself this afternoon lining up type, centering headlines and moving pictures right, left, and center on the page. I realized that this is what I had been seeing art directors do all day--when they weren't stuck in meetings. June 15, 2007 I used to worry about committing myself to a relationship because eventually a relationship would overwhelm my identity and make me invisible to the world. I would be part of a couple, then a family, and my self would wither like a husk. This change has occured, my personal identity has become strictly personal, a private matter of concern mostly to myself. Yet, my anticipation of this outcome hurt much worse than my experience of it. One of the mercies of life is that when something happens to you, you get used to it. Except for brief outbreaks, you no longer fear it. Habit is a great anesthetic. June 13, 2007 We often perceive power as concentrated in a few persons and institutions and represent it with the great stone walls of a castle or a prison. It is a misconception to gather power in one conceptual godhead because it is ubiquitous, concrete and organic. It is absolute and ephemera, expressing itself in various people and moments. It resides in the policeman who stops motorists to administer tickets. It is held by the postal clerk who decides whether to keep his post open or to close it when the customer is in a hurry. It is in the teacher who can pass or fail a student and determine that student's destiny. June 10, 2007 We attended the School at Steps annual showcase. It was interesting to see the synthesis of ballet and hip hop. For two years the musical theater/hip hop performances had been the most popular features in the showcase. Ballet was given polite and appreciative applause but it was definitely losing ground. So rather than concede the stage to the new dance forms, ballet dancers invaded the hip hop classes and incorporated their difficult and beautiful feats to the new forms and showed that dancing on point is just as much a trick as doing a handspring or spinning on your back on the floor. At any rate, they showed that there is a place for traditional dance in the new formats.
June 8, 2007
This is my first entry. It is liberating to write what I think in a spot more permanent and easier to locate than a scrap of paper, but less private than a "work in progress." I have been like the doctor in the story from Winesburg, Ohio who could write thoughts on little pieces of paper and stuff them in balls in his coat pocket. No longer. |
|