Two wooden sticks, a calf skin, and a hollowed-out tree trunk. Basics from nature. I never thought they could bring such primal fun, but that was before I spent a morning at Kodo’s Sado Island Taiko Center.
The recent National Trust ToursJapan by Sea trip led me on a Friday morning to remote Sado Island, the nation’s 6th largest island comprised of two parallel mountain ranges separated by a plain dotted with small rice farms. First known as a place of exile for intellectuals and political dissidents, it now boasts premium quality rice and sake. It also serves as the home base for the world-famous taiko drumming group, Kodo.
“Exploring the limitless possibilities of the traditional Japanese drum, the taiko, Kodo is forging new directions for a vibrant living art-form. In Japanese the word ‘Kodo’ conveys two meanings: Firstly, ‘heartbeat’, the primal source of all rhythm. Secondly, read in a different way, the word can mean ‘children of the drum’, a reflection of Kodo’s desire to play the drum simply, with the heart of a child.”
When we arrived at the beautiful Taiko Center, the first view of the drumming room took my breath away. One’s eye is drawn to many different features: the large glass windows inviting the lush Sado Island landscape inside, the circle of drums along the walls, the wood construction and cathedral ceiling that promise wonderful acoustic properties for the drumming, and—primarily—the two huge taiko drums that were hand-carved from a 600-year-old “keyaki” (Japanese Zelkova) tree by Kodo members. It is a sight that excites the senses.
Kodo Center drumming room
We were warmly welcomed and given a history of the center and the Kodo Cultural Foundation, which is focused on social education and giving back to the local community. Kodo grew out of a 1970s concern that young people were leaving the island. Eventually Kodo was formed as a type of university for the study of traditional Japanese arts and crafts. More than 30 performing members, apprentices who undergo a two-year program, probationary junior members, and other supporters make up the community. One of the more exciting recent programs is an expansion of the use of taiko in promoting health, fitness and preventive care for disabilities through their “Exadon” program.
Our instructor for the day was a charming young woman who initially helped us with the appropriate stance behind each drum (legs spread apart, knees bent, stomach tucked in tightly) and the proper grip on the drumsticks (with a loose wrist). On the first few beats, our group was all over the place. But like a patient choirmaster, our instructor asked us to listen to each other and work as one. Soon the sound of the drums, beating in unison, was booming around the room, making the tops of the two huge taikos vibrate with sympathetic sound (similar to the lower strings on a harp guitar). The world was coming together as one. Then, picking up the pace, she laid aside her drumsticks in order to use two wooden blocks as a metronome. She had the group varying tempo, twirling between beats, and generally losing ourselves in the excitement of the sounds.
DJB at work (and play) at Kodo (photo credit: Melissa Blunt)
For a brief time, we became the children of the drum. I cannot remember when I’ve had this much fun.
Our lesson completed, we were treated to a thrilling mini-concert on the largest of the taiko made from the keyaki tree. For the rest of the day, the group babbled in excitement. We’d been together almost two weeks, but it took those children’s toys to connect us at a different level.
A child of the drum (photo credit: Melissa Blunt)
We love our technology and what it makes possible today. But we also need to remember the basic things that make us human, helping us work together in community. We need to find ways to get to the heartbeat.
Linking the passions of America’s founding fathers with those of the ruling classes of Asia wasn’t on my agenda when I left for a two-week National Trust Tour of Japan and South Korea earlier this month. Sometimes serendipity just strikes.
It was pure chance that I began reading Andrea Wulf’s Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation as I was leaving for my first trip to Asia. I was absorbed in her illuminating study of the passion for gardening, agriculture, and botany of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison—America’s best-known founding fathers—as I was entering a world where exquisite gardens were the obsession of Japan’s ruling class.
The juxtaposition was fascinating and delightful.
I became acquainted with Wulf through one of my favorite books, her 2015 work The Invention of Nature, with its description of how Alexander von Humboldt radically reshaped the way we thought of our relationship to the natural world. Founding Gardeners, written in 2011, isn’t as consistently strong, but is an enlightening read in its own right. These four gentlemen (plus Abigail Adams) tied the beauty and bounty of the American landscape to their concepts of liberty and the greatness of their new country. As expected, Thomas Jefferson was a recognized leader in this work, but the surprises here are more with the passions of George Washington, John and Abagail Adams, and James Madison.
In Wulf’s hands, Washington steps down from his perch as American deity to become a farmer (albeit one with slaves—more on that in a moment) with a real passion for the land and its bounty. She recounts how he takes time out every week during the most stressful periods of the revolution and subsequent governmental crisis to write out detailed instructions to his farm manager. Washington read widely in the agricultural and gardening works of the day and corresponded with like-minded individuals across states and oceans, sharing letters, books, seeds, and specimens. At Mount Vernon, he developed a garden that spoke to the vibrancy of the American landscape and experiment in self-government. Madison, likewise, took time from his extensive labor in shaping that government to learn and practice model farming techniques. In fact, Wulf makes the strong case that Madison was one of the first individuals to espouse the notion of conservation, long before Henry David Thoreau or George Perkins Marsh. In Madison’s Address to the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, our fourth president, “did not see nature through a romantic lens of transcendent beauty but as a fragile ecological system that could be easily destroyed by man.”
“In a world where many still believed that God had created plants and animals entirely for human benefit, Madison told the members of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle that nature was not ‘subservient’ to the use of man. Not everything could be appropriated, Madison said, for the ‘increase of the human part of the creation’—if it was, nature’s balance would collapse.”
My main quarrel with Wulf’s book is the consistent absence of the role of the enslaved population in the work of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. Adams, of course, did not have slaves and his plot at Peacefield in Quincy was much smaller than the gardens of other three. While the enslaved population is mentioned, it is not always clear who was doing the work to take vision to reality. Washington seems to have taken a more direct physical role in the creation of his landscape than the cerebral Jefferson, for instance. More attention by Wulf to the building and care of the gardens by those slaves would have provided a more realistic context for the work and world of the southern founding fathers.
I finished up Founding Gardeners as our plane was touching down in Kyoto, Japan. As luck would have it, our first lecture on this study tour was a look at Japanese garden history by Dr. Michelle Damian. Quoting from a treatise on medieval Japanese garden design named Sakuteiki, Professor Damian highlighted influences on design such as Buddhism, nature (and reflection on memories of a wild nature), geometry (the shape of the land and the desire for balance), and taboos (especially the need to be aware of, and avoid, them). We followed that with tours in and near Kyoto of the gardens at the World Heritage sites Tenryu-ji temple and Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) temple. Both were stunningly beautiful and set the stage for our later visits to more remote locations along the coastline of the Inland Sea and the Japan Sea.
Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Tenryu-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan
Two exceptional gardens—one quite modern and the other dating from 1676—dominated our visits in the second week of the tour.
The more modern work is at the Adachi Museum of Art, founded in the 1970s by Adachi Zenko and designed to include viewing gardens as well as a collection of modern and contemporary Japanese paintings, especially those of Yokoyama Taikan. Zenko felt an affinity between the works of Taikan and nature, so he constructed superb gardens which could be viewed as one walked through the museum. These gardens are set against the backdrop of the ubiquitous mountains that make up the Japanese landscape. Pulling art, garden, and landscape together made for an unforgettable experience.
Adachi Museum of Art Gardens, Japan
The following day our tour landed in Kanazawa, an artistic center that escaped bombing in World War II. The highlight was a visit to Kenrouku-en gardens. Kenroku means “combined six” referring to a renowned garden from the Sung-dynasty in China that required six attributes for perfection: seclusion, spaciousness, artificiality, antiquity, abundant water, and broad views. Construction began in 1676, and by the early 1880s it had matured to the beautiful garden seen today. The 25 acres comprises an entire city block.
Kenroku-en Garden, Kanazawa, Japan
Most of the gardens we visited in Japan were constructed under the direction of the ruling class, as were those at Mount Vernon, Peacefield, Monticello, and Montpelier. No matter the differences shaped by culture, landscape, and time—and recognizing the backbreaking work often produced by forced labor—these places nonetheless have matured to something that reaches millions of people from all walks of life. There is a peacefulness that comes from visiting these special places on opposite sides of the world. As Wulf describes the differences between the beautiful — which was applied to scenes or objects that were “small, smooth, delicate, and light” — and the sublime — associated with vast, often rugged landscapes — I couldn’t help but give thanks for the opportunity to become engrossed in both over the past two weeks.
I have only recently come to accept that I’ve spent my entire life as a worrywart.
This is hard to admit, because I worry what people will think of me if they know that I’ve lived a life of constant concern about what can go wrong. Knowing I dwell unduly on difficulty or troubles, will family, friends, and colleagues think less of me?
A quote attributed to Mark Twain (and recently repeated during a lecture I heard by a Zen Buddhist monk at Tenryu-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan) gets at the heart of the issue:
“I have been through some terrible things in my life, some which actually happened.”
Until recently, I attributed my willingness to dwell on the worst case scenario to good planning. Having an advanced degree in planning led me to rationalize that I was simply trying to make sure things went well by gaming out all the things that could go wrong. But it was pointed out recently that perhaps I’ve taken that to extremes. I could tell I was driving others crazy with this approach to life, and I had to admit that I was driving myself crazy as well. After tossing and turning one night while every bad scenario possible raced through my head, I awoke (literally and figuratively) to the realization that most of those terrible things that have come up in my head through the years have never actually happened.
In considering mindfulness and living in the moment, I was fortunate to hear this presentation in Kyoto at Tenryu-ji Temple—a remarkable UNESCO World Heritage Site. Perhaps it resonated because Thomas, the monk, was an American who could speak from my cultural context. Thomas was an exchange student from the 1960s who came to Japan and never went back. When describing mindfulness and meditation, he said that several of his Trappist friends spoke about the “sacrament of the present moment.” A sacrament is something that gets you closer to what you define as the creator. He suggested that all thoughts in our head are either about the past or the future, yet we can only really connect with who and what we are in the present.
This fit very well with a cartoon a friend sent to me about worrying. A young lady is in her kitchen cooking and enjoying her favorite music, both things she really loves. Then she begins worrying: will the kids enjoy the meal, was the recipe a little sketchy, weren’t those vegetables starting to go bad? Three or four frames later she’s worked herself into a lather, and only then realizes that she hasn’t thought about cooking or the music—the things she really enjoys—for several moments.
Taking your mind off what you are doing in the present leads to worry and frustration. In his lecture Thomas suggested that if you find yourself in a line and are annoyed with the lack of movement forward (a common occurrence on a trip with 100 fellow travelers), step back and consider your thought process. I’ve tried that out multiple times and it has been helpful in moving back into the present.
As a lifetime worrywart, I’m not going to change overnight or on one trip. But being outside my normal routine is a good time to use different places and experiences to start. Perhaps those terrible things that aren’t going to happen to me in any event will begin to fade away.
Pearl Harbor. Normandy Beach. Hiroshima. Names, places, memories, and lessons we should never forget.
A-Bomb Dome at Hiroshima, Japan
Last week I was moved beyond words by time spent at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Garden and Museum in Japan. In fundamental ways the experience mirrored my reactions during visits in recent years to Pearl Harbor and Normandy Beach.
The world at the time of those earlier visits seemed more stable than it does in 2019. Just a few years ago we didn’t have out-of-control individuals in positions of immense power in the United States; individuals threatening to use nuclear weapons against other nations and people just because the capability exists. Instead, we had leaders who sought, at least at some fundamental levels, to try and unite us as a people and as a world. There seemed to be adults in charge who had the memories to understand the horror to humankind of nuclear war.
What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, as much as it’s been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.
Hiroshima (1946) by John Hersey grew out of the only single-content edition of The New Yorker in the history of that publication. The book was the subject of a pre-tour lecture I attended by Harvard Professor Werner Sollors*. In his talk, Professor Sollors spoke to the impact of Hersey’s reporting and how it led the U.S. government to revise its narrative about why dropping the bomb was necessary. The report was serialized in some 70+ newspapers (back before all the major newspapers were owned by a small handful of conglomerates), turned into a book (never out-of-print), produced as a national radio reading, and became a touchstone for the nuclear non-proliferation movement. I bought a copy of the book at the Hiroshima Museum and finished reading it in two nights. Sollors’ lecture was a powerful preface to visiting the place where the world’s history changed.
A visit to Hiroshima begins at the A-Bomb Dome, a 19th century industrial building made of steel and brick that survived the bombing and has been left as a ruin to dramatize the scale of the destruction. On the day of our visit, the dome—and every other element of the peace garden and museum—was flooded with Japanese students. A visit to Hiroshima is a key part of education in Japan, and the message focused on the need for peace and non-proliferation is powerful.
Hiroshima is a very different testament to the destructive power of war when placed against Pearl Harbor and Normandy. Yes, both Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima were attacks carried out in surprise. But in the case of Pearl Harbor—and also at Normandy—the targets were largely military. Hiroshima was one of a handful of major Japanese cities that had been spared from large-scale bombing, and was chosen for the A-bomb attack in part for that reason. Almost 100,000 people—largely civilians—died on August 6, 1945, the day of the bombing, or shortly thereafter. The overall toll came to more than 140,000. The museum effectively shows the massive destruction, unlike any seen before during a single day of the war, and the impact on the people of the city, the country, and the world.
At Pearl Harbor, I saw the floating memorial to the individuals killed and buried in the wreckage of the U.S.S. Arizona. I walked among row after row of headstones at the American cemetery at Normandy, stones with the names of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and some, who made the same sacrifice for country, but whose names are known only to God.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Garden
At Hiroshima, it is different. There is a simple memorial in the shape of a burial vault, with the names of the citizens of that city who died in the attack. Many lost their lives in an instant. John Hersey said the survivors described the atomic bomb as “a noiseless flash” that, unless you were several miles away from ground zero, gave you no time to react. His description of the experience of Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk for the East Asia Tin Works, describes the horror felt by tens of thousands.
She thought that before she began to make entries in her lists of new employees, discharges, and departures for the Army, she would chat for a moment with the girl at her right. Just as she turned her head away from the windows, the room was filled with a blinding light. She was paralyzed by fear, fixed still in her chair for a long moment (the plant was 1,600 yards from the center).
Everything fell, and Miss Sasaki lost consciousness. The ceiling dropped suddenly and the wooden floor above collapsed in splinters and the people up there came down and the roof above them gave way; but principally and first of all, the bookcases right behind her swooped forward and the contents threw her down, with her left leg horribly twisted and breaking underneath her. There, in a tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.
Crushed by books in the first moment of the atomic age. It is a scene powerful and alive with meaning. The world changed. But Hersey’s telling of that story is given further resonance because we have come to know the place. And the place that is Hiroshima in 2019 tells of the horror not only of 1945, but of the potential horror today and in the future if the world refuses to learn the lessons from this act. The places we choose to preserve, even when they are of unspeakable tragedies, have the power to tell us about who we are as a people and what we can do differently in the future. Pearl Harbor, Normandy Beach, and Hiroshima provide individual and collective memories, connecting over a continuum of time, to create identity for individuals, communities, nations, and the world. We can choose to shape that identity because Hiroshima remains as relevant today as it was in 1945.
But we have to want to learn the lessons, else we are destined to repeat the mistakes.
More to come… DJB
*Professor Sollors and Professor Alide Cagidemetrio are currently at work together on Face to Face with Antiquity, which examines visitors to global sites of antiquity.
Last week, former Vice President Joe Biden—at 76 years of age and counting—became the twentieth announced Democratic candidate for President. As many have noted, he’s not even the oldest aspirant in the field. That would be 77 year old Senator Bernie Sanders, running again after coming in second to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary in 2016. Both white males are vying to replace another white male, 72 year old Donald Trump.
So much for the generational change with diverse candidates who look more like America that was to occur when the 47 year old Barack Obama assumed the presidency in 2009. Not to mention the glass ceiling, which remains very much in place.
Knowing how and when to step aside for a more diverse, younger generation of leaders is very much front page news for the Democratic Party as the nation heads into another presidential election cycle. A recent Suzanna Danuta Walters op-ed in the Washington Post argues that male politicians “have a responsibility—if they really do want a more gender-equitable world—to lean out, work actively to disavow their privilege and pitch in to get a woman elected president.” A Democratic primary focused on the women and younger, more diverse male candidates would provide choices among those who have experience in executive and legislative leadership, voting rights, criminal and social justice work, consumer protection, financial sector reform, health care, environmental protection, immigration, LGBTQ rights, Hispanic and African American empowerment, local government, the role of the military in today’s world, and international relations. All are issues of importance to a wide range of Americans. (See my update to this post here.)
Politicians have a history of sticking around when others have long moved on to retirement (think Strom Thurmond, for goodness sake) and they certainly have motivations which differ significantly from so many of their fellow citizens. Nonetheless, suffice it to say there is no “right” answer here. Looking outside of politics, the preponderance of evidence has led me to believe that the privileged who are aware** of the special standing they have been given because of their gender, race, or circumstances of birth have a responsibility to think carefully about how to support those who do not have those same entitlements. Even when we believe we have unique qualifications to lead—perhaps especially if we believe we have unique leadership qualifications—we need to consider the benefits of giving others, who bring a different perspective, their opportunity.
I considered appropriate ways to turn over my responsibilities before stepping down from a nonprofit leadership post earlier this year. Over time, I came to believe that the baby boomers had made our mark on the historic preservation field and should find ways to pass the movement’s future to younger and more diverse generations and their points of view. As this thought grew, the face in the mirror looked back at me with that, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” look. Was I good at what I did? Yes, I believed I was. Were my perspectives, gained over decades of experience, of value to the field? Yes, I felt so. Was I indispensable? Ha! My grandmother’s admonition that, “The graveyard is full of folks who thought the world couldn’t get along without them” was always too fresh in my ears.
Stepping aside to encourage leadership roles for people of different generations, genders, and ethnicities doesn’t mean crawling into a retirement shell and slowly dying. Mentoring new generations—both before and after transitions—will always be important. Former President Jimmy Carter has had what many believe is the most successful post-presidential career in history***, all built around service to others. His work empowers those who didn’t have the privilege that he enjoyed as a white, male Southerner growing up in the 20th century. It is a model many of us could emulate, no matter our field of expertise.
There’s an old song that goes, “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?” It is a sentiment that is good to keep in mind when considering how to effectively, and gracefully, step aside before becoming a dinosaur.
Have a good week.
More to come…
DJB
*Perhaps some should say good-bye before extinction arrives (Dinosaurs on the Montana landscape* – photo by Claire Brown). One of the great things about traveling cross country is the wacky art you find along the way, such as the dinosaur sculpture garden just outside of Glasgow, Montana.
**I am very much aware that there are many individuals who do not see how their privilege has set them up for success. They were born on third base and yet wake up and think they hit a triple.
***Others may argue for John Quincy Adams, who served 17 years in the House of Representatives after losing his presidential re-election bid to Andrew Jackson. Adams, a fervent anti-slavery Congressman, is credited for the effort that did away with the “gag rule,” which automatically nullified anti-slavery legislation. Adams suffered a stroke on the floor of the House in 1848 and died two days later.
A bad report from the doctor. An unexpected shift downward in job prospects. A jarring call in the middle of the night. An unwelcomed story on the front page of the New York Times. Each is a crisis.
Crises are inevitable. How we respond says a great deal about our courage and fortitude. It was Stanford economist Paul Romer who coined the famous soundbite, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Others have used similar language, including former Intel CEO and Chairman Andrew Grove. When speaking of his company’s Pentium Processor flaw in 1994, Grove said, “Bad companies are destroyed by crisis, Good companies survive them, Great companies are improved by them.”
In a recent Politics and Prose presentation, Reed Hundt—author of A Crisis Wasted* and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission—discussed the global financial meltdown and Great Recession of 2008-2009. While his new book studies the courage and fortitude of those addressing this financial crisis, Hundt goes further to describe key elements in responding effectively to moments of upheaval.
First, correct diagnosis of the problem at the strategic inflection point is critical. This is easy to understand, but difficult to implement. Often this analysis is made with the wrong people in the room. I’ve seen nonprofit boards make decisions around crises without having people who understand their organization’s “industry” in the room. Brilliance and the ability to frame issues in general is mistaken for wisdom in the subject at hand. Dostoyevsky once said, “Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.”
Diagnosis takes time and should involve consideration of real choices. In the case of the global financial crisis, Hundt argues that the Obama team made decisions before understanding the scope of the problem. That premature leap forward ultimately hamstrung the administration in getting to appropriately sized solutions.
Once committed to a choice, one has to communicate endlessly. “If you can’t sell it, you can’t do it” says Hundt, who adds, “How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things but how well we are understood.”
Finally, it is important to note when the winds have shifted as a result of the crisis. Hundt argues that Obama’s strong desire to be a post-partisan president ran into the political shifts that occurred as a result of the economic downturn. Not recognizing those shifts until it is too late can have disastrous consequences.
Timely diagnosis. Consideration of real choices. Endless communication. Recognition of the changing landscape. In times of upheaval, consider how these four elements can help prevent looking back later on your crisis as a wasted opportunity.
Two books came off my “to be read” pile this month, and both focused on a theme as current as the day’s headlines. The more substantive — A Crisis Wasted — is a deep analysis of the 2008 financial crisis and how early decisions made in the midst of the Great Recession still affect us today. The other — A Gentleman in Moscow — is a charming novel set in a luxury hotel which takes the reader from the upheaval of the Russian Revolution through the mid-1950s. President Barack Obama and Count Alexander Rostov, main characters in fact and fiction respectively, nonetheless face similar challenges when their world shifts underneath them.
A Crisis Wasted: Beginning in 2008 through at least 2009, the United States faced the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression. With the Bush Administration transitioning out of power, President Barack Obama and his administration took on the lion’s share of the work to address this challenge, often while battling opposing forces in both political parties. That the United States survived without falling into national and worldwide chaos is no small achievement.
Yet many supporters of President Obama have felt that in multiple ways the response was inadequate. Reed Hundt’s new book, A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama’s Defining Decisions,is designed to provide perspective and details on these vague yet deep-felt concerns.
Speaking in November 2004, Stanford economist Paul Romer coined the famous soundbite, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s first chief of staff, was speaking of the 2008 economic meltdown when he told an interviewer, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” It is Obama’s early decisions in addressing the financial crisis, as president-elect and then president, which are the focus of Hundt’s riveting book.
Hundt personally knows and has interviewed most of the key players involved, and he strongly suggests that the response was not up to the scope and intensity of the crisis. He weaves those interviews in with his own personal perspectives to produce an analysis of past action by Obama and his key advisors, as well as a guide for better decision-making going forward to those who believe our country needs fundamental change.
As Stephen Wiseman notes, Hundt makes a compelling case that, “The president-elect forgot how he got elected, and favored Wall Street over homeowners, deficit hawks over the middle class, and costly health care reforms over the chance to make a difference on climate change.” The outcome was an insufficient response to the crisis that favored banks over the middle class and, subsequently, led to the Tea Party revolution and the election of Donald Trump. Strong, provocative words.
A Crisis Wasted reads like a novel, which speaks to the way Hundt has pulled complex material together into a coherent tale. His writing is clear and he makes sure to recognize perspectives other than his own. (The only quibble I have here is that in one footnote, Hundt allows an attack on New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to take place anonymously. If you want to attack Krugman’s work—and he does have a Nobel prize for economics to back up his assertions—have the guts to give your name.)
While the first half of the book is a page-turner, when Hundt gets into the details of housing, the environment, and the other elements of Obama’s “pillars of transformation,” the pace slows. Yet the last two chapters are worth the price and the wait. The first compares the Obama Inaugural Address (and his leadership style) with FDR’s in 1933, and the second is an epilogue that wraps up the main thesis of the book. On the comparison between Obama and Roosevelt, Hundt describes the many differences between the crises they faced, but calls out Obama’s shortcomings in leadership style when contrasted with Roosevelt. I’ve personally believed that Obama was too “nice” to his critics who had determined to block whatever he proposed (for example, Mitch McConnell of the oft-quoted goal to make him a one-term president).
In contrast, consider Roosevelt’s Madison Square Garden speech just before the 1936 election, when he famously described forces which he labeled “the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.” Roosevelt claimed that these forces were united against his candidacy; that “They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.” For many, Obama never came to understand how to use his position and masterful oratorical skills as Roosevelt had done to bring the country along to support his programs.
Hundt’s analysis is detailed and well framed, although not everyone will agree with his conclusions. Nonetheless, it is an important and recommended work.
A Gentleman in Moscow: Amor Towles 2016 novel about a Russian Count who, during the Russian Revolution, is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel is a good, if light, read. Towels is a gifted writer who can turn a phrase and tell a story.
Towles’ elegant touch comes through to me in a passage late in the book. Count Alexander Rostov is in bed with his long-time lover, Anna Urvanova, discussing the difference between Russians and Americans. When Anna suggests that half the inhabitants of Europe would move to America just for the conveniences, the Count protests that he doesn’t understand. Anna shows him pictures of dishwashing machines, toasters, televisions, and an automatic garage door opener. For someone who hasn’t ventured outside the hotel in four decades, the Count is unimpressed and says, “I think if I were a garage door, I should rather miss the old days.” He then goes further with thoughts that get to the heart of the novel’s focus: what it means to have your life upended, yet remain a man of purpose.
“‘I’ll tell you what is convenient,’ he said after a moment. ‘To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka—and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.'”
This is a good and satisfying work. However, early in the story it was clear that the main characters were going to avoid real tension and tragedy. Perhaps I’ve seen too many Game of Thrones episodes, but life doesn’t always work out as well for us as Towles manages for his key characters. A Gentleman in Moscow made several best books of 2016 list, and is worth a read. Just don’t expect War and Peace.
At some point in describing my “not quite” retirement after 42 years in preservation, I began to refer to what was next as the “gap year” I never had in my 20s. It was said only partially in jest.
Gap years are a first world phenomenon that—as far as I was concerned—didn’t exist in my middle class/public school upbringing in Tennessee in the 1970s. At least they didn’t exist for a young man
who wanted to get on with his career (the ambitious slice of my personality);
who, as the number two child/son, always did what was expected and “right” (the getting the job done segment of my personality); and, finally,
who needed a job to pay the bills (the persistent part of my personality coupled with the reality of rolling off the family payroll).
But here I am, having said “I’m taking a gap year” enough that it has become a reality, even for me, and I’m working on understanding what it all means. Will this period cover a full year? To be honest, I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll determine that my gap year is really just a few gap months. Or it may stretch much further into my next third of life.*
In talking with a former colleague, she told me of a friend who is unable to take a vacation this year. In response, this young woman is posting something vacation-like on a daily basis to her social media accounts during the month of April under the hashtag “vacation every day.” The post may show her having a mimosa with a homemade brunch or simply taking a nap. I was inspired and began to consider ways to mark my gap year.
Since stepping away from the daily engagement with my life’s work, I’ve certainly mulled over how to use this new-found freedom to step back, reflect, stretch my mind, and more. As with so much else, I know that by writing it out I can work through these thoughts. Paul Graham, in a tiny essay entitled Writing, Briefly, notes that “writing doesn’t just communicate ideas; it generates them.”
My plans for the Gap Year Chronicles—as far as they exist—are to write frequently about encounters with mind, body, spirit, places, or people that help me understand the journey towards who I am during this time. I expect the posts to range from the frivolous to the serious, and everywhere on the spectrum between those polar opposites.
There will be plenty of time for the serious, so let’s begin with the frivolous: My gap year beard.
Many who have known me only since we moved to Washington do not realize that I had a full beard for much of the 1970s and 1980s. Great facial hair is a part of the Brown family tradition, at least going back to the 19th century and Thomas Bruce Bearden, who was known as Papa Bearden in my father’s family. Papa Bearden had a terrific moustache—so much so that it just begs for the use of the English spelling!
Thomas Bruce Bearden – Our Andrew’s middle name is Bearden, which was my Grandmother’s family name
As soon as my mother granted her permission (which was after I graduated from high school), I joined in the family tradition and grew a beard. The earliest version—as seen here in this parking lot jam picture with my friends John Balch and Jody Kammerud—was full and dark!
Parking Lot Picking circa 1975
My wife had no idea what my face looked like without a beard for the first several years of our marriage. That changed on one wild and crazy New Year’s Eve** when I decided to become cleanshaven for the first time in over a decade. We took a picture of the new look and—back in the pre-digital days—had a print made and mailed it home to Tennessee. When the photo arrived, my father opened the card and laid the picture on a table while discarding the envelope. Mother came by, picked it up, and asked, “Who is the person in this picture?” My father laughed and said, “That’s your son!” Of course, facial hair was such a part of my persona in those days that by the time this conversation occurred, the full beard was well on its way back to its standard look.
As I grew older, I was determined not to have facial hair with splotches of gray. I was also not going to color my hair. In our family gene pool, my mother turned gray when she was 35 years-old, followed just five years later by a beautiful and elegant head of white hair. Both grandmothers had full heads of hair that turned gray and white in their later years. My father and both grandfathers were bald (and clean-shaven). Given those genes, it was clear that my days of dark, black facial hair were numbered. By 1990 the beard was gone. The moustache, however, lasted until early in the 21st century. One day our young and perceptive daughter Claire came to the dinner table with a picture she had created, depicting me as if I was straight out of the old “Got Milk?” commercials. I realized then that the gray-turning-white look was visible to everyone, and soon afterwards that was the end of all my facial hair for the next 15 years or more.
“My family” by Claire Brown. Note the gray moustache and the streaks of white running through my gray hair.
Both my brothers have long sported facial hair and for several years—since realizing that my beard was now all white—I’ve considered joining them. But—to quote the authors of Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You’re 80 and Beyond—I worried that while I might believe I looked hip and cool, in reality I’d look like Yasir Arafat! But if you can’t take the plunge during your gap year—if you can’t use this time as your “Year of No Fear”—when will you ever try new things or return to explore once again, in more depth, elements of your past. I was flying home from a conference on March 31st—my last official day at work—so I skipped shaving that day and haven’t regretted it yet.
One week ago I had my first professional beard trim in almost three decades. Our millennial son Andrew and I have been texting back and forth to discuss beard trimmers and oil. In my head I see a closer cropped version of the older Ernest Hemingway. If you see Yasir Arafat, please keep your comments to yourself!
The gap year beard…three weeks and counting!
The gap year beard is emblematic of the range of opportunities facing anyone who has the time and wherewithal to step aside, slow down, and consider alternatives to his/her current way of living. Some will be lighthearted and perhaps insignificant in the long term, but might lift your spirits. A lark, if you will. Others may prove to be life-changing. Perhaps one choice might be both. In the weeks and months ahead—if I’m lucky—I’ll have the time to consider possibilities and questions surrounding health and exercise, relationships, new educational paths, the building of solitary hours/days/weeks into my schedule to think and just be, ways to give back for the privilege I’ve been granted, my role in the fight for our democracy, music’s place in my life, support for the next generations of family and friends, new work options, widened horizons, my continuing place in preservation, and the list goes on. Several may appear in a public way on this blog.
With number 1 in the Gap Year Chronicles series now complete and searchable in the “What’s Next…” category, I’m hopeful there will be…as I like to say…more to come…
DJB
*I subscribe to the division of a life into thirds, roughly divisible by 30 years. Both my grandmothers lived to be close to 90 or beyond, and my father was just a month or two short of 91 when he passed away. I realize nothing is given, but I’m trying to be intentional about my possibilities.
**I’m using my sarcastic voice here. We were basically so bored that shaving off a beard sounded like great excitement.
Image: No Fear: Taking the plunge off the high board at the lake at Mohonk Mountain House (Credit: Claire Brown)
We have an “almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”
With that simple observation, the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, writing in his landmark book Thinking, Fast and Slow, gets at the heart of how we create an illusion of understanding even when our knowledge is limited or based on false information.
The week after the redacted Mueller report was released to the public seems an appropriate time to explore Kahneman’s assertion. Everywhere one turns there are those making stronger and stronger claims based on less and less factual evidence, even when those facts are clear and in the public realm. One of the culprits is most certainly the way we now consume news. We skim or graze over news feeds from sources chosen by tech giants’ algorithms, so that we grasp only the barest of essentials run through a filter of group think.
In The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone, cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we vastly overestimate what we know (a point also made by Kahneman). Quoting Sloman and Fernback in a recent New Yorker article, journalist Michael Luo suggests that “our unjustifiably strong opinions are reinforced by other people who are similarly ill-informed, creating self-reinforcing communities of misinformation.”
“When group members don’t know much but share a position, members of the group can reinforce one another’s sense of understanding, leading everyone to feel like their position is justified and their mission is clear, even when there is no real expertise to give it solid support. Everyone sees everyone else as justifying their view so that opinion rests on a mirage.”
The illusion of understanding has been around since the human race began recording history in part because tribal alliances have existed just as long. In the 21st century we simply call them by different names—economic class, ethnicity, nations, political parties, race. Or perhaps we call them our Facebook friends.
One way to break out of the group-think mold that leads to this illusion is to take the time to read and learn outside your comfort level. Molly Ivins wrote a column aimed at journalists (later reprinted in her book Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? ) that fits all of us in this age of misinformation. After calling on reporters to read at least one good newspaper a day, she then urged them to:
“Concentrate on opening your mind. If you are 55 and straight, read Rolling Stone. If you’re 25 and hip, Readers Digest. . . . You should be reading at least one good book a week—history, anthropology, sociology, politics, urban problems. If you were a fine arts major, read about economics. If you were a business major, find out about the ballet. I’m not joking about any of this. You have got to stretch your mind, further and further. The alternative is letting it congeal, harden, and contract.”
While reading a great deal, I am nonetheless susceptible to being influenced by others’ opinions and adopting them without critical thinking. In the end we are all responsible for setting our own boundaries as to what we’ll read and accept in this age when every media and tech company is using increasingly sophisticated methods to vie for our attention. Stretching your mind does require that we gather and absorb more knowledge. But whatever the approach to get there, we can all benefit by focusing on the pace and diversity of our diet of information.
In the next few days, consider cutting back on Facebook (or whatever your particular social media addiction) and pick up a good book on a topic you haven’t considered in a long time. See if it doesn’t help you stretch your mind.
Have a good week.
More to come…
DJB
Image: A portion of the current DJB “to be read” bookshelf
I’m not a Catholic and only occasionally follow news out of the Vatican, but I was taken by reports that Pope Francis had commented on driving habits during his most recent New Year’s Eve homily. As reported in the press, Francis — who is also the Bishop of Rome — included the following in his remarks:
“’I feel gratitude in my soul, thinking about the people who live with open hearts in the city,’ Francis said. As examples of that spirit, the pope began with a for-instance that will echo the frustrations of many a Roman resident – ‘those people,’ he said, ‘who move in traffic with good sense and prudence.’ By consensus, the poor state of maintenance on Rome’s roads, the lack of accessible public parking, and the city’s paralyzing traffic, are among the top complaints from locals….
The pope then went on to cite other examples of heroism from the silent majority. He praised ‘those who respect public places, and report things that aren’t right; those who are attentive to the elderly, and people in difficulty; and so on,’ Francis said. ‘These and a thousand other behaviors express concretely love for the city,’ the pope said, adding that they come ‘without giving speeches, without publicity, but with a style of practical civic education for daily life. In this way, they cooperate silently for the common good,’ the pope said.”
Helping to ensure that the places where we live contribute to community life has been a part of my work through the years as a preservationist. In an earlier note commenting on the sign in a coffee shop window to “Be Civil, Be Urban,” I suggested that how we live and work together is a key to productivity, learning, growth, and happiness. Civility is—unfortunately—in short supply in much of our national and international discourse today. I think Pope Francis was making a similar point, but with his optimistic point of view that millions are moving together with “good sense and prudence.”
It is Holy Week on the Christian calendar, so a reference to the teachings of Pope Francis—even on how we live together in cities—isn’t that far-fetched. However, if you are uncomfortable getting your urbanist insights from a world religious leader, you can always turn to the natural world. Because they give each other a lot of headway, which buys them more time to react to any incidents up ahead, “ants don’t get stuck in traffic jams.” Living and working together has its challenges, especially in these times of heated political divisions, but we can take heart in the lessons learned from the teachings of a pope or from the navigation styles of some of the smallest creatures on the planet.
Wishing you a week of civility, productivity, love for the people and places where you live and work…and no traffic jams.
More to come…
DJB
Image: Ants marching (photo credit: PSG of Mercer County)
MORE TO COME... 