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| Nina, middle |
My family has a term they use to describe my ability to speak at length about certain subjects (okay, all subjects). They call it "doing a Columbus." This is a reference to a somewhat one-sided "conversation" between my then middle school-aged daughter and myself, which took place in Sunrise Pizza some years ago. The Sunrise Monolog.
She was working on a Christopher Columbus project and had obviously only been receiving the PC version of this former hero in which he was merely an imperialist, racist, gold-monger. She asked, "Dad, can you tell me more about Columbus?" Perfectly innocent question: ....over an hour later I was just summing it all up, when my dazed daughter said thanks, but she had something really important to do like pore hot wax on her legs.
Thereafter, family members prefaced their rare questions to me by saying,"without doing a Columbus....."
Thereafter, family members prefaced their rare questions to me by saying,"without doing a Columbus....."
But, without doing a Columbus, you might say, why do I bring this up?
I bring it up because I have been thinking about old Chris lately, because I have been thinking a lot about destiny and journeys of discovery for reasons I won't go into here. I have also been thinking that we seem to be lost at sea at the moment. By "we," I mean the collective we, and by collective we, I mean more specifically the American We. US.
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| GPS |
Critics or grouches among us might point out that Columbus was famously lost; however, I would answer that at least he had a direction and destination: West to The Indies. It was neither his fault nor failure that he happened to bump into The Bahamas (thank you), Hispaniola (whoa), Cuba (caramba) and, by extension, this little nation called America. This was his destiny. Destiny, in CC's day, was thought to be decided by a higher mysterious power, not by Oprah or W.
We, on the other hand, seem to be obsessed with controlling our own destiny, without paying attention to our direction. We are terrified to take a risk on sailing into unchartered waters in search of something meaningful. Yet, we seem overly eager, as a nation, to jump into any convenient conflagration, calamity, or compost heap. It is as if we had a national case of A.D.D.
On the other hand, we want to carry a GPS at all times, so we will know exactly where we are or a cell phone so that someone else (our boss, partner, google) will know exactly where we are. If we think that this means that we are not lost, we better stop and ask for directions. We actually believe that, if we could just get our taxes right, or our healthcare right, or schools right, or someone else's democracy right, that we would be alright.
Let's be very clear about this: if we really believe that our individual and collective destiny could or should be decided in Washington, on Wall Street, in the Principal's Office, or in Tripoli....we are hopelessly lost.
We don't get to decide our own destinies; they play out in mysterious, some might say sacred ways. We can't make our own destinies, even if we (or our children) get perfect SAT's, an 8-figure bonus, and drive a vehicle bigger than the Pinta and Santa Maria combined.
If the Frank Sinatras of this world want to claim "I Did It My Way," fine, but the gods have a song too and it is called, "Fool On The Hill."
Like Columbus, we do get to choose direction, based on certain calculated risks, but we seem to be stuck at the mooring or, at best, drifting without a rudder.
So why have we seemingly turned into a whining, scattered, conniving scrum of a people? Maybe it's just me (as I'm sure you would tell me). Maybe I need a vacation. Can't be: just had two!
Columbus was not perfect, but he had the courage to lead and take a calculated risk. His banker-backers, First National Bank of Ferdinand & Isabella, took very little risk for a potential great reward (why does this sound familiar?). Plus, they were using other people's money anyway and could always get some more. They probably gave little thought to CC during his voyage of several years in a 65' ship, although they may have given great thought to how to spend some of the gold upon his return.
Our contemporary heroes would seem to be Ferdinand & Isabella, rather than the tattered Columbus. F & I had great credentials, a house to die for (many did while building it), and tons of dough. All the things we now covet.
Ridiculous tax codes, blatantly unmanageable debt, entitlements galore for all, and leaders who couldn't clean CC's bilge pump are only inconvenient details. If we do not have a serious national conversation about who we really are now, where we want to go, and the best course to set in order to fulfill our as yet unknown destiny, none of those boring debates will matter.
Every age thinks that it is more enlightened than the ones before it. As stupid as our age has become, even we believe that we are smarter, faster, better than previous ages. Here's a newsflash: we are not as smart as we think we are, and, even if we were, it would not matter, since destiny has little to do with smarts, income, or relationship status. It has to do with being true to deep spiritual and cultural values, just for a start.
And, what are our shared spiritual and cultural values worth taking along on our journey? Hard to say....
....without doing a Columbus.
Ed Note: Sunrise Pizza is located in Rye, NY and is the finest pizza emporium in the area despite what others with less knowledge about these things might think. They serve a classic slice, whose origins are clear: Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, and Queens. Not Chicago, Greece, or, please, New Jersey or California. Sunrise pizza is as close to the pizza of my youth at Pizza Prince on Austin St. in Forest Hills as pizza can get. With each slice, I recall the jukebox at the Prince: from Frankie Avalon's Venus to The Rolling Stones' Not Fade Away.
On the other hand, we want to carry a GPS at all times, so we will know exactly where we are or a cell phone so that someone else (our boss, partner, google) will know exactly where we are. If we think that this means that we are not lost, we better stop and ask for directions. We actually believe that, if we could just get our taxes right, or our healthcare right, or schools right, or someone else's democracy right, that we would be alright.
Let's be very clear about this: if we really believe that our individual and collective destiny could or should be decided in Washington, on Wall Street, in the Principal's Office, or in Tripoli....we are hopelessly lost.
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| Too Grande Too Fail |
If the Frank Sinatras of this world want to claim "I Did It My Way," fine, but the gods have a song too and it is called, "Fool On The Hill."
Like Columbus, we do get to choose direction, based on certain calculated risks, but we seem to be stuck at the mooring or, at best, drifting without a rudder.
So why have we seemingly turned into a whining, scattered, conniving scrum of a people? Maybe it's just me (as I'm sure you would tell me). Maybe I need a vacation. Can't be: just had two!
Columbus was not perfect, but he had the courage to lead and take a calculated risk. His banker-backers, First National Bank of Ferdinand & Isabella, took very little risk for a potential great reward (why does this sound familiar?). Plus, they were using other people's money anyway and could always get some more. They probably gave little thought to CC during his voyage of several years in a 65' ship, although they may have given great thought to how to spend some of the gold upon his return.
Our contemporary heroes would seem to be Ferdinand & Isabella, rather than the tattered Columbus. F & I had great credentials, a house to die for (many did while building it), and tons of dough. All the things we now covet.
Every age thinks that it is more enlightened than the ones before it. As stupid as our age has become, even we believe that we are smarter, faster, better than previous ages. Here's a newsflash: we are not as smart as we think we are, and, even if we were, it would not matter, since destiny has little to do with smarts, income, or relationship status. It has to do with being true to deep spiritual and cultural values, just for a start.
And, what are our shared spiritual and cultural values worth taking along on our journey? Hard to say....
....without doing a Columbus.
Ed Note: Sunrise Pizza is located in Rye, NY and is the finest pizza emporium in the area despite what others with less knowledge about these things might think. They serve a classic slice, whose origins are clear: Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, and Queens. Not Chicago, Greece, or, please, New Jersey or California. Sunrise pizza is as close to the pizza of my youth at Pizza Prince on Austin St. in Forest Hills as pizza can get. With each slice, I recall the jukebox at the Prince: from Frankie Avalon's Venus to The Rolling Stones' Not Fade Away.
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