Finally, Finally 2016 Ends!

Me, I’m quite glad to be done with 2016.

And, I’m not massively positive about what we’re facing in 2017.

When I was in High School I wrote a Christmas column for the school paper. It was essentially a litany of all the bad things that happened in that year, which as I recall was in fact quite a bad year. I then ended it with a cherry “merry Christmas.” It was well received. And I learned as a writer there’s nothing like savaging what’s happening while maintaining a little distance from the mess, some kind of smirk like my Christmas greeting, to feed most reader’s sense of being in on the joke, along with just a dash of moral superiority regarding everyone else. Sort of win, win. At least if you don’t sit with it too long.

And this year sure invites that sort of response.

The litany of those who’ve died is long and sometimes quite sad. As just a sampling: Richard Adams, Edward Albee, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Patty Duke, Umerto Eco, Carrie Fisher, John Glenn, Gwen Ifill, Merele Haggard, Jim Harrison, Zenkei Blanche Hartman, Fred Hellerman, Harper Lee, Stephen Levine, Albert Low, George Michael, Marvin Minsky, Edgar Mitchell, Sayadaw U Pandita, Shimon Perez, Nancy Reagan, Debbie Reynolds, Alan Rickman, Vera Rubin, Antonin Scalia, Phyllis Schalfly, Gary Shandling, Huston Smith, Mitsu Suzuki, Elie Wisel, and Gene Wilder.

Of course there is our national political scene. A man who entered the political scene by loudly doubting whether the sitting president of the United States, the first African American to hold that office was in fact an American, who ran a campaign casually disparaging immigrants, and Muslims, was caught on camera bragging about sexual assault, not to mention the size of his genitals, who publically admired various dictators, and who has, how do I characterize it, a murky relationship with the Russian empire, was elected president of the United States. If ever a year deserved moral disdain, this certainly seems to be it.

I believe the election of this monster as president is a symptom of how deep our troubles are. In America and the “West” generally the great era of economic prosperity that followed the Second World War seems to be over. I have a few friends who feel frustrated that people ignore the “reality” that the economy is in fact doing great. What they seem to miss is how the distribution of that doing great is being ever more concentrated in fewer hands. The rich are truly getting richer. And, the poor, well, fuck them is the motto of our times.

We are probably in the midst of a great disruption that may rank with the beginnings of the Industrial revolution. The world is becoming ever smaller, and with that the majority of people are getting poorer. In this country that means working class people are losing those jobs that allowed people with High School educations to own homes and to send their children to university is ending. And that falling apart is extending into the middle classes which are ever more precarious.

The proffered solutions are all about withdrawing. The farther left offers trade barriers, while the right offers actual physical walls. From where I sit neither makes a lot of sense, in the sense of the world’s interconnections seem only going to be getting tighter. And this includes everything from manufacture to culture. But, the path toward greater integration is deeply messy, and rife with sadness, colored with near endless personal tragedies.

And, of course, behind it all, our human population growing well beyond our planet’s capacity to maintain. And, of course, of course, we have begun a cycle of climate change that is going to exacerbate every ill we currently face.

We live with bad things happening, and no good fix appears on the horizon. Hence President (I gag on this) Donald J. Trump. He is a symptom of every bad move we can make. And, appear we will…

So, yes, disdain feels appropriate. And, yes, some ironic distance sure would be nice.

But, as I’ve grown older I’ve also noticed there is no separation, no getting away. We are bound up together in ways that cannot be unraveled.

And, facing this, all I have to offer: we will either all make our way through these hard times, or, we will all suffer the consequences.

This is a spiritual crisis.

A lonely word. A hesitant and small word. We must learn how to hang together, or, as Mr Franklin said all those years ago in another moment of revolution, we shall surely hang separately.

The secret lies within the connections.

Somewhere in that lies the fix. I think. I believe. I hope. Ah, a small word of hope…

Oh.

Also.

Happy New Year!