We were visiting, at her suggestion, Antietam National Battlefield where, 143 years previous, a great and horrible battle took place.

We parked near a forested area, and there were other swaths of trees further out and all around. In some way we were typical tourists. We started at the visitor center, studied dioramas of the landscape and the troop movements, read summaries of the battle, death tolls of wars over the years, and learned a little about what happened in our nation’s history that brought 132,000 men to this site on September 17, 1862.

Exploring outside we approached statues and placards with a kind of slow reverence. I don’t know what it is about a battlefield site, but I wanted to walk carefully, as though the hallowed ground were still and forever wounded. We read each sign, and discussed the issues quietly. We followed a trail across the fields and through a patch of forest, and there came upon a small graveyard. It was well-tended but off the path and slightly hidden in the dappled sunlight.

Molly and I fell into a moment of thoughtful reflection, alternately bending to read a name and standing there, taking in the sober nest of stones.

After a few minutes it occurred to me to ask: “If one of these soldiers could talk to us, what would he say?”

Her reply came quicker than I had anticipated, delivered with a characteristic clarity and decisiveness: “He would ask, ‘What are we doing in Iraq?’”

At that time, the U.S. and its coalition were just beginning year three of the Iraq War (2003-2011). I can’t remember the details of the conversation that followed but it must have touched on the implications of that question, and what it would mean for the poor young man, who perished in 1862, and was now trying to make sense of his country in 2005:

What did I fight and die for? So that our brave nation would send more boys like me overseas to do battle with another poor band of young men? And for what? It’s been nearly a century and a half since all of us here gave “the last full measure of our devotion.” How long can we keep doing this? Have we learned nothing about peacemaking?

Molly is older now, with a career, a community of friends, a home and a child on the way. Sitting with her in church this past Easter Sunday, we heard Pastor Neal open the service: “Find your balance on holy ground. Breathe deeply the breath of life. Be emptied of small concerns.”

For me, I had to quiet the background noise of this new Middle East war with Iran, launched 15 years after the end of the previous war we started in the Middle East with Iraq.

At several points in the service Pastor Neal reflected on the value of community — how we all practice the hard work of love and forgiveness as we live and grow toward the light. He talked about death and resurrection, and the process of “repentance” — which comes from the Greek word meaning “to change one’s mind.” In the religious sense this is more than an academic exercise; this is the heartfelt transformation of one’s mind, attitude and actions.

It can happen. In moments hidden in dappled light. In a moment of kindness to a stranger. In a 100 year-old church. We breathe deeply the breath of life.

We can turn away from where we are headed. The Hebrew word teshuva (which we translate as repentance) is derived from the verb ‘to turn.”

Supply chains are global. The arms business thrives. Oil tankers drift at a sleepy pace across the oceans. The tremors of war are felt in every heart. Some days darkness seems like a growing force.

It is not.

But life is. The seed dies so that the stem might flourish toward the light (to paraphrase Pastor Neal). Then it grows to connect with a thousand other lives in its realm. And it keeps going. Life rejuvenating. Life everlasting.

Maybe peace and community are local things, residing in tangible signs of coexistence such as this intentional congress in a small church in Red Hill, Virginia, and millions of places — religious and secular — where two or three (or more) are gathered and find balance with each other.

If there is a lesson in peacemaking, maybe it is here.

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My sister Pat (two years older than me, and in 12th grade in 1970) had a 1969 white Volkswagen Beetle, which I learned to drive. Trunk in the front, engine in the back. Stick shift. Roll-down windows. Nothing fancy.

Do you remember the miles per gallon of your first car? Of course not. Nobody does (according to my research). That’s because in 1970 it cost about 4 bucks to fill your entire tank. Price per gallon in 1970 was about $0.35.

And this price had been remarkably stable from the end of World War II to 1973. During those decades gasoline prices rose so gradually, one hardly noticed. The shock of 1973 wasn’t just that prices went up — it was that, for the first time in a generation, they moved at all.

What happened? Even a little research on this topic made me feel like I had inhaled too much car exhaust. Proposing a simple explanation for political events in the Middle East is never a good idea. I’ll let Wikipedia summarize the First Oil Crisis:

In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Egypt and Syria launched a large-scale surprise attack in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to recover the territories that they had lost to Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.

So, it all began in 1973, or maybe 1967. Or when the Ottoman Empire after WWI was partitioned by the western European powers and shaped the modern Middle East. Hard to say.

The interruption in the oil supply caused gasoline shortages. Some stations ran out, or rationed gas. There were long lines at the pump. When my 19 year old self in the VW was waiting in line at the Texaco station, I was only aware that “OPEC” was the cause of this faint (in retrospect) disruption in my life. Suddenly my $0.35 per gallon regular unleaded was costing me $0.54.

There was also a stock market crash from January 1973 until December 1974 that I knew nothing about. But I did know I was paying more than $6.50 to fill my tank.

What also went unnoticed was the close of an era — the end of (relatively) cheap and abundant gasoline. Underlying all those post-WWII decades was an invisible system of interdependence. After 1973 the system — now broken — became visible: the U.S. was dependent on foreign oil, the oil-producing nations were asserting their power, using oil supply as a weapon, and the whole postwar economic picture was now seen as fragile and uncertain.

I was only slightly more aware six years later with the Second Oil Crisis in 1979. This time oil production dropped in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. Another summary via Wikipedia:

Oil markets’ reaction raised the price of crude oil drastically over the next 12 months, more than doubling it to $39.50 per barrel [in 1980]. The sudden increase in price was connected with fuel shortages similar to the 1973 oil crisis. In 1980, following the onset of the Iran–Iraq War, oil production in Iran fell drastically. Iraq’s oil production also dropped significantly, triggering economic recessions worldwide.

Due to memories of the oil shortage in 1973, motorists soon began panic buying, and long lines appeared at gas stations, as they had six years earlier.

What I remember distinctly during this period was how the then Big Three automakers — Ford, Chrysler and GM — all downsized their automobiles, and small, fuel efficient Japanese cars flooded the market. My car at this time was a used, yellow 4-speed 1977 Datsun 1200 sedan. The previous owner had taken out the catalytic converter, so I was getting 43 miles per gallon on the highway — a situation to which I turned a moral blind eye, even when my environmentalist girlfriend at the time broke up with me over this issue.

At this point, it’s hard not to notice the recurring theme of the supply of oil used for political and economic power, and the persistent casting of the usual suspects in the oil drama: Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the U.S.

Jimmy Carter, in his 1980 state of union address1 had this to say:

An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States.

The more things change, the more they are all about oil, am I right?

This was a few years before the term “globalization” was in popular currency. It’s all connected. We all depend on each other and on unencumbered trade with each other.

If something interrupts the oil distribution system — for instance, two tough guys take out a rival mob leader, whose gang controls a key waterway — the world adapts to bring things back to normal. Even now, America is leading the way toward stabilizing global markets. And the automobile industry is fully incentivized to make more electric vehicles (EVs), and make gas cars smaller and more efficient.

Totally kidding. They are not doing any of that.

Federal regulations to encourage electric vehicles have been rolled back. The tax credit for EV purchases ended. The best selling vehicle of any type in the U.S. is the Ford F-Series pickup, and has been for the past 44 years.2 The gas version’s average mile per gallon is 16 city - 21 highway. Their “EcoBoost” model gets 17 and 25.3

By comparison, the most efficient non-hybrid car is the 2025 Honda Civic, which has an average mpg of 33 city - 42 highway.

As of this writing, gas prices are over $5 per gallon in some places. So far no shortages or long lines or odd-even rationing. The economic turmoil generated by this arguably unnecessary war is far more punishing and catastrophic in other places in the world and on other livelihoods and other lives.

As for the tiny ham-fisted leaders of our Executive branch, they would like us to think their “excursion” is going to plan. But as we learned from the oil crises of the past, sometimes a system is invisible until it breaks.

Or someone breaks it.

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Share Meanwhile, Elsewhere by Stewart Hickman

By my reckoning, Francis Hickman lived 10 generations ago, born 1644 in Lambourne Woodlands, Berkshire Parish, Wiltshire, England.

Here is a map of the area showing hills and small towns. And not much else. Lamborne Woodlands (not shown) is a small hamlet 2 miles south of Lamborne and 70 miles (113km) west of London.

Today it is described in Wikipedia as “located on the route of Ermin Way, the Roman road which connected Calleva Atrebatum (today's Silchester) to Glevum (Gloucester). The hamlet is in the triangle formed by the modern B4000 from Newbury to Lambourn and Hilldrop Lane.” (Spelling varies through the ages: Lamborne, Lambourne and Lamborn).

Here is a modern view:

See the triangle? That’s it. Here were born Francis Hickman in 1644 and Elizabeth Chamberlin four years earlier. Both were members of the local Quaker Meeting and were married in 1664,

Around 1684, Francis became one of many fellow countrymen to purchase land from William Penn, to whom King Charles II had in 1681 deeded 45,000 square miles west of the Delaware River. I am uncertain how many acres Francis procured.

Records show that he crossed the Atlantic and arrived in the New World around 1684 with Elizabeth and their children Joseph (age 15), Hannah (12) and Benjamin (8).Together they farmed their land in Chester County.

Early maps of Pennsylvania were spare of detail.

As Penn’s woodland was occupied by “settlers” (as they were referred to), the boundaries were drawn and the owner’s name noted.

I was not able to find my ancestor’s name on the first maps, but other records indicate that the farm was near the present day Westtown Friends School. The property would pass to Benjamin in 1700, where he lived with his bride, Hannah Buffington. Our line is descended from their son, Francis.

Writing this, I am trying to imagine the decision to move, and all the pieces that needed to fall into place, not to mention the emotional side of things. Was the process exciting? Was it traumatic? Was there resistance in the ranks of that young family? Or did they take on each day’s challenges with Quakerly forbearance?

This modern descendant, 341 years later, has no idea.

Our daughter Molly’s baby boy — her first — is due in May, and we decided to move from Silver Spring, Maryland and re-settle in Charlottesville, Virginia where Molly lives to be close at hand to help with raising Lewis (or whomever he looks like when he arrives). There are certainly challenges for two people in their seventies making the 125 mile journey — south of the Potomac River, no less. Still, nothing close to crossing the Atlantic in a wooden boat and arrive to an empty plot of land.

We have more than a few modern advantages:

• Zillow, to help find a rental. Ours is a 5 minute walk to the other side of Belmont Park where Molly lives.

• Costco, where we bought luxuriant quantities of every staple, plus a loaf of cherry fig bread.

• For the physical move, a hale and hearty brother-in-law with a good back and tremendous upper body strength, and a U-Haul truck. Plus crews of young folk in both locations to load and unload.

That we were not moving to avoid religious persecution is an added benefit.

The closest we came to the spirit of our ancestors was perhaps the first meal in our new home — potato leek soup in simple ceramic bowls. Because we had no furniture, we sat happily together on the stairs to the second floor

Just as I imagine our forbearers did.

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In this kind of uncertainty, it is hard to live in the moment. You know, the idea of mindfulness, living in the eternal Now, “Go with the flow,” etc.

I have always been perplexed by this philosophy — the idea that one is best served by being in the moment, viewing life with a kind of detachment, going with the flow. My first exposure to this manner of mental bearing was in high school when my mom introduced to the writing of Alan Watts, the British theologian and philosopher in his essay “Become What You Are,” in his book by the same name:

Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it persists for ever. Called Tao by the Chinese, it is at once the eternally moving and eternally resting.

A few years later, my high school sweetheart gave me a copy of I Ching (The Book of Changes), the ancient Chinese divination text. My King Lear term paper analyzed the main characters in terms of the yin/yang duality. I practiced transcendental meditation in college (along with everybody), studied Eastern religion and philosophy, and learned about Tao, The Way.

Tao Te Ching (The Book of the Way and of Virtue), was written as early as the 4th century BCE and attributed to Lao-tzu whose historical existence is a matter of debate. Tao (translated as way, path, channel, path, or doctrine) is “indescribable and transcends all analysis and definition.”1

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.
The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.
Having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth.
Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching. (Trans. by Jame Legge unless noted)

The written word can not capture the real thing. The workings of the Way are hidden behind what we can observe.

One moves through life in accord with the Tao by practicing humility, simplicity, and detachment.

As I contemplate this idea, it sounds appealing. Living in accord with Tao means freeing oneself from the regrets of the past and from the concerns or fears of the future. All there is, is Now.

Living this kind of detachment as a way of life, however, is more of a challenge for the non-monks among us. Past and future follow us around everywhere - we regret, we plan, we worry, we anticipate, we yearn, we feel the bite of trespasses against us. Any moment in any given day contains more than just “Now.”

Each day we hear how “the stock market” is doing. The Dow is a proxy for economic enthusiasm. A sort of national mood ring. Is the market up? (We’re in the Money) Is it down? (Stormy Weather) Or ambiguous? (It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing)2

But this does not capture the real thing. The Dow is only what is observable, a line on a graph and a number.

On another app I can see the current value of my investments. They are currently down about 6% from their high two months ago.

But this does not capture the real thing either. It is only what is observable.

Situations like what is happening in the Middle East are serious and unsettling. Will the volatility persist? How long will it last before it passes away?

After violence there is peace. After loss there is gain.

What is and what is not create each other. Difficult and easy complement each other. Tall and short shape each other. High and low rest on each other. Voice and tone blend with each other. First and last follow each other. Lao-tzu, trans. Stefan Stenudd, taoistic.com)

Each day I name the things which bring forth my best care and attention. Even in these very words I strive to express my ideas, and I feel the effort of mind and heart to locate and pin down truth and true motive. Maybe I am trying too hard.

The Dow goes down again today, fleecing more of my financial flock by another couple percentage points. But this does not capture the real thing.

The world finds its collective economic footing, for now, in the midst of the chaos brought about by the unforced error of war.

He who displays himself does not shine;
he who asserts his own views is not distinguished;
he who vaunts himself does not find his merit acknowledged;
he who is self-conceited has no superiority allowed to him.
Lao-tzu

The Tao, the Way, asks us to be in the moment; indeed the Way exists in the moment. It asks us to understand that past regrets are not the real thing, that fears of what might come in the future are not the real thing. The Tao asks us to stop striving so much, stop yearning, stop fearing.

There is no guilt greater than to sanction ambition;
no calamity greater than to be discontented with one's lot;
no fault greater than the wish to be getting.
Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.
Lao-tzu

The “sufficiency of contentment.” The quieting of the nervous soul. The finding of peace through focus. Here are some examples of this kind of practice:

• The main character in The Way of the Pilgrim3 (a 19th century Russian story) seeks to discover the practice of “ceaseless praying.” This obscure text was popularized in the U.S. by J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey (1961).

• Hesychasm is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Christian traditions in which stillness (hēsychia) is sought through uninterrupted prayer.4

• Many meditation practices focus on breathing as a way to keep one centered and in the moment. When the mind wanders (which it does), “return to the breath.”

• The way of seeking the sufficiency of contentment is even in our popular music, beginning arguably with The Beatles. “The Inner Light” is a non-album single released in 1968 as the B-side to “Lady Madonna.” This George Harrison composition and performance draws heavily upon Eastern influences, with lyrics based on a passage from the Tao Te Ching, quoted here:

Without going outside his door, one understands (all that takes
place) under the sky; without looking out from his window, one sees
the Tao of Heaven. The farther that one goes out (from himself), the
less he knows. Lao-tzu

The storm came and went. The Dow ticked higher then lower. The warlords torment others and then they themselves are tormented. My spirits rise and fall.

This is only what is observable. It does not capture the real thing.

The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel;
and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness.
We should blunt our sharp points,
and unravel the complications of things.

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To get started as a content creator, focus on creating content you enjoy.
Build a following by connecting with others who share your interests.

As far as we can tell, the original content creator didn’t have any followers but really loved hydrogen and helium. One theory is that just after the creation of neutrons, protons and electrons, the content of the universe was hydrogen and helium nuclei for a very long time (380,000 years) until the first atoms formed. Then stars (collections of hydrogen and helium atoms). Then galaxies (collections of stars). It was an enormous enterprise.

This primal content creator gave us time-space, the pressure-cooker of star power to create all the other elements, and a host of physical properties governing the very large and the very small. I picture one of those huge detective walls with tacked note cards and lines of string showing all the interconnections, dependencies and processes. But instead of helping solve a crime, the diagram helps plan the content, the story of the universe.

This content creator’s interests clearly lie in physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, and the mathematics that underpin the rules of this massive undertaking.

But things were about to change. Among the trillions of galaxies (each speeding away from each other like dots on an ever-expanding balloon), there was this one spiral galaxy. On one of its outer arms sits a modest star, and around the star spins a huge cloud of debris which over time accreted through the force of gravity and laws of motion to form distinct rocky planets that orbited around the star.

The third rock from this star was the focus of a second content creator, whose interests lay not in the spinning orbs and grand sweep of universal laws played out among the stars and galaxies. This content creator was focused on amino acids which happened to form in the primordial soup on the surface of this damp ball of rock.

This was the original “start from scratch.” I imagine the key to success was the enormous number of trials needed to transform non-living materials into the common ancestor. This content creator only had the content from the first content creator, and that creator took a long time to set up the mathematical and physical laws that set everything in motion. All the errors on the way to success were left in the primordial dust.

The only thing that worked was the thing that worked.

And when the whole “life” thing really got underway — blue-green algae, single cell organisms, viruses — all this content went… well, viral. The fossil record we have now doesn’t do justice to the fecundity of this content through time. But just look around today. We’ve got bacteria, brachiopods, bivalves, Brussel sprouts, button bushes, bats, birds, bamboo, bumble bees, buffalo. You name it. And many you can’t name.

Each slight variation was better than the previous one. This creative had found their niche in the idea of a replicable cell that would eventually evolve into everything living.

There were hiccups along the way. For instance, 97% of all species on the earth were inexplicably wiped out 250 million years ago, an event known as the Permian Extinction or the Great Dying1. This was one of five mass extinctions.

The fact that life never lost its footing entirely is a tribute to that second content creator. They got something right — a universal genetic code, the capacity of cells to make proteins, and ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the “molecular unit of currency”2 for intracellular energy transfer for all living cells since the beginning of the first life on earth.

But things were about to change again. This relatively recent newcomer was different in ways that set it apart in some very significant ways from the other 11 million species with whom it shares this rock.

This change required a whole new content creator, whose focus would be a complex mammal. This new species had opposable thumbs, a brain that can visualize and weigh alternative scenarios and pick the one most favorable, an uncanny ability to build tools and “ratchet up”3 innovations across generations. Some scientists identify the “cumulative culture” as a distinctly human process. We don’t have to rethink everything when one generation passes away.

The combined result of these three content creators? The first gave us the void of space punctuated by squiggles of galaxies as far as whatever distance we can see. The second gave us the (hypothesized) latest common ancestral cell population from which all subsequent life forms descended.4 The third gave a species with the capacity for all forms of music, art, science, engineering, literature, law, industry. You name it.

And war, weapons. What other species sets upon one another in this manner? Motives vary. Defensive actions often seem good and just, to stop for instance a ruler who is indisputably evil, or to throw off the bonds of repression.

On the other hand, “liberating our historic lands” (Putin in the Moscow Times) is a questionable motive. As is the weaponization of religious faith to justify colonization and genocide.

In the opening scene of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, two tribes of hominids shout at each other over control of the water hole. One day, an elder ape (“Stargazer” in the book) figured out how to use a large bone to bludgeon to death the leader of the opposition. In a short million years or so we have nuclear weapons. That’s cumulative culture at its most fierce.

Sligo Creek Parkway (in Silver Spring, MD) has a lovely trail that winds gently between the creek and the roadway under the cover of tall trees. My dog Sienna and I took a walk along part of it earlier this week. At each bridge crossing we would pause to look at the water making its slow journey through the rocky creek bed. I thought about the beauty of the inanimate world.

I spied two turtles basking on a rounded stone poking up from the sliding water. Once a long time ago life was set in motion that would in time bring about these turtles in this habitat.

There are benches here and there along the trail, and on our return to the car I spied one newly installed. There was a small dedication5 on it, and a small pile of wildflowers on the seat.

I will leave you each to think about the kinds of beauty that humans have been able to create. What comes to your mind that illustrates the best we can be?

As for killing each other, persecutions, this war thing — it often comes down to a very few people (men) with unchecked authority and sublimated fear whose creative imaginations have utterly failed. They fall back on violence to assert their… whatever, fill in the blank.

And they fight wars with other people’s bones.

Me? Give me my rock in the sun, some music and a good book.

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Success in any venture will always go to the man who is willing to go one step further than his unsuccessful counterpart.

Tenacity of effort, fueled by hope, begets success.

Those above quotes, which I totally just made up, could have been uttered by any wealthy, white, male industrialist a century ago.

I have been thinking about the purpose of hope. Here are some questions at the center of this issue:

• Does our culture see hope as a necessity, and the pursuit of it an unquestioned virtue?

• Are there different forms of hope: naïve hope, enlightened hope, unwavering hope,vacillating hope, desperate hope, deceived hope, steadfast hope?

• Do we choose to be hopeful? Or does it rise naturally from our disposition–influenced by genetics, experience or a set of circumstances?

• What is hope? A pattern of thought, like a set of assumptions? Or more like a gut feeling?

Hope is not an action, but can motivate a feeling or an action. One person “holds out hope” as a way of buoying the spirit in the face of difficulties that they have no control or limited control over. Another person “keeps hope alive” as a kind of fire that will help them take the next step–a fuel for future agency.

Optimism leavens the soul.

That’s another one I just made up. Bread imagery pairs well with ideas about the function of hope and positive thinking. Plus you have the whole theological angle with the bread of life, rising, and transformation.

There is a ton of literature on the benefits of being hopeful about a particular outcome or optimistic in general. Hope and optimism provide counterpoint to stress and have a calming effect. They make one more resilient. They can help build and maintain trust in one another.

But when I fed the opening quote to ChatGPT to see if I could find a source for anything similar, it gave me, you know, five pages of its “top of mind” ideas delivered with a speed that is AI’s version of giddy delight. If AI were a dog its tail would be wagging all the time.

Its essay raised an important question: Should we choose to be hopeful because it makes us feel uplifted?

On the one hand, one person might hope for something for which there is sufficient evidence that warrants hope.

Another person might believe that hoping inwardly can actually help manifest the hoped for outcome.

I was introduced to the word “hopium” by an eternal optimist. He was talking about his nonprofit organization, then beset by financial misfortune, that was, as he put it, “running on hopium”--a genius turn of phrase. Is hope addictive? Does it give the hopeful a false sense of well-being?

Collins online dictionary defines hopium as a metaphorical substance “said to have been ingested by those who maintain an unrealistically optimistic outlook.” According to this definition, my hopium-addicted colleague was self-medicating, buoying his spirits until the proverbial ship would come in. Hope was not a choice for him; it was a habit and a survival tactic.

In 2023 I was surprised to find a French automotive company named Hopium. Promising a clean efficient automobile powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, Hopium presented in October 2020 its first prototype and started taking orders for the sedan, the Māchina Vision. It had its debut at the 2022 Paris Automotive Week, with market launch set for 2025.

In July 2023 the French company was put into receivership, and subsequently dropped its sedan business, restructured its 9 million euro debt, and got approval for its recovery plan from the French government. It now focuses on fuel cells for heavy transport.

Success goes to the person willing to take the next step. I put my fortune into this venture; I risked everything; I had to shelve my flagship product; I went bankrupt; I kept going.

The new mission of Hopium is “Democratizing hydrogen technology through unparalleled compactness and superior efficiency.”

There is too much Irish in me to embrace an unqualified hopeful outlook. (My mom’s line is MacMahon, a tribe from Limerick; my dad’s given names are Robert Emmett — a nod to the Irish revolutionary of the late eighteenth century.)

In his Irish Impressions (1919), G.K. Chesterton wrote that the Irish have a:

…peculiar habit of living as if the world were likely to break their hearts at any moment.

AI fetched me this apt interpretation of Chesterton’s view:

He was describing what he saw as a kind of tragic readiness in Irish culture — an emotional openness combined with defiance. The idea is that life is fragile, history is cruel, loss is possible at any moment — and yet one lives intensely anyway.

“What a terrible way to live!” exclaimed my late mother-in-law when I described to her how Chesterton’s quote resonated with me. It was an ongoing debate. (Nancy: Things always work out for the best. Me: They absolutely do not always.)

Then there is the famous half-quote “hope springs eternal…” usually voiced with a slight lift at the end. The full iambic line is from Alexander Pope’s 1734 An Essay on Man: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” which seems like an expression of the stubborn nature of wishing. But the full quatrain gives context:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates1 in a life to come.

Pope is underlining the habitual nature of hope, the fulfillment of which we project into the future, ultimately to the blessing of life after death.

As a semi-Irish agnostic I have to ask:

How does belief in the fulfillment of hope after death effect the mindset, manner and methods of one’s life on earth?

That’s a whole other topic you can hope to read about later.

The girl squiggled in her seat, trying out all the possible positions and checking on her mom’s reaction. The boy stood by his dad’s leg, pacifier in mouth and a diminutive but comforting blankie in one hand. The look on his face seemed to say “well, this is new; thank goodness dad’s here.”

The baby was looking out at the world. Did he know, at the tender age of three months, that there even is a world? With his cherry-blushed cheeks and unblinking eyes, the baby’s visage was one of unalloyed consciousness where there is no me, no you, no airport — there is only this moment.

In summary:

Girl: What are all my options for sitting?

Boy: Dad here? Check. Mom here? Check. Safe for now.

It occurred to me that I didn’t know how to represent the mind of the infant. Since the time we become verbal, words are so ubiquitous, so necessary, so…..useful. But words didn’t help here.

Before young humans become verbal — understanding and speaking in order to express themselves — what do their thoughts consist of? It is difficult to reconstruct the state of affairs behind the eyes of that buddha baby.

Melanie Mitchell is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and an expert in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. She was interviewed by Meghna Chakrabarti (“Brainwaves: is AI really thinking?” NPR’s On Point, Feb 11, 2026) and she had this thought about thinking:

There were many people who believed that language and thought were the same thing, and that thinking was a logic process. A process that maybe was reflected in our language as we spoke, that we were expressing our thoughts. And it was all at a conscious level. And when we were solving a problem, we were going through the logical steps of solving the problem.

And that was how AI was created back in the beginning of the field in the 1950s and 1960s. It was all modeling human thought on logic, the steps of rational, logical deduction. But that didn’t work.

It didn’t work because to teach a computer to think in this way would require an impossible amount of code. More effective apparently is to train a system to scour the universe of words on the internet and thereby “teach itself” how to build a coherent response to a prompt by accurately predicting the next word. (Novice disclaimer: Already in over my head, I get the sense that “next word prediction”1 is only part of how Large Language Models work.)

That is how the AI today seems to have such a good grasp of language. Program in some other characteristics (like agreeableness, expression of empathy and encouragement) and you have a very human sounding verbal response to a prompt or question.

But thinking and putting your thoughts to words is very different than mimicking human coherence. Dr. Mitchell explains:

We have a lot more going on in our brains than just predicting the next word. And that’s something that’s very different between how we think and how these machines behave. And language models are passive. They’re fed all this text, they predict the next word. They get some feedback that says right or wrong, and they don’t actually interact with the real world. It’s only the world of language.

So a thought is not words. Consciousness is not a running narration of what we experience in any moment. Once we start to use language, we glom words onto thoughts so quickly we barely are able to distinguish the thought we have put into words and the thought itself.

Anil Seth, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex in England, makes the distinction between an algorithm (a mathematical recipe for doing stuff) and consciousness:2

It’s fundamentally about being, it’s about feeling, it’s having an experience of redness or of pain, the taste of ice cream or the sound of children’s laughter.

That, I believe, is what the baby was experiencing. His consciousness was stirred by the sights and sounds of the airport passengers — in particular the two familiar forms he saw moving nearby, which were his brother and his sister. No words to describe it. No sense of this is me, and that is the world. Just an experience, a taking in of stimuli, a stirring in the young heart and mind.

Words come later. That’s when you “put into words” what you are thinking. But first you need feelings, sensations, emotions. Even the word “emotion” comes from Middle French, emouvoir: to stir up.

“Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself” is the final poem in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954). It describes this very idea, that the external reality of experience and the language we use to describe it are distinct. Here is an excerpt:

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind. …
It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep’s faded papier-mâché …
The sun was coming from outside. …
It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

Alan Watts, the British philosopher and theologian, recognized that we put words to experience so automatically and quickly that we assume thinking is verbal. Before articulation is experience, or as he put it in his book, The Wisdom of Insecurity, “The menu is not the meal.”

And still, and still…

Words can create their own experience and stir our souls.

A few days ago I saw Something Rotten! — a brilliant 2015 musical put on by students at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School where my pal Ritchie is the drama teacher. It’s got everything —Renaissance costumes, Shakespeare, dancing, intrigue, and spectacular musical numbers, all delivered with courage, confidence and joy. It was a delight.

In the first half, the new lovebirds Nigel and Portia share a song3 about their love of words. The refrain goes like this:

I love the places that words let me go
I love the way that your words move me so
I love that you feel the same way I do
And I love

The last line cuts off like that throughout the song.

It’s easy to predict the next word.

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My clients were typically non-profits, lead and staffed by people with a sense of mission and the drive to make a difference in the world. The clients ranged from the legal department of a large healthcare system to a team of lawyers providing pro bono legal counsel for immigrant minors; from senior leaders of international agricultural institutes to a non-profit society of international educators; a small group of medical billing specialists to a small team of transplant surgeons.

I saw little of the suffering in the world first hand, though I traveled and worked with people dealing with some of the intractable issues of our modern world: providing support for refugees, working on ways to protect crops from disease in low-income countries, struggling to get resources to remote villages to help improve child and maternal health outcomes, working for equity in education, and others.

Perhaps the closest I got to the actual action was observing a city emergency room, where a hundred decisions were made triaging a constant flow of human need, from infants with the croup to gun shot victims. Many were desperate and had no other place to go. The skill, precision, clarity and calm of the ER personnel as they worked with each other and with patients and their families was amazing to behold. I watched with awe and humility. These are people who operate under constant pressure, with whatever comes through the door, and they bring all their talent and heart to the task of saving lives and managing the pain and suffering of others. How do they do it?

I wanted to share this to illustrate the real-life drama of human existence that takes place out of sight of many of us: in refugee camps, emergency rooms, rural health clinics, battle fields, prisons. And I want to make a distinction between this primary drama of the human struggle, and the kind of drama I have seen in the workplace and that I call “secondary drama.” An early term I used was “manufactured drama”-- but that didn’t give credit to the fact that secondary drama often occurs unwillingly and in response to real stressors.

What I find most perplexing are the unforced errors. Systemic over-promising and under-delivering. Malicious gossip intended to create divisions and mistrust. Blaming another person for a problem you created. Habitually taking action at the last possible moment, prompting an emergency response from others.

Alarming for its sheer audacity is the example of a division chief at non-governmental organization who made a firm promise to his staff to deliver X by a certain date. When the day and time arrived and he did not deliver on that promise, he suddenly went off-line and no one could find him.

This is the adult equivalent of a child closing his eyes and believing he can’t be seen.

I’m not sure what caused this behavior. It could be he hopes no one will notice. Maybe he is buying time to come up with a reason why “mistakes were made.”1

Attending a conference on human resource development I heard a speaker, Charlie Sheppard share a framework that has stuck with me. It depicted the difference between leadership and drama.

Sheppard posits that one chooses leadership or drama — makes decisions and takes action — moving toward responsibility and accountability and away from victimhood and fault-finding.

Drama is created when the leader:

• Adopts an external locus of control - “I am a victim of circumstances.”

• Avoids accountability - “If something goes wrong, the fault lies out there.”

Leadership is practiced when the leader:

• Adopts an internal locus of control - “I have some say in how things go.”

• Accepts accountability - “I have a role in creating the situation I find myself in.”

But is it really a choice?

Maybe it depends on who you ask.

Those who have practiced leadership in their lives and in their work might agree that there is some choice involved, an intention to keep drama at bay.

Those who live in a state of self-manifested chaos — and therefore can only replicate in the world the disorder inside themselves — have everything to gain from doubling down on their preferred way of viewing themselves: victims of circumstances outside their control and subject to injustice perpetrated on them by their perceived enemies.

Do you know anyone like this? Who faces each day angry, vengeful and aggrieved?2

How better for our own lives and the lives of our families, our communities, and our businesses if we feel — even mostly — engaged, focused and energetic.

The world carries no shortage of real hardship. Part of our calling — as leaders and as members of our businesses, communities, and families — is to create spaces of steadiness: to buffer, to protect, and to ease burdens where we can, so that meaningful work can flourish.

In closing, here is a paraphrase from the 17th century theologian and poet François Fenelon, which speaks to living with a sense of agency:

I ought to consider the duty to which I am called, and apply myself to it with exactness and in peace. I must neglect nothing. I must be violent with nothing.

In essence I hear him say Work hard. Be kind. That sounds about right.

For instance, a trip to the library was essential to answer the question: What was the cause of Hamlet’s delay in avenging the death of his father? And if that question was the subject of your senior high school research paper in Mr. Curtis’s English class, you might spend the better part of several days in a library, pulling books and filling out 3x5 index cards. You would write down one idea per card, and a reference number for the source in the upper right hand corner…

I’m losing some readers now I can tell. My point is that today we have lost the association of research with physical work involving buildings, card catalogues, “shelves” of “books,” and index cards. Lots of index cards. Lots of pencils. Starting in high school all the way through grad school: 1971-1983.

Nowadays, without any of those objects, without leaving home or even this chair, I can find out the tallest office building in the world (the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE at 2,722 feet and 160 floors). But the largest office building by sheer space is the Surat Diamond Bourse in Gujarat, India — at 660,000 square meters, finished in 2023.

That’s slightly more than the office space of One World Trade Center, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building combined.

For 80 years prior to the Gujarat construction, however, the status of the largest office building in the world — standing 77 feet in height with a floor space of 620,000 square meters — belonged to one of our very own: The Pentagon.

I drove past it many mornings on my way to the USAID Training Center then located in Crystal City, Virginia. In many ways The Pentagon is unremarkable — such a low profile as viewed from US Route 1 you might miss it altogether.

But it is there, huge and way too heavy for Abby Hoffman to levitate it in 1967, even when accompanied by the Tibetan chants offered by Allen Ginsberg.1

In the early teens, there was a survey that put this question to a random sample of the US populace: What percentage of the federal budget does international development represent? Hard to say what went on in the respondents’ minds, but the average number they came up with was something like 20%.

It was actually .3%. That is three tenths of one percent of the federal budget. If, for example, a South African billionaire vowed to reduce US government spending, it is hard to argue that starting with USAID was anything other than ugly, horrific and stupid.

When I worked with USAID in the early teens, the 3-D model US foreign policy seemed to hold sway. The three Ds were Defense, Diplomacy and Development and were considered by some to have equal importance. Diplomacy and providing foreign aid and assistance are both ways of building partnerships with other nations. If we are not helping to lift up the low-income nations, then some other power — say, China — will fill the gap.

But back to the numbers.

In fiscal year 2024 (the most recent full year of data), the U.S. Department of State spent about $38.8 billion according to USFacts.2 That represented roughly 0.6 % of total federal spending — out of a total federal budget of about $6.75 trillion.

So, let’s see…USAID (.3%) and the State Department (.6%) combined were around 1% of the federal budget. That’s the diplomacy and development side of the 3Ds.

Defense? Well, here again I was surprised. In FY 2023, Department of Defense spending constituted 13.3% of the entire federal budget, and nearly 50% of the discretionary budget.3

Seems like a lot.

Costs of War, a research project of Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, is an excellent resource for information on the economic, human, environmental, and social costs of US wars and military spending. Their research estimates that US wars since 9/11 (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, and related costs) have totaled around $8 trillion or more.

See, that’s the thing about research. I have not left the chair I was sitting in at the beginning of this post and I learned:

• Veterans Affairs are listed separately in the federal budget

• There is no line item for the costs of any particular war, so there is not an easy way to tally what war in general costs us taxpayers

• Since 9/11, most of that $8 trillion in spending has been put on the national credit card.

Recently I attended a live streamed panel discussion hosted by the Watson School. One of the panelists was Linda Bilmes, a public finance expert and Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She termed the phrase “ghost budget” to describe the budgetary sleight of hand to cover our costs without anyone really noticing. From the Costs of War website:

The post-9/11 wars were funded largely through debt, rather than through increased taxes or the sale of war bonds, as U.S. wars of the past were funded. The use of debt rather than increased taxes makes war more invisible to taxpayers, obscuring the true costs of war by pushing financial obligations to future generations. Moreover, increased public debt results in higher interest rates economy-wide, which can hamper business investments and make life more expensive for individuals and families.

So let me see if I’ve got this. Instead of raising taxes or selling bonds like we used to do to pay for wars, Congress uses supplemental appropriations (aka, you’ll love this, “Overseas Contingency Operations”). These OCO funds are almost entirely deficit-financed. Farhad Omar’s Substack “The Credit Card War and the Dollar’s Dilemma” characterizes this trend since 9/11:

Multiple administrations fought prolonged wars almost entirely through supplemental appropriations that bypassed the regular budgeting process. Congress quietly added trillions to the deficit without hard votes or public debate.

Emphasis mine.

There is a big dollar difference between paying for a standing army and paying for a war. The first cost is its own line item so to speak, but the second cost is buried in the uptick of another line item: Payment on the National Debt, which currently is 13% and rising.

The costs of war are muddled into the debt, the debt into interest payments, and the interest payments into “mandatory spending.” So by the time you ask “Can we cut this cost?” the answer is “We already spent it.” And now we have to pay interest on it.

The totality of the costs of war is like driving past The Pentagon on US Route 1: you hardly know it’s there.

Now I need to levitate myself out of this chair and shovel some snowcrete4 — something I can see and feel.

4

Snowcrete is a portmanteau: a combination of the words “snow” and “concrete,” which describes snowpack so dense and heavy people can stand on it and not fall through. Sintered snow acts like a solid thanks to inches of sleet that fell, then froze during Winter Storm Fern and the days of frigid temperatures that followed. Baltimore Fishbowl News article by Aliza Worthington, Feb 3, 2026. “Sintering” is the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by pressure. I had to look it up.

Meanwhile, Elsewhere is brought to you by readers like you, from the curious browser, to the cheering fan, to the reader just stopping by. Please consider subscribing. Or sharing. Or liking. Or re-stacking. And thanks. You are not invisible to me!

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“An integral part of professional development, giving constructive feedback is a skill that every good leader ought to have,” would be a really great topic sentence for my next paragraph. Except I came across a piece I wrote maybe twenty years ago during a dark period which begins:

I have stopped teaching people how to give constructive feedback. I am a leadership trainer and coach; I have taught feedback since the 1980s. No more. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because “it” is all technique. And effective feedback is not about the strength of the technique. It’s about the strength of the relationship between two people.

So I want to share some notes I have made since then about why it can be difficult to give someone a “constructive critique,” or even to hint that you have an issue with something they are doing or saying.

I imagine that everyone carries around a little mental notepad. As they go through life, each person writes down how they see themselves. Over time I have collected a substantial list of my characteristics and qualities. It is a mix of positive attributes and other stuff that I need to “work on” to get better at. You get the idea.

One item on my list is “I take feedback as an opportunity to learn and grow” and this applies to my work life, social life and married life.

You can imagine my surprise when, in a conversation with someone, I make an astute observation and this person responds with an eye roll and the comment “OMG, that is such a Boomer thing to say!”

So I said “I believe feedback is an opportunity to learn and grow. Tell me more about why you said that.” Totally kidding. I would never say that. My first response is to go through a mental checklist in my head:

1. Pull out my mental notebook

2. Search for any notes about weaknesses related to being a Boomer

3. Conclude that there are no data on such weaknesses

4. Snap the notebook shut like one of those old flip phones.

The next reaction is said out loud: “Alright, TikTok” or “Noted, Algorithm” or That’s an interesting critique – for someone raised by Wi-Fi.”” Or something equally dismissive.

So that’s part of the problem. I like adding to the list in my notebook. I mostly don’t like other people adding to it.

I remember introducing the topic of feedback to a small group of young non-profit leaders. I opened the topic in a fairly conventional way by first asking everyone to think about a time they got constructive feedback from someone. Several in the group had puzzled looks. I’ll never forget what one of them said:

“I seriously can not think of any example of getting negative feedback.”

I probed: Ever? It doesn’t have to be work related. Friends? Family? Doesn’t have to be a major takedown. Anything?

Nothing. Now, it could have been they didn’t want to share. Or they didn’t want to admit to any specific failing.

But I think it’s more likely that they have not ever been corrected or critiqued in any way that they remember. I would not be surprised to find out that the workplace today is awash with a generation of workers who have never been told that anything they’ve ever done was anything other than perfectly executed and worthy of high praise.

And no wonder. Giving feedback to a friend, a peer, a colleague, a staff member seems to be universally difficult. It is like traversing a personal and emotional minefield.

I regularly read Carolyn Hax, an astute and honest broker of personal advice whose column appears in the Washington Post — at least as of this writing. Yesterday (Feb 4), the Post suddenly downsized its staff, eliminating sports, local news, book reviews– and probably the weather. In a recent column (Feb 1, 2026: Can their marriage be dying of…pickleball?) the writer asks Carolyn Hax for advice about her attempts to talk to husband about the obsessive amount of time he devotes to his new pastime:

“Every time I bring up that the pickleball and family time balance is just really off, he takes offense, gets angry and accuses me of trying to tell him to stop doing something he loves.”

She tried to open a dialogue. His reaction? Anger, defensiveness, accusation (You’re the one with the problem!) Classic male deflection, some might say.

Well, that’s one approach. This technique is in the news nearly every day. If I don’t like the media telling me I lie all the time, I say the media lies and I promise vengeance. Practice anything long enough and you get pretty good at it.

I go back to my mental notebook. I see feedback as an indispensable tool for growth and development. It offers the opportunity for course-correction. It helps us avoid making the same mistake over and over. It shines light on personal blind spots. Wouldn’t it be best if I developed the ability to receive feedback in as many different forms and different ways as possible? Think what could be learned!

in one of his notes has this to say about difficult conversations:

The most important thing about contentious communication is that things will go much better if you can communicate with genuine openness to whatever comes back at you.

Genuine openness. Saying “Tell me more.” That sounds like something I could get good at.

I will end on a light note — by far my favorite quote about giving constructive feedback.

“Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.”

Always good to have a back-up plan.

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To do this task with any efficiency requires taking off the hat of sentimentality and putting on the hat of resolve and decisiveness.

The culled books now sit in two columns, each two feet high. I gaze at them with satisfaction and quickly notice a theme. Most of them are from my business library, from the time when I was a management consultant and executive coach.

Not surprising, I suppose; five years ago I went to the tiring-house of retirement1 to trade in my dress shirts, ties, suits and uncomfortable shoes for jeans, flannel shirts and walking shoes.

The “keep” pile comprises many business-related volumes, but I was struck by where I placed nearly all my books about managing change — in the culled stacks. Here are a few titles:

• Immunity to Change: How to overcome it and unlock the potential in yourself and your organization

• Switch: How to change things when change is hard

• Change Anything: The new science of personal success

For those of you unfamiliar with organization development esoterica, there is a huge body of knowledge on change management: a large and sometimes unwieldy umbrella term for anything from how to bring about change in the corporate culture and how to smooth the adoption of new technology, to how to help your team navigate changing consumer demand and how to be personally resilient in the face of relentless change. As I said — a big umbrella.

I can always find this content somewhere if I need it. But I will lose the capacity to casually, aimlessly, flip through an actual book. Which is what I spent the next hour doing.

In my career as a training facilitator, I must have designed dozens of workshops on the topic of managing change. First, I would research the topic and distill what I learned. Typically I would find a visual model that helps summarize a complex topic.

Above is the U-shaped curve theory by Norwegian sociologist Sverre Lysgaard. He was studying the phenomenon of culture shock, when Norwegian students go to live in another country. He describes the four stages this way:

Adjustment as a process over time seems to follow a U-shaped curve: adjustment is felt to be easy and successful to begin with; then follows a ‘crisis’ in which one feels less well adjusted, somewhat lonely and unhappy; finally one begins to feel better adjusted again, becoming more integrated into the foreign community.

Renowned psychiatrist Walter Menninger was contracted by the early Peace Corps to research the challenges faced by volunteers when they returned to the U.S. The Menninger Morale Curve was the result.

This idea of the variability of morale during time of change has many uses. In my own work this kind of framework helped remind leaders that their staff will go through phases of adaptation when confronted with organizational change, be it a restructure, a new technology, or a new boss. Good leaders help people through this process and don’t just assume “they’ll get used to it.”

Change can be disruptive and disorienting. This curved framework is also found in the five stages of grieving, as posited by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.

Over the years, I started seeing similar curves being applied to everything from personal change…

…to levels of happiness as a function of aging…

…to morale levels during 5-year surgical residencies.

Allow me to paraphrase the small print at the bottom. You can imagine the applicability to so many situations in everyday life and learning:

• Arrival: Characterized by excitement and high morale. “I can do this!”

• Engagement: Reality hits home, morale falls. “What have I gotten myself into??”

• Acceptance: Initiative and activism to improve the situation. “What steps can I take?”

• Reentry: Morale on even keel, more satisfaction with accomplishments. “I’ve got this.”

Bottom line: it helps to know there are phases to the change process; it helps to know these phases are recognizable and “normal”; it helps to know the bottom of the U is not the end of the story.

So, why don’t I need these books anymore? Part of the reason is that thinking back I struggle to identify a single organizational “change effort” that was executed with anything approximating institutional aplomb.

Also, after years of executive coaching I begin to wonder: Do people really change in order to grow and develop? Or do they learn and find success by becoming more themselves, and working with what they’ve got?

At this point, I have to state the obvious — the feeling many of us have that we are on a downward slope as a democracy, not yet at — but apparently approaching — the bottom of a U-shaped curve. Except it feels like a tragic dismantling. It does not feel like a curve.

Yet. We start to feel the rising side when we see the result of protest, when we spy again the guardrails of our rule of law, when we despair less (“What is happening to us?”) and hope more (“Where do we have the power to make a positive difference?”) — to bring back some light, some sense of justice, some greater measure of the best we can be as a nation.

I am keeping Otto Scharmer’s book entitled Theory U. It is a huge, complex volume and very heavy. The way he describes his U-shaped curve gives me hope:

As we move down the left side of the U, we allow ourselves to connect with the world outside our bubble. Reaching the bottom of the U, we suspend our common assumptions and thinking, letting come our highest future possibility. Finally as we ascend the right side of the U, we bring forth the new into the world.

Some days I am hard pressed to imagine the upward side of the curve. But I have to believe it is there.

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It was all just what one would want in a gathering of this kind, plus several songs sung in her honor.

She sent the group text a few days after, thanking us. She said that one of her favorite things to do is to sing with others, and that she appreciated the storytelling and the humor that evening. She concluded saying that she hadn’t laughed that much in a while and that it was “good for the soul.”

My wife Busy and I went to another gathering recently. This was a potluck (I baked an apple pie). We knew the host and only a few other people. I am not what you would call a great mixer at such events — so it was notable that I had as many interesting conversations as I did, with people I did not know. But that’s the kind of group it was — sociable, kind, and open to connecting, both with the knowns and unknowns.

When we were doing our good-byes, we learned from our host that this was the inaugural event. She had decided that the theme of this year was “friendship.” She envisioned a rolling set of potlucks, at different people’s houses, over the course of the year. The aim, as she put it, is to “broaden and deepen our friendships and community connections.”

Even with a sample size of two parties, I want to extrapolate a theme. In this dark time of year, in a troubling time in history, we the people are looking for all the ways at our disposal — large and little — to counteract the seemingly unrestrainable forces of division, hatred and dissolution that we all feel closing in.

I can hear the skeptics: You see all this from a couple of parties?

OK. I have one more – Aubrey Atwater. She is a community song leader and music therapist who was the featured artist on the Daily Antidote of Song, an online “sing along” event which happens every day at noon.

I would normally put this in a footnote, but it is important enough to elaborate here. The Daily Antidote of Song was launched in April 2020 by our friend Jo Rasi as a simple yet powerful response to isolation and fear. The program continues today — 2,118 consecutive days as of this posting — with a mission to promote peace and justice, joy and connection.

A program of Carpe Diem Arts, it features diverse folk and traditional music from many cultures alongside songs for social justice. Each weekday (12:00–12:30 pm ET) a host welcomes the visiting artist(s), who teach one or two songs, invite participants to sing along (muted) using lyrics in the chat, and reflect on their creative work and inspirations before a final reprise. To date, more than 700 hosts and recording artists from five continents — including several Grammy winners — have shared their voices and stories. People have tuned in from all 50 states and 30+ countries. It’s pretty amazing. Check it out here.

On this particular day (Jan 12, 2026) Aubrey Atwater was the featured artist, coming to us live from Wharton, Rhode Island. Her instrument was the Appalachian lap dulcimer, and she briefly talked about her work at Boston Children’s Hospital, considered by many to be the premier pediatric hospital in the nation. Her first song My Bonny Bonny Boat was about Ida Lewis, the famous and intrepid lighthouse keeper from Newport, RI who saved over 80 people in her career. From her Wikipedia page: “Lewis made her first rescue in 1854, coming to the assistance of four men whose boat had capsized. She was 12 years old.”

Aubrey Atwater acknowledged that what she is doing might seem incongruous to some:

You might think “Wow, a person singing in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) about a lighthouse keeper? In the 19^th century?” But how lovely that these can go together!

She comes from, as she says, “a very salty family,” immersed as it were in the world of fishing and boats. Ballast is a weight within a boat that helps give stability, especially in turbulent times. She had this to say about singing.

My job in a way is about joy and not just any kind of joy — human joy as a ballast to good work and action. And so that’s where I think we musicans can figure in, whether for activisim or for the hardships of the human experience. To bring beauty and joy.

Her second tune was a Scottish lullaby Hush the Waves.

I sing lullabies to all people and we all benefit from the soothing qualities of music. I love the science behind this. When I sing in the intensive Care Unit of the Children’s Hospital, I can see the child’s vitals changing before my eyes on the monitors — the heart rate getting calmer, the blood pressure going down, the oxygen level going up.

Is it possible? That in the face of such outward turmoil, these supposedly small acts can make a difference?

Maybe a small difference, but maybe enough ballast to our boats that we can keep going, connecting each other — and maybe sometimes saving each other — one song at a time.

Note

Aubrey Atwater’s appearance on The Daily Antidote of Song is on Facebook here. The songs are at 3:38 and 17:50.

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Having typed this quote, I think I made it up. But it is an easy matter to ask AI who might have said something like it. Turns out, Alice Miller (Polish-Swiss psychologist) wrote something very close. Says my AI source:

The idea very closely matches the central thesis of the Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller — especially her work on childhood trauma and its influence on later violent, authoritarian, or cruel behavior.

Miller argued that many dictators and authoritarian personalities learned cruelty, dominance, and the need to humiliate others because of painful or humiliating experiences in their own childhoods that can be replayed later in life on a larger scale (e.g., in political power).1

I imagine that at some point in his young life, the future autocrat was made to feel shame at some deep and terrible level. At some point he resolves: From now on until forever I will do or say anything so that I am never humiliated by anyone, nor ever again feel shame.

The imperative to do or say anything is anchored in fear. The school recess bullies some of whom become our future tyrants on the world stage have honed techniques to keep the world from seeing their fear. And they have practiced for so long that they have forgotten how afraid they really are. They lost the word for fear. They turn it on the rest of the world.

“I don’t recognize the country I live in.” I have heard versions of this more and more often. We know that children “act out” when there is something bothering them — there is some need that has not been met or some internal conflict between what they desire and what their world says they can get.

This post started in my head as an attempt to address this conundrum Our country is becoming “unrecognizable” because of the actions and words of politically very powerful men. They seem unhappy — getting mad at people who ask a certain kind of question, promising to get even with accusers, shutting down debate, calling “fake” any news — or individual words — that do not comport with their vision of themselves. Name calling. Threatening perceived enemies. And allies.

All the other crime-mob behavior we all have been watching.

Will it take history and perspective to answer the question: “What are they acting out?” Right now we are preoccupied with all the chaos they have created.

If this were a child’s behavior, a helpful parent would seek help and treatment.

If the cause of the problem is unconscious suppression of past trauma, Carl Jung has this idea:

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual…does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must by force of necessity act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”2

A couple decades ago I attended a lecture/workshop by Harvard psychologist Donal C. Klein. I remember him saying that the emotional power of humiliation is analogous to a nuclear weapon. Klein was probably citing the work of Evelin Lindner3 a German-Norwegian scholar. In a summary4 of her book Making enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict, Brett Reeder of the Conflict Research Consortium writes:

She argues that humiliation instigates extremism and hampers moderate reactions and solutions. Humiliation, she says, has the tendency to destroy everything in its path, making it "the nuclear bomb of emotions."

“U.S. Executive Leadership: Hampering Moderate Reactions and Solutions since 2025.”

It starts with little men who are afraid of being wrong or being seen as wrong in any way. They cope with their buried fear by projecting it out into the world.

I just wish their little hands were not so close to actual nuclear weapons.

Enough! Next week I am going to talk about joy, dammit.

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“Fifty-four forty or fight.”

I can hear the incredulous: Seriously? Top of mind is a political slogan from James Polk’s presidential campaign of 1844?!

You have to admit, it’s catchy - short, alliterative and a call to action. This unit of cultural information was termed a slogan. Now it would be called a meme.

A brief visit to Wikipedia told me a couple things. First, it apparently was not a campaign slogan, but was coined a few years after regarding the “Oregon Question.”

The second point is the profound complexity related to that catchy phrase. Expansionist ambitions in the region in the early 1800s included the U.S., Great Britain, Spain and Russia. The region in question was the territory west of the continental divide between the 42nd parallel — a line of latitude marked now by the northern border of California — and the 54°40’ parallel (54 degrees 40 minutes) which was the southern border of what was then called “Russian America.”

After the war of 1812, the dispute was down to two parties — the U.S. and Great Britain. “Fifty-four forty or fight” reflected the American sentiment of the time — either we get the territory we want or else… More on Manifest Destiny coming up.

The compromise — for those on the edge of your seats — was to draw the line at the 49th parallel, which to this day marks the northern border of the U.S. from Washington to Minnesota.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how two imperialist powers resolved the dispute over land inhabited for over 10,000 years by the Chinook and 29 other tribes of Indigenous People. (See map below).

“Fun” fact: You will not find the Chinook on the above map because they are not a federally recognized tribe (although in 1962 The Army liked the name enough to brand the new heavy-lift helicopter The Chinook.) The Department of the Interior recognized the tribe in 2001 at the end of the Clinton administration. Eighteen months later, political appointees of George W. Bush revoked the recognition. Attempts to re-establish the Chinook as a tribe since then have been unsuccessful.

But that’s a small matter compared to the responsibilities of Manifest Destiny. There is a lot bundled into this bumper-sticker of a meme.

According to Wikipedia: “Most historians credit the conservative newspaper editor and future propagandist for the Confederacy, John O’Sullivan, with coining the term manifest destiny in 1845.” O’Sullivan was arguing for the right of the U.S. to claim all of disputed Oregon territory. As he wrote:

And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

So, basically, “Manifest Destiny” is not only memorable and fun to say — with the repeated “est” sound, kudos to Mr O’Sullivan!1 — it has all the characteristics of a fabulous call to action. It is obvious (“manifest’), and certain — as inevitable a destiny for our young nation as Lorraine Baines was for George McFly in Back to the Future (1985).

Throw in for good measure: 1) the unique moral virtue of the new nation, 2) a mission to redeem the world, and 3) a belief that success in spreading the American way of life is divinely ordained2 and you have either a real conversation stopper or a new recruit. The Almighty is in on this? Sign Me Up!

The above image touches on several themes we have covered. The caption to this iconic graphic in the Wikipedia article on manifest destiny reads:

“American Progress” (1872) by John Gast is an allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west. Columbia, a personification of the United States, is shown leading civilization westward with the American settlers. She is shown bringing light from east to west, stringing telegraph wire, holding a school book, and highlighting different stages of economic activity and evolving forms of transportation. On the left, Indigenous Americans are displaced from their ancestral homeland.

The Oregon Question was a long time ago. It seems, however, that a sense of exceptionalism lives on in some hearts and minds. The idea of woe to the conquered has been around since Thucydides: “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” That could be the modus operandi of any imperial cabinet.

“Might Makes Right” is catchy. Emotionally charged. Decisive. Simplistic. Avoids nuance, context, and moves right to action.

Back in the 1800s our rightness and might-ness got us the western states. What’s the next frontier? Sky’s the limit.

Next up, we take a look at The Bay of Pigs: a case study in strategic leadership and failed assumptions, by Vincent Dueñas…

Notes:

The Oregon Question

Tribes of Washington State

Chinook Nation

Bay of Pigs case study from May 2, 2017

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In these days of great emotion and radical change we need the steady, persistent and refreshing inspiration…which entering the texture of our life in the morning will refresh us through the day or in the evening give us a sense of comfort and peace. The path of life in these days is often exhausting, barren of ideals, stripped of romance and depressing to faith: alongside the path, if we would stop for a moment, runs a stream of refreshing thought.

That was William Lawrence the Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts writing in 1934, and the book is Daily Strength for Daily Needs edited by Mary Wilder Tileston, first published one hundred and forty-two years ago, in 1884. There is a page for every day of the year, each containing a Bible verse, a poem and a quote from some author of the day. It is a beautiful, unpretentious volume — not cloying or sentimental.

The book is intended for use by those of the Christian faith. That said, it serves a purpose similar to many devotional or meditative practices: to refresh the spirit with perspective, connection and hope. This is accomplished, one could argue, through a communal or individual practice in which the participant is invited to:

• Focus their attention

• Consider a broader frame than one usually does

• Acknowledge a superordinate principle or entity above and encompassing the experience of human life (or indeed, all life)

• Think in terms of gratitude for what is

My feeling is that no single religion or ideology has a corner on this method.

Speaking of heterodox thinking, my mom was the director of religious education for the Unitarian church in Wilmington for some years in the 1970s. At the start of the New Year in 1976, she prepared a reading in the form of a list of New Year resolutions. With a characteristic theatrical touch, she had the list read by alternate voices — hers in front of the congregation, and a young man, Luke Mette, from the balcony at the back of the church.

A member of the church, Betty Carotta had kept a copy of the text, and sent it to my sister Pat with a kind note after our mom’s death in 2006.

I present it here in two print styles. I imagine Janet reading the first verse, with Luke answering with the text in bold italics. Its title is simply “Antiphonal Reading by Janet Hickman.”

To remember the hunger and hopelessness of people whose lives rarely touch ours, and to help when it is within our power. But not to become so absorbed in the woes of mankind that we are unable to see the person next to us who is in need.

To perceive the wonder of the world. To enjoy each moment because that is all we are guaranteed.

To be unafraid to show gentleness for it seems to be a fact of life that it is where our greatest strengths are found.

To try to learn the secret of giving and taking. Each person needs to strike his own balance. If we do either one too much, we don’t feel happy and neither does anyone else.

To love pure knowledge but not to lust after it lest it become a tyrant, shutting out the learning which seeks to bewitch us through our senses. To remember that some things do not give up their mystery to microscopes and test tubes.

To have dreams. They are what keep hope alive. To know, too, when to give one up that we have worn out or outgrown – and then to spin another.

To learn to trust our own perceptions and to have the courage to act on them.

To leave spaces in our lives for thinking quietly about things and how they all fit together.

To keep a firm hand on the love of power and money and flattery as sources of nourishment, knowing they are capricious seducers that vanish without warning.

To be glad that we’re all different – different skins, different dispositions, different ways of viewing the world. Maybe then we won’t be so afraid of each other. For fear is fertile ground for hatred – and the world is saturated with that, and does not need the stubborn ounces of our own.

To laugh more this year. There are probably more reasons to do it than we usually notice.

We have not, without cause, been labeled “the Human Comedy.” Our little dreams of good intentions and vain pretensions should at least make us smile.

Fifty years later I still feel resonance with these lines. That last one would benefit from some explanation. This is classic Janet. She valued honest self-reflection and striving not to take the self too seriously.

That seems like a helpful way to enter the new year. Try not to add to the ocean of hatred.

Each of us is better than the men who seem to be running the show these days. Maybe that qualifies as a “vain pretension” on my part, but the thought gives me some measure of strength and solace going into the new year.

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“Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards.”

That’s from Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales, which is — as far as I am concerned — the quintessential story of a childhood holiday remembered in adulthood.1 No better one can be writ. IMHO.

And yet, here I am, standing under the feet of a giant.

OK, enough of my disclaimer. The point is, memory is a tricky thing. Thomas was thinking back maybe 20 years to his childhood in Swansea, Wales in the early nineteen-twenties, retelling his story with mythical coherence. In contrast, I am going back sixty years or more and providing you, gentle reader, with what might feel like 10 pieces of a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Not being a legendary poet with a mind enriched by myth and meter, I’m finding that re-membering events is more of a community project — one person’s recollection spurs discussion, maybe disagreement about dates, times and who else was in the room, and often there are diversions to unrelated events or people through some mental process of unconscious cohesion.

Take, for example, snowfall in Wilmington Delaware in the middle of the previous century. As I remember it, snow started falling in mid-December, there was always snow on the ground for the holidays, and snow continued to cover any un-plowed ground surface continuously until the first patch of grass re-appeared in March.

My pal John, ever the teacher/researcher, just sent me some statistics regarding snow on Christmas morning in Delaware in the 1960s. There were only four snow-covered Christmas mornings. In 1969 new snow fell during Christmas Day. But in 1964 it was warm enough to coax up the crocuses - 69 degrees.

Back in the day we went to church as a family every Sunday. Before Christmas, Granddad would take the train up from Baltimore to stay with us for a few days. He had this beautiful sonorous baritone singing voice which I loved hearing next to me.

For years we would put out a treat for Santa on a small table by the fireplace so he wouldn’t miss it: a few Christmas cookies and a tangerine. Very traditional. It wasn’t until years later that I would make the connection to our grandfather’s love of tangerines. He would dexterously peel the fruit with his thumb and middle finger, having lost his index finger in a lab accident decades before.

For holiday music in the home, I remember three albums. Two were “adult” LPs featuring the Robert Shaw Chorale, but the youngsters’ favorite was the album ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. Apparently swing jazz versions of holiday songs were a big hit in a house of young Boomers.

We made the cookies from scratch, and by “we” I mean my sisters and our mom. The dough was chilled in several pieces wrapped in waxed paper, and needed to be worked on a huge heavy slab of marble they would carry from the disassembled marble-top table in the living room and place it on the kitchen table. When the dough got too warm to work with, it was placed back in the fridge and another piece brought out.

The results were thin butter cookies, with sprinkles on each — red, green or both. The pattern would depend on the artist, but everyone understood that Hickmans do not “go crazy” with the sprinkles. Shapes were traditional, from cookie cutters which looked, even back then, like they were made during the Civil War: round, reindeer, Santa, stocking, star and in honor of our dog MacDuff, a scottie. Any leftover too small for a cutter was formed into a shape we called a “symbol,” and was prized among all the cookies.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street…

At this point in the essay, the contrast between Dylan Thomas and this writer could not be more clear. If you’ve not read Thomas, you can here. Or listen to his reading here.

The very young me went through the “Santa is real” phase. Looking back I imagine that my older sisters had to go along with this myth, until that age where I caught up to their level of awareness. After that age we would all look under our parents’ bed where the wrapped presents were stashed, trying to get a preview of things to come, or at least the size and shape of things to come.

The first sight of the tree the morning of was a delight and an amazement. But prior to that moment we three children sat at the top of the stairs while mom and dad completed the arrangement of things in the living room. We hung out in our pjs until we got permission to descend into room full of light and treasure.2

The details of any given Christmas morning? For me, mostly gone. All the years are a collective, homogenous impression. The pace of opening gifts was slow. You opened one, considered it for a few minutes, maybe watched another person open their present. But everyone understood that Hickmans do not “go crazy” with the gift-opening part of Christmas morning. For all the giddy anticipation I remember the mornings as peaceful and fun. After the gifts, mom or dad would collect the wrappings and ribbons into a bag. Then there was breakfast.

Sometime later in the morning my sugar rush from all that hot cocoa wore off and I could think about next steps. I think at some point in the morning I would call up Bill or John and talk about how we fared, gift-wise. We would get together later in the day depending on our respective meal and church times.

Night fell. The neighborhood holiday lights glinted off the snow just as before, but some corner had been turned since that morning. The trappings of the season were not about anticipation now; they were about a day receding into the past. Thomas told his story without a sense of nostalgia, as though the child were still alive inside. There was no glorifying the past nor grieving the changing times.

Even now the music and lights and trimmings still delight. Each year I read to myself one of the Gospels. Each year we watch the original 1965 Peanuts special. I dig out the old Caedmon recording of Dylan Thomas. We trim some kind of tree each year, and bring out the old ornaments from the 1950s, each wrapped in tissue and nestled like eggs in brittle boxes with green lettering: Shiny Brite Glass Christmas Tree Ornaments, below which there is an image of Uncle Sam shaking hands with Santa Claus with “American Made” underneath.

Somehow muted in the mix is the person’s birthday we are celebrating. Energy and effort is spent conforming to traditions, or trying to recreate an old feeling. It brings us joy. But I can’t help thinking that somewhere there is real transformation of the mind and spirit — the one the Birthday Boy would later talk about: practicing goodwill; forgiving self and others; being alert to neighbors in need; living toward ones higher angels. I am working on these, seven decades on.

Maybe the renewal he talked about is close at hand, wrapped up in the beautiful trial and error of life.

Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

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Choreographer Marius Petipa (possibly with Lev Ivanov—there is some debate) created the dances to accompany Alexander Dumas’s story which was based on the 1816 tale of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann Tchaikovsky then set the choreography to music with detailed instructions from Petipa.

There are other “Christmas” ballets — Cinderella, The Red Shoes, The Snow Queen — but when many of the larger ballet companies in the U.S. generate an average of 40% of their annual budgets from The Nutcracker, who wants to mess with success?

For those who have never seen The Nutcracker, a brief synopsis might be helpful. (The first time I saw it I confess, I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening.) As a Powerpoint presentation, these would be the bullets:

Act I

• The elegant Stahlbaum home on Christmas Eve, 1816. Excitement.

• Godfather Drosselmeyer gives protagonist Clara a wooden nutcracker shaped like a soldier. Brother breaks it. Clara despondent. Mr. D. fixes it.

• At midnight, Clara sneaks downstairs to check on her gift. Magic happens.

• Room fills with an army of mice led by Mouse King. Fearsome.

• The Nutcracker comes to life, battles mice. Wins. Becomes handsome prince.

• Prince takes Clara to Land of Snow. Stunning.

Act II

• Clara and the Prince arrive at the Kingdom of Sweets.

• Sugar Plum Fairy hosts grand celebration in Clara’s honor: lots of dancing

• Culmination: grand pas de deux between Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. Highest level of dancing skill required! Grand finale with everyone.

• Was it all Clara’s dream? Or does she stay in this magical world? Ambiguous.

Pretty straightforward coming of age story.

ChatGPT estimates 22 distinct productions of The Nutcracker this season in the DC Metropolitan area, for a total of between 150 and 200 individual performances. All in the month of December. How does an organization stand out in this field of Nutcrackers, Sugar Plum Fairies and Mouse Kings?

One option: You reimagine it. Enter Lorraine Spiegler and Alchemy Ballet’s production of The Andalusian Nutcracker. From the website:

Under the direction of Lorraine Audeoud Spiegler, this original production is set in Granada, Spain at the legendary Alhambra Palace where young María receives a magical Andalusian Horse Nutcracker and embarks on a journey into an enchanted dream world.

The production brings together many traditions and styles in a manner that has come to be the hallmark of the young and intrepid Alchemy Ballet under the nonprofit Artists in Motion.

Medieval Andalusia brings to mind the rare, creative covivencia (“living together”) of Sephardic Jews, indigenous Christians and Muslims. This sustained, productive contact among three diverse cultures has been subject to some romanticism in modern times — selective memory often creates exemplars out of complex situations — but the advances in trigonometry, agronomy, pharmacology, surgery and astronomy were very real. See Wikipedia article here.

Spiegler’s vision for a Nutcracker set in southern Spain was clear to her from the beginning, and she set it down in a story which begins:

In the distant past, in the glittering Moorish city of Granada, Spain, young Prince Almanzor grows up within the enchanted walls of the Alhambra, the Red Castle. Surrounded by fragrant gardens, shimmering pools, and palace rooms adorned with intricate tiles and muqarnas, he spends his days reading poetry, writing his own verses of longing, and dreaming as he gazes out over the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains.

I can not do the story justice here, but when war threatens to exile the royal family, the prince seeks the help of a magician-cum-flamenco guitarist, Torcuato, who turns him into an Andalusian horse nutcracker so he can remain at the Alhambra. Later, Torcuato returns to the Alhambra with his magic dolls and puppet show. Maria is captivated by the horse, and later falls asleep and dreams of the Andalusian horse/prince. Instead of the original mice, a tribe of lions are turned into alabaster. Almanzor returns to human form and he and Maria journey to the Reino de los Sueños—the Realm of Dreams. Spiegler’s re-telling of the tale has an ending wrapped in dance and wonder.:

They travel together to the Sierra Nevada mountains outside of Granada, where the Snow Queen Neva appears and summons three Snow Diamonds, Snow Spirits, Snow Crystals, and Diamond Dust. With these luminous beings, each with a unique pattern of beauty, Maria and Almanzor are led into a wondrous land where the voices of dreams can be heard, and where children and youth from all places may live in peace, unity, and the shared magic.

I don’t know if you are aware of this, but the world of ballet schools is for the most part highly competitive, even aggressively so. Alchemy Ballet’s former director left suddenly and took a vast majority of students with her.

Lorraine Speigler came on board with the academy under-enrolled and struggling. Graced with her vision, indefatigable spirit and stellar reputation, , she boosted enrollment, built her team of collaborators, and marched the high road to Granada. Busy Graham (my spouse) and Lorraine collaborated in a remarkable way, identifying and recruiting a diverse group of guest artists such as would do the community of Al-Andalus proud. From the website we read:

The ballet fuses classical technique with the expressive traditions of flamenco, Moorish, Sephardic, and Middle Eastern dance and music, creating a vibrant tapestry of rhythm, storytelling, and cultural celebration. Featuring Alchemy Ballet students, pre-professional trainees, alumni, and distinguished guest artists—including Furia Flamenca’s Estela Vélez de Paredez and Daniel Paredez, legendary guitarist Torcuato Zamora, the Silk Road Dance Company, Mariana Gatto and Miguel Perez, Sopranessence, plus Sergio Masero, the prince cavalier from Madrid. The Andalusian Nutcracker honors tradition while inviting audiences to see this holiday classic in a completely new light.

As you might have noticed Torcuato is a character in the play and the actual guitarist in the ballet. A couple of notes here. Torcuato Zamora — who is originally from Granada — lives quietly in Silver Spring, and at age 90 is still teaching and performing. The king and queen of Spain had credited Torcuato with bringing the flamenco tradition to the United States six decades ago.

The puppet show that the character Torcuato brings to the Alhambra in Act One includes the characters of Maria, Almanzor, the lioness, the Andalusian horse and the magician Torcuato. The puppets were made for this performance by artist and musician Ingrid Cowan-Haas, our daughter’s piano teacher 25 years ago.

This promises to be a feast for the eyes and ears and imagination.

But don’t take my word for it. If you are in the area, come create a holiday memory for yourself, December 20 and 21 at Herndon High School, 700 Bennett Street, Herndon VA 20170. Ticket information here.

Above: Some of the Alchemy dancers, clockwise from top left: Julia Dolan as Princess Aura, Lucia Park as the Queen of the Greek Lions, Lydia Adams as the Snow Diamond and Katya Palmer as Kissy, the Spanish Doll. Photos by Chris Stark of Stark Photo Productions.

Coincidentally, there is another major celebration of Andalusia happening in the DC area: Washington Revels’ remarkable Andalusian Treasures. There are not many tickets left — so seize the day if you can! Last shows are Dec 18-20. RevelsDC.org

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You might be a little nervous opening these pages, because I am very on the record about not liking to read books, about how every book is just the most words. How it never lets up and there are just more and more words until it’s like, “What are you talking about? Please, just make it stop.”

The other is The Ethics and Other Works by Benedict de Spinoza, edited and translated by Edwin Curley. Curley explains in his introduction that Spinoza’s whole career as a philosopher was based on his hope that “the pursuit of knowledge would lead him to discover the true good.” Indeed, The Ethics, his crowning achievement is, as Curley puts it:

…a systematic attempt to work out, in a geometric fashion, his views on the nature of God, the relation between mind and body, human psychology, and the best way to live.

I would love to see this guy’s resume. Seriously, this is a man who was ex-communicated from his Jewish community in Amsterdam for his “evil opinions” but was undeterred in his pursuit of truth.

You have to admire his tenacity. Even so, he delayed publishing The Ethics out of concern about how the public might react to it. The work was published posthumously a few months after he died in February 1677 from a lung illness “probably aggravated by the dust of the lenses he had been grinding in order to support himself.” In a way, his philosophy became the very lens through which he sought to bring the truth into focus.

Speaking of determination, there was a recent story in the Washington Post by Sydney Page (December 8, 2025) about Karl Bushby who has been walking from Punta Arenas, Chile to his home in Hull on the east coast of England. It started as a barroom bet. As Bushby explains, “Suddenly, it became a challenge. The conversation gathered steam until eventually I did the math and thought, ‘This is doable.’” He made the bet in his late 20s. He is now 56. It’s been 27 years, and he has 932 miles to go, from Hungary to home.

He made only two rules:

I can’t use transport to advance and I can’t go home until I arrive on foot. If I get stuck somewhere I have to figure it out.

Here are some examples of challenges he had to “figure out” how to deal with: a stomach infection in Peru; crossing the frozen Bering Strait; being detained for 57 days for entering Russia at an incorrect border; and swimming for 31 days across the Caspian Sea to avoid re-entering Russia or Iran. To name only a few.

Bushby got his fitness, endurance, and resilience as a paratrooper with the British Army. He also got the urge for travel and exploration. I am sure he learned a lot about himself, how to pace himself, how to deal with loneliness. But the big piece of learning — the “real shocker” as he put it — was this:

99.99 percent of the people I’ve met have been the very best of humanity. The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems. It has just continued through every culture in every country — the overwhelming kindness of strangers.

The struggle to better understand the self, each other and the circumstances around us is a theme in many of the plays by Tom Stoppard. The playwright passed away a few weeks ago. I took a pause from my two books to re-read Arcadia, possibly the most interesting, beautiful, funny and tragic play I have ever read.

My favorite quote is spoken by the character Hannah, a dedicated and relentless researcher.

It’s the wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we go out the way we came in.

This is a recurring theme for Stoppard, one he first explored in his first blockbuster play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966). In it, the two minor characters from Hamlet—dispatched to “glean what afflicts” the melancholic prince—struggle to make sense of the baffling situation they’ve been drawn into. Here are a few memorable lines, spoken by Rosencrantz (or perhaps Guildenstern).

• There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.

• Words, words. They’re all we have to go on.

• Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it.

They never really get answers, and meet their demise as they did in Hamlet, off-stage at the very end.

It’s the wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we are going out the way we came in. Why does it seem that the world is mostly interested in legacy, what we have done, what we have accomplished: the resume, the biographical sketch, the obituary. Or the standard Washington DC line for someone you meet at a party: “So, what do you do?”

I have also heard “What are you working on?” which is a little more expansive. So are “What are you trying to figure out?” and “What’s the big question you are trying to answer?” The risk is, of course, that these questions might seem too forward for someone you just met, and they might suddenly have to excuse themselves to freshen their drink.

But I still ask myself these questions, like, all the time. It’s wanting to know – to really understand.

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The second is the beginning of Advent, a time when even the most tepid of faithful hark to the mystery and joy of the season. You will find me among the ambivalent flock. So much of organized religion — the dogma, patriarchy, original sin — does not comport with what I think ought to be straightforward messages of love, forgiveness, seeking our best selves, and discovering the personal connection to the divine.

I identify with the anguish Charlie Brown feels when, confused by the commercialization of the season, he cries out to the empty school auditorium, “Can anyone tell me what Christmas is all about??” I get misty-eyed when Linus finishes his recitation of Luke 2:8-14, turns to his pal and says, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Helen Adelaide McMillen (the future Grandma Wicker) married Charles Sumner Wicker in 1887. They had five children: Ed and George ran the Wicker Lumber Company in Niagara Falls, NY. The three girls were Gertrude, Florence and Edith. Florence was my grandmother on mom’s side.

Most of what I know about any of them comes from a few letters and some anecdotes that got passed down. “Uncle Ed” (as we knew him) wrote a memorable Christmas letter to his adult son on December 21, 1959 which demonstrates an ancestral proclivity for challenging rules and poking at the illogical aspects of religious doctrine. Here Ed Wicker is 69 and his son is 41. He is talking about attending the First Presbyterian Church of Lewiston, NY:

The part that interested me most was that there were a number of Methodists, some Baptists and some Congregationalists. Feel sure God approved of that. I have always felt He never intended that human beings should give the Bible so many varied interpretations based on unimportant details which created so many different denominations, which in turn detracted from cooperation, which after all get the best results of any subject… I can’t believe God cares whether we get a few drops of water on our head when baptized or whether we get dunked all over. I feel baptism is too important a thing in anyone’s life to quibble over how much water is required.

I have no context for this pondering about faith, let alone sharing this with his son. Uncle Ed was not known as a reader or “big thinker” in any regard. His brother George, on the other hand, was referred to by my mom as a “Shakespeare scholar.” George is the one responsible for the lettering over the hearth at the Lake George summer house, from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act 2, sc 1:

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

Uncle Ed lived simply, a “salt of the earth” type, worked six days a week at the mill, and accompanied his wife to church every Sunday. Later in the letter, he muses on his own religious upbringing, and the difference between his mom and dad as regards activities on Sunday:

He liked his day of rest to include the relaxation of hitching up his beautiful pair of bays (Dick and Don) and going out for a drive. That was restful for him, but he could never get mother to go. No sir, that wasn’t her interpretation of rest.

Some of it I just couldn’t understand. For example — “Mother, why can’t we take a Sunday paper?” “Because Sunday is the Sabbath and no one should work on Sundays.” When I pointed out that Sunday papers were printed on Saturday night, and Monday morning papers (which she always enjoyed) were printed Sunday night — what happened? Mother continued to enjoy the Monday morning paper and I continued on Sundays to sneak over to a kid’s house and read the funnies, and I never felt wicked doing it.

Another example — I was never allowed to ride my bike on Sundays. When I inquired as to why I couldn’t, the answer was — “Sunday is the Sabbath day, it is God’s day of rest. No one should work or play on the Sabbath day.” Then I asked, “Well, Mother, if no one should work on Sundays why do you have Rebecca (our cook) prepare our meals — that’s a work day for Rebecca. Boy, the answer I received - I’ll never forget it: “Edward, we will discuss the matter no further!” And we never did. Mother thoroughly believed in Sunday being a day of rest (for her) but she always got hungry along with the rest of us.

Children even today want reasonable explanations for the stuff grownups just accept. I admire Uncle Ed’s argumentative spirit. Grandma Wicker was easy to spend time with, in gentle accord with her grandchildren, but one did not want to be crosswise with her.

By the time Uncle Ed is writing this letter to his son, Grandma Wicker was long gone. Maybe as he was looking back on his upbringing, he felt a kind of momentum of clarity at the typewriter on this winter solstice.

If we could live by the ten commandments or boil it down further to — “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” - and really do it - I think God would be pleased - might even be surprised of the good job we have made on earth trying to live up to the teachings of the Bible.

In his closing paragraph he searches to convey his love for his son. In doing so he argues against the notion of hell as a place of eternal torment for those who fall short in God’s estimation (a popular notion at the time):

Can’t help but write this one before I go to bed. Somewhere in the Bible it says in substance that God loves us more than we love our own. I’ll take that on faith but it’s hard for me to believe He loves you more than I love you and your family. However, if He does, I just can’t believe there is a hell of fire and brimstone, for I don’t care what you might do I couldn’t condemn you to that for all eternity. That would be much worse than murder and I know the Bible doesn’t approve of that.

Right there is the kind of theological questioning I am proud to see running through my ancestry.

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This got me thinking: Are there things I am thankful for that might not immediately come to mind? I came up with three: struggling farmer ancestor William Hickman; the locale of suburban Wilmington, DE in the 1950s-60s; and the skill of doing nothing.

Going back in time a bit, I give thanks for my great-great-great-great-grandfather, William Hickman. Records being what they are, it’s difficult to be absolutely sure, but this was a guy for whom things didn’t go well. My sister Martha composed a series of essays on our ancestors and it was there that I found the tale of one William Hickman.

This William was a farmer in Kennett, PA. He died in 1800, leaving his estate in a terrible mess. He had so many debts that his executors (brother Moses and another man) had to petition the court to sell off his land to finish paying his creditors and provide some support for his widow and orphans. The Orphans Court appointed Moses guardian of his numerous minor children, which included a son named William.

Son William turned things around. Once an orphan listed on the roll of “Poor School Children,” he appeared to have managed his adult affairs in such a way as enabled him to leave land and some wealth to his progeny.

I will never know for sure, but I would like to think that son William took a lesson from his father’s travails. There is some admiration in that. But I still want to give special thanks to the struggling senior William who left his estate in a “terrible mess.” He must have had to dig deep to look out on his lands each day. Maybe there was hope that buoyed him. Maybe when he looked out over those gentle hills of Chester County, he thought about future generations of Hickmans who would make better futures for themselves than he had managed to do.

A hundred and fifty-odd years later, I would come to life about 12 miles south-east from where those early Hickmans farmed. I am thankful for the place and time I grew up in. I have heard the era referred to as “the complaisant Eisenhower years.” The neighborhood was a cul-se-sac, safe and quiet. A few acres of forest here and there gave us diversion, entertainment and adventure. Two older sisters watched over me. Dinner was always at 6:30. Think of what we boomer Americans had going for us:

• A self-contained neighborhood of some 35 houses with between 23 and 32 school-age children at any point in the decades

• Open skies

• A safe outside environments, by day and night

• Other than school, only a few programmed activities

• Freedom from privation, and most of all

• Independence After school and before dinner few parents know exactly where anyone was

But I guess if there is one thing I am thankful for — that I don’t give enough attention to — is that when and where I spent those early years allowed my mind to wander. I mean really wander. The technique takes many forms — daydreams, imaginary adventures, turning something over and over in the mind without the intent of solving it, planning improbable adventures, going through lists, reconstructing an event or trip in as much detail as possible, remembering songs.

I can’t say I spent a lot of time looking up at clouds, but I know I spent some periods of time looking up at clouds. And stars, scanning the night skies. How else would I have seen little meteor showers, or seen Sputnik going overhead, or learned my major constellations? Or my cloud types? Or seasonal bird migrations?

Allowing the mind to wander, to just take in what it sees without judgment or purpose of any kind. If I have that ability — if it even is an ability — its origins are in those early years. As I look out on the current landscape of my life, I wonder if this is the kind of thing that is passed along to children and grandchildren.

I am thinking it is not. The world is too different. It would be like William Hickman the younger, thinking about passing along the farm through unimagined generations. None of us do that anymore. We don’t farm. We wouldn’t know how.

As for the value of spending time with my own thoughts… “I don’t know what you mean, Grandpa.”

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