Meaningful Distractions

Field Notes November 5, 2024
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, was once asked who was his greatest teacher? “Chairman Mao,” he said. “He taught me patience.”
 
Mao Zedong, of course, was the founder of the People’s Republic of China and the man who ordered the annexation of Tibet along with the cultural genocide of Tibetan tradition. It forced the Dalai Lama into an exile that still lasts today.
 
Even in adversity, there is a lesson to be had.
 
Today is election day. But this isn’t about politics. In today’s world, every imaginable thing has been weaponized to be a political choice and we’re made to believe our country is a dumpster fire with every person who doesn’t think and look and breathe and feel exactly as we do as the enemy to be vanquished.
 
I for one think it’s time to put the pin back in the proverbial hand grenade that has everyone on edge. I realize that won’t be easy. But it’s worth the effort.
 
Lately, I’ve been reading a few books on history going back to the ancient world. Do you know what the common thread is? Humans have always been a half step away from calamity and a quarter wrought with despair.
 
From the time our ancestors first started walking upright, there’s always been a city being sacked, a war being waged, people being subjugated, books being burned and artwork condemned as degenerate. Maybe the next four years will seem dreadful. Maybe it will be eight years. Or ten. Or more.
 
Then again, maybe things will be alright, a whole bunch of us will breathe a sigh of relief, and the last few months will feel like a bad dream best left behind.
 
It’s cold comfort but, no matter the outcome, people have been through worse. Even Dante emerged from his journey through the nine circles of hell and, once again, beheld the stars. While we cannot turn our back on the tragedies, neither can we let them consume us.
 
So, if the current zeitgeist depresses you, here are a few suggestions…
 
Turn off your phone, stop doom scrolling, and take a stroll in the woods. Learn the name of every tree on your route.
 
Spend some time watching an animal, whose wisdom is often far beyond our own. It can be your dog, your cat, or even a goldfish, whose apocryphal three second memory would certainly make every experience a new one.
 
Write a poem. Possibly about an animal. Don’t make it rhyme. Animals aren’t hung up on rhymes.
 
Make some music. Whether you can play an instrument or not, it is the last best reason to not succumb to darkness.
 
Cook some soup. Share it with a friend. Because a pot of soup on a gloomy day always makes life a little better.
 
Say “hello” to a total stranger as you pass them on the street. Smile too. That's what people used to do.
 
Draw a picture. Do not say you cannot draw. Everyone can draw in their own style.
 
Send a letter. Write it in longhand. Tell someone all about your week and ask them about theirs.
 
Read a book. Make it a classic. At least 100 years old. It’s like listening to a voice from the distant past.
 
Plan a garden. It may be too cold right now to plant a seed and the sun is waning. But I promise you, spring will come again and bright warm days will return. You will be ready for them.
 
If all that fails, just remember, like Harry Lime said in The Third Man, Orson Welles’ 1949 film classic set in the shadowy, sordid world of post-war Vienna…
 
“Don't be so gloomy. After all, it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love- they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
 
Here’s to the future.