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Independence Day
2007
By
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category:
Beyond Classification
Independence Day, 2007
This time last year, we were in Aspen. I am, as Woody Allen says, “two with nature,” but I was still thrilled to be in Colorado. I wrote, read, did a week of interviewing Aspen Ideas Festival guests for Plum TV. Meanwhile, the kid went to camp and my wife — a professional-grade hiker — clocked five or six hours in the mountains every day.
At the end of our stay, I had an attitude adjustment about going outside for a reason other to read in fresh air — my wife took me to the Maroon Bells, two 14,000-foot mountains just outside of Aspen.
Talk about gorgeous! But also, right at the start of the trail that leads to the base of the Bells — duffers like me do not even dream of an ascent — there’s a warning sign. In winter, the snow is "poorly consolidated." Avalanches are possible, and unforgiving.
Which pretty much confirmed my view of Nature: Danger lurks, even where beauty seems to rule. Man’s proper relationship to nature is awe. And fear.
This was, you’ll recall, the season of An Inconvenient Truth, which seemed to offer the same moral: Beautiful Nature was turning on us. I was in this Awe and Fear mood when the Huffington Post asked me to write an Independence Day blog. Wave the flag? Cheer the fireworks? My mind was on Higher Things. And so I wrote a piece called I Salute the Flag, I Pledge Allegiance to the Planet. [Consumer warning: Allergic to politics? Don’t click.]
A year later, I have a somewhat different take — and the reading and thinking we’ve done together here at HeadButler.com is a big reason. I still believe politics is important, and I cheer every one of you who keeps up and speaks up and volunteers and votes. But this year, I’ve come to a deeper understanding of my own power.
So instead of railing about events over which I have no control — Iraq, Supreme Court decisions, Dick Cheney — I’ve learned to lean into areas I can do something about. Like….
Fitness
After reading Younger Next Year, I upped my cardio. Cholesterol down, weight down, mood up. I’m not exercising at the level the authors recommend — and I never will — but “better” is good enough for me.
Diet
The Omnivore’s Dilemma (here and here) reminded me that my health is my responsibility, and that the best way to be healthy is to make food my medicine. That led inexorably to Real Food — and a way of living so different I now make my own yogurt. Am I healthier? I do feel better: cholesterol down, weight down, mood up. And if non-industrial food turns out to be a placebo? I won’t be crushed. I did something for myself, it makes me feel better, where’s the harm?
Relationships
In a previous marriage, I suffered through a few rounds of therapy that, our therapist swore, would work if we were of good will. We were — we talked and talked. It didn’t work. So I was delighted to read Mating in Captivity, which suggests that one reason marriages get into trouble is too much intimacy. My wife and I both work at home; since reading this book, we talk less and e-mail one another more.
Culture
I’m having trouble finding new American music that interests me, so I’m listening to more “world” music: Andy Palacio, who’s trying to keep his tiny Garifuna language alive, Noirin Ni Riain, Yusuf and, of course, Amadou & Mariam. I seem to be watching more foreign films: L’Atalante, Battle of Algiers, The Conformist. And I’ve been reading more books set in other cultures: Monique and the Mango Rains, Kabul Beauty School, Sky Burial. Slowly, slowly, I’m grasping how many different ways there are to express common feelings.
Personal Activism
After reading Banker to the Poor, I started making loans to poor entrepreneurs in distant countries through kiva.org. Some of you have taken up the idea — honoring friends and family in our rich country by helping ambitious poor people elsewhere. Possibly the biggest mind-expander of the year.
Consumerism
In a recent New York Times article, Alex Williams quotes activist Paul Hawken:
“Green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase,” he said. He blamed the news media and marketers for turning environmentalism into fashion and distracting from serious issues.
“We turn toward the consumption part because that’s where the money is,” Mr. Hawken said. “We tend not to look at the ‘less’ part. So you get these anomalies like 10,000-foot ‘green’ homes being built by a hedge fund manager in Aspen. Or ‘green’ fashion shows. Fashion is the deliberate inculcation of obsolescence.”
He added: “The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 — it’s a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic. It’s diabolically stupid.”
The animating idea behind HeadButler.com was to cut through the junk and suggest culture that’s somehow “better”. This year, I’ve come to see — largely through the books on natural foods — that “better” also means “less”. Which makes sense. The more satisfying the meal, the less you need. The better the music, the less you’ll want a pile of fresh CDs. And so on.
I’m not an escapist. I have a pretty good idea of how the quality of life — here and elsewhere — has been diminished over the past year. And don’t get me started on politics. But the difference between this year and last is, I think, that I have a slightly more balanced view. The daily nightmares of the front page and cable news bother me less; incremental progress in my life and the lives of my friends and readers cheers me more.
I have, perhaps, finally come to a dim understanding of what Ralph Waldo Emerson’s talking about in his great essay on Compensation:
The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts…
This Independence Day, I feel I can see the faintest outline of Emerson’s “deep remedial force”. It’s my hope that, over the year, I’ve helped you to see how you can live better both in this astonishing country and on this troubled planet.
A glorious holiday to all.
