So much of life goes unseen. There's a whole other world living in our heads. Thousands of thoughts wander in and out of our brains every hour. This week, I decided to track a few in the form of a diary.
Thursday, May 16.
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Began the day by publishing weekly Substack post. Tried to avoid looking at the statistics too much during the day.
Munro
Reflected on all the tributes to Canadian author and Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, who died this week at 92. She was a gifted storyteller who mastered the art of the short story. Before moving to Port Hope, Ontario, she used to live in Clinton, in Huron County, near where she grew up. It's not far from the town of Elora, where Patti and I live part of the year. I wish I had known. I may still drive there to get a sense of the place. Clinton is near Goderich on Lake Huron, a fun town to visit in the summer. The literary journal Paris Review unlocked a 1994 interview with Munro from their archives, which is an interesting read if you are a writer or aspiring writer. What’s clear is that Munro crafted her stories slowly and she revised her work incessantly, like a sculptor or potter who works with clay. Her short stories took many months to complete.
Friday, May 17.
History
In a video interview, I heard writer Ted Gioia use the phrase, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." I always thought it was a nice aphorism to say history repeats itself. It seems close to the truth; but saying it rhymes is a higher level of sophistication and probably more accurate. It seems reasonable, for example, that the next reincarnations of fascism or communism will be similar to previous historical manifestations, but not identical.
I wondered about the origin of the phrase. While many people attribute the idea to Mark Twain, it appears more likely that the originator was an Austrian psychoanalyst. Quoteinvestigator.com conducted a search and concluded that the most likely authorship belongs to Theodor Reik, who studied under Sigmund Freud. Reik fled the Nazis and eventually became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In 1965, he used the phrase in an essay: "There are recurring cycles, ups and downs, but the course of events is essentially the same, with small variations. It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes."
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China trade
I also learned a lot today by reading Noah Smith's column called Why is China Producing So Many Exports, Anyway? In the face of a strong economic downturn and a growing real estate crisis, China is manufacturing more things than it needs. Smith outlines six theories that could explain what’s happening. The possibilities range from government economic stimuli in order to keep people employed, to darker considerations about preparations for global conflict. The theories are not mutually exclusive and they are all to some degree troublesome. China’s economic policy is generating responses from other countries, with looming tariffs being the first step.
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Inflation
Closer to home…
I needed to buy a toothbrush and went in to a pharmacy. I was astonished, really astonished, at how the prices for toothbrushes, toothpaste and deodorants have soared at local Vancouver-area pharmacies in recent months. The suspicion grows in my mind that some retailers or producers or both are artificially inflating prices of these necessities while the consumer may be distracted with rallies against food prices, package shrinkage and other grocery chain strategies. My impression is that all it takes is for one statistic to say inflation is lingering for someone to use it as a justification for jacking prices. Am I becoming cynical?
Saturday, May 18.
Trust
Thinking about other articles I've read recently, I’m wondering if the erosion of trust is the biggest threat to our collective well-being. Lack of trust imperils our sources of information, our democracy, our institutions, our communities and our personal relationships. Adversaries of democratic countries are taking advantage of growing mistrust by perniciously fuelling divisions. I feel we need to reset; redetermine our shared values; reboot. Can we recognize the danger and come together to stop this trend?
Sunday, May 19.
Pentecost
Went to church. Today was the recurrence of Pentecost, which closed the seven-week Easter period that began at the end of March. The story told in Acts 2 is another mystery that can only be accepted by an act of faith. As so often happens, I'm conflicted about what to do with it: accept it as told, or question the written source material from so long ago? Science cannot provide an answer. We are faced with so many examples of this type of dilemma in reading old scriptural texts. I long for clarity. I wish for certainty. I will never get either.
The readings on this day tell of the early followers of Jesus gathered together in a building in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Pentecost (a time that marks the beginning of the spring wheat harvest). Suddenly the group is startled by a "sound like the rush of a violent wind.” It engulfed the room where they were gathered (Acts 2:2). The writer says tongues of fire descended from above and landed on each of the disciples, giving them the ability to communicate in any language. "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them." (Acts 2:4). The imagery is striking. According to the narrator, who some believe to be the same Luke who also wrote one of the Gospels, the effect of this event in Jerusalem was immediate. Huge crowds came together to hear the disciples speaking in various languages. The Apostle Peter (that previously simple, uneducated fisherman) stood up and addressed the gathering, quoting the prophet Joel and speaking about the life of Jesus. He was evidently very convincing, as he converted an astounding number of people to Christianity in a single day: "...about three thousand were added to their number that day" (Acts 2:41). Like so many of the Bible stories, I think of these scenes and can only wrestle.
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Munro as a teacher
I also thought some more about Alice Munro today. In reading the Paris Review conversation, something stood out for me: her story about trying to teach creative writing at an Ontario university and her advice to a solitary writer. It’s poignant and I think it will resonate with other writers on Substack:
MUNRO
I got an offer of a job teaching creative writing at York University outside of Toronto. But I didn’t last at that job at all. I hated it, and even though I had no money, I quit.
INTERVIEWER
Because you didn’t like teaching fiction?
MUNRO
No! It was terrible. This was 1973. York was one of the more radical Canadian universities, yet my class was all male except for one girl who hardly got to speak. They were doing what was fashionable at the time, which had to do with being both incomprehensible and trite; they seemed intolerant of anything else. It was good for me to learn to shout back and express some ideas about writing that I hadn’t sharpened up before, but I didn’t know how to reach them, how not to be an adversary. Maybe I’d know now. But it didn’t seem to have anything to do with writing—more like good training for going into television or something, getting really comfortable with clichés. I should have been able to change that, but I couldn’t. I had one student who wasn’t in the class, who brought me a story. I remember tears came into my eyes because it was so good, because I hadn’t seen a good piece of student writing in so long. She asked, How can I get into your class? And I said, Don’t! Don’t come near my class, just keep bringing me your work. And she has become a writer. The only one who did.
Monday, May 20.
Strife in the Middle East
My thoughts today follow another strand that has some resonance to yesterday’s note about the challenges of relating to biblical scriptures in the modern world.
On the day the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity, I’m churning over the multidimensional aspects of the tragedies in Israel and Gaza, as well as the tensions overseas over protests. I wouldn’t be normal if I wasn’t disturbed by the conflict, which has been going on for seven months now. An estimated 35,000 people have died, including about 15,000 children. I firmly believe that the only way to end this sad chapter in humanity’s history is international pressure, constantly and firmly applied, and lots of dialogue between all parties. But I’m also frustrated by how passions enflame and enlarge conflicts through narrow perspectives. In hearing comments on various podcasts from pro-Palestinian protesters, Jewish people and politicians, it’s frustrating to me how some facts are ignored, manipulated or censored.
Here are some of the things that seem important to be clear about:
The attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists was a heinous act of violence.
The response from Israel has been overwhelmingly destructive and deadly to many thousands of civilians, mostly non-combatants.
When protesters demand an end to the war, they are not necessarily anti-Israel.
Protesters should never advocate violence.
It is wrong to assume that all Jewish people are Zionists.
It is wrong to assume that all Palestinians are part of terrorist groups.
Palestinian people, like all people, have a right to life and a home.
Provocations have been constant, on all sides, for many years. It does not help to look backwards.
In the 21st century we know we are all passengers on a truly unique, fragile, small dot in the cosmos, whose very health is in danger. Is it wise to base positions on religious doctrines and promises perceived to have been made in antiquity through prophets to only certain tribal groups? This question applies to all religious groups: Christians, Muslims and Jews. Do we still believe that some people are more important than others? Can we change our perspective?
A plan is needed now for the aftermath of this war.
Political leaders, especially in democracies, cannot be allowed to act without fully explaining their actions.
Can we at least agree that most citizens of the world support the concept of some basic rights for all human beings? At minimum these are: safety, food, shelter, health care and the right to work for a living.
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Tuesday, May 21.
Awareness
Today I’ve been thinking about consciousness.
In the past I’ve sought clues from accounts of people who have experienced the extreme limits of life and have spoken about their experiences with perception of the self. Some examples include visions brought on by lack of food or sleep, exhaustion or accounts of near death experiences.
Lindbergh’s tale
Charles Lindbergh, the aviator who on this day in 1927 completed the first solo flight across the Atlantic, wrote about consciousness when he described his battle to stay awake on his 33-and-a-half hour ocean crossing. Even when he boarded the plane, he knew he was not at his most alert. He hadn’t been able to sleep the night before. At about the 18-hour mark of the flight, unable to see out of the front of the aircraft (it had no forward window due to the large fuel tanks behind the control panel), he desperately fought fatigue, trying to stay awake. In a book published in 1953, he eloquently wrote about the experience:
For immeasurable periods, I seem divorced from my body, as though I were an awareness spreading out through space, over the earth and into the heavens, unhampered by time or substance, free from the gravitation that binds men to heavy human problems of the world. My body requires no attention. It's not hungry. It's neither warm nor cold. It's resigned to being left undisturbed. Why have I troubled to bring it here? I might better have left it back at Long Island or St. Louis, while this weightless element that has lived within it flashes through the skies and views the planet. This essential consciousness needs no body for its travels. It needs no plane, no engine, no instruments, only the release from flesh which the circumstances I've gone through make possible.
Then what am I -- the body substance which I can see with my eyes and feel with my hands? Or am I this realization, this greater understanding which dwells within it, yet expands through the universe outside; a part of all existence, powerless but without need for power; immersed in solitude, yet in contact with all creation? There are moments when the two appear inseparable, and others when they could be cut apart by the merest flash of light.
While my hand is on the stick, my feet on the rudder, and my eyes on the compass, this consciousness, like a winged messenger, goes out to visit the waves below, testing the warmth of the water, the speed of wind, the thickness of intervening clouds. It goes north to the glacial coasts of Greenland, over the horizon to the edge of dawn, ahead to Ireland, England, and the continent of Europe, away through space to the moon and stars, always returning, unwillingly, to the mortal duty of seeing that limbs and muscles have attended their routine while it was gone.…
My eyes, under their weighted lids, seem completely disconnected from my body, to have within themselves no substance, to be conscious rather than to see. They become a part of this third element, this separate mind which is mine and yet is not, this mind both far away in eternity and within the confines of my skull, within the cockpit and outside of it at the same moment, connected to me and yet unlimited to any finite space.
During long ages between dawn and sunrise, I’m thankful we didn’t make The Spirit of St. Louis a stable plane. The very instability which makes it difficult to fly blind or hold an accurate course at night now guards me against excessive errors. It’s again a case of the plane and me compensating for each other…
Source: The Spirit of St. Louis, by Charles Lindbergh, 1953, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, pages 352-362 (1956 edition)
Wednesday, May 22.
Teachers
On a walk this morning, I encountered a group of high school students on an excursion, accompanied by their teachers. What a challenge it must be to work with teenagers these days, given their economic and racial diversity, the technological distractions, the expectations fed by little and big screens and the personal challenges of growing up. The group of kids was typical: the loud ones playing for attention; the shy, awkward ones walking at the back; the nerds grouped together and some girls testing boundaries by showing a bit of skin, with bare midriffs and heavy makeup. It must be hard to teach teenagers; but maybe satisfying, too. The teachers I saw today looked youthful and energetic. They smiled a lot.
I don’t think teachers become teachers for financial reasons. Teaching is a calling and an essential role in today’s society. I admire them for what they do, knowing that they will be a lasting influence on some of these kids. I think back on my own school years and remember those teachers one never forgets. On spring days like these, I imagine how much fun it would be to turn back the clock and be in school, knowing now what I didn’t know when I was a teenager.
Amidst the turbulence of our society, teachers still inspire, give young people a sense of purpose, highlight possibilities, guide them and begin the process of developing the leaders of tomorrow. If only we valued teaching and education more than we do. Imagine the impact on all walks of life if we focused more on education. Imagine, in the right circumstances, the positive energy that kids can also give to a teacher. It would be a reason to hop out of bed each morning and look forward to a day of questions, new understandings and dialogue across a generational divide.
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Thursday, May 23.
Published weekly Substack post.
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Hey, you stayed all the way to the end! Thank you.
Past articles are available on the main page.
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Until next time,
-Renato.
Thanks Renato for the summary of your week. Each entry is poignant. I’m especially proud of Munro and her writings about Ontario …brings me back to my youth in Oakville.
Fascinating read, Renato. I especially enjoyed the piece about Alice Munro. I look forward to your next post.