This is an updated version that better characterizes my relationship with my first wife Kay. She felt I portrayed us as more serious than we were—and she had a point.
--Ed
There’s a lot of losing going on this holiday season. Loss of wealth. Loss of jobs. Loss of life. I have little stories that go with those big ones. My retirement savings has cratered with everyone else’s. One of my best friends lost his job and I’m worried about losing mine as a business journalist. My grandmother-in-law died just before Thanksgiving, a relatively peaceful death but still a painful one.
Amid these losses, though, I’m finding myself gaining. Or perhaps better said, regaining. In recent weeks, hope and idealism that had quietly ebbed in me over the years washed back. I am feeling once again a fundamental faith that we can and must comfort each other. And an essay I read about the importance of teasing jolted me back to the deliciousness of romantic ribbing and led to a wiser take on playfulness.
These positive personal tales also fit into some bigger, public ones. For many of us, it seems, tis’ the season to be both melancholy and jolly.
***
My gift of newfound optimism has to do with the big O. The big win of the big O, really. Because if Barack Obama had lost Nov. 4, I would probably be feeling pessimistic big-time right about now.
Like some other liberals, in the days before the election, I was paranoid Obama’s lead in the polls would somehow disappear and our team would fail. This fear of faltering in the fourth quarter, in the clutch, runs deep in me. Not only have I failed to decisively win any organized sports championships in my life, but I hail from Buffalo. The city where the Buffalo Bills hold the dubious honor of being the only professional football team to make it to the Super Bowl championship four straight years only to lose each time.
I tried to compensate during this year’s election with effort. I made more than 500 phone calls from my home for Obama. I spent a Saturday with my friend Monique in Nevada, amid llama farms and lots of angry dogs, asking voters in the swing state to back Barack. The last days before Nov. 4, I campaigned for Obama at his downtown San Francisco headquarters. Many of my 11th-hour calls were to voters in Florida. The state I’d spent hours calling for the doomed Kerry campaign. Where the Dems came up short in 2000.
I secretly worried I was cursing Obama’s chances even as I dialed for voters.
But he won. And that win suddenly made concepts like hope and community and sacrifice real again, grippable—like the way Oprah Winfrey apparently just grabbed and held onto a stranger at the victory celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park. Obama really won. By a lot. Americans not only were willing to put a legacy of racism aside, but cast their lot for the man and the party saying “yes we can.”
A night or two after the election, I suddenly made the connection that Obama’s mantra is the same as the morning chant at my son’s elementary school. Grattan Principal Jean Robertson starts each day by assembling all the students on the playground, sharing announcements and then asking the kids, “What’d you come to school for today?” Students, teachers and parents answer, “To Learn.” And Jean shouts back, “Can you do it?” And about 350 voices belt out: “Yes we can!”
In the weeks since school began for my kindergartener, I’d appreciated the morning call and response as a nice, motivating ritual. But now I saw the richness of this every-day articulation of hope and determination, its elevation of a collective, ambitious philosophy. It dawned on me that the kids could have said “Yes I can.” The Grattan go-get-‘em pep talk was not just sweet but bordering on sacred.
Of course, Grattan isn’t perfect. My wife and I have already butted up against bureaucracy and questioned some of the school decisions. But something democratic and deeply hopeful is alive at this little school, which has attracted growing numbers of families in recent years. Grattan prides itself in part on the Grattan Way, a four-part code of respectfulness, responsibility, safety and kindness.
I now find myself having more faith in the good stuff going on at Grattan, and wanting to get more involved in it. The Grattan Way, after all, is my way too—ideals I’ve held since childhood and eventually shaped a political philosophy around.
***
That philosophy—pretty much a traditional liberalism—has taken a beating over the years. Like other liberals, I was stunned that the country could reelect George W. in 2004, even though he’d misled us into the Iraq war and botched that mission terribly.
Not only did I worry that Rove’s “permanent Republican majority” was a real possibility, but my own professional choices over the past two decades have distanced me from my college-era activist bent. Yes, I taught public high school in New York City for four years and interned at both The Nation and The Village Voice. But for the last 13 years I’ve been a journalist writing for the mainstream media or the business press.
That can be a noble pursuit, and I’m proud of a number of investigative articles that I’ve written—stories that may have reached a wider audience than if they’d appeared in a lefty publication.
Still, there’s been a cost to where I’ve hung my byline. It has to do with the “objectivity” demanded by the mainstream media. Despite writing probably upwards of 2,000 articles over the years, I can feel that my voice and--my passions--have been silenced some.
The sense of having been gradually quieted politically and professionally is partly why Obama’s win was such a satisfying present, such a poignant payoff. I kept crying in the wake of the victory. Tuesday night, I pumped my first and hissed out from clenched teeth “We fucking won Florida!”—but did it with my voice breaking. I teared up during the acceptance speech. I wept in the following days at stories of Obama breaking barriers. I choked up as I thought about my mother voting for Obama despite her pro-life position.
There was some serious grief being released here. A store of sadness I was barely conscious of, that I believe came from hope dying to some degree over the years.
The same surprisingly intense crying overtook me when I began dating my wife, and I recognized that I’d settled for a less-than-full level of happiness in my first marriage.
You see this overwhelm turn athletes to mush when they reach the top after a long journey. Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics was a seven foot-tall baby after winning the National Basketball Championship earlier this year, rocking and crying and shouting, “anything’s possible!”
Maybe it takes tears to clean off dusty but dearly help dreams—whether they be of a basketball title or a big love or a better world.
Because apart from making weepy, Obama’s win has awakened my political passions. I feel inspired to take on projects like creating a more just economy, tackling the violence and poverty of my own neighborhood, and staving off climate disaster.
I don’t think I’m alone. I’m sure most McCain voters aren’t nearly as pumped up as I am, but I suspect many agreed with McCain himself who said in his concession speech that Obama’s election says something great about America. And many McCain-Palin people may have been stirred when Obama called on all of us to get ready to pitch in during his acceptance speech.
In fact, even though Obama got less than 55 percent of the popular vote, a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll indicates that 79 percent of the public thinks he will do a good job as president.
Those who voted for Obama, meanwhile, feel shaken, not stirred, and in the best way possible. Election night, throngs of people in multiple American cities including San Francisco erupted in spontaneous street parties. My wife and I celebrated with champagne, leaning out our window to join in the cries of “woo hoo”, “yeah!” and a more primal “HAHHHH!”
Those yells weren’t just about relief, joy and silliness. On some level we were restating a serious resolve. We were shouting “Yes We Can.”
***
It’s tempting to call that phrase an empty slogan. A recent profile of leftist author Naomi Klein in the New Yorker quotes Klein along these lines, as she points to more conservative Obama stances on issues including war in Afghanistan.
But to minimize the motto ignores how powerful it is to highlight the social over the individual for a change. Talk about the change we need--virtually all the ills wrought by the Bush Administration stem from prizing the individual at the expense of the group. The cowboy foreign policy in Iraq. The you’re-on-your-own economic policies that widened the wealth gap and ignored the perils of unfettered markets. The disregard for future generations or the global community when it comes to the environment.
In fact, reconnecting with the basic idea of collective action is the only way we will get out of the economic crisis upon us. Consumers and businesses are reining in spending and retrenching in ways that may make sense for them individually, but are sending us as a whole into a self-perpetuating spiral of reduced demand and layoffs. It’s the recipe for another Depression.
Thankfully, though, we went through one of those already. And Americans appear to be remembering that people can solve problems together. A study published last year by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found “increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies.”
In other words, there seems to be a yes-we-can spirit in the air.
That spirit was reinforced for me recently in the realm of religion. I have been attending Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco for the past few months, and a sermon two Sundays ago by pastor Maggi Henderson reminded me of the spiritual, moral component of community. Henderson spoke about the prophet Isaiah’s words, “’Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.” We often think of comfort as a lack of pain, as in comfortable shoes, Henderson said. But, she said, there’s a more active, communal meaning: the idea that collectively we fortify each other.
Henderson’s sermon was another gift of the season. Her call for a kind of solidarity to transcend tough times gave me a greater appreciation of the well-worn holiday phrase: tidings of comfort and joy. The good news is that we’re stronger together.
***
But there’s more to the comfort-and-joy story. Part of what makes us happy is a little discomfort. I was reminded of this wisdom by a Dec. 7 New York Times essay by psychologist Dacher Keltner titled, “In Defense of Teasing.” It highlighted the way teasing—as opposed to bullying or humiliating—is a key component of pleasure and even human connection.
“Teasing is the stage for the drama of flirtation, where suitors provoke in order to look for the sure signs of enduring commitment.,’ Keltner wrote. “…Studies find that married couples with a rich vocabulary of teasing nicknames and formulaic insults are happier and more satisfied.”
The essay struck me partly because it reminded me of some delightful give-and-take from an old romance. My old girlfriend Marlene once called me “scrawny”, and I think I responded by calling her “skinny” and a chase ensued. The jabs had points—I am a slender dude and she had rail-thin legs. But given the affectionate way we spoke those words, the put-downs acted as cupid arrows. The thrill of that exchange is partly why I still get nostalgic about her.
My first wife Kay called me “scrappy” based on the way I played basketball. It was an affirming description, but it symbolized the way our relationship could err on the side of seriousness. Kay has a clever, dry sense of humor. And we did poke fun of each other a fair amount. But there was a way in which we pulled our playful punches. Our preoccupation with taking care of each other limited the teasing, and that helped crimp the joy I felt with her.
I recaptured a sense of delight with my wife Rowena. When I met her nearly nine years ago, she struck me as a perfect balance of Marlene’s extreme romanticism and Kay’s anti-romantic realism. We also share a playfulness around movement, a hungry curiosity about the world and a sense of wonder about our two kids.
But we haven’t found a groove when it comes to romantic teasing. Often we feel sensitive to each other’s digs. Or maybe we haven’t found a way to deliver them in the right way. Rowena’s got a sarcastic, sometimes raunchy sense of humor. She shared this style with her first husband, though the common ground didn’t ultimately keep them close.
Rowena thinks our senses of humor may never click exactly. She may be right, but I’m not willing to give up yet. I at least can thicken my skin and lighten up more. I’ve long had a “safety first” mantra which can drive my kids batty during rough-housing and get in my own way of having fun. My buddy Joel once called me his “earnest” friend. I cringe a little at the description, which was spot on. Too much safety and seriousness veers into the dull and somber.
***
So I’m grateful to Keltner for refreshing my memory that relationships can be deepened by both heartfelt hugs and light-hearted zingers. But his words offer a still larger contribution. As a society, we should be concerned about going too far when it comes to comforting our brothers and sisters. By seeking a pain-free society, we may create a sterile one.
Economically speaking, I think you can see risk-taking as roughly analogous to a kind of societal teasing. A new business venture amounts to a challenge to established firms. During the past decade, such economic “teasing” was taken to the level of “tricks”. Unscrupulous lenders pushed mortgages on consumers with payments destined to mushroom to unaffordable levels. Largely unregulated financial services firms peddled new, little understood investment products that depended on a housing market bubble.
All the dubious activity enriched a few, but led to an unstable financial system that has required billions in public bail outs and helped send the economy into a deepening recession.
To go to far in the other direction though—to banish risk altogether—would result in an economic system that’s likely to be not only less prosperous but even dull. Through entrepreneurial or investment risk, an individual sticks his neck out from the group, in a sense mocking the more powerful or status quo as inadequate. My friend Art recently observed that the U.S. is the most fascinating country to watch with its booms and busts—we should retain something of that dynamic story.
Preserving a degree of public playfulness is about more than just the economy. There’s been concern that jokes cannot be told about Obama, who can come across as a serious dude. Even amid our crises, we ought not to take ourselves too seriously. It may be more important than ever to be able to laugh. In the hard road ahead, laughter will be a rare luxury.
***
It’s fitting that the economic crisis is coming to a head of sorts in winter. The season of darkness, when we lose light, lose the life of plants, lose the comfort of warmer weather. The holiday rituals are an elaborate effort—not always successful—to pick up our spirits with lights and social gatherings. The best of the holiday music nods to the downerness of the days. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is a case in point, with the bittersweet “Christmas Time is Here” offsetting more upbeat songs like “Hark, the Herald Angles Sing” and the classic piano rave-up “Linus and Lucy.”
Maybe the truism is right—we need some bad times to bring out our best. We have to face loss to experience the gifts of brotherhood and communal cheer.
In “Christmas Time is Here,” the kids on the recording sing: “Oh that we could always see such spirit through the year.”
That oft-repeated sentiment has a larger significance amid today’s recession. We can’t afford to lose the holiday spirit this year. We need collective hope and compassion and playfulness.
Can we do it, as Jean Robertson might ask? Can we create tidings of comfort and joy out of the current gloom? Even a Grattan kindergartener knows the answer: Yes we can.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Yes we can create tidings of comfort and joy
There’s a lot of losing going on this holiday season. Loss of wealth. Loss of jobs. Loss of life. I have little stories that go with those big ones. My retirement savings has cratered with everyone else’s. One of my best friends lost his job and I’m worried about losing mine as a business journalist. My grandmother-in-law died just before Thanksgiving, a relatively peaceful death but still a painful one.
Amid these losses, though, I’m finding myself gaining. Or perhaps better said, regaining. In recent weeks, hope and idealism that had quietly ebbed in me over the years washed back. I am feeling once again a fundamental faith that we can and must comfort each other. And an essay I read about the importance of teasing jolted me back to the deliciousness of romantic ribbing and led to a wiser take on playfulness.
These positive personal tales also fit into some bigger, public ones. For many of us, it seems, tis’ the season to be both melancholy and jolly.
***
My gift of newfound optimism has to do with the big O. The big win of the big O, really. Because if Barack Obama had lost Nov. 4, I would probably be feeling pessimistic big-time right about now.
Like some other liberals, in the days before the election, I was paranoid Obama’s lead in the polls would somehow disappear and our team would fail. This fear of faltering in the fourth quarter, in the clutch, runs deep in me. Not only have I failed to decisively win any organized sports championships in my life, but I hail from Buffalo. The city where the Buffalo Bills hold the dubious honor of being the only professional football team to make it to the Super Bowl championship four straight years only to lose each time.
I tried to compensate during this year’s election with effort. I made more than 500 phone calls from my home for Obama. I spent a Saturday with my friend Monique in Nevada, amid llama farms and lots of angry dogs, asking voters in the swing state to back Barack. The last days before Nov. 4, I campaigned for Obama at his downtown San Francisco headquarters. Many of my 11th-hour calls were to voters in Florida. The state I’d spent hours calling for the doomed Kerry campaign. Where the Dems came up short in 2000.
I secretly worried I was cursing Obama’s chances even as I dialed for voters.
But he won. And that win suddenly made concepts like hope and community and sacrifice real again, grippable—like the way Oprah Winfrey apparently just grabbed and held onto a stranger at the victory celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park. Obama really won. By a lot. Americans not only were willing to put a legacy of racism aside, but cast their lot for the man and the party saying “yes we can.”
A night or two after the election, I suddenly made the connection that Obama’s mantra is the same as the morning chant at my son’s elementary school. Grattan Principal Jean Robertson starts each day by assembling all the students on the playground, sharing announcements and then asking the kids, “What’d you come to school for today?” Students, teachers and parents answer, “To Learn.” And Jean shouts back, “Can you do it?” And about 350 voices belt out: “Yes we can!”
In the weeks since school began for my kindergartener, I’d appreciated the morning call and response as a nice, motivating ritual. But now I saw the richness of this every-day articulation of hope and determination, its elevation of a collective, ambitious philosophy. It dawned on me that the kids could have said “Yes I can.” The Grattan go-get-‘em pep talk was not just sweet but bordering on sacred.
Of course, Grattan isn’t perfect. My wife and I have already butted up against bureaucracy and questioned some of the school decisions. But something democratic and deeply hopeful is alive at this little school, which has attracted growing numbers of families in recent years. Grattan prides itself in part on the Grattan Way, a four-part code of respectfulness, responsibility, safety and kindness.
I now find myself having more faith in the good stuff going on at Grattan, and wanting to get more involved in it. The Grattan Way, after all, is my way too—ideals I’ve held since childhood and eventually shaped a political philosophy around.
***
That philosophy—pretty much a traditional liberalism—has taken a beating over the years. Like other liberals, I was stunned that the country could reelect George W. in 2004, even though he’d misled us into the Iraq war and botched that mission terribly.
Not only did I worry that Rove’s “permanent Republican majority” was a real possibility, but my own professional choices over the past two decades have distanced me from my college-era activist bent. Yes, I taught public high school in New York City for four years and interned at both The Nation and The Village Voice. But for the last 13 years I’ve been a journalist writing for the mainstream media or the business press.
That can be a noble pursuit, and I’m proud of a number of investigative articles that I’ve written—stories that may have reached a wider audience than if they’d appeared in a lefty publication.
Still, there’s been a cost to where I’ve hung my byline. It has to do with the “objectivity” demanded by the mainstream media. Despite writing probably upwards of 2,000 articles over the years, I can feel that my voice and--my passions--have been silenced some.
The sense of having been gradually quieted politically and professionally is partly why Obama’s win was such a satisfying present, such a poignant payoff. I kept crying in the wake of the victory. Tuesday night, I pumped my first and hissed out from clenched teeth “We fucking won Florida!”—but did it with my voice breaking. I teared up during the acceptance speech. I wept in the following days at stories of Obama breaking barriers. I choked up as I thought about my mother voting for Obama despite her pro-life position.
There was some serious grief being released here. A store of sadness I was barely conscious of, that I believe came from hope dying to some degree over the years.
The same surprisingly intense crying overtook me when I began dating my wife, and I recognized that I’d settled for a less-than-full level of happiness in my first marriage.
You see this overwhelm turn athletes to mush when they reach the top after a long journey. Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics was a seven foot-tall baby after winning the National Basketball Championship earlier this year, rocking and crying and shouting, “anything’s possible!”
Maybe it takes tears to clean off dusty but dearly help dreams—whether they be of a basketball title or a big love or a better world.
Because apart from making weepy, Obama’s win has awakened my political passions. I feel inspired to take on projects like creating a more just economy, tackling the violence and poverty of my own neighborhood, and staving off climate disaster.
I don’t think I’m alone. I’m sure most McCain voters aren’t nearly as pumped up as I am, but I suspect many agreed with McCain himself who said in his concession speech that Obama’s election says something great about America. And many McCain-Palin people may have been stirred when Obama called on all of us to get ready to pitch in during his acceptance speech.
In fact, even though Obama got less than 55 percent of the popular vote, a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll indicates that 79 percent of the public thinks he will do a good job as president.
Those who voted for Obama, meanwhile, feel shaken, not stirred, and in the best way possible. Election night, throngs of people in multiple American cities including San Francisco erupted in spontaneous street parties. My wife and I celebrated with champagne, leaning out our window to join in the cries of “woo hoo”, “yeah!” and a more primal “HAHHHH!”
Those yells weren’t just about relief, joy and silliness. On some level we were restating a serious resolve. We were shouting “Yes We Can.”
***
It’s tempting to call that phrase an empty slogan. A recent profile of leftist author Naomi Klein in the New Yorker quotes Klein along these lines, as she points to more conservative Obama stances on issues including war in Afghanistan.
But to minimize the motto ignores how powerful it is to highlight the social over the individual for a change. Talk about the change we need--virtually all the ills wrought by the Bush Administration stem from prizing the individual at the expense of the group. The cowboy foreign policy in Iraq. The you’re-on-your-own economic policies that widened the wealth gap and ignored the perils of unfettered markets. The disregard for future generations or the global community when it comes to the environment.
In fact, reconnecting with the basic idea of collective action is the only way we will get out of the economic crisis upon us. Consumers and businesses are reining in spending and retrenching in ways that may make sense for them individually, but are sending us as a whole into a self-perpetuating spiral of reduced demand and layoffs. It’s the recipe for another Depression.
Thankfully, though, we went through one of those already. And Americans appear to be remembering that people can solve problems together. A study published last year by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found “increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies.”
In other words, there seems to be a yes-we-can spirit in the air.
That spirit was reinforced for me recently in the realm of religion. I have been attending Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco for the past few months, and a sermon two Sundays ago by pastor Maggi Henderson reminded me of the spiritual, moral component of community. Henderson spoke about the prophet Isaiah’s words, “’Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.” We often think of comfort as a lack of pain, as in comfortable shoes, Henderson said. But, she said, there’s a more active, communal meaning: the idea that collectively we fortify each other.
Henderson’s sermon was another gift of the season. Her call for a kind of solidarity to transcend tough times gave me a greater appreciation of the well-worn holiday phrase: tidings of comfort and joy. The good news is that we’re stronger together.
***
But there’s more to the comfort-and-joy story. Part of what makes us happy is a little discomfort. I was reminded of this wisdom by a Dec. 7 New York Times essay by psychologist Dacher Keltner titled, “In Defense of Teasing.” It highlighted the way teasing—as opposed to bullying or humiliating—is a key component of pleasure and even human connection.
“Teasing is the stage for the drama of flirtation, where suitors provoke in order to look for the sure signs of enduring commitment.,’ Keltner wrote. “…Studies find that married couples with a rich vocabulary of teasing nicknames and formulaic insults are happier and more satisfied.”
The essay struck me partly because it reminded me of some delightful give-and-take from an old romance. My old girlfriend Marlene once called me “scrawny”, and I think I responded by calling her “skinny” and a chase ensued. The jabs had points—I am a slender dude and she had rail-thin legs. But given the affectionate way we spoke those words, the put-downs acted as cupid arrows. The thrill of that exchange is partly why I still get nostalgic about her.
My first wife Kay called me “scrappy” based on the way I played basketball. It was an affirming description, but it symbolized the way our relationship could err on the side of seriousness. Kay has a clever, dry sense of humor. But our preoccupation with taking care of each other meant mischievousness often went missing.
I recaptured a sense of delight with my wife Rowena. When I met her nearly nine years ago, she struck me as a perfect balance of Marlene’s extreme romanticism and Kay’s anti-romantic realism. We also share a playfulness around movement, a hungry curiosity about the world and a sense of wonder about our two kids.
But we haven’t found a groove when it comes to romantic teasing. Often we feel sensitive to each other’s digs. Or maybe we haven’t found a way to deliver them in the right way. Rowena’s got a sarcastic, sometimes raunchy sense of humor. She shared this style with her first husband, though the common ground didn’t ultimately keep them close.
Rowena thinks our senses of humor may never click exactly. She may be right, but I’m not willing to give up yet. I at least can thicken my skin and lighten up more. I’ve long had a “safety first” mantra which can drive my kids batty during rough-housing and get in my own way of having fun. My buddy Joel once called me his “earnest” friend. I cringe a little at the description, which was spot on. Too much safety and seriousness veers into the dull and somber.
***
So I’m grateful to Keltner for refreshing my memory that relationships can be deepened by both heartfelt hugs and light-hearted zingers. But his words offer a still larger contribution. As a society, we should be concerned about going too far when it comes to comforting our brothers and sisters. By seeking a pain-free society, we may create a sterile one.
Economically speaking, I think you can see risk-taking as roughly analogous to a kind of societal teasing. A new business venture amounts to a challenge to established firms. During the past decade, such economic “teasing” was taken to the level of “tricks”. Unscrupulous lenders pushed mortgages on consumers with payments destined to mushroom to unaffordable levels. Largely unregulated financial services firms peddled new, little understood investment products that depended on a housing market bubble.
All the dubious activity enriched a few, but led to an unstable financial system that has required billions in public bail outs and helped send the economy into a deepening recession.
To go to far in the other direction though—to banish risk altogether—would result in an economic system that’s likely to be not only less prosperous but even dull. Through entrepreneurial or investment risk, an individual sticks his neck out from the group, in a sense mocking the more powerful or status quo as inadequate. My friend Art recently observed that the U.S. is the most fascinating country to watch with its booms and busts—we should retain something of that dynamic story.
Preserving a degree of public playfulness is about more than just the economy. There’s been concern that jokes cannot be told about Obama, who can come across as a serious dude. Even amid our crises, we ought not to take ourselves too seriously. It may be more important than ever to be able to laugh. In the hard road ahead, laughter will be a rare luxury.
***
It’s fitting that the economic crisis is coming to a head of sorts in winter. The season of darkness, when we lose light, lose the life of plants, lose the comfort of warmer weather. The holiday rituals are an elaborate effort—not always successful—to pick up our spirits with lights and social gatherings. The best of the holiday music nods to the downerness of the days. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is a case in point, with the bittersweet “Christmas Time is Here” offsetting more upbeat songs like “Hark, the Herald Angles Sing” and the classic piano rave-up “Linus and Lucy.”
Maybe the truism is right—we need some bad times to bring out our best. We have to face loss to experience the gifts of brotherhood and communal cheer.
In “Christmas Time is Here,” the kids on the recording sing: “Oh that we could always see such spirit through the year.”
That oft-repeated sentiment has a larger significance amid today’s recession. We can’t afford to lose the holiday spirit this year. We need collective hope and compassion and playfulness.
Can we do it, as Jean Robertson might ask? Can we create tidings of comfort and joy out of the current gloom? Even a Grattan kindergartener knows the answer: Yes we can.
Amid these losses, though, I’m finding myself gaining. Or perhaps better said, regaining. In recent weeks, hope and idealism that had quietly ebbed in me over the years washed back. I am feeling once again a fundamental faith that we can and must comfort each other. And an essay I read about the importance of teasing jolted me back to the deliciousness of romantic ribbing and led to a wiser take on playfulness.
These positive personal tales also fit into some bigger, public ones. For many of us, it seems, tis’ the season to be both melancholy and jolly.
***
My gift of newfound optimism has to do with the big O. The big win of the big O, really. Because if Barack Obama had lost Nov. 4, I would probably be feeling pessimistic big-time right about now.
Like some other liberals, in the days before the election, I was paranoid Obama’s lead in the polls would somehow disappear and our team would fail. This fear of faltering in the fourth quarter, in the clutch, runs deep in me. Not only have I failed to decisively win any organized sports championships in my life, but I hail from Buffalo. The city where the Buffalo Bills hold the dubious honor of being the only professional football team to make it to the Super Bowl championship four straight years only to lose each time.
I tried to compensate during this year’s election with effort. I made more than 500 phone calls from my home for Obama. I spent a Saturday with my friend Monique in Nevada, amid llama farms and lots of angry dogs, asking voters in the swing state to back Barack. The last days before Nov. 4, I campaigned for Obama at his downtown San Francisco headquarters. Many of my 11th-hour calls were to voters in Florida. The state I’d spent hours calling for the doomed Kerry campaign. Where the Dems came up short in 2000.
I secretly worried I was cursing Obama’s chances even as I dialed for voters.
But he won. And that win suddenly made concepts like hope and community and sacrifice real again, grippable—like the way Oprah Winfrey apparently just grabbed and held onto a stranger at the victory celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park. Obama really won. By a lot. Americans not only were willing to put a legacy of racism aside, but cast their lot for the man and the party saying “yes we can.”
A night or two after the election, I suddenly made the connection that Obama’s mantra is the same as the morning chant at my son’s elementary school. Grattan Principal Jean Robertson starts each day by assembling all the students on the playground, sharing announcements and then asking the kids, “What’d you come to school for today?” Students, teachers and parents answer, “To Learn.” And Jean shouts back, “Can you do it?” And about 350 voices belt out: “Yes we can!”
In the weeks since school began for my kindergartener, I’d appreciated the morning call and response as a nice, motivating ritual. But now I saw the richness of this every-day articulation of hope and determination, its elevation of a collective, ambitious philosophy. It dawned on me that the kids could have said “Yes I can.” The Grattan go-get-‘em pep talk was not just sweet but bordering on sacred.
Of course, Grattan isn’t perfect. My wife and I have already butted up against bureaucracy and questioned some of the school decisions. But something democratic and deeply hopeful is alive at this little school, which has attracted growing numbers of families in recent years. Grattan prides itself in part on the Grattan Way, a four-part code of respectfulness, responsibility, safety and kindness.
I now find myself having more faith in the good stuff going on at Grattan, and wanting to get more involved in it. The Grattan Way, after all, is my way too—ideals I’ve held since childhood and eventually shaped a political philosophy around.
***
That philosophy—pretty much a traditional liberalism—has taken a beating over the years. Like other liberals, I was stunned that the country could reelect George W. in 2004, even though he’d misled us into the Iraq war and botched that mission terribly.
Not only did I worry that Rove’s “permanent Republican majority” was a real possibility, but my own professional choices over the past two decades have distanced me from my college-era activist bent. Yes, I taught public high school in New York City for four years and interned at both The Nation and The Village Voice. But for the last 13 years I’ve been a journalist writing for the mainstream media or the business press.
That can be a noble pursuit, and I’m proud of a number of investigative articles that I’ve written—stories that may have reached a wider audience than if they’d appeared in a lefty publication.
Still, there’s been a cost to where I’ve hung my byline. It has to do with the “objectivity” demanded by the mainstream media. Despite writing probably upwards of 2,000 articles over the years, I can feel that my voice and--my passions--have been silenced some.
The sense of having been gradually quieted politically and professionally is partly why Obama’s win was such a satisfying present, such a poignant payoff. I kept crying in the wake of the victory. Tuesday night, I pumped my first and hissed out from clenched teeth “We fucking won Florida!”—but did it with my voice breaking. I teared up during the acceptance speech. I wept in the following days at stories of Obama breaking barriers. I choked up as I thought about my mother voting for Obama despite her pro-life position.
There was some serious grief being released here. A store of sadness I was barely conscious of, that I believe came from hope dying to some degree over the years.
The same surprisingly intense crying overtook me when I began dating my wife, and I recognized that I’d settled for a less-than-full level of happiness in my first marriage.
You see this overwhelm turn athletes to mush when they reach the top after a long journey. Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics was a seven foot-tall baby after winning the National Basketball Championship earlier this year, rocking and crying and shouting, “anything’s possible!”
Maybe it takes tears to clean off dusty but dearly help dreams—whether they be of a basketball title or a big love or a better world.
Because apart from making weepy, Obama’s win has awakened my political passions. I feel inspired to take on projects like creating a more just economy, tackling the violence and poverty of my own neighborhood, and staving off climate disaster.
I don’t think I’m alone. I’m sure most McCain voters aren’t nearly as pumped up as I am, but I suspect many agreed with McCain himself who said in his concession speech that Obama’s election says something great about America. And many McCain-Palin people may have been stirred when Obama called on all of us to get ready to pitch in during his acceptance speech.
In fact, even though Obama got less than 55 percent of the popular vote, a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll indicates that 79 percent of the public thinks he will do a good job as president.
Those who voted for Obama, meanwhile, feel shaken, not stirred, and in the best way possible. Election night, throngs of people in multiple American cities including San Francisco erupted in spontaneous street parties. My wife and I celebrated with champagne, leaning out our window to join in the cries of “woo hoo”, “yeah!” and a more primal “HAHHHH!”
Those yells weren’t just about relief, joy and silliness. On some level we were restating a serious resolve. We were shouting “Yes We Can.”
***
It’s tempting to call that phrase an empty slogan. A recent profile of leftist author Naomi Klein in the New Yorker quotes Klein along these lines, as she points to more conservative Obama stances on issues including war in Afghanistan.
But to minimize the motto ignores how powerful it is to highlight the social over the individual for a change. Talk about the change we need--virtually all the ills wrought by the Bush Administration stem from prizing the individual at the expense of the group. The cowboy foreign policy in Iraq. The you’re-on-your-own economic policies that widened the wealth gap and ignored the perils of unfettered markets. The disregard for future generations or the global community when it comes to the environment.
In fact, reconnecting with the basic idea of collective action is the only way we will get out of the economic crisis upon us. Consumers and businesses are reining in spending and retrenching in ways that may make sense for them individually, but are sending us as a whole into a self-perpetuating spiral of reduced demand and layoffs. It’s the recipe for another Depression.
Thankfully, though, we went through one of those already. And Americans appear to be remembering that people can solve problems together. A study published last year by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found “increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies.”
In other words, there seems to be a yes-we-can spirit in the air.
That spirit was reinforced for me recently in the realm of religion. I have been attending Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco for the past few months, and a sermon two Sundays ago by pastor Maggi Henderson reminded me of the spiritual, moral component of community. Henderson spoke about the prophet Isaiah’s words, “’Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.” We often think of comfort as a lack of pain, as in comfortable shoes, Henderson said. But, she said, there’s a more active, communal meaning: the idea that collectively we fortify each other.
Henderson’s sermon was another gift of the season. Her call for a kind of solidarity to transcend tough times gave me a greater appreciation of the well-worn holiday phrase: tidings of comfort and joy. The good news is that we’re stronger together.
***
But there’s more to the comfort-and-joy story. Part of what makes us happy is a little discomfort. I was reminded of this wisdom by a Dec. 7 New York Times essay by psychologist Dacher Keltner titled, “In Defense of Teasing.” It highlighted the way teasing—as opposed to bullying or humiliating—is a key component of pleasure and even human connection.
“Teasing is the stage for the drama of flirtation, where suitors provoke in order to look for the sure signs of enduring commitment.,’ Keltner wrote. “…Studies find that married couples with a rich vocabulary of teasing nicknames and formulaic insults are happier and more satisfied.”
The essay struck me partly because it reminded me of some delightful give-and-take from an old romance. My old girlfriend Marlene once called me “scrawny”, and I think I responded by calling her “skinny” and a chase ensued. The jabs had points—I am a slender dude and she had rail-thin legs. But given the affectionate way we spoke those words, the put-downs acted as cupid arrows. The thrill of that exchange is partly why I still get nostalgic about her.
My first wife Kay called me “scrappy” based on the way I played basketball. It was an affirming description, but it symbolized the way our relationship could err on the side of seriousness. Kay has a clever, dry sense of humor. But our preoccupation with taking care of each other meant mischievousness often went missing.
I recaptured a sense of delight with my wife Rowena. When I met her nearly nine years ago, she struck me as a perfect balance of Marlene’s extreme romanticism and Kay’s anti-romantic realism. We also share a playfulness around movement, a hungry curiosity about the world and a sense of wonder about our two kids.
But we haven’t found a groove when it comes to romantic teasing. Often we feel sensitive to each other’s digs. Or maybe we haven’t found a way to deliver them in the right way. Rowena’s got a sarcastic, sometimes raunchy sense of humor. She shared this style with her first husband, though the common ground didn’t ultimately keep them close.
Rowena thinks our senses of humor may never click exactly. She may be right, but I’m not willing to give up yet. I at least can thicken my skin and lighten up more. I’ve long had a “safety first” mantra which can drive my kids batty during rough-housing and get in my own way of having fun. My buddy Joel once called me his “earnest” friend. I cringe a little at the description, which was spot on. Too much safety and seriousness veers into the dull and somber.
***
So I’m grateful to Keltner for refreshing my memory that relationships can be deepened by both heartfelt hugs and light-hearted zingers. But his words offer a still larger contribution. As a society, we should be concerned about going too far when it comes to comforting our brothers and sisters. By seeking a pain-free society, we may create a sterile one.
Economically speaking, I think you can see risk-taking as roughly analogous to a kind of societal teasing. A new business venture amounts to a challenge to established firms. During the past decade, such economic “teasing” was taken to the level of “tricks”. Unscrupulous lenders pushed mortgages on consumers with payments destined to mushroom to unaffordable levels. Largely unregulated financial services firms peddled new, little understood investment products that depended on a housing market bubble.
All the dubious activity enriched a few, but led to an unstable financial system that has required billions in public bail outs and helped send the economy into a deepening recession.
To go to far in the other direction though—to banish risk altogether—would result in an economic system that’s likely to be not only less prosperous but even dull. Through entrepreneurial or investment risk, an individual sticks his neck out from the group, in a sense mocking the more powerful or status quo as inadequate. My friend Art recently observed that the U.S. is the most fascinating country to watch with its booms and busts—we should retain something of that dynamic story.
Preserving a degree of public playfulness is about more than just the economy. There’s been concern that jokes cannot be told about Obama, who can come across as a serious dude. Even amid our crises, we ought not to take ourselves too seriously. It may be more important than ever to be able to laugh. In the hard road ahead, laughter will be a rare luxury.
***
It’s fitting that the economic crisis is coming to a head of sorts in winter. The season of darkness, when we lose light, lose the life of plants, lose the comfort of warmer weather. The holiday rituals are an elaborate effort—not always successful—to pick up our spirits with lights and social gatherings. The best of the holiday music nods to the downerness of the days. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is a case in point, with the bittersweet “Christmas Time is Here” offsetting more upbeat songs like “Hark, the Herald Angles Sing” and the classic piano rave-up “Linus and Lucy.”
Maybe the truism is right—we need some bad times to bring out our best. We have to face loss to experience the gifts of brotherhood and communal cheer.
In “Christmas Time is Here,” the kids on the recording sing: “Oh that we could always see such spirit through the year.”
That oft-repeated sentiment has a larger significance amid today’s recession. We can’t afford to lose the holiday spirit this year. We need collective hope and compassion and playfulness.
Can we do it, as Jean Robertson might ask? Can we create tidings of comfort and joy out of the current gloom? Even a Grattan kindergartener knows the answer: Yes we can.
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