Typically on Sunday mornings my husband and I share articles from the New York Times. He’ll often read me pieces while I prepare breakfast or vice versa, and we’ll discuss the ones that pique our interest. The year-end edition of the Sunday Magazine runs detailed obituaries on a handful of famous and infamous people who died that year. Though many are well-known — actors, x-presidents, and the like, some are more obscure, but they all share one thing in common. They all had [at least] 15 minutes of fame.
I began to feel increasingly irritated as my husband read the list of obits this morning. My mom, who died earlier this year, will never be in The Times. Where was the balance with the everyday hero — the dad who worked his life to support his family, or the career woman who slated her ambitions to be a mom? The nurse who stayed through the worst of Covid? The teacher that ignited your passion for your chosen career? The rideshare driver that played therapist to his passengers? Their stories are equally important as some one-hit wonder or marginal actor.
Even the most common among us had lives that mattered, that touched many, and their stories deserve to be told.
On my mother’s death bed she asked me “Did I make a difference?” She stared at me with sunken eyes, her skeletal face practically begging me for an affirmative answer. And I gave her one. And, of course, it was true. She was my mom. She made a difference to me.
She turned me on to love, color, beauty, nature, music, art. She would often point out a vibrant flower, stop everything to view a sunset, and be truly awestruck by its magnificence. My mom was childlike in many ways, always curious, and loved learning. She genuinely liked people. She was open to most all ideas as long as they weren’t filled with hate, or born of ignorance.
My mother was a humanitarian, and without prejudice, and she taught me to respect all things equally.
She was a wife for nearly 50 years. My father used to call her his ‘sunshine.’ Laughter and joy came easily to her. They danced beautifully together. He’d glide her across any dance floor in perfect sync, though he was 6’3″ and 230 pds, and she a mere 5′ and slight. She sang all the time and had a beautiful voice, often carrying the harmony that blended perfectly with my father’s melody.
My mom was a passionate and devoted teacher. She created an ocean science program through the Cabrillo Marine Museum she taught to underprivileged kids that is still active today. I’ve had the privilege of meeting several of her students while with my mom in the market or mall. They’d stop her in the aisle and tout her praises, often claimed they became oceanographers and biologists because of her influence. She loved kids. They were uncomplicated — what she pretended to be, even wanted to be, but wasn’t.
I sat cross-legged next to her lying on her death bed trying to exude the love I felt for this woman, my mother. But as I ran through her list of accomplishments, her expression became darker and sadder, and my “turn that frown upside down” mom started to cry. She wanted to give so much more. She had so much more to give, but she realized, lying helpless in bed and gasping for every breath, her time had run out.
Two weeks later I stood over her grave and refused the dirt-filled shovel the Rabbi handed to me. I knelt and scooped a handful of moist, sweet earth from the freshly dug ground, smelled its musty richness, and then let it fall off my hand and run through my fingers as I released it onto her casket. And then I silently thanked her for teaching me to recognize natural beauty and engage with it at every opportunity.
My mom died of cancer at 73. Over 100 people attended her funeral. Another hundred or more have contacted our family since her death to give their condolences — lives she touched, who will touch the lives of others, and so on.
Andy Warhol was wrong. Most of us live and die in obscurity.
But we make a difference.
Please, feel free to share a story of someone who has passed that mattered to YOU, in Comments below…
My mother was a born-again Jew — her response to my brother’s conversion to Christianity, and my unwavering commitment to Atheism. In her continual effort to have me marry a Jewish man, towards the end of my vagabond years in the late 1980s, she suggested I go see Israel. She said it was the most beautiful place on earth, an oasis Jews had turned from desert wasteland into paradise. She had taken the guided Hilton Tour. My mother never really saw Israel.
The moment I got off the plane I knew it wasn’t the place my mother had claimed it to be. Bullet holes riddled the walls of Ben Yehuda airport, which had plaques commemorating this or that war or terrorist attack. I had traveled much of the developed world by then but had never seen anything like this. Military men and women, some no older than teens were armed with Uzi’s; grenades hung off breast belts lined with bullets. The public bus was packed with soldiers on the ride to Tel Aviv. The French girl sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, “Are those guns real?” Clearly, even she thought it odd.
I rented a flat in the heart of the city for a couple of months and used it as a base to travel from. Using public transport and walking, I spent hours on buses and in cafes watching, listening, and talking to locals. A lone female traveler, I was often invited to join diners, and occasionally even into people’s homes to partake in authentic meals and enlightening conversations. Most everyone spoke English, and after a while I began to glean a hazy understanding of the conflict between the Israelis, Palestinians, and the surrounding Arab nations. However, it wasn’t until my last full day exploring Israel and Egypt that a strange encounter with an Arab man brought into sharp focus the plight of the Middle East.
Two months in Israel, and the day before flying home, I took a bus north to visit the beach town of Nahariya. I felt him staring at me from where he sat a few rows back. He was likely in his 20’s with striking green eyes, swarthy, handsome. He was dressed in jeans and a Hard Rock Café t-shirt, but wore a keffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress with a double black cord headband crowning the white cloth over his head and cascading over his broad shoulders and down his back. The intensity of his gaze unnerved me. I assumed he was on his way to Lebanon, the West Bank, or maybe Jordan, but when the bus finally got to Nahariya, he got off right after I did. And I got scared.
I tried to convince myself he wasn’t following me. I window-shopped and then got some lunch in a very public café. I saw him meandering around town, often stopping to chat with small groups of men, most dressed in mid-calf robes and head garbs, but almost every time I caught sight of him he looked over at me. Eventually, he went into a shop and I ran across the street and tried to disappear into some woods.
The low pine forest was only a few hundred meters thick. The blue/green Mediterranean glimmered beyond the trees. When I finally sat down on a log at the edge of the forest I was sure I’d lost him. I dug my toes into the warm sand and looked out at the dazzling sea. The deserted beach was silent. Then I heard twigs breaking underfoot behind me.
I stood and spun back towards the forest as the Arab man came out of the woods a few yards from me. I’m screwed, I thought, pretty sure I was about to get raped on that empty, isolated beach. The thought of running seemed absurd. He could have caught me in a flat second. I tried to make myself as tall as possible. Then I looked him straight in the eye and said in my harshest tone, “What the fuck do you want?” Cussing, speaking before spoken to, and looking a man in the eyes are things I’d been told Islamic women do not do.
He stared at me, startled, but didn’t respond. He probably didn’t speak English. And I didn’t speak anything but.
“Leave! Or I will.” I pointed back through the forest. He didn’t move so I started to walk away. I was scared out of my mind.
“Please don’t go.” He spoke softly, his voice deep and throaty. “You’re an American, right? I just want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“I’ve just come back from the States.” His accent was English, but richer, more sultry. “I was two years in Boston, at university there for my MBA. I’ve been back here three weeks now, and I am missing the hell out of good conversation.” He smiled then, his thick ruby lips curved into a gentle smile.
I don’t know if it was his tone, his easy manner, or his striking green eyes that made me stay. He kept distance between us, and slowly sat cross-legged on the sand in the spot where he’d been standing. Curiosity overrode every other feeling. I’d never spoken at length with an Arab. An opportunity to speak freely without the prying eyes of others could be educational, to say the least.
“I live here in Israel now,” he said. “I’m originally from Jordan, but in my heart, I’m a traveler, an explorer of places and people. What about you? Where are you from?”
“Los Angeles. Hollywood,” I clarified since many outside of the States had no clue where L.A. was, but everyone knew Hollywood.
A huge white smile spread across his chiseled face. “Ah. Movie stars and Disneyland.” He pushed back his keffiyeh and locks of thick, dark wavy hair peeked out from under the white cloth. “I’m Hashim.” He brought his hand to his chest and bowed his head slightly then smiled that great smile again.
I introduced myself, shared why I’d come, and that I’d be going home in the morning.
He asked me about places I’d visited on my trip, and what I thought of them.
I told him I’d traveled most of Israel, and explored Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt. I did not give him an assessment of my impressions along the way, instead turning the tables, I asked him some questions. The conversation spun from there, unraveling like a well-worn sweater, venturing down the road of trust, slowly revealing ourselves.
He’d recently graduated from Harvard, not just for the prestigious degree, and the connections to society’s elite, but also to study Western culture. He’d returned home to take his place beside his father, a wealthy statesman of some note.
“My father insists it’s business as usual — finance the current regime and whoever replaces it. But I cannot support tyrannical militant extremists and sleep at night.” It was going to be his job to advise on how best to “work with infidels,” meaning anyone who isn’t Muslim, according to Dad, and the rhetoric of many of their religious leaders.
A strange mix of anger and fear welled inside me. “I’ve never considered myself an infidel as an American citizen. I thought that title was meant for Israelis, or Jews in general.”
He flashed a smile, but not like he thought it was funny. “My father means a non-believer. We have the word Kaffir to describe the sinister kind of infidel, like political authorities controlled by the wealthy.”
“Just like we have. We call them lobbyists. Big business runs the politics of the U.S.” I said and frowned at him.
“The mean, the masses, societies in general always seem to devolve to the power-hungry — the few who wish to control the many.” He frowned back, and shook his head. “Islam had a Golden Age once, way back in the 8th Century, for almost 500 years, where advances in science, mathematics, the arts, all flourished.”
“So, what happened?”
“Some scholars claim that a thriving society breeds complacency, but I think that’s bullshit.” He grinned at me, like he cussed with the purpose of ‘speaking my language.’
“What do you think?”
“That a power-hungry ruling class implemented strict laws that made the masses angry, which created enough instability for the Mongols to invade and take over.”
“Kind of like what’s happening with the Palestinians and Israel right now?” I wasn’t trying to be confrontational. It was in the middle of the First Intifada then, when Palestinians protested peacefully and violently to end Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza. I was to find out later, it was also when Shaikh Ahmed Yassin created Hamas.
He eyed me critically, like he was trying to read me, or teach me. “Yes. In 1947 the new United Nations gave Jews coastlines, seaports and agricultural lands around major cities where the majority of the populations were Palestinian Arabs. The Partition Plan, the UN called it, took over half of Palestine to create Israel. The Palestinians, controlled by the British at the time, rejected the Plan. It happened anyway, forcing Palestinians to the West Bank and Gaza. Until 1967, and the Six-Day War, when Israel began occupying the remainder of Palestine.”
“Sounds like what we did to the Native Americans.”
“It’s similar. Yes.” He frowned again. “Now, over 20 years of Israeli rule restricting trade and emigration has increased material and production costs, and in turn has decimated their economy. Unemployment, poverty, disparity of wealth generated political infighting. The continued growth of Jewish settlements is taking the little land and vital natural resources they have left.”
“Then you support the Palestinian protests, regardless of the loss of lives?” It was on par with asking him, ‘Have you stopped beating your wife yet?’ but I felt angry that he called out Israel alone. The party line in my family and the States had always been supportive of Israel. I’d heard countless stories of the continual barrage of terrorist attacks from Palestinian and Arab fanatics going back to the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. I knew of the Six-Day War over the Suez Canal which led to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
“No. I do not support religious zealots or terrorists becoming the face of the Muslim faith.” His crystalline-green eyes filled with certainty. “But like our forefathers during the Golden Age, restrictive laws lead to economic stagnation and disparity, which fuels unrest and anger.”
“So does terrorism, or even supporting terrorists. Israel may respond aggressively when they’re attacked, but you hurt me, or someone I care about, and I want to hurt you back. It’s human nature.”
“Yes. It is. And acts of violence breeds more violence. Unquestionably. But retribution and reprisal as a response to zealots and terrorists only exacerbates anger, and instead of learning to cooperate — invent, create together — the cycle of hate and violence continues.”
The sun set as we spoke, and murky twilight cooled the day’s heat. Profound sadness filled the space between us.
Again, he shook his head. He’d become a humanist in the States, he told me, an agnostic once he’d escaped the fundamentalist environment he was raised. “How do I stay here and marry into an alliance and faith I no longer believe in? How do I raise my kids to rise above the ignorance and religious rhetoric that surrounds them here? Reason, sanity, our humanity is abandoned when fanatics will sacrifice our children, or raise them to hate, and the killing never ends.” He sighed heavily, his despair visceral.
I sat in the sand, against the log, not three feet from him, tears streaming down my face. I had no idea what to say. I was there because of my fanatical mother. She blindly believed Jews had eminent domain to Israel, had single-handedly turned a desert into a flourishing country, and chose to see only the beauty there.
“When we are on the precipice of disaster, people can and do change,” I said to him softly. “If the only sustainable path forward for our continued existence is cooperation and integration, we will get there.” I shut up then. Platitudes at best. I sounded like my Pollyanna mother. I had no idea if change was possible with political divisions and religious talons buried so deeply into the psyche of so many.
We left the beach a short while later, as it was getting dark. We both had buses to catch to take us home. He told me to leave first, walk back without him, as it wasn’t safe to be seen together. “An Arab prince alone with a White Western woman in public isn’t proper. Yet,” he said with a wink.
I knew I’d never see him or talk to him again, and I was surprised by the stab of regret as I stood to leave the beach. Only a few hours in his company, and I felt certain I could love this man. Without embracing or even a parting cheek-to-cheek kiss we said goodbye, and I ventured into the small pine forest towards town.
Unfamiliar with infatuation, I had the painfully empty sensation of missing him on the bus ride back to Tel Aviv, and still the next day on the plane home. He’d given me a view into the plight of the Palestinians, and a deeper understanding of their struggle with Israel, and ultimately the world against fundamentalist who seek to control instead of cooperate. I thought of him often in the years that followed, the memory of our interaction always evoking a profound sense of hope, knowing he was out there, personifying the best of us, the embodiment of a step forward towards our continued evolution.
Electricity is shooting from my fingertips. My heart is racing. My breathing fast, too fast.
“I can’t understand your accent. I’d like to talk with a supervisor, NOW!” My fifth ask.
I’m on the phone with COMCAST, have been for the last 2 hrs today; 3 hrs on Tuesday, 2 more last Friday…etc.
“I sody mem for the inconvenents,” the COMCAST operator delivers his line politely, though I’m yelling at him.
I’m yelling at him because he’s the 17th Indian employee, talking to me from India, I’ve spoken with in the last year alone, and I’ve been trying to get my internet connection stabilize, i.e. consistently ON for FOUR YEARS NOW.
“I here do help you, mem. Wvat is you account numba?” He’s lying. He doesn’t want to help me. He wants me on the line so he has a job tomorrow, because he wants to feed his family. So do Americans, but he doesn’t care about that either.
“I want to speak with a supervisor NOW, dickhead. Do you fucking understand me?” I’m getting mean. I’ve learned not to care about him, as he doesn’t care about me, or even the problem I’m having with COMCAST. He does not deserve my respect. Past experience with COMCAST customer service has taught me that he is the enemy, making sure he takes care of himself, regardless that he’s screwing the very people he’s supposed to be working for—the COMCASTcustomer.
Germans drove trains, turned in their neighbors, sent millions to slave labor and gas chambers to protect their own asses. They didn’t stand up to Nazis (AMAZON, MICROSOFT, COMCAST, PG&E, VERIZON…etc). They let the German government tell them what to do, how to think, what to say, what not to, just like COMCAST teaches their employees, Indian or otherwise.
It is insanity that COMCAST delivers HALF THE SERVICE they claim to offer, but I have to pay ALL OF MY BILL monthly. Sure, I can go with AT&T, who were just fined $18.25M for STEALING FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS, cutting internet speeds to you and me, to give more bandwidth to whoever they liked. And do you REALLY believe that AT&T will stop stealing time and hurting productivity for small businesses like yours and mine after this fine? Seriously. They’ll do what they want, get sued again, then raise their rates to pay for the lawsuits. Just like PG&E, who MURDERED 8 people in San Bruno, destroyed an entire neighborhood, was fined the most EVER in a lawsuit of its kind, and simply raised their rates to cover the suit. We’re all paying to let them get away with murder.
Is this the society you all want? It makes my skin crawl every time my husband insists on paying a bill that is wrong because COMCAST and AT&T make it a 2 hr journey of frustration to talk to an operator in India or the Philippines who has little to no training, can barely speak English, and who DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR PROBLEM. They have to feed their families, on the backs of Americans, because their governments are so corrupt that only the wealthy thrive, while the rest of their people struggle to get by. Or flat out starve, like the begging children that surround foreigners in India.
Well, now our government is equally corrupt, placating to CORPORATIONS and big business lobbyists. And WE ALL LET THEM.
My father-in-law spent between the ages of 13-18 in Auschwitz after watching his entire family murdered by Nazis. His neighbors, their kids that he used to play soccer with, all turned a blind eye. AMERICANS ARE NOW DOING THE SAME THING. We’ve become complacent, as long as we have Netflix, and Amazon, and Uber for food delivery. He told me once that anything becomes acceptable to most people, that watching Nazis murder children daily, for sport, or seeing prisoners throw themselves against electric fences to commit suicide became the norm in Auschwitz. It is now the norm to accept bad behavior from big business. And regardless of our Supreme Courts twisted decision that “Corporations are people, too,” there are actual people working for them, greedy management making decisions that screw their customers, that are at the core of this issue.
The German train drivers, or the local store owners that stopped serving Jews and Gays and Gypsies, they were simply “following orders,” like the Indian rep working for COMCAST delivering the company’s lies with every line he spoke.
Those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it.
You can all plug into your devices and apps and ignore the news, and pretend the economy is stable for you, even though it’s a house of cards with Disney and other major employers firing U.S. workers and replacing them with H1Bs, and just bend over and pay every bill without protest. You can choose to be one of the Nazis, or the ‘good Germans’ who turned their heads while their neighbors were murdered.
Harsh? You bet. But again, is a society where the few rich thrive, and do whatever they want, whenever they want, with NO ACCOUNTABILITY, or real punishment, where you want to live?
DO THE RIGHT THING!!
Protest—tweet, update, share your stories when you are screwed by COMCAST, AT&T, PG&E. Take the time to tell the world that SAMSUNG put a ton of apps on the phone you just purchased that you don’t use, don’t want, and YOU ARE PAYING FOR in load time and battery life, while they exploit your personal data with recommendation engines to use against you. Sign petitions by people who give a shit enough to fight corruption and are looking for support to stop it, and not just causes that adversely effect you directly, but humanity, and the planet. Fight every bill that’s wrong. Don’t speak with respect to the CS reps who show you none! Their politeness is a facade, taught to them by greedy, ugly management who are happy to keep you on the line repeating the same information to the next rep who doesn’t take notes, maybe is even illiterate, and has no clue what your issue is.
Show your outrage passionately!! Make their job hard, because they are willingly stealing your time, and your income, and most assuredly making you miserable not caring about your needs to guarantee their jobs. And if you think these reps are not aware of what is happening on the back end, that’s BULLSHIT—an excuse to remain ignorant, especially since almost every call they get is from beleaguered customers like me who take them to task on COMCAST FAILING TO DELIVER on their promises. If you make it miserable to work at COMCAST, perhaps they’ll look for real jobs that require thinking, literacy, and actually add value—benefit customers—instead of blindly obeying the Nazi leadership of the COMCAST (or pick your fav corp) regime.
When I say I’m an atheist, the very next question most people ask is: “Well, what were you raised? What were your parents?”
Human beings.
Somehow that answer isn’t good enough. They’re looking to place me in a spiritual box and lock me into a religion and all the stereotypes that go along with it.
All my life I’ve been told I’m a Jew — by my parents, by my relatives, by society at large, simply because my parents professed to be Jews. But if I don’t believe in god, or any supreme being, or even higher power; if entropy is what rules my universe, then am I still Jewish?
Jew’s believe in one god.
I believe in none.
Some would argue I am culturally Jewish, a product of my parentage. But it’s ludicrous I’m considered Jewish solely because my parents were (and technically just my mother need be, according to Jewish law). Let’s get one thing straight. Judaism is NOT a race. It is practiced globally, from members of our Supreme Court to jungle tribes in Africa that pray to one God with ancient Hebrew texts. The thread that holds them together is not racial, or even cultural, but spiritual — a belief system. There are no cultural similarities between the African tribes and our former or current Chief Justices. Take away the religious string and there’s really nothing left of their Judaism.
I adhere to no religion, don’t celebrate any religious holidays, and believe passing down to our children fantastical mythologies that promote intellectual laziness is dangerous at best. Growing up, my family celebrated the major Jewish holidays, though I never cared for the antiquated rituals and sexist roles we all played. Jewish parables were too often warped tales filled with praising their solipsistic god instead of people for their hard-earned achievements. I don’t like brisket, noodle koogle, or most deli foods. And as holidays go, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving always meant the most to me culturally, and the food is far better.
If I’m culturally anything, it’s white, middle-class, American. Like most of us, I grew up with people of my socioeconomic status. I was raised in a relatively safe, suburban neighborhood — religiously, even racially diverse, but everyone made around the same amount of money. More fine grain, I’m culturally a native Californian. We have a whole other way of thinking out here than the rest of the world. Level of intelligence would be my third greatest cultural influence. I find I gravitate to thinkers — those who explore and question.
So how does this make me a Jew?
Liking bagels, or preferring salmon to ham, doesn’t define one culturally. Nor does espousing the virtues of education, or denouncing violence, or promoting empathy. These ideologies are widely held by most of our modern age. I’m not a Taoist because I believe in living a balanced life. And I’m not a Christian because I think Christ, or likely his myth, had a lot of charitable ideas.
What does it mean to say you are Jewish, or Christian, or Mormon, if you don’t embrace their belief system? If you were raised Christian and you didn’t believe in God, or Christ, would you still be considered a Christian? Hell, if you believed in God, but NOT Christ, could you still be a Christian?
What religion are you?
Most would respond with whatever religion we were raised. We practice the rituals our parents bestowed upon us. But the more important question is: What do you believe?
Think about it.
Have you let your parents define your spirituality? Beyond what you’ve been raised, have you considered what religious ideologies you actually believe in, if any? ‘Be kind. Work hard. Love your family and neighbors.’ These cultural beliefs began 200,000 years ago when we were still living in caves, and aren’t exclusive to any particular religion. They may have been adopted as Christian, or Jewish morality, but the truth is ‘Be kind’ stemmed from our need to be social. Humans are social creatures, and greedy, ungrateful, thoughtless behavior does not win friends, or attract lovers.
Omitting how you were raised, what do YOU actually believe in?
If you don’t believe the bible stories, Old or New Testament, are real — a recounting of historic events — then it’s likely you understand these books were written by literate MEN — the highest echelon of society at the time — to control the masses of illiterate layman with parables that instilled fear. You also likely know that these powerful men imposed rules and roles to maintain the social structure they created, and assigned the administration of this order to an almighty [jealous and vengeful (Nahum 1:2–8)] God whose authority could not (as an ethereal being), and must not be questioned. If you do not believe in this God, or that his adventures in these bibles are real, then you are likely an agnostic or an atheist.
ag·nos·tic (a la Google); noun
a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.
a·the·ist (a la Google); noun
a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.
You don’t have to subscribe to a religion to be spiritual. You can feel connected to this earth and all that’s here without being a Buddhist. You can believe in charity without being a Christian. You can encourage education without being Jewish. You don’t have to pass on horrific tales to frighten children into adhering to rules handed down from men on high thousands of years ago. You can practice and teach values — choose to live a moral life: be kind, generous, honest, empathetic, loving, compassionate, without religion. Why would you choose to do so without a vengeful God threatening Hell if you’re ‘bad?’ You are advanced enough to understand each of us must continually contribute to humanity, and this planet we inhabit, for our race to survive, and thrive.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw the World Wide Web. It was 1995. I was in my rented townhome in Alameda, a small island on the east bank of the San Francisco Bay. I already had a dial-up modem plugged into my Mac LC that I used to send graphic files and documents to my lithographers and commercial printers through FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
I don’t know where I heard about Netscape, probably from a business associate. But I remember the afternoon I logged on for the first time. The interface was full-color visual, the first I’d seen. FTP was only black text on a white screen and no images. The Netscape logo — the uppercase N sinking into a black globe against a starry aquamarine sky, was… beautiful.
Once I registered, the next screen had colorful, clickable illustrations to explore the Net. I was floored, drop-jawed. The interface gave me choices to go anywhere. Netscape was a portal to the world.
I called my roommate into my bedroom/office space to show her what I was seeing on my screen. “This changes everything,” I practically whispered, sure that this portal was the beginning of the connected world I only dreamt of as a kid.
As I sat there exploring each site the Netscape browser delivered, I recalled when I was 8 years old, sitting in the back seat of my mother’s huge Chevy while she drove me and my sister home from school.
“One wish,” my mom asked us spontaneously. “One wish. Right now. If you could have anything you want, what would it be?” She often came up with non-sequiturs like this to fill the void of silence after she’d asked about our day at school, and got, “Fine,” from both of us.
I answered instantly. “World peace,” and I meant it. My brother was in Vietnam. We watched the war on TV nightly. I was always afraid I’d spot him among the troops in the jungle, and then see him get shot. “I wish there was no war, and that we all took care of each other instead of fighting so much.”
“That’s a stupid wish,” my sister said, sitting up front in the passenger seat. I cowered in the back seat and shut up. “It’ll never happen. Humans are violent. It’s part of our nature. We can’t change who we are.” She was 2 yrs older than me. Surely, she must be right. She wished for a new purse.
“This changes everything,” I’d said to my roommate as I browsed the internet that first time back in 1995. And I believed it. A portal to the world would let us see how others lived, and let others see what was possible.
My roommate stood over my shoulder staring at my screen as I went from site to site through Netscape’s ‘portal.’ She seemed unmoved by what we were seeing, and in short order went back to her room.
I stayed online the rest of the night and into the early morning hours, amazed.
I pursued news sites and read articles from all over the world. We could never again pretend that holocausts weren’t happening. We’d find out about atrocities taking place anywhere, instantly, and the United Nations would have to stop them! The privileged would no longer be able to turn a blind eye to poverty or disease, even in the most remote places in Africa, or the Middle East, seeing it daily on their computers. We could talk to people around the block or in other countries we’d never meet, share ideas, and feelings. We’d see how similar we all are, how we all feel the same things: sad, or happy, or mad, at times. We could connect 24/7, and never feel isolated or lonely again. The internet was a window to the world, and the view would surely motivate all of us to care for each other like never before.
This is the argument I gave to my dad at Saul’s Deli while eating bagels and lox a few years after my first experience on the Netscape browser. As a lover of technology since childhood, he too was on the internet, one of the first adopters in his advanced age group. He shook his head and gave me his indulgent smile, pausing before taking another bite of his bagel.
“The internet changes nothing. It is a tool, like a screwdriver. It won’t change human nature. And it won’t save us,” he said. “We’re going to have to do that. Until we learn to care for each other beyond ourselves, we are doomed.” He took a bite of his bagel and savored the mix of salmon, red onions, cream cheese and bread, satisfied in the moment.
“You’re wrong, Dad,” I exclaimed with certainty. “The internet is connecting the planet. For the first time in human history, we are becoming one world.”
“One very small world, which everyone wants their piece of,” he said. “We’ve invented technology we can’t handle, from the Bomb to this internet. Getting bombarded with information isn’t going to change how we react to it. And the more technology we invent, the more likely we’ll implode with it.” He sighed and looked at me lovingly. “You can’t change the world, baby. Best just to focus on taking care of yourself, and your family.”
It was 1998 when I had this dialog with my dad at Saul’s. I had no idea what was coming, how the internet would evolve into the ugly, manipulative MARKETING PLATFORM it has become. I had no clue that seeing how others live would engender jealousy, promote hate, violence, ignorance, and threaten our democracy daily. But I left Saul’s Deli that morning sure my father was wrong.
To escape the bickering, and whining, and catering to the needs and desires of everyone’s demands, I took our dog, Annie, for a walk on a quiet fire trail near our house. Bright and beautiful out, a sweet sea breeze came over the Oakland Hills with the afternoon sun. The mile and a half dirt path along the base of the foothills was mostly vacant, rarely used by even residents of the neighborhood, so I did not leash my dog for the walk.
I saw someone from where I stood on the ridge while I waited for Annie to finish marking her territory in an open field. A woman was coming towards us on the trail below, and I tensed as I scanned for the dog she was most likely walking, but saw none. Still, I called my 70-pound Shepherd-mix to me. My beautiful pound-hound was a bit unpredictable with other dogs. Play. Fight. Run. I never knew which, or why. She passionately loved people, though most didn’t appreciate her bounding up to greet them.
Annie came to me, and I held her collar as we stood on the ridge and watched the woman trudge up the hill. Her white hair looked almost like a silver helmet in the sunlight. She walked slowly, and carefully, and hunched. I made her out to be in her mid-70s. My dog started whining the moment she noticed the woman approaching, then practically yanked my arm off trying to pull away from me and go meet her potential new friend.
The woman was 30 feet away when she noticed us, looked up and stopped. I loudly assured her my dog was very friendly and loved everybody, and that I held her securely, asserting there was no need to worry. The old woman looked at my dog wagging her tail wildly and whining incessantly, and she smiled. She confidently told me she loved dogs, then called mine to her with a pat on her legs and words of welcome. I let go of Annie’s collar. She lopped over to the woman, ears back, but tail up and swishing, and sidled up to her, leaning her downy-soft, muscular frame into the woman’s legs. I joined them on the path where the woman stood stroking my pound-hound.
The old woman gently ran her hand along the length of Annie’s back again and again while extolling the animal’s Sphinx-like appearance and friendly nature. Annie was mesmerized with her touch, as my dog was with just about anyone’s, but the woman seemed to really enjoy the contact as well, her expression set in a soft, contented smile. She explained she’d had several dogs during the years she and her husband raised their three kids. The dogs had passed on, the kids had moved on, now with families of their own. Her husband died two years back and for the first time in her life she was alone.
Her kids, even her grandkids kept telling her to get a dog. I chimed in with words of encouragement, told her about getting my dog at eight weeks old from a kill shelter in Manteca, and ranted about some great local shelters where she could find a great companion.
My graceful hound took off after a squirrel, startling us both. The woman began brushing the dog hair off her pants, but a lot of short hairs were woven into the navy polyester and clung to her pant legs where the dog had leaned against her. “I’ve spent the last 50 years of my life attending to others needs—cooking, cleaning, and more cleaning, and taking care of everyone else. I told myself I deserved a break after my husband lost his three-year battle with brain cancer. I would travel, get out to the movies and play canasta, live the good life.”
Annie came bouncing back, long tongue dangling from her panting (grinning?) mouth. She came to me first to get my pat, then went back to the old woman for more strokes, which the woman gave willingly. “I’ve been on three cruises in the last two years. I play canasta twice a month, and see all the new movies I want.” Again she seemed…pacified, by patting my dog. “Turns out, the good life was when I was needed. Being counted on made me feel vital, and valued. Now, no matter what I do, I mostly just feel lonely.” She straightened and brushed her pant legs off again as my dog swaggered over to the tall grass and lay in it. “I think you all may be right. It’s time I got a dog.” She gave me a pleasant smile. “It’s been a pleasure chatting. Good day to you.” And she went on her way.
I stood there watching her walk along the path, her words echoing in my head. My kids were 12 and 14, and beyond their bickering, and continual demands of my time and energy, parenting them was simply the richest, most rewarding experience of my life. They made me feel vital. Valued. And with my life so integrated into theirs, and my husband by my side joining me in this grand adventure, I virtually never felt lonely anymore, like I had so often before them.
Annie lay in the grass sunning herself. I gave a quick whistle, and she popped up and joined me on our walk home. I stroked my dog as she walked by my side, glad to have her with me, counting on me, as my kids and my husband did, and probably would for many years to come. I imagined the old woman’s empty house and anticipated the tumult in mine.
And suddenly, I felt very lucky indeed to be living the good life.
Got the call at 7:50 this morning and knew something was wrong. No one calls when I’m getting the kids ready for school unless it’s bad news. And there was no possible way my 14 yr old son could have made it to school on his bike so fast.
Could hardly hear the woman over the sound of traffic digitally amplified through her cell, informing me my son had been in a bike accident. I finally got that he was pretty badly battered, but conscious. He was bleeding, she said, quite a bit, but seemed in tact. The moment she said where they were, and before she finished speaking, I put the phone on the kitchen table, called for my 7 yr old daughter to come with me and we got in my car and went to my son a few blocks away.
He was sitting on the curb when I pulled up behind the car I later found out belonged to the good folks who stopped to help my kid. They were in traffic and saw him on the side of the road crying and bleeding, his bike crumpled in front of him. I managed to get out of my car without faltering, and my son managed to stand so we could hug, feel each other, body to body, soul to soul.
“I don’t know what happened,” my newly taller than me kid cried into my shoulder. “I didn’t see the trash can. They’re usually out tomorrow. I wasn’t expecting them today. I didn’t see it.”
His face was a bloody mess, bleeding across his chin, his upper lip, his shoulder, scrapes on his arm. He couldn’t move his left hand. I didn’t cry. He needed me to be strong. God, if he only knew how fragile and afraid I felt right then. The idea of him leaning on me was on par with absurd in my head. But I didn’t cry. I thanked the woman and the man she was with probably fifty times in the space of five minutes. The man graciously put my son’s bike in my car as I helped my kid in, and we went home.
My son walked away from the bike accident with a fractured wrist, abrasions, a loose front tooth that the dentist thinks will be fine down the line. In fact, in time, he should heal just fine. He will. I won’t.
Went out to my office once my son was squared away and cried my eyes out. If I could have prayed, I would have right then, and did thank dumb luck all day, and even still as I write this, and forever forward, my kid wasn’t killed, or injured beyond repair for life. He was careless, and the laws of physics that say we can’t move through solid objects came into play. I know this law to be true, I believe in this law because I’ve spent a lifetime witnessing it. I’ve never seen anyone walk through walls, or pass a hand through glass, except magicians, which we all know is an illusion, a trick of eye, not physically possible.
There have been many times, like this bike accident with my son, I’ve wished I could believe in something, anything to justify events other than just entropy, but I’ve always been an empiricist—show me, don’t tell me because I won’t believe you. On the outside of our religious world, at times lonely to the extreme, I went searching in my early twenties for an ideology to be a part of, and that’s when I discovered Taoism.
I am not a Taoist. I am an atheist, and do not believe in any ‘supreme ultimate.’ And though I’ve read the Tao Te Ching through, many times, I understand little of the poems of Laozi. It was through Taoism, however, I first heard of the concept of yin/yang. 陰陽
The Taijitu ☯, the commonly known yin/yang symbol from 14th century China, represents a philosophy first seen in the Tao Te Ching in the 4th century BC, though many believe the concept of opposites in harmony define balance existed many millennium before the writings. Black/white, day/night, male/female, dull/bright—in yin/yang ideology, with everything there is an equal opposite occupying the same space, intertwining, even mixing, actualizing each other’s existence, and keeping the natural balance of the whole, that which is all.
Heady, to be sure, but not when you break it down to what we experience daily. We can’t really know happy never having felt sad. Can’t have a bottom without a top. There is no such thing as right with no wrong (or left..; ). These are abstracted, philosophical truths. Just like physics, yin/yang’s empirical proofs play out in every aspect of living, which can never be fully appreciated without death.
While I believe the yin/yang philosophy to be truth, a basic physical and metaphysical law, and understand the balance interconnected opposites provide, I can’t help resent this fundamental aspect of natures structure in times like this morning when my child’s life is put on the line. The cruelest, sickest, most twisted opposites of all is the spectacular, magnificent, breath-taking, electric-connection we get to feel for our kids, and the choking, terrifying, heart-stopping fear of losing them— the yin/yang of love and loss.
I was 19 the first time I remember it happening. I was driving north from L.A. to Seattle, and it hit me like running into a brick wall when I saw the Welcome to Oregon sign— something was wrong with the place.
Not wrong, exactly. But not what I thought it would be since I’d never been there. I’d always assumed Oregon was a liberal state. They were the first to legalize medical marijuana. I’d imagined ex-hippies and weed farmers pretty much ran the place.
I don’t know what triggered the awareness, the absolute certainty that, at least, southwest Oregon through Grant’s Pass was a hard-core conservative area. I pulled off for gas and up to the pump behind a rusted flat bed truck with a rifle on a rack in the back window of the cab. His bumper sticker was the Confederate flag with an AK47-type weapon across it, and confirmed my sense of the place. For the next 250 miles more than half of the vehicles I saw along I-5 had bumper stickers of bible quotes, NRA, anti-Gay, anti-abortion propaganda, and mirrored the sentiments on the billboards along the highway. Almost every radio station was proselytizing Christianity—rock music to talk forums.
It happened again a year or so later at the old Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. I was disembarking the plane, navigating the staircase down to the tarmac when it hit me—the slight breeze like a hard slap to my cheek—something was wrong with the place. A few minutes inside the terminal played out my flash of perception outside. Bullet holes riddled the walls, with plaques under them, documenting this or that terrorist attack. Military police were everywhere, young soldiers, men and women, passing by with huge guns on their shoulders and grenades on their green belts. A tension-filled month in the Middle East, under the constant threat of violence, had me on my knees and kissing my hardwood floor when I got back to my apartment in Santa Monica.
Getting an instant impression on the character of a place happened more and more as I traveled. Cairo to Athens to Grand Junction Colorado, each area had a flavor, a common thread connecting the people living there I was [generally] able to discern almost instantly upon arrival.
On a recent family vacation we did a road trip up the east coast from Florida to Toronto. On the way home at the end of the trip we crossed the Canadian/US border at Buffalo in the middle of a drenching downpour. Just past the city we headed south. Fifty miles into western NY it hit me. Something was wrong with the place.
“I don’t have a clue why,” I announced to my DH and our two teens in the backseat. “But it feels like we’ve just entered the deep South. Like Alabama, or Mississippi.”
“New York is a liberal state,” my husband said with certainty.
‘Not out here it isn’t,’ I almost said, but didn’t. I had no facts to back up my sense of the place as we drove past well-kept, classic New England clapboard homes tucked into the thick foliage of the Allegheny foothills.
The further south we drove, the more prevalent my sense we’d entered ultra-conservative territory became. But when I saw the Welcome to Pennsylvania sign on the side of Hwy 219, I suddenly was acutely aware that the inhabitants of the areas we were passing through were on the opposite page of most everything I believe in.
“New York may be liberal, but I guarantee you Pennsylvania is not,” I announced.
My son, the family historian, reminded all of us that PA was on the Union side of the Civil War, backing his dad’s position my perception was faulty.
We stopped for lunch at a roadside bar/restaurant near Ridgeway, sat two to two on the stools around the sticky table, and after ordering looked at the menagerie covering the walls. A huge Confederate Flag was pinned over the dark wood bar that ran the length of the place. A moose head, and the head of a buck, both with full antlers, were mounted on either side of their array of liquor. Pics of hunters by their kill, holding their rifles on the carcass of lions, tigers, rhinos to crocodiles were sprinkled among the mostly text posters of sayings like, “Alcohol is the cause of, and the solution to, all of life’s problems…” a la Homer Simpson.
“What’s this symbol mean, Mom?” My daughter was examining a small tarnished emblem, hanging on a red and black stripped ribbon, mounted to the wall next to her.
“It’s a German cross.”
“What’s the double-X thing in the middle.”
I focused on the small circle in the center of the memorabilia, and though I saw it clearly the first time, had to do a double take before answering her. “It’s a Swastika, the Nazi symbol.”
My DH and I quickly exchanged glances. His father’s family was murdered by the Nazi’s in 1939. His dad, our kids’ granddad, was a slave in Auschwitz from 13 to 18 yrs old.
We all focused back on the walls of the bar. I spied several more ‘medals’ where the Swastika was prominent. But even more disturbing were the small, framed texts: “What’s the differance between a catholic wife and a jewish wife? A catholic wife has real orgasms and fake jewellery!”(And no, it’s not my spelling errors.) “Life without women would be a pain in the ass, literaly,” another on the wall near my husband’s head read.
I called our White, blond, blue-eyed waitress over and asked for our order to go, paid the check then left the bar and went outside to breathe.
“We should have just left, not paid the check, not bought their food, and just left.”
“That’s not right,” my DH said upon joining me at our car. “We already ordered it.”
Back on Hwy 219, the further south we traveled, the more ramshackle the passing homes became. Hidden in groves of pines, spruce and maple, most of the housings’ wood-planked siding was rotting, or missing. Many seemed as if their foundations had shifted, and the entire house was tilted. And a reoccurring theme on most all of them— they were flying the Confederate flag. It hung from dilapidated porches, as a curtain to a second-story window, as banners in storefronts of the small towns we passed through.
Quite frankly, I was horrified. Pennsylvania fought against the South. The Confederate flag was once hated here, a derisive symbol of division created for the Civil war, as the Nazi flag was by Germany for WW2. The Battle at Gettysburg was fought on these hallowed grounds.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe,” Einstein ostensibly said. (And no, he wasn’t Jewish. He was a self-proclaimed Atheist.) Displaying the Confederate flag anywhere is a proclamation of ignorance, proven by justifications like: “It’s part of our rich history in the South, and we have pride in our culture.” No one should be proud their ancestors found it acceptable to enslave others, then go to war for wealthy land owners looking to avoid paying taxes. Even the Germans know better than to puff with pride they were once Nazis.
I don’t get what cues me up to the character of places upon seeing their Welcome signs. When I was young, I’d frequently see the future before it happened, so my perception of an area upon arrival might be connected to that phenomenon. I don’t know, and don’t really care. What strikes me as the odd bit is the intent of my perceptions—always a warning, an impending threat to what I know to be right, moral, and in the interest of the collective well-being.
I was 9 years old the first time I saw the future before it happened.
Dad and I were up on the flying bridge of our 30-foot cabin cruiser doing the crossing from Long Beach to Catalina Island. I sat on the padded bench on top of the boat that warm fall evening, marveling at the 360° unobstructed view of the ocean and sky. My dad stood, his huge hands on the big wooden wheel attached to the bridge in front of us, reeling off fish stories. We sang old ’40s tunes he’d taught me and reveled in the beauty of the setting sun over the languid Pacific as we made the two-hour voyage.
It was well after dark when we pulled into Avalon. The harbor master pulled his boat alongside ours and informed us there were no moorings available in the protected harbor. We had to pick up a mooring at St. Catherine’s, a small inlet on the north side of Avalon exposed to the open ocean. Boats moored there continually pitched and tossed. Mom wasn’t going to be happy when she arrived with my sister in the morning. They were taking the ‘cattle boat,’ the harbor ferry, afraid to cross the volatile Pacific at night in our small craft.
I stood at the bow railing as we went around the Avalon breakwater, my heart racing. I was afraid of falling off the boat while trying to lift the mooring, or looking like a little kid failing to secure it to our vessel. Dad got our boat in position at St. Catherine’s and I grabbed the flag attached to the mooring line. I yanked the heavy rope out of the water, secured it to the bow cleat then ran the line along the side of our boat to the stern while Dad lay the anchor off the bow. We caught the first water taxi to Avalon and dined at the Flying Yachtsman, a favorite steak house for boaters and locals. Just me and Dad, captain and first mate, we ate mostly in silence, relishing the good meal after our long journey.
We were finishing dinner when Jim Nelson, my father’s Coast Guard buddy, happened by and offered us a ride back to our boat in his dinghy. I sat at the bow of Jim’s eight-foot skiff and dangled my hand over the side, letting my fingers comb the frothy waves created by the dinghy’s forward motion. My father sat in the center to keep the weight balanced, and Jim practically yelled over the loud outboard engine as he drove it. He described the damage from the Santa Anna winds that had blown through the island the previous week. Huge waves, some over 20 feet had flooded Avalon storefronts. Several boats smashed into the shore when their mooring lines ripped from the ocean floor in St. Catherine’s, the inlet in which we were moored.
And that’s when my reality shifted. My awareness of where I was became distant, background to another. On some level, I knew I was still on Jim’s skiff rounding the breakwater to the open sea on the way to our boat. But that’s not what I saw…
I’m startled awake in the dark by the sudden pitch of our boat. I lift my head to see the deep red light of the digital clock mounted on the polished wood dashboard of the helm turn from 3:30 to 3:31. It must be later tonight I figure as I glance over at my father sleeping next to me on the big pullout bed in the main cabin. I’d have been relegated to the small bunk in the dank cabin below if my mother and sister had arrived. Dad’s turned away from me, on his side, snoring loudly. I sit up and slide the small curtain aside to glance out the window. Instead of the expected dark sea swells tossing our boat about, I see a sleek white sailboat a bit larger than our 30′ cruiser a couple of yards off our starboard side. It’s rocking so heavily with the swells its huge mast comes within feet of hitting our flying bridge. It takes me a second to realize that we’re about to smash into that sailboat, as somehow I’m suddenly aware that during the night our mooring line broke and we are free floating. Their deck lights lit and mast lights on, every detail of the sailboat registers in my head—white, with light blue trim around the portholes and polished teak decks; identification numbers on the bow: K6749.
Then I was back in the dinghy, my fingers freezing in the water. I snatched my hand out of the sea, tucked both hands between my legs and sat rigid as Jim pulled his dinghy up to the stern of our boat. What was that? echoed in my head. Not a dream. I knew I’d been awake the whole ride. I’d seen real time unfolding, just in the background. What did I just see then? But as my father bid Jim goodnight with thanks and we boarded our vessel I knew. And before Dad crossed the deck to the main cabin I started ranting.
“Our mooring line is going to break tonight and we’re going to hit a sailboat!” My heart was racing and it felt like my eyes were gonna pop out of my head as I stared at my father, scared I’d be unable to convince him of our urgent situation.
“What are you talking about?” He stopped and turned to face me.
“I saw it. We’re going to smash into a sailboat at 3:30 in the morning. We have to move the boat now!”
“What do you mean, you ‘saw it?'”
I just stood there staring at him. I knew he wouldn’t believe me if I told him I had a ‘vision.’ But I knew what happened, what I saw on Jim’s dinghy wasn’t a dream or fantasy. I was sure I’d seen the future. So I went back to proof by insistence.
“Dad, our mooring line is going to break tonight and we’re going to hit a white sailboat with the call numbers K6749 if we don’t move our boat.”
My father took the empirical position as always. “Do you see any white sailboats anywhere near us?”
By the moonlight, the closest one I could see was moored a few rows up and far to the right. I couldn’t make out the call numbers, but I could see it had long, narrow, rectangular windows, not portholes. I shook my head.
“Okay. And hasn’t our boat been secured here all evening, the mooring clearly holding fast?”
“Yes.”
“And even if our mooring did break, we’d have the front anchor to secure the boat from drifting, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah. I guess.” I started to doubt my vision with his compiling logic.
“Well, I’m guessing when Jim Nelson told us the mooring lines in St. Catherine’s broke last week that it scared you. Did you hear him say all the lines have been replaced with new ones?”
No. I’d missed that part because I was inside my head living an alternate reality at the time. “I didn’t hear him say that.”
“It’s late, sweetie,” my dad said, turning away and going into the cabin. “Go get ready for bed.”
—
I tried to stay awake. I lay next to my dad listening to him snore and kept my eyes open waiting to hear our mooring line break. I was determined to rouse my dad before we hit the sailboat, but I drifted off with the swaying of our boat and the lateness of the hour.
A pitch of the boat woke me in the middle of the night. I lifted my head to see the digital clock on the helm dashboard turning from 3:30 to 3:31. I knew instantly that my earlier vision on Jim’s dinghy had not been a fantasy born of fear. I held my breath as I sat up and moved the curtain aside. I knew before actually seeing it that we were almost on top of a white sailboat. It must have moored next to us while we slept.
I woke my father, screaming for him to get up as I scurried off the bed. Out on deck I got the push pole from the rack but before I could put it between our boats my dad took it from me. He held the rubber tip of the pole against the starboard side of the sailboat to prevent our boats from smashing into each other while I put out the side bumpers as he instructed. It was cold, windy, rocky and dark, and I was scared out of my mind navigating the slick, narrow ledge around the side of our boat as I tied off each bumper’s rope to a cleat then dropped them over the side, but even in all the mayhem I noticed the call numbers K6749 printed on the sailboat’s bow.
“Hey!” my dad yelled at the sailboat. “Hey! Get up! On deck!” His light blue pajamas rippled with the wind as he struggled to keep the push pole on the bobbing sailboat in the heavy swells of high tide rushing into St. Catherine’s inlet.
It was clear our mooring line had broken because the heavy rope was no longer along the side of the boat, and the flag was also gone from the bow deck. Our anchor had dragged quite a bit without the mooring to hold our boat in place and we were now on top of the sailboat moored next to us.
The captain of the sailboat finally came on his deck, got his push pole and kept our boats apart. My father went up to the flying bridge helm and yelled at me on the bow deck below to lift our anchor, then he ignited our diesel engines. Slipping and sliding with our boat bobbing, I struggled to crank the pulley to lift the heavy anchor out of the water, then finally managed to secure the clips holding the anchor on the bow of our slick deck.
My dad managed to move our boat away from the sailboat safely. I sat on the bow deck shivering as we went around the breakwater into Avalon. I was likely in shock because I don’t remember thinking or feeling anything right then but cold. The harbor master assigned us a mooring in the protected harbor after hearing of our perils. My dad positioned our boat for me to grab the flag and as I lifted the mooring onto our bow I slipped. I flopped on my belly. One leg went off the deck and I grabbed the railing before my body followed. My father saw me almost fall off the boat, and to this day, over 40 years later, he focuses on that bit of the mooring incident—that raw fear a parent gets when they see their kid in mortal danger. He invariably adds, “Something else happened weird that night…” but he can never recall what. I’ve not reminded him, but I’ll never forget.
***
A few weeks home from Catalina I started to doubt my vision in Jim’s dinghy. I put the experience down to childhood imaginings, or a faulty memory, or ‘just one of those things.’ Then it happened again, just months later. I had a ‘dream’ we had an earthquake. I woke in the night panicked, somehow knowing it wasn’t a dream but a vision, similar in feeling to the one in Jim’s skiff. I lay there trying to quelled my gnawing fear with the improbability I’d seen the future, but recalling the mooring debacle, I could not convince myself it was just a dream. I stood on my bed looking out my window at my dark, quiet, tree-lined street and waited for it.
An hour or so later, I heard it far off. It sounded like a freight train coming down our street. The rumbling got louder and louder, then the house started shaking and I started screaming, horrified. In my dream I’d seen a freeway overpass fall on several cars and an apartment building crumble on residence. Only days later, once power was restored, I saw on the news what I’d seen happen in my dream.
I saw the future out of time many times growing up and throughout my early twenties. The visions came without warning, usually triggered by something someone said, and I would experience a reality shift in a flash. Sometimes, it came in the form of a dream, but upon waking, I knew it wasn’t a dream. Unlike a dream or hallucination, the visions were not disjointed. They were visceral, linear, sequential— unfolding in real time without gaps—a complete and instant emergence into another reality, separate from, yet similar to my experience of present time.
And I quickly grew to hate them.
I would often see earthquakes before they occurred, know how strong they were going to be and the damage they’d leave in their wake. Unusual events, generally with life-threatening potential, were also triggers, though rarely involving someone I knew. I saw car accidents every few months or so, sometimes through the eyes of the drivers, and experienced what it was like in that car moments before the crash, and then upon impact. I’d hear about the accident creating the traffic I was stuck in on the radio the next day, though I’d seen the crash happen a day or two before in a vision.
I have not experienced the future out of time in over 20 years and I have no wish to. They were fundamentally frightening, uncontrollable. The few times I told someone what I’d seen before the event went down, no one ever believed me until after it happened. And I was never able to stop an event from occurring. Not once.
Over the years I’ve pondered what these glimpses of the future were. I do not believe a ‘higher power’ gave them to me. Any ‘god’ who’d force me to witness the future without the ability to change it would be a sadist.
Of course, it can be argued I did change the future by alerting my father and thus avoiding a collision with the sailboat. But I never saw us hit each other in my vision on Jim Nelson’s dinghy. I saw the exact same scene as the one that unfolded in reality hours later that night, when our boats were still a couple yards apart…
Einstein did not believe in God, as many [mistakenly] claim.
Albert Einstein said, “My position concerning God is that of an agnostic.” He clarified, “The word God is, for me, nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”
Atheists don’t believe in God either. Not any god/s. Ever. Unlike Agnostics, open to the possibility of a ‘higher power,’ or ‘collective, sentient being,’ Einstein believed in neither. Agnostic is politically correct, less threatening than Atheist, especially during Albert’s time, born a Jew, and existing on federal and university funding.
I am an Atheist. I do not recognize the Old or New Testament, and related works illuminating the adventures of a divine being as anything more than fiction — parables by some wise, some ignorant, but guaranteed partisan male scribes with an agenda to dominate and control others.
So, when I need money, [as an Atheist] why don’t I go rob someone? Or shoplift?
When I’m attracted to my neighbor’s husband, why don’t I hit on him, get intimate if he’s into it?
When I get pissed off at the driver on their cellphone that just cut me off, why don’t I just shoot her?
Snatch & Run, illicit affairs, even murder these days, and the odds of getting caught for these crimes are somewhat nominal if done discreetly. Fear of being busted is not the main motivation that prevents me from committing these, and ‘lesser’ crimes, like lying, cheating, and behaviors that most would agree, religious or not, are moral infractions.
If I believe I answer to no higher power, where do I get my morality?
Einstein said, “We have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem — the most important of all human problems.”
Without a priest, rabbi, or holy man telling me what to think and how to vote, and with no guidance from an omniscient god, or unbiased media outlet, I must consider my moral obligations.
Why should I bother, and how do I know ‘right from wrong’ without a ‘divine doctrine’ to guide me?
If my parents had not gifted me life, and their parents before them…etc., I would not be here now, emersed in this experience of living. I am born owing Humanity and everything on this planet that supports our life here. We all are. All of us have a moral obligation to do our part to ensure the human race survives, and gift those to be the experience of being human.
Humans are social beings. It is mandatory we work together to survive and even thrive. We require a social structure — laws, and rules of conduct with mutually agreed-upon baselines we all must practice to partner. Breaking these rules annihilates our trust in each other, corrupting the very foundation on which relationships are built.
As an Atheist, why don’t I steal?
Do Not Steal is [generally] a mutually agreed-upon baseline. Contrary to religious rhetoric, it is not a biblical notion by some partisan scribe. Way before the written word, it proved to be a sensible rule to build trust.
I used to shoplift. My older sister showed me how when I was 7, and I stole from the local art supply store a few times until I got busted for pocketing Prismacolor pencils. The shop clerk called my mother instead of the cops. Riding home with my mom that afternoon, she explained to me that I was robbing her, my dad, and most everyone else, including myself because the store passed on the lost income from shoplifting by increasing the cost of their products.
I created a rift with my mom, who was disappointed in me for stealing when she ‘taught me better than that.’ I created a rift with the art supply shop clerk who I saw often as a frequent customer of the store. And with my mom’s information, I understood I was serving no one shoplifting, perhaps especially myself.
Trust is the foundation of all relationships. It encourages communication, connection, and intimacy. Intimacy incentivizes reproduction. Having children ensures the human race continues to exist. (Most of us have heard the derisive term “Breeders,” referring to parents, but the absurdity of this view is lost on the idiots who use this word, as they could not utter it if they’d never been born.)
As an Atheist, why don’t I screw my neighbor’s husband?
I’ve been married for 27 years, and I have not and will never have an affair. Why? Thou shalt not commit adultery(Exodus 20:14) is not strictly biblical either. Ancient scribes adopted this notion as law from observing 200,000 years of human history.
If I have an affair with my neighbor’s husband (or wife), I am participating in creating a rift in their marriage. Even if our affair goes undiscovered, it changes the dynamic between the married couple with an intimate third now part of their once exclusive, mutually agreed-upon partnership. The rift generates a ripple effect of discord that touches the lives of many, even the adulterers, dividing households, destroying friendships, business relationships, and sometimes lead to war.
As an Atheist, why don’t I shoot the driver on her cell?
I fantasize about it sometimes, don’t you? Vaporizing at the idiot driver in front of you going 45 miles an hr in the fast lane while she’s texting. Seriously, I want her off the road, gone from harming anyone with her sheer arrogance in acting as if she is the One who can manage driving when statistically she is the cause of most accidents today. The cross dangling from her neck neglected to instill the value system Jesus preached: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” (Mark 12:31).
It is our moral obligation to watch out for each other. Caring for others beyond ourselves is part of what makes our social structure work. If that bitch behind the wheel on her cell hurts me, or my kids, or anyone I care about, I’m going to want to hurt her. It’s human nature to want to hurt those who have hurt us. Hurting each other, whether by thoughtlessness or intent threatens our survival and our ability to thrive.
Religion did not invent morality.
Our collective value system, the laws and rules of engagement most of us live by, religious or not, may have been written by biblical scribes, but not invented by them. The history of humanity has shown us what works and what doesn’t to preserve and encourage our evolution.
“…treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem,” Einstein said. In other words, morality is determined by humans, not handed down from on-high by some obscure being requiring blind obedience invented by partisan men looking to control the masses.
Praying for less extreme weather [from global warming], or lunatics with AR-15s to stop mass killings, or for equitable socioeconomics won’t change anything. Even if you don’t text or scroll while driving, or participate in sexual affairs, or steal, we all have a moral obligation to ensure life continues here long after we’re dead. We owe those that follow us the complex and spectacular journey of being human that we have been gifted.
Atheist or religious, we all must recognize and actualize our moral obligations to each other and this planet for humanity to survive, and thrive.
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Cited Notable Facts:
Murder rates are lower in more secular nations and higher in more religious countries where belief in God is deep and widespread. (Jensen 2006; Paul 2005; Fajnzylber et al. 2002; Fox and Levin 2000)
Within U.S., the states with the highest murder rates tend to be highly religious, such as Louisiana and Alabama, but the states with the lowest murder rates tend to be among the least religious in the country, such as Vermont and Oregon. (Ellison et al. 2003; Death Penalty Information Center, 2008)
Rates of most violent crimes tend to be lower in the less religious states and higher in the most religious states. (United States Census Bureau, 2006)
The top 50 safest cities in the world, nearly all are in relatively non-religious countries, and of the eight cities within the United States that make the safest-city list, nearly all are located in the least religious regions of the country. (Mercer Survey, 2008)
Domestic terrorists of the American far right are driven by zeal for heretical distortions of Christian theology. (Paul de Armond, DOJ, 1999) Christian nationalism [is] a serious and growing threat to our democracy. (Robert P. Jones, TIME Magazine, 2022)
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