Magical Thinking

I think that those of us raised by European Christians often have a tendency to hope for some magic to happen in our lives. I'm not sure whether it is embedded in the religion, because I have not participated in any religion fully at any point in my life. It probably has more to do with the myth of Santa Claus, which in our childhoods, exceeded all other forms of magical thinking.

In truth, I liked Santa a hell of a lot more than my notion of God, so as soon as I was old enough, I stopped going to church altogether, although I've never felt any hostility toward those who attend services of any kind in churches, mosques, or synagogues.

I do, however, suspect they do so not so much out of faith but out of the need to be part of a community plus out of respect for family traditions. And those are both good things.

This time of year, with Hanukkah & Christmas, people deeply or even loosely still involved with their faiths are attending services, while people like me cast around for alternative experiences.

Last night, as my daughter sang seasonal songs in her school choir, I felt a warmth remembering the past with my family in Michigan, gathering around the piano and singing Christmas carols.

Those old songs evoke memories and feelings that often feel remote in my present life, living here alone in a flat in the Mission with a cat that wouldn't know the difference between a Christmas carol and a rap song.

A few hours after she performed in the last such holiday concert at her school (she graduates next summer), I dropped my youngest and her brothers with their Mom at the airport, where they caught planes way across this land, ultimately arriving at a lovely tropical island off the coast of southwest Florida -- the place that probably is my favorite spot in the entire world.

I have a long history on that island, starting some 44 years ago, but also one that ended, for all intents and purposes, over a decade ago.

The only part of me that remains is a legacy -- some books and other items inside an ancient cottage called Morning Glories in the historical village on the island. The rich people who bought it and replaced it with a mansion agreed to pay to move it there as a condition of the sale, when my first wife and I sold it to them in the late 1990s.

***

Today, I checked the mail but there is no word yet whether my daughter has been invited to audiition at School of the Arts. She texted me from Florida whether there was news; I answered there is none yet.

An ex-cousin-in-law called from Florida about a new recording he has created with multiple types of music. He is going to mail that to me.

It's been raining all day here. Near the end of the daylight, a strange light appeared, just a ray or two of sun, so I went outside hoping to glimpse a rainbow.

If there was one to be seen, it culd not be glimpsed from down here, between buildings and trees, this time around.

So, as the day closes, I'm not sure any magic happened. As a skeptic, professionally, I'm not sure magic ever actually happens.

As I told my ex-cousin-in-law, I'm more persuaded we become good at tings not through genius but through hard work. I'm an advocate of Macolm Gladwell's thesis in Outliers.

That said, I do wish for some magic sometimes. Especially around this time of year.

-30-

The Silence That Looms

It sounds as if Obama is going to step up in the wake of last Friday's slaughter and use his position as leader of the nation to promote new preventative measures, though I admit to skepticism about what he, or anyone, can do about reducing gun violence here in America.

If there were one group with the power to effect positive change it would be the NRA, the powerful pro-gun lobby.

As I've noted in the past, I'm pro-gun myself, in the sense I hunted as a boy and still own an ancient 16-gauge shotgun, though I don't possess any shells for it.

My three sons have always loved guns, especially BB guns.

I get it.

But weapons that are meant for no other purpose than mass killings of other human beings are beyond my comprehension. I do not understand why anyone, except a delusional paranoid preparing for the apocalypse, could possibly wish to own those types of guns.

That said, I agree with the pro-gun people who say more government regulation of guns isn't going to prevent tragedies like what happened in Connecticut, sadly.

At least it would be a start, however.

Beyond that we have the paucity of resources available for mental health diagnosis and treatment, a critical failure in this society.

Do you know that in order for someone to remain the care of a professional for mental health problems, and for that professional to get reimbursed by most insurance companies, that person has to be declared to be in a critical state?

Anyone who has ever dealt first hand with mental health recovery knows it is a gradual process, that when the patient proceeds from critical to relatively stable, he remains at risk of relapse if not properly attended.

Yet our private insurance companies force providers to jump through so many hoops at this stage of recovery that many are lost from the system, revert to their former ways, and once again are on the streets posing potential risks to themselves and the rest of us.

We do not have a civilized mental health system in this country.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this problem overall is the great social disease of dislocation, alienation, and loneliness. Although no one much wants to admit it, we live in world where many of us are speeding away from each other like stars in the universe, ever more distant, silent, and disconnected.

This is our greatest problem of all.

And unless we can find a solution to that, not only will the slaughter of innocents continue, the tragic alienation of many of the rest of us will be an inevitability as well.