One of the dilemmas facing parents is that while there are good books about raising daughters and also many good parenting books by women, there is a relative paucity of useful information available about raising sons, especially written by men.
Rather than get into the specifics of what exists (I've read them), I want to stick to generalities, because that is what we journalists are -- generalists, only rarely specialists.
The first clue I got about this topic was when my son came along after two daughters. Almost immediately, I viewed him differently, and yes I know this says a lot about me, sexism, cultural standards and all that stuff.
But the reality was I sensed he would be able to see through me in ways my daughters would not, or would not choose to do. I was afraid he would see me as a fraud.
As time went by and I had two more sons and one more daughter, splittingg the deck at three each, my humility grew to the point where I had to admit to myself that I didn't have a clue how to raise daughters *or* sons.
Nope, it was the blind leading the seeing, because it was obvious they all could see through me. Yet they stayed fairly opaque to me. Oh I could see the obvious stuff -- their beauty, their brilliance, their kindness, their creativity.
But their paths through life seemed much more shaped by environmental factors than the genetic material we held in common. Still, little flashes of "me," whoever that is, would pop up now and then in them and still do.
But all that accomplishes is to further my quest to discover who the hell *I* am. Writers are known for their metaphors as much as anything else, and ever since I started my first work in Hollywood, I've been pretty sure that our lives are a lot like movies, with beginnings, middles and ends both predictable and utterly given to chance.
In that context, my own movie is well through its third act, with only the time and nature of the ending to play out. One can hope for some serendipitous twist, I suppose, but the time remaining would suggest that is unlikely.
My kids' movies, by contrast, are all just closing out on Act One, or proceeding through Act Two, or both at the same time. And that Act Two is the core, the pith of any movie or any life. What they do in this period trumps Acts One & Three by a long shot.
In our culture, Act One is extended anyway, as the youthful phase dominates most people well into their twenties and even beyond. For that matter, Act Three is often extended as well, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine.
You might be "old" for thirty years or more, although these days Covid is doing its best to reduce the numbers of us who actually last that long.
I've come to the conclusion that old age really does convey wisdom but it might be based on knowing what we don't know as opposed to knowing things.
In my case, my whole movie leaves me yearning for one wish -- the ability to travel back in time and relive one moment -- or two -- or maybe even three. Not that I have regrets, I don't really, but I might have chosen my lines a little more carefully had there been a Take Two.
You know what I mean?
***
Meanwhile, there comes an opinion piece in today's Times by Shoshanna Zuboff:
“In an information civilization, societies are defined by questions of knowledge — how it is distributed, the authority that governs its distribution and the power that protects that authority. Who knows? Who decides who knows? Who decides who decides who knows? Surveillance capitalists now hold the answers to each question, though we never elected them to govern. This is the essence of the epistemic coup. They claim the authority to decide who knows by asserting ownership rights over our personal information and defend that authority with the power to control critical information systems and infrastructures.”
This captures what I have been struggling to say in my repeated attempts to sort out my worries about censorship, mass media, and free speech. The communication structure of our society was revolutionized by the Internet -- decentralized, or you might say democratized.
The problem is along with that decentralization came the deeply anti-democratic hate speech that is tearing our society in half -- if we let it.
Regulation? Boycotts? A renewed investment in local journalism?
Just how will we MALA -- Make America Loving Again?
***
Okay enough philosophy; the news marches on and there's always a Take Two in the headlines:
* How Trump’s Focus on Antifa Distracted Attention From the Far-Right Threat -- Federal law enforcement shifted resources last year in response to Donald Trump’s insistence that the radical left endangered the country. Meanwhile, right-wing extremism was building ominously. (NYT)
* Virus mutations add urgency to vaccination effort as experts warn of long battle ahead -- A complicated mix of good news and bad news makes any forecast for the coming months fuzzy, but scientists have one clear and sobering message: The pandemic is a long way from over. (WashPo)
* Defying Putin, Russians Return To The Streets To Demand Alexei Navalny's Release (NPR)
* GOP Rep. Kinzinger to start new PAC to challenge party’s embrace of Trump (WashPo)
* Russia arrests over 4,000 at wide protests backing Navalny (AP)
* The Silicon Valley Start-Up That Caused Wall Street Chaos -- Robinhood pitched itself to investors as the antithesis of Wall Street. It didn’t say that it also entirely relies on Wall Street. This past week, the two realities collided. (NYT)
* The pandemic is completely changing the way we treat unemployment (WashPo)
* WHO team visits Wuhan market where first COVID infections detected (Reuters)
* The Coup We Are Not Talking About -- We can have democracy, or we can have a surveillance society, but we cannot have both. (NYT)
* ‘Like Wartime’: Canadian Companies Unite to Start Mass Virus Testing -- A consortium of some of Canada’s largest companies, representing 350,000 employees nationwide, has launched a rapid testing program aimed at reopening the country’s economy. (NYT)
* On Friday, more than 75 years after Korematsu fought against Japanese internment, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared Jan. 30 as “Fred Korematsu Day” in California, pledging to honor his decades-long crusade for years to come. (KQED)
* 30 Million Americans Say They Don't Have Enough To Eat (CNN)
* The military said it wants to fight white supremacy. What is it waiting for? (WashPo)
* Forecast: Wild Weather in a Warming World -- The polar vortex is experiencing an unusually long disturbance this year because of a “sudden stratospheric warming.” Bundle up (NYT)
* Free Version Of Meditation App Plays Panicked Shrieks Every 15 Minutes (The Onion)
***
We may lose and we may win
Though we will never be here again
So open up, I'm climbin' in
So take it easy -- The Eagles
-30--30-
Though we will never be here again
So open up, I'm climbin' in
So take it easy
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