Wierd dream and Valerie Plame...

I just woke up...I had this really crazy dream...

I met up with Brandi for the first time in a long time...and kind of spent the day together...

Like my other ex-girlfriend, Jenny...Brandi had gotten all slimmed down...and hottied out...too slim...it was like this really terrible impression of someone you've really respected...

And the whole day...she keeps using the word "totalitarian," strangely...referring to people around her, like "this woman is so totalitarian"...repeatedly...and really badly...

And she's trying to score some drugs from one of the guys we meet during our day...and I'm not sure, but it doesn't sound to me like they're scoring weed...

She's distracted...and inconsiderate...

The last time I saw Brandi she almost literally didn't talk the entire time...we went to a coffee shop in Kansas City I had been to before, once, with an ex-girlfriend and a very good friend, Rachel...she ordered coffee, I imagine, since she loves the stuff, and I ordered hot chocolate or something, since I'm not a big fan...

And we sat at this table...and this girl who I could never have shut up had my life depended on it...she almost literally didn't talk the entire time...

It was really heartbreaking...

Such a crazy dream...

I don't know...I guess I've just seen so many friends get sucked into lives that are kind of meaningless in a lot of ways...maybe I'm just anticipating it with Brandi...

It's hard to maintain a more purposeful life when there are so many people to discourage you...so many of my professors, especially my advisor, who had given up on that kind of purpose quite a bit, if he ever really had it, lose some of it...Tom had it/has it, I'm sure...I'm just not sure how strongly...I can never tell...lots of people give up their sense of purpose, in part or in whole...

But something tells me that I won't find out, soon...the next time I'll see Brandi, I suspect, is when I invite her to my wedding or when she contacts me...neither of which are likely to happen soon, I don't think...

I hope the best for her, though...she is still working at the YWCA, as far as I know, in Kansas City...so she's still doing non-profit work...and business development is important work to fundraise money for such efforts...

The great thing about non-profits in the non-profit market is that either they raise money...or they don't get their bills paid...a lesson that public schools could learn, better, in the coming generation, I think...though doing so in cynical times like these has got to be something of a minor hell...

Two of Valerie Plame's CIA friends, Vincent Cannastraro and Larry Johnson, believe that the Administration outed Valerie out of spite and political revenge...

Valerie Plame's Last Day at the CIA...

...which, if true -- but still yet to be confirmed, in my mind -- would be a particularly low point in recent American politics, I think...I still give Libby and Rove the benefit of the doubt that they were trying to clarify a discussion of who sent Joseph Wilson on his trip to Niger without intent to "get" Wilson or Plame...but if that's not true...if Rove or Libby were trying to get Wilson or Plame...this is a much darker story of political ambition and how far some will go to pursue it...

But that has to be proven, first...

I don't know what I can or can't expect from the Bush Administration, unfortunately...I want to believe I could trust them...but they've played so many power games with so many people, I can't tell anymore...Democrats have as well, at this point, to be fair...so it's hard to know who you can trust in Washington, these days (maybe most days...but some days are definitely better than others...and these last 5 years or so have been a particularly bad time for all politicians in Washington, Democrat and Republican)...that doesn't bode well for them...I'm something of a best case scenario, I think, in terms of presumption of innocence...I hope, for Libby's and Rove's sakes...and for Valerie's sake...this thing didn't go down like that...because it's a shameful episode in American political history if it did...

And one that we -- including Libby and Rove, if it's true -- will rebound from...and move on:)...

I so much better understand something like this, at this point in my life...how something can be forgiveable...and still bad...I hadn't fucked anything up really badly until I was a young adult...and now that I have, and with some distance, I can see it better, now...which makes me all the more sensitive to it...and forgiving, too...in part, because I could and needed to forgive myself...and, in part, because I know just how fucked up parts of the world -- even in our own backyards -- look like when people don't/won't forgive...

And I also understand why so many young people do and would fuck up...both out of lack of experience with doing so, as was definitely my case...

But also because there's this breeding ground for it among older adults...most of whom have lost their fire, in some way...and spend an awful lot of time convincing young people that they will lose theirs, as well...or relying on young people to somehow give them their fire back...

We're all responsible for our fuck-ups...but the environment that we've created, thusfar, for that kind of situation...and serious need for it to change if we want people's behavior to change...helps me understand it, better...and forgive it more easily...until everyone learns how to do that better...and as long as people choose not to...then the big people in the world will have to carry that on their backs until the more petty people learn to carry their load...

Now that I know how petty so many people are...most people are...the prospect that they might lead the world...is both laughable...and a pretty sad, pathetic thing to imagine...

Leadership is for big people...and most people are just not up for the challenge, really...everyone wants to be important...but far fewer people want to earn it...and it's not earning it that make them not worthy of it...

Progress is like crossing the English Channel...

The English Channel...at Wikipedia...

There are lots of ways to do it...the easiest likely being swimming from Dover to Calais...

There's plenty of room to flail around in the water, while you find your way...

But, ultimately, there's only way across...

Across...

Most people in life swim the channel hoping for an easier route than the hard job of just swimming it...

But...eventually...they just have to swim it...

And, luckily...in life...the way across is broad...and always getting broader...

But that is the nature of human progress...that it makes as much room for as many people as possible...

Dar Williams is someone in the music world who has earned her place more...it's not record sales that earn your way in this world...and when you hear Dar, you'll know...when you get a chance...check her out...

For those of you in snow-covered areas:):)...enjoy the snow:):):)...

Love,
Ben

On not giving up...

I'm reading Just Rose's blog, tonight...

Just Rose...Anonymous Rowhouse...

Which...if you haven't...you should...Rose really is one of the most beautiful young writers you will ever read...I mean that...she's really very good...and insightful...and she's well-loved for good reason...

She's writing about so many great things...you just got to check it out...

And she has this really beautiful post about her mom...who died when she was much younger...

Rose writes about her mom, a lot...it's really awesome...you should definitely check it out...and about dealing with the grief of having her mom pass...it's so powerful to read someone write about that process as open-hearted as Rose does...someone who is/has clearly been dealing with those feelings openly and honestly...not a common thing to do, I'm learning...

And when I'm done...I'm not just left with the feeling of reading someone who feels like a really good friend, even though I've never met her...

I realize that what Rose does...and I try to do...that so many people fail to do...

Is to take...all the pain...all the difficulties...all the hardship...

And open up her's and all of our hearts, despite all of it...

Rose's example is what true courage looks like...

It is so easy...and all so common...to face the hardships of the world...and to shut down...and stay inside one's little shell...seeking the illusion of safety in that shell...which never provides it...it just dulls one's experience of life...which can be aided by other substances...weed...alcohol...all kinds of drugs...taking it out on others...bullying others...sex...money...and all the things that money can buy...attention and fame...all kinds of shit can help fuel that illusion...and if you're really lucky...you can turn out like folks like Michael Jackson or O.J. Simpson and completely detach yourself from reality...with pretty serious consequences for you and everyone around you...

Or you can do what folks like Rose or I do...

Which is you can work at opening up...and deal with all that pain more openly...and stop rationalizing why you've been such a prick while failing to do that...

Abraham Maslow asks the question in one of his books (I think the Farthest Reaches of Human Nature)...with a picture of children when they're very young...and another picture of tired, suspicious adults on a subway system...with the caption:

"What happened?"...

And now I think I know what happens...

Some people...like Rose...they don't give up...they just keep opening up...and finding new courage to face the new day...and trying, better, to understand the world as they move through it...

And others...just kind of give up...

They just kind of lame out...and give into all kinds of cowardice and smallness...and fears and cynicism that results from all that laming out...that habit of quitting when the going gets tough...

I have so many friends like this, I can hardly count them all...

Most of my friends have never lived through something as difficult as having their mother die...or a parent die...some of my friends have...some of my friends have neither parent in their lives...

But when faced with the option of shutting down...which I know, too...because it's so damned hard to open up when something really painful happens to you...and that I've had happen to me too many times in my life to count...

Someone like Rose decides to still open up...to face the pain...the best she can...and to be strong for herself and others, authentically...not some tough, macho, bullshit strong...that fragile little bitches who are too afraid to deal with pain engage in...

But real strength...that someone with real heart demonstrates...like Rose...

Why people try to satisfy themselves with this kind of fragility and cowardice and the pettiness that inevitably comes with it I will never understand...because they're afraid, I'm sure...because they'd rather put off the pain, today, so that they can try to forget about it till tomorrow...except tomorrow never comes...because they think it's easier to just keep putting it off...smoke some weed...drink 10 or 12 beers...and try to forget about it...

Or to work as much as possible...to forget about it...maybe earn a vacation...or two...or three...to go somewhere...and try to forget all that pain...

But the nice thing about someone like Rose...is that she doesn't get stuck under her shell...not for long, at least...

She just keeps coming out...and sharing herself with the rest of us...

And if you visit her comments...you'll see that people really appreciate her coming out:)...

And that's what courage really looks like...it's not getting lost underneath all your fears and anger and hatred and pain...

Courage is facing all that shit...and yourself...and feeling all that pain...just long enough to let it go...

When I broke up with Brandi...I started studying Zen Buddhism for awhile...a great friend of mine, Dewang Dixit, invited me to a Zen temple one Sunday and we just kept going back...and I remember sitting in that temple, one day, with a bunch of other quiet strangers...and deciding, one day, that I was going to try the advice of our Zen leader...and just sit with the pain...just feel it...and not run away from it...

And I remember how painful it was...how totally, overwhelmingly painful it was...how it must have shown on my face or something...because both people beside me and the person across from me all kept getting up and walking around, some, they were so uncomfortable with whatever they were dealing with, I imagine...

And slowly...over a very long period of time...it got less painful...it was still senseless tragedy...our break-up...but it was manageable tragedy...and something I learned from...and kept learning from...and that I was, eventually, able to put more or less behind me...after many years of sitting with that pain...and keep opening my heart to...

But what I love about Rose...and I was just writing to her...

Is how she keeps sharing about it...how sharing it doesn't mean that you're stuck in it...it just means that it meant a lot to you...and you want others to know just how much it meant to you...since you can't share just how much it meant/means to you with the person who's not there for you, any more...

And how sharing it is a sign of strength...no matter how much the more fragile friends and family you have keep misindentifying it as weakness...so difficult a time do they have dealing with the pain in their own lives...and, if Rose's experience is anything like mine...who are constantly trying to get you to shut up about the painful experiences in your life...since it reminds them of all of the painful experiences in their lives that they have been so foolishly and dysfunctionally trying to forget and lose underneath layers of drugs or alcohol or work or money or sex or whatever to get them through their otherwise too often miserable existences...

Courage is not bullying people...

Courage...real courage...is what Rose does...to carry an open heart...even when it's not popular or in vogue...especially for people over 18...who waste an enormous amount of my and their energy trying to convince me that I should be just as cynical and afraid and insecure and bullshitting myself and others as they are...

I'm tired of all the hate and fear and anger dominating everything...bullying everyone all the time...I'm done with it...we're moving on...because I say so...and because it's better for us, that way...

I realize, now...thinking about Thomas Hobbes' work in a similar light...

That Hobbes is this very similar dude...in 17th Century England...who is living through a similarly fucked up time...religious warfare among Protestants and Catholics that has ravaged the country...and left only destruction in its wake...

And who is similarly saying, "Enough is enough...we are not going to keep having the same stupid, destructive, meaningless fight...we are moving on"...

And so he writes Leviathan...as the first real attempt to make a secular account of government and governing...so politics and government is not left to the religious bullies of his day...

So some alternative exists...to all that destructive nonsense...

It's brilliant, if you haven't read it...Hobbes' Leviathan...and in that historical context...it is terribly courageous...and I so appreciate the courage it took to write it...

John Locke...and Jacques Rousseau...and John Stuart Mill...and Alexis DeToqueville (someone who I think modern political theory classes should study, now, though my really excellent class with David Ericson at Wichita State did not cover DeToqueville) get it better, along the way, I think...

But Hobbes is brilliant for his time...trying to find some fundamental understanding of government...that doesn't require an appeal to anyone's God...so that some sort of political order can be established that didn't require adherence to any particular faith...Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise...

Amidst the religious and political cynicism and corresponding war and destruction of his time...

But to do that...you have to have courage...the courage to open up your heart...even when others choose to let their hearts slip and fall and remain stuck...

And Rose is the type of person who has that kind of courage...and it's pretty impressive to see it when it comes around...

Rose is someone who not only doesn't give up...but who thrives despite adversity...not using it as an excuse for not gathering that type of strength...

And she doesn't do it with any particular expertise...or ideology or political orientation, really...

She just has heart...

And in the end...that's really what matters...

Just Rose...Anonymous Rowhouse...

Check her out when you get a chance:):):)...

Love,
Ben