I used to say that Ronald Reagan was the luckiest guy on earth. He was a mediocre man who got to be a movie star, a governor and then president — the oldest at the time — all based on his ability to deliver a line with manly bearing. Then, after all the crimes and lies and deaths under his watch, he got to forget everything. Alzheimer's was no tragedy for him, it was just another gift to a lucky mother fucker.
One of the hardest things for me right now, in addition to grappling with my vast and encompassing anxiety and grief for the country, world, and planet (and even my own little community), is knowing that I'm old (nearly 67), have had a good enough life up till now, and likely won't have to endure the worst of what is coming. But my two beautiful adult children, their loved ones, and any children they may choose to produce together in the near future, will likely suffer terrible, terrible--perhaps unspeakably terrible--things, and perhaps starting very soon. I fear this especially because I see young people and children suffering unimaginable horrors all over the world ALREADY, not least in Ukraine and Gaza. The great Ida B. Wells once wrote, "I felt so disappointed because I had hoped such great things . . . for my people generally. I have firmly believed all along that the law was on our side and would, when we appealed to it, give us justice. I feel shorn of that belief and utterly discouraged, and just now, if it were possible, would gather my race in my arms and fly away with them." I would replace the word "race" with the word "beloveds," but the feeling is the same. Thank you, Sarah.
As an elder millennial moving back to St Louis after nearly twenty years away, I look forward to introducing my young children to Elephant Rocks and all its majesty. My youth was forged there, and I want the same for them.
In the same vein, thank you for the reflection on our gerontocracy. My parents are both north of 70 years old, and my father has been dealt a bad hand with blood cancer and numerous complications. We laugh on the phone together, though, when I jokingly tell him he needs to keep going because he is not old enough yet to be President.
Several bloggers I follow called out John Stewart for telling the truth about both Biden and Trump's ages. Really pissed me off. John was spot on and I know that because of all of the hollering about it. What did I do? I agreed with them by mentioning how Biden, not once, but twice bypassed Congress to give more bombs to Israel. Odd he can't do that to help Ukraine. I mentioned how he wants to finish Trump's stupid wall and the Will Project (drill baby drill). I mentioned Nancy Pelosi's insider trading and Biden vetoing, again, the UN's call for a cease fire. I forgot to mention that Biden also bypassed Congress to bomb Yemen. All of those issues make all the talk about Biden's age as trivial as they claim it is. I've lost a lot of respect for them. Oh hey, I also forgot to mention that more people have died from Covid under Biden than Trump. Vax and relax, right😷 Thank you for speaking the truth💕
Masterful, as always . Saddest of all human traits ( and there are too many to mention) is perhaps the failure to learn from history, to evolve and benefit from learned experiences. Nazi Germany was less than 100 years ago,and the history books haven’t been banned or erased (yet) on the subject.
I’m 64, and due to my wilder lifestyle of 20’s and 30’s I never imagined I’d still be here. But I’d like to think I learned something from my litany of blunders and missteps. Trying to communicate life lessons to my college-attending nephews is futile, because they know it all. I could have benefited from someone like today me counseling. But would I have listened? I wish I could say yes, but I doubt it.
Thank you so much for citing the ongoing pandemic and reduced life expectancy. I feel like few writers in the mainstream press are acknowledging the full ongoing impact of the pandemic and how it relates to collapses in climate, democracy, and public health.
I live close enough to the Grand Canyon to do the same.... but it is overwhelming so I spend more time in the old growth forest that leads up to its edge. Brilliant as usual, Sarah.
Brilliant as always! I may have to start reading your articles in two parts, the happy reality (which I love) and later the sad reality (that I loathe, but feel we all need to know).
"What I should feel, when I look at our political leadership, is trepidation similar to that which a Soviet citizen would have felt in the 1980s, as gerontocracy withered their state away." Just yesterday I listened to a Telegraph podcast from late last year of an interview of Professor Snyder, who compared the gerontocracy of the Soviet Union not just with the youthfulness, but the diversity, of Ukraine's leadership: a Jewish president; the defense minister who is a Muslim and Crimean Tatar, etc.
I'd also like to add to that someone I greatly admire--Lithuania's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabrielius Landsbergis, who is 42 and who never tires of speaking out against the slow response of the West to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Oh, if I could clone that man and put each of them in positions of power in the US and Europe! The problem is that the West has paid little attention to the warnings of eastern Europe--the very people who have the most experience with Russia--and we're paying a price for that.
Until today, my favorite expression of a mother's horror at the seemingly endless reign of masculinist toxicity and powermongering was Sharon Olds's inspired poem, "Rite of Passage." But then I just read this, your latest post.
hi sarah im so glad i looked to find you again. when twitter ended i left social media, remaining acutely aware of the ratcheting up/ongoing horrors ... all of which you predicted and i saw clearly (im a behaviour analyst/dont really get distracted from reality). only just now ventured back online....happy (and sad) to find your gorgeous heartbreaking writing. sickened at the craven greed, sociopathy of those in power, that most on the planet are under the authority of greedy sociopaths or greedy pathologically selfish. daily i think: these are among the most privileged men to ever walk the earth - and this is what they are doing. so grateful for you. i now live in AU, highly recommend you have your children come here for uni & live here....if youre all still alive then. im originally from texas - the state that masters greater depravity & barbaric governance exponentially. feel certain if you decide to abscond to AU there'll be spots for u.s. families via political asylum. we've a tiny place but you & yours are always welcome. stay safe & take good care ms S thanks so much for your beautiful writing, your commitment to humanity & your horrible/honest insights. always remember - when in despair, return to bobby banos doing the nitty gritty, and the post of that dance you set to music from all the ages. best thing ever/ ** chefs kiss :)
Absolutely terrific writing again. I'm growing accustomed to the taste of bile behind my second cup of coffee and morning readings, Sarah, and guess it's similar to the flavor of prophetic awareness (which nobody is presently putting in a bottle) (yet). And if it weren't for all the shared commentary of everyone herein, sheesh, I dunno. I'd probably be loading gear onto my touring bicycle again, and this time setting out without a mapped route. Couple of years back, I sat in on several weeks of an outdoor bible study class on the prophet Jeremiah, which struck chords for me for exactly none of the reasons our lecturer was offering the discussions. But that historical prophet's lament and denunciations then were every bit as acidic, and needed, as what you're simmering up for us here. I just don't see how we get out of this un-scarred; and, as you regularly put words to, we're not. Validating your observations today, from the side, was Robert Draper in the NYT: "A Nerve Center for the Right Wing Rises...", which discusses the means being applied to their ends. As to a "why", I'm reading Iain McGilchrist's "The Master & His Emissary", which, in 600 pages, elucidates how this is the third time in Western history that the seizing of the narrative by the left hemisphere of the brain (the bumper-sticker side of consciousness) and utterly displacing the "...well, wait a minute, what about this or that..." right hemisphere's more nuanced considerations. The left hemisphere , enhanced and fed by our "need for the screen" and its ability to give us what we want, now, and the need of The Machine's interconnected-ness to commodify everything into an exploitable thing and turn it all into money, and put all persons into the service of things is running riot. The breaking down of a social order comes to pass, says McGilchrist, every time a culture starts to lie to itself and demand "satisfaction". I'm near 72 now. I've suggested to my thirty-something sons that now is a good time to work toward smallness, and then get still smaller yet, which they're doing. Less dependent on a "system" that is bent on making a world reduced to things, and feeding The Machine less. Thanks, again for this piece and this space. I've got wash to take off the line here, and I'm all out of "things in quotes" for the day.
I used to say that Ronald Reagan was the luckiest guy on earth. He was a mediocre man who got to be a movie star, a governor and then president — the oldest at the time — all based on his ability to deliver a line with manly bearing. Then, after all the crimes and lies and deaths under his watch, he got to forget everything. Alzheimer's was no tragedy for him, it was just another gift to a lucky mother fucker.
One of the hardest things for me right now, in addition to grappling with my vast and encompassing anxiety and grief for the country, world, and planet (and even my own little community), is knowing that I'm old (nearly 67), have had a good enough life up till now, and likely won't have to endure the worst of what is coming. But my two beautiful adult children, their loved ones, and any children they may choose to produce together in the near future, will likely suffer terrible, terrible--perhaps unspeakably terrible--things, and perhaps starting very soon. I fear this especially because I see young people and children suffering unimaginable horrors all over the world ALREADY, not least in Ukraine and Gaza. The great Ida B. Wells once wrote, "I felt so disappointed because I had hoped such great things . . . for my people generally. I have firmly believed all along that the law was on our side and would, when we appealed to it, give us justice. I feel shorn of that belief and utterly discouraged, and just now, if it were possible, would gather my race in my arms and fly away with them." I would replace the word "race" with the word "beloveds," but the feeling is the same. Thank you, Sarah.
Writing perfection: “Childhood takes a long time to go by so fast.”
Thank you for this.
As an elder millennial moving back to St Louis after nearly twenty years away, I look forward to introducing my young children to Elephant Rocks and all its majesty. My youth was forged there, and I want the same for them.
In the same vein, thank you for the reflection on our gerontocracy. My parents are both north of 70 years old, and my father has been dealt a bad hand with blood cancer and numerous complications. We laugh on the phone together, though, when I jokingly tell him he needs to keep going because he is not old enough yet to be President.
The corporations own us all. And their enablers in office. The rich are ruining the country, the world, and they don't care don't care don't care.
Several bloggers I follow called out John Stewart for telling the truth about both Biden and Trump's ages. Really pissed me off. John was spot on and I know that because of all of the hollering about it. What did I do? I agreed with them by mentioning how Biden, not once, but twice bypassed Congress to give more bombs to Israel. Odd he can't do that to help Ukraine. I mentioned how he wants to finish Trump's stupid wall and the Will Project (drill baby drill). I mentioned Nancy Pelosi's insider trading and Biden vetoing, again, the UN's call for a cease fire. I forgot to mention that Biden also bypassed Congress to bomb Yemen. All of those issues make all the talk about Biden's age as trivial as they claim it is. I've lost a lot of respect for them. Oh hey, I also forgot to mention that more people have died from Covid under Biden than Trump. Vax and relax, right😷 Thank you for speaking the truth💕
Masterful, as always . Saddest of all human traits ( and there are too many to mention) is perhaps the failure to learn from history, to evolve and benefit from learned experiences. Nazi Germany was less than 100 years ago,and the history books haven’t been banned or erased (yet) on the subject.
I’m 64, and due to my wilder lifestyle of 20’s and 30’s I never imagined I’d still be here. But I’d like to think I learned something from my litany of blunders and missteps. Trying to communicate life lessons to my college-attending nephews is futile, because they know it all. I could have benefited from someone like today me counseling. But would I have listened? I wish I could say yes, but I doubt it.
Thank you so much for citing the ongoing pandemic and reduced life expectancy. I feel like few writers in the mainstream press are acknowledging the full ongoing impact of the pandemic and how it relates to collapses in climate, democracy, and public health.
I live close enough to the Grand Canyon to do the same.... but it is overwhelming so I spend more time in the old growth forest that leads up to its edge. Brilliant as usual, Sarah.
Yes, dear Sarah, you are an exception. An exceptional exception.
Brilliant as always! I may have to start reading your articles in two parts, the happy reality (which I love) and later the sad reality (that I loathe, but feel we all need to know).
I love the shout-out to Dylan Thomas.
Thank you again Sarah!
"What I should feel, when I look at our political leadership, is trepidation similar to that which a Soviet citizen would have felt in the 1980s, as gerontocracy withered their state away." Just yesterday I listened to a Telegraph podcast from late last year of an interview of Professor Snyder, who compared the gerontocracy of the Soviet Union not just with the youthfulness, but the diversity, of Ukraine's leadership: a Jewish president; the defense minister who is a Muslim and Crimean Tatar, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuBNkA3-Ddw
I'd also like to add to that someone I greatly admire--Lithuania's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabrielius Landsbergis, who is 42 and who never tires of speaking out against the slow response of the West to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Oh, if I could clone that man and put each of them in positions of power in the US and Europe! The problem is that the West has paid little attention to the warnings of eastern Europe--the very people who have the most experience with Russia--and we're paying a price for that.
https://twitter.com/GLandsbergis/status/1759533791133974709
"They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other’s pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown . . . "
Until today, my favorite expression of a mother's horror at the seemingly endless reign of masculinist toxicity and powermongering was Sharon Olds's inspired poem, "Rite of Passage." But then I just read this, your latest post.
Thank you again and again, Sarah.
P. S. Here's a link to the poem, which will probably stay with you too: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47055/rite-of-passage.
hi sarah im so glad i looked to find you again. when twitter ended i left social media, remaining acutely aware of the ratcheting up/ongoing horrors ... all of which you predicted and i saw clearly (im a behaviour analyst/dont really get distracted from reality). only just now ventured back online....happy (and sad) to find your gorgeous heartbreaking writing. sickened at the craven greed, sociopathy of those in power, that most on the planet are under the authority of greedy sociopaths or greedy pathologically selfish. daily i think: these are among the most privileged men to ever walk the earth - and this is what they are doing. so grateful for you. i now live in AU, highly recommend you have your children come here for uni & live here....if youre all still alive then. im originally from texas - the state that masters greater depravity & barbaric governance exponentially. feel certain if you decide to abscond to AU there'll be spots for u.s. families via political asylum. we've a tiny place but you & yours are always welcome. stay safe & take good care ms S thanks so much for your beautiful writing, your commitment to humanity & your horrible/honest insights. always remember - when in despair, return to bobby banos doing the nitty gritty, and the post of that dance you set to music from all the ages. best thing ever/ ** chefs kiss :)
The last line gave me chills. Relatable
Absolutely terrific writing again. I'm growing accustomed to the taste of bile behind my second cup of coffee and morning readings, Sarah, and guess it's similar to the flavor of prophetic awareness (which nobody is presently putting in a bottle) (yet). And if it weren't for all the shared commentary of everyone herein, sheesh, I dunno. I'd probably be loading gear onto my touring bicycle again, and this time setting out without a mapped route. Couple of years back, I sat in on several weeks of an outdoor bible study class on the prophet Jeremiah, which struck chords for me for exactly none of the reasons our lecturer was offering the discussions. But that historical prophet's lament and denunciations then were every bit as acidic, and needed, as what you're simmering up for us here. I just don't see how we get out of this un-scarred; and, as you regularly put words to, we're not. Validating your observations today, from the side, was Robert Draper in the NYT: "A Nerve Center for the Right Wing Rises...", which discusses the means being applied to their ends. As to a "why", I'm reading Iain McGilchrist's "The Master & His Emissary", which, in 600 pages, elucidates how this is the third time in Western history that the seizing of the narrative by the left hemisphere of the brain (the bumper-sticker side of consciousness) and utterly displacing the "...well, wait a minute, what about this or that..." right hemisphere's more nuanced considerations. The left hemisphere , enhanced and fed by our "need for the screen" and its ability to give us what we want, now, and the need of The Machine's interconnected-ness to commodify everything into an exploitable thing and turn it all into money, and put all persons into the service of things is running riot. The breaking down of a social order comes to pass, says McGilchrist, every time a culture starts to lie to itself and demand "satisfaction". I'm near 72 now. I've suggested to my thirty-something sons that now is a good time to work toward smallness, and then get still smaller yet, which they're doing. Less dependent on a "system" that is bent on making a world reduced to things, and feeding The Machine less. Thanks, again for this piece and this space. I've got wash to take off the line here, and I'm all out of "things in quotes" for the day.
Tim Long, Just up the Hill from Lock 15.