🇺🇸 When the going gets tough... 🇺🇸
Greetings at this pressure point of news, noise and a sudden visceral knowing:
So this is how the revered small-d democracy, in a small-r republic, of Ben Franklin and John Adams must at times have felt, looked and sounded.
No wonder no other nation on earth has created one as (so far) long-enduring.
In today’s high-intensity limbo we are somewhere between the music of Bob Dylan…
🎵 Come gather ‘round people wherever you roam/and admit that the waters/around you have grown./And accept it that soon/you'll be drenched to the bone/if your time to you is worth savin'./And you better start swimmin'/or you'll sink like a stone,/for the times they are a-changin’…🎵
…the Beatles:
🎵 Come together, right now…🎵
…and the Saturday words of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in a New York Times essay, Joe Biden for President:
“It’s time to learn a lesson from the progressive and centrist forces in France [and Britain] who, despite profound political differences, came together this week to soundly defeat right-wing extremism.”
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A Saturday evening note to readers:
The above introduction had just been completed, as I was to add in the political-news and discussion content-sections, for this edition of newShrink. That’s when news reports began about the assassination-attempt and shooting-injury of candidate- and former-President Donald Trump. There were two fatalities — a spectator and the gunman — and a life-threatening injury, at the outdoor campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.
The inherent horror and shock with such a violent attack were mitigated somewhat by our being able to see and know with near-immediacy of the candidate’s safe removal, confirmation of his medical well-being and securing of the area and suspect. Kudos and gratitude are in order for the fast, effective action of the Secret Service agents — and also for the journalists who remained to calmly cover and bring us facts about the dangerous, chaotic shooting scene.
As for newShrink, regarding our now-literally explosive political campaigns at this point, I believe my thoughts and voice do not and will not add productively to already-prolific discourse and noise.
At least as important, I’m seeing greater and more immediate need for time, focus and energy in direct action and service efforts — especially through the November election but also beyond. Our “political geography” where I am is such that those community-level efforts can have better traction, in order to make meaningful election-season differences, over in my neighboring-county and hometown of Charlotte. And I have like-minded and -spirited friends at a wonderfully activist, all-ways-diverse Presbyterian Church that I’ve wanted to visit in my beloved former neighborhood.
On various topics, newShrink will surely return along the way. Perhaps some of our paths may even cross more often in person!
As always I value hearing from you.
Below are closing sections of today’s edition that were already completed before the shootings.
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Repeatedly in these tense Biden-campaign weeks since the June 27 debate, I’ve had images and reminders of the Trojan Horse and Trojan War stories, as told by Homer in both the Odyssey and the Iliad. The war itself was real. As the likely embellished story goes, the Trojan Horse was a huge hollow wooden horse constructed by the Greeks to gain entrance into Troy. (Source: EncyclopediaBritannica.com)
Most admittedly, at many of these campaign-news points this has soothed the wishes and hopes of the horrified longtime PR/communication-strategist in me. At others, it’s perhaps accompanied prayers that something conscious and intentional might even be under way!
In any case,
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Looking to the rest of today’s title theme, there’s irony both exquisite and excruciating in the timing of this entire period on the political news-scape. The scrutiny, pontificating and intense public posturing about age and aging tap many aspects of my personal passion, professional practice and academic research. I’ve long specialized in the conscious and unconscious individuation process and choices in the lives of adults across the life span.
Some longtime readers may recall that my 2014 PhD dissertation work actually focused on what we can learn from the biographical arcs and the very public initiation-crises of high-profile figures — like Joe Biden at the current cultural moment — in public life and the news.
As timing and events would have it — and synchronicity, as the Jungians say — since early spring, this week has been booked for my solo visit in Asheville while grand Miz E and family are away at the beach. This is a first-immersion, by experiencing a fun personal interest class as a student, at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UNC-Asheville there. It’s a prelude to possible teaching and other group-work in my field. Hopefully that will be either/both there and in other ways in larger, closer Charlotte (which oddly lacks the OLLI programs and services that other NC university cities have.)
It’s long been said, with lamentable accuracy, that in the America of at least the past 50 years, the capital-R Republicans play chess while the capital-D Dems play checkers.
As it happens in this case, this week with a nod to today’s title theme: When the going gets tough, the tough play….
… Mah Jongg?!
I did not plan this timing with awareness of the Republican National Convention schedule. Nor do I relish the unscheduled solitary time to focus nonstop on the RNC for much of the next several days and nights — especially under current conditions in both parties and across the electorate. I’m glad to have friends there and hope there will be respite time with them!
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All of which brings back to mind the April edition that’s become a favorite: “OLLI at UNC-Asheville,” in newShrink “Learning.”
The full quote here from The Once and Future King, originally shared in a well-timed post from Ann Ahern Allen, is forever precious:
The Art of Learning
“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds.
There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.
Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
- T. H. White, The Once and Future King
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And then, there is always Bob Dylan…
(Here’s a Spotify sample, and the full song’s available most anywhere you access music.)
Please do have self-care in these most challenging times.
And, that is all I have for now. Talk to you soon.
🦋💙 tish
… it is important that awake people be awake,/
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;/
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —/
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep./
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
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