In a recent family video COVID call, I was asked about how our current times were impacting me, my children, and what might I look for or ask of my elders. The conversation took turns running through politics, schools closing, civil rights fights in Selma, and progressives taking over Congress. We talked about racism and how it has been wildly successful tactic to maintain power for white Americans.
As the heads of my family stuttered in and out of view, strained by distance and the private infrastructure that brought us together, I found myself searching for a common theme that could both explain all the discordant vectors in front of us and provide some guidance to lead us forward.
Greed paired with denial was mentioned as a potential candidate. That made sense. Greed is rampant in America, and in some circles it is elevated to a virtue. Denial exists as a paired sun, orbiting greed and providing the necessary cover. Without individual and communal denial, greed would be revealed as the cannibalistic force it is, creating inequity and allowing the "rich to eat the poor" as one person on the call mentioned.
Photo by Samuel Branch
Greed has been embraced in our society as a necessary factor fueling capitalistic progress and innovation. I can't deny it's power. It explains why we have such sorry leadership right now. Trump is the golden calf of greed. In fact, it is pretty easy to explain many of the states we find ourselves in if one assumes that greed lead people to act they way that they do.
Unfortunately, greed is not a very uplifting motivator.
I believe we need leadership and that that leadership must be built upon a sound, philosophical, and profoundly inspirational foundation. There are many injustices in our society - the systematic oppression of Black people, climate degradation, rape, school shootings. All of these issues must be addressed. Each is critical. Yet without a greater mission that helps us see how all the challenges we are facing are linked, the underlying currents that brought about our challenges will remain.
Americans like the story that our country was founded on the high ideals of Freedom, Liberty, Equality, and Justice. If I weigh all four of these principles, holding them up for scrutiny against the background of what we are experiencing, I can't imagine that these high principles are truly behind our choices now or in recent history. Greed appears to be driving us. That is our true light. The other four are flashes of rhetorical brilliance hiding greed's dark twin, denial.
The COVID-19 pandemic is unlike anything I've experienced. Most on the family call agreed. We asked each other about how this pandemic compared with other major societal events we've lived through. As someone who is loosely associated with Gen-X, I shared the series of jarring experiences that have marked my life. Growing up under the threat of nuclear war. Aids. The first Iraq war. Oklahoma City. 9/11. The second Iraq war and associated long nightmare. The Great Recession. Sandy Hook. #Metoo. Trump. Virus. Economic collapse.
Yet, I forgot to mention one. The Great American Solar Eclipse in 2017.
In the summer of 2017 I made a pilgrimage to see the eclipse as it sliced through rural South Eastern Oregon. There were 6 of us including 4 kids all under 10. We didn't have cottage or cabin to land at so we found camping along the way with the intention of driving to see totality the morning of the event.
Unfortunately, in order to see totality, we would have had to get up at 3AM in the morning, break camp, and hope to avoid the traffic jams. With 4 young kids we decide to pass and enjoy the 98% totality we were in. Close enough.
The morning of the eclipse we got up and hiked to an epic ridge that afforded us a 360 degree of the Oregon expanse. Hills stretched out before us, with valleys sighing and creasing the land, bending gravity and light down curves we couldn't follow. We threw out a blanket and donned our eclipse glasses. We were proud of our glasses.
As the sun started to hide, the birds retreated and the landscape slowly grew cold. Very cold. The sun tipped hills, previously golden, bruised into a deep purple. Stars that shouldn't have been there, were there. I looked around at my family, at my boys staring into the sky, and felt the cold, unforgiving death of a universe that doesn't pause for life.
It didn't feel good. I felt like a bird retreating and became aware that it would be difficult to survive without the sun. I felt small. I felt cold being injected into me.
Since we were at 98% totality, we didn't see the glory of 100% that so many reported. It wasn't revelatory. It felt like animal death.
The sun slowly came back as we packed up our trail mix and blanket. We made our way back down our hill to our water, tents, and cars. It felt good to be back and sheltered, but that crystalline feeling of the hand of the universe is what has stuck with me.
Recently, sitting by the sea during this pandemic, I have seen and felt this same cold universe. Nature is glorious but we serve at its pleasure. I now recognize that I have had this same feeling many times in my life. AIDS. 9/11. Watching The Day After. I also had this feeling the night before an old friend lost his life during this pandemic. He didn't die of COVID-19.
I should have brought this experience up during the call with my family because now I realize that it points to a theme that I think can explain how we have arrived at this current point in history, and one that we can use to guide us into a better future.
Behind all the themes that have come up - Freedom. Liberty. Equality. Justice. Greed (and denial) - is the drive for Survival.
Survival. Perhaps that is all that we need as a guide, and what has been guiding us. We hoard wealth because we believe we need it to survive. Perhaps our country was founded on the principles of individual Freedom not because we wanted to achieve some ideal, but rather because Freedom was seen as a requirement to survive. Without Justice, we cannot survive. Without a habitable planet we cannot survive. Maybe 40% of the country truly think they need Trump to survive.
When a pandemic arrives, and a virus races across political lines and family bonds, it becomes shockingly clear that survival is all that really matters. In a pandemic, Freedom and Liberty only really matter if we all survive.
It is tempting to arrive at the conclusion that if survival is all that matters, individual survival must be the primary goal. Yet, when you are facing the death of light during an eclipse, or isolated amongst a global pandemic, you come to the conclusion that the only way I survive is if we all survive. A single family is not enough. A single country is not enough. The death of light demands all of humanity to work as one.
If Survival is to guide us into a better, brighter future we have to evolve beyond the Survival of the fittest. We have to judge our decisions on whether or not they contribute to the Survival of all of us. Let that by our guiding light and American ideal.
I am optimistic that one day we will be looking at the down slope of this current crisis. When that times comes, I will consider what currents move my life, my family, and my country. Freedom, Liberty, Equality, Justice, and their unsavory relatives Greed and denial, are no longer enough to remake the world. We may fight for Freedom but if that fight limits our mutual survival, we have only been blinded by an ideal.
On April 4th, 2024, the shadow of the moon is once again carving a path across America. This time it'll start in Texas and end in Maine. There is no way in hell I'll be missing totality again.