So why did the United Airlines customer ejection fiasco occur, and what can we learn from it that can serve our ability to make healthy choices in every circumstance that comes our way for the rest of eternity? (After all, why would we pay attention to anything if that weren’t the payoff?)
I met Trump in a dream recently. I had been invited to the White House for a face-to-face. He was very reserved and mild-mannered. He was also exhausted. I had no idea ahead of time the purpose of our meeting. Turned out he wanted me to create whatever story about him I chose, using video footage of his daily life taken by White House shooters.
I felt he knew that I was an adversary, that I thought he was unfit to be president, but I felt he also knew (via my essays) that I didn’t hate him, or even dislike him, and in fact felt quite compassionately toward him. That’s why he had reached out to me, it seemed.
NOTE: Dave Letterman nicknamed him Trumpy. I won’t use it, but I think it is fitting for a guy I’ve titled the King of Addiction. “Trumpy, the King of Addiction.” Sounds like a best-selling t-shirt to me. But can we wear it with compassion for the man who made it necessary?
I yelled at my wife. I never yell at my wife. I wasn’t nasty. I was just bombastic for 10 long seconds. She didn’t mind. She knew what was going on. I was struggling, unsuccessfully, to manage the grief that we as a world community almost seem to be drowning in. It was a humbling reminder: Trump, and the soulless assaults on human dignity his presidency incites, are not responsible for single thing I think or feel.
Even with tears in their eyes, the gods have been smiling for weeks at the Great Mess triggered by our choice of president. That’s what gods do when they recognize that we, in our sleep, have created for ourselves an opportunity bordering on demand to address the question: Who will I be or die trying?
Yes, we’re in for some gruesome times. Military occupation of Manhattan if that’s what it takes to get Saturday Night Live off the air? Who would bet the farm against it? Our problem isn’t that Trump is malevolent. He’s far more dangerous than that. He’s absent. The way a drug addict is absent. The way a sociopath is absent. The way “A stiff prick knows no conscience” is absent. And that absence, that absence of humility, sincerity, empathy, that absence of even a sense of humor, has become a void of integrity in which some of our culture’s nastiest instincts are flourishing.
Even we who know this may wonder why it might cause the gods to smile.
The Big Picture. Knowing that a nation lives, not by its material achievements, but in its masterpieces of men and women. Having witnessed since forever how threats of profound harm are reminders that commitments have virtually no value until they are aligned with action. Recognizing that Trump is Santa Claus for anyone whose answer to the “Who will I be…?” question is: “Bring my very best self to whatever life presents.” This is among the big enchiladas of human aspiration. And the fact that Trump (unbeknownst to him, of course) can help us achieve it––just tickles the gods no end.
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"I honor that we are killing the earth for the same reason I consider being an alcoholic a privilege: it is a doorway to the profound self-understanding required to make truly healthy choices."
The Essay: Honoring the Killing of the Earth
