On Charlottesville, and Why This Blog Is Not About That
By all rights, this should be about Charlottesville. Everything else is today, and rightfully so. When the dark haunted corners of America burst out into the open, whether or not the result is literally a matter of life and death, the potential is there and it deserves to be discussed. But today's post is not going to be about Charlottesville. At least, not directly about it.
Life is full of big things that get big attention. This blog isn't about those, or at least it's not about the obvious ones. There's plenty of reasons why I don't want to cover that well-trod ground, not the least of which is that as a member of the civil service, being publicly apolitical is not just a plus. It's a duty. The reason that is closest to my heart, however, is that I believe some things get far more attention than they deserve, while others get far too little.
Matters of life and death deserve our focus, horror, and commitment, but not everything that we attribute such importance to deserves that attention. An enormous portion of the responsibility for today's disturbingly polarized world surely rests on the elevation of even mundane political issues into a religion. When you're religious, you don't compromise on articles of faith. But when you're a politician--or someone who votes for politicians--compromise is the gatekeeper to your goals. When we see even the smallest and most prosaic of political priorities as worthy of a scorched earth campaign of annihilation, we not only will rarely get what we want, but we are highly unlikely to like what we have when we get it.
So lets leave the religious fervor to religion and to those few political situations in which failure truly is unthinkable. With the mental and emotional capacity that frees up, lets first take a nice long nap, and when we wake up again, I offer two suggestions for your consideration. The first is to focus on those ways that we can make a difference in our lives and the lives of others, those that may be so small that we overlook them in the search for grander things. Living a good life, caring for others, working hard, and tending to our loved ones may not have the glamour of a filibuster over tax reform, but they will all matter to everyone we come into contact with. And second, I suggest we enthusiastically embrace our curiosity and enthusiasm about the world we've been given. Whether about a tiny detail, like toes the color of a mermaid's tail, or cultural phenomena, like the magic of Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead, these are things that can bring fun, excitement, and a little bit of sparkle to life. I don't believe God gave us a sense of fun only to set it upon a shelf and take it out only after two pinot grigios. It's a gift we should use whenever we can. So I'll say a prayer for the people of Charlottesville and watch anxiously the next time tragedy and violence strike our country. But in the meantime, I'll continue to celebrate those infinite things that amuse, frustrate, or excite me every day. I hope you do so too.
