Hopeful Thinking

Who decides if a word is racist or not? How do we know when discrimination is happening? When is it possible to know if gender plays a role in how professional decisions are made? These are among the questions of our Great Human Reckoning. Society has increasingly made decisions about these things every day. Lines get drawn in the sand. Sometimes the lines move as we discover greater details about what should lie on which side. We can look at the history of the n-word, for example, and the birth of the idea that it represented hatred. A hatred we slowly decided was no longer appropriate. That gradual decision drew a line in the sand. A line that our society would increasingly turn to over the years and decades which followed, and continues to this day. A line beyond which were placed other non-loving, and non-inclusive words, and terminologies, and phrases, and eventually even product logos depicting the oppressed, and team mascots that unfairly portrayed whole races of people. That is...

Nearly all of us have been affected in one way or another by what has been dubbed “the Great Resignation.” Since the return to work following the lockdowns of the early pandemic, people have left their jobs in droves.  Many have wondered why, theorizing often that the federal funds added to state unemployment benefits given as a stimulus to help get us through the most trying financial times of this experience were making it more appealing to stay home than to return to our jobs.  To me, that seemed too simple an answer from the beginning. And it didn’t correspond to the realities as neatly as people wanted to believe. It turns out I was correct. As those benefits phased out, people were not returning back to their old jobs. There had to be other reasons.  My suspicion all along was that the pandemic was giving our civilization a serious “come to Jesus moment” with regard to our satisfaction and purpose. In other words, we were ‘mad as hell not going to take it anymore.’ ...

Back in the early 90s I attended the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City. I enjoyed nearly 20 years of being a performing arts professional.  I learned an incredible amount about the human experience in the process of learning how to emulate it. But it was of the craft of acting itself from which I learned a cornerstone idea about life. Namely, that stuff always goes wrong and how you face it is all that matters. Of course I don’t say this to be a pessimist. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. This prayer is more of an idea about non-resistance. Because things always do happen. Rarely does everything go according to plan. On stage or in real life. And sometimes surprising things occur when our expectations have not been met. There are many ways of reacting to a sudden change of plans. We can certainly overreact. We can also thoughtfully respond. How easily are you thrown by a sudden change? In the process of acknowledging that stuff always goes wrong, th...

What could there possibly be to look forward to right now? Our society feels like a carcass of bones being picked at by ravens on the side of the road. Cheerful image, isn’t it? And while it may feel that way, there’s no real evidence to back it up. The math is just not there. The world is not falling apart. Statistically speaking, it’s doing exactly the opposite. But you have to step back to see the wider view. Picture the world of 200 years ago. What were the rights of women at that time? Non-existent. And people of color? They were literally the physical property of other people. The LGBT+ community wasn’t even a blip on the radar.  Most of the real legislative and social advances made for these communities have occurred in only the last 50 years. And while the aspiration of this great work is still decades from being fully realized, and setbacks do occur, the overall advances in human rights are unquestionably snowballing across the planet. World War II has had a surprising eff...