They called him Theordore Rex sometimes

It might be good to note, as this meme from Bernie Sanders makes its way around, that TR was speaking of the ancient republics of Greece, Italy, and Flanders as examples of this type of bad outcome. In the very next breath, he says this of Americans:

"The reason why our future is assured lies in the fact that our people are genuinely skilled in and fitted for self-government and therefore will spurn the leadership of those who seek to excite this ferocious and foolish class antagonism. The average American knows not only that he himself intends to do what is right, but that his average fellow countryman has the same intention and the same power to make his intention effective. He knows, whether he be business man, professional man, farmer, mechanic, employer, or wage-worker, that the welfare of each of these men is bound up with the welfare of all the others; that each is neighbor to the other, is actuated by the same hopes and fears, has fundamentally the same ideals, and that all alike have much the same virtues and the same faults. Our average fellow citizen is a sane and healthy man who believes in decency and has a wholesome mind..."

So it is easy to blame the oligarchs - and believe me, I do - but I think we also have to wonder how many of us, at least in the public discourse, present as sane and healthy and decent and wholesome of mind. Do we still think that that the welfare of each of us is bound up with the welfare of all of us? How skilled in and fitted for self-government are we really?

The answers to those questions might be what scare me more that the 1%.

The whole speech.

Dead center

So, this is just a quick post as a follow-up to the last one. The chart immediately below is of vague provenance; I found it on a few websites (this might be the original) but none sourced it fully, so I am not sure if the placements are based on data or guesswork. It's just food for thought for all of us, I suppose. That teacher is right there at the junction of all four quadrants was just a little too coincidental considering the other day's topic, though.

 

Of course, given how much work Coco has been doing in her own classroom with happiness, I feel it incumbent to add a dimension beyond this quadrant layout. This next chart is based on actual research: a study called "High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being" published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The graph illustrates how after about $75,000 per annum, income has a negligible effect on increasing the markers for happiness. This result has been borne out in many other studies, not just this one.

Which leads us to question the upper right of that quadrant chart. One-percenters may have more money and more stuff, but it is doubtful - according to the data - that they are enjoying  themselves all that much more than us plebs.  Cold comfort, perhaps.

On the other hand, I imagine few would doubt that a little more do-re-mi would make the lives of those in the lower-left-quadrant a little sunnier.

At least, that's the perspective from the middle.

Anti-liminality

So, I encountered a colleague (and friend) in the hallway on campus the other day, and we stopped to chat since we hadn't seen each other in some time. She asked me how things were going, and I began to explain the development - or rather non-development - of the latest potentiality that I had been exploring, and in the middle of explaining the pros and the cons of the different outcomes and the possible next steps and all the considerations appertaining thereto, I suddenly interrupted myself by saying

You know, I'm pretty fucking tired of all this navel-gazing

and just like that it was like a fog cleared or dawn broke or a weight was lifted from my shoulders.

Call it realization, rationalization, exhaustion, or wisdom, I somehow understood all at once that all my schemes and plans and anticipation had been keeping me from living in the moment and enjoying my life as much as I could have been. It was not with acrimony that I came into this epiphany; the projects and prospects and goals that I had been pursuing were neither trivial nor without purpose.  It was not any specific action that was objectionable. The process had just been seemingly constant: certainly continual if not continuous, and clearly having gone on too long. I realized that in all the expectation of moving on, I hadn't been moving at all.

This insight was like a gift of afflatus from the gods. I had no ongoing projects: nothing brewing, nothing pending, nothing in the pipeline. Once relieved of the yoke of what might be I was able to savor and relish what is. And you know what is? This is what is.

• I have a beautiful, smart, funny, unceasingly supportive wife to spend my days with.

• I have a wonderful circle of friends who enlighten, uplift, and amuse me to no end.

• I have possibly the best job in the world and am thoroughly enjoying my classes, my curricular work, and my students. 

• I live in a totally cool neighborhood that is outstandingly walkable and has just about everything I need within striking distance.

• I am physically, financially, and mentally sound.

I have an embarrassment of riches and a cornucopia of goodness; a treasure trove of amity and philia and pleasure is mine for the taking.

Two quotes from Epicurus are milestones to this renewed awareness:

 “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

 “Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance."

If ever there was a time to be living it up, this is it. So that's what I'm gonna do. Care to join me?