No country, nor person, quite lives up to its promise, especially if that promise has qualities which rightly could be considered high and noble. "We hold these truths to be self evident..." "Imitate me as I imitate Christ."
Sometimes it is best that we not lift our gaze too much higher than our own fence line. There is plenty enough to keep us occupied within that view. Build something. Build a family. Build a place. Perhaps with a few like-minded souls, build a community. Not a bad life, in view of eternity. Eternity... that land which truly is the home of every person for whom Christ died, that land in which there is no shadow of disappointment. Blessings.
A post such as this demands a response. Two very different things come to mind. And a joking line my dad used to say when we were trying to navigate difficult directions.
But a joke is a sad beginning for such a thoughtful lament. So I’ll save the joke for the end where you can dismiss it as such if you like.
First of all, yes, you have guessed it. The place, in CS Lewis’ words is ‘not at anytime or anywhere on earth’.
But I know you know that. And the fulfillment of heaven is not truly at the bottom of your essay anymore than any other disgruntled rant.
This is about a thing we had and have lost. No one understands the loss like one who ‘had it’ at one time.
I have asked myself many of the same seemingly
unanswerable questions about when and where we lost it. My best guess is twofold: there was a great breaking away from wholesome living in the 60’s and things were never quite right again. It was as if all the lines holding the ship to port were cut and the American ship started to float into oblivion. It was gradual and most people were still partying onboard not knowing we’d lost course.
A huge Jesus Revolution in the 70’s steered the ship back but too many ropes were cut and it wandered out to sea again by the late 90’s.
In 2001 the downing of the towers precipitated the loss of whatever innocence about evil still existed (not that we should have been innocent about evil but we were). Safety became the driving force everywhere.
By now, the course of the ship, to the desired haven was Happiness and Safety, not Goodness and Freedom.
I suppose I have no better explanation than anyone, except that I totally agree that we did have something once as a country, and it has been lost. The only scripture that seems dead on for these times has been quoted like mad by kindred spirits of yours and mine since, oddly enough, the 70’s. “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, I will forgive their sins and heal their land.” To me —- this is proof that God actually cares about ‘countries’ as countries not simply individuals. He sees the carnage America has become and wishes it hadn’t.
Now for the joke. When my dad was driving to a new place and he couldn’t get there easily he’d say, ‘You can’t get there from here!’ in an exasperated tone as if it was impossible. We always knew it was hyperbole. And somehow we always found our way.
Nothing you’re saying is hyperbole, it is all sadly true in nearly every corner of the country. I, too, mourn for a more beautiful, innocent, good, and happy time. I mourn for good folks having children like you into this most critical time.
But I delight in hearing that a 30-something man can harken back to a better time, because that means the magic is still hidden in your heart. Don’t let it die. We need you.
Having lived in Canada for over three years, I can say that in the end I found it no different than the USA. They had somewhat different problems, but were headed in the same direction. I am afraid you will find the same thing in Europe or South America. Europe, if anything, is farther along, having always been ahead of everyone else in cultural decay. Back when we were young, we looked at the world with young eyes, seeing things for the first time and believing we could easily change the world. Now we are old and jaded and know better. Electing different greedy, power-hungry old men and women will change nothing. Obsessing over persons will change nothing. The only thing that will is to return to the grassroots method of Christianity, seeing individual men and women changed through the work of Jesus and their contact with us wherever we are and under whatever Government we are under. It seems a much slower method, too slow for most folks, but it is much surer.
I appreciate the insight Ted, I am thinking you are right to a large degree. It may not matter so much if we travel or stay put; we may simply find the same Fall of Man everywhere, and that its only salve is the love of Christ.
Then again, when I have been in heavily Mexican areas, people are outside, they are together, they are interested in each other and treat me kindly. When I am walking around Upstate New York, everyone is cloistered in their homes; strangers often avoid eye contact. The streets are silent and the porches are empty. Maybe it would be nice to be in a place where people are 'warmer,' I don't know...
And as for cultural decay, one wonders if there is a real difference between places so far as that goes... In Buenos Aires? Maybe the anti-Christian virus is there already.. In Chiloe Chile, or Isla De Cedros MX, or other far-flung places, maybe less so or not at all. It is a very, very big world -- I hate to imagine that it is all becoming completely the same, everywhere, all at once...
Having just returned from both Argentina and Chile, I can attest (unfortunately) that decay and ugliness exists there too, along with a noticeable decline in safety and security in urban areas. In fact, the real benefit to leaving my home in Canada for a time was the new appreciation it gave me for a place I was feeling very jaded about, along with a renewed determination to do what I could to help fix things. That said, I would love to read your take on other countries and cultures, so I selfishly hope that you and your family do embark on an epic global journey of some kind.
I have felt this same nostalgia for childhood when there seemed to be more community and less of this, whatever this is we have become. Ive gone to parts of Mexico and felt the same sense of how it once was here. But life there is hard unless you are a gringo with money which is why they try to come here, for this good life that some of us see for the emptyness it holds. I don’t know the answer but advise you to have lots of children and give them a wonderful, noisy, solid start in Christ and teach them the value of family, community, and no phones for as ling as possible.
It's up to us. Each of us. So many candles of the Light of the World have been extinguished by their own bearers these past 50 years or so, but all is never lost. The world has been bleaker before. You are so right to remember what was, but whoever wrote "past is prologue" was onto a great truth. I cannot re-light someone else's light by anything except keeping my own burning. "Don't be afraid," Jesus told Jairus, "Just believe."
Having lived in the U.S., Canada and Europe over the course of 75 years, I would agree with you. We need to look within and come together in That of God.
Beautifully written. I was reminded of J.R.R. Tolkein's, "We all long for Eden and are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature is soaked with the sense of exile." And, as well, Pascal's "“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” Not just saudade and/or añoranza but also, perhaps, fernweh and/or hiraeth. Write on!
I can relate….I think, a little. I am possibly a very different kind of person since my core yearning is to be rooted, not to wander. When I did leave home, for a fairly extended period of time, I was always looking for something that would feel like home.
Still, I can relate to this longing for something that seems lost, an almost implausible memory, yet more real than real. For me it is the memory of telling stories in the summer night with my brothers (no electronics in sight), sitting on the bumper of the van, one person acting out the stories with only a stick as prop. Swimming in the river all day, buying popsicles with small change at the gas station. The shabby but somehow unutterably glamourous studios where I learned ballet, by teachers who furiously believed in what they were doing. I can also relate to seeing decay everywhere (material
or cultural) and feeling betrayed and baffled.
The only answer I have is that while you can’t go back and you can’t fix anyone’s mistakes, you can choose what to participate in. My children are having experiences of belonging and cultural connection I never had. I can’t recreate all my favourite memories for them…..but I can find what is worth living for here and now. At least, I try.
As a long time emigrant from the USA, I can tell you, you are by no means alone in your coflicted feelings. Have you read DAVITA'S HARP by Chaim Potok? Set in the Jewish world of 1950s NYC, it contains a scene which really captures the feeling: the protagonist's poet uncle, ill and chronically dissatisfied, has decided to return to Europe. The child Davita asks, "Uncle, do you not like America?" He replies, "America...America is an amazing country, but the people do not know how to use what they have...In the end, it will all be lost". Then he coughs deeply and turnes toward the door. (Rough retelling from memory). An excelent book about another of America's lost worlds.
As a retired 66 year old my advice is to follow your heart and spirituality. I feel a bit lost and isolated in my attempts to navigate this old age thing. I feel I should have followed my dreams and believe a far fetched dream may be a worthy goal. Why the eff not? And, by the way, your musings on America remind me a hell of alot of early Bob Dylan. Even Springsteen. Particularly Darkness on the Edge of Town and Devils and Dust albums.
Take heart, my friend. The world has been full of ghost towns since the beginning. Sad when its our own town, but like the trees that fall after 70 years and lie decaying on the forest floor, there's a time for everything under heaven. I wonder if you've looked to find a Benedict community? I have heard that they are thriving and loving places ... remember the song from "West Side Story?" "There's a Place for Us"? Believe it. Your child deserves one. Praying for you buddy.
My guy. Plant a garden and a tree. Drink some upstate NY terroir via some NY apple cider and create a gravitational force to propel you out and bring you home.
Just got back and think Britain still has much of what we don’t, I think. I never saw a person on a cell phone at all the cafes and restaurants I went to, hordes of children were taking through hikes in small villages to youth hostels, I had a small genuine conversation with almost everyone that incidentally was near me, except for the few Americans I met who did not want to talk or genuinely engage. This does not happen in the US. So I am curious about whether or not you are referencing this or another aspect of decline? I think what resonated about Andy’s article with me is the disintegration of relations - that people are no longer even interested in…people. And Britain, for all its problems, from the northern border with the border with Scotland to Lands End, did not show me this particular problem.
I’m not trying to discredit what you’re saying - I just felt the difference coming from rural America, but you’ve seen the change first hand. Would be curious to know what you think.
You write beautifully, as always. Thank you. Your words give shape to my feelings where my words have, more recently, failed me. I suppose I must admit that it is my heart that has failed me, or at least fallen deeply enough into sorrow to have gone silent. I too, sit staring out a window, only I stare out at an ocean from a cabin, or small house, I built with my father who passed away in February.
In the end, I cannot help but conclude that America, and by extension, Western Christendom, is under judgement. We grew greedy and arrogant and ignorant, and God has withdrawn his favour, his protection, until we are humbled and repent. I had a friend who stood before the World Trade Center Buildings on September 10, 2001 and prophesied that the towers represented greed and arrogance and the Lord would bring them down. He meant metaphorically, of course... no one was more horrified than he was the next day. There it was for those that had eyes to see, Babel condensed into hours, and then played out over decades. And now in exile we weep by the rivers of Babylon. And the demons wreak havoc and confusion on the land because they have been allowed to do so.
Most days, too, I dream of greener pastures. But Bourdain never inspired me to travel. He inspired me to stay put and grow what he was a tourist to... local culture. Oddly enough, what the Lord has given me to do in exile, specifically, is plant a vineyard. Even in my despair, it is a blind act of faith. Of hope in hopelessness. A promise that judgement will not last forever, that one day the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel will return, the darkness will lift, and that God will redeem the land, and rebuild a new country from ashes, growing something new from the grassroots up. But most days I wonder whether I have lost my mind.
I doubt we will ever meet, but cheers. You are a mensch, and the finest living writer.
P.S. If you ever partake of online media, I highly recommend the "Wine and War" documentary on AmazonPrime. Yes, I know, AmazonPrime, derp. But maybe someone you know has an account.
This is powerful, beautiful, and melancholy; thank you for sharing! Yes, America is profoundly sick, most likely terminally so. It is heartbreaking. But it also seems that the entire world is wrapped up in our decline. I don't know if there is anywhere that will be immune from the wreckage. I can't seem to see how the entire global economy is anything other than a giant ponzi scheme at this point, destroying all culture and soul as it's monoculture expands. But, as other comments have mentioned, there is an Eternity in the Lord beyond the time that it is ours to be trapped in.
Enjoyed the piece as usual! I am writing this here because you may be off Twitter. We had talked about me coming up for a visit from Nashville. I am in DC now so please let me know if I could stop by in the next few days. Thanks
Thomas, I am sad to say that at this time I am not home, I am in Rome NY caring for my mother. If you happen to be in this town, DM me, let’s have a beer. But as for my village, I cannot be there for a time, maybe a couple of weeks now.. God bless and safe travels
Ok, of course I would be happy to drop by Rome in the next couple of days. I will let you know when I'm there, it will probably be Tuesday or Wednesday
I am only a little older than you and I have often thought and made the comment that things really were better in the 90s and early 2000s and it’s not some weird nostalgia. I blame technology and a culture that thrives on making people scared of their own shadow. It seems there are some people who will not be happy until we bubble wrap the entire world and all possible risk is removed. I think you said it in one of your essays about turning us all into teetotaling vegans, I think that’s accurate there are those who want to do that. In that same vein is the fear your neighbor mentality that is constantly pushed. I don’t know how it gets fixed, I’ve been puzzling over it myself and am worried about the kind of world my son is going to inherit.
No country, nor person, quite lives up to its promise, especially if that promise has qualities which rightly could be considered high and noble. "We hold these truths to be self evident..." "Imitate me as I imitate Christ."
Sometimes it is best that we not lift our gaze too much higher than our own fence line. There is plenty enough to keep us occupied within that view. Build something. Build a family. Build a place. Perhaps with a few like-minded souls, build a community. Not a bad life, in view of eternity. Eternity... that land which truly is the home of every person for whom Christ died, that land in which there is no shadow of disappointment. Blessings.
A post such as this demands a response. Two very different things come to mind. And a joking line my dad used to say when we were trying to navigate difficult directions.
But a joke is a sad beginning for such a thoughtful lament. So I’ll save the joke for the end where you can dismiss it as such if you like.
First of all, yes, you have guessed it. The place, in CS Lewis’ words is ‘not at anytime or anywhere on earth’.
But I know you know that. And the fulfillment of heaven is not truly at the bottom of your essay anymore than any other disgruntled rant.
This is about a thing we had and have lost. No one understands the loss like one who ‘had it’ at one time.
I have asked myself many of the same seemingly
unanswerable questions about when and where we lost it. My best guess is twofold: there was a great breaking away from wholesome living in the 60’s and things were never quite right again. It was as if all the lines holding the ship to port were cut and the American ship started to float into oblivion. It was gradual and most people were still partying onboard not knowing we’d lost course.
A huge Jesus Revolution in the 70’s steered the ship back but too many ropes were cut and it wandered out to sea again by the late 90’s.
In 2001 the downing of the towers precipitated the loss of whatever innocence about evil still existed (not that we should have been innocent about evil but we were). Safety became the driving force everywhere.
By now, the course of the ship, to the desired haven was Happiness and Safety, not Goodness and Freedom.
I suppose I have no better explanation than anyone, except that I totally agree that we did have something once as a country, and it has been lost. The only scripture that seems dead on for these times has been quoted like mad by kindred spirits of yours and mine since, oddly enough, the 70’s. “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, I will forgive their sins and heal their land.” To me —- this is proof that God actually cares about ‘countries’ as countries not simply individuals. He sees the carnage America has become and wishes it hadn’t.
Now for the joke. When my dad was driving to a new place and he couldn’t get there easily he’d say, ‘You can’t get there from here!’ in an exasperated tone as if it was impossible. We always knew it was hyperbole. And somehow we always found our way.
Nothing you’re saying is hyperbole, it is all sadly true in nearly every corner of the country. I, too, mourn for a more beautiful, innocent, good, and happy time. I mourn for good folks having children like you into this most critical time.
But I delight in hearing that a 30-something man can harken back to a better time, because that means the magic is still hidden in your heart. Don’t let it die. We need you.
Having lived in Canada for over three years, I can say that in the end I found it no different than the USA. They had somewhat different problems, but were headed in the same direction. I am afraid you will find the same thing in Europe or South America. Europe, if anything, is farther along, having always been ahead of everyone else in cultural decay. Back when we were young, we looked at the world with young eyes, seeing things for the first time and believing we could easily change the world. Now we are old and jaded and know better. Electing different greedy, power-hungry old men and women will change nothing. Obsessing over persons will change nothing. The only thing that will is to return to the grassroots method of Christianity, seeing individual men and women changed through the work of Jesus and their contact with us wherever we are and under whatever Government we are under. It seems a much slower method, too slow for most folks, but it is much surer.
I appreciate the insight Ted, I am thinking you are right to a large degree. It may not matter so much if we travel or stay put; we may simply find the same Fall of Man everywhere, and that its only salve is the love of Christ.
Then again, when I have been in heavily Mexican areas, people are outside, they are together, they are interested in each other and treat me kindly. When I am walking around Upstate New York, everyone is cloistered in their homes; strangers often avoid eye contact. The streets are silent and the porches are empty. Maybe it would be nice to be in a place where people are 'warmer,' I don't know...
And as for cultural decay, one wonders if there is a real difference between places so far as that goes... In Buenos Aires? Maybe the anti-Christian virus is there already.. In Chiloe Chile, or Isla De Cedros MX, or other far-flung places, maybe less so or not at all. It is a very, very big world -- I hate to imagine that it is all becoming completely the same, everywhere, all at once...
Having just returned from both Argentina and Chile, I can attest (unfortunately) that decay and ugliness exists there too, along with a noticeable decline in safety and security in urban areas. In fact, the real benefit to leaving my home in Canada for a time was the new appreciation it gave me for a place I was feeling very jaded about, along with a renewed determination to do what I could to help fix things. That said, I would love to read your take on other countries and cultures, so I selfishly hope that you and your family do embark on an epic global journey of some kind.
I have felt this same nostalgia for childhood when there seemed to be more community and less of this, whatever this is we have become. Ive gone to parts of Mexico and felt the same sense of how it once was here. But life there is hard unless you are a gringo with money which is why they try to come here, for this good life that some of us see for the emptyness it holds. I don’t know the answer but advise you to have lots of children and give them a wonderful, noisy, solid start in Christ and teach them the value of family, community, and no phones for as ling as possible.
It's up to us. Each of us. So many candles of the Light of the World have been extinguished by their own bearers these past 50 years or so, but all is never lost. The world has been bleaker before. You are so right to remember what was, but whoever wrote "past is prologue" was onto a great truth. I cannot re-light someone else's light by anything except keeping my own burning. "Don't be afraid," Jesus told Jairus, "Just believe."
Amen to all that.
Having lived in the U.S., Canada and Europe over the course of 75 years, I would agree with you. We need to look within and come together in That of God.
Beautifully written. I was reminded of J.R.R. Tolkein's, "We all long for Eden and are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature is soaked with the sense of exile." And, as well, Pascal's "“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” Not just saudade and/or añoranza but also, perhaps, fernweh and/or hiraeth. Write on!
I can relate….I think, a little. I am possibly a very different kind of person since my core yearning is to be rooted, not to wander. When I did leave home, for a fairly extended period of time, I was always looking for something that would feel like home.
Still, I can relate to this longing for something that seems lost, an almost implausible memory, yet more real than real. For me it is the memory of telling stories in the summer night with my brothers (no electronics in sight), sitting on the bumper of the van, one person acting out the stories with only a stick as prop. Swimming in the river all day, buying popsicles with small change at the gas station. The shabby but somehow unutterably glamourous studios where I learned ballet, by teachers who furiously believed in what they were doing. I can also relate to seeing decay everywhere (material
or cultural) and feeling betrayed and baffled.
The only answer I have is that while you can’t go back and you can’t fix anyone’s mistakes, you can choose what to participate in. My children are having experiences of belonging and cultural connection I never had. I can’t recreate all my favourite memories for them…..but I can find what is worth living for here and now. At least, I try.
As a long time emigrant from the USA, I can tell you, you are by no means alone in your coflicted feelings. Have you read DAVITA'S HARP by Chaim Potok? Set in the Jewish world of 1950s NYC, it contains a scene which really captures the feeling: the protagonist's poet uncle, ill and chronically dissatisfied, has decided to return to Europe. The child Davita asks, "Uncle, do you not like America?" He replies, "America...America is an amazing country, but the people do not know how to use what they have...In the end, it will all be lost". Then he coughs deeply and turnes toward the door. (Rough retelling from memory). An excelent book about another of America's lost worlds.
Superb elegy. Thanks
As a retired 66 year old my advice is to follow your heart and spirituality. I feel a bit lost and isolated in my attempts to navigate this old age thing. I feel I should have followed my dreams and believe a far fetched dream may be a worthy goal. Why the eff not? And, by the way, your musings on America remind me a hell of alot of early Bob Dylan. Even Springsteen. Particularly Darkness on the Edge of Town and Devils and Dust albums.
Take heart, my friend. The world has been full of ghost towns since the beginning. Sad when its our own town, but like the trees that fall after 70 years and lie decaying on the forest floor, there's a time for everything under heaven. I wonder if you've looked to find a Benedict community? I have heard that they are thriving and loving places ... remember the song from "West Side Story?" "There's a Place for Us"? Believe it. Your child deserves one. Praying for you buddy.
My guy. Plant a garden and a tree. Drink some upstate NY terroir via some NY apple cider and create a gravitational force to propel you out and bring you home.
Sad and beautiful. Very similar feelings in Britain too.
Just got back and think Britain still has much of what we don’t, I think. I never saw a person on a cell phone at all the cafes and restaurants I went to, hordes of children were taking through hikes in small villages to youth hostels, I had a small genuine conversation with almost everyone that incidentally was near me, except for the few Americans I met who did not want to talk or genuinely engage. This does not happen in the US. So I am curious about whether or not you are referencing this or another aspect of decline? I think what resonated about Andy’s article with me is the disintegration of relations - that people are no longer even interested in…people. And Britain, for all its problems, from the northern border with the border with Scotland to Lands End, did not show me this particular problem.
I’m not trying to discredit what you’re saying - I just felt the difference coming from rural America, but you’ve seen the change first hand. Would be curious to know what you think.
This is one of the great American essays of the year.
You write beautifully, as always. Thank you. Your words give shape to my feelings where my words have, more recently, failed me. I suppose I must admit that it is my heart that has failed me, or at least fallen deeply enough into sorrow to have gone silent. I too, sit staring out a window, only I stare out at an ocean from a cabin, or small house, I built with my father who passed away in February.
In the end, I cannot help but conclude that America, and by extension, Western Christendom, is under judgement. We grew greedy and arrogant and ignorant, and God has withdrawn his favour, his protection, until we are humbled and repent. I had a friend who stood before the World Trade Center Buildings on September 10, 2001 and prophesied that the towers represented greed and arrogance and the Lord would bring them down. He meant metaphorically, of course... no one was more horrified than he was the next day. There it was for those that had eyes to see, Babel condensed into hours, and then played out over decades. And now in exile we weep by the rivers of Babylon. And the demons wreak havoc and confusion on the land because they have been allowed to do so.
Most days, too, I dream of greener pastures. But Bourdain never inspired me to travel. He inspired me to stay put and grow what he was a tourist to... local culture. Oddly enough, what the Lord has given me to do in exile, specifically, is plant a vineyard. Even in my despair, it is a blind act of faith. Of hope in hopelessness. A promise that judgement will not last forever, that one day the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel will return, the darkness will lift, and that God will redeem the land, and rebuild a new country from ashes, growing something new from the grassroots up. But most days I wonder whether I have lost my mind.
I doubt we will ever meet, but cheers. You are a mensch, and the finest living writer.
P.S. If you ever partake of online media, I highly recommend the "Wine and War" documentary on AmazonPrime. Yes, I know, AmazonPrime, derp. But maybe someone you know has an account.
This is powerful, beautiful, and melancholy; thank you for sharing! Yes, America is profoundly sick, most likely terminally so. It is heartbreaking. But it also seems that the entire world is wrapped up in our decline. I don't know if there is anywhere that will be immune from the wreckage. I can't seem to see how the entire global economy is anything other than a giant ponzi scheme at this point, destroying all culture and soul as it's monoculture expands. But, as other comments have mentioned, there is an Eternity in the Lord beyond the time that it is ours to be trapped in.
You've reminded me of this Wendell Berry poem -
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Enjoyed the piece as usual! I am writing this here because you may be off Twitter. We had talked about me coming up for a visit from Nashville. I am in DC now so please let me know if I could stop by in the next few days. Thanks
I will be in Rome this afternoon, DM in Twitter as well
Thomas, I am sad to say that at this time I am not home, I am in Rome NY caring for my mother. If you happen to be in this town, DM me, let’s have a beer. But as for my village, I cannot be there for a time, maybe a couple of weeks now.. God bless and safe travels
Ok, of course I would be happy to drop by Rome in the next couple of days. I will let you know when I'm there, it will probably be Tuesday or Wednesday
I am only a little older than you and I have often thought and made the comment that things really were better in the 90s and early 2000s and it’s not some weird nostalgia. I blame technology and a culture that thrives on making people scared of their own shadow. It seems there are some people who will not be happy until we bubble wrap the entire world and all possible risk is removed. I think you said it in one of your essays about turning us all into teetotaling vegans, I think that’s accurate there are those who want to do that. In that same vein is the fear your neighbor mentality that is constantly pushed. I don’t know how it gets fixed, I’ve been puzzling over it myself and am worried about the kind of world my son is going to inherit.