This is the time of year to wish peace on Earth, a goal and prayer that seems always before us, and “When will we ever learn?” echoes in our minds.
But what if you had a magical chance to change things….?
If you woke to find a genie sitting on the edge of your bed, willing to grant you three wishes, what would they be?
I pondered this question many years ago and was recently asked it again in an interview. As a child, my answer was always simple and the same: I’d wish for a horse.
As I grew older and more sophisticated, I started appreciating the entanglement of the question: What kind of horse? Do I need to use my remaining two wishes for funds to maintain the horse and keep it healthy? How much do I wish for? What if someone I loved got sick, and I had to use a wish to make them well?
In fairy tales, I noted that the first two wishes, though well-intentioned, got the protagonist into hot water of some sort, and the third wish invariably had to be spent rectifying the situation. Very poor decision-making, in my opinion. The same is true in writing, a decision by the characters often takes the story in another direction entirely.
I pondered the problem (because you never know when you might find a genie on the edge of your bed, right?) When the solution came, I was very relieved. I had the answer. I was prepared. The resolution was beautiful in its simplicity and legal soundness: My first wish would be—to be granted three more wishes whenever I used up the other two! Clever, right?
As an adult, I realized that the real lesson of fairy tales was not how to use one’s wishes wisely, but that there are always unintended consequences.
Creating more food with less work and loss is a worthy goal, and we have accomplished it. It came about through the use of pesticides that, indeed, resulted in fewer insects, but also killed off the beneficial insects along with the pests and introduced sneaky carcinogens into our food chain that, in turn, raised health care costs and cut short the lives that “more food” was supposed to support.
China tried to control its population growth with a one-child limit, which resulted in a significant reduction of female babies (which were seen as less desirable than male children), and now, the country has negative population growth and a problem with too few women available for marriages.
In New Zealand, rabbits were introduced and became a problem, so they brought in stouts (a type of weasel) to eat the rabbits. However, now, the stouts are a threat to the bird population.
In the American South, we are “blessed” with kudzu, a prolific Asian vine imported for cattle grazing. Unfortunately, cattle don’t like it. It will eventually consume the world.
Even wishing for “peace on Earth” could have unintended horrific consequences. Rome’s centuries of peace (Pax Romana) came with a price in blood. Hitler wanted a reign of peace. He just needed to conquer a few countries and wipe out a few peoples first.
This is one of the problems we would/will face if Artificial Intelligence (AI) were tasked with such a goal and could make real-world changes. Imagine what lengths it would go to ensure “peace!” We might be stripped of the ability to speak freely or even interact or force-fed the “blue pills” [The Matrix] to remain in contented ignorance. Freedom and safety have always been a matter of delicate balance and unintended consequences.
It can be overwhelming. But, as ancient sages have said:
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, But neither are you free to abandon it.“
So, yes, we must work for peace, and I will gladly spend a wish on it, but perhaps it should include a well-thought-out document with a team of lawyers, futurists, and philosophers! Even then, hang on, because we know what happens to the best-laid plans of mice and men….
Happy Holidays to All!
P.S. You are warmly invited to explore my website, but in case you arrived here by way of Substack and would like to return, feel free to jump back through THIS PORTAL.
I just read an article about the importance of connecting or reconnecting with our playful selves. “It offers a reprieve from the chaos.”
That sounded intriguing. There is certainly a lot of chaos going on at the moment. I could use a reprieve.
When we were children, we didn’t play to accomplish anything. We just played. Explored. Play = fun. Fun was an end goal. We didn’t post stuff we did to social media or analyze what we learned.
We just played. Learning was the byproduct of curiosity.
If I may borrow a biblical phrase—And it was good.
But who knew there were personality play traits?
One study broke preferences down into four categories:
other-directed (enjoy playing with others),
lighthearted (nothing too serious, please; let’s improvise!),
intellectual (ideas, thoughts, wordplay, and problem-solving), and
whimsical (doing odd or unusual things in everyday life).
Our play as adults adapted from what we naturally enjoyed (our play preference) as children. Some adults, for example, “seek fun through novelty, whether it’s traveling to new places, exploring new hobbies, or buying new gadgets.”
“List the activities you enjoyed as a kid,” the article suggested, “then brainstorm the grown-up version.”
So, here goes:
I liked to climb trees. I had a special tree in the front yard, a young live oak with inviting arms that was my special place to go when things got tough, or I wanted a different perspective, or a steady, quiet friend. There was also the top shelf in the tiny linen closet that had an antique oval glass window where I could look out at the world, but no one could see me.
I rode many amazing chimera horses that were my legs, jumping over logs, chairs, bushes, and anything in my path. And if there weren’t enough things in my path, I would put them there to jump over. (Would you believe that is a sports competition now with adult people? It’s called “hobby horsing!” ) I currently have three real horses in my yard, but they think they are living at the Horse Retirement Riviera, and I doubt “jumping” anything is on their play list.
I did have a Barbie doll, but she was in reality a prop for my plastic Breyer horses. To my annoyance, she could only ride sidesaddle with her legs sticking out straight. I draped my horses in my mother’s costume jewelry and had them interact in elaborate storylines, often without the interference of people characters. Who needed them?
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Lest you think me a hermit, in the first decade of my life, I did interact with others in play. I remember games of Red Rosie, tag, touch football and kickball, but when we didn’t have enough people for that or were too young to join in, I participated in impromptu gatherings where we acted out scenarios. I was usually the bossy “director.”
“You are the prince. And you are the princess. And you are the merchant. And you are secretly in love with the queen and, oh yeah, I am the queen….”
Hmm.
At least in part, intellectual play seems to have appealed to me. That sparked this idea:
Maybe I need to look at writing, not as a chore TO DO, but as a chance to play.
I like that.
So, hang on. We’re just playing here.
When I write, I often use two of the most powerful words that I know of. They open doors into imagination, exploration, and . . . play.
They are (cue drum roll)—
“What if . . . ?”
What if I were a rookie police detective . . . and a witch?*
What if Noah’s wife was an amazing young girl on the spectrum?*
What if the story of the church bombing that killed four young girls was told by the investigators who chased down the evidence and pieced it together to bring justice decades later?*
What if a young desert girl posing as a boy was able to travel with her caravan merchant father and had a little problem with obedience?*
What if the story about civil rights in Birmingham was far more nuanced and complex than anyone realized?*
What if a young musical genius has an alien BFF?*
What if I just thought I was a serious writer, but I am actually just playing?
[Laugh of delight!]
How did you play? Is there a way to replicate that now, to permit yourself to do something just for the joy of it?
*The results of my adult play:
House of Rose/House of Stone/House of Iron
Noah’s Wife
Last Chance for Justice
Angels at the Gate
Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days
Snow Dancers
I write about what moves me, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Check out my (fiction and nonfiction) books at TKThorne.com
Our grandchildren, or those who were very young during it, might forget all about it by the time they are grown, as most of my generation has little knowledge of the 1918 flu pandemic and the fact that President Woodrow Wilson tried to suppress news of the devastation because he thought it might lower morale during war time (WWI). Spain, being neutral in the war, reported their cases, hence, the pandemic was misleadingly dubbed the “Spanish” flu.
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We, who lived (and are living) through Covid, have memories of the terrible stress of those early months—watching freezer trucks lined up in NYC to hold bodies, disinfecting our groceries, not being able to see or touch a newborn grandchild or elderly loved ones, and dealing with the seclusion of our home santuaries/prisons. Grocery stores had a strict limit on how many people could be in the store at a time. We tried to stay six feet away from other humans. Those who worked from home had to learn new technology and simultaneously deal with children who would normally be at day care or in school. People were dying by the thousands; jobs and housing were often hanging by a thread. It felt like the end of the world.
I dealt with the stress by learning to swing a mattock (a pick/hoe combo tool) and attacking the wisteria invasion in my back yard, then pulling tiny plants from the moss along my brick walkway, rescuing two horses, and creating a small pond in my yard. I learned Tai Chi from Internet videos, started watercolor painting, and growing vegetables with my flowers. Fortunately, I was working on a non-fiction writing project (Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days) and had a lot of research and editing to do—because my creative writing muse was on ice.
During the hay days of Covid, people relished the opportunity to get outside, to breath the healing air exhaled by forest or gardens. Passing someone on a path or sidewalk (even at a distance), we felt an instant connection, happy to see a person of any sort, perhaps the same way those who live in isolated villages throughout the world have always eagerly welcomed visitors.
Friends who live on their boat in the Caribbean during non-hurricane months told us that during Covid, they were “stuck” near a small island with five other boaters with whom they developed close relationships. The island was closed, but the owner of a small restaurant on land snuck them groceries and took in laundry.
My cousins in the suburbs north of Atlanta began gathering weekly in someone’s yard with their neighbors for a drink and conversation, a ritual they continue.
Today, tending my garden (and two fish—meet “Blue” and “Golda Meir”) and horses, practicing martial arts, and painting give me joy and peace. I look at the land around us with a different eye, thinking about whether and how we could supplement our food if needed. My writing Muse woke up after throwing water in her face and shaking her, and I finished a new novel.
The changes are internal and external. The downtown of our nearest major city has transmuted. More people live there; less people work there. Working from home has left commercial buildings across the country empty but given millions of people options about where they live and how they work. We are still adjusting. I hope we are also remembering.
Remembering that people are precious, regardless of their politics.
Remembering that nature is precious and powerful.
Remembering that we can adjust; we can change; we can meet challenges.
Today, despite all the scary stuff going on, I have more faith that people will adjust. What a strange gift from a pandemic. If you think about it, nature regularly reminds us what we are capable of.
“Dear Autumn . . . [You are] a Master of self-preservation. Entering this world to teach us not to fear change. It is necessary. Inevitable. Trust That growth will follow. . . .”
—Amanda Davis
I write about what moves me, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Check out my (fiction and nonfiction) books at TKThorne.com
Who knew? The women’s movement to win the vote in the United States (which didn’t happen until 1920) began with book clubs!*
In my life, “feminism” has been a word often expressed with a sneer, the struggle for equality seen as an effort to shed femininity and be man-like. Burn your bra at the peril of rejecting your womanhood. But my role model, my mother, was as feminine as they come and yet stood toe to toe with men in power. She never finished college, having to quit to care for her ill father, but she continued to learn and read and surround herself with other women who used ideas and knowledge to challenge the status quo, a legacy that began long ago.
Despite the pressure on women to focus on family and household matters, women throughout history have organized to read and talk about serious ideas, even in the early colonial days of American history. Anne Hutchinson founded such a group on a ship headed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. Reading circles or societies spread throughout the 1800s, including the African-American Female Intelligence Society organized in Boston and the New York Colored Ladies Literary Society. The first known American club sponsored by a bookstore began in 1840 in a store owned by a woman, Margaret Fuller. In 1866 Sarah Atwater Denman began Friends in Council, the oldest continuous literary club in America. In the South, blacks slaves were punished if they were found even carrying a book, although some surely passed books and abolitionist tracts in secret, despite the terrible risk.
Mandy Shunnarah recently wrote about research she did on this subject in college, sharing how the turn-of-the-century women began with classical ancient history and gradually became informed about political and policy issues of the day. The clubs created opportunities for connection and community and provided a conduit for organization and action. Undoubtedly, progressive organizations like the League of Women Voters, which formed in 1920, were an outgrowth of those clubs.
My mother, Jane Katz, was a longtime League member and a lobbyist for the state League. I have memories of her sitting at her electric Smith-Corona and typing away at tedious lists that tracked status and votes on legislative bills of interest to the League—education, the environment, constitutional reform, judicial reform, ethics reform, home rule.
I remember her taking me to a site to show me what strip mining actually looked like when a coal company was finished ravaging the land. She worked hard for the Equal Rights Amendment, which had as much chance of passing in my state (Alabama) as a law against football. I followed her to the state legislature while she talked to white male senators about why a bill was important and I will never forget how they looked down at her condescendingly. It made me angry, but she just continued to present her points with charm, wit, and irrefutable logic. The experience turned me off to politics, but gave me a deep respect for my mother. I know she would be saddened that many of the issues she fought for have yet to come about, but she would be proud of today’s many strong women’s voices speaking up for the values she so believed in and fought for. She and my grandmother began my love of reading and books. Today, it’s estimated that over 5 million book clubs exist and 70-80% of the members are women.
A special childhood memory of my parents chuckling over a New Yorker cartoon my father cut out and showed to friends—Two stuffy businessmen are talking quietly. One says, “But she is a mere woman!” The other replies, “Haven’t you heard? Women are not so mere anymore.”
I’m not a politician. I’m a writer. My mother died decades ago, and sometimes I feel guilty not following in her footsteps. But I think she would have been proud that the women in my books are not “mere.” And I am proud and excited that I might see in my lifetime an exceptional woman in the White House. I even dare to hope it might change the world.
Whether that time is here or not, it is a gift and a closing of the circle connecting me with my mother and all her predecessors to know the heritage of feminist activism—the striving for a society where women’s thoughts, ideas, and work are equally respected—began with a group of women, perhaps a cup of tea, and a book.
I write about what moves me, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Check out my (fiction and nonfiction) books at TKThorne.com
*Note: You may have seen this piece long ago, but it felt like the right time to update and repost it.
I just finished reading Maus, a Pulitzer prize graphic book by Art Spiegelman banned in Russia and Tennessee. The author’s words and drawings depict his attempt to capture his father’s memories of living through the Holocaust. The young man is conflicted, unable to stand being around his eccentric, obsessive father and overwhelmed by what he learns his father experienced. It is raw and honest. I recommend it.
What seems unthinkable and impossible to understand is people believing other people are not human beings but vermin to be used and extinguished. That is what the Nazis believed, what slaveholders believed, and what many neo-Nazi white supremacists still believe. I imagine some members of minorities feel similarly. I don’t understand what Christian Nationalists believe other than America should be for them only. I’m unsure what they plan to do about the rest of us.
And that’s the point. We are all human beings.
We think and do these extraordinary thoughts and behaviors because we evolved not as rational beings but as emotional ones. Fight/flight and survival are our primary, cell-level drivers, not rationality.
Rationality is an overlay, a wobbly gift of the last layer of the brain to evolve—the neocortex, which contains the prefrontal cortex, where we analyze, plan, and make decisions based on reason rather than raw emotion. Emotion ran the show before that development. Emotion plays a vital role in behavior. (Danger = run or fight.) But reason developed to increase our ability to survive. If we observe and learn what has happened in the past, rationality allows us to predict the future, and we have a better chance if we can prepare for the future.
But that can go sideways.
For example, people around us can believe wacky things. Those things may not make sense if we examine them closely, but we are driven, for one thing, to please those important to us. We need to be part of a group/clan/family. It’s a hard-wired survival instinct. At some point in our history, we could be kicked out for not complying with the group. “Kicked out” meant the wolves ate you.
And, alas, we are not Vulcans. We easily slide into tribalism and can believe all kinds of stuff, regardless of its basis in reality (whatever that is, but that’s another story). Science has proved that a brain under enough stress will break. Any brain. All brains. (Snapping, America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change, 1978, 1995 Conway and Siegelman)
The other “other thing” is that we are young.
Humans are a fraction of the last second before midnight on the 24-hour clock of our Earth’s existence. And we “just” developed our cerebral cortex. We aren’t sure what to do with it except write books (Yes!) and play with our toys. That play has created some wonderful, amazing things. There appear, however, to be some “whoops” attached to those wonderful things, like the possibility of screwing up the Earth and annihilating ourselves with our toys.
So, (1) we are not primarily rational beings, and (2) we are very young.
Is there hope for change?
Trying to apply rationality to answer that question (instead of my emotional instinct), I would say -YES. If it is true that we are not primarily or originally rational beings, it is also true that we are headed (however slowly) in the evolutionary direction of rationality. The fact that we are a very young species also implies that, with time, we will continue to add functional brain capacity that will nudge us toward traits that increase our survival ability.
The question is, will we survive long enough to get there?
In the current day, it is hard to imagine such change when terrorist organizations indoctrinate their communities with hatred from birth. Despair feels like the rational expectation.
But then there is what happened in Germany after WWII. Although the Nazi doctrine is far from dead (either in that country or others, including the United States)—their ideals are no longer mainstream.
By all rights, Japan should hate Americans after we dropped two atomic bombs on their civilian populations. They do not hate us. We are global partners.
Maybe there is hope for change.
But how do we change now without having to wait for evolution’s slow grind, the coin toss of whether someone pulls the nuclear trigger, we push the climate to a state of disaster, or maybe we all choke on plastic?
Jeddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher, says we must first understand that we are connected to and, in a real sense, are all human beings.
He writes:
“To bring about a different society in the world, you, as a human being who is the rest of humankind, must radically change. That is the real issue, not how to prevent wars. That’s also an issue, how to have peace in the world, [but] that is secondary. . . the fundamental issue is—is it possible for the human mind, which is your mind, your heart, your condition, is that possible to be totally, fundamentally, deeply transformed?
Otherwise, we are going to destroy each other through our national pride, through our linguistic limitations, through our nationalism, which the politicians maintain for their own benefit, and so on and on and on.”
Krishnamurti suggests that the path to transformational change involves deep listening—to others, ourselves, and nature.
What is deep listening? I am not sure. I think I do it when I’m writing and allowing a character to truly be themselves. I think I do it when I pause to breathe in the scent of earth and bird song. When I allow the decision of compassion to guide me. I know a whole list of things it is not.
“Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique.”
So, how do we find the truth that will free us from ourselves?
Let’s begin by turning our attention and focus to deep listening. We may not know exactly how to do it because it is a pathless land. And we will need to try repeatedly because we are all flawed human beings. But maybe we really can change. The first step is believing we can, believing that humanity can survive to become wiser, use our tools, toys, and our resolve to improve the world, and learn to cherish it, ourselves, and each other.
Maybe.
I hope we can. I hope we try.
T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.
Six years ago, this young man started 7th grade at Maranathan Academy as a critically at-risk student. I had just started volunteer-teaching creative writing. He graduated HS and enlisted in the Army. Last week, on leave after boot camp, he walked into class as a surprise for me. I guess you can tell how I felt about that.
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I’ll let this be.
T.K. Thorne writes about what moves her, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Check out her (fiction and nonfiction) books at TKThorne.com
A true and funny story that happened a few years ago. It’s about angels and life and Bob. This is a rewritten repost but something set me thinking about Bob, and he is worth a revisit!
I was thrilled that my book had won a national award but didn’t think it was worth a trip to Chicago just to get a photo made. Sister Laura, however, was hyped about it. She had worked hard with little credit—editing, designing the original awesome cover, marketing, and supporting me at every step of my novel about the wife of Lot (Angels at the Gate). She also wanted us to attend the BEA (Book Expo America), which was happening simultaneously.
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A few days before our flight, Laura fell and hurt her ankle. BEA requires lots of walking, but she was determined to go, even if she had to get a wheelchair. Where most people would have rented one, my always-check-a-thrift-store-first sister borrowed an old wheelchair from a thrift store. It was heavy and squeaky, and not knowing its history, she had cleaned it with Lysol, which was a prudent sanitary move but, unfortunately, set off the explosive-substance detector at the Birmingham, Alabama airport.
So, wheelchair, Laura, and all of her stuff had to be hand searched. And they confiscated our wheelchair, in case it was really a bomb, I guess, promising it would be at the gate waiting for us when we arrived in Chicago.
Not.
No wheelchair at the gate when we landed in Chicago. Had it exploded somewhere? We finally track it down in baggage. After a start like that, we are surely over the hump. All we have to do now is get outside the terminal because Laura has arranged for her friend, Bob, to pick us up. I’d never met Bob, but he was Laura’s friend. What could go wrong?
Bob, it turns out, is 82 years old. His car is about the same age and smells strongly of gasoline. I have visions of someone in front of us throwing out a lit cigarette. Are we going to explode after all? Will the Lysol on the wheelchair add to the incendiary mix?
Bob hops out and loads us up, pulling stuff randomly out of the hatchback area to get our suitcases and the wheelchair in and then crams piles of boxes on top of them, keeping the hatch down with bungee cords. When we get in the car, I politely mention that the boxes totally block his vision on one side.
“I’m used to it,” he says, pulling out into the rain and the insanity of the Chicago airport traffic.
The “it” he is “used to,” I realize, is not being able to see . . . omg!
I text our hostess. *Landed. If we survive Bob, will be there soon.*
Miraculously, Bob gets us where we are going, an area several miles north of Chicago in Edgewater, where Laura has arranged rooms at a friend’s cousin’s condo. Why, my always-check-a-thrift-store-first sister had reasoned, stay at an expensive hotel? It is a lovely place, but this is the award night, and I am worried about us getting back into Chicago. That ride was not part of the Bob-bargain, so we are on our own. That’s a good thing, right?
At Laura’s insistence, we forgo a taxi because we are so far away, but Laura has called the Chicago Transit Authority, and they assured her that all the metro train stations are handicap accessible. Still, it is no longer raining, and we leave the condo early, me pushing the squeaky, cumbersome wheelchair that I learn randomly applies its right brake and jerks hard to the right. I should have had a clue that the plans made by a woman who borrowed a wheelchair from a junk shop, not to mention, Bob, might warrant follow-up. When we arrive at the nearest station, we find there is, indeed, a way to get a wheelchair into the station. But “handicap accessible” does not stretch to a way to ascend the many stairs to the subway platform.
Reversing course, we head to next station down the line, which does have an elevator and where we meet a nice young man with the Chicago Transit Authority who helps us up to the platform. I ask his name.
“Angel,” he says.
My first thought is how appropriate—the name of my book is Angels at the Gate! WAIT! The name of my book. . . omg, I have forgotten a copy of my book (necessary to hold when getting picture taken at awards.) The last thing the publicist said was, “Don’t forget a copy of the book for the photo.”
I leave Laura on the platform with Angel, hurrying back to the condo. By this time, my feet are aching in my boots (which I am wearing because my skirt rises too far in front for knee-high stockings, and I will die before wearing pantyhose.)
I grab a copy of my book and switch my boots (which are apparently not the kind “made for walking” for sandals. Still need the socks, because this is Chicago, not Birmingham. I look down to see two bright pink big toes peeking out through holes in the socks. (There is a side story about those hot pink toes and a family pig who thought they were something edible, but there is enough hilarity in this story and besides . . . that wasn’t funny.)
Whoops, sandals not going to work for photo opt. I grab boots for later donning. By the time I get back, we are running late. We set the brakes on the wheelchair but, besides randomly engaging, they are not that spiffy about staying engaged. At the first lurch, Laura rolls down the aisle. I run after her, trying to catch her before she crashes at the other end.
A second angel jumps from her seat and shows us how to lock in the wheelchair. Who knew? We are from Alabama. We don’t have subways. Every decent individual is expected to own two cars and a truck.
The clock is ticking. The whole purpose of the event is to get that photo op. We are a long way from our stop, the closest one to the (Sears) Willis Tower with an elevator to get down to the street. I have yet to figure out why a sub-way is “up,” but that’s the way it is.
As we discuss strategy for when we exit, a third angel pops up from her seat—apparently getting a signal from above (or perhaps watching our entrance) that there are some Alabama girls in need of assistance—and plops into the seat next to me.
“You’re going to Willis Tower? I work near there.” She kindly explains which way to walk from our next stop. We are so late now that we must take a cab.
Holding our breath against the olfactory assault in the elevator, we descend to the street. I step out into the roadway and hail a cab for the first time in my life. (Again, I live in Alabama. Did I mention something about the pet pig in the family?) A cab driver stops and looks us over, shaking his head at the wheelchair before driving on. I hail another cab, who also shakes his head at the wheelchair. There is discrimination in this city. We push on to Willis Tower, rolling through the puddles and treachery of cracked sidewalks. We are now very late.
I push the rickety wheelchair as fast as I can until we hit a crack in the sidewalk that stops us dead, shoving the wheelchair handles into me and nearly dumping Laura, book, and boots onto the sidewalk into a puddle because, yes, of course, it is now raining again.
Willis (Sears) Tower is massive. We enter and proceed via elevator to a winding corridor down to the security station, surely close to our goal, only to find we are at the wrong door and have to be escorted through the labyrinth of the Tower to the service elevators in order to reach 99th floor and the Independent Publisher’s party and awards announcement. We are finally here! We register, pick up our ID’s and a program . . . from which we learn “Historical Fiction” is #15 on the list and they are now announcing #26.
We missed it. All the way from Alabama to Chicago . . . and WE MISSED IT!
I wheel Laura to the bathroom. I feel worse for her, since she really wanted this, and it is as much her award as mine because cover design and layout are also considered, along with the story and writing.
While waiting for her, I notice we are sort of “backstage” to the awards announcer, and a beautiful young woman is standing (on the stage) with her side to me, so close I could touch her with a step. She is obviously connected to the proceedings. Hearing one of my father’s oft-repeated life lessons in my head— Only the squeaky wheel gets the grease— I take that step and tap her shoulder between photo setups, whispering that we had difficulties and just arrived, and is there any way we could go out of order? She steps out of the big room and consults a list, asks my name.
“T.K. Thorne.”
She brightens. “Oh, you are T.K. Thorne? I loved your book!”
“You read it?”
“Yes, I really loved it; it was my favorite book out of all of them.”
There are 80 national categories. No idea how many submissions in each category or how many she actually read, but that’s a lot of books, even if she meant in my category. As far as I am concerned, I am happy.
Dianu. (Hebrew for “It is enough.”)
She graciously arranges for us to get called up, Laura hobbling at my side. They put a huge medal worthy of the Olympics around my neck and, to my delight, around Laura’s too. And I have the book in hand! Success! Photo snaps.
You wouldn’t have even seen the pink toes.
We head to the bar.
Over the next several days we encounter angels and references to them in rather odd ways. In addition to the transit guy named Angel, another “angel” (whose friend is Angela) shows me how to use Uber (Yea! No more wheeling for blocks to the train station); the Egyptian uber driver mentions his son’s name is translated as “Angel in Heaven”; and a book publicist at the Book Expo America (BEA) advises me to “listen to my angel.” I keep looking for a flutter of wings out of the corner of my eye!
On our last day, Bob picks us up, and we load wheelchair and baggage. After bungee-cording his car hatch down (not because of our luggage, just normal procedure), we are off to the airport with an extra hour . . . just in case. It is bitter cold, but I roll down my window because I can’t afford losing any more brain cells from the fumes. This time I am in the back seat. There is so much stuff in this car, the clutter is unidentifiable. I try not to think about what all could be in there and just hope there are no rodents that live near my feet. I reach for the seat belt. I actually find one, but there’s no buckle, so I just loop it around one shoulder. There’s a chance if we hit something at just the right angle, it might help. Laura is in the front seat. “What’s that noise?” she asks, forehead wrinkled in concern. Is it the engine?
“I don’t know,” Bob says. “Haven’t heard that one before.”
Laura: “Sounds bad.”
Bob: “Unless the wheels fall off, I usually just turn up the radio.”
I couldn’t make this up.
Postscript: Despite appearances, Bob was one of the many Chicago angels, for sure. He has spent most of his life traveling around the world helping people in disasters, which is how he and Laura met. I really wish I could spend more time with him and hear his stories . . . just not in his car.
T.K. Thorne writes about what moves her, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Check out her (fiction and nonfiction) books at TKThorne.com
Rob Langford is probably not a name you are familiar with. He was a quiet, thoughtful man who wanted to make things better. When the FBI chose him to serve as Special Agent in Charge of the Birmingham, Alabama office, he came with an open mind.
And that changed everything.
Langford realized there was edgy and sometimes dangerous tension between the African American community and law enforcement. Rather than just accepting this as status quo, he wanted to open communications between them and invited several leaders from the Black community to come “talk.”
It wasn’t easy to garner enough trust for anyone even to show up at the FBI office. Finally, he found a man who acted as a mediator and made it happen. Still, it didn’t go well. One Black minister blurted out, “Why didn’t the FBI investigate the bombing of the church? The FBI never did do anything.”
The minister was referring to the 1963 bombing of a Black church in Birmingham, where four young girls were killed. It had been thirty years since the tragedy, but the scars were far from healed. As a newcomer to the city, Langford did not know how to answer the question, but he made a promise.
“I will look into it.”
He could have chosen to say, “That’s been thirty years ago; we aren’t going back there.” But he didn’t.
Reopening the case was a far harder task than bringing distrusting people in to talk. Investigators spent 18 months just going through the old files. Suspects and witnesses were aging and some had already died. None wanted to talk.
But they pressed on. Because of Rob Langford, that cold case was reopened. Because of him and the team of investigators and prosecutors who worked on the case, the remaining two Ku Klux Klansmen —who had planted that bomb on a Sunday morning while young girls got ready for services—were indicted and tried, found guilty, and spent the rest of their lives in prison.
It didn’t bring those girls back, but it gave closure to their families and to the community and to the world.
The deaths of Annie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair, along with the severe injuries of Sarah Collins and the bravery of the children who marched for their freedom and rights in Birmingham that same year, pushed Congress into passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act that made segregation in public places illegal in America.
Thank you, Rob Langford, for what you did. It was a moment when you could have turned aside, but you didn’t.
Rest in Peace, my friend.
George ‘Rob’ Robert Langford May 7, 1939 – February 21, 2024
Personal Note:
I was privileged to call Rob a friend and to write about his story and the story of the team that investigated and prosecuted this infamous case over a period of almost forty years in my book, Last Chance for Justice.
T.K. Thorne writes about what moves her, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Support her by checking out her (fiction and nonfiction) books at TKThorne.com
A friend sent me a little story about someone who mocked a man for buying a fancy car, asking him if he realized how many people the money that he spent on the car could have fed. The man recounted all the jobs that were created to make/sell the car and noted that those jobs fed a lot more people than he could count.
Fair enough. But it ended with this:
“Capitalism is freely giving your money in exchange for something of value. Socialism is having the government take your money against your will and give it to someone else for doing nothing.”
Sounds very uncomplicated and compelling. But let’s look deeper.
There is no doubt capitalism provides jobs. (But so can socialism or even communism.)
Jobs—or at least working and/or creating something—do contribute to a person’s dignity and self-worth. . . .Unless that job pays so little, one is scrabbling to feed oneself or family and building a better life is out of reach no matter how hard one works.
Tying self-esteem to work is risky. Overwork can lead to burnout and diminished productivity. There are many benefits to meaningful work, though “meaningful” is defined differently for everyone. Not all work is meaningful in a positive way.
The adage that teaching a person to fish is a better choice than giving a person a fish, rings with truth. . . unless that person is too hungry to learn anything. Then he needs fish first and teaching second.
I’m not an economist, so I’ll stop there. My point is that we humans have a compulsion to simplify.
Why?
The answer to that seems to go back to the way we evolved. We needed shortcuts for everything to function and thus, survive.
My body/mind has figured out (thanks to billions of years of life’s experimentation) how to move to the kitchen when I’m hungry. If you think about what this requires, it is no easy feat. Thousands of complex electro-chemical interactions and coordination involving nerves, muscles, and tendons takes place. If I had to direct this with my conscious mind, I would fail and lie in a puddle on the floor. . . hungry.
The body/mind has shortcuts for almost everything. It takes effort to think through a statement, judge it, weight the “what-ifs?” What is true in one scenario might not be true in another. For example:
It is wrong to kill another. A simplicity that feels true . . . unless your own life is threatened . . . or if your government has decided that other is “the enemy.”
Life is complicated. That’s why we have lawyers.
Seriously, the mind loves simplicity. And it is not “wrong.” If a tiger is coming for you, simple is better.
But our world is also complicated and very divided. And each “side” clings to its precepts without room for expansion or allowance of deviation or “what ifs.” The human brain prefers shortcut belief/value systems, which are more efficient than wasting valuable energy on something it has already “decided.”
For example, I believe education is the fulcrum for elevating society, but I understand a child born into the stress of poverty and constant violence is not on equal footing, and that our world is better if it allows the potential of all to be fulfilled. I willingly give up a portion of what I earn and my time to try and rectify that, understanding that some beneficiaries to that funding and time will choose not to work for it. (I also support a system that primarily helps those who need it and will do their part, but I am not willing to give up on helping if that is an imperfect system.)
A strong military is the best defense, and all must contribute to pay for that, while understanding that human systems will often devolve to some waste and corruption. (I support a system that discourages and punishes that, but I am not willing to give up a strong military to eliminate it.)
I support hospitals administering care in life threatening situations despite the ability of the patient to pay for it. (See comment above re waste and corruption.)
These societal needs require systems that are, frankly, not simple. They could be simpler; they could work much better. But just opting out would cause many unintentional and devastating consequences. Let’s do the hard work, the creative work of figuring it out. Albert Einstein said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Do we have the imagination it takes to apply our creativity, technology, and will to the complex problems of our world?
That said, I leave you with a couple of truly simple things:
“Being kind and loving and caring really matters. The truths constantly change and disguise themselves, but being kind and loving and caring always counts.”—Jim Reed
“We can’t just hope for a brighter day, we have to work for a brighter day. Love too often gets buried in a world of hurt and fear. And we have to work to dig it out so we can share it with our family, our friends, and our neighbors.”—Dolly Parton
T.K. Thorne writes about what moves her, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Check out her (fiction and nonfiction) books at TKThorne.com.
The inquirer wanted to know what my thoughts on “free will” were?
His interest revolved around his thirty-year struggle with the concept as it related to drug addiction issues in his family and recent neurology research that challenges our assumptions about the existence of free will. I am only one of many people he will ultimately interview for his book on the subject. He emailed me: “I think your background as a police captain, a fighter for justice, an author, a degree in social work, and not least, a lover of animals (I’m familiar with stubborn horses who have wills of their own) makes you uniquely qualified to talk to about the subject.”
Hmm. Well, okay.
“Free will” and its opposites—determinism and predestination—are concepts found in various philosophies and religions. But outside of religion, is it an important question?
The concept of free will has been part of American society since our founding, the assumption that an individual can choose, and those choices guide his/her destiny. European culture, on the other hand, is rooted in the idea one is born into set classes—nobility and serf. Only rarely did choice play into a person’s destiny.
It has been a key reason for America’s successes and its sharp divisions.
Without the concept of free will, the tower of individualism crumbles and with it, we must question the parts of our society we built around it.
People (all the ones I know, anyway, including myself) work on the assumption that they have choices and that what they decide determines the path of their life, although for too many, life has severely damaged and/or limited their choices and perhaps their ability to choose.
Some scientists (from B.F. Skinner to current day neurologists) have challenged the existence of free will, proclaiming it an illusion. Their position is that we do not make decisions. In this, they are in the camp of determinism (a philosophic doctrine that whatever is or happens is entirely determined by antecedent causes, i.e., all that came before.)
Wow. That is a blow to my whole concept of myself and life. But I am wondering if that digs deep enough. Maybe the question of whether we have “free will” is the wrong question.
Perhaps, the deeper question is: Who is the “I” that has or does not have free will?
Eastern thought has long maintained that the existence of “I” is the ultimate illusion, a trick we play on ourselves, a story that stitches together our memories to make a singular entity. The “reality” we construct about the physical world is also just a story about reality. We think chairs are solid. We don’t experience the essence of the world directly at all; we only “see” a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum and none of the underlying reality of nature, the quantum stuff. For that matter, scientists don’t even know the nature of most of the matter and energy in the universe. It’s all dark. Maybe we are dark to ourselves.
There seems to be an “I” that makes decisions, but perhaps it is not the little guy/gal at the “control panel” as we think of our conscious mind. Alan Watts described the conscious mind as being like the beam of a flashlight in a vast, dark room. We are only aware of whatever that beam illumines in the current moment. The rest of the room (us) is surely there, but “we” (our conscious minds) are not aware of it. The flashlight can be pointed at things, to our heartbeat, for instance, and we become aware of it, a memory, a smell, but for the most part, we are unaware of the constant activity and decisions being made at chemical and electronic levels in our own body (we even have a brain in our gut!) and brain (the one in our head).
“I” (whatever that is) can’t imagine that we don’t really make decisions, even if we are unaware of them.
To get even weirder, electrons and photons can exist in a kind of limbo in every possibility state (in quantum physics called a state of “superposition”). Then things happen (a beam of light bumps into them, they are forced through a tiny hole, we sneeze. . . ) that makes the superposition collapse, i.e., “choose” one state, and that causes consequences in the macro world, the world we perceive. Fortunately, these states are predictable, and we can sit in chairs with reliable expectations that they will be there.
Looking at it from another perspective, what would have been the purpose of evolving a conscious brain? Is it to weigh factors and imagine consequences so that we can plan? A being that can’t decide to change or do again what worked before is handicapped in the survival race. But even sea worms can make simple decisions—move to the light = get food. I don’t think worms are conscious, but maybe I am wrong about that. It seems preposterous on its face to say we don’t decide anything. Does a dog make decisions? As a proud and loving dog-owner, I can say, absolutely. Is my dog aware of the factors that go into his decisions? Umm. . . Are we?
Decisions are made, but who is the “I” that makes them?
I’m thinking “I” is the total mind/body including:
Our conscious and unconscious mind;
Our inherited and expressed (modifiable) genetics—genome;
Our experiences (input from our senses, our interactions, our interpretations, and our recall, i.e., memories);
all the microbes that share our body—biome; as well as
Environmental and cultural input.
In other words—everything.
It’s possible that from all this emerges a quantum field where all is potential until some cluster of the above reaches a point where the system coalesces (decides?) and feeds thoughts into our brain. We are not aware of the thought that the field (“I”) produces until it emerges into our consciousness. And sometimes, it never even makes an appearance; we just act on it. Have you ever been startled in the middle of watching a movie or reading book to discover you are crying? Or maybe the first inkling that you have eaten an entire box of crackers is realizing the box is empty?
Robert Wright in his fascinating book, Why Buddhism is True, talks about the scientific observation that different parts of the brain show increased activity before humans report having different thoughts. And different kinds of thoughts emerge from different areas in the brain. A thought about an ethical question shows activity in a different section from a thought about napping.
I think of thoughts like popcorn emerging from different parts of the brain. I have ceretainly looked at a piece of seriously chocolate cake and thought, I want that, while at the same time, I’m are thinking, I do not need to even think about eating that!? Just because those thoughts are available to the conscious part of our mind, doesn’t mean the conscious part of our mind generated them. It just became aware of them.
When people meditate, they focus on something that requires no thinking, and the conscious part of the mind watches diverse thoughts bubble up. (Your brain is always active, even when we sleep or are in a coma. If not, you are in deep medical trouble.) Instead of having the sensation that the conscious mind originated the idea, the meditator feels a distance from the thought and just observes it. Even if it is an emotionally-ladened thought, having this distance helps understand it and gives the conscious mind a space to make decisions about it.
Hmm.
Maybe it boils down to the same thing those neurologists are saying—that I think/act based on the entire gestalt of everything that has gone before. Even a thought instantly becomes something in the past and part of the Everything Soup. Or maybe there is a little guy sitting in the control room. . . .
Does it make a difference?
I don’t know. I still can’t figure out why I was chosen for an interview about this. But I am comforted that it is a debated topic by professionals. Still, it feels radical, understanding the “I” in this way. It feels like it should have consequences in how we live our lives.
I feel like I am, whether I am or not.
Regardless of whether you exist as a consciousness exerting free will or whether these words you are reading are inputs into the quantum field that is the temporary manifestation of energy and matter pretending to be you (my head hurts)—I wish you Happy Holidays and hope your choices, wherever they come from, includes Joy.
I would love to hear your thoughts, just don’t make my head hurt anymore.
