February 14, 2020

One of the ways I keep my spirits up in the face of life’s vicissitudes is to sing. This week I’ve needed to sing more than usual. Three family members are suffering: one cousin is recovering after being hit by a truck while walking his dog, another cousin is dealing with her dysfunctional adult children, and my mom is bedridden and depressed.

I try to stay positive no matter what I read in the newspaper or hear on the radio or see on TV, and no matter what is going on in my personal life. And fortunately, other than my family problems, my own life is pretty good these days. Even so, there are times when my Pollyanna optimism needs a booster shot in the butt. Luckily two songs came along this week that lodged in my brain and cheered me up considerably.

Although I’ve never been a Monty Python fan, I found myself laughing and singing and whistling along with their silly song on YouTube, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” This video clip from their “Life of Brian” movie shows a couple of dozen men being crucified in Roman (?) times. One of the men, apparently an incurable optimist, decides to cheer up his fellow sufferers on their crosses by singing and whistling to them. The song is wickedly funny because of the contrast and absurdity of crucified men joining the original vocalist in warbling and whistling an upbeat tune. Even nearby corpses are swaying their feet to the cheery ditty:

Always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the light side of life

If life seems jolly rotten

There’s something you’ve forgotten

And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing

When you’re feeling in the dumps

Don’t be silly chumps

Just purse your lips and whistle – that’s the thing

For life is quite absurd

And death’s the final word

You must always face the curtain with a bow

Forget about your sin

Give the audience a grin

Enjoy it – it’s your last chance anyhow

So always look on the bright side of death

Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life’s a piece of shit

When you look at it

Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke it’s true

You’ll see it’s all a show

Keep ’em laughin’ as you go

Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

Yes, the last laugh is on me, and I’m fine with that because I’m doing the laughing. And the singing.

It’s also interesting that such dark humor can be hilarious and inspirational at the same time.

The other song that came into my life this week is more representative of the kind of cheerful tune that I’m usually drawn to. It’s a beautiful romantic song by John Denver called “Tradewinds”:

Ridin’ on a tradewind

Fillin’ my sails with a soft and southerly breeze

Livin’ on the ocean blue

Dreaming of the islands

Wrappin’ myself in the glow of a tropical moon

I never shiver when the sun goes down

All the earth she sings to me

Every shallow, every tree

Surely my love’s shining like the sea

I love the innocence and joy of Denver’s song and the loveliness of his voice and music. And often I’m more in the mood for this kind of song. But sometimes there’s a part of me – my shadow side? – that needs to acknowledge the truth in the black humor of Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” That truth is that there is terrible suffering in this world, and sooner or later we will all experience some degree of that misery. We can only hope that our share of misery will be minimal and brief.

But I also think that a positive attitude can ameliorate some of that unhappiness. So for as long as I am able, I intend to sing and laugh at life and at death and at suffering.

And do what I can to cheer up my family members and anyone else that I know who needs a ray of hope in the midst of hell. Until it’s my turn to be uplifted.

January 31, 2020

I’ve always enjoyed excellent health. Is such good fortune the result of good genes, or diet and exercise, or random luck, or good karma?

On two separate occasions in the 1980’s I was driving when I was hit by drunk drivers, one of whom totaled my car. I was not injured in either crash. Was I just lucky to survive the accidents, or was it misfortune to be involved in such dangerous incidents to begin with? Were these events examples of good karma or bad karma or neither? Were they really accidents?

In other words, why me? Or, why you? Why do good or bad things happen to us or our loved ones? Do we have any responsibility for the events in our lives, or is it just that good or bad “shit happens” as the bumper sticker says?

These are some of the questions that have occurred to me in the last week after my Thursday night meditation group listened to a recorded talk about karma by the writer and philosopher Eckhart Tolle.

I don’t know how Hindus understand karma, but Buddhists generally view it as an accumulation of causes and effects. That is, you think, say, or do something, and that energy or vibration has consequences that show up in your life sooner or later, in this incarnation or in a future lifetime. Another way of explaining karma is the saying, “What goes around comes around.”

But karma is not about punishment or revenge. It’s an energy imbalance, often between two people, such as myself and each of the drunk drivers who hit me years ago. Maybe those collisions were karmic payback for something I did to them in a previous lifetime, or maybe those guys were simply random agents attracted by my negative karma, or perhaps they will need to repay their karmic debt to me in a future lifetime. I don’t know why those incidents occurred, but I do believe that they happened for a reason. And even if my Dave personality doesn’t understand the lesson involved, I believe that my soul is aware of such a learning opportunity.

So karma can be a valuable teacher in helping us to learn to make wise choices, leading to the further evolution of our souls. For example, those individuals who deny global warming or contribute significantly to it will experience the repercussions of those choices, probably by being reborn in places that have been made unpleasant by climate change. These lessons are not about punishment, but about gaining awareness of the law of causality.

Yet we have to be careful not to rush to judgement about ourselves or others when something bad happens. The reality is that in our physical incarnations we are limited in our understanding of the specifics about why we experience what we do. This was the objection of one of the participants in our Thursday night meditation group after listening to our discussion about karma. She felt that the concept of karma can be used as an excuse to do nothing about what she perceives to be injustice; an excuse to avoid facing social problems. In other words, if we see a homeless person, we could ignore their plight by dismissing it as their karma. And while it may well be their karma to be homeless, that doesn’t mean that we should do nothing to help that person.

In the talk we listened to a week ago, Eckhart Tolle said, “Karma is the unconscious conditioning that runs your life. It’s personal, and collective… Each person is born with certain patterns and predispositions. Then the environment influences you further…You can only understand karma by observing yourself.”

He went on to explain that we are not slaves to our karma, but rather that we can rise above it. “Spiritual awakening is not part of karma. Karma is the complete absence of conscious presence. The only thing that can free you from karma is the arising of presence. Presence frees you from karma; the energy behind it diminishes. In the light of awareness, karma diminishes. Spiritual teachers point out the possibility of awakening out of identification with unconscious patterns. A spiritual teacher teaches you to go beyond karma.”

And intention is a powerful tool in transcending karma. Intending to listen to, and be aligned with, our inner being, our buddha nature, the “true entity of life” as Buddha Nichiren called it.

So while I don’t fully understand my good karma or my bad karma, I appreciate the presence of that part of me that is learning to value the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It’s so much easier on our karmic consequences. And there’s that much less karma that we have to transcend.

January 18, 2020

This Sunday I’m going to join my tribe in a war dance. We will dance to destroy our enemy. Then on Monday we will attempt to be magnanimous in victory. But should we lose on Sunday, we’ll have to pretend to be magnanimous in defeat.

I don’t want to pretend to be that virtuous. I’d rather privately gloat with a win.

As a Bay Area native, I root for all of our local professional teams. This Sunday my football tribe, the San Francisco 49ers, plays the Green Bay Packers for the National Football Conference championship. The winner will go on to the Super Bowl on February 2.

I must confess that I’m not a true football fan, or even a true 49er fan. It’s not the game that I love, or even the team, but rather the vicarious pleasure I get from having my community (Bay Area) enjoy success. And in recent years we’ve had the pleasure and good fortune of reveling in several national championships: three World Series titles by the San Francisco Giants baseball team, and three NBA crowns by our basketball Golden State Warriors. And now it’s time (we hope) for the 49ers to win their sixth Super Bowl. But first we must vanquish Green Bay.

“We?” Whether the 49ers win or lose, I’ll have nothing to do with it. I’m not on the team. But don’t tell that to my ego.

It’s interesting to me how I and others can allow our identity to be shaped by our affiliation with a sports franchise, a political party, a religion, a racial category, a community, or a nation. Often those identifications are fairly benign. But sometimes they can turn ugly.

In high school I cheered for our football team until their group verbal abuse of a female classmate caused me to criticize their behavior in the school newspaper. A team member then warned me that they intended to assault me after school. Fortunately that never came to pass.

Some fans allow their tribal team identification to lead to violence against opposing fans in the viewing stands. And recently, while reading fan comments online about various football playoff games, I’ve seen denigrating references to opposing teams: the Vikings referred to as Viqueens, the Seahawks called Seahags, and the 49ers dismissed as the Forty Vaginers. Notice that the insults all have an undercurrent of disrespect toward women.

But if sports can bring out the worst in people, they can also bring out the best in them. In a recent New York Times article about the 49ers, the writer reported that General Manager John Lynch and Head Coach Kyle Shanahan hire players who are not just skilled athletes, but who have good “moral fiber” who can contribute to “a harmonious locker room guided by an altruistic culture” that gives back to the community.

And my support of the 49ers is contingent not just on winning, but on character.

Yesterday I had lunch with several fellow hikers, and one of them, Kathie, is a long time faithful 49er fan. She mentioned to me a quote from the revered former 49er coach Bill Walsh: “Playing to one’s full potential is the only purpose of playing.” Kathie says that to her, this means giving it your all, or don’t play. I told Kathie that I agree with her and Bill that doing your best is an important lesson from sports. But I said that I would add one more thing to that quote:

Play (live) to your full potential. And have fun while you do it.

January 3, 2020

Should we worry about the possibility of war between Iran and the U.S.?

This question occurred to me last night when I returned home from my weekly meditation group and learned that the U.S. had used a drone to kill Iran’s top military commander, Major General Qassim Suleimani, as he arrived in Iraq.

At first I was pleased to learn of Suleimani’s death, since he has been the main architect of Iran’s support of various terrorist groups in the Middle East. And I’m also no fan of the religious fanatics that run the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I see the Iranian leadership in very negative terms due to their oppression of their own people and their support of violent groups and actions in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and elsewhere.

But I noticed last night and today that I was feeling angry and resentful as I read about Suleimani and the Iranian government. I found myself imagining how this ongoing tension between the U.S. and Iran could escalate, and how I’d want to see the Iranian military destroyed if a war were to break out.

In other words, I bought into the drama.

As I began to notice the toxic effects of that anger in my body – higher blood pressure, and a tightening of my breath and of my stomach muscles – I realized that I was choosing to focus my attention upon an ugly scenario that does not need to be my problem. Yet by giving my energy to this developing crisis, I was making it my problem. I was allowing my emotions to get caught up in the excitement of the moment.

Perhaps I need to learn a lesson in detachment.

Recently I was enjoying a Christmas meal with my longtime friend Joseph, and we found ourselves discussing the problems of a mutual friend. Joseph surprised me by using an expression that I had never heard before to indicate his preference for non-involvement in our friend’s predicament: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” In other words, Joseph chooses not to get drawn into our friend’s soap opera. He cares about her, and wishes her well. He just prefers to focus his attention on more constructive pursuits in the present moment, rather than getting sucked into someone else’s melodrama.

So in the coming days, weeks, and months, I will continue to follow the unfolding events in the Middle East. And I will hope that those events don’t spiral out of control into a full-blown war.

But war or no war, I don’t intend to worry about it.

December 16, 2019

I just came back from a walk in an outdoor psychiatric ward. It’s better known locally as a homeless encampment.

A couple of months ago this long narrow tent campground appeared almost overnight along the Joe Rodota walking and biking trail that parallels Highway 12 and connects the cities of Sebastopol and Santa Rosa here in Sonoma County. Whereas the local homeless population had previously tended to congregate under bridges and other out of the way places, the Rodota Trail tent village is highly visible to anyone driving along Highway 12. I’ve been driving by it for weeks now, and today decided to check it out.

Walking along the paved trail, I first noticed a sign next to piles of garbage. The county sign warns pedestrians and bikers to avoid this section of the trail due to unsafe conditions created by the illegal encampment. Then I saw individual tents, followed by groups of makeshift shelters made of tarps, wooden pallets, and various salvaged pieces of cardboard, bamboo, and sticks. And more piles of garbage, scattered trash, and lots of dogs.

A woman walking ahead of me was carrying a jug of water on her head and a plastic water bottle in her hand, and when she inadvertently dropped the water bottle she couldn’t stoop to pick it up. So I retrieved it for her, and we chatted briefly in front of her tent. A white woman probably in her 4o’s, she was missing most of her teeth. I asked her how she likes living there, and she replied, “I hate it. Everybody steals from you here.”

Another white woman, pushing a shopping cart full of junk, confirmed the statement about thievery while ranting about the trials and tribulations of being homeless. She also told me about watching her grandparents being murdered in front of her when she was a child. A third white woman cheerfully lectured me about the health benefits of coconut oil while she smoked a cigarette.

Amidst all the squalor and negative human energy I did encounter a couple of rays of light. A well dressed woman escorted her young daughter who was handing out candy and bags of nuts to the nutty squatters along the trail. An old man named Bruce was there as a volunteer for the Homeless Action organization to assess the needs of the camp inhabitants. He told me that his group provides wooden pallets for the campers to put under their tents when it rains, and Homeless Action also provides food, socks, and other essentials to the residents.

The overwhelming impression I came away with is that these people are not homeless due to a housing shortage but because of mental illness or substance abuse problems that rob them of any coping skills they might once have had. Even Bruce admitted that drug use is a major cause of the thievery that plagues these destitute squatters. But he went on to explain that often these damaged souls turn to drugs and alcohol to avoid facing their “demons” – sexual abuse or violence that they experienced earlier in life. They can’t face their pain, he said, so they use drugs to escape their demons.

As sorry as I feel for these miserable human beings, I don’t believe that society at large can or should tolerate the garbage, crime, or human waste that these folks create in public spaces. My short term solution would be to make it illegal to sleep in public places, and to institutionalize most homeless people in mental hospitals or rehab centers, permanently if necessary. We might have to raise taxes to pay for such mandatory housing and counseling, but if so, so be it.

The longer term solution is for these suffering people to find healing and a sense of belonging wherever they can. A neighbor of mine was, he jokes, “residentially challenged” until recently, sleeping in his car for several years until he overcame his depression by finding community and stability in a local church.

Homelessness is not, in my view, primarily caused by a lack of money. It is a psychological and emotional problem with a social and spiritual solution: family, community, Jesus, meditation, Buddhism – whatever works.

So I hope that the people I met today on the Rodota Trail of tears can find a path of return to their spirit within, their inner moonlight, their guardian angel, their God or Goddess.

A path to their true, lasting home.

(Note: To read about another encounter I had with a homeless person, read Remorse for a Good Deed in the personal essays section of this website).

December 5, 2019

If you are a rich and famous prince, does that mean that you are entitled to have sex with 17 year old girls?

Apparently the answer to that question was yes for Prince Andrew of Great Britain, who is being accused of sexually abusing and assaulting underage girls some years ago. While the sordid details of those events are now being replayed in the press, I find myself feeling sorry for the trauma that those teen girls had to endure. And I also find myself feeling sorry for the thoughtless, inconsiderate, and possibly cold-hearted member of the British royal family who inflicted such pain, confusion, and suffering upon naive teenagers. How could he be so heartless and selfish? How could he be so out of touch with his humanity, his soul, to exploit innocent children?

But then I remember how, when I was in my twenties, I had sex with at least three women who were 19 years old. They were adults, not underage girls. But I can’t help but wonder if I had been as wealthy and privileged as Prince Andrew, would I have been so blinded by my desires that I would not have noticed the vulnerability and plight of such exploited and possibly trafficked sex slaves?

Sometimes being an obscure member of the working class has its advantages.

So I don’t want to be too judgemental about Andrew, as I can’t be sure how I would have behaved under similar circumstances. I’d like to think that I would have been more compassionate and respectful and therefore more standoffish toward the girls, but who knows? The closest I ever came to a similar situation was when I had sex with a 19 year old prostitute when I was 28 (see my personal essay Limousine Love elsewhere on this website). I don’t regret that incident, as I believe that I treated her with kindness. But maybe she would tell a different story.

Speaking of kindness, the Bay Area has its own example of royal behavior, and I’m pleased to report that our onetime ruler was in many ways an admirable man.

Joshua Abraham Norton came to San Francisco during the Gold Rush of 1849, and at first he enjoyed success as an investor. But when his efforts to corner the rice market ended in bankruptcy, the failure of his greed caused something inside him to snap, and not long after he declared himself to be Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Somehow his greed was transmuted into a gentle and benevolent madness, and San Franciscans not only humored him, they embraced him. According to Gary Kamiya of the San Francisco Chronicle, “Emperor Norton was, is, and shall ever remain the greatest, and most beloved, nut in the history of San Francisco.”

Emperor Norton graced the streets of San Francisco in a military coat with brass buttons, ribbons, medals, and epaulettes. He wore a beaver hat with ostrich plumes, and he sported a saber at his side. The monarch issued his own currency, and ate for free at local restaurants in exchange for the restaurants’ right to post an imperial seal of approval that read, “By Appointment to his Imperial Majesty, Norton I.” Police officers saluted him in public.

But His Royal Highness was not just a ceremonial ruler, but something of a visionary as well. He called for the fair treatment of Chinese, African-Americans, and American Indians, and he was an advocate for women’s right to vote. And according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, “On August 18, 1869, Emperor Norton issued a proclamation ordering construction of what are now called the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge”. Many people laughed at the harmless madman, and rightfully so, because as everyone knows, it’s impossible to build a bridge across the treacherous waters of the Golden Gate.

Thanks to Evan Andrews at History.com I learned that “Mark Twain, who worked as a journalist in San Francisco during Norton’s reign, used Norton as a model for his comical royal imposter the ‘King’ in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.“

And when San Francisco’s quirky, oddball, delusional Don Quixote died in 1880, ten thousand people turned out for the Emperor’s funeral. He may have been eccentric, but he was also kind-hearted, and the wealthy and the working class people of San Francisco loved him. Prince Andrew, take note.

Arguably the most beloved ruler of all time is a princess I fell in love with as a boy. And she’s still as young and beautiful as she was when I first encountered her, because she’s immortal. I’m speaking of course of Her Royal Highness Princess Ozma of Oz.

Most people don’t realize that after L. Frank Baum, the Royal Historian of Oz, wrote his first Oz book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he then wrote another dozen or so books about Oz. And Ozma is lovingly portrayed in all of those subsequent books, along with her best friend Dorothy, who returned to Oz again and again until she took up permanent residence there along with her dog Toto and her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em.

I appreciate Ozma’s youth and beauty, and I admire her magnificent Royal Palace in the Emerald City, and I respect her magical powers. But what I love about Ozma is her nobility of spirit, her generosity toward her people and her friends. As the Royal Historian recorded in Tik-Tok of Oz, Ozma said “Our Land of Oz is a Land of Love, and here friendship outranks every other quality.”

I hope that Prince Andrew can find a way to redeem himself, perhaps by engaging in some self reflection and sincerely apologizing to the women he harmed when they were girls. He could certainly learn some lessons in kindness from Emperor Norton and Princess Ozma. As the prince is learning the hard way, social status and celebrity are not the same as integrity and depth of character. But even we commoners can learn valuable lessons from the missteps of the wealthy and powerful. Andrew, like so many of us, was looking for love in all the wrong places.

May Andrew and those he mistreated find, as Norton and Ozma did, the love within.

November 21, 2019

Five weeks ago I was uprooted from my home of 34 years. Last week my old friend Judy died and my current friend Karen had a heart attack. I’m starting to understand how the white nationalists feel.

When I was young I thought that change was exciting. New music, ethnic diversity, political upheaval, and romantic relationships appealed to my sense of adventure. Now…well, let’s just say that the status quo no longer feels like the enemy it once did. Serenity and stability are sexier than political or romantic drama.

Funny how age can change your perspective.

A couple of nights ago I watched The Last Black Man in San Francisco, a thoughtful if depressing movie about gentrification, race, and class. It reminded me of Blindspotting, another edgy and dark recent film about gentrification, race, and class but set in nearby Oakland. Both movies lamented the plight of local black men who grew up in San Francisco’s Fillmore District and West Oakland respectively, but who now have to navigate the economic and cultural changes brought about by shifting demographics as upscale white people move into their previously black neighborhoods.

These stories of social upheaval are as old as the human race. Here in California successive waves of migrants from Asia displaced one another over the centuries. These migrants, later known as American Indians or Native Americans, were in turn displaced by Spanish colonialists whose conquests were then usurped by Mexicans, who in turn gave way to American invaders.

I’ve been rather amused to hear of Latinos in San Francisco’s Mission District objecting to whites and Asians moving into that district. The Latinos insist that the Mission is their neighborhood, conveniently forgetting that it was originally an Irish neighborhood before Latinos moved in.

And now white nationalists are once again in the news as they commit acts of violence against non-white immigrants and others in the name of the survival of the white race. Interestingly, the black separatist group Nation of Islam was accused in 1965 by Malcolm X of being in cahoots with the white separatist groups the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan.

While I’m not sympathetic to identity politics on either the right or the left of the political spectrum, I do empathize with their resistance to change. Change can be scary, unsettling, threatening, destabilizing. Whether it’s losing a job, a home, a relationship, a sense of community, or the biggest transformation of all – death – change is not something that most of us welcome. Of course, we are happy to embrace change if it is something that we consider to be positive – new love, more money, better health. But change usually involves uncertainty, and the older I get, the less I like surprises.

So I don’t want my friends to die, I don’t want to move out of my home again, and I want to be able to continue to hike and travel and do as I please. Memo to God: don’t rock my boat!

On the other hand, resistance to change creates suffering, and suffering isn’t fun. There’s something to be said for going with the flow, and allowing or trusting the Force to unfold in ways that are ultimately beneficial even if that unfoldment is uncomfortable for our egos in the short term.

So I boldly say to my soul: bring on the changes!

Just not right now.

October 30, 2019

I never knew that the sound of bombers taking off could be so reassuring. And I never knew that the sound of tinkling chimes could be so ominous.

A massive wildfire here in Sonoma County has been threatening several of our communities for a week now. I’ve been without power for five days, as our utility company PG&E has intentionally cut power to hundreds of thousands of people to avoid having power lines spark new fires. But the scary part has been the winds.

Everyone here remembers the deadly Santa Rosa fire two years ago in which 22 people were killed and over 5,000 homes were destroyed. Those deaths and that destruction were caused by high winds driving the fire to race down from the hills upon unsuspecting residents. And a couple of days ago those Diablo (devil) winds came roaring back, creating great anxiety and near panic as 200,000 people were ordered to evacuate their homes to escape the possibility of impending doom.

We knew the winds were coming, and when the wind chimes began to ring their gentle vibrations, it was not the lovely music that one associates with those pipes. It was a threat, and we knew it.

Later that night, at 3 am, my next door neighbor knocked on my bedroom window to announce that he and his wife were fleeing to safer ground, and he urged me to get out while I still could. I had already packed my car with my passport, photo albums, computer, and other valuables, and now in the darkness and amidst the wildly swaying trees I had a decision to make: heed the warning sirens and evacuation orders and head south to stay with family, or stay and risk being burned alive.

But despite all the cell phone alerts and wailing sirens and news media fear mongering, I wondered how much danger I was really facing. The fire was maybe 30 miles away, and even if the worst case scenario occurred and the devil winds rained fire and brimstone upon our town, I should still have enough time to escape. Unless I didn’t. Was it worth risking my life in order to feel comfortable in my new apartment? Was I really risking my life, or was that belief just a part of mass hysteria?

I recalled sitting in front of my Buddhist altar earlier that evening and breathing, meditating, and chanting with the intention of listening to my inner being and trusting whatever guidance I received as to the wisest course of action. And then, after an hour of worrying, I went back to sleep.

I awakened at 7 am with a reassuring dream: Outside my apartment heavy winds were blowing. There were two tall towers outside my window, one wood and one metal, and the wind toppled first the wood tower and then the metal tower and each crashed next to our building but didn’t damage it. I was greatly relieved to have avoided death and/or devastation, and as I awakened I knew that I was safe and that all would be well in my world.

In the last two days since that dream I have been comforted by the rumbling of Cal Fire bombers taking off nearby to drop fire retardant and water on the huge fire that as of now is about 50% contained. And thankfully the wind chimes are silent. To my knowledge no one has been killed. We’re not out of the woods yet, and we still have no power. But today is a sunny day, and life is good.

Sometimes it is smart to listen to external warnings. And always it is wise to listen to the stillness within.

October 21, 2019

Hiking with friends is a dangerous pastime. No, I’m not talking about breaking bones, or sunstroke, or rattlesnakes. I’m talking about conversations that cause one to face one’s own hypocrisy.

Recently about a dozen fellow hikers and I were enjoying a lunch break during a nine mile hike near Austin Creek State Park in Sonoma County. Warren, a climate scientist, mentioned that he had just purchased two round trip tickets from San Francisco to London for $350 each. Impressed, I said that I was tempted to see if I could get the same deal, with the thought of taking a short trip to the British capital to catch a few plays.

But then I thought of Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old Swedish girl and climate activist who recently took a boat from Europe to New York to underscore the importance of avoiding air travel and its significant contribution to global warming. And I remembered reading about a new concept called flygskam (Swedish: flight shame), where well-meaning people forego air travel in favor of taking trains to their destinations.

When I mentioned to my hiking friends that I was torn between my love of travel and my concern about the well being of the planet, Cynthia smiled and said, “You know what to do. But will you do it?”

She’s right. I do know what to do. I’ll take a train from San Francisco to London.

I don’t believe in guilt or shame, but I do believe in being guided by my conscience in order to live wisely and compassionately. So what does my conscience say about whether or not I should continue to fly? Apparently my conscience is as conflicted as the rest of me. Part of me (my conscience?) feels like I should sacrifice my love of travel on the altar of climate correctness. When I mentioned that possibility to my friends, Warren commented, “If you give up your airline seat, someone else will take that seat.” In other words, my sacrifice would be symbolic only, and make no difference in the warming of the planet.

We talked about the larger causes of global warming: too many people on the planet, deforestation in the Amazon and Indonesia and elsewhere, the internal combustion engines in cars buses and trucks, etc. Maybe we were really just looking for a rationale to keep traveling by plane.

Shortly after our hike and lunchtime conversation I was somewhat relieved to read an opinion piece in Time Magazine by Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science. Here are a couple of brief exerpts:

There is a lot of talk these days about the need to lead lower-carbon lifestyles. There is also a lot of finger-pointing going on and, some argue, virtue signaling. But who is truly walking the climate walk? The carnivore who doesn’t fly? The vegan who travels to see family abroad? If nobody is without carbon sin, who gets to cast the first lump of coal?

…the true solution, pricing carbon, requires policy change. There is a long history of industry-funded “deflection campaigns” aimed to divert attention from big polluters and place the burden on individuals. Individual action is important and something we should all champion…The bigger issue is that focusing on individual choices around air travel and beef consumption heightens the risk of losing sight of the gorilla in the room: civilization’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy and transport overall, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of global carbon emissions. We need systemic changes that will reduce everyone’s carbon footprint, whether or not they care.

After much soul searching, I’ve finally concluded that Cynthia is right – I do know what to do. And so I’ve made a difficult and painful decision: I’m going to stop flying.

One of these years.

September 17, 2019

Is it just me, or does it seem that there’s an increasing need for an etiquette advice columnist to teach people how to behave in public?

Four nights ago I was ushering at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa for a sold out performance of the rock n roll band Steely Dan. The crowd seemed unusually restless, even for rock fans, though rock and country music audiences are not known for being as well behaved as classical music aficionados.

Even so, I was surprised when an agitated woman approached me and demanded that I eject eight people sitting in the row in front of her for continually getting up in the middle of songs to buy beer or wine or go to the bathroom or otherwise fail to sit still. I commiserated with her, agreeing that it’s inconsiderate and rude to continually disrupt another person’s view, but I had to explain that we can’t kick people out of the venue just for being thoughtless.

Later in the show, many people stood up to dance in front of their seats, blocking the view of the stage for the people behind them. The more courteous patrons moved to the aisles or to the back of the hall to dance.

Since the complaining woman, the people in front of her, and 99% of the patrons were all white, racial and cultural factors were not an issue in this instance. But sometimes race and culture do play a role in social frictions.

About four years ago an incident on the Napa Valley Wine Train received national attention when a group of mostly black women were kicked off the train for being too noisy. They claimed that it was racial discrimination, but one of their detractors said that their “ghetto” behavior was at fault. Sounds to me like it might have been more of a class issue than a race issue, though cultural differences probably played a role as well. But who decides what is appropriate behavior in public? Can we agree on what constitutes respectful conduct and good manners, or in a multicultural society is it impossible to achieve such a consensus?

Several years ago I was in Jaipur, India, with a tour group. Our tour guide Bishal wanted us to have the experience of seeing a Bollywood movie in a theater packed with locals. He told us to forget about the plot and just watch the audience and their reactions, and sure enough the audience was a big part of the show. The sold out theater was full of families and teenagers. As the romantic film began and the male and female leads appeared, cheers and whistles and applause erupted and continued sporadically throughout the movie. These folks were loaded for bear. Bishal later said that had the movie been a comedy or action flick, the audience would have been even more raucous. As it was, the young men in front of us continually checked their cell phones, and the lighted phone screens were a major distraction. Not that I could understand the Hindi dialogue, though I did want to watch the dances and listen to the music. The teenage boys behind us were loud jerks throughout the movie, but fortunately I had made up my mind to let go of expectations and just enjoy the entire experience, so I was successful in not resisting the inconsiderate behavior of the rowdies and therefore had a good time.

While visiting Bombay the following year I was invited to attend a more elegant Bollywood event, and there the educated and refined Indians behaved as politely as one would expect from their economic class, in sharp contrast to their more plebeian countrymen in Jaipur. Once again it seems that education and social class are better predictors of personal conduct than are nationality or race.

But the current occupant of the White House is the worst model of social behavior that I’ve ever seen in a public figure, and he has the advantages of wealth and privilege that make his lack of manners inexcusable. Character trumps class. And character trumps Trump.

Whether it’s at a concert venue in Santa Rosa, a movie theater in Jaipur, a wine train in Napa, or the White House in Washington, I appreciate respect for others in communal situations. I may be a snob, or simply a dinosaur, but I prefer decorum in public. Agreeing upon what constitutes respectful and acceptable social behavior, however, is an eternally debatable proposition. But I think that most folks would agree that more etiquette would be helpful.

Forget the Democrats and Republicans. I’m voting for Miss Manners for President.