The undesirability of heroism

Hearing Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) discuss fungal infections, abscess scars, and which diseases merit treatment was a trip in itself. But it took me a day or so to realize these are far from the hardest part about what they’re doing.

At the end of my last post I casually labelled PCVs “heroes.” But are they? If you ask them, the result in clear and resounding: not remotely. A couple minutes after posting I heard from one of my PCV friends.

I don't have photos of their daily living.
This is Georgetown on our flight back from the jungle.

“I’m uncomfortable with labelling PCVs ‘heroes.’ We’re not.” But was it just modesty, or something more nuanced than that?

“The assumption is that we have a positive impact and that’s just not necessarily true. Good intentions don’t automatically result in positive impact. The effect we have can be really mixed.”

It’s unpleasant to admit, but I see at least two reasons this is true. First, the implicit conflict of trying to help a population become more self sufficient, sustainable, and not reliant on outside aid...via outside aid. How can you convince a population to not look to foreign wealth for help when your very presence shows how helpful (and immense) that wealthy help could be?

Second, a technique that works well in one area may be either useless or downright harmful in another. Culture is complex, powerful, and sometimes dangerously subtle (right up until the moment it eats you). And it’s one of humanity’s great tragedies that the advances we most need (like women’s rights) are often earned through the suffering of exactly the people you’re trying to help. Bring a women’s initiative to a place...then watch the patriarchy clamp down.

Bauxite refining in Linden, considered among
the most luxurious placements in Guyana.

Then there’s a more personal reason PCVs dislike the “hero” label.

“There are actual heroes doing heroic things. We’re just trying to do what we can in 24 months. I just go to work like a regular person. The pressure of the term hero is...overwhelming.”

PCVs have a shadow behind their eyes, if not outright in their words. They call it “Peace Corps Guilt” (click here for a short write-up that is well worth a couple minutes read). If you’ve traveled, physically or mentally, the feeling “Good lord, we throw away more than these people have, how can I be so selfish?” will be familiar. (Don’t worry, the article’s not that bleak!)

Valid concerns, true questions, serious doubts. But in the end, the same way a politician who speaks of “good and evil” is not to be trusted, we have to acknowledge that life is not a matter of dichotomies and dualities. Nearly everything exists in shades of gray. The Peace Corps is no exception.

Going to work for a paycheck is a perfectly acceptable motivation. Doing it for the good of others or society is a wonderful thing (salute to all the teachers, nurses, and social workers out there!) But leaving behind your life of developed privileges in order to hopefully help people who have never had them, even knowing it may well be a giant waste of time?

Seven hours racing down this mudswamp of a road,
two boat rides and a 4x4 had us still nowhere
near as remote as some of the placements.

I apologize to my Peace Corps Volunteer friends...but yes, to me, you are heroes. Imperfect, perhaps useless, maybe even harmful. But you’re trying. So: heroes.

Let me add one more note. The Peace Corps lists three goals in its Mission Statement. The first is the part about helping the people in the foreign country. The third is to fostering a better understanding of poverty and foreign countries among Americans. Nestled in the middle is something important.

“To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.”

At this moment when the US is being defiled by a president whose actions genuinely merit the term “evil” and who is tangibly damaging the standing of the United States on the world stage, your contribution to international harmony (and domestic sanity, at least mine) is crucial.

Thank you for everything you do.

Living the dream

I had a dream when I was a kid. A literal, “I’m asleep” kind of dream, that is. This isn’t an inspirational post. In it, I’m swimming along the bottom of the pool, my favorite place in all of Childhood’s Kingdom, when I realize I can breathe down there. Not fully, not well, but if I calm down and do it just right, modestly, I can breathe. I remember an infusion of calm and an understanding that everything could be fantastic. Could be better than I’d known to hope for. (It wasn’t until later that I suspected I’d just rolled over and was breathing through my pillow.)

Amsterdam welcomed me my first day

This morning I’m coming up for air. After 21 days of Best of Europe tour-guiding, I’m waking up to a day without appointments, no reservations to confirm or information to convey. Not even a city to depart.

The street is polite vespas and well-dressed Parisians, nothing on my plate but baguette crumbs and the promise of more good food to come, perhaps after a stroll by the Seine? And I remember that dream. Its epiphany that I can do something I really enjoy and get the air I need while doing it. And I realize that’s what I’ve been doing for 21 days.

Swiss Alpine calm

I’ve been swimming, diving into Amsterdam’s historic harbor before turning up the Rhine to reach Austrian Alpine passes, waterfalling down Roman roads to muse about Venetian canals before making my way through old Florence to reach older Rome, just to smile and drift up into Swiss glaciers, a liquid core of calm that persists when I slide down through the vineyards of Burgundy to wash up fully rational on Seine shores.

And I’ve been breathing.

Water was an element of my boyhood joy, and travel is essential for my adult satisfaction. Sharks and me, stop moving and we suffocate. But it’s not a compulsion, not addiction, neither distraction nor delusion. It’s adoration. Adulation. Celebration of our worldwide nation and the strokes that pull us all together.

Islam is supposed to be scary? Me and
the little girl don't buy it. You?

For years I traveled. Helpless before my vagabond urges. It was right for a time, but wrong in the end. Insufficient for the long term, serving nothing but my whims. Now there’s a purpose to my travel. In a world of multimedia capitalists who profit from our fear, who compete for the spectacles that widen our eyes and shrink our horizons, I find something more worthy than mere movement when I take others with me, show them these faces of beauty left here by centuries of human struggle and millennia of natural process.

For twenty one days spread across half a dozen countries we delight in the reality of the places, rooms in our global house, and I watch the tension of the first day dissolve into the ease of the last. Day One I see apprehension when I show them the train track that will reliably bring them home, Day Twenty I drop them off in Paris’s elegant metro maze and say “See you tomorrow” and they’re off without a pause.

And in the calm, when they don’t need me at all, I can imagine them going home, feeling merely tired, to be greeted by the anxious homebound with their pinched brows who desperately inquire “You were in Europe? But weren’t you worried? Didn’t you feel unsafe?”

And in my daydream I see their calm smile, perhaps wearing the appropriate regret for the incidents of the moment, but underneath is the deep understanding that the world is something other than the misconception made up by those make-up talking heads. And my traveling companions ease back to a full library of happy moments, warm welcomes, beautiful humanity and they can shrug off the constipated clench of petty terror. Stories they know better than to buy, now.

Think they wish they'd spent more time fearful and divided?

No, they didn’t feel unsafe. They felt free. If I did my job right. And the memory of every one of their smiles resonates within me, and I feel that dream’s sense of delighted astonishment, astonished delight, and can pull in deep lungfuls of fresh air.

Maybe it’s an inspiration post after all. For me, anyway.

Europe's normalcy and hospitality are waiting, on every boulevard and back street.

I want more women in my pocket

Estonian kroon

The pulled pork sandwich was delicious, the bun warm on fingertips rubbed safe-cracking sensitive by a good night of rock climbing. Then the best part of these nights: sitting around a table with a good group of friends. Now it was time to pay, and a multimedia presentation of plastic cards and paper bills fluttered onto the table.

“Who is on your money?” asked the visiting German. And I couldn’t resist. Ever since I found Estonia’s money adorned by painters, scientists, and chess players, I’ve been aware of our US proclivities.

“Our money has the presidents who killed the most people,” I had to point out.

The rest of the (short) post, and why Quakers, escaped slaves, and Joaquin Phoenix can help us redefine who we consider heroes on today's vagabondurges.com post, here.

Change of plans

The suspense is over. Trump’s vision of intolerance, division, and suspicion without understanding has won this battle. That’s what I see on the official form stating that I, as a US citizen, have not been granted a visa to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It sucks. I was supposed to leave this Saturday. Think they’ll refund my flights?

The richness and beauty of Iran are plenty of reason to go, but that was just the beginning. To give a little business to my Turkish friends whose livelihood has been annihilated by world events was also a good reason. But most of all, can you imagine a more important time to travel than right now?

Right now, when our petulant toddler tyrant is stomping around the White House and the headlines doing daily damage to peace, hope, and the fabric of international society. Right now, when extremists on their fringes want us to mistrust and misunderstand each other. When the continued barrage of sinister manipulation relies on us not knowing better than to trust their insults and depredations. Can you imagine a more important time to go see the reality of our shared human nature?

Now is a very good time to go to Iran. Now is an essential time to go to Iran. But now is, apparently, an impossible time to go to Iran. And it’s breaking my heart.

Trump issued his anti-human, make America sinister again executive order, and Iran reciprocated. I can’t really blame them. A number of countries follow the quid pro quo principle, identical visa fees & restrictions etc. These countries are the most exorbitant and arduous to enter, that many of us tend to avoid. Makes sense, but sucks anyway. Barriers to mutual human comprehension and affection.

It’s rainy, I feel a little sick, and the forces of intolerance seem to be winning the future right now. Terribly tempting to get back in bed and hibernate until joy comes back or we sink into the sea.

Except I love the rain. Always have. Since childhood, running out to sit in the car to hear it better. And that subtle disturbance in the back of my throat isn’t a cold, it’s my body processing the last of the libations and inhalations of a Portland celebration. Manifest joy. And the pinch-mouthed forces that want to divide us? The Trumps and Islamophobes? Are they winning?

Yes. The battle. Because we let them make it a battle. But that’s inaccurate. Human society is not a battle. Human society is growth. It’s a plant, not a weed-whacker. Abundance, not violence. Progression, not transgression. The human character is built of love and kindness, it takes trauma to twist it away from that. And Trump is definitely trauma.

Unfortunately, damage is cyclical, hereditary, and easy. Easy as a stamp on a piece of paper. So I’m not going to Iran next week. But this is more important than my travel plans. This is the world we want to live in, aggressive or progressive, our choice.  So I’m going to stay here, nurture my kindness in the face of presidential bitterness, and wait until I can go. I will go to Iran. When reason returns. I’m looking forward to it already.

Fox News is teaching me

Three weeks and two days (feels like three years and two nervous breakdowns) since Trump was sworn (I think we were all swearing that day) in as president, and I still flinch to hear “President Trump today…”

Jan 30, sure his ill-conceived, probably
illegal Muslim ban is hurting thousands of
people and making America LESS safe, but
Fox assures us everyone loves Trump.

I’m partially flinching to cover my vital organs against the day’s newest cruelty, but I also still cannot believe we elected such a vile TV character as our president. From fictional “reality” TV to fictional alternative facts. Still can’t believe it. It all caught me by surprise, and twenty-three long days into the misadministration it hasn’t worn off.

Not here in my liberal bubble of reasonable job availability, supportive peers, and all around plausible hope for the future. (Exorbitant property values notwithstanding.) It is clear that if I am to protect myself from further nauseous astonishment, and do my part to reintegrate a country divided by wealthy owners of corporate media and manipulative politicians ensconced in comfy outrage, I need to puncture that bubble.

But how? Actually go to a “Red State” and meet people? I’d friggin love to! But life is a busy thing.

So for now my phone will start the process. Some mornings I reach for it and one of the wizardlicious swipes and pokes brings me four trending news headlines. Some irresponsible editorialism sneaks in there, but for the most part I get three good news stories...and a Fox News.

Feb 8 Even Trump's nominee acknowledges
his actions are demoralizing, but let's talk
about Tracy Morgan's sex life!

It’s been fascinating.

The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and even poor beleaguered CNN report on what’s happening in America today (the algorithm rarely pierces our self-absorptive US borders) while that fourth line, oh tricky little fella, will so often eel itself with greasy dexterity into some sort of rage politics, celebrity scandal, Trump fanfare, or their favorite: bashing on Obama and/or Clinton.

They still beat on Hillary! Fascinating! That’s like running ads against Nancy Kerrigan. The lady’s career is over! She lost! But no, she’s still a beloved punching bag and distraction flare. Keeping people righteously outraged and problematically uninformed.

I’ll be honest. I’m almost rooting for the most inflammatory and irrelevant distraction stories possible. Almost. Except for the fact that it’s destroying the very fabric of human decency which underlays a successful society, much less government.

Feb 13, this morning's news: criminal
National Security Adviser, historically
low approval ratings, but this singer says
Trump is A-Okay! FOMO patriotism!

So day by day my apple info-bots are teaching me about America, one Faux News headline at a time. It’s a tiny dose, I should up my intake, but some days it’s all the bitter pill I can swallow.

(more examples on the vagabondurges.com version here)

It's all one world

My bus pulled up for a WC break on the way to Phuong Nha, Vietnam. A man drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany. Thousands of miles apart, but it’s all one world. And lately it feels like it’s all going to shit.

But it’s not. And Vietnam has reminded me of that.

Found these in an overgrown lot in Hue. Not on anyone's Things to See List.

When my demographic thinks “Vietnam” we think of pho (soup), Vietnamese friends, stories heard or told of travel’s beauty here. And probably those movies about someone else’s war. I arrived knowing little about it beyond what Oliver Stone told me and it’s entirely possible I could have left without learning much more.

The possibility is both troubling and beautiful. Troubling, because visitors, especially Americans, should know about what happened here during the twenty morally reprehensible years of war my country inflicted on this region in order to take away their freedom and advance our economic interests.

But beautiful because of the way the people here have talked to me about the war. 40 years is long enough to fade from America’s awareness but not to erase the memories from those who saw it firsthand. Trauma like that stays with an individual and a society, whether you fought or not, your village burned or not, your family died or not.

Yet when my bus pulled in for that bathroom break and I got to chatting with the driver in words and gestures, he communicated the same thing I’ve heard again and again in this wonderful country (if I bring it up).

Would it matter where she's from? How
she worships? No. You'd protect her too

“You say ‘I from America’ and” he made that relaxed shoulder shrug gesture of peacefulness. “No problem! America, Vietnam, friend friend! War is over. Friend friend!” He wanted me to know that even if his father was in the war, even if we were about to drive over Hien Luong Bridge that divided North and South, even if these towns watched their children die and the very land burned bare by toxins dropped without conscience, that’s in the past, and he holds no grudge. Feels no separation between us. And that’s what I’m holding on to today.

Because there are people trying to pull us apart. They are small in number and vast in influence. They want this religion to blame that religion. This nationality to hate that nationality. These people at peace to distrust those people fleeing war. Our division is their gain. Our fear is their advantage. And our misplaced antipathy is our own destruction.

Because Berlin is Phuong Nha is Damascus is San Francisco. It’s all one world. We’re all one people. And if my Vietnamese bus driver, whose father was killed by a US bomb, can pat me on the shoulder and share his food then we are brothers, no matter what came before. And my German friends, regardless of what faced our grandparents, are all family on this sad day. As are my Syrian friends, grieving kin as bombs murder the entire city of Aleppo, feeling our anger but united in hope for a better future for us all.

That's exactly it. Vietnamese kid in a New York shirt,
and it's the peace sign for everyone.

So yes, lately it feels like it’s all going to shit. And in some ways damn right it is. But then again, maybe it always feels like it’s going that way, every year’s “lately.” But the fact I cling to, the firsthand observation I trust, is that even if some other guy drove a truck into a market today, my guy drove our bus to a moment of friendship. And the latter is more common by far. The latter is the majority, the hope, and the future.

Yes it’s all one world. And no it’s not all going to shit.

Figuring out how to live under a Trump presidency

This is not the blog I was planning to post.

After the initial wave of Denial, the “No way America would ever elect that” came the other stages.

Anger. “Those idiots wanted a protest vote against The System, but they’ve sunk the country instead of making their point in a way that would actually work!”

Bargaining. “If we give him a fair chance, don’t oppose everything, maybe he’ll retreat from his platform of insanity and merely be a Republican.”

Depression. That one occupied most of the last two days. Yesterday I discovered at 1:30 in the afternoon that I was still in my bathrobe.

And finally, Acceptance. “The office of the President demands such gravitas and dignity that he’ll shed his lunatic-candidate facade and become a grown up. He’ll act for the nation’s best interests. Because what kind of monster could have that power and abuse it so flagrantly?”

So I wrote up a nice optimistic post of acceptance and brotherhood. Compassion for the voters who have been left behind by the political system that listens to and thinks about only the wealthy, and confidence that we as a nation are stronger than one terrible president.

These are not the words of an intelligent person

But then I got up this morning and saw that Trump’s choice to head his EPA transition team is a well-known climate change “skeptic.” Climate change (in addition to being agreed upon by basically the entire scientific community and every developed country except us) is something the majority of Americans agree is happening, and is a problem.

So what did Trump do? He chose a climate change denier, clearly showing the same truth that’s always been blazingly clear about him: Donald Trump does not care what Americans think. That’s the nature of a narcissist, the beliefs and perspectives of other people do not factor into his thinking. That is not a president.

And a corollary of that is even scarier. Donald Trump does not care that his violent rhetoric of hatred is dangerous. This is the one of the things that keeps me up at night.

After the Brexit vote, which was far less explicit in its endorsement of racism and xenophobia, hate crimes in Britain rose 40%. That is truly troubling.

And might that happen here? It already is.

Those people who voted for a change from The System chose to endorse, justify, and encourage the racism, misogyny, homophobia and intolerance in our country, and innocent people are going to suffer for it. (And the same goes for those who did not vote, or gave Trump their “protest” vote via a third party candidate in any swing state.)

I’m a big fan of respecting other people’s opinions. It’s one of my core values. But Trump Brand Bigotry is not an opinion. “Mexicans are rapists” is not an opinion. “It’s okay to grab women by the p***y” is not an opinion. They are moral deficiencies. They are dangerous failures of the mind, soul, and character, they are outrages against the ethics and humanity of this country, and I will not respect them. Ever.

I want to preach cooperation and healing. I really do. But this person, this disgusting narcissist is not someone I can cooperate with. Maybe I’ll get there, maybe he’ll prove me wrong. But right now? He is not my president. Democracy is not something that happens every four years in a voting booth, democracy depends on the people of a nation standing up for what’s right every day of every year. So that’s what we should do.

I don’t know how to oppose Trump yet. Smashing the window of a local business as my fellow Oaklanders are doing tonight does not strike me as an appropriate response. But as long as Trump is what he has always been, I will oppose him in every way I can find.

Hillary headquarters SF on the eve of the election

I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, this was the San Francisco headquarters for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, not some cluster of cubicles behind a crossroads gas station. It was three floors of bustling humanity of all ages, colors, shapes, and gaits. And at one point there were tacos.

Truth is, I hadn’t known what to expect when I agreed to make phone calls for Hillary. I had a vague daydream of getting real with some undecided voter, acknowledging that while she reflects some of the problems of our current political system and doesn’t make a great candidate, she’s extremely qualified to be a great president. I wouldn’t even go into how profoundly unqualified Trump is, but if they brought him up, well, maybe I’d offer some anecdote about how the rest of the world (outside of Russia) is terrified we’ll make the wrong choice and the USA has already lost standing because of his campaign, while poisoning our discourse at home. How he’s already doing the exact opposite of making America great again.

Okay, so I hadn’t thought that part out very well. I was counting on the moment to carry me through. Did I get that moment? How did it go?

The fact that finding these quotes meant weeding through
dozens of fake slander quotes is part of the problem.

Well. “You’ve reached the mailbox for 239…Please leave a message after the tone.”

I don’t blame swing state voters for turning off their phones en masse. Just as long as they don’t turn off their brains too.

I talked to a few people, offered help with polling place info and how to get there, though I don’t think I had any effect. But to be honest, that wasn’t my primary reason for going. I was there for a more selfish purpose.

This election scares the hell out of me. Donald Trump embodies the worst elements in our nation, all the racism, sexism, xenophobia, greed, and willful ignorance that stands in the way of our progress towards a better future. All taken to a degree of vileness that I never expected to see in my country, and gaining a level of support that shames me to every red, white, and blue cell in my body.

It’s scary. And fear is worse when you’re alone. I sought others who see the same blazing truth I do and are doing something about it. Whether calling voters is useful or not, these people were not willing to just stay home with fear and crossed fingers, the way I had. I went to Hillary’s headquarters to see the other volunteers. And I saw them.

The college student, next to a lady with pictures of her grandkids his age. Millennials in hipster hats and workers with calloused palms. A wide array of ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, all responding to the same danger to our nation and our world. I was impressed. All the caring hearts in that building, giving their hours for something we all find important, for no pay or reward.

Except they did get a reward. A couple weeks ago, on a normal Thursday morning, they had an unexpected visitor. Who showed up with a surprisingly small entourage of a couple cars, stood in the small room and talked to everyone, incredibly personable and charismatic, genuinely interested in what everybody had to say. Regardless of the fact that she was standing in front of cardboard cutouts of herself, under a banner with her name, and her status as the focal point of all our hopes for the immediate future.

When Hillary visited those people, she imbued them with an optimism that is precious in our modern day, and especially important in this rancid season of hatred and narcissistic ignorance. And they held onto it, and paid some forward to me. And today, as I post this before heading straight to the polls to vote for Hillary, I need all the optimism I can get.

Good luck, America. Don’t screw this up.

I think I'll go call Florida

I have a friend who’s been phone banking for Hillary. No one’s seen her for weeks. This weekend she’ll be frantically making last-minute calls to swing states to pull for her candidate, and I deeply respect her passion and effort, actually doing something in the face of the looming disaster for America and the whole world that would be a Trump presidency.

But I have to wonder: has any human ever convinced another human of anything? I don’t mean to be gloomy, but if anyone ever has, I don’t think I’ve seen it. We’re not really a reasonable species. Least of all now, when one candidate is seen as irredeemably corrupt because she exists in our current system and the other is profoundly unqualified, unstable, immature, unintelligent-  Sorry, it’s hard to stop that list. The other candidate is….Trump.

But whether or not phone banking ever does any good, I have to wonder: this weekend? Is there anyone left in America who hasn’t made up their mind yet? If there’s anyone with any shred of doubt left, will a phone call help?

I want to find out. I want to see what a political phone bank call is like. I’m thinking Saturday afternoon. I’ll call Florida and ask them “So? Whaddya think?” I’m not going to try to convince anyone. Of anything. But I want to hear the opinion of a complete stranger in a battleground state.

Lordy help us. Battleground states. That was once a very real thing, 1861-1865. And more and more, it feels that way again. Every 2 or 4 years.

When people attack Hillary for being part of Obama's
administration, why doesn't she talk about the facts?

Can we indict the 24 hour news cycle on charges of treason? I’m getting sidetracked. But that’s the theme of this election, where the entire country was sidetracked from the issues. Yes, Donald Trump is a reprehensible human being, and should face charges of sexual assault. And plenty of people want to see Hillary in the defendant’s chair too. But as satisfying as revenge fantasies are, I’d rather we were talking about actual issues.

Wealth inequality. Systemic racism & sexism and how we’re going to ameliorate both. The military-industrial complex and a world making money off bombing Yemen/Syria/Afghanistan/Iraq/Pakistan (Libya? Are we still bombing Libya? How shameful that I can’t even keep track of who we’re bombing?) International trade agreements that benefit the mass of Americans but pose a threat to continued progress, and whether backing away from the TPP would simply allow China to fill the void. Climate change. The fact that we are the only country on Earth still “debating” it as a theory. Nevermind, let’s not talk about that particular shard of shame. You get my point.

If Trump supporters were actual Republicans,
this would matter. (*Only reflects his first term.)

I’d rather talk about issues, because it would be better for the country. Coincidentally, it would be better for my candidate, since she has policies beyond “I’m incredible. Build a wall. Everything’s your fault and rigged. No. Obama founded ISIS.”

So, tomorrow evening, I’m going to try to hear about issues. Will I? Or will I hear periodic character attacks and frequent dialtones? Can’t wait to find out. And then, after a little dip of such demoralizing abuse….I’m going to go get some ice cream.

And maybe a bunker.