John Swinburn

Most people on Earth are “better off” in some way than at least some other people. Some have access to more food. Others live in more secure or better shelter. The surroundings of some are more reliably safe. Others can depend on a healthier or safer food supply. Some people have more money to buy a more reliably secure lifestyle. Others live in the lap of luxury and never want for any basic needs. Some people are isolated from physical and emotional threats that plague others. Unfortunately, a significant number of people live in constant fear, not only for their own physical and emotional safety but in fear of inadequate or unsafe food and water and shelter.

For each of those people, where does society draw the line between having too little and too much, in comparison to others? Does the person with a barely adequate supply of safe and reliable food have an obligation to share with others whose supplies meet neither measures? Is the person fortunate enough to live in secure shelter obliged to share it with those whose shelter is worse or less secure?

In each case involving people more fortunate than others, we can say they are privileged in some form or fashion. They live more comfortably than others, at least along a single dimension. Does that good fortune carry with it an obligation to share? Or, if not, does that good fortune carry with it a moral obligation to at least feel guilt for undeservedly having “more” or living in better circumstances? For the sake of contemplation, let’s assume that no one along any continuum has “earned” his or her place. Everyone has worked hard to achieve whatever he has. The “luck of the draw” has enabled those with plenty to acquire more than they need. That same “luck” has withheld largess from people who suffer from paucity.

The point of these questions, and this contemplation, is to frame ideas of obligation. What are we obligated, as humans, to do? And, perhaps as importantly, to feel? Should I feel guilt at my good fortune in comparison to a poor beggar on the streets of a village in an impoverished country? Does feeling guilt count against any obligations I might have to share my largess? Does simply recognizing my privilege count in any way and, if so, how? Am I under any moral obligation to minimize the extent of my privilege so that someone else might rise part way toward that privilege I once enjoyed?

None of these questions have “correct” or “incorrect” answers. They are just questions that merit some attention. Yet they “feel” like they ought to have correct answers. They “feel” like we ought to know when we have too much and, therefore, should share without expecting anything in return. But we don’t know. And that’s the source of guilt; not knowing how much we should share or, knowing, not sharing.

My affinity for, or interest in, things Icelandic is evident in the fact that sixteen posts on this blog mention Iceland (seventeen including this one). It’s a disease, I think, this longing for immersion in cultures to which I have absolutely no connection and for which my fascination has no reasonable explanation. Today, that fascination and interest, legitimate or not, are being tested.  You see, I learned today that the country has an official naming committee that determines the acceptability of names which may be given to children. Really! As I started to skim the Iceland Monitor, an article on the subject attracted my attention. Or, should I say, the article attracted my immediate disbelief and disdain (combined, in an odd sort of way, with appreciation).  I’ll quote from the article:

The famous Icelandic naming committee which decrees which new given names in Iceland are allowed or not have said no to names Carlsberg and Danski…The middle name Carlsberg, of Danish origins does not comply to Icelandic rules of grammar and neither does Danski…Boy’s name Javi and girl’s names Kolþerna, Einara, Ásynja, Elízabet, Emanúela, Baldína and Natalí were accepted however.

Can this be real? Yes, in fact, it can be and is. Iceland established the Naming Committee in 1991 to determine whether new given names not previously used in Iceland are suitable for integration into the country’s language and culture. Obviously, Icelanders are cultural purists, which in many respects I find patently offensive. On the other hand, I can appreciate the desire to preserve and protect one’s cultural legacies. But to control the names parents give to their children? Hmmm. My immediate reaction is negative, but I have to consider that negative reaction in the context of my own evaluation of the Icelandic culture…viewed through the prism of my own biases.

The relative offensiveness (or lack thereof) of Iceland naming restrictions depends to a great extent on whether the restrictions lead to corollary debasement or derision of other cultural naming conventions (or, for that matter, other elements unique to other cultures). If the Iceland conventions do not have the effect of either degrading other cultures or holding Icelandic culture as superior to them, then the practice would not be, in my book, offensive. Odd, perhaps, but not offensive. But if Icelanders (or a subset thereof who hold sway with the Naming Committee) viewed non-Icelandic names as inherently inferior to Icelandic names, then the troubles begin.

I have to wonder whether anyone else, outside of Iceland, finds this topic even mildly interesting? Maybe my strange fascination with arcane trivia explains my relative social isolation. It shouldn’t be too problematic, though, inasmuch as my interest is superficial and short-lived. It’s not as if I drone on and on about Icelandic naming conventions and the extent to which they might suggest either covert or overt xenophobia. Hmmm. If I were to pursue writing fiction again (which I think I suggested I might or might not), a story line involving a Colombian xenophobe who detests Apache and Icelandic cultures might be worth exploring. Or maybe not.

No matter where I seek it, I cannot find it. Silence. The absence of sound. There was a time when I could find it. But no more. Not since my heartbeat, with its drumbeat in my ears, began interrupting my peace. For months and months, I’ve heard my heart beat. Perhaps it’s a matter of wax in my inner ear transmitting the vibration from each beat of my heart to the tiny bones in my ear that manifest as sound. Or it could be something else. I don’t know. But I do know it is beginning to drive me crazy. It’s on my list of things to address with my primary care doctor when I go in for an appointment in March. If I don’t lose my mind before then. If I don’t stab an ice-pick in each ear before then, trying to put an end to the pounding, pounding, pounding in my ears. I doubt I’ll do that. An ice-pick in my ear sounds painful. On the other hand, the absence of sound “sounds” delightful. Silence. The absence of noise. The absence of sound. The absence of aural interruption.

The constancy of noise is not new. I’ve noticed it for months, if not years. I’ve wished I could flip a switch to turn off the sound of my heartbeat, my breathing, the sounds made by my body when I move my neck. I detect noise even when I blink. My upper eyelids slam against their lower counterparts, creating tiny explosions of noise that I feel and hear. I wonder whether I am alone in noticing the cacophony or whether others, like me, are embarrassed and afraid to admit to hearing those noises because…we might be judged out of our minds. I suppose we are. I suppose we are dangers to ourselves, what with talk of stabbing ice-picks in our ears to silence to sounds of our heartbeats. Only madness can prompt such thoughts. Or, perhaps, incessant noise.

Silence would be frightening now, I think. It would seem utterly at odds with normalcy. Silence, now, would seem sinister, as if all the attention of the world were directed at me, with no distractions. Maybe noise is like a protective blanket made of horsehair. It keeps us warm but, at the same time, it irritates the skin with a painful, ever-present reminder that warmth comes with a price.

On the one hand, sound is precious. I wrote recently about the sound a guitarist’s fingers scraping against the strings makes. But even that sound, if ever-present, can be maddening. Sound needs its absence, if sound is to be valuable and beautiful. If sound is ever-present, it becomes a fiendish enemy bent on driving molten spikes into one’s brain. And, then, when the spikes quench in cold water, the sound of  steam and boiling water give way to the cracks of shrinking metal and, finally, silence. Silence. Beautiful silence.

Quiet is serene. Quiet is calm. Quiet is relaxing. Yet quiet is impossible to find. It escapes into the loud screeches of huge black birds and the rumble of trucks rolling up and down the street outside my window. It disappears into the thump-thump-thump of my heartbeat. It withdraws into the hum of refrigerators and computers and the buzz in my ears that sounds like layer upon layer of the noises made by crickets. Silence is imaginary. Quiet is a supernatural tale, just a fable with no basis in reality. Silence doesn’t exist.

Whispers. Strained voices. Anxious sighs. Stifled sobs. The sharp staccato raps of heels pounding on the cobblestone street, their echoes remaining long after the tear-drenched woman rounds the corner. Long after the dejected man shuffles away.

Who were they, that couple whose urgent matters spilled into the street and captured the ears of people sitting in cafés, leaning against balcony railings, and watching from the dark shadows beneath the clock tower? What private pain burst into such a public display of heartbreak, such a ruinous end to what might have been a lifetime of joy?

Every couple sitting in those cafés heard the message that their time, too, could come. The women leaning against the balconies sensed it, as well. And the people beneath the clock tower cringed at the evidence that their own lives could shatter against the hard cobblestones.

All of them listening to the couple’s dissolution were strangers with no bonds between them but in those moments, in that street scene, they felt their lives bound together with steel cables. They heard the sounds of their own hearbeats slamming their dreams against the walls of their chests and they felt the inexorable sense of loss that never departs.

When you hear, on a recording, the sound of a guitarist’s fingers scrape the strings, you’re hearing a sound unpurified to an extent that all of the reality of the musician’s engagement with the instrument remains. The connection between musician and guitar hasn’t been bleached out of the sound. At least that’s my opinion, as a person who’s never successfully played a guitar or any other musical instrument. This thought came to me after I listened to Terry Gross interview Nicholas Brittel, a composer who scored several recent films. I’ve always felt that sense of reality when I hear the “musician’s noise” that accompanies real music, but I’ve never really thought much about it until I heard the Brittel interview. He spoke of asking a violinist to play very lightly, but with enough energy to have “confidence.” And then he spoke of hearing the sounds of the instruments and the sound of air in the room. That’s what triggered my sense of liking the sound of a guitarist’s fingers as they scrape the strings. And that’s the sort of thing that translates well into scenes in writing. Little aspects of an experience that help paint a picture that, without those elements, would be bland or lacking in some fundamental way. It’s not just true of writing, though. It’s true of life. I think we enjoy life far more when we pay close attention to its smallest intrusions on our consciousness, like the scrape of a guitarist’s fingers on the strings. Or, more commonly perhaps, the sound of one’s spouse’s rhythmic breathing or the background noise of a clock ticking (though few do that anymore) or one’s own heartbeat. I hear my own heartbeat, pounding in my ear, especially early in the morning.

For months, I thought I was hearing some odd “house noise” like a furnace clicking as its heat dissipated. But finally, I realized it was my own heart. It’s probably not a good sign to hear my heartbeat so distinctly in my ear, but I really have no idea how to explain the noise to my doctor. He certainly cannot hear it; only I can. He might think I’m mad if I complain about a noise no one but I can hear. And maybe I am.

Our dinner last night met and exceeded our expectations. My dozen oysters on the half shell were enormous and very tasty. Janine’s dozen fried oysters were at least as good. The conversation with our friends was delightful and my Neulasta device did not intervene in any way. The New Orleans menu prompted me to suggest to Janine that we return next Tuesday so I can try some of the other items on the menu or, perhaps, the sampler plate that offers a little bit of everything (but not the oysters, if memory service me).

Learning a bit more about our friends through conversation caused me to recall an idea I had a while ago. That is, I’d like each member and friend of the church who’s willing to write and share a brief biography about themselves—where they grew up, what they did in their work lives, what made them decide to move to Hot Springs Village, what religious backgrounds they escaped from grew up with, how they define their political views (both from a social and a fiscal perspective), and any other interesting tidbits they think others might find interesting. I’m interested in this simply because I would find it intriguing to learn how people with quite different backgrounds happened to find themselves as part of a pocket of liberal and progressive people in the midst of the sea of rabid conservatives that is Hot Springs Village. I envision this collected biography to be available only to members and friends and, in some fashion that I’ve yet to clarify in my head, made private so that the identities of the writers would not be readily available if it were to be circulated outside the sphere of members and friends. That might be tough. I’ll have to give it some more thought.

I got up very early again this morning, even earlier than yesterday when I got up around 4:30. Today I sprang out of bed at 4:00, after having gone to be early, around 10:00 or just a bit thereafter. I’m not quite sure what’s  responsible for these earlier-than-usual arisings, but I rather like to be up and have leisurely time to explore the web, write a bit, collect my thoughts, and reheat the cooled coffee over and over again. I really should drink it while it’s hot, but the burning sensation in my esophagus is still with me so I let it cool, and then it’s too cool. But I’m up and thinking. That’s not always good, but today it is. Today’s thoughts are generally positive.

Shortly after I got up, I read that an Israeli company claims to be completing development of a cure for cancer that should be completed within a year. It sounds quite promising, but it also sounds like its availability in the general marketplace (if it’s really as claimed) will be years off. Oh well, if it’s real, in the years to come, many hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people my well live without cancer that they otherwise would have had to faced.

Last night, I watched several more episodes of Fauda, the Israeli-made drama depicting the two militaristic sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’m addicted to it and, with every episode, I’m more comfortable that I’m watching a foreign language (Hebrew and Arabic) film that’s dubbed in English. Being able to watch multiple episodes, connected via Roku without interruption, is evidence that the problems I’ve had all along are, in fact, attributable to the Suddenlink-branded TiVo device. I’ll have that replaced in the near future (when I no longer have to deal with radiation treatment every weekday).  Oddly, I don’t recall what I had been watching before Fauda that, eventually, I just gave up on. I’ll have to probe my mind to recall it; I got so frustrated with Netflix stuttering and stopping that I limited my television viewing to news programs with Lester Holt and Judy Woodruff, supplemented by mindless home purchasing/improvement shows on HGTV. With Roku, I think I can return to some real variety, even before the TiVo device is replaced.

No long after I got up this morning, I whipped up a couple of servings of steel-cut oats that, I hope, will be ready, only needing to be warmed up, by the time Janine awakes sometime after 7:30 (my guess). It’s been ages since I made steel-cut oats for breakfast and I miss them, as does Janine. She’s the one who suggested it. I make mine with a mixture of water and almond milk (it does influence the flavor), along with a tad of olive oil in which to flavor and warm the oats, and dried cherries for flavor. I added a pinch of salt and about an equal amount of brown sugar, then brought the mix to a full boil, when I turned off the stove and covered it. Normally, I would do this the night before and let the oats “cook” overnight, but this time I didn’t, so they may not be truly cooked by the time Janine arises. No worries; I’ll just simmer them for 30 minutes or so and they will be ready. She’ll be happy with that.

Personally, when I cooked steel-cut oats more frequently, I enjoyed a savory and meaty version of my own design even more than the slightly sweet one. In the savory one, I omitted the almond milk in favor of water alone and did not use sugar or dried fruit. Instead, I used crumbled sausage (just a bit) and, sometimes, diced veggies (e.g., carrots, potatoes, whatever). When the oats and accompaniments were finished, I dressed my bowl with a bit of soy sauce and sambal ooleek. I guess it’s a riff on congee, using steel-cut oats in place of rice that’s cooked until it dissolves.

After today, I will have only ten more radiation therapy sessions to go, assuming the doctor makes no adjustments, which I have not reason to believe he will. Two-thirds of the way through! My chemo session day before yesterday has not yet had any significant ill-effects (save, perhaps, for the extended sleep time that afternoon and evening). Knocking on wood that it will have none. We shall see. Only two more chemo treatments left. I’ll be done with them by mid-March. But there will be immediate follow-ups with blood tests, etc. By late March, perhaps, I’ll be free of this stuff and, with good fortune, will be able to start recovering my strength and abilities to do things more physical, like stripping and painting my deck. If the boards have not rotted by then.

I’m tired of writing meaningless drivel this morning. I’d rather write riveting fiction or non-fiction that a reader simply could not even consider putting down once he or she started reading it. But I’ll write neither. Instead, I’ll go check on the oats and will sneak in to take a shower before my wife awakes, hoping the light and the noise in the bathroom don’t waken her.

I remember the saga of Baby Jessica, the child who fell into a well in her aunt’s yard in Midland, Texas in the late 1980s. It seemed like every person in the U.S. and perhaps around the world held our collective breaths as the searchers worked for more than two days to find and free her. And when she was brought out, the world heave a sigh of relief. It was a beautiful story. But, I think, the story quickly fled from our collective conscience and we moved on to other things. Many of the people involved in the incident, though, were not so fortunate to let the trauma simply fade away. More on that in a moment, but first I’d like to consider a much more recent incident of a child who fell into a well.

Unlike the story of Baby Jessica, the media’s coverage of the story of Julen Rosello, who fell into a borehole in Totalán, Spain (which I believe is several miles outside Malaga) was not so extensive. The child’s plight did not capture the headlines in the same way Jessica McClure grabbed the world’s attention. There were stories about Julen, but they were occasional and updates lacked the frenetic pace that Jessica’s story did. Why? Who knows? Maybe it was because we’ve become more accustomed to tragedy. Perhaps the constant flood of “news” has made us immune to the horror such a story generates. Or it might be because the child’s predicament was foreign to us. He was, after all, a Spanish child, not an American, so the world might not value his story as much as it would an American. I’ve admittedly a cynic; I have no evidence that the world’s consciousness has become accustomed to treating American tragedies with greater solemnity than it treats tragedies that take place in other places.

The bottom line is that two-year-old Julen Rosello died. His body was retrieved from the borehole last Saturday, thirteen days after he fell in. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said, “All of Spain shares in the infinite sadness of Julen’s family.” The rest of the world seemed either to take no notice of the outcome of the search or to treat it as a footnote, buried beneath stories about Venezuela’s political chaos or Washington’s political madness.  U.S. media covered the tragedy and its outcome, although not in a particular visible way. Only in passing, from what I could see, did the media take note of the fact that the experience for Julen’s parents was the second such heart-wrenching tragedy, the Associated Press noting that “El Pais reported that the couple had lost Julen’s older brother, Oliver, when the 3-year-old suffered a heart attack during a walk on the beach two years ago.”

I wonder how Julen’s parents will cope over the long haul? I wonder whether, indeed, they will ever be able to adjust to a life of perpetual grief and the stress such an emotional weight must carry with it? Baby Jessica’s parents divorced a few years after her rescue. Did the ordeal they faced during their daughter’s rescue have anything to do with it? I can’t say. But I suspect it couldn’t have contributed in a positive way to their relationship. The paramedic who inched his way into the tunnel to rescue Jessica battled posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of what was called the “arduous rescue effort.” Later reports say he struggled to cope with the decline of the recognition that came after his heroic act and he committed suicide in 1995. I don’t know who was involved in finding and removing Julen’s body from the Spanish borehole, but I gather the media attention on the rescuers hasn’t been nearly as intense as it was during Baby Jessica’s ordeal. Perhaps that lack of attention will save their lives.

Julen’s parents, I suspect, have no interest in fame or recognition that might follow the death of their child. But I hope, at least, they can depend on an outpouring of support from around the world. It won’t be as intense as the worldwide support that Baby Jessica’s parents felt. That’s obvious. But I hope it will be enough. Whatever “enough” is. But, of course, it can never be enough. Not after a tragedy that ripped one’s world into impossibly painful pieces.

I read a reference yesterday to a bumper sticker. It read as follows: “Pray for Trump—Psalm 109:8.” My biblical illiteracy being what it is, I had to look it up. It reads:

8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Though I appreciated the humor, the reference meant nothing to me, so I looked up the context. I started a few chapters earlier, to no avail. I have to admit, I found reading Psalm neither interesting nor coherent. I suspect I’d have to do a lot more reading to make sense of it.

My continued exploration of this “imprecatory prayer” revealed that its use in this context is not a creative new spin of the Bible by brilliant liberal thinkers to condemn an occupant of the White House. Not even close. Pastor Wiley Drake, a  right-wing minister and radio host used it in reference to President Barack Obama. Kansas Speaker of the House Michael O’Neal sent an email to his Republican colleagues that said, “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”

In THAT context, I find it less humorous. Especially in light of the fact that Obama was, in my opinion, one of the most dignified, intelligent, and graceful leaders the U.S. has ever had. Compared to the world-record-holder liar whose self-love is so over the top that it’s embarrassing to watch him repeatedly attempt to achieve auto-erotic orgasm through self-congratulatory strokes.

I realize, of course, finding humor in the verse is sinister. But, given the miserable bastard to whom the original quote I read applies, apropos. You know, there are people who are just beyond “redemption” in the human sense and, I suspect, in the biblical sense. Some people have practiced their egotism and disdain for others to so great an extent that they are incapable of recovering from their monstrous selves. A person who throws his own supporters under the bus in favor of his own self-interests, while assuring them he is looking out after their interests. is a special kind of demon.

According to Wikipedia, Psalm 109 is “a psalm noted for containing some of the most severe curses in the Bible.” Ya think? Well, it gets even more severe. As I read Psalm 109 and read past 109:8, I hit upon something I found even more darkly humorous. Here’s Psalm 109:9:

9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

The lesson in this idiocy is that anyone can mine the world’s literature (much of which owes its existence to biblical passages, I think), including the bible, for clever phrases that support a particular point of view. The fact that a phrase can be lifted and placed in a context that suggests it was written specifically to be placed in that context is evidence that we’re all thieves and plagiarists, not to mention hard-hearted bastards who don’t have a single compassionate bone in our bodies. Well, that may be a bit overstated and unnecessarily harsh. In fact, it’s simply evidence that we have not yet achieved a state in which we are “a finished version of our better selves,” as someone I know might say.