The Weight of History

“Who we are and how we live our lives is very much determined by the lives of our predecessors.”

          My very first recollection of life is of snow; the kind of new white fluffy snow that sticks to your eyelashes and blows sideways into your open mouth; the Buffalo snow that I would come to know as normal winter weather.  I was wearing a pink snowsuit, and was strapped into a sled, while my older brother ran down Commonwealth Avenue as fast as he could, pulling my sled behind him.  I don’t know how I remember that my snowsuit was pink.  Perhaps I’ve seen photos of myself wearing that snowsuit.  But the taste of the snow in my mouth and the sound of our raucous laughter are as real today as they were in 1940, when I was barely three years old..

          We had arrived in the USA in March of 1939, one of the last passenger ships allowed to bring refugees to the Port of New York before the war.  I had no idea of the circumstances that allowed us to find refuge here, and I certainly didn’t know much about our family history and the stories that would color my adult life.  My father instructed all of us that we were to become Americanized, forget about the past and move on. I was just a toddler with no memory of Germany anyway, so his message meant nothing to me.

          Conversely, for the first five years of my life, my mother cried practically every day.  She would show me pictures of the family we had left behind, pictures of her parents, her sisters and brothers, her cousins, her niece and nephew, her friends, sobbing all the while.  I couldn’t remember any of these people and couldn’t understand why she was crying.  All I knew was that I could hardly wait for the older children to come home from school, so there would be some cheerful activity in the house.

          I grew up in a modern American family with an international past, much of which wouldn’t become known to me until I became a curious teenager; and even more information would be revealed long after my parents were gone. My father was always willing to talk to me about the past.  He seemed grateful that I was asking questions and was willing to share his feelings with me, perhaps because I was the inquisitive one, or perhaps because he knew he could trust me to remember and understand.  But our past was only spoken about at home. To the outside world, I was an all American girl, but inside I always knew that I was different.

          I see a play about two sisters separated by the holocaust, and realize that those emotional scenes could have been played by my mother and her only surviving sister. Or perhaps they could have been portrayed by my cousin’s two daughters who grew up separated by an ocean and a language. They recite a list of names of family members who didn’t survive and I actually feel the pain my mother expressed when I was too young to understand.  I see movie scenes of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, scenes from Auschwitz, death marches, people carried away in trucks or trains.  It goes on and on, and all of it belongs to me.  It’s in my DNA.

          Even though my sense of being Jewish may be different from those who do not share my history, my sense of being American is different also.  That young toddler in the pink snowsuit, who enjoyed a sleigh ride with her 11 year old brother, grew up as American as apple pie, but she always knew how lucky she was to be in the USA and still appreciates the blessings of being American.  Moreover, I know now that many of my American friends share my background as well my overwhelming gratitude that America opened her arms, provided us with a safe environment to be Jewish, and gave us a true homeland.

          We all grow up with the weight of history upon us.  Most of the time, we go about our business and don’t dwell on the past. But every year, as another anniversary of Kristallnacht approaches, the feelings and emotions regarding my family history resurface.  I think about that black hole in the middle of the last century and still wonder why…..

Celebrating Friendship
August 2012

"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” - Albert Camus

         I recently returned from a trip to Buffalo where I shared a communal milestone birthday with 19 women who all grew up together. Who could have imagined we would find ourselves in the same room at the age of 75, celebrating the strength of the old connections. Some of these women became my friends in kindergarten, some in Brownies and Girl Scouts, and some in high school; and each of them has left an imprint on me, in ways I may not even be able to identify. I know this because my heart feels the connection, although I can’t help but wonder how we chose to be friends in the first place.

         We don’t look alike, and we certainly don’t even think alike. We are friends because when we met, we touched one another’s heart in some undefined way, and made an unconscious decision to be friends. Some of us were good students, some not so much. Some friendships were built on admiration; some on a sense of humor. Some became friends, because they were friends with another friend. Some had harsh and critical personalities; others were easy going and warm.

         It didn’t matter who was rich and who was poor. It didn’t matter who had parents with European accents, and whose parents were American born. And it certainly didn’t matter who had many siblings and who was an only child. We all knew each other’s parents, and many of us had siblings who were friends with our friends’ siblings. Individually we brought our own personalities to the group and accepted each other unconditionally.

         I sat in the Buffalo airport, waiting to board my plane back to Florida, and looked around the waiting room expecting to see someone I knew, the way it used to be when I still lived in Buffalo. There was not a familiar face in the crowd, and it left me with an unexplained, uncomfortable feeling. I boarded my plane thinking that nothing could compare to those long term friendships from my youth, but within a few minutes after take-off, I thought about my busy life in Boca with my Florida friends, and I began to rethink the meaning of friendship.

         As much as I appreciate the friendships of my youth, I had to acknowledge the powerful connections with my friends in Florida. These are not all new friendships. Many of them were cultivated in Buffalo, before we each moved to Florida. Many of the other friendships are more than 25 years duration, and the collection continues to grow. More importantly, these friendships are based on who I am today, not the person I was during my school years.

         I continue to play in a couples bridge club that began 26 years ago, even though my husband has been gone for almost five years and I am no longer part of a couple. My friends have been by my side through good times and sad times. They have been generous, understanding, appreciative, and loving. Like my Buffalo friends, many of these Florida friends know my children and remember my mother. They know my sisters; they ask about my brothers, and they root for me, no matter what. And each one is someone special.                      

        Because these friends were consciously chosen with an adult eye, they have the values I admire most, and personalities that enhance my own life. I may not have known their parents or their siblings, but I know them. These friendships stand on their own, without the encumbrances of childhood folly, and we share a loyalty and love that is enhanced by our maturity.

         So when I hear people say that Florida friendships are superficial compared to home town relationships, I vociferously disagree. All my friendships, whether they originated in Buffalo or Boca Raton, are highlighted by a history that has a luster polished by time. They may have a different origin, and a different character, but they are still just as precious whether we see each other every day, once a week, once a month or once a year.

         While some relationships get tucked away for a while, stored in safekeeping so they can be revisited from time to time, others are with me from day to day. Who’s to say which are more important? True friendships aren’t for a season, or for a reason. They are all gifts, with many layers, to be cherished for a lifetime, either in real time or in memory.

SOMETIMES TABLETOPS ARE FOR DANCING

“When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way.”  - Wayne Dyer 

          Within the Future World area at Epcot theme park, there is a restaurant where one can eat a leisurely meal while observing a day of life on a modern farm. The restaurant revolves around “The Land”, where the day begins with the crowing of a rooster and ends with a glorious harvest moon.  Much of the food served in that restaurant is grown right in the greenhouses of “The Land”, which gives additional meaning to the phrase “feel good foods”.  Often, the meal can take longer than just one rotation, so if one really lingers over dinner, the rooster could crow three times or more during one meal, making it seem as though three days have passed.

          It’s been years since I’ve enjoyed a meal in that restaurant, but almost every day I have a reprise of the feeling that many days have passed while dining on the banquet of one day’s activities.  As my world keeps spinning faster and faster, the days have become too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the books I want to read, all the friends I wish to see and all the children I long to hug.

          Sometimes, my day seems like a circus performance, trying to keep all my plates spinning.  It’s often overwhelming. The challenge is to balance what I must do with what I enjoy and want to do, and that is not always easy. Fortunately there is usually a natural flow and ebb to all my activities, just so long as I don’t let myself get sucked into other people’s expectations.

          Like many of my friends, I find juggling a busy schedule to be demanding, albeit rewarding.  There are frustrating days when I end up without the time to do what I really want to do.  There are lazy, bummed out days when I get nothing done. There are even days with no expectations, even though I’m usually looking for new challenges to make me discover things about myself that make me grow.

          Between the crowing of my rooster in the morning, and the moment I turn out the light at night, I try to live a balanced life – work some, think some, learn some, exercise some, play with my plants, keep in touch with family and friends, enjoy some music, agonize over the news, and try to find time for writing, day-dreaming, and even meditating, when so inclined.

          I’m not trying to be perfect. There is something to be said for the occasional dash of depravity, which is why I save some time for occasionally crossing a line, or splurging on something ridiculous; and when I do something foolish or outrageous, I deliberately do it with enthusiasm.

          Each morning when my rooster crows, I check my calendar for scheduled activities, and then think about what other activities I might want to put on my plate for the day.  I consider my mood, the weather, and whether I want to play, work or dance.  I’m not talking about ballroom dancing.  I’m using the term dance as a synonym for frolicking, the kind of playful behavior that keeps us young. 

          The world will spin, as fast or as slow as will happen. I’ve learned that I don’t have control over that. My goal is to set my table with challenges, thoughtfulness and a generosity of spirit. Then I let the world rotate, trying to stay aware of the wonder and poetry that exists around me.  I look for rainbows, listen for oboes, and try to remember that sometimes tabletops are for dancing. 

Future Shock or Future Success

March 27, 2011

“Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson      

       In the 1970 book, “Future Shock”, sociologist, Alvin Toffler, explained that the enormous structural changes in society were progressing at an accelerated rate, from an industrial society to a “super industrial society”. Toffler argued that the fast paced technological change would create social changes with increasing speed, and that would overwhelm people, leaving them disconnected and suffering from stress and disorientation – future shocked. He also popularized what was then a new term, “information overload”.

          In the beginning of the 20^th century we had been dazzled by the novelty of cars, airplanes, and radio. In the 50’s, television became so popular, it became the primary source of news, information and entertainment. Suddenly, people on the west coast were listening to the same news, at the same time as people on the east coast, and what was fashionable in NYC was also fashionable in Chicago, LA, and Boise, Idaho.

          The 60’s brought us many new inventions: halogen lamps, audio cassettes, compact discs, the bar code scanner, acrylic paint, permanent press fabric, soft contact lenses, Nutrasweet, the first handheld calculator, the mouse, the artificial heart, and the ATM to name just a few. And with all these lifestyle changes, the ‘60’s also gave us Valium.

          When Future Shock was published in 1970, we read Toffler’s prescient predictions without an inkling of what was to come. The floppy disc was invented, and then the cell phone, the microprocessor, gene splicing and the MRI. Technologically, the world was spinning faster and faster.

          In the 80’s, Microsoft gave us Windows, Apple gave us the Mac, pc’s began to populate homes, digital cell phones were invented, and Eli Lilly gave us Prozac. We ended the 20th century with Viagra and the worldwide web, not knowing that we were facing one hell of a ride in the next decade.

          Fast forward to 2011. We live in a brave new world, where the internet has become a seamless part of everyone’s lives - a world of e-mail, wireless internet, Facebook, Google, Skype, and texting. So when an earthquake happens in Haiti or Japan, we know about it within minutes. We push a few keys on a cell phone and send a donation to the crippled area. 

          Think about all the methods we can use to connect to the internet – desktop computer, iPod, laptop, cell phone, TV or fridge! You can find anything you want, anytime you want, or connect with anyone you want, either by e-mail, telephone or Skype. Using Facebook or any social network, you can connect with friends and strangers all over the world.

          The internet has changed the way businesses function, and how the consumer buys their goods and services. You can buy your movie tickets online and skip the long lines at the theatre; or make dinner reservations online, even when the restaurant is closed. Looking for a handyman? Try Craig’s List. Want to check out a contractor? Try Angie’s List or Kudzu. Pay bills online, download financial information, or transfer funds from one account to another. You can even order books, movies, and medicines. All will be delivered to your mailbox at your earliest convenience. There is no limit to the kind of business conducted on the internet, all from the comfort of a desk chair.

          We are watching the political state of the world changing before our eyes because of the new technologies that make it possible to get this information in real time. We can watch insurgencies and speak to our journalists as things are happening, because of several new technologies, the most popular being Skype. Because of Cisco’s videoconferencing programs, important people can be interviewed face to face on TV without the need for the interviewee to travel to the interviewer,

          The revolutions in the Middle East and N Africa would not have been possible without the Internet, Facebook and other social internet networks. Even the Japanese people are turning to the Internet to get the news from the U.S., because they feel they are not getting accurate information regarding the nuclear disaster from their own government. These recent political events have exposed us to a greater understanding of the power of the internet.

          The new technologies have given the phrase “information overload” greater meaning than any of us expected in 1970. Are people overwhelmed, disoriented, disconnected and stressed from the speed with which our social structures are changing because of technology? For many people, the answer would be a resounding, “yes”. Many other people would say that life has been made easier with the new technologies; and still others would say that it has been a combination of more stress, more convenience, more responsibility, and easier access to entertainment and knowledge. Whatever we feel about the changes, we all have to agree that these monumental leaps in technology have brought about major social changes which require ever increasing technological education in order to keep up. In this time of drastic change all over the world, it is the learners who will inherit the future.

          In the 80’s, the Tofflers went to China to promote two sequels to Future Shock, both of which became best-selling books. Since then, China has pursued policies reflecting the Tofflers' emphasis on the growing importance of digital technology and the knowledge-based economy of the future. These policies were built on a foundation of strong education and have brought China into the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century at lightning speed, making China a major force in the world economy. If the education system in the U.S. continues to sustain assaults on the availability and quality of education, while China and the other nations of the world maintain their policies that make certain their people can continue to innovate and produce, there is no saying how long we will continue to be an economic leader in the world. To put it another way, how quickly will our decline occur? 

         The Toffler’s most recent book, Revolutionary Wealth, was published worldwide earlier this year and quickly again became a bestseller in China and elsewhere. This book focuses on how wealth will be created and who will ultimately get it in the 21^st century. Perhaps it might be a good idea for all our leaders to read this book and use this sociological expertise in the design of future political policies ...before it’s too late.

It Might Be Worth Forwarding, If It Were True

12.20.2010 
 

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.”  ~Winston Churchill

For many years, I’ve been on a mission to stop the forwarding of hoaxes. I used to just ignore them, until I learned that there’s no such thing as a harmless hoax.  Most of my friends know if they can’t verify, then just don’t forward it; but it is clear that some people forward e-mails just because they want them to be true. 

On one recent afternoon, I received no less than six e-mails from friends asking me to verify or debunk an e-mail they had received.  One was an email about Tommy Hilfiger making derogatory comments on the Oprah show; one was about unlocking cars by cell phone if locked by a keyless or remote control; and another was a slide show of “paintings” purportedly by an artist from the Ukraine. 

There were more; several of a political nature; an e-mail purporting to be from Adobe claiming that recipients can download an upgraded version of Adobe products by following links in the message; and the ever present message about a virus coming via e-mail.    

          Hoaxes are not just harmless pranks or errors in judgment. A hoax is a deliberately fabricated lie masquerading as truth.  A hoax can be spread for malicious purposes: to steal your personal information or spoil someone's reputation. A hoax may be absolutely innocent and created for God knows what reasons, but hoaxes all have consequences, some even have unintended consequences.

Let’s use the Tommy Hilfiger hoax as an example.  This story began in 1997.  It tells the tale of Tommy Hilfiger appearing on the Oprah show, making racist comments and stating that he wished African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews and Asians wouldn’t buy his clothes.  The forwarded e-mail suggested that “we put him in a financial state where he himself would not be able to afford the ridiculous prices he puts on his clothes.”   

Oprah stated that she had never met Tommy Hilfiger, and the ADL investigated the accusations and found them to have no basis in fact.  Still the e-mail continues to circulate.  Can you imagine what impact this has had on the Tommy Hilfiger business?  Does it make you wonder if the e-mail was designed as a form of corporate sabotage for the benefit of Hilfiger competitors? How many minorities were pained by reading the racist comments?   And can you imagine how much time Tommy Hilfiger must spend defending his reputation? 

The artist who is credited with the slide show of paintings, which are obviously photographs, feels violated that someone unknown to her would spread this e-mail with her photo and biography, when the work was actually done by a photographer with the same name. She is pleading for someone to make some order of that mess in order to protect her reputation, and to give credit to the photographer who created the photos.

The Adobe e-mail referenced above is in fact a phishing scheme to collect credit card information from unknowing victims by using a widely respected corporate name.  Following the instructions of said e-mail would result in unauthorized use of your credit card, and would require a lot of time in order to resolve the ensuing mess, not to mention the stress.

Virus warnings may seem harmless, but be aware that they are almost always not real, and the people who create viruses can use known hoaxes to their advantage. A good example is the AOL4FREE hoax. This began as a hoax warning about a nonexistent virus. Once it was known that this was a hoax, somebody began to distribute a destructive Trojan horse in a file named AOL4FREE, attached to the original hoax virus warning. The results were anything but harmless.

The internet is used to spread all sorts of misinformation on every topic, but no topic has become as pervasive as the ever increasing political hoaxes, mostly motivated by the desire to ridicule or besmirch opposing politicians or political institutions. It doesn’t matter if the false rumors are about Sarah Palin, President Obama, John McCain, Al Gore or any other political figure.  These people are elected officials and deserve respect as well as truth.  E-mails that are misleading or unsubstantiated are an affront to everyone who receives them.  They are poisonous to the political process and present a danger to our democracy.  If our opinions are colored by lies, we cannot make properly informed choices in the voting booth.  

The Internet has made it so easy for this ugly game to endure. We now spread faulty information faster and more efficiently than in the pre-digital era.  The good news is that we now have fact checking sites.  The leaders in this field are Snopes.com, PolitiFact.com, or the granddaddy of them all, Factcheck.org, sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.  I urge you to make frequent use of these sites, whenever you are about to forward an e-mail. If you forward a hoax, you become an accessory.  

One would think we would have learned from the Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” broadcast which created a panic when it aired in1938. Today the lessons endure: always remain vigilant.  Just because something has landed in your Inbox, don’t assume that it’s true.  We grew up in an era of journalistic scrutiny, where we could believe whatever we saw in print.  The Internet has changed all that.  Anybody can write whatever he wishes - lies, distortions, slander, hoaxes, scams, whatever; and each of us is free to scrutinize, ignore, or believe it.  A tiger can smile; and a snake can say I love you.  Be careful out there! 

Life Is Testing Our Moral Compass

“A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.” -  Winston Churchill

      

          Morality has become a complicated issue in the multi-cultural world we live in today.  It affects our behavior, our conscience, our society, and our ultimate destiny.   Turn on the news.  Moral issues and judgments are everywhere.  Oppression and revolutions in the Middle East, social and political battles in the mid-west, Wikileaks, financial crimes, abuse of children and women, corporate abuse, environmental issues and let’s not forget politics.

          Politics & morality are not words that are usually uttered in the same sentence, although we often pretend that our political values are based on moral principles.   I’m not just talking about the morality or ethics of our elected officials; or the crimes we hear about daily.  I’m also referring to the moral values upon which we, the people, base our own lives, and the politics within our social groups, organizations, corporations, and religious institutions.  Politics consists of relations involving power or authority and refers to the methods and tactics used to control the decisions and actions of the unit, whether political or social.

          In politics, many seem to consider that what the majority wants or likes is moral and immorality is what they dislike.  But that can’t be possible since our decisions change so frequently.  Can the majority be immoral?  Can the majority have wrong values?  These questions are as valid in our social situations as they are in government.  If ethics are just the will of the majority, they merely represent the whim of the moment, just another form of fashion.

          We are all faced with moral decisions every day, and everyone adheres to a moral doctrine of some kind.  Immanuel Kant said that moral judgments are binding on all human beings no matter what kind of society they live in.  Morality is the core of our personal philosophy, our attempts to define right and wrong, what we ought to do as distinct from what we may in fact do.  It begins with our personal behavior; how we conduct business, how we interact with our friends, how we treat strangers, how we care for the needy, how we vote, and how we live.  “Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness."

          We must decide for ourselves where the conscience originates and how we form our personal code of conduct,  Many people hold to the idea that the conscience is a matter of our hearts, that concepts of right, wrong, and fairness are "programmed" in each of us, hopefully based on sympathy, education and social ties.  In reality many base their moral decisions solely on their personal “needs”, the desire for wealth, health, pleasure and recognition. 

          Each one of us is the judge of our own daily behavior, whether we are conducting business, playing cards with friends, leading a group event, or any other personal interaction.  If we believe in an ethical code of conduct, and practice it in our personal lives, we will also judge the morality of our political positions and votes, whether Democrat, Republican or Independent.  Hopefully all these judgments will be based on ethics, not our finances or personal welfare. 

          The world we live in has become complicated.  It is full of conflicts and angst, often putting our moral compass to the test.  We should be as concerned about morality as we are about cholesterol.  Then perhaps moral courage would not be such a rarity.

Defragging the Brain

”The existence of forgetting has never been proved:  We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in?  That’s how it begins.  Then one morning, you open the refrigerator for some orange juice and find the sponge you were looking for last evening when you did the dinner dishes.  So far, it’s all a laughing matter, until one day, your husband tells you that in your hurry to keep an appointment that morning, you neglected to flush the toilet.  It never occured to me that the day would come when routine tasks once performed by rote, like locking the front door or sweetening the coffee, would require that I stay focused on the task.

My memory is sometimes so retentive, so obedient, so dependable; at other times, so bewildered, so tired, so not there.  Why is it that I can remember that Hattie McDaniel was the first black woman to win an Academy Award, but can’t tell you the name of any actor or actress who won an Oscar in the past few years?  And, how can it be that I remember my friend’s dress and her date for the senior prom fifty years ago, but can’t remember that I promised to bake a cake for her party next week. I can sing along to any Hit Parade song or Broadway Show from the 40’s through the ‘80’s.  I can even tell you the name of every song on every Neil Diamond album.  But when I read the headlines from the 2009 Grammys, my brain asks, “Who is Rihanna or Chris Brown?”

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could buy more memory for our brains, like we do for our computers?  I figure that the human brain is like the hard drive on my computer.  We should be able to clean it up, reorganize it, and throw away the clutter.  Then we would have made room for the new information that comes at us daily.  At the very least, we need to defrag the files, so that we can find the information more quickly. 

It’s so embarrassing when someone mentions that cute blond from Laugh In and I say, “I know, the one from Cactus Flower, the one who’s had too many lip injections.”  Sometime between the posing of the question and 3:00 in the morning, I’ll remember the name Goldie Hawn and be embarrassed that it took so long to make its way from my brain to my mouth.  I figure a good defrag of my brain would speed up the process by at least a few hours.

          One thing I am sure of.   Once something happens, it can’t unhappen.  Our brains have a way of holding on to the good times, the funny times, the sad times, all the events that make us who we are.  It saves and organizes all the facts we have learned along the way, all the music we have heard, the sunsets and storms we’ve seen and the fragrant smells of flowers, bonfires and cinnamon toast. We call this memory.  Memory is the compartment of our brain that stores the past, all the things we never want to lose. Where I left my cell phone doesn’t seem to fall into that category.  

          Scientists tell us there is a physiological reason for failing memories past age 50.  Without getting too technical, short term memory is stored in a different part of the brain than long term memory; and the short term area is less stable, more likely to be affected by medications, distractions, and lack of concentration, even something as simple as a lack of Vitamin B-12.  There is limited space in the area where short term memory resides, so every time you add something to an already full short term memory space, an older fact is deleted

One report suggests that when you have something very important that you really need to remember, you should say it out load a couple of times.  I’ve tried it and it works.  But now people are staring at me and wondering why I’m talking to myself in Publix.  Not only talking ... I’m even repeating myself.  But I don’t care.  At least I’m not forgetting to pick up the oatmeal.