NOTE: The Moderate Voice runs Guest Voice posts from time to time by readers who don’t have their own websites, or people who have websites but would like to post something for TMV’s diverse and thoughtful readership. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Moderate Voice or its writers. This is another Guest Voice by Alex Hammer.
The Bus
By Alex Hammer
Sometimes I take the bus. I’ve taken it enough now to start to recognize some of the regulars. It’s a good feeling in life, I suppose, to know people even if you don’t really know them.
Like the theme from “Cheers” – “Everybody wants to go where somebody knows your name”.
Many of the bus regulars are people on their way to or from work. So when you get on the bus, seeing these same people doing the same thing, one day looks pretty much like the other.
Was it Thoreau who said “Most men live lives of quiet desperation”.
Sometimes on the bus I think of it differently. So many committed people, day after day, who may never be picked out for great recognition by society’s standards. But committed people. Hard-working. Dedicated.
Playing by societies rules in regard to doing the right thing. So rather than quiet desperation I like to think of it as “quiet respect”. Even “quiet honor”.
Many of them may never make the news, but that doesn’t mean that what they are doing – and the daily effort and sacrifices involved – aren’t newsworthy.
Then I think of the Presidential race. A lot of ink is being spilled over these individuals, and their activities. Having run for Governor myself and having known and knowing a lot of politicians, it is my personal impression that their motivations for political activity runs the gamut of possibilities.
Some are blessed with great talents – such as the power of great oration, an unbounding drive, great organizational and great leadership skills. To put oneself in the public arena one must generally possess one’s fair share of these types of talents (intelligence is another one that most of these individuals share) but a fair amount also of both ego and toughness. If politics is a blood sport, then those who engage it in must be able either to draw blood or endure their own bleeding.
Warriors.
But the greatest politicians, like the greatest human beings, have a soft edge.
I’m currently reading the new biography of FDR. Gripping. Franklin Roosevelt had all the skills as a young man to have a bright future in politics. But he was missing that intangible quality of special greatness that derives only from an empathy so deep and so profound for one’s fellow man and woman – more than just a public display, more nuanced – that one can be a leader of quiet strength during deep or prolonged crises – emerging as having true almost hero status. Beyond admired and respected. But loved.
When FDR was stricken with polio and in danger of being a true invalid apart from political and mainstream society, how he learned to productively and bravely cope with his condition gave rise to the substantiality and caring and humanness that propelled him to the Governorship of New York and ultimately becoming one of our most important and influential and respected Presidents.
Nelson Mandela was a leader before he went to jail, but by reports angry (I’m not saying that he didn’t have anything to be angry about). When he emerged from jail after all those years he was already a statesman. Something in his psyche, and probably his soul, had been transformed. It was a great maturity, and to my mind spiritual view.
They say that that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
My wish for the 2008 Presidential race is that we as citizens go deeper. Our choices reflect our own maturity. Sometimes we select individuals that are very power hungry, because collectively we are power hungry. Sometimes we choose individuals whose “greatness” is largely (or partially) glib, or leaders that are fearful or perhaps slightly over their heads, because that reflects our own lives to a certain degree.
Greatness is bourne of true understanding, empathy and compassion. Sometimes suffering, not for its own sake but for soul development reflecting that greatness, is how greatness comes about.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.