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Celebrate, damn it.
by John A. Jackson
My mind rebelled. I was gathering information for a column about an AIDS epidemic in rural China. That man-made plague is the very emblem of unchained capitalism. "Bloodheads," the wicked entrepreneurs are called.
I was also thinking fitfully and resignedly about the American electoral crisis, another man-made plague.
And my mind rebelled.
This has been a hard year. Personally, it included almost six months of homelessness. Nor will I, as a student of history, soon get over the longest and most vapid political campaign the nation has endured in my lifetime, a campaign that culminated in what? An endless fog of lawyers and chad?
Fair enough. A hard year. Now it's over. Better days are at hand for columnist and nation. Isn't it best to look forward to the better days?
They will come.
I played host to a four-year-old today, a lovely, brilliant boy named Dean. He taught me an important lesson: you can always find reason to laugh and to rejoice. Clouds swim across his life as they do everyone's, but they never daunt him long. I wish I understood that better.
But I don't feel alien at all to his energy. I revel in it.
I am human. Watch me celebrate. Please join in.
But why? First, I finally believe that our cleverness-and oh, we are a clever species-will save the planet from ourselves.
Wind power, still in its infancy, pollutes nothing and already costs less than a nickel a kilowatt hour. The hydrogen equal in power to a tank of gasoline pollutes nothing and costs about $4 to produce.
(The problem with wind is how to stockpile the electricity it produces. The problem with hydrogen is lack of infrastructure. How long do you suppose it will take before some clever person realizes wind-generated electricity can produce hydrogen from water, and storing hydrogen is relatively cheap, if you can sell it?)
If we decide to, we can save the environment and our civilization at the same time. We have the chance, and I have hope we will take it.
Mostly, though, I rejoice in our sheer persistence. We humans do not give up. Like Dean caught by a tickling great-uncle, we wriggle and struggle and work ourselves free. We are indomitable-and we laugh while we're at it.
"I think continually of those who were truly great," Stephen Spender wrote. "...The names of those who in their lives fought for life / Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre."
I wish I could say I always thought like that. If I were a dwarf, I would be called Grumpy. (If you were a dwarf, you would probably be grumpy, too. Admit it.)
But. But. But. But at the end what I have is laughter and love. At this season, I will insist upon them. I will insist upon them for you, as well.
Celebrate, damn it.
John Jackson may be reached at TomShadwell@cs.com. ER