Gilead Sciences Inc. Requires $84,000 Ransom before Freeing Hostages of Hepatitis C: Clearly Christ was a Poor Business Man.

How much is a life worth?  Apparently saviors and holy men are not the only ones to place a high value on human life.  Thugs have been doing it for centuries, though usually not legally.  Kidnap someone’s precious and he’ll pay you whatever he can get his hand on morally or immorally.  The Supreme Court has basically ruled corporations are people, a notion I wrote off as ridiculous, but maybe it’s not.  The drug company, Gilead Sciences Inc., the manufactures of sofosbuvir, sold as Sovaldi, is charging $1,000.00 per pill in a treatment price that will cost patients $84,000.00 to save their lives.

In a recent interview with NPR (see link below), Gregg Alton, a vice president at Gilead, said, "We didn't really say, 'We want to charge $1,000 a pill…. We're just looking at what we think was a fair price for the value that we're bringing into the health care system and to the patients."

This makes me think that Christ, though savior of the world, was clearly a horrid business man.  How much could Living Christ Miracles Incorporated have charged to bring Lazarus back from the dead?  How much could Living Christ Miracles Incorporated have pumped into not only the economy of Jerusalem, but into the economy the entire middle east, even the Roman Empire?  Just think, Jerusalem could have had the greatest healthcare system of the ancient world if Christ had only known “how to charge a fair price for the value” he was “bringing into the health care system and to [His] patients."

As a society, we know, unlike Christ, we fall short of perfection—some of us, like Gregg Alton, very short of perfection.  That is why we regulate. That’s why it is illegal for me to march into a millionaire’s home, kidnap his daughter and put an $84,000 ransom on her sweet, blond head.  Yet, for some reason, as a society we feel, on the one hand, corporations should have the free-speech rights of an individual, and yet on the other hand, none of the legal responsibility of an individual.

I know I’m over-simplifying.  I’m doing it on purpose.  Sometimes morality is simple.  Sometimes evil is clear.  It is, without question, evil to charge $1,000 for a pill that costs at the very highest estimates $100 per pill—especially when that pill means the difference between life and death.

In a world without the influences of Satan, one would be fundraising to provide $100 pills that could save someone’s life for free rather than charging 10 times that to line the pockets of CEO’s and stock holders. 

But there is evil in this world and it is not always only associated with the pornography industry.  It’s time Christians, and anyone else with moral values, regardless of creed, stand together and demand a moral society.  Universal, affordable healthcare is part of that society.  Christ didn’t heal only those who could afford it and neither should society.  Blood ransom is not moral in any circumstance.

This, I know, is simple thinking.  Morality often is.

NPR is a little more objective than I am, and you can access their blog through the links below. 

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=256885858&m=258301793

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/12/30/256885858/-1-000-pill-for-hepatitis-c-spurs-debate-over-drug-prices

Postscript:   Morality Is Simple, but Not Easy:  Hypocrisy Comes Naturally

I’m not sure why I blog, other than that there is something deeply satisfying about putting thoughts to page and getting them out there to an audience, no matter how small, almost immediately.  It comes close to the satisfaction one receives giving a public reading. 

But, like a public reading, it has its drawbacks.  One is it’s difficult to take back what you put out there into the universe.  Of course, this is true with all forms of communication, but because traditional publication is such a long, drawn-out process, with lots of polite rejections prior to acceptance, not to mention the revision dialogue after acceptance, there is lots of time to reflect prior to publication.

Anyway, my previous blog post doesn’t sit well with me.  I used some faulty logic and cheap propaganda techniques, but that’s not what bothers me.  Some things need to be said.  Sometimes it’s better to say something rash, out of anger, than say nothing at all.  What bothers me is that I made a personal attack against someone I absolutely do not know: Gregg Alton, a vice-president for Gilead Sciences Inc.

As a society, we know, unlike Christ, we fall short of perfection—some of us, like Gregg Alton, very short of perfection. 

I have no way of knowing how far short of perfection Gregg Alton falls.  For all I know, he’s a wonderful father, a kind supervisor, and perhaps even very generous with his donations to the community.  And to be honest, if I was a vice president for a drug company that basically developed a miracle drug, I too might be tempted with the following thought:

"We didn't really say, 'We want to charge $1,000 a pill…. We're just looking at what we think was a fair price for the value that we're bringing into the health care system and to the patients."

Although that's a natural human reaction to success, it doesn’t justify the price.  I stand by my claim that in effect Gilead Sciences Inc. is requiring an $84,000 ransom before freeing hostages of Hepatitis C.   That act simply is immoral.

But speaking out against policy and attacking individuals are two very different things.  Though I consider myself overall to be a good person, I have sank to some pretty deplorable acts in my past.  I am in no position to judge the content of character of others. 

Thus, the need to apologize:  My readership is small, and I doubt Greg Alton will ever read my post on Gilead Sciences, Inc. but that doesn’t change the fact that my attack was wrong.

I could erase my previous post, but I don’t want to.  Though flawed, it makes some good points.  So instead, I will attach this to it.    

Hopefully, I learn to reflect a little before hitting the “publish” button and don’t have to do this too often.

Home



Dry Creek Farm,

©Steve Brown, 2006

It’s not in the frozen field, the sun low on the skyline,

glazed snow and golden rye stubble.

 

It’s not in the hawk soaring over fields

of pink mist before a blurred blue-gray horizon.

 

It’s not in the salmon shimmer of fog

knitted around the knees of the bluff.

 

Nor in lemon light licking

old clapboard on a house that has stood generations.

 

Neither the tea kettle, nor lacy white curtains,

not even the wrinkled hand reaching

for a handle smooth as obsidian.

 

No, it’s the slow settling weight

of will down to bedrock  

 

knowing light exists surely

as stone.

©Steve Brown, 2013

Oh that Rococo Life: Sustainable Living and Economics

What is sustainability?

That is my topic here, not only for this post, but for the entire blog.    At first glance, it doesn’t seem like it.  I’m a lousy marketer.  What leads to quick success in business, at least in the early stages, is finding a small niche in the population and then religiously feeding that group’s addiction.  One of the secrets of blog success is focus.  People want one-stop shopping.  No, people want one-click shopping. 

Sustainability isn’t so simple.  We are not so simple. 

Last night while cleaning, I found an old box of writing from a period in my life after I’d cut myself off somewhat from my faith, family and community.   Although there were a few good poems in the pile, what became quickly clear is how miserable I once was.  Of course, I knew that.  But, I had forgotten the pain.  The events remained in my memory, but the emotions had faded into a thin line on the horizon.  I may have known how to write then, but I clearly didn’t know how to live.   

Somewhere along the way, I decided life should be one’s greatest work of art.  For in the end, if we don’t enjoy life, what is the point?  One of my favorite scriptures is:  “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2: 25, The Book of Mormon)

 Sustainability, for me, is not simply a matter of conserving resources for the next generation—though, if we care about the lives of our children, that clearly is a major part of it too.  Rather, sustainability is about the dignity of the individual within the community.

That is the primary question of our times—how do I stand out and where do I fit in?  Modern and postmodern society has been brutal on the individual.

Economic injustice has always been a focus of my writing.  The injustice though is not strictly about the money.  In the U.S., even the working poor, which I was part of for so long, usually have a warm apartment, a hot shower, and a TV.  And though the cupboard may sometimes be empty, starvation is rarely an issue, if you’re speaking materially.  However, spiritually, creatively, intellectually speaking—American poverty is brutal.  The poor are our machines.  They exist without having the opportunity to exert I am in a meaningful way.  This has always angered me.  I’ve never met an unintelligent person and yet so few jobs allow us to exert our intelligence in meaningful ways.

Luckily, I found a rip in the fabric, a way out, not through worldly success necessarily, but by living on the edges of civilization since 1999—places where the social divide is not so strong and where your human worth isn’t determined by your job, and by teaching, which is always rewarding.  However, once in a while, I’m forced back through the worm hole and into America.  Below is a poem I wrote nine or ten years ago on such an occasion.  I wasn’t fully active in the church then, and so it contains images and language I probably would not use now.  But I like its anger.  There are things we shouldn’t tolerate in society.  Dehumanizing individuals is one of them.  I did edit the poem a little because I’ve decided who I want to be now.  The poem is not quite as strong as it was, but I think I’m okay with that.  My focus is living first, writing second.  Anyway, here's the poem: 

Oh that Rococo Life

Slowly breaking apart
a cranberry muffin,
sucking down the sweet morsels
with over-creamed coffee.

Palm trees sway beyond

the marble-floored lobby
and empty sunken bar
through great Venetian windows,
beyond a great red-tiled patio
and heavy white balustrade.

I read Pictures of the Gone World
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Says here, poem 25 (quote)
The world is a beautiful place
                                           To be born into
If you don’t mind happiness
                                           Not always being
                                                           So much fun.

 What the hell, I’ll try it.

The kids are with Grandma.
Marci is in class.
the room is paid for
with one week’s salary.

Nothing to do

but hang out at the pool
and read Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
look at beautiful
lotion-glowing bodies
from ages 5 to 70,
weighing between 30
and 250 pounds.

Yes, this world is a beautiful place

to be born into.

Though yesterday

when we got lost
in that neighborhood
of duplexes
and run-down apartment complexes
that didn’t quit qualify for a slum
but was part of the working poor world
that I knew for so long,

and I went in that 7-11

to find some way out
of the hell-mood
I’d sank into
and I saw myself behind the counter
in a stupid dehumanizing uniform
with a stupid name tag on it,
smiling back at myself
knowing I’d always be here,
behind some convenience store counter
working eight hours a day
to get nowhere,

I got to tell you

I thought again
the world
is nothing
but a great big turd ball
with all of us swarming over it,
pushing and shoving
for a chance
to bite right in.

 Today there are palms outside the window,

rich girls in bikinis,
rich daddy’s in loafers,

and it’s true—

                                The world is a beautiful place

To be born into
                                If you don’t mind happiness
Not always being
                                So much fun.

When I wrote this poem, Marci and I were making pretty good money at a school we loved.  I was the school improvement coordinator and she was a key member of the school improvement team.   As a school we had worked collectively to change the school climate and the data was beginning to demonstrate we finally were making a difference.  I’d decided we should splurge a bit one weekend to celebrate our having arrived professionally.  And yet, I couldn’t fully enjoy it, because I knew too well that it wasn’t real, that while my surroundings at the hotel were telling me I was of value, the city wrapped around my palm-lined cocoon dehumanized the individual daily on an incredibly massive scale.   Not simply because of income-gaps, though that is part of it, but because so many people have no connection to their jobs beyond a pay check.  Individuals are not integrated into the workplace in meaningful ways. 

Connection is a big part of the Sustainable Living movement.   How do I live simply, creatively, for myself and for future generations?   I don’t think the movement necessarily has those answers yet, but at least there is honest dialogue and creative attempts. 

Sustainability:  Expressing oneself in small, meaningful projects.
The Blue Door Bar--A shed we converted into a family hang-out
I painted the scene on the side on a recycled motel sign. 

This is the unifying message of every post on this blog: individual worth matters, and there must be a way to create a society that doesn’t demolish the dignity of the self.  If you sustain the soul, you sustain the man; if you sustain the man, you sustain the community; if you sustain the community, you sustain the world. 

 

Dry creek after 16 inches of snow.
Sustainable living:  Live local, live simply, live connected, live creatively.

I Why? Why I?—Night Thoughts, Part I: Intellectually We Are Free to Believe (Science, Philosophy, Theism, Mormonism)

It’s 5:30 in the morning; I’ve been awake since 3:00.  It’s not often when my restless mind wakes me up in the middle of the night, but it’s useless to try to go back to sleep.  Night thoughts are too vivid, too alive, for me to sleep. 

In the past, when I haven’t listened well to who I am at the core, I have awoken at night from a terrifying dream to remind me of who I am.  Once, many years ago, I argued with God in my sleep for three nights in a row about creation.  I was sure we got here by chance; he was sure we didn’t.  I asked him big questions—ones I knew would stump him, for they surely stumped me.  For instance, how can evolution and a personal god—the only type of God I’ve ever been interested in (one of love, kindness and intimate involvement in my life)—coexist?  For if we evolved from single cell organisms over the eons, at what point was human consciousness born?  Could the same type of soul enter our primitive ancestors?  Was there a magic point where we were human enough to receive human souls?  And evolution, I insisted, has to exist, because our scientific knowledge of the genetic process allows us to clone sheep.  Evolution, at least at its most basic level, can’t be denied.  I was sure I had God there.

He made a counter-observation though, one I had never considered, at least not consciously.  It was a reprimand in the form of a rhetorical question.  He simply asked, “Who do you think you are, to believe you can understand a system you are part of better than I, the one who created it?”   But it was a reprimand from a god who knew me intimately because he understood I was at an intellectual impasse, that I couldn’t grow because I couldn’t deny science and I couldn’t make it work with my religion.

That night thought, which came in the form of a recurring dream, changed my life, for it allowed me to unify my analytical and mythical mind.  And it came to me at just the right moment, the moment I could not go on living without God even though in my mind he simply couldn’t exist.

It provided a metaphor.  The fish in the aquarium can learn his aquarium well, but he can’t know that there is a power plant somewhere generating electricity to be transferred over hundreds of miles by wires that lead into the house, travel through the walls, and come out at an electrical socket where the air pump that keeps him alive is plugged into.  And even if he were to develop an instrument that could trace that charge from the pump all the way back to the power plant, he still would not know what keeps him alive, because he wouldn’t know about the railroad that feeds the coal to the power plant, or the coal mine itself, or the plants that died millions of years ago to create that coal, because the fish in the fish tank can never know things outside his system.   We are no different.  All human thought leads to an impasse.  I’ll demonstrate that from both the creationism and evolution end.  Both paths are terrifying short.

Creationism.

Belief:  I am because God created me.

Challenge:  Who created God?

General Theist Belief:  God is eternal

Mormon Belief:  God has parents; procreation and souls are eternal.

Buddhist and Hindu Belief:  Souls are eternal and recycled.

However, none of these answers explain what started the chain reaction, what exactly is existence.  And no human thought ever will.  It is impossible to completely comprehend a system when you are part of it.

Evolution:

Belief:  I am because I evolved through a complex chemical chain reaction that began with the big bang.

Challenge:  What created the instability that led to creation?  Or in other words, who or what declared, Let there be light?

Belief:  It was inherent in the system.

Challenge:  Why?   There can be no change without a stimulus.  Inert remains inert unless acted upon. 

Therefore, perhaps the ultimate gift of life is that I am free intellectually to believe as I wish—at least as far as the big questions go.  No one has anything up on me.  While it is true that I cannot prove the existence of God, at least not intellectually, it’s equally true that you can’t prove he doesn’t exist.  Our current academic world would have me believe otherwise.   Belief is written off as ignorance—the act of a lazy mind, a childish mind, one that can’t face the grown-up thought that we are all alone in the universe.

I can switch that around quickly and say that unbelief is the act of a lazy mind, a childish one that can’t face the grown-up fact that analytical thought, though useful, is finite, while existence is infinite.  Therefore, to even begin to understand I why?; Why I? (as my old professor, Dr. Emory Estes phrased it), I must look for tools beyond scientific thought.

Mormonism is based on the promise that there is in fact such a tool: revelation.  Like all religions, we recognize there is a veil that keeps us from fully comprehending I why; why I intellectually.  But we also believe that the veil can be punctured, if we sincerely ask God for help with what we need most to survive. 

Mormonism is the answer one boy received to that question, I why?; why I?.  Young Joseph Smith was searching for his identity.  Particularly, he wanted to know which church he should join.  It’s best stated in his own words:

While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upraideth not; and it shall be given him.

Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine.  It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart.  I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did: how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I I would never know…” (Joseph Smith History 1:11-12)

 

Millions, including myself, have received that same answer.  But this is what I know for sure.  Not only can I not prove to you that Mormonism is true, I shouldn’t even want to—at least not intellectually.  Life’s greatest gift is to truly be able to believe as you wish about existence.  I am is the ultimate mystery, the ultimate gift—to live, to breath, to interact with the world around us.  If thought could take us to the origin, the Genesis, the active ingredient that moved an infinitely compressed universe to the infinitely large one that exists that ultimate freedom would be taken away from us, and with it, all thought.  Every great thought, one way or the other, has at its core—I why?; why I?  We think because we seek our beginning.

 

And yet, the answer cannot fully be revealed, at least not intellectually, for if it was, mortal existence would become meaningless.  We would know exactly what we needed to do to fulfill our purpose.  Striving would cease, and with it, growth.

And yet we are promised in James, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upraideth not; and it shall be given him. 

Mormonism has so much faith in that scripture that it is really all the missionaries ask you to do:  Ask of God, find out for yourself, is this true?  Because the one way we are a terrifyingly original religion is that we do believe God does speak directly with mankind, one on one.

If what I want to share with you is good, you’ll know it, through a feeling, a prompting.  Not because of my intellect, not because of my goodness, or my actions (though, of course, these attributes help if I have them), but because somewhere in your heart, you have already asked God for the answer. 

And if you don’t.  That is fine too.  We each have the ultimate pleasure of believing as we wish.   So much good has been added to this world by the simple quest to answer I why?; why I

I blog my religion, not to convert so much, but to keep that door open—to say, you will not write me off without even knowing who I am, you will not extinguish me because of my label, I will put my foot in the door, keep it cracked open, because I have good things to share.

Isn’t that why anyone writes, to bear witness, to say I am.  Perhaps the need to do that is infinitely more important than we can ever begin to comprehend—whether we be Jewish, Christian, Islam, Buddhist or Mormon.  Maybe the soul, whatever that is, is that spark that ignited the whole big bang—the great I Am rocketing out, stretching an infinitely compressed idea into a great dialogue that will never end--infinite choices, infinite actions and reactions, natural laws, natural consequences, world after world, creation after creation, molding us into something great beyond our wildest dreams.

Well, it’s enough to wake you up at night, to say the least.

The Affordable Care Act, the Government Shut-Down and Three Fundamentals of Representational Democracy

Sometimes passions bury the obvious.  Sometimes allegiance to a specific doctrine makes us lose sight of our overarching shared belief.  Sometimes we become so set on achieving a particular ends, we forget means matters—that a victory won unjustly is no victory at all, because it lowers the standard for all.  At such times, it is useful to strip things down to the bare-bones, look at things simply, objectively, while being honest about our own angle, our own intent.

Our country is currently at such a crisis.  Many conservatives truly believe the Affordable Healthcare Act, or Obama Care, as they call it, is fundamentally un-American.   Others, liberals, like me, believe that universal healthcare, in contemporary society, is essential for true liberty.  However, I’m not writing to argue either side of this debate.  Rather, I’m writing to remind others, what so many seem to have forgotten, some fundamentals of representational democracy. 

Fundamental #1:  Representational democracy requires two or more political parties to survive.  If you are liberal and want to eradicate conservatives, you are essentially un-American.  The same holds for conservatives.  I grew up in an era under Regan and Bush, Sr. when conservatives described me as the “L-word,” as if the “L-word,” like the “F-word” was so bad you shouldn’t say it.  (It may be worth mentioning here the F-word, creates life, and except how it’s used, isn’t ugly at all).  None-the-less, context is everything, and the attempt during the Regan era was clearly to marginalize and un-Americanize me.  Unfortunately, for too many years liberals accepted that label and ducked the very word that defines their ideals.  Although the “L-word” put-down has been dropped (primarily due to liberals finally standing up and saying, “Yes, and so what?”), conservatives continue to paint liberals as immoral and un-American.  I don’t get why—without me and other liberals, Democracy falls, and with it falls conservatism.  Only a one-party dictatorship will remain. 

You may not like that I’m for universal healthcare, but my belief does not make me un-American.  I am proud that in the heat of battle my party hasn’t sunk to calling conservatives the “C-word.”  We may not agree on healthcare, but we can still respect each other as humans, as Americans.

Fundamental #2:  In a representational democracy, elected representatives should vote according to the wishes of their constituents or according to their conscience.  I expect my legislators to vote one of two ways 1) primarily they should vote the wishes of those who put them in office; 2) However, as I want men and women of integrity to represent me, I’m okay with my representative occasionally voting against my wishes and in accordance with his/her own conscience.  If I don’t like how he or she votes on a particular issue, I can vote for someone else next time.

The Affordable Care Act was legislated when the Democrats had a majority in both houses as well as the office of President.  Voters at the time blamed Republicans for the recession and voted for Democrats.  Universal health care was part of the party’s platform.  It was not snuck in after the election.  I voted for Obama specifically because I support universal healthcare.  It would not make sense for a congress with a Democratic majority in both houses as well as a Democrat in the White House to push through anything but a liberal agenda.  It would be a betrayal of those who put them in office.

Now opinions do change, especially with big interests groups spending millions to influence public opinion, and just because voters thought they wanted universal health care doesn’t necessarily mean they should be stuck with it.  That change in opinion was reflected in the mid-term elections and the second-term presidential election of Obama, where Democrats lost control of the House as well as seats in the senate.

However, the reality is that so far Republicans have not been able to garnish enough support to repeal the Universal Health Care Act through the process established under the constitution.   As President Obama holds the veto, it is very unlikely they could do it under his administration.

So what?  There is always the next election cycle.  Does any political party, or group within a political party, have the right to hold the economy hostage if its demands aren’t met?  If so, every time the minority party controls the House, the federal government will come to a halt until the demands of the minority party are met as funding is used as an unconstitutional veto from the house.   If that happens, democracy, as established under the constitution, will cease to exist.  We will have rule by the minority rather than the majority.

Fundamental #3:  It is the job of the U.S. Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of laws:  The constitution carefully established checks and balances between the three branches of government and delegated the Supreme Court as the body to determine the legality of laws passed by congress.

That does not mean I believe the Supreme Court always carries out its mission.  For instance, I don’t believe the “separate but equal” ruling for segregation under Plessey vs. Ferguson was constitutional.  But again, we have checks for that.  As justices die or retire, they are replaced with new ones, appointed by the president and confirmed by the congress.  Also, the constitution can be amended.

The Affordable Care Act was determined to be constitutional by the Supreme Court.  That may not always be the case.  There are reversals of decisions.  But for now, The Affordable Healthcare Act is the law of the land which has been upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutional.

I don’t write anyone off as unpatriotic for being against the Affordable Healthcare Act.  If you are against it, you should fight it.  But here are some heavy questions to ask:

1)       Do you want an America where the budget is held hostage to keep a law from being implemented that was passed by a party as part of its platform and therefore represents the majority of voters at that time?

2)      Do you want an America where a small minority is able to nullify law and the Supreme Court’s ruling simply to advance minority’s creed?

Be careful how you answer those questions.  The pendulum always swings.  The last will be first and the first will be last.

You see, whether you realize it or not, the Tea Party members, who participated in the scheme to defund the Affordable Healthcare Act are not only holding the budget hostage, they are holding the constitution hostage, and if Obama negotiates with them, he is setting up a precedent that not only will Republicans use again, but Democrats too.

You can be a conservative and a great American.

You can be against the Affordable Care Act and be a great American.

Whatever your views, I wouldn’t want an America without you, because I know Democracy demands a multiplicity of views passionately argued and fought for on the political playing field, both in Washington and around the dinner table.

But, if you think that by supporting the hijacking of the budget by the Tea Party you are somehow supporting a glorious revolution against a liberal tyranny, returning to the glorious roots of the constitution, you are seriously mistaken.  What you are actually supporting is the nullification of the representational democracy envisioned by the forefathers as symbolized by the constitution.

I don’t doubt the integrity of anyone, even the Tea Party Representatives in the House.  But, I do know this:  sometimes we can get so involved in winning a specific battle, we lose sight of the banner we are fighting for.  That banner for America is not the liberal agenda, not the conservative agenda, not the flag, but representational democracy itself, symbolized by the constitution, but not necessarily protected by it.  We must protect democracy ourselves by controlling our passions, listening to the opposition and being willing to admit when we were wrong.  Without that ability, there is no Democracy.

I sincerely hope the current Republican Party comes to its senses, because although I’m a stanch Democrat, I can’t envision an America where everything doesn’t swing on the vote, which implies the need for a second party.  And, if this defunding stunt succeeds, that is no longer the case.  Laws that are not supported by a minority will simply be defunded as long as the minority can take control of one of the houses.  Our vote in the general election will no longer count.

That is a far bigger issue than Obama Care or even the budget.  Some rebels are patriots.  Others are simply hoodlums not man enough to play by the rules of the game.  They, themselves, may not even realize they have sunk to delinquency.  None the less, I’m not walking on by as they lute and pillage my home without saying something. 

© Steve Brown 2013

 

Writing Cherry Creek Peak: A Hiking Narrative, Part I (Zen, Writing, Teaching, Hiking, Dooms-Day, America)

View from Cherry Creek Peak.  Photo by Rio Brown

1.        A Long-Winded Discussion—Blah, Blah, Blah—on Zen and the Art of Writing

Because everything connects to everything, it’s difficult to know where to begin a narrative.  This one was to start in an onion field one searing September afternoon.  Then it was to begin one saturated night after a week of dense rain.  Now it will begin in my kitchen as five teenagers sit around the table, view Edward Hopper’s Night Hawks on my computer screen, and frantically write noir narratives. 

The only difference: time.  By the time I got around to writing this hiking narrative, I was no longer in the same place mentally.  And that’s okay—it won’t be the same narrative, but it will still be fresh, vivid and real because I’m beginning where I’m at—now.   That, for me, is why outlines, except for certain tasks, don’t work.  They predetermine the outcome and the richness.  The excitement and power of discovering what you have to say happens outside the text.  The energy occurs while you’re planning, not writing, so the reader never gets to participate in the struggle,  the scuffle,  the dance—the work and play it takes to arrive at that one great moment of thought that makes the whole journey worthwhile. 

No one really wants to be told what to think anyway.  But they may not mind being invited into your brain—an act of voyeurism really—as you struggle for some semblance of coherence.  That is the magic of the Kerouac, of the Beats.  It’s not that they wrote better than previous generations; it’s that they were the first, besides William Carlos Williams, to fully invite us to come along. 

Here, as an experiment, I want to follow my three versions of this narrative just a ways.  Not fully, that would take too long, but far enough to see the path bend around an aspen grove and disappear into the mysterious light and shadow.  Then, to stand there, stop a minute, and imagine the final destination.

Version A:

No shade, that’s for sure.  Little slivers of onions poke through chalk-white alkali in rows that stretch across a monopoly board field.  Tumbleweed piled against barbed wire fence attest that the air did once move.  But the solid wall of stand-still air fortified beneath the blazing sun makes breeze seem as remote as rivers on Mars.  Sure the evidence is there.   Things were different in the past, but when weather is as vacant as the conscience of a corporate CEO, who cares what might have been witnessed in some great past?   The air is a standing wall and you’re under it gagging.

So I sit on my butt under a machine-gun sun and cut weeds away from onions with an exacto-blade while Rod explains the art of tagging, of bombing, of making ones mark. I don’t tell him that no matter how beautiful his outlaw murals are, if they’re painted without permission, they’re not more than a dog’s urine claiming territory.  I hold back because Rod is new, and the new ones are always a little unpredictable, even dangerous.  You don’t get sent to a boy’s home for thinking things through. You get there by doing really stupid stuff.

I think if I followed this version, the focus would be on heat and cool, dry and moist, stagnant and dynamic, lost and found.  I would no doubt reflect on my day job of working with youth who are struggling to find more viable versions of themselves, and how we all are, in a sense, doing the same.

Version B:

Oregon Coast.  That’s how it smells, how it feels—the night air soggy and moldy with life, toads rioting joy after a long, dry summer, little green blades jerking up through the mud under a muted moon, everything slightly misty as the steamy air settles down to dew overnight.  Cool, rich, clean—everything.

Only the dry yellow stubs of wild rye and cheat grass bony blue under the moonlight let me know this is not Oregon—well that and the scrub oak and juniper, oh and rabbit brush and snake weed.  But the rain is enough to make one dream of thick green farm fields, cheese and forest—forest and more forest.

I think in this version I would simply focus on the fecundity of life, the richness of being.  I think I would have very little philosophy to share and would just stick to what is there before me, write the moment to the best of my ability, invite the reader to experience a certain place on a certain day.   

 Version C:

This is how it always is.  You can always feel the energy.  There is nothing like it.  It works every time.  Fourth graders, teenagers, adults—it doesn’t matter.  When people are tricked into entering that moment of being there and listening to that other voice, that inner guide, direct them through a narrative that is magically opening before their eyes, writing for the moment becomes a drug, especially for those who disliked it previously. And even though I make it clear beforehand that they are to stop when I say stop, the hands keep going and some begging starts—can we finish the paragraph, can I do this again, I think I have a better way now, it just occurred to me…

Perhaps I should let it go on.  I know, for a while anyway, they will have a hard time recreating the situation for themselves, even though all it takes is a) giving the mind something unexpected to think about (so it doesn’t follow the same old pathways), b) setting up a sense of urgency (so there’s no time for self-censorship) and c) allowing crud to happen (so there’s no worry about what others will think).

In this case, I’ve projected Edward Hoppers Night Hawks onto the computer screen and given the following rules:  1) Keep your hand moving, 2) no erasing, 3) don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, etc., and 4) remember, you’re allowed to write the worst crap in America.  Because these are teenagers, who moments ago were chasing each other around the kitchen, laughing wildly and spewing soda all over the floor, I’ve added a fifth rule, no talking.  That’s it.  That’s all it takes to turn non-writers into writers.  But, except for Natalie Goldberg (who I’ve adapted my rules from), no one seems to know this. 

That is why I know this hiking narrative that I’ve assigned myself will go somewhere.  It has too.  It doesn’t matter which of the three ways I enter.  If I start in a solid moment, describe it well, and say to myself, now I’m going to stumble through the woods until I find point B, which in this case is the other side of Cherry Creek Peak in northern Utah, I will get there.  And I don’t have to worry if it is the best way to get there because there is no best.  No two journeys are alike.  There is only picking up your crap, putting it on your back and hitting the trail.  Some routs might be longer, might be steeper, might about kill you, might get you lost, wandering aimlessly for hours, wondering if you can ever get out of the tangle of thoughts you’ve created for yourself—which is exactly what’s happening here—but if you follow through, the outcome, especially the journey, is always worthwhile.  And since I’m not actually following the other two pathways, I’ll never know if I chose the right one.  And I don’t need to.  This journey will sustain me well enough to be the one.

Although I don’t necessarily endorse this approach to life, for writing, it is the way:  Just grab your crap and go.  

2.        The Types of Thoughts You Can Have While Ambling Through the Woods

The trail begins at the end of a rutted road in damp leafs scattered before a dry creek bed, which I guess, is usually running.  Jeff and Glen talk of heat, weeks of ninety-plus, even here in the Cache Valley, which is normally mild, even in July or August.  Or use to be.  Heat has become the new language of the west, drought and fire it’s most common literary forms.  Things just aren’t the same.  Everyone knows it, yet it is here that global warming is denied most—a propaganda scheme by liberals to undermine God-given liberties.  I don’t get it; it’s like living with cancer eating you and denying the decay.

It makes me sad to live among such grand people, knowing their lifestyles are being eroded by a diseased climate while they deny it.  Not these two, necessarily, although I don’t ask.  Out here, I’m a lone deer among wolves as far as politics go.  I keep my deer-self hidden and howl now and then like a wolf.  Besides, I have a gas-guzzling super van—Crystal Blue Persuasion—so who am I to preach?  It’s like a cannibal preaching vegetarianism.  My excuse is that change, realistically speaking, must be legislated.  My one-in-billions carbon footprint won’t prevent global warming.  Again, another dangerous thought here, as this is the land of libertarianism.  And here, in the open spaces of the west, that feels right: just let everyone do their own thing.  That works well for a few thousand, not so well for billions.

Anyway, today is moist and cool.  Why think about dead, dying, sick forests going up in hurricane flames if you don’t have to?  Stick to the trail, the here and now, the dense oak, maple and box elder forests crammed in a short, narrow canyon with Hindu Kush slopes on three sides.  Okay, I exaggerate some, but even from here, I can tell we will soon be headed up, and up, and up!

Photo by Rio Brown

But for now, I can amble up the spongy, black dirt trail and divide my time up between reading who- loves-who carved into aspen trunks, enjoying the little blue wild flowers and bright green mosses, or I can think about the book that will end my welcome here in the greatest state in the nation—Christ was a Democrat.  It won’t get me any gold stars with my Arizona in-laws either.  But, analyzing the text, it’s true.  And since no one else seems to be pointing out the obvious—Christ wasn’t a racist, didn’t despise the poor, and wasn’t always looking out for the interests of those already in power—perhaps I should point that out, and while I’m at it, remind my fellow Mormons that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, based on their practices, probably wouldn’t have been big supporters of Rush Limbaugh.

Oh no—I’ve done it now, wiggled my way out of my wolf-suit and shown I’m really a deer.  No, believe me—that’s not true.   Watch me howl!    Ky-yi-yippi-yi, you long-haired Obama supporters ’er gonna die!

Now why would I want to write a book that would rip out my welcome mat to paradise?  Better just focus here on this trail.   Does it really matter if my nearest neighbors glisten when they listen to Rush, when they’d do just about anything to help me, or anyone else they came in contact with, for that matter?  But would they, if they knew I was a Democrat?  That, I guess is the heart of things.  Identity will find a way.  The seed will break open, the sprout will climb up, poke his tender head up through the soil.  For a season, while young, he may even look like all the other young sprouts carpeting the forest floor, but sooner or later, each will announce individual intent—whether he be grass, penstemon, columbine or thistle.   The flute will flower gently.  The guitar will grind grandly.  I’m sick of being who I’m not.  I’m sick of conservatives claiming Christ as their own, chaining morality, beating it into submissiveness like a dog.  To be moral you must be fat, have a receding hairline, a shiny forehead, shop at Wal-Mart and support the NRA.  No dreadlocks, no RASTA, no tofu, no Opera, no egg plant, no wilderness, no bike trail, no hip-hop, no rap, no soul.  But I’m equally tired of liberals writing off religion as ignorance, revelation as insanity and believing in their heart of hearts that every conservative is a Nazi deep down in his soul.

Everywhere I turn, the fabric of America is coming apart.  I want to soar like an eagle, but the higher I go, the better I see the rift spreading, the chasm opening, the void flowering like a galaxy spiraling out between us, a big bang of Nada zipping us away from each other as we become distant dots screaming hateful political propaganda across the eons, which due to the distance, fizzles out in the frozen night. 

A song comes to mind:  There’s always something cooking; nothing in the pot. A song comes to mind:  These are dangerous times.  To think is to dig your own grave.  Better walk gently through the forest, keep down low in the undergrowth, stay in the shadows, be ye deer or wolf. 

Whatever you do, don’t head for the peak, don’t lift your hands to God, don’t yodel from the gut, don’t stand on the pinnacle and scream I AM!  Riffles are loaded.  Triggers are cocked.  No matter who you are—they will shoot you down. 

3.        Rest

Okay.  Wo horsey.  Good golly miss molly.  Where did that come from?  No wonder I need a rest.  Better not put that in the narrative.  Flags, flags, flags for the NSA.  “Rio, get out the trail mix.”

I sit down on a boulder.  The others have been waiting here, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe hours.  I’m lagging, that’s for sure.  But who wouldn’t be?  After that.  Does everyone’s mind spiral out of control that way?  I look around.  Thinning trees, mostly just pines now, some aspen.  Alpine flowers.  It’s clear every way but back is up.  I love the sweet of the M & M’s against the salt of the peanuts.  I love the coolness of the water.  I love that a mind, lost on a runaway train, can sit down and rest, once it’s distracted.  How many family arguments would flutter away if even just one person in the house could just stare at a crumb on the floor or talk to angels long enough for the mind to forget it was right and had to prove it.

That is why, despite the fact it always nearly kills me, I love hiking.  You’re there talking with your own mind for so long, it eventually wears out, and finally, you’re just there in the landscape.

Resting.

A resting point before the long ascent.  Photo by Rio Brown

(The Journey will be continued)

 

 "Outside" by the Fixx, Live 1983