Bringing It Home

From Menletter July 2005

By Tim Baehr

Yesterday explosions in London's subway system and on a bus took the lives of at least 50 people and injured hundreds more. The tragedy has been an occasion for some leaders to rededicate themselves to the "war on terror" and some observers to point out the US actions that all but guarantee that terrorism will continue.

Tony Blair said that Britain "will not be intimidated. When they seek to change our country, our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed. When they try to divide our people and weaken our resolve, we will not be divided and our resolve will hold firm." Brave words.

Somewhat less articulately, George Bush said, "They're [the G-8 summit participants] working on ways to have a clean environment and on the other hand you have people killing innocent people. The contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty and those who kill." And "The war on terror goes on."

Derrick Jackson, a Boston Globe columnist, acknowledged the barbarism of the slaughter of innocent people by terrorists but also pointed out that the US has refused to enumerate, or even investigate, Iraqi or Afghani civilian deaths caused directly by US military action: "The propaganda of an invasion with invisible innocents surely allowed Bush to seamlessly switch his stated reason from the unique horrors of WMD to liberating an oppressed people. It is a lot easier to tell the world you are a great liberator if you do not have to own up to the thousands of dead people who will never get the chance to vote in that free election. . . . This denial of death, in a war that did not have to happen, is sure to fuel the very terrorism we say we will defeat."

The pundits and analysts will go on and on for a week or two, mostly reinforcing our prejudices and offering nothing useful or new. Meanwhile we sit helplessly watching endless masturbatory rehashes of newsreel footage and fuzzy cell-phone camera images of the tragedy.

The media will bring distant events not only into our kitchens and living rooms, but into our minds and spirits. The results can be extremely unpleasant.

Fixing Things

One enduring cliché about men is their desire to fix things that go wrong. And one of the huge frustrations in our lives is that, having been conditioned to want to fix things, we find that not everything is fixable. The vast majority of people, men included, are in no position to change the course of world events, whether or not we agree with how our leaders are managing that course. We have, I think, a collective sense of helplessness and frustration. Events are overtaking us, and we may feel as down and depressed as Brian McGrory, another Boston Globe columnist: "It was a day of sad and tragic memories. It was a day of quiet, almost formless dread."

So terror on foreign soil comes home to many of us as frustration and formless dread. What do we do in the face of this?

I think we have choices. We can be passive. We can hunker down, ignore what's going on, go into denial. Or maybe just give up hope -- even start or resume some bad habits. Start drinking and smoking again? Why not? We'll all be dead in a couple of years anyway. Spend beyond the limits of our credit? Why not? We deserve some solace; and besides, in the coming chaos we may not have to pay our debts anyway.

Or we can decide to take a less passive approach, using the events and working through the formless dread to spur us into positive actions that have two benefits: giving ourselves a sense of agency or effectiveness, and improving our little slice of the universe for ourselves and our loved ones. We could all die tomorrow, or we could live out our normal biological life spans. Either way, we can live positively.

Here are some ideas. Even the smallest action can reduce our sense of futility and dread.

● Rededicate ourselves to family life. If we have young ones, spend more time with them. Quantity time can be more important than the yuppie-inspired and guilt-inspired quality time. Same thing with our partners and closest friends.

● Think about our values. What is important to us and our families and friends? Loyalty? Honesty? Basic kindness?

● Drop out, at least part way, from media-driven consumerism. This includes both spending and earning patterns. Do we need to work so hard to buy all those baubles? Try to match our life style to our values, and not the other way around. Notice how much less frantic we are.

● Get some quiet time, alone, doing nothing and preferably thinking nothing. We need this time for recharging and restoring ourselves. This is not self-indulgence; our effectiveness in the world can often depend on our regularly getting away from the world.

● Get into healthy habits -- food, exercise, avoiding risky behaviors (speeding, smoking, drinking, unprotected sex). Watch our self-esteem increase. Watch our effectiveness increase.

● Do something for the community. Anything, whether it's writing to politicians or helping in a soup kitchen.

● Get together with other people, especially men. One really bad thing modern society has done has been to isolate people from each other. Many of us men compete with each other at work and then go home and sit in front of the TV. Let's find or start a men's group, reconnect with college buddies. Whatever it takes.

● Put beauty into our lives. Go to a museum. Go to a concert. Draw something. Play a musical instrument. Build something. Read a novel or some poetry. Write a poem. Take some pictures or videos. Men have a long history as creators and consumers of art, but our macho culture makes us seem less than masculine if we indulge. Let's get over it.

As dire as things may seem right now, humankind has a long-term history of survival. And I think a lot of survival has depended on the simple stuff like getting through our days with a sense of integrity and purpose. Most of us have zero control over events in the world, or even in our towns and neighborhoods. We do have, or can have, much more control over what we do with our lives. I see this as a direct response to terror and its many causes. Let's do the best we can.