by Dennis Green
Back from the Dead, I’m looking around me like Lazarus, or even at moments like a newborn babe. Special moments. There are many ways to distance oneself from the hurly-burly of daily events, the crush of local politics and national crises. One of the most unusual, and extravagant, is the sort of near-death experience I’ve just undergone. Perspective.
And no, from a slightly more cosmic perspective, the upcoming special election initiative in Alameda considering a new school parcel tax is NOT the beginning, or the end, of the world. No more than the new immigration law in Arizona, nor the fact that Iran may acquire nuclear weapons. Not such big deals, after all.
Everyday circumstances will continue to challenge us, threaten our sense of security, rub our notions of justice and fairness the wrong way. The difference today is that we have multi-billion dollar media whose job it is to stir up those emotions from a distance, from the moment we open our eyes to the moment we close them in our evening or our eternal rest.
As a provocateur, a journalist, a blogster, a writer of op-ed commentary, it’s often been my task to add to the stresses that you feel around such emotions.
So for me, this jarring re-set of my own point of view comes as a refreshing breeze between me and my usual determinations. I’d rather, I feel now, add clarity to the world view I share with my chums and neighbors than to simply stir the pot. Beyond, for example, the immediate conflict here in Alameda over Measure E comes my overriding concern for comity, for the peaceful community I’ve come to know and love.
That means that I don’t have to tear out the jugular of my opponents over this debate. If the Measure fails, students will continue to receive more or less the same quality of education they get now, and have gotten for the past several generations. If Measure E passes, a few families may have to re-locate to San Leandro, or Hayward or the Oakland hills, rather than meeting the tax burden here on the island, but their lives might even improve overall.
For our attachment to Alameda, to a particular standard of living, to the views of San Francisco and the short commute into the City in the off-hours, our fondness for the small town feel, the familiar faces of merchants and servers, our love of the climate advantages — all just lead us to believe that this is God’s Country. And if, in our attachment to Paradise, we wind up resenting our neighbors, or the newer arrivals, or those who support real estate development theories we eschew, then we have lost our very humanity in the bargain.
I lived in Santa Barbara for 20 years, and was convinced I was living in Paradise there and then too. After tearing myself away, twice, I came to see that being able to choose where you live is a particularly special privilege some of us Americans enjoy. Most humans, though, are pretty much stuck in one place most of their lives. Living “up in the air,” simultaneously anywhere and everywhere, is still a very rare experience.
And ultimately, it’s attachment that is the deadly trap, that woos us away from our divine nature as holy, sentient, cosmic beings. I realize today that I have allowed my “Alameda-ness” to become a grotesque part of my persona, and that my ever-lovin’ personality is much, much bigger than that.
Locale…nexus…our location within the galaxy and the universe…can be no more nor less important than anything else, no matter what the real estate agents say. So let’s just all lighten up a bit and recover a perspective that crosses city lines and transcends all these pressing special local issues.
©2010 Dennis Green
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