10/25/2023

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            It’s too bad that the B-52s won’t get to share their music with PM Anthony Albanese at your state dinner tonight. I understand Jill’s hesitation in having them play, but having friends over is a time for fun. Don’t you think?

            People enjoy funerals, laughing through their sorrows, remembering the pleasure of the company of their decesaed loved one. Living a full life is about accepting the simultaneous presence of suffering & thriving. It’s the paradox of our human existence. We do not need to be trapped in the binary of happy vs sad, with certain activities associated with each. We can instead embrace a both/and philosophy as in, “I am bereft AND ecstatic.” I am not ecstatic BECAUSE I am bereft. I am just experiencing both emotions NOW for different reasons.

For example, several situations depress me today, including:

1)    A pre-schooler, I know, offended his best friend by making a racist remark.

2)    Women do not control their uteri.

3)    Our House is speakerless.

4)    Earth is heating up.

5)    Civilians are being bombed.

Other things elate me today, including:

1)    Myanmar victims have files war crimes complaints in Philippines court using the principle of ‘universal jurisdiction’.

2)    It’s time to compost the leaves falling from the trees.

3)    My 5th graders eagerly determined we had 1118 digiblocks.

It’s a shame to make the B-52s listen to the bugle corps when they could be playing “Love Shack.” To convince Jill of that plan, share this quote from James Baldwin, ““Life is tragic, & therefore unutterably beautiful.” We can be happy AND sad today.

BYBS,

RCA