7/18/2024

My dear Friend & POTUS,

Have you had any magical moments (MM) recently? Have you been hit in the gut by the confluence of events which surpasses coincidence? I have become attuned to MMs over the years & do my best to heed the divine message they contain. Like poetry, some MMs are subtle, others, quite potent.

Could it be that your case of Covid is a MM? Could it be that after telling Ed Gordon, “If I had some medical condition that emerged,” you would not seek reelection?

Perhaps your buddy NPP can help you discern whether this is a MM. The media claims she told you that, “you’re dragging the party down.” Some people say she’s playing 3-D chess as she navigates your candidacy.

I understand that it’s hard to know when to quit. Many professors face this dilemma. Robert Zaretsky (RZ) wrote in 2019 in the WP that faculty delay retirement because 89% “want to stay busy and productive,” while 64% “love the work too much to give it up.”

Are you holding on for these reasons? RZ also wrote that research demonstrates “key cognitive abilities begin to fray dramatically after the age of 70. Skills such as concept formation, abstraction & mental agility begin to falter...” That analysis suggests that you may not be thinking clearly as you discern whether to stay in the race. What a tangled web of issues you must work through!

Enough about that.

Did you see the NYT piece about poets leading combatants in the rebel armies of Burma? It says, “Myanmar is a country entranced by poetry. Poets are celebrities, accorded the kind of adulation that, in other places, might be showered on actors or athletes.” The article highlights poet Maung Saungkha who has trained over 1000 kids to “learn how not to die.” His “bawdy, brawling verse” is exemplified by lines such as:

All I have to do is stroke my smartphone

to stoke war

He concludes “For peace in Myanmar, we need war first.” I wish that weren’t so.

I hope you get some rest & feel better soon.

BYBS,