It’s July, and things are moving slowly in my neighborhood.
The sun came up right on schedule this morning at 6:03. I know it happened, because I was there, though I didn’t see the sun itself until about ten minutes later, when it rose over the fogbank covering Hayward. The tide was out and half the Coyote Point cove was just mudflat, puddles of water reflecting the slowly brightening sky, the power towers, and a handful of lights sprinkled on the opposite shore. As the dawn progressed, the sky lit up with oranges of different shades, as it likes to do that time of day. A few clouds over the hill showed bright fringes of flame as the sunlight hit their upper edges. A flock of pelicans flew across the orange, picturesque as can be. Airplanes followed suit, looking equally beautiful against the morning sky.
As if the sun had brought them to life, joggers and the occasional biker started appearing on the path behind me, hurrying by with their earnest faces and serious gear. I drank my coffee. I sat there, watching the sunrise.
It’s easy to freak out about the state of the world. There’s a lot going on, and much of it isn’t good. Most of what we hear about, in fact, is terrible.
Mentally, I’ve had a rough week in some ways. In the next paragraph, I share some of the things I’ve been thinking about, so you might want to skip over it.
I watched a documentary this week about what life is like in Palestine: Where Olive Trees Weep. By the end, I was weeping too. The oppressiveness and unfairness of the occupation are staggering — and this movie was made in the West Bank in 2022, before the current war on Gaza started. In America, the Supreme Court seems intent on granting more and more power to the presidency and the judiciary while taking it away from people who actually know what’s going on, like scientists and doctors. I look at the election and I am not at all happy about what I see. The odds don’t seem to be in favor of my party. And someone tried to assassinate a candidate, for crying out loud. What kind of a madhouse has this country turned into? Meanwhile, there’s a civil war in Sudan that might have killed two million people — and how much do we hear about that? The Amazon rainforest continues to disappear. Our climate may or may not be headed into a tipping point. More and more people are talking about the collapse of civilization.
In moments like this I think it’s useful not to panic. As my very intelligent wife Karen says: When things seem bananas, it’s a good time to chill out.
Freaking out is exactly what the fearmongers and sowers of discontent want. Getting us to freak out is exactly how they have kept us off balance, divided, and disempowered for centuries now. Centuries? Heck, let’s talk about millennia. Two and a half thousand years ago the Buddha was already talking about how, when he looked around, all he saw were people freaking out, panicking and hurting each other. It literally made him afraid:
Fear is born from arming oneself.
Just see how many people fight!
I'll tell you about the dreadful fear
that caused me to shake all over:
Seeing creatures flopping around,
Like fish in water too shallow,
So hostile to one another!—
Seeing this, I became afraid.
This world completely lacks essence;
It trembles in all directions.
I longed to find myself a place
Unscathed — but I could not see it.
Seeing people locked in conflict,
I became completely distraught.
But then I discerned here a thorn
— Hard to see — lodged deep in the heart.
It's only when pierced by this thorn
That one runs in all directions.
So if that thorn is taken out —
one does not run, and settles down.
(Attadanda Sutta, translated by Andrew Olendzki)
Take a look around: How do things look in your immediate environment right now? What’s happening right here, in your room? In your neighborhood?
It’s easy to say “Yeah, it’s fine here, but over there…” Or “Yeah it’s fine now, but in November … or next year …” That’s exactly what I’m suggesting you don’t do. It’s summertime. Take a vacation from sending your mind elsewhere. Take a breather and look around.
What’s happening right here, right now?
Chances are, things are all right for you. I am confident writing that because for most of us, right now, things are okay. For some of us, they aren’t — and we may be able to help those people. But we can’t do it if we’re freaking out.
This has always been true, through most of history: Most of the time, things are basically okay for most of us. It’s the natural human focus on trouble, on problems to be solved, and on novelty that make us pay attention to the disasters, the wars, the trauma. Those are the interesting things that make it into the history books. What doesn’t get recorded are the years and years of living, loving, having meals around a campfire, raising children, teaching grandchildren how to sew or how to fish, writing letters to your cousin, cooking a meal for a friend, enjoying a cup of coffee with the sunrise.
There are things we need to do. There are choices we need to make, and yes, the stakes are high for some of them. But do we know what’s going to happen tomorrow? For sure, really? Do we know what’s best for someone else?
We don’t have to run around freaking out about our choices. Breathe. Then ask yourself: What can I do, right now, in this moment? What can I do today?
Don’t just do something, sit there!
Then ask yourself: What do I need to do right now?
That’s where I’m starting.
How about you?
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