Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Truth to Power?


Well, I guess that’s one way of looking at it. The power in question is the United States government, currently run by a madman who has installed TV hosts to “run” little departments like War, Health, Economic Affairs. The TV hosts look good but are a bit lacking in the policy department. That’s not a problem, because policy is no concern of the guy they answer to. Retribution, yes. Revenge? Of course! Policy can be achieved—or not—on the fly.

 

I went to the poetry slam and told the story of meeting Rabbi Swarsensky as a young man. I posed the question that we all grapple with, at some point in our lives: what would I have done or said in Nazi Germany? Then I read the letter to John Roberts, retrieved my phone from Nels (who was recording me), and went home to Espresso Chip ice cream and bed.

 

It was no big deal, in short, and there are times I wonder if that hasn’t been the story of my life. It took me forty years (and a YouTube video) for me to get this, if indeed I have. But I remember watching an interview with Martha Argerich, when someone asked if she hated practicing.

 

Argerich considered the question, before responding, “No, but I hate the idea of practicing.”

 

Exactly—and I have spent my entire life thinking about what I had to do, thinking about how much I dreaded the idea of doing it, and inventing really good justifications for why I really, really cannot and should not do whatever it is. Then I do it, always at the last minute and usually badly, and I discover once again what every adult except for me knows.

 

My mother certainly knew it: “You’ll feel better once it’s over,” was a constant refrain in the house. 

 

No matter how many times I heard it, and no matter how consistently I had proven it to be true, it never helped. In the end, I had to be mechanistic about the whole thing: I will never do what others do easily. I will procrastinate, justify, involve myself in other worthy projects, learn the use of the iota subscript in Ancient Greek. At the last minute I will fly into action, and it will get done. Barely and badly, but done.

 

“If you do your studying every night after class,” my mother once told me, “you really won’t have to study much for the final exam.”

 

Well, yeah!

 

Other people are smarter than me about the things that matter. It took me years to figure out what I had to do in the morning, which is essentially to get through it. And so I am Pavlov’s favorite dog—my phone wakes me up at 6:30, and then it’s the same routine, day after day. Anselmo comes first—food and litter box. Bathroom is second. Prayer comes third, as the coffee is brewing. Then I lie down on the sofa at 6:43 or 6:44 and gather wool until the alarm clock goes off again at 7:05.

 

I get up and I go to the club, and the meeting that I would go to, if I were anonymous and went (or not) to meetings.

 

I don’t think about it at all, of course, because what sense would that make? And yesterday, at last, I did the same thing about going to the poetry slam. Things conspired against me, of course—the printer that is always reliable decided to hang out with the printer that’s a diva. 

 

Fine—I’ll write the damn letter out in long-hand.

 

There were six people in the Passage when I started to speak.

 

No problem—the video can still go viral.

 

Preaching to the choir, are we, little Marc?

 

Yup—and if they sing in tune, it’ll have been worth it.

 

So I did it, and learned the flip side of being an automaton.

 

It feels just great.

 

Not only did I do it, but I posted it on YouTube.

 

Now I’m off to the beach.

 

 



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