A column is a supporting structure. It can be made of wood, brick, stone, or marble. Columns support grand temples and meeting places, like the Parthenon. But a column can also be composed of words. In that case, it supports nothing and may not even be columnar — just a block of print in a newspaper.
A column is sort of a bastard child in a paper, surrounded by its more legitimate siblings — articles full of earnest facts, steeped in objectivity. A column, on the other hand, is mere opinion. It is a sort of regular letter to the editor by the guy who has lived in town for years and has an axe to grind. Quaint, really. Picture your aunt in the parlor inveighing about the proper way to hold a teacup or set a table.
No, a column supports nothing more than the columnist’s perspective, to be taken for what it is worth. He or she has no special expertise, no wisdom in particular to deliver. So why do I write about my thoughts? Thoreau said it best: “I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew so well.”
And in the world we live in now is wisdom even applicable? This world, “where but to think is to be full of sorrow,” as Keats wrote, seems beyond salvation. Is sense even relevant in a nonsensical world? Can hope survive horror?
The war in Ukraine goes on, in all its hellishness, and will go on for a very long time. The poison of nationalism and the ambitions of one autocrat fuel this unnecessary bloodshed. It is beyond comprehension.
The epidemic of mass shootings also continues, whether racially motivated, the result of mental imbalance, or perhaps just pure evil. Any possible even partial solution is prevented by the crazy partisanship gun ownership has taken on. Millions of Americans own guns; thousands of people are killed by them every year (suicide accounted for 60 percent of gun deaths in 2019). We are told that it is really mental health that needs to be addressed, as if Americans are somehow crazier than the rest of the world’s people. And yet mental health has always been the weak sister to physical health, and health initiatives in general are poorly and inequitably distributed. Those most in need are not getting help.
The recent televised hearings revealed how dangerously close our democracy came to being dismantled through the unleashed ambition of another autocrat and the actions of his followers, so willing to be misled. This danger is far from over.
Beyond these urgent examples, we have the ever-looming threat of climate change, which even now is causing misery and eventually promises to end civilization as we know it. Still, a significant portion of our population denies the scientific facts behind the fires, floods, and famine. Most of us live as we always have, and craven politicians (I am talking to you, Joe Manchin) obstruct progress.
We still have the threat of nuclear war, with weapons stockpiled by regimes, including Russia’s, we would rather not think about. Nuclear war or terrorism or accident: incomprehensible — insane, really — and inevitable.
On the local level, too, there are imponderables. We have identified the critical need for affordable housing, but the capitalist system that pervades our way of life and the slow working of government do not allow for swift solutions. The wealthy prosper, as always. There are a handful of projects in the pipeline, but people can’t live in pipelines. And affordable housing at any cost is something that needs to be debated.
At the most local level, there are disputes between neighbors that supersede all of the above and rob our daily lives of joy. Sometimes the issues are so minor as to be laughable — those are the most bitter fights of all.
We reel from all of this. We simply want relief; we want peace. We don’t need advice or opinions from anyone, certainly not from a columnist.
Yesterday, I was walking down Commercial Street with our grandchildren and spied, growing in the crack between two bricks in the sidewalk, a tiny flowering plant. I think it was alyssum.
I thought, what a miracle that life found a way here in this barren substrate. What a long shot that this little thing could persevere and even burst into flower. What a hopeful sign.
I thought, I should write a column about this.
