President Bill Clinton spoke on Monday night, June 28th at a dinner sponsored by the American Himalayan Foundation at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. His topic was "Interdependence and responsibility—why we should care about the rest of the world."
As most Americans know by now, Clinton has always been an extremely engaging speaker. And, he has become even better since he has left office. It seems ex-presidents become far more relaxed and engaging. You might think that Clinton no longer has an agenda to promote. In fact, it is just the opposite; his agenda has expanded. It seems that he is on a mission to save the world.
Clinton began by answering a powerful question: "Why do we all love the Dali Lama? Because he appeals to the universal humanity within us; he’s someone who stands up in the face of systematic oppression." From that point forward Clinton’s message was to an appeal for all of us to tap into our own universal humanity.
We live in a totally interconnected world. He pointed out that reading the newspaper is like an example of Chaos Theory. "It makes you wonder how can so much good and so much bad be happening at the same time." Everything bad and good around the world is an example of interdependence. Once you live in a world where none of us can hide from each other, you’re living in a world where anything can happen. 3000 people from 20 countries were killed in the world trade center.
Two things have changed things forever. First, for the first time, more than half of the people on Earth live under leaders they voted into office. Second, is the utter explosion of NGOs—Non Governmental Organizations. There is suddenly an explosion of citizens who stand in the gap where they effect social, political change in ways government can’t do or won’t do.
We live in a world where more than half the world lives on less than $2.00 per day and a billion people don’t have access to clean water.
"It isn’t like we don’t know what to do about the state of the world. In an interrelated society our common humanity is more important than our differences. We must change our interdependent world to an integrated community."
Perhaps Clinton’s most timely point was this: By abolishing hunger, we will diminish terrorism. His point is that terrorists are recruited from the poor in the world’s ghettos. His view is that Each of us can dramatically impact global poverty by giving just a little amount. He implored the audience: "You cannot stop being citizens. Sweeping change comes from the way we work and live and relate to the rest of the world. We can act as citizens through Non Governmental Organizations. We can always doing good whether or not we agree with the government in power at the time."
He reminded the audience that from our beginnings in Africa millions of years ago, our common history continues to move us from isolation to interdependence to community. "On the whole, I am optimistic." He used examples from the recent past such as the reconciliation of Russia and China and the unprecedented acceptance of diversity worldwide.
The President came full circle: "Why does the Dali Lama move us?" he asked. "Because he is calling us to our natural place." Again he referred to our humanity.
It was wonderful to see and hear Bill Clinton, with the wealth of experience only a former President has, speaking in global terms. After all, our planet has become so small and has so many people sharing it, that in order to live in harmony it is imperative for those who can to extend a helping hand to those in need.
Lately, writing has seemed a burden. It’s as if words have somehow gained weight, become heavier in my mind.
I am writing a lot. I spend four or five hours a day editing a novel, which I began years ago—so long ago, in fact, that I can’t accurately recall the number of years. It is tedious work, this editing. I work on a laser-printed copy, editing by hand, and then after five or ten or twenty pages are scratched up, return to the computer to input the changes. Sitting at the computer, I make further changes. There are two different mindsets at work—one when I’m reading what’s been written (some of it years ago) and the other, when I’m re-reading the changes I’ve input. Often the two minds do not agree, so I edit the edits. Sometimes even, I disregard the edits entirely and stick with the original.
But this is work seems more like polishing a car—waxing—rather than building a car, or driving, or even washing. Editing is the kind of work most writers don’t relish—I know that I don’t.
And in addition to working on the book, I write for the local newspaper, and in addition to that, I try to keep up with this blog. So, there are a lot of words passing through this brain. At times it seems like there are too many—and then the words seem heavier, maybe because they clump up and become bunches that are too heavy to lift.
All this seems like complaining—and it is. It comes from the thoughts I’ve been thinking lately of just stopping. No more words, which, to be honest, seems impossible. Something keeps me going. An obsession to tell my story, to try to explain this life of mine, if only to myself. But, all that need to explain makes me want to seek out an easier, simpler way. I know that way might be just to meditate and have the thoughts come in as they do but rather than write them down just to let them go.
For some time now, I’ve been pondering the subject of place. For some reason I’ve been feeling a need to find where it is that I am positioned within the cosmos. It seems that merely knowing that I live in a town named Ukiah, in Northern California is not enough to satisfy this need I have for locating myself in the universe.
Knowing my location within America helps me some. Finding my position on the map gives me a general sense of where I am as far as longitude and latitude goes. And having driven across country helped in the same way. It was less than a year ago that I arrived here in my pickup truck with my dog Dixie to meet up with my wife and sons. The route Dixie and I followed was 80 West, from Connecticut, with a slight detour north on Route 90 to visit some friends in Jackson, Wyoming. For the last leg of our journey we turned south and then headed straight across Utah and Nevada into California on 80 again, then through the hills on 20 from Williams into town. This was the start of my search for a sense of place here.
Since settling in Ukiah, I’ve driven south to San Francisco a number of times to pick up relatives at the airport. I’ve also driven to eastward for lacrosse games near Sacramento, gone west to Fort Bragg several times to visit a boat builder and returned through Mendocino, Filo and Boonville. I’ve traveled north to Willits and headed northeast through Potter Valley up to Lake Pillsbury. These journeys in the immediate vicinity—all within 200 miles—have given me a general sense of where I live, but not altogether a complete picture. It does not satisfy a deeper need to know where I am.
In my lifelong job as a journalist, I’ve made bigger circles on the globe. Assignments have taken me to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, Asia and India. The farthest afield I’ve been from our country was on an expedition to Antarctica. Having traveled to the bottom of the world has given me a relative sense of the size of this planet. For me it is true that the more one travels the smaller the Earth seems. Although the trip to the bottom of the world definitely felt like a long one—it took four airplane flights followed by a five-day crossing of the Southern Ocean aboard an icebreaker. But, thinking back on the trip, the planet still seems to be of manageable size.
To add another point of view, I remember attending a talk given by one of the astronauts who had traveled to the moon. He had a perspective that few of us will ever have in our lifetimes. He told the audience that while standing on the moon he raised his hand and hid the entire planet Earth behind his thumb. It was sobering, he said, to realize that he’d just covered up his whole life’s experience—everyone and everything he’d ever known up to then. The astronaut told us that he returned to earth with a renewed sense of sanctity for the place we call home.
Which brings me back to Ukiah. Somehow, this location, this town, although I haven’t journeyed more than a few hundred miles in any direction since arriving here, has begun to settle into my consciousness. I’ve come to realize that the place I must look in order to locate myself in the cosmos is in a more inward direction.
A few weeks ago when I was invited to attend an Indian sweat lodge I gained a deeper understanding of the place where I live.
What I realized was this: There are Native Americans who live here, who have always lived here. The Indians I bonded with are imbued with this particular section of the planet. Their father’s lived here. Their father’s fathers—and on and on—walked this ground, hunted, raised crops, raised families right here.
Being amongst these men gave me a real sense of a people who truly, without question, belong to this valley. This is not to say that we immigrants don’t. Immigrants, as it is often said, bring new blood to a place—fresh ideas and different ways of living that strengthen a community. Recent settlers like me also have something to add; it is called perspective.
And it’s perspective that brings me full circle. When I sit in my backyard at night and look up into the universe, thankful to be able to gaze into such a clear sky at the untold number of stars, I feel more connected to the cosmos than I ever have. Although stargazing apparently seems to be looking outward, I feel as if that outward view has been internalized. I now realize that the sense of place I had been seeking on maps can only be found with my internal GPS.
In the pitch dark of the sweat lodge, I began to feel that somehow I’d finally arrived home. This town, north of San Francisco, west of Sacramento, South of Eureka and east of the Pacific Ocean (and somewhere under the stars) is now to be found in a very specific location within me—in my heart.
In May 2003, I was in Iraq documenting the first civilian humanitarian aid mission to land in Baghdad. As part of my job, I photographed the delivery of supplies to several of the major hospitals in that city. During a tour of the wards, I photographed some victims of the war.
I have not shown these photographs until now because I do not like seeing victims—it causes stress to look at such pictures. But I ran into these photographs recently while selecting pictures for my on-line gallery and thought that I should no longer hold back because such images are of real people whose lives have been damaged forever and although it may not be pleasant for us or for them, maybe pictures such as these will play some small part in changing the sentiment of those who would make war.
I will just show two. One of a man and one of a woman.
I spent much of today going through envelopes of pictures I took in Iraq last year at about this time. I am donating three to an online auction in support of DOUBLETAKE, the fine photography magazine.
I spent a good portion of my time between picking images, reliving the trip itself. On one of the last CDs were images from a visit to one of the hospitals in Baghdad where there were victims of the bombing, burn victims, gunshot victims etc. I had completely blocked this part of my trip from my mind. I came upon one shot of a man badly burned over his entire body. It disturbed me greatly. It was the only one of all the pictures which I called my wife in to see. I was in the process of warning her that the image was awful and she might choose not to look. But before I could finish, she was in the room. She looked for no more than a split second and then said, "Yes, the world needs to see that."
I still haven’t decided whether or not to include it in the gallery. I mean, it is a picture nobody would want to buy.
But I’m going to think about it—and consider whether or not to show it. On one hand, the picture almost makes me sick. I remember one of the guys I was travelling with at the time, saying to me after we left that particular room in the hospital, "I don’t know how you do it—I could never do that." I’m not sure I know how I do it. Just cut off all emotion. Looking through the camera lens makes it a little easier. It makes it seem like a job. But looking at the photo a year later, it was no longer a job. I was a viewer looking at a picture of shear horror.
I try to write about what I find that is calm and peaceful in life. But, perhaps it will do some good towards creating peace for the world to see such a terrible sight.