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Hi, everyone:
Here's a copy of the presentation I offered to the Eau Claire UU Congregation on Sunday, February 22. I'm always interested in what you think, if you have time to make any comments.
Best,
Davey J
Embracing Uncertainty at Midlife in Post-Beat America
by Dr. David M. Jones
Delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Eau Claire
February 22, 2009
Do you ever wonder if you are living up to your birthright?
I’m talking to you, Jack Kerouac, and to you, Allen Ginsberg. I’m talking to America on George Washington’s 277th birthday, and I’m talking to myself, at midlife. I’m trying to learn lessons about how to live wisely from unlikely sources: two Holy Goofs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, a center right political pundit, Andrew Sullivan, and of course, President Barack Obama.
It was more than 50 years ago when a group of writers called the Beats raised challenging questions about America and themselves, calling our nation out on a failure to live up to its ideals, wondering how their own actions related to the larger national story. From the readings earlier in the service, we heard passages from Jack Kerouac’s novel, The Big Sur, and Allen Ginsberg’s epic poem, “Howl.” America, in their eyes, was not simply a place of beauty, creative energy, and glorious national landscapes, but a haven for fearmongering and nationalist aggression, a culture enamored of pre-emptive war, crass materialism, and racial segregation, a nation seduced to apathy by advertising, lacking sufficient taste to appreciate its own fine arts traditions. The word “Beat” in this sense meant collective national exhaustion, disillusionment born from the failures of our governing structures and ourselves as individuals to use our vast resources for peaceful purposes, not exploitation, greed, and conquest.
But America in the era of the Beats was also a great place to take a road trip, a country of new possibilities, a time and place to see great jazz and blues and hipsters of all stripes, to see great minds embracing human freedom through visionary quests in the sordid haunts of American cities and on rural byways.
One notable definition of Beat Generation philosophy was written by John Clellon Holmes and published in the New York Times Magazine in 1952. Here’s a quote:
This generation may make no bombs; it will probably be asked to drop some and have some dropped on it, however, and this fact is never far from its mind. It is one of the pressures which created it and will play a
large part in what will happen to it. There are those who believe that in generations such as this there is always the constant possibility of a great new moral idea, conceived in desperation, coming to life. Others note the self-indulgence, the waste, the apparent social irresponsibility,and disagree.
But [this generation’s] ability to keep its eyes open, and yet avoid cynicism; its ever-increasing conviction that the problem of modern life is essentially a spiritual problem; and that capacity for sudden wisdom which people who live hard and go far possess, are assets and bear watching.
John Clellon Holmes speaks of the need for clear vision, without fear or cynicism. He also speaks of a crisis of the spirit that has afflicted our age amid times of prosperity and poverty, atrocious war and uneasy peace. Perhaps in the 1950s, in the immediate aftermath of the largest-scale war in human history, World War II, featuring the only use of an atomic weapon in any wartime situation, America could still conceive of itself as a young nation. The nation was coming to prominence, even dominance, in what historians often refer to now as the American Century, making bold judgments, taking bold action. And the Beats, in their national spotlight, were there to help demystify sexuality, to celebrate the romanticism of the body and the holiness of the intellect, to remind us that the privileged among us often fail as moral leaders. The Beats published fiery observations on the cusp of the era of Vietnam, civil rights, feminism, and countercultural rebellion, amid closing chapters in America’s young adulthood that featured both justice-driven social movements and hedonistic excesses. We were a nation with the ability either to take up where European imperialists left off, or to chart a new direction toward responsible world citizenship and a more secure human future.
The readings by John Clellon Holmes and Andrew Sullivan also speak of wasted youth, fortunes squandered, paradise lost. As the old cliché goes, these writers tell us in their way that youth is wasted on the young, that when as youth we possess the priceless treasures of good health, material sufficiency or greater in a nation on the rise, a chance for an education, the capacity to endure deprivation with smiling idealism, the chance to invest our financial or moral capital into a better future, we take it all for granted and to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, we rage at the sun. In our mad ecstasies, we may not live up to our birthright.
On the other hand, as we move to middle age it’s easy to bash the young for not meeting the mark. That is, until we consider who raised those children who do not seem prepared for school, who elected those politicians that lack foresight, who drove those SUVs, shopped excessively, consumed that beef, and devastated the environment? What kind of world did we as elders build and leave for our children, and for future generations?
It is now 2009, and America is at midlife. So am I.
I was asked by a congregation member to prove that I was at midlife. Well, as of today I am 45 years old, and thus I’m actually an optimist if I think I’m at midlife. This is especially true when the average African American male lives 69.8 years – the math is not encouraging in that respect.
So, though Garrison Keillor says that Upper Midwesterners are above average, I am sure you can understand my increasing uncertainty at middle age. Up to now I trotted out a few one liners when the topic of midlife came up, as when people underestimated my age and thought I was younger: I’m not young, I’m just immature! Or, I have been known to say that I’m looking forward to my midlife crisis: the sports car, the fine girlfriend, blowing all my retirement savings on some vain indulgence, such as hair implants or a 1930s Gibson Guitar – really, what’s not to like about a midlife crisis?
OK – so I went on with this mindset about midlife until recently, when I different set of realities surfaced. I was diagnosed with a chronic illness – sleep apnea, a risk factor for early death. My mother’s recent illness touched our family, and the possibility of losing her as a companion in this world was close at hand for much of this past year. These changes came, along with a new relationship and the possibility of a larger family – but at midlife, do I have the energy? Do I have enough common sense and focus to be a positive presence in the life of a partner? And there’s always work – day jobs, career opportunities, moonlight shifts, whatever – work, and more work, and more…ambition – is it a curse? Whatever happened to quittin’ time? How much of a company person am I – and do I have any other choice but to be a company person? For others here today who are at midlife, there may also be illnesses that turn out to be chronic, and significant demands on us at work and in our families, since by now we may have demonstrated a level of competence that leads others to count on us. Our good efforts over time have helped us to gain greater responsibility – and we may now have a degree of power over others, and thus we are called on to make good decisions and to lead by example.
This brings to mind a couple of dirty words, at least for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers: emotional maturity. Does emotional maturity come automatically with age? Probably not, and therein lies the great challenge of midlife. If we automatically gained in wisdom as we age, we would have greater assurance that as we enter the afternoon and the early evening of our lives, we would know how to live thoughtfully. So, despite the fact that 50 is the new thirty, 60 is the new forty, and yes, 80 is the new sixty (and I haven’t even hit 50 yet), the fact is that midlife – however we define it, means that the ultimate earthly fate of passing from our present state of being is edging closer. Midlife seems to me then a perfect time to assess where life has taken us so far – and what lessons we can take forward.
At midlife, as I “inch towards respectability” as my nephew Kenneth recently put it, or “slouch towards Bethlehem,” as poet W.B. Yeats put it, I strive to accept greater personal accountability, in the spirit of the proverb from the Book of Luke, 12:48 in the Christian Bible – usually paraphrased as: to whom much is given, much is expected. I have also been looking outwards at the nation I live in, which is likewise in midlife transition, striving for emotional maturity. We were witnesses at the Obama inauguration, and President Obama is an apt symbol of a national transition to midlife. I think that throughout his campaign Obama said some things to help us in this transition. He has made the point that with continuous hard work, most Americans can attain modest financial success, success within our means. What was it that made some of us Americans believe that it would always be easy to succeed? Why do we feel entitled to bounty without effort? Why have we felt that the concrete laws of ecology or budgeting do not apply to us? How well – or how poorly – will we deal with our shock and surprise when the bill comes due? At midlife?
How do we handle these imposing questions? Is it easier, as it sometimes seemed in young adulthood, to flee rather than fight? Do I follow some of my Gen X predisposition to treat life’s challenges with irony, or with cynicism, rather than face them with determination, single-mindedness, moral conviction, and idealism? From my generational position, on the cusp between Boomers and Xers, with a reasonable skepticism about grand patriotic and religious narratives, and with a desire for redemption through service that resonates in the Age of Obama, I have begun to consider how to live righteously at middle age with the big questions in clearer focus. How long will I live? What have I been given in my life, and have I used my portion wisely and for the good? What have I earned, and at what cost? What have I survived, and how? Am I ready to pay back what the world has invested in me – prepared to act selflessly for the children and the elderly in my life, ready to be a consistently positive romantic partner, to live my values, since I know better than ever that my actions have individual and social consequences?
The age of Obama is a time for new resolves, in personal life and in our national collective.
First resolve: I seek to better appreciate what I have, since as Andrew Sullivan reminds us, uncertainty is an inseparable feature of human life. As I move within my life cycle from the restlessness Sullivan speaks of to an appreciation for the delicacy of my relationships, the mortality of people who surround me, the miracle of nature, the simple act of breathing, I see midlife anew as a tool for greater insight and right action.
Second resolve: I seek to accept the challenge of acting as a moral being, using my own hands, my intellect, and the organizations and institutions I am a part of to engage in right action, to increase my capacity for empathy, to strive earnestly to be better a better person, to live up to my birthright.
Third resolve: Collectively, we must to find a new humility as befits America’s middle age. There are forces larger than ourselves that call for our reverence, but we can’t afford illusions of grandeur or infallibility, as such illusions impede our ability to take right action.
Fourth resolve: we must change what we are doing whenever it is necessary and warranted. If we’re in a hole – stop digging. If we see the edge of a cliff – hit the brakes. And we must learn to accept the challenge – and the gift – of emotional maturity. We can learn that from Jack Kerouac, who left us beautiful prose even in the harrows of addiction as his youth waned and middle age turned quickly to end of life. We can learn that from Allen Ginsberg, Barack Obama, and Andrew Sullivan, all of whom recognize in quite different ways the tragedy and the promise of America in their own remarkable lives, at midlife, and after.
Let it be so.
3:36 AM
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