Bob Schwartz

Note: The immediately previous post explains who David Dennison was. This post, also from 2018, is more philosophical. The final line, “at least we will have the open-eyed, open-hearted hope of getting it right the next time”, can be seen as an ironic dagger. The point about karma, about reaping what we as Americans sow, eternally applies.

A man reaps what he sows.
Galatians 6:7

Karma: A term used to refer to the doctrine of action and its corresponding “ripening” or “fruition”, according to which virtuous deeds of body, speech, and mind produce happiness in the future (in this life or subsequent lives), while nonvirtuous deeds lead instead to suffering.
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism

When I experience the presidency of David Dennison, I wonder how we got here. One answer that won’t go away is that it is the sum of everything we have done and are doing as an American society—or everything we haven’t done and aren’t doing.

This isn’t to say that we are somehow being punished for transgressions, or that socially and culturally we haven’t done some admirable and adaptive things. It is just to say that some elements (not picking on social media, just using it as an example) have the potential to take us down the wrong road, and that when you add up the elements with potential for future misdirection, and the choices we have made, maybe it should not be surprising that we woke up one day—literally—to discover that the most unlikely human being in the world was the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

So maybe the best response is to look at every one of those elements and choices, and mindfully consider whether they might have played a part in getting to this point. That might not rid us of Dennison soon, or of our national karma, or of our weird political harvest, but at least we will have the open-eyed, open-hearted hope of getting it right the next time.