JOSEPH HELLER'S CATCH-22

At a time when our veterans are deployed to fight in two wars lasting over 10 years for multiple tours of duty and are being irreparably physically and psychologically maimed, I felt it was appropriate to take a look at a satirical novel by American author Joseph Heller, Catch-22 that is frequently cited as one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century. 

The novel is set during World War II from 1942-1944 and mainly follows the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Force B-25 bombardier. It examines his experiences and those of the other airmen in the camp who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling service requirements so that they may return home.

The title refers to a plot device that is repeatedly invoked in the story and has since entered the English language referring to a type of unsolvable logic puzzle sometimes called a double bind.

According to the novel, people who were crazy were not obligated to fly missions; but anyone who applied to stop flying was exhibiting a rational concern for their safety and was sane thereby not being eligible for release from duty.

The characters' escapades are often quite comical and the description Yossarian provides of them is a prime illustration of the insanity inherent in all military bureaucracies.

The book is filled with characters Yossarian sees as crazy, heartless, idealistic, innocent, cynical, ambitious and obtuse. He either fears them or is terrified for them. By the same token, mostly all of them see him as the unhinged one.

Some concentration is required to follow the novel's development but it's intentionally structured to reflect the circular and repetitive nature of a "catch-22" situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule.

The story is a treasure trove of symbols, themes and motifs all used to signify the idiocy of military bureaucracy and its terrifying ability to cavalierly risk human life.

Heller uses Yossarian to illustrate the inherent insanity of war and its devastating consequences on the human psyche.

The idea for this book was based on Heller's personal experience in World War II. He flew sixty bombing missions and mentioned the he should have been killed three times over. He ultimately survived but the experience turned him into a tortured, funny, deeply peculiar human being.

Catch-22 became very popular among young people at the time and seemed to embody the feelings they had toward the Vietnam War.

There are many who feel that this comic fable that ends in horror has become more and more clearly a reflection of the all too serious and horrifying realities of the world in which we live and hope to survive.

ON BECOMING A CLASSIC!


Ever notice how our artistic tastes change as we age? Everything from what we read to the music we listen to and what we watch on the big and small screen. Hopefully most of us begin to favor more sophisticated, intellectually and culturally stimulating fare.

The music I thought was so awesome, that my parents despised or just couldn't understand, has now become as irritating and cacophonous to me as it was to them. Their artistic tastes have now become mine! ( OMG!)

So much of what we enjoy in our youth consist of so much fluff; superficial, trivial, superfluous foolishness that manages to pass itself off as sumptuous and necessary.

I remember getting a kick out of reading all of the Charlie Brown/Peanuts Gang books I could get my hands on when I was a little kid. I also thought they were the deepest most philosophical piece of literature that existed.

Think of some of the things of importance in your youth and how they've magically morphed into something entirely different or completely disappeared altogether.

Things that I once swore by, clung to and would fight for are no longer of any consequence whatsoever. Most have become major annoyances and disappointments when I discovered their profundity.

What was considered cool or hip now appears ridiculous and boorish. Things that I loved, I can barely stand to think about, see or listen to. What I sought and worked for has left me questioning its value.

So much of aging includes loss. We lose our fascination with the personalities and icons that we once admired. The reasons we admired them are because of the extraordinary qualities they possessed only to realize that even those qualities were subject to decline and decay. We realize that our idols are after all just as ordinary and human as we.

We lose loved ones, our physical strength diminishes and our senses become dull. We are in a constant battle to retain whatever we can.

Sometimes we may even lose our integrity. If our lives have been hard enough and we've been abused and disappointed enough, we might become cynical and bitter. We cease to give a damn about trying to do the right thing because we've witnessed so many getting away with doing wrong.

Yet in spite of all of these laments, there are some perks (albeit not many) that come with growing older.

If you're lucky there's a peace of mind that comes with being more comfortable in your own skin. You've worked hard to become who and what you are and if you're anything like me, you realize that you don't need to spend whatever time is left worrying about what people think about you. You probably realize they don't think about you very much at all.

In the words of Phyllis Diller: "Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out and spread out.

Realizing this perhaps we should follow the advice of Victoria Moran who says:

Judge less - or at least later
Give new ideas and images a chance
Understand that everyone has his or her own truth
Remember: You are not married to any belief, opinion or ideology
Expect to discover something delicious every day.

One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes. One that every politician should embrace.

Especially Donald Trump!

LOVING LONDON

I love any author that can whisk me off to unfamiliar landscapes. Someone whose writing is so vivid that I actually vicariously enjoy the places described.

I truly admire those that can create characters so realistic that I laugh when they laugh, cry when they do and experience the entire gamut of emotions expressed throughout the story.

They can be considered exceptionally talented when they accomplish this with animals. Authors like Jack London have enthralled me like this with his most famous novels, Call of the Wild and White Fang.

Jack London’s Call of the Wild is the incredible story of Buck, the half St. Bernard half Sheepdog who is stolen from his comfortable California estate and sold as a sled dog in the Arctic.

It is first and foremost the story of his gradual transformation from a tame beast into a wild animal.

Told from Buck’s perspective, its often painfully realistic narrative provides us with a thorough understanding of the phrase “survival of the fittest”.

The moral, civilized Buck must adjust to the harsher realities of life in the frozen North. Kill or be killed is the only morality among the dogs of the Klondike.

Buck however is not content to merely survive; he wants to dominate.

London's portrayal of the brutality of life in the Yukon through the eyes of a mistreated part-wolf called White Fang is another riveting literary masterpiece.

His storytelling genius breathes life into the simplest natural occurrences. The images he paints of nature are harsh and cruel but true and beautiful. His mastery at drawing parallels between nature’s savagery and human cruelty is depicted in the struggle for survival for both man and beast.

London's prolific illustrations of the vast landscapes provide an ideal setting for White Fang’s character development.

Fang’s journey from cub to adult is fraught with physical peril from his venturing from the safety of the protective wall of the cave of his birth to discovering the undulations of the earth under his feet or the terror he experiences of total immersion in water. He realizes that things are not always as they appear.

As he struggles to understand the laws of his existence we are able to feel his emotional grief and turmoil when his mother is taken away. Because he sees that his very survival hinges upon understanding the laws of the “man tribes” that adopt him, he comes to understand the importance of strength and power.  It is because of this power that he regards men as “gods”, is trained as a sled dog and after relentless persecution by man and dogs becomes disciplined and solitary with superior intelligence and brute strength.

When finally he is adopted by a man who exhibits patience, compassion and affection, White Fang returns it in kind and quickly begins to understand one of the most important laws of man; the protection of his owner and the defense of his property.

As we witness Fang’s eventual domestication, London deftly illustrates that progression from nature to civilization requires violence at some point. At the same time he considers the extent to which both animals and humans are formed by their experiences in the world. Cruelty begets cruelty; kindness, kindness.

As with London’s own personal story of redemption from teenage hoodlum to married middle class writer, White Fang’s metamorphosis from savage wolf to devoted family pet exemplifies the struggle for survival while simultaneously searching for the love and compassion necessary for the development of a noble spirit.

Upon its release, White Fang was an immediate success worldwide. Although its appeal is especially popular among young readers and generally regarded as inferior to London’s companion work “Call of the Wild” it is still considered one of his most interesting and ambitious works and one that helped establish him as a popular American literary figure.

SHHHHHH   BE QUIET

We spend so much time talking. It always amazes me how much of our time is spent not really listening or hearing people. Most of the time we're waiting to interject our opinions.

Personally I enjoy listening. You can learn so much more. Not only do you learn what's useful but you also see what to reject.

The older I get the more discerning I've become about what to allow into my thought stream. This means that I can't be open to everything audible that is thrown my way. That means that I must be very diligent about really listening.

Let's face it, we're constantly bombarded with voices, sounds and noise from every direction.

Every electronic device and human voice is fighting for our attention. This requires us to develop very efficient filters and we can't do so if we're busy contributing to the problem. 

We have to shut up in order to be able to shut out what we don't want.

Most of the time, when we don't encourage the attention getters with the big mouths, they simply find somewhere else to go.

Let's learn to just be quiet and listen.

Oh by the way, be careful what you read too!

REFLECTIONS ON BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Having worked in education for the past seven years, I have come to feel an intense discomfort about the month of February.

Since we have been given the opportunity to celebrate black history for an entire month, can't this time be better spent extolling the virtues and talents of other black luminaries such as the famous scientists, doctors, lawyers, and politicians that deserve the accolades they never received as well as Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X?

Don't misunderstand. Not for a moment am I minimizing the contributions they made to our people and history nor am I saying they are not worthy of the recognition they receive during this time.  However in most urban classrooms of color, these seem to be the only personalities that are taught as having made any kind of meaningful impact.

Yes, you might see the occasional poster of Ralph Bunche, Thurgood Marshall or Booker T. Washington. You might here a mention of Maya Angelou or Althea Gibson and lets certainly not forget the inordinate amount of time spent recognizing our black entertainers or sports figures. However not nearly enough time is spent on successful contemporary professionals that could serve to inspire particularly our male youth to become something other than NBA, NFL stars or rappers.

In addition to the usual historical figures, lets teach them about Lewis Howard Latimer who patented an improved method for the production of carbon filaments used in light bulbs without which Thomas Edison's bulb wouldn't have been as successful.

Let's not forget Charles Drew, a doctor and surgeon who researched and specialized in the field of blood transfusions and developed improved techniques for blood storage. Out of his work came the American Red Cross Blood Bank; George Washington Carver, a botanist and inventor that developed and promoted about 100 products made from peanuts such as cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline and nitroglycerin; Daniel Hale Williams, who performed the first successful pericardium surgery to repair a wound.

While we're at it, let's not forget the contributions of some our women that are rarely recognized such as Claudette Colvin who was actually the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama before Rosa Parks or Roger Arliner Young who was the first black woman to receive a doctorate in zoology.

And although we may have taught our young girls about Mae Jemison, the first black woman to travel in space, let's not forget Bessie Coleman who probably inspired her because Coleman was the first black female pilot.

Let these be some of the names included in our bountiful history so that our young people are inspired to follow in their footsteps by studying math, science, literature, grammar, social studies as well as American and World History which will help them be successful in a rapidly changing, globally competitive environment.

The reflections on the horrors of slavery and the repetitive reminders of the Underground Railroad need to be told and have been told and beaten to death to the point where it is no longer informative to anyone, especially white America but looked upon with contempt and disdain as a means to only inflict guilt and shame instead of inspire compassion and regret. Our history should be told and incorporated into American history so that it is not only an annual celebration and a regular part of the educational curriculum in mostly black schools but all schools - white and black.

What bothers me is not that we have a Black History Month but that we've used it so pitifully over the years. It has become filled with the same sad ineffective clichés, especially in black academia. However the responsibility should not be exclusively that of educators but should be taught by parents in the home.

The late John Ogbu, Professor of Anthropology at Berkeley says in his book "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement" black students in the affluent homes of doctors and lawyers are looking at rappers in ghettos as their role models. Students talk the talk about what it takes to be a good student, but few put forth the effort required to get good grades. Ogbu believes that many black parents are not offering sufficient guidance, do not spend enough time helping with homework and do not pay adequate attention to their children's educational progress or entertainment habits.

Let's use this month to inform our people and particularly our youth about what can be done instead of not only what has been done by our people. Yes, it's an entire month and some may think it too long but since we've been granted this time let's use it more constructively and productively to improve our situations.

WHY I LOVE TO WRITE

Anyone that thinks writing is easy is either extremely naive or in denial. Yes, it is an expression of your thoughts at any given time and Lord knows it's the best form of really inexpensive therapy that I can think of, but it is by no means an easy endeavor especially if done with any integrity, intelligence or style.

I would love to say that I've spent most of my life writing something. That would be an incredible untruth. I've realized that there were many reasons that I was attracted to writing later in life than most. I think one of the biggest reasons is that it allows me to vent without being interrupted by other people's opinions. The older I get, the more things I have to get off my chest.

There are other more noble reasons as well though. I consider it a very personal, almost spiritual experience at times. It can sometimes feel like a pouring out of my very soul or a communication with the divine.

Of course by the time it leaves my mind and travels from my brain, down my arm, into my hand, through my fingers, onto my pen or a computer keyboard, it may have gone from being divine to demonic or at least somewhat defiled.

Depending on the topic, my mindset, the state of my health or my amount of sleep or a pending deadline, my writing experience can be as pleasant as a warm summer evening on a back porch swing nursing a cool cosmopolitan martini or as unpleasant as getting a root canal at the dentist's office.

Sometimes the ideas, feelings and words just flow and sometimes it seems I become mentally constipated.

In any case it's still the best way for me to communicate my true feelings because I'm not constantly interrupted by any other conversation other than what's going on inside my head. Of course sometimes that can become somewhat muddled and schizophrenic if I'm not careful. Either that or I have to fight the urge to get on my soap box and preach or teach or vent. That's when I really get dangerous.

I think what I enjoy the most about writing though is that I get time to review my thoughts and edit them before they are actually exposed to the light of day. I can put them on paper or on a screen and add or delete where I choose as opposed to being under the pressure of engaging in an active conversation where I can encounter differing opinions or possibly suffer from a severe case of "foot in mouth" disease.

What I love the most about writing is that it allows me to engage in conversation with my favorite person - someone that I love spending time with and whose thoughts, opinions and feelings I revere more than anyone else's.

ME.