The Nightmare of History

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”

    -James Joyce, Ulysses.

I used to like to study Greek mythology. To me they were ancient comic books, filled with gods, superheroes and monsters.  But as a good little American who believed wholeheartedly in individual will and self-determination, one thing I couldn't stand was how heroes, like Oedipus, were chained to their destiny, never to escape it no matter how strong they were, or how ingenious their plans. What’s more, those that followed were damned by the sins of their forebearers.

Now however the older I get, the more I see that the social and historical forces at play in one’s life often determine one’s outcome. The Greeks merely recognized this and encapsulated it into their myths. There are aspects of this what socio-economic situation you are born into, your race, how you are raised, your community, your country, and your culture which cannot be changed. And the virtues and sins of these are passed down to you, en mass, whether you like it or not. It is if and how you escape, or who helps you escape, that matters. At the end of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Darnay a.k.a. Charles Evremonde faces execution for the sins of his uncle and father, escapes by being replaced by lookalike Sidney Carton.

Carton sacrifices himself, clearing away all of his personal sins and breaking the cycle of tragedy to be recompensed upon the Evremonde’s, Charles and through his suffering and death, his wife and child's. We must awaken and break away from the inherited cycles of inequity, despair, ignorance, hatred and violence that are passed down from the echoing void and seize us still. Only to understand history, our personal and collective, can we break the chains our progenitors have cast upon us, and live enlightened, safe, happy and free. Let us hope that more humane sacrifices are in order than that endured by poor Sidney Carton.  

I graduated college in 2001. I returned from my cross country trip resplendent, and ready to embark on what was expected, a prosperous career. A few days after my return September 11^th happened. The whole world went quiet. All was shock and despair.  My cousin was killed in one of the towers, a victim of history. I didn’t know him very well. I knew his father, who was my reading teacher in middle school. My family and I attended that tearful funeral. A charitable fund was started in his honor. This event seemed to have set the tone for a decade to come. A dark cloud hung over everything. In my personal life, I had a hard time finding a job. I had grown my hair long, for seven years. It was halfway down my back. I finally cut it in a pang of anxiety, that this was the thing keeping me from gainful employment and joining the legions of successful, adult, career-oriented people whom I was expected to become.  

I finally got a job as a client relations manager at Value Line, Inc. a stock investment periodical. This was a dressed up customer service department. I spent my days being yelled at by “clients” for things I had no control over: late shipments, misprints, accounts being accidentally closed. We got a stack of papers called Donnelly Reports every morning. It reminds me now of "Office Space" and those damned TPS reports. Donnelly Reports were documents generated by customer calls, one page per caller. We were to call back and resolve their issues. Most of the time, we were screamed at, oftentimes insulted or even cursed at, then we were to calm the customer down, resolve the issue and make the next call on the report. This process was a grind wheel presented eagerly to my soft, putty-like brain. I wouldn't last.    

The other thing that weakened my resolve was I started finding out more about the company. It was owned by a tough as nails lady, an 85% owner. She was suing her own brother at the time for his measly 15%. All he wanted to do was sit on the beach and collect his share. I met her once. She was terse, cold, her nose perpetually at 180 degrees. This company was built by their savvy father, and when he was alive it was a great company that took care of its customers. But his progeny only cared about money. Soon, my spirit was broken. I began sneaking out pages from my reports. I put them in my desk, or threw them away. Everyone in my department had the same stack, the same calls to return. This meant they were stuck with the bad calls, while I only handled the good ones.

I needed to reevaluate my life. What was I doing here? What did I really want to do? Where did my talents lie? I found that what really made me happy was helping people. I went back to school to become a teacher and got a job as a teacher’s assistant at Lipman Hall in Newark. This was a residential treatment center for incarcerated youth. I had the high performing, low violence students: arsonists, child molesters, a student who brought a bomb to school among others. And yet, this environment seemed better than the corporate one. At least I was educating people, being a positive role model, making a difference. I wasn’t making evil rich people richer at the expense of others.

Most of these students were victims of history, family and personal history. There is an old French proverb, “To know all is to forgive all.” I wouldn’t go that far. But the message rings true. Most of these students grew up in dysfunctional families, often neglected or worse. I went back to school to become a social studies teacher.

After earning my certificate, with no social studies positions open, I took a job as a math teacher at a conservative Jewish school. I am not of the faith. I was raised a two-time-a-year Roman Catholic, Christmas and Easter. The church wouldn’t give my mom an annulment after she divorced my father because, even though he cheated on her, she didn’t have the money to pay for the procedure at that time. After learning this, I turned my back on the Catholic Church. But there was that cultural/historical expectation. “After all, you want to get married in a church, don’t you?” Ultimately, I wasn’t. But I was forced to attend CCD and only able to leave after my confirmation. Today, I consider myself spiritual, not religious. I don’t give myself a label. I find it too confining. And as Alan Watts said, faith is pure openness. I seek to be open.

On the job, even though everyone knew I was a goy, I had to wear a keepah or yamaka as all the students and staff were required to. I was forced to attend shul or worship, though I was not invited to take part. Most of our students came from reform families, and chafed at all of this. These students too, were mild victims of a history they did not internalize or share. In any event, I worked hard to teach math there. But I was a terrible math teacher. It was my worst subject. I wasn’t invited back for the following year. However, since I was so popular with the students and staff, I got the chance to chaperone the 8^th grade trip to Israel.

I had many wonderful experiences there. We went hiking in the Golan Heights. It was so green and lush. I saw Syria from up high. We followed serpentine paths to a waterfall and a gorge below. We were told not to venture off the hiking trail for fear of stepping on a landmine or unexploded ordinance. Also, scorpions were to be avoided. We experienced many wonderful things. We endured the drunken shouts of playful Hassidim in Zefat yelling, “Happy Purim!” We explored the ruins of a Roman aqueduct spread out across a beach on the Mediterranean. We toured a crusader citadel. We climbed Masada. Two complaining girls irritated us so much that halfway up I told them there was a Starbucks at the top. They were reinvigorated and scrambled up only to find that I had tricked them. Their indignity was swallowed up however from a healthy razzing from their peers. “You really thought there was a Starbucks?!” During some free time, I was able to wander the winding dolomite maze of old Jerusalem, walking stones two thousand years old, see the Tower of David, witness walls built by Suleiman the Magnificent, feast on shwarma and ice cream, and haggle with street peddlers over souvenirs.

We went swimming in the Dead Sea. Try as you might, you were forced to float. Your feet would not stay at the bottom. The buoyancy was unbelievable. It smelled of sulfur. And when you rubbed your belly underwater, it felt oily. From there we camped overnight at a Bedouin camp. They sang to us, and performed their coffee ritual. The next day the Bedouin gave us camel rides in the desert. One student asked if they rode these camels home. A dark, stout, jolly man replied, “I have an SUV kid.” The Bedouin are disappearing. They were given houses by the Israeli government. The older generation pitches their tents on the front lawns. It is the younger generation who are living in them.

I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where it is said that Jesus was crucified; his body prepared, and where he was resurrected. I heard the call to prayer at the Dome of the Rock from the Wailing Wall, while observing our students daven. Here were two groups of people, related linguistically, genetically and biblically (the story of Isaac and Ishmael) taken hostage by history and zealots on both sides.

The whole time we were guarded by young people in their twenties who had just gotten out of the Israeli army. They were carrying M-1 rifles, new in World War II. I talked with them. They were mostly atheists. They didn’t care about the conflict. Most believed in the two state solution. They feared the rocket launches and kidnappings. But felt a general malaise about the entire thing. What could you do? I didn’t get to talk to too many Arabs there. The one’s I spoke to felt a great sense of outrage and pity for the plight of the Palestinians. Other than that, they felt the same way. These too were victims of history, who had not found a way out. No Sidney Carton was available. Perhaps with the Sunni/Shia conflict taking precedence, and Israel in a much more volatile Middle East, the peace talks will make some progress. But again, the Sunni’s and Shia’s are victims of history themselves.

My point here is that most conflicts, most poverty, most of the places on earth where there is suffering, despair, turmoil; these are symptoms of a greater disease, these are the victims of that plague called human inequity, human history. The poor in Malawi are the victims of history, mostly through colonization. The poor in America are victims of history: racism, slavery, genocide, war, lack of access to a proper education, healthcare and a way to make a living. We need to find a way to break this cycle without bloodshed, purging, sacrifice. We need to cut the Gordian Knot. We have to do it in a positive way, a way that doesn’t colonize the mind of the victim. I will explain what I mean. I remember talking to a professor from Easter Island back at MSU. He said that aid workers from the West always came there with the attitude of, “You poor bastard.” And this colonized the minds of the people, made them feel inferior and unable to do things themselves. So I have found a way to fill those who need help with pride, a can-do attitude, with lightheartedness, fun, and with hope for the future.