Nice tipped the scales

I’ve felt like this a handful of times in my life. Untethered. In need of keeping track of who is where. And are they all okay outside and inside. Heavy. Foggy. Angry. Hopeless. Intensely in need of being at home and rooted. Nostalgic.

I grew up in the 70s and graduated high school in 1981. My dad’s family is from the south and my parents both went to Ole Miss. I lived in Mississippi as a five year old and my parents were at Ole Miss when it integrated. My dad served two tours in Vietnam — two different wars in the span between 1965 and 1968. I grew up in Newtown, PA which was heavily Quaker at the time and my parents founded a group called BAND for nuclear disarmament. I lived in England in 1975 and 1980 and most of the summers in between. My father has a PhD in Middle Eastern History and used to teach a class about terrorism and has lived in the Sudan and Yemen.

All of that to say, I was aware growing up of inequality. Of things being unfair. Of struggles through the world. I would ride my bike down the street in Oxford, Mississippi and come home and ask my mother what a “cracker” was because I’d had kids call me that as I was out and about. My mother had to muzzle me with hand-over-mouth as I proudly told a policeman in the deep bowels of backwoods Mississippi that my mother was voting for Humphrey. I was deeply impacted by Leon Uris’ book Trinity and Exodus, read every book in our local libraries on World War II and became a strident Irish descendent and deeply interested in converting to Judaism to right the wrongs that Hitler unleashed on the world. I moved to a town as an 8 year old that still had FOR SALE — NO BLACKS posted.

I was taught to ask questions. To have a voice. To take a position. To argue my position. To accept everyone. To know why I had an opinion and to be able to back it up with fact. That no one person was better than another. And I learned that the hard problems of race, religion and gender were multi-faceted, emotional, with deep entrenchments and no easy answers.

As a kid, there were two moments that stick out that I was horrified — and fascinated- by. One was Jonestown. The whole cult concept fascinated me and the senselessness of it just stunned me. Why. Why would anyone? The second was the hostages being taken in Iran. And this was deeply personal and the second time that I felt panic and fear for my father. The first was as a five year old waiting, endlessly, for my father to call from Vietnam. But this time, my father was en route to the Sudan when the hostages were taken. There were no cell phones. We lived in the UK and you had to schedule an overseas call with someone and my father had chosen an overland route to the Sudan. He was somewhere — was it on a train? a boat? a truck? a bus? We didn’t know — and for me, Iran was the Sudan. I was a kid. He was not home. And it was scary. My world was disrupted. We lived in England in 1975 and traveled around Europe and never went to Ireland because “they blow up vans in Ireland.” The Troubles were real. Present. Heavy. The only thing that Ireland knew. And it was a country we didn’t visit because of the bombs. The threat of terror. The lack of security and being safe.

So, growing up, there were a few jolts to the concept of being secure and safe. That went beyond by compulsive concern over natural disasters. I would ask my mother each night if there was a chance of a volcano, hurricane, earthquake, tornado and make her check under my bed for the wolves that lived there just waiting to grab my ankles as I leapt from my bed.

As I grew up and became an adult and had children the concept of safety and being safe changed. I now had two little people to keep safe. Not just from the pedophiles and serial killers in the world but from the unrest and chaos in the world. Thomas was born into the ground war in Iraq during the Gulf War. There was real reason to be concerned for safety and security. But then there was Oklahoma City. We were at a restaurant with my young kids with the endless loop of the horror with a 4-year old who did root cause analysis on everything and I had no answers but had to give them because the rules had changed. This was terror on our doorstep. On our watch. Of our own making. Our eyes were wide open. Hate came screeching into our world and blew the covers off the dirty secret that America was a part of this global unrest as well.

Over time — and when there is a long stretch of calm- we forget and feel like maybe we’ve progressed. We are safe now. Things are better. There’s no need to be on high alert. The world is basically a good place. Which came to an end on September 11, 2001. I still dream of that day at least once a month. The contrast of the stunning beauty of the autumn day and the horror and terror and chaos the changed the world in a split second. Of having to explain to kids, once again, things that didn’t make sense. Why our neighbor was dead. Why the view from the sound was of two long pillars of angry, black smoke. Why the sky was silent. This day changed me deeply. I decided to step off the merry-go-round of the go-go world of work and take time with my family, my community and myself. I had bookstores and a coffee shop, was with my children when they went to school and when they came home from school. Traveled for vacation and did my best to be present for myself and my family and friends.

9/11 rocked my sense of safety and security. I was getting on a train to go into the city as the planes hit the towers. So many of the men in town were in the city. My good friend Brad Feld was trapped in the city. Paul Berberian was doing a pitch in a conference room not yet aware of the horror unfolding and was subsequently stuck in the city. One of the companies in the Softbank portfolio literally had front row seats from across the river as the horror unfolded. People I know died. Kids in town lost more than one parent. Len Fassler was on an airplane. It was impossible to make contact with touchpoints and get grounded. I could not get to ground and from the next minute forward that was all that I craved.

As time goes on, the colors fade and the sense of safety returns. But there are reminders — too many- that the world has been forever altered. And that while we are never meant to forget the horrors of the Holocaust we have all of these markers. Bosnia. Oklahoma City. “the war in Iraq.” 9/11. Columbine. Sandy Hook. Such sadness. So much horror. So little action. So much violence. So much hate. I took off on a flight leaving Israel the day that three missing teens were found dead. I knew as we went wheels up that my next visit was a long way away and that the response was going to be brutal. It was a heavy trip home and I felt so palpably hopeless.

But last night. Last night as I was once again away from home, traveling and flying while the world was ever more quickly going to pieces. I felt that same awful feeling of 9/11 — the need to reset priorities, focus on what truly matters each day. There is such heaviness and weight of all of it added together. And a hopelessness in what do you do. Is this how the world works? Are we as unsafe now as we have ever been — yet perhaps had convinced ourselves that we were more safe? Is the world still largely good but with bad that spikes? Or is the hate and intolerance getting worse and are we galloping toward the brink of civil and global unrest? Have we forgotten and will we devolve into World War III? Will the wrong person with the red buttons in hand have a temper tantrum and reset the world and erase safety as a concept? Is Mad Max here and we just don’t know it?

I know I’m an ant in the pile of what may make a difference. I try to be nicer, more open, polite, listen, centered, accepting and make an effort to say good morning, hi, wave, thank you and engage and bring nice, good and love to everyone. I practice patience. Being thoughtful. Reacting to what makes a difference versus what does not. Question what the basic tenets of a happy life are.

And while I practice being a good, fair and nice person I ponder what will really move the needle. What will make a difference. How do we bring positive change in the world. Will there ever be world peace. How do we get the collective whole to hit reset all at once and give ourselves hope for the future.

Today is another one of those beautiful days. Blue skies. Sultry air. Sun streaming in. And a black and white backdrop because, once again, someone has chosen to pierce the safety and dignity that we enjoy in the world with hate.