You only see the turn…

Well, it’s Sunday. The first Sunday of the post Trump era. I can’t tell you what a relief for me it has been to know that the traitorous psychopath has been dispatched to the outer darkness of Mar el Lago.

I have slept better since Wednesday than I have any night over the previous 4 years.

That said, however, it has also been a relief to know that I can move on to writing about some non-political things now that not every day is another disaster in the making. This is true, in spite of the fact that until he is indicted and tried, the orange monster remains a threat to the Republic.

Nonetheless, one can take the time to savor new air of hope – and contemplate the personal aspects of our troubled future.

One of my favorite movies is the movie Stand and Deliver. It’s the story of  Jaime Escalante, a high school teacher who successfully inspired his dropout-prone students to learn calculus. I think Edward James Almos’ performance in the movie is outstanding, and it also happened well before he did his bit onboard The Galatica which, sadly, too many people only know him from. It’s a shame because his body of work before then is solid.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is this one – where Almos’ character is trying to convince one of his students to not drop out in search of easy money. Following the student’s announcement that he will drop out for a blue-collar union job, Escalante goes with him driving his car. The end result of the discussion can be seen in this clip. Pay particular attention to the very last part:

All you see is the turn. You don’t see the road ahead.

That phrase has been burned into my brain ever since I first saw this movie aboard ship over 30 years ago. And every time I think about that phrase it brings to mind a host of impulsive decisions I made in my younger life, decisions that at the time I had no clear vision of what the road ahead was like or how well paved or unpaved it was.

Some of those decisions worked out well. Others rose up and entrapped me into an existence that brought me greater sadness with each passing day.

All you see is the turn. You don’t see the road ahead.

And depending on the degree of arc between the “Y” in the road – the ability to get back to an alternate path or correct one’s mistakes becomes more difficult to do – if not downright impossible. One makes the turn and the life that might have been gets snuffed out. Never to be resurrected.

And in time, it leads to a feeling of sadness and nostalgia which, if you watched Mad Men, can be described as the pain from an old wound. Or perhaps a new wound – the wound being the certain knowledge that one has become too old to do that thing you once dreamed about, or perhaps now dream about – and will only be able to cry about not having done it.

But that’s life , you say.

Yes, it is – and to be completely honest – my life has indeed been a fortunate one. The adventures I have had, the sensual experiences I lived, many many people never get to know of them, much less actually do them. So always at the back of my whistful musings about alternate personal histories is an attitude of deep gratitude for what I have been able to do.

What prompted this jump in the sea of moroseness was a series of posts on my college’s alumni forums bemoaning the fact that The Citadel no longer has cadets eating family-style. They eat cafeteria-style in the mess hall at staggered times because the building can no longer hold the entire Corps in one sitting. Many folks look back fondly on this, although for the life of me, I do not understand why. Depending on whose table you were assigned to as a freshman one could either feast or be starved. I had the misfortune of being starved on several tables early in my knob year. Considering what the Navy and my parents were paying for my education, it was in fact outright robbery for them and for me. It’s why I can’t get up in arms about the change. If returning to family-style eating is returning to denying 18 years olds food and nutrition then to hell with it. Keep the cafeteria line running. The simple truth is, the “system” should probably never have been that way. Hell, even the Marines don’t starve their recruits at boot camp and their system is most assuredly tough.

Watching that little bit of Facebook-inspired argument led me to think about some other articles I had read in some of the news magazines I subscribe to, articles dealing with the concept of alternate history, and one entitled simply, the life not lived.

All you see is the turn. You don’t see the road ahead.

I can’t help thinking about, what if I had turned left and not gone to the dead end. ( The dead-end being whatever situation you wish to envision; for me, it’s perhaps different career and relationship choices. I almost always come back to one that had me being the male version of an old maid, a career bachelor as it were). What if I had gone to the University of Southern California? ( Believe it or not, that was one of the Colleges I looked at before deciding to apply to both the Naval Academy and to The Citadel).

What if?

This gets more fun after your third glass of Scotch by the way.

What if?

I had gone overseas much, much earlier? Maybe studied a non-military oriented career field? Journalism perhaps? Finance? Been a trader on an investment floor?

What if?

I’d dated and loved a lot more women? That one is the point I always come to.

The problem with all of these scenarios is that while it’s easy to picture an alternate happy ending – it’s just as easy to imagine an ending that was not happy, and perhaps even fatal. And to reiterate, I am truly grateful for the life experiences I did get to have. I’ve been blessed and I know it. ( Getting that statement out of the way repeatedly will hopefully save morality scolding in the comments. Don’t need them – don’t want them).

In an article in the Atlantic, the author writes:

There’s a certain kind of movie that lets you down not because it’s bad, but because it could have been great. One of those movies, for me, is Sliding Doors. The 1998 rom-com has a “philosophical” premise and a double timeline: As its poster asks, “What if one split second sent your life in two completely different directions?” In the first timeline, Helen Quilley (Gwyneth Paltrow) gets fired from her job and returns home to her boyfriend—just in time to discover him cheating on her. In the second, Helen misses her train, by one split second, and therefore remains unaware of the infidelity. The two plots—two possibilities—unfurl; in the process, age-old questions about contingency and destiny are answered by way of Hallmarkian melodrama. Like I said: It could have been great. It isn’t.

So I was unprepared when, watching Sliding Doors again recently, I found myself absolutely wrecked by the viewing. The movie’s perky setup was agonizing; its cheerful toggling between Helen’s two fates felt painful to witness. Because when I watched the movie this time around—in the midst of a global pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 people, [Skippy-san note: The Article was written in July of 2020, the number is over 2 million now] with no end in sight—I wasn’t just thinking of Helen’s divergent futures. I was thinking of everyone else’s. To be alive in America right now is to be acutely aware of the paths not taken—to live, essentially, in the Sliding Doors proposition, and in the paradigm of the alternate history. Our news is doubly haunted: by the horror of real loss, and by the shadow of what might have been.

Socrates said that ones life needs to be examined. As I have grown older I have come more fully to understand that statement.

“Most people, including ourselves, live in a world of relative ignorance. We are even comfortable with that ignorance because it is all we know. When we first start facing the truth, the process may be frightening, and many people run back to their old lives. But if you continue to seek the truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you want more! It’s true that many people around you now may think you are weird or even a danger to society, but you don’t care. Once you’ve tasted the truth, you won’t ever want to go back to being ignorant.” ~ Socrates

This, by the way, is also a reason I regret my ferocious attacks on teabaggers during the 2009 timeframe, not one bit. And it is also why I savor the gift I was given to live overseas as the true blessing that it was and why I will return to it soon, I hope. I don’t want to go back to being ignorant – and I thank God for liberating me from that in my real life.

I don’t have any good answers to the prospect of life in my alternate universe, but I can’t help but hope that as lifespans get longer, people can savor more and more different experiences. I read a book once ( science fiction) where people lived to be over 300 years old. They essentially lived multiple lives with multiple partners. I think that’s an exciting thought – for a whole host of reasons.

All of us deserve better. Sooner.

All you see is the turn. You don’t see the road ahead.