Season’s Greetings!
Thus begins my year-end correspondence of 2016. With the exception of the nightmare of the election, both its buildup and aftermath, which I will not mention otherwise, it was a great year for me. I went to less than full time at work, so I had a nice, relaxing summer doing some Pediatric urgent care before starting back with the university, where I enjoy connecting with the students a lot and put up with the rest. My biggest annoyance was studying for my Family Medicine Boards, which I took right before Thanksgiving. I am still waiting for those results. My family did fairly well with a few bumps here and there, so all is as good as it can be for me as the year ends. I moved in June from my tiny, noisy apartment in Selinsgrove to a very small rental house in a quiet neighborhood an 8-minute walk from my office. It is the perfect size and energy efficient, especially with the thermostat at 61 this winter.
Change: Many of you, I am sure, feel I am a creature of habit, now set in my ways at 52. I disagree, as I welcome change and challenges. I like to think I am exceptionally good at life, but there are still many opportunities to improve. I came to the realization this year, for example, I am quite generous with my money (for sure), my time, and my good will, but I much prefer it to be on my terms and (rarely?) can be a jerk if it isn’t. I also think I am as good at making wise decisions as anyone, which is part of being good at life. None of this allows me to coast. There is plenty left to strive for, and I am still trying to find ways to use my talents to their maximum.
Health: Lots of striving goes into my health and fitness. I am still blessed with a tremendous natural endurance and love of physical activity even with normal thyroid functions since my surgery. I do two workouts almost every day, running in the morning and then a trip to the gym later and maybe one or two other activities. I lost my running fast mojo (I didn’t run any races, mostly due to nagging calf problems) and have not quite gotten it back, but I built up to over 50 miles/week of running recently and am still “weight room strong,” working rings around the students at the gym. A recent project is the restoration of one of the fine works of the late 20th and early 21st century: my triceps, allowed to atrophy with chronic tendinitis and now a bit hairy with less elastic skin, but showing signs of responding. I was also starting to play some better golf as the season ended, too.
Travel: This was a great year for travel. Right after New Years I left for Italy (almost 2 weeks!) with my niece, Kelsey O’Rourke, who was an ideal travel companion as we walked all over Rome, Venice and Florence. January is a good time to go, though it rained a bit. In March I did a CME trip to Washington, DC for an adolescent medicine conference and had a fine time walking and running around the city. After SU graduation in May, I went to Paris and Amsterdam with my niece, Madelaine Mills (both trips were graduation presents – I am the best uncle, on my terms) for 8 days. We kept busy and had fun everywhere. The three of us hope to go back to Europe together. In early July I spent a week with my family at our cottage at Keuka Lake, which was quite enjoyable, especially the last few days, and right after that flew to Calgary to revisit my friends Belyaneh and Yenu. We went into the Canadian Rockies, specifically to Yoho National Park, which I loved despite bad weather, and also more briefly to the Banff area, which is spectacular. Before school resumed in August I popped down to Roanoke to visit the Wrights. In mid-October I went to Homecoming at Moravian and then to Keuka for the last of many weekend trips there before shuttering it for the winter
Music: This was a very good year with multiple strong albums that had almost no stinkers. My favorite is Catfish and the Bottlemen – “The Ride”, full of great songs, including my song of the summer, “Soundcheck”. I’ve spent hours watching their concerts on youtube. Other great releases were The Joy Formidable – “Hitch”; Grouplove – “Big Mess” with the super-fun songs of the fall, “Welcome to Your Life”, “Do You Love Someone” and “Spinning.”; The Naked and Famous – “Simple Forms; Pixies – “Head Carrier”; Against Me – “Shapeshift with Me”; Trashcan Sinatras – “Wild Pendulum”; Grant-Lee Phillips – “The Narrows” There has never been a better singer than Grant-Lee, and his songs are uniquely beautiful and meaningful – “Just Another River Town” and “San Andreas Fault” in particular. Next, a step down, but still really good, were Soul Asylum – “Change of Fortune; Idlewild – “Live in 2015”, and Dinosaur Jr. – “Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not”. I always love some new Van Wagner – “A Mountain Man’s Dreams” and Norah Jones – “Day Breaks”, and seeing Van playing at Bucknell, I found a delightful Bluegrass band Coal Town Rounders – “Numero Uno” and “How It Used to Be”. I am a long time fan of Goo Goo Dolls, but I am still not sure what to think of their “Boxes.” It sounds like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift must if I listened to them, only better, and it is ok for a sellout, I suppose.
Books: A great year as well. Despite having to study, I managed to read a lot, including The New Yorker and Atlantic, and often at work (RAW – means I read the whole thing while being paid) during the summer. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (right before and during my trip there – fantastic); The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan by Michael Hastings – an unprecedented account of the buffoonery at the very top of the US military (RAW); Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder, a hard but worth it slog – few areas have had it worse since humans evolved; The Ripple Effect by Alex Prud’homme, a thorough and compelling look at modern (mis)management of water, our most precious resource (RAW); Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single Superpower World by Tom Englehardt, a somewhat repetitive look at why we need reasonable people running the government more than ever (sigh – RAW). Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve by Tom Bissell, a very entertaining travelogue by a skeptical journalist that will make you rethink your beliefs (if you believe). Probably my favorite. High Dive: a novel by Jonathan Lee, a moving novel set in more troubled recent times than ours. In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides. I am really tough, but these men were off the charts. Too much peripheral detail, but really good. The Game’s Not Over: In Defense of Football by Gregg Easterbrook. One of professional football’s most influential critics (TMQ) looks for ways to save the overly dangerous game he loves from its cult. The Command: Deep Inside the President’s Secret Army by Mark Ambinder. A short book about the bad things our military is doing all over, mostly in secret, to make everything worse. The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century by David Rieff. A very long and convincing expert analysis of current food policy and thinking that points out all the shortcomings and says we cannot effectively feed the world through capitalist, technologic and free market mechanisms alone (RAW). Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams, a humorous and informative account of the authors adventures – really good. So, Anyway… by John Cleese. Good, but I tend to disagree with him on what was funny. Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide by Joshua Goldstein. Tedious but informative book about modern peacekeeping. Peace is easier when guns are taken away from violent people, it turns out. Let Me Be Frank with You by Richard Ford; The Conundrum by David Owen. One of the most thoughtful reporters looks at climate change and finds we can’t win unless we go back to a preindustrial life. Any other plan is delusional, but trying to make a difference for the least worse outcome is still the right thing to do.
Neologism of the year: MANUCOPIA: A play on cornucopia, or horn of plenty, it is a somewhat mocking reference to men who think they have it all but are delusional. I made it up when I saw photos of me on my travels looking narrow-shouldered and old, rather than ripped and full of energy, which is what I see in my mirrors.
I don’t have a dog or cat, but I do have a pet….peeve: This year’s biggest peeve is the guys (it is rarely a woman) who come to the gym and work out in sweatpants and with their hoods up on their sweatshirts. It is 72 degrees and perfectly comfortable to work out in a t-shirt and shorts and still sweat! I saw a guy yesterday with his headphones on over his hoodie! I used to work out in the unheated Waimate gym in winter in a t-shirt and shorts, but maybe I am just super tough and they are _____.
Quotes: I have too many, but I will do my best to keep it short.
From Mary Beard: “And in a much-quoted phrase that still hits home, he sums up the Roman imperial project: ‘they create desolation and call it peace.’”
Walden Bello: “…if we do not take the necessary measures to limit our population, our consumption, and our carbon emissions, nature will indeed find much less pleasant ways of re-establishing the equilibrium between herself and us.”
Jacques Lacan: “If a man who thinks he is a king is mad, a king who thinks he is a king is no less so” A sense of perspective may be among the most critical leadership qualities. For better or worse, however, it’s the one we ask our leaders to hide.
The Atlantic: “(Humans) lead lives not of quiet desperation but of superficiality, insensibility, and rank illusion. We live as if our petty business counted. We live as if we weren’t as numerous as sand, and each of us as ephemeral as clouds. We live as if there hadn’t been a hundred thousand generations here before us, and another hundred thousand were not still to come.”
Me, after an impressive workout: “If there was a God of Lats, He would pray to me.”
Alex Prud’homme:”In 2006…Americans bought 31.2 billion liters of (bottled) water. To make a typical one-liter plastic bottle, cap, and packaging…requires about 3.4 megajoules of energy. In 2006, it took 106 billion megajoules of energy to make enough bottles (for that much water)…(and) about 17 million barrels of oil… to produce the plastic water bottles…By contrast, the energy required for local tap water is about 0.005 megajoules per liter. Every liter of bottled water required 3-4 liters of water to produce…and 38 billion (bottles) a year ….end up in landfills (and are not recycled).”
Tom Bissell: “Our primitive propensity to faith begins as the tribal impulses to exclude, as the amplifier of genetically encoded fears.”
Timothy Snyder: on the German invasion to the east in WWII, “Colonization (of the Ukraine) would make of Germany a continental empire to rival the United States, another hardy frontier state based on exterminatory colonialism and slave labor.” and
“For Germans who accepted Hitler as their leader, faith was very important. The object of their faith could hardly have been more poorly chosen, but their capacity for faith is undeniable.”
Jonathan Lee: “If you looked at people closely, you realized most of them were acting abnormally most of the time.”
The New Yorker: “Thompson’s book demonstrates one thing for certain; no matter how badly you think of Richard Nixon, you have not thought badly enough.”
And “Prison reform doesn’t happen in response to violence in prisons. It happens in response to awakened consciences about the violence of imprisonment.”
David Owen: “New Yorkers, individually, use less energy in all forms than any other Americans, and they have the smallest carbon footprints (less than 30% of the U.S. average).”
The New Yorker: “The independent-minded philosopher-saints are so sure of themselves that they often lose the discipline of any kind of peer review, formal or amateur. They end up opinionated, and alone.” I am self-aware enough to wonder if this applies to me.
David Owen: “But if environmental troglodytes were the only obstacles to global action on energy and climate our challenge would be less daunting than it is. The real problem isn’t them; it’s everyone – especially those of us who, however enlightened we may feel, are quite comfortable consuming a grotesquely disproportionate share of the world’s resources.”
The New Yorker, George Packer, in one of the best articles I’ve ever read: “In her proud ignorance, unrestrained narcissism, and contempt for the 'establishment,' (Sarah) Palin was John the Baptist to the coming of Trump.” And “Those voters with favorable views of Trump are not, by and large, the poorest Americans; …They’re more deficient in social capital than economic capital.” “A sense of isolation and siege is unlikely to make anyone more tolerant.”
Religion: I saved this one for near the end so maybe my mother wouldn’t make it this far. I am not original in this regard, but I have lost all faith in Catholicism, and likely Christianity in general, as an explanation of existence and of God’s relationship to humans. I still go to Mass, but only out of some small need for community – we do need to support each other in some way, even if in quiet with rolling eyes. I no longer pray, except to occasionally think, “Your will be done.” Instead of reading the Bible before bed (I was getting so tired of it after 35 years!) or something of a spiritual nature, I have been reading Shakespeare, first Hamlet (I saw the play performed as well), then MacBeth, and now Othello. There is at least as much wisdom for life there, and lots better writing. I have learned too much about the Catholic Church in my studies of the abuse and financial scandals to trust them with anything else, and my studies of religion in general have shown me how the success of a religion has almost nothing to do with its doctrine or practices and almost everything to do with the power of its leaders and the gullibility of certain human beings (see the Mormon Church as exhibit A). I did subscribe to Headspace.com and learned how to meditate (I was good at it), but the guy’s voice is so annoying I had to stop after 8 weeks or so. I am naturally mindful otherwise, and I still consider myself a mystic and a prophet, with my idle thoughts dominated by the great questions of humanity.
Thank yous: I am, as always, grateful to those who hosted me, traveled with me, and to my parents for testing my patience while letting me visit a lot and watch my TV shows. I am especially grateful to those of you and others all around the world that go out and do good things for other humans, animals, and the environment. We won’t likely have the good will of the US government behind us for a while, but we don’t have to let that stop us.
A reminder for those who made it this far: I have a youtube channel under “Terence O’Rourke” which now has a big archive of travel and other entertaining videos (I do appear pale and topless in one this year), and if you are not reading this at my website, I still have that, with accounts of my trips complete with photos, at
https://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/
where someone read one of my political posts and commented within the last 3 weeks!
Terry O’Rourke