Seasons Greetings! This year’s update is shaping up to be verbose, which is nothing new. I moved from Washington, DC in November of 2021 and then had roughly two months of downtime, during which I lived in a rather disappointing apartment in Bethlehem and traveled as much as possible despite the flare of covid at the time (I have not had Covid 19 at any point). I started my new job in early January, and it has also been a disappointment, but then it is modern medicine. My original work site had not been completed, so I worked at 4 different locations each week until the one I liked least offered me a job, and I was basically forced to take it the beginning of April. It is far from torture and everyone there is very nice, though it turns out the Lehigh Valley is nowhere near as chill as I thought it would be. Like everywhere else, there is a dearth of mental health services and a plethora of needs. I am getting paid a lot more money to put up with it, with big raises on the way, but my career is experiencing existential crises. I do like where I live after paying a lot to break my lease at the dump apartment early. It is a newly opened luxury apartment building near Bethlehem’s historic district and downtown.
Culture: Obviously, the Lehigh Valley is not DC. I do miss being able to walk to great, often free, museums and run all over such a scenic area. I do not miss the swarms of tourists, seeing the struggles of the mentally ill and homeless up close, and my long walks lugging groceries home. Bethlehem is not as fun to walk in, but the running is pretty good. The city is keen on loud cars and terrible street paving. I have been able to attend two operas at Lincoln Center and have been to the museums of NYC multiple times (thanks for the lodging, Greg and Michael) and made one trip to Philadelphia’s excellent art museums. I attended two concerts of my favorites in the Philly area and really enjoyed Musikfest in Bethlehem. I went 8/10 days and loved everything about it except the uncomfortable chairs. My favorite comedian, Gary Gulman, came to a theater about 40 minutes away. I have not done much hiking in the area, saving it for trips.
Fitness and Health: My health has been fine overall, but I keep injuring my calves, which is a drag. I also have had a sore and tight back for months, though the trend now is better. I ran a slow time in my only road race (though I won my age group), and I have not been able to get anything else going. I have access to a number of gyms (just joined a new one) and am still in great shape for my age. My middle-aged skin is the only difference from 30s me (:-)
Travel: 2022 began for me on the cruise ship Plancius off the coast of Antarctica. We were winding down our time there, getting ready to go back to Ushuaia, Argentina. Antarctica is a spectacular place. I only saw a small part, but it is spellbinding, gorgeous beyond every place else I have been, and I have been to some places (see below). That said, it was hard to get there and back, especially at the dawn of the Omicron Covid variant. The seas were extremely rough – we sailed back through a cyclone with top winds in the 80+mph range and 30 foot waves. We were then held in port for over 12 hours while we were tested for Covid (I believe 10 people on board eventually tested positive over the last ten days of the cruise, including one of the doctors), forcing many to miss their flights back, including me. The epic story is recounted in my blog post:
http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/travel-blog/2022/1/12/epic-antarctica-trip-12192021-01062022
The next trip was a short ski trip to Copper Mountain with Andrew and Christina. That was an enjoyable place to ski, and Andrew and I barely made it back through a snowstorm on Sunday.
I went to Switzerland in May. I got off to a rough start there, losing my wallet right after buying my train tickets. I wasn’t able to buy any lunch, and I looked for it a bit before going on to the place I was to stay (I’d paid for everything there in advance). Switzerland is stunning. I enjoyed the hiking a lot and met some super nice people who helped me out. I also had the worst allergies of my life. I got my wallet back about three weeks after I got home. Blog link:
http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/travel-blog/2022/6/13/hiking-the-swiss-alps-with-a-shocking-twist
The final big trip was a road trip to Acadia National Park in Maine. I hiked there for 5 days. The hiking is tough – lots of steep and rocky climbs, and the scenery only so-so for someone like me, but it was a good adventure, and I was finally healthy enough to run every day while there as well (average hike was 4.5 hours). Blog link:
http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/travel-blog/2022/9/24/acadia-2022-hiking-test
I was able to do short trips to Keuka Lake, New York City, Philly, and back to DC.
YouTube links:
https://youtu.be/TChNzhnAsUY Acadia video
https://youtu.be/P_bqJF4pqNA Swiss slide show
https://youtu.be/wzJl0b4P2nY Swiss video
https://youtu.be/OBahqmW3Yng Antarctica video
https://youtu.be/89pMM-kqD0E Antarctica slideshow - the most beautiful photos I have ever seen.
The most scenic areas I have ever been:
1. The Antarctic Peninsula. On a sunny day, nothing comes close
2. The Grand Canyon. Overwhelming in scope
3. Yosemite National Park
4. The Icefields Parkway (Alberta, Canada)
5. Remote Iceland
6. Svalbard
7. Aoraki, New Zealand
8. Yellowstone
9. Chilean Patagonia
10. Kicking Horse Resort, BC, Canada
Books: After a disappointing 2021, I had high hopes for 2022, but other than my trip to Antarctica, where there were days at sea with not much to do, I still didn’t read many books. I continue to read the New Yorker (awesome) and the Atlantic (improving), which take up a lot of time. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, Mir Tamim Ansary, an enjoyable history of things seldom taught here. Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You, Rachel Heller and Amir Levine, which was indeed helpful. The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel. I loved her style and this trilogy. Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney. I thought her first two books were masterpieces, but this one took the bloom off the rose and made me question my judgment, especially when I tried to watch the series. The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, Louis Menand. Mr. Menand is a national treasure, but this book did me in for months. I finally gave up on reading it all during the long section on poetry criticism, but most of it is excellent. Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System, Alex Karakatsanis. This book makes so much sense and exposes so much wrong with our system of justice, everyone should read it. He fails to supply any alternatives, though it would seem almost any other way would be better. The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Care Crisis with Strategies that Work…, Vivian S. Lee. Decent look at how our messy health system can work better for everyone while costing much less. Barracoon, Zora Neale Hurston. This is a rough go. It is about the last living survivor of the Clotilda, the last ship to try to bring slaves to the USA, now the basis of a series from National Geographic, available on Hulu, and “Descendant” on Netflix. His tale is harrowing at best, and it is told in a controversial way in the book, but we all should know about these elements of our history.
Music: The biggest impact on music for me was Musikfest. I loved 4 of the acts and still listen to them all the time. Hot4Robot is a Lehigh Valley band who were skilled live and put out a great album last year. Every song is fantastic, but I really love “Just Human”. Conor and the Wild Hunt is principally a young and charismatic man with a folksy singer-songwriter vibe. Matt Nakoa is a blues pop sensation, wickedly talented with accessible piano and electric guitar-based songs. Hard to understand how he isn’t huge. Alex Cano is an earnest young rocker from New York state. The rest: Beabadoobee: “Beatopia” Clever and inventive pop from a young Asian living in the UK. Maggie Rogers: “Surrender” Super talented and passionate. The Joy Formidable: “Into the Blue” continuing innovative rock and roll, saw them in Philly in October. MUNA: “MUNA” Not always my cup of tea. The Goo Goo Dolls: “Chaos in Bloom” Surprisingly good. Grant-Lee Philips: “All You Can Dream” lovely songs with the best lyrics you will find. Saw him in Philly. Try “Cut to the Ending”. Feeder: “Torpedo” Another Welsh rock band, very catchy, but not as much variety as prior. Recent releases: my hero, Phoebe Bridgers, “So Much Wine” a holiday EP. The Black Crowes: “1972” a rocking EP of originals and great covers. Tegan and Sara: “Crybaby” Not quite as catchy, but need to hear it more.
Amusements: I didn’t complete a single jigsaw puzzle this year. I did do the Spelling Bee game at the NYTimes website every day I had internet access and missed “genius” status only thrice (tired from traveling). Way too many reels on Dachshunds. My own video of me throwing axes with my coworker Mo, shot by his girlfriend Liz (with the key “Nice!” at the end), attracted way more interest than I could imagine, with 24,000 views and 507 likes on Instagram. I listen to few podcasts, but I did my first one for Moravian University. It turned out great: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-em97v-122ddae I am contemplating doing my own. I would like to call it “Futurist Curmudgeon and Storyteller".”
Funny story: One hike I did in Switzerland required a return trip on a train. I had hiked fast to make it to the station about 15 minutes early. My calf hurt, so I had not been running, but I could walk with only mild discomfort. There was no one there. The train I needed only came once an hour. I looked around and thought it would come to the other side of the tracks, which had a small station with a toilet and was reached by walking through a tunnel. I went over there and ate a snack. I noticed a button to push to signal the train to stop and hit it about 5 minutes before it was scheduled to come in. All set. I heard it coming, so I got up and stood on the siding. It came around the turn and PULLED INTO THE OTHER SIDE! I immediately started running as fast as I could to the tunnel and through it, not wanting to wait there another hour! I felt my calf strain more but kept running up from the tunnel to the train. I hit the door opening button. It didn’t work. I looked at the train and figured out only the first two cars were open, ran to them and got the door open. I rushed inside and sat down, all out of breath. I was the only person in the car, and it left right away. I made it and had a good laugh. The people I had started the hike with missed the train under similar circumstances 2 hours later and were late for dinner.
Quotes: I apologize in not being able to recall the exact origins of several of the quotes below. There is an emphasis on power, perhaps appropriately. Who we choose to give it to and how we choose will be the great challenge to humanity of the next 50 years.
Me: “I have all the tools to have an extraordinary life, so I get tired of doing ordinary things.”
The New Yorker :“perhaps the most destabilizing aspect of the #MeToo revelations was learning that the movies themselves - which I had taken to be reflections of universal aesthetic norms, maybe even of biological or “hardwired” realities - were largely the imaginative products of a small group of sex criminals.”
Wendell Berry: “Take a simpleton and give him power and confront him with intelligence – and you have a tyrant.”
Me: “I am definitely a glass half full kind of guy. I just want more in the glass.”
James Burnham: “The Machiavellians (that is, the realists) are the only people who understand the truth about power: that ‘the primary object, and practice, of all rulers is to serve their own interests, to maintain their own power and privilege. There are no exceptions.’”
O’Brien: “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”
The Atlantic: “In fact, our natural state is dissatisfaction, punctuated by brief moments of satisfaction. You might not like the hedonic treadmill, but Mother Nature thinks it is pretty great.”
George Kennan: “Totalitarianism takes advantage of people’s weaknesses: it manipulates the irrational sides of their nature. What preserves us from being manipulated is the recognition that although we are imperfect, our problems are susceptible to solution by rational processes, and should be approached so and solved.”
Me: “This country is truly divided, but it isn’t Democrat vs Republican or Progressive vs Conservative. It is between those who want to cooperate to make a better world and the selfish.”
http://terence-orourkejr.squarespace.com/religionpolitics/2022/5/7/the-rise-of-the-jerk
W.E.B DuBois: “There was no Nazi atrocity which the Christian civilization of Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race.”
Sonke Johnsen: “The thought of light traveling billions of years from distant galaxies only to be washed out in the last billionth of a second by the glow from the nearest strip mall depresses me to no end.”
Casanova: “Mad are those who think the Supreme Being could ever enjoy the sorrow, pain and abstinence they offer up to him in sacrifice.”
Alec Karakatsanis: “You can’t shut out climate change the way a gated community shuts out crime, litter, or traffic. It’s a delusion to think that we can harm the whole planet without suffering too much ourselves.”
Me: “Medicines only make you less unhealthy. To be healthy, in the accepted sense, is more about managing your environment, what you put in your body, how you use your body, and your attitudes and thoughts.”
Alec Karakatsanis: “The groups who wield power in our society benefit from the punishment bureaucracy. It privileges their private property, their racial supremacy, their jobs, their voting rights, and their segregated neighborhoods.”
“One effect of the Republican assault on elections- which takes the form, naturally, of the very thing Republicans accuse Democrats of doing: rigging the system – might be to open our eyes to how undemocratic our democracy is. Strictly speaking, American government has never been a government ‘by the people.’”
Bob Dylan: “People talk about trying to change society. All I know is that so long as people stay so concerned about protecting their status and protecting what they have, ain’t nothing going to be done.”
Me: When asked what talents I have (answer somewhat in jest – wink), “It would be easier to list the things I am not good at.” Those things, by the way, include sleeping, relaxing, remembering names, playing an instrument, foreign languages
“The most magnificent of rebels find themselves thrown into the arms of another orthodoxy. The high school punk rejects the culture of the mainstream only to embrace a subculture with norms no less exacting; how different a goth looks from everyone else, and yet how similar to every other goth. It is no surprise that it should be so; we need other people to be anybody at all.
Giorgio Parisi, and Italian physicist:” I don’t think the planet is in danger, but we are.”
I will draw to a close now. I hope your year was great and next year is even better. Try to help those around you to have better years as well.
Address: 305 Prospect Ave, Apt. 411, Bethlehem, PA 18018. tlojrmd@gmail.com 570-238-2084