Two responses to my last blog got me thinking. That, in itself (getting me to think that is), has to be a ‘hold the presses’ moment. Unlike my youth, when my mind was agile and even imaginitive, it usually takes a ton or two of explosives to crank up any measurable cranial activity these days. Every damn time my ear doc peeks into my auditory canal I expect to hear ‘OMG… I can see straight through to the other side.’

But to the responses! A close friend emailed me that, based on what I had written last time, I am surely Dr. Doom and Gloom. The other response of note was from another blogger whom I don’t know personally but who chided me (gently) for doing my ‘liberal propoganda’ thing (again). I used to get attacked on Facebook for that all the time, usually by Trump devotees until I was served with a lifetime banishment for telling bad jokes. But those FB critics were brainwashed cult members for the most part. This gentleman is thoughtul and writes with a style I can only envy but hardly emulate. I value his opinion.

Now, the ‘doom and gloom’ label is acurate and beyond dispute. Like I have said way too many times, I am Irish and subject to melancholy (along with an irrepressible sense of humor) which is part and parcel of the ethnic territory. Perhaps several centuries of crushed Celtic dreams has something to do with that. Whatever the cause, we do tend to walk around followed by a dark cloud and a dry wit (probably a defense mechansim).

However, I must say that I am much better than I used to be. As a young man, while affable and witty on the outside, I was pretty dark on the inside. If given a toggle switch where one side would painlessly end the human experiment and the other side would permit the antics of homo-sapiens to continue, I favored the off switch (or the end it all side) through college. I really couldn’t see the point of it all. Eventually, I found some solace and hope in the evolutionary writings of Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit priest who spent most of his life in China but was a scholar at heart. Through his vision, I began the journey toward a limited sense of optimism. By the way, I found Teilhard quite useful in other ways. I seduced one young lady merely by mentioning that he was a favorite thinker of mine. Nothing else ever worked, so he was now one of my favorites bar none.

In truth, I have recovered from the depth of my ‘doom and gloom’ persona that dominated my youth. I have also stepped back from my crippling sense of self doubt as a younger person. I always thought the other guys were smarter, sexier, and certainly better athletes than I. The athlete thing might have been true since I was usually the last neighborhood kid picked for any team … AFTER the kid in a wheelchair. It took years but I slowly (glacially) realized there were people dumber than me out there. I had a hard time believing that but apparently it was true. (The species is doomed, doomed I say.)

Oddly enough, I can still recall the moment I edged my way from my total doom and gloom perspective on life. I actually wrote a Master’s Thesis on taking an evolutionary view of social progress over the long haul. I made the argument that we were now in another transitional stage of development like the introduction of urban life or agriculture or the onset of the industrial and scientific age (this was back in 1970). They gave me a degree for this crap which, as I think about it, probably was their version of a social promotion. No matter, during one of our late night (and beer fueled) dialogues that seemed non stop, I yet recall waxing eloquent on the histiry of human progress and suddenly sweeping my arm toward the ceiling to indicate a transformative change. I recall stoping at that very moment and saying (to myself). Did I just do that … say that? Just who the hell is this optimist?

The ‘liberal lackey’ assertion (my label, not his) is more complex and, to my mind, more meaningful. I’m convinced that I was hard wired in that direction. I grew up in an ethnic, working class neighborhood where everyone was a Democrat. The Republicans were the WASPS who lived in the wealthy part of town and made life difficult for our tribe. My only contact with them (as a kid) was when I caddied for a summer at the Worcester Country Club. But it took me three busses to get to that part of town and the cheap bastards didn’t tip well. It wasn’t until high school (St. John’s Prep at the time) that I met some of their sons (those from successful Catholic families that is).

Now, you have to understand this. Though my tribe were all Democrats, they were socially conservative. My people seemed to have a complex hierarchy of hates … against blacks, Hispanics, Jews etc. I won’t even go to what they thought of gays, etc. But it went beyond that. They had a hierarchy of ethnicities within their own white, Catholic tribe. My Polish mother had a pecking order where she had a place where each other nationality was to be situated. The Poles were at the top while the Italians, French, Greeks and so forth were considered semi-barbarians to be tolerated. Of all the people I knew in those days, my father wasn’t too bad in this regard though he did despise the Brits (as all good Irishmen did).

Now to the $100 dollar question. How did a kid who grew up in such an insular and provincial cultural bubble develop so many wild ideas? You might be asking … what wild ideas? Well, at age 12 or so, I recall arguing with visitors (to the elderly Lithuaniian couple that owned our flat) from Virginia. I firmly took the position that the Supreme Court ruling that integrated public schools was the right thing to do.

Where the hell did that come from? No one in my neighborhood would argue such. I remember thinking that we should share our agricultural bounty with the world since, again, it was the right thing to do. I only joined two ‘clubs’ as a kid. One was the Boston Celtics Junior Booster Club (I was a huge fan of Bob Cousey) and something called the World Federalist Society. What? No one in my world even knew who these guys were though, thinking back, it probably was a Communist front organization. But to me, working toward a unified political globe just made total sense. Perhaps I am an alien and the mother ship will soon return to fetch me.

Yet, until college, I was divided within. I didn’t have an integreated perspective on things. So, I recall the Cuban Missile Crisis which occured during my Seminary days when I was in training to become a Catholic missionary priest. As we teetered on the edge of a nuclear disaster, I recall thinking that I would leave the seminary, join the military, and return when the world was safe for Democracy. Wow, who was that young patriot?

At the same time, I was most proud of the Maryknoll priests and nuns (my order) who were on the sides of the peasants and the oppressed in Central and South America. Some of these missionaries practiced ‘liberation theology,’ a decidedly left-wing version of Christ’s teachings. I left the seminary when I realized I was more interested in saving the poor of the world socially and economically than in saving their souls. Sometimes it takes a while to figure things out.

College was the first time I experienced life outside my Catholic, provincial world. By dint of circustance, I did not go to a Catholic college (as expected) but to Clark University. It was in my town. Therefore, I didn’t have to worry about room and board and could therefore afford such a private school though grants, loans, and working 11-7 in a hospital. However, Clark was known as a den of atheists and Communists among the Catholic community. Despite what conservatives say, no one tried to indoctrinate me to become a radical or leftist. All they did was expose me to a wider world of ideas and perspectives. My mind literally exploded, a feeling I yet treasure.

Again, I can recall one particular moment when I transistioned from my old world to a new one. I had been tapped as one of the up and coming Psychology majors and awarded a National Science Foundation Summer grant to do original research. It was designed to motivate and prepare promising scholars for a future in the academy. (Note: It backfired. At the end of my summer I had to kill all my subjects, a bunch of rats. When I stuck the needle into the stomach of one large rodent, he peed in my face. That was the end of my psych career.)

Again, I’ve digressed. One of the other students with such an award was properly motivated. He went on to Harvard for his Ph.D. (I was encouraged to do the same but my crippling self doubt would not permit that). We must have shared a common space for our summer work. One day, we did nothing on our projects but rather started talking about the war in Vietnam. This was very early on, but he already was opposed. I yet held on to my lock-step views from my Catholic cocoon and argued with him. We went at it all day, back and forth. At the end, we agreed to disagree. But, as I walked home that night, I knew he had won. He was right and I was the one who had to change. It was not long before I was leading the left wing, or what passed as left wing then, on campus. I even joined SDS (remember them?) but before they had devolved into a sad form of nihilistic self-destruction.

The more I think on this, the more evident it is that this is where I was destined to be. Yes, nature, or one’s environment, pay a part in our development but I have come to believe that we are given certain cards at birth. Some of us need certainty while others can acommodate risk, new ideas, and love nuanced thinking. We love to think things through and arrive at our own belief systems. Shedding early scripts is never easy but, I now believe, inevitable for some of us. I was going to find my moral compass one way or another.

Clearly, this is a big topic and I have places to go and things to do. But I will pick this theme up again, and then maybe again. The notion of how one forms a world view or personal zeitgeist, and how culture shapes such, intrigues me. Unfortunately you will have to suffer along with me as I explore what intriques me.

You will thank me later!