Hidden in a Safe Place

Recently, I had an interesting epiphany.  It’s strange how the universe seems to provide messages that can be construed as either cryptic or unambiguous.  However, no matter how the messaging is ultimately interpreted, it is still, nonetheless, a sign.  Now some don’t believe in that sort of unconventional thinking, therefore, it is often quickly dismissed and replaced by the more stereotypical and ordinary comforts of familiarity.  And yet, it leads one to wonder if it is the universe providing the signs or if it is intuition that is inherently persistent.  As we are programmed to diminish those “signs” by labelling them as erroneous thereby making them instantly unimportant and trivial. Today, it would seem that it is the universe that is desperately trying to get our collective attention.  Hurling challenges, some of pandemic proportion, one after the other providing compelling evidence that it does not intend to stop any time soon.  We can blame it on one challenging year that rolled into another, or we can simply rely on the prevailing standby of just blaming others for any unsolicited difficulties that become wedged between us and our version of normalcy.  Or.  We can do the unthinkable and consider the possibility that we are controlling all of it.

My recent epiphany, as they often do, was figuratively handed to me.  Being an intrinsically unconventional thinker, I accepted the message that was actually meant to be delivered by UPS, however, I have surmised, that it was very likely the universe that was speaking to me.  I run.   Probably not very well, yet I still find myself fully dedicated to a sport that has often and invariably left me sidelined holding a bottle of ibuprofen in one hand while my other hand applies ice to my elevated feet as I nurse, again, chronic foot injuries. It’s a familiar pattern for me.  I know what I should and shouldn’t do to avoid a painful injury, and yet, I continue to repeat the pattern that more often than not renders me incapable of walking let alone running.  If you are also a runner, you get it.  If you are not a runner then it might be difficult to explain that even though running is physically demanding, it is still somehow mentally fulfilling, until of course it’s not, which is why breaking up with it is complicated.  Over many years, I’ve narrowed down all of my chronic foot problems to my running shoes which finally brings us to my long-awaited epiphany.  As I scoured the internet for the best running shoes money can buy on a budget for an assist in combatting my newest injury, I landed on a shoe that seemed to fit the bill well enough.  So.  Under the dueling pressure of both anxiety from not running and a swollen and throbbing tendon gifted to me courtesy of running, I pulled the proverbial trigger and purchased the magical running shoes that would, without a doubt, get me quickly back on the road pain-free.  But alas, it would seem that the universe had other ideas.

Let me just save some time and cut to the extraordinarily anticlimactic chase.  It’s hard to know whether it was the universe’s cosmic messaging system or my generally reliable intuition that was monumentally malfunctioning, but the magical running shoes seem to have been directionally challenged en route to my house.  This, of course, prolonged my inability to participate in the sport that I rely upon for the primary purpose of sanity.  With my anxiety now fully peaked, I slowly limped to the door to see if the UPS driver had managed to drop something on my front porch without my trusty guard dog hearing.  He had not.  And as any frantically logical person would naturally conclude, there had to be some kind of hidden message in the lack of delivery.  Perhaps it was the universe’s way of forcing me to break free of my familiar pattern by preventing me from running and doing further damage.  No shoes, no run.  But without knowing for sure exactly what UPS and the universe were playing at, I grabbed my computer and carefully reviewed my order to see if I could locate my undelivered, and presumably lost, shoes.   And there it was.  In the order’s delivery history on the vendor’s website, it stated that the shoes were delivered, however, they were ‘hidden in a safe place’.  Truth be told, and at this point you can well imagine, I’m not all that interested, or even physically capable, in playing hide and seek.  The shoes were allegedly hidden so well that they could not be found only to later be revealed that they were, in fact, never really even delivered.    It begs a confounding question that has nothing to do with running or even my injured feet for that matter, and that is what else could possibly be hiding in ‘a safe place’ with the expectation of never being found?

Without realizing it, we probably already know the answer to that question.  Dr. Seuss said, “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”  That’s probably true, however, there is no doubt that we, as a society, have become equally proficient at mucking up the answers just as skillfully as the questions themselves.  Besides my running shoes — which, in case you were wondering, eventually did show up only to be quickly sent back due in large part to the fact that they were the equivalent of strapping two stiff boards to my already compromised feet – I have been introspectively distracted by the recent surge in what has been coined ‘cancel culture’.  It doesn’t really matter what side of this particular fence you decide to secure your post, one strong gust of wind and all of the posts are collapsing anyway.  Like most things, we get so caught up in the protest that oftentimes we don’t remember or even know what the fight is really about.  Dr. Seuss said, “You’ll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond Z and start poking around.”  So then, let’s take his advice and do some poking.

Even Dr. Seuss has garnered some controversy and negative attention in recent weeks, coincidentally and conveniently around his birthday, as some of his previously revered life’s work has found itself sandwiched between the predictable righteousness of political crosshairs.  Of course, it is always much easier and probably more satisfying to attack those who are no longer here to defend themselves but, I digress.  Maybe he would accept the criticism or maybe he would push back and defend his work with a rhyme.  That is something we will never know.  Maybe he would say, “I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you.”  Maybe, after we have expended our self-righteous criticisms of Dr. Seuss, an author who undeniably and quite successfully spoke to children through his seemingly lighthearted stories in a comprehensive and fun way that has been, until recently, universally accepted and understood.  It’s hard to not consider this particular moment in time and how it might look illustrated through the lens of a prolific children’s author such as Dr. Seuss.   Having also been a political cartoonist, I suppose it is no wonder, or even shocking, that there would be an undercurrent motivated by politics deeply embedded within many of his stories.  Maybe he would say again, “I meant what I said and I said what I meant.”  Who knows?  Perhaps he meant to ruffle a few feathers.  Or maybe we are, again, being lured down the rabbit hole so that we can play another rousing game of hot potato with the latest sensationalized political football. 

This, of course, is not a new conversation.  The only thing different is the newest target of a divided country’s ire whose recent unceremonious fall from grace only further illustrates the abysmal-sized chasm that runs deep among society members.  Apparently most have no real appetite to participate in the steps necessary to heal such a fragmented and fractured system, therefore, wounds have no other choice but to fester.  Today it would seem that ‘cancel culture’ has found a more permanent place in the spotlight.  It has easily become a heated topic of conversation for many who have gathered a large assortment of stones that they will likely not throw at their own glass house.  But what is ‘cancel culture’ anyway if not just a fundamentally disgruntled, and oftentimes inexplicable, example of righteous indifference?   Generally, ‘cancel culture’ is a misnomer that could be loosely described as a flagrant attempt to silence and suppress those people and things that we dislike, disagree with or do not fully understand.  Those people and things, like Dr. Seuss’ now damned stories, that were once previously considered to be acceptable, but are now the subject and cause of pandemonium.  Facts and accuracy do not appear to be a consideration, by the way, in these mostly unsubstantiated claims by those who routinely maintain a dubious relationship with the truth.  Liberalism, fascism, racism, socialism, or any other ‘ism’ actually, is nothing more than a belief system that, over time, becomes personal.  Dr. Seuss was a storyteller who fictitiously provided creative stories and illustrations of the world as it was presented to him.  Although his artistic medium was unique to him, his methods were not unusual.  Dr. Seuss said, “Reading can take you places you have never been before.”   But in order to go to enigmatic places and moments in time you have never been, there must also be a basic understanding that those moments already happened and are, in fact, unalterable.  That, of course, is often referred to as simply ‘history’.  History does not typically deviate from facts and circumstances although, as we have seen, its interpretation often lies in the eyes of its beholder.  Although it is true that hindsight affords us the benefit of reflection, it is also true at the same time that historical hindsight forces us to try to make sense and sort out both the sins and the successes of those who came before us.

In the beginning, American culture was really founded on the theory of the Melting Pot.  A theory that was built almost entirely around people who came in droves from many different countries around the world and converged onto, what was at the time, a new land bringing their cultures and ways of life with them.  Notwithstanding the fact that the Melting Pot Theory is not foolproof and has encountered its fair share of skepticism over the years, the substance of the theory cannot be easily discounted or ignored.  The trajectory of this mass, multicultural union has always been a precarious experiment and was destined to be contentious.  Although the idea is Utopian and fantastical, in practice as we have seen, it has proven to be fraught with the predictable resistance that one would naturally expect when a large collection of people, strangers who see the world through different lenses, are brought together to co-exist.  It is not hard to see that we haven’t really made any significant long-term forward progress as we continue to debunk a multi-century’s old theory primarily because we have not yet figured out how to accept and play well with others. 

Dr. Seuss said, “And this mess is so big and so deep and so tall, we cannot pick it up.  There is no way at all.”  Maybe he was right.  Although anyone who has read his work knows that he was obviously talking about kids home alone on a rainy day, who encountered a mischievous, oversized cat who inexplicably showed up out of nowhere to help them combat boredom by trashing their house.  Then just after enough damage was done and upon looking out the window, they could see their mother slow-walking towards the door.  The incorrigible cat quickly cleaned up the mess he made and then, as quickly as he arrived, he vanished leaving the kids both entertained and confused.  What just happened?  And that pretty much sums up how most of us feel everyday living in an unscrupulously contradictory society that has made normalcy an illusion and chaos a national blood sport.  We know that the ‘cancel culture’ debate is not really just about Dr. Seuss and one or two or six of his now controversial stories.  He just happens to be the newest scapegoat who has joined the ranks of those before him who also had a moving target on their back.  If all of that is true, then it would seem that everyone and everything is fair game and there is no safe place to hide.  The real question is who or what will be next on the chopping block?  The road of righteousness is as long as history itself.

For our part, we can dramatically and ceremoniously remove statues and monuments from what was intended to be their eternal resting place, art can be taken off of museum walls, library shelves can be stripped of books and, with enough opposition and momentum, even symbolic food labels that have been around for generations can be rebranded.  However, even with the most ardent and conveniently feigned acts of solidarity, the quest to rid ourselves of history is, and will always be, a fool’s errand as we continue to remain unsurprisingly and unequivocally divided.   In multi-century’s time and through many generational mutations, we have established patterns and behaviors that cannot be easily broken because the ink is concurrently drying in the books as fast as history itself is being written.  And even with the most fervent efforts to splice and dull its memory, it continues, as it always has, to remain unhidden regardless of how many edits it undergoes.  As we decidedly abdicate ourselves, along with our children, from teaching moments that only history can provide in exchange for essentially manufactured and artificial realities.  Because the truth is, history cannot be rewritten or erased simply because we don’t like the plot of the story.  In the end and even with grandiose attempts to selectively subvert and repress it, it is still inarguably and predictably history that has the last word. 

DISCLAIMER:  All quotes were found on parade.com and brainyquotes.com and are understood to be true statements referenced for the sole purpose of illustrating a point.  Quotes have been bolded and italicized to provide a delineation from the author’s personal perspective.