Author Archives: Tin Man

Global Competitiveness?

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This op-ed about American decline by the Times’s token conservative, Ross Douthat, bothers me — particularly this part:

[I]nstead of seeking a new post-Reagan consensus, the Obama Democrats are returning to their party’s long-running pursuit of European-style social democracy — by micromanaging industry, pouring money into entitlement and welfare programs, and binding the economy in a web of new taxes and regulations.

These policies may help smooth over the inequalities that have opened in our national life since the 1970s. But they threaten to cost America its position in the world along the way.

Social democracy has its benefits, but global competitiveness isn’t one of them.

Is he seriously arguing that America’s “position in the world,” its “global competitiveness,” is more important than the well-being of our citizens? Pundits are always saying that it’s deathly important that we not let other countries get ahead of us, without explaining why we should care. Is it really so crucial that we be Number One in the world? What’s wrong with just being happy?

Why do these people have to make everything a competition?

I seriously wonder whether I’m missing something, because I just don’t get it.

Sadness

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I don’t know whether I’m more susceptible to sadness than other people or whether I just don’t deal with sadness well when it happens. Either way, I always find this to be one of the saddest times of the year. It’s not just that I’m back at work after taking off the week of Christmas and New Year’s. It’s that the entire holiday season has ended. Most of November and December is filled with with Christmas lights, and holiday music, and holiday parties, and then suddenly… it’s January and it all disappears. I’ve always wondered why people have to take down their Christmas lights and decorations right when we’re entering the depths and darkness of winter. It makes it so much worse.

What made yesterday even harder was that I was tired all day. On Saturday night I had a little gathering to belatedly celebrate my birthday, which was nice and cozy — a small group of us sitting at a banquette in a bar. But for some reason I slept horribly when we got home. I tossed and turned all night. So yesterday I was not only depressed but also exhausted. We didn’t do much in the afternoon, and then I took a nap around 4:00, and when I woke up it was dark out. And it was about 19 degrees outside. I felt like I had wasted the last day of my vacation.

I salvaged the evening a bit. I took a shower and got dressed and went out for a quick walk up Broadway to try and shake off the melancholy and torpor, stopping briefly in a small bookstore and then picking up a few groceries on the way home. Then Matt and I ordered in dinner and watched some Sunday night TV together; Fox’s Sunday night animation lineup is always good for some laughs.

I’m still very sleepy today, which is bringing me down. But I’m trying to remember to focus on the present instead of mourning the past or worrying about the future, and to feel gratitude for good experiences. For instance, the five days we spent with Matt’s family in the Chattanooga exurbs last week were really lovely and relaxing, especially the day we visited Lookout Mountain and Signal Mountain and the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel. I know that the future, too, contains good experiences that I can’t foresee, and I will try to appreciate them when they happen, and to be thankful for them.

When I was 18, my family visited Israel. At the Western Wall in Jerusalem, it’s customary to write a prayer on a piece of paper and stick it in the cracks of the wall. Before we went to the wall, I ripped a page out of my diary — which was my own special and sacred book — and wrote a short note to God. Instead of asking for something specific, I just asked for happiness. What I have always wanted more than anything in the world is just to be happy.

My New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to try to be happier, even in moments of sadness.