{"id":25303,"date":"2022-03-25T15:54:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T19:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=25303"},"modified":"2022-03-25T15:55:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T19:55:14","slug":"the-simple-decency-the-common-sense-relief-of-just-remembering-to-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/the-simple-decency-the-common-sense-relief-of-just-remembering-to-smile\/","title":{"rendered":"The Simple Decency, the Common-Sense Relief, of Just Remembering to Smile"},"content":{"rendered":"
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[Image: “Gym Dandy,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page<\/a> at <\/em>RAMH.) This was a recent entry<\/a> in my “#jesstorypix” series on Instagram. The caption there reads: “What Hari disliked most about going to the gym wasn’t the tedium of the workouts or the questionable hygienic practices evident in the shower room. No, it was the balletic precision of the bodybuilders at the free-weights rack, who sometimes fell unconsciously into synchrony with one another — reminding Hari, with each identically flexed bicep, that he shared synchrony with no one at all, in or out of the gym\u2026”]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My default email sig, years ago, was a sorta-popular quotation from George Bernard Shaw: Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh<\/em>. Eventually I stopped using it because, as was almost bound to happen, it ended up at the bottom of a message of condolence to somebody or other (I forget whom). I was mortified, but the horse — as they say — was already out of the barn, past recall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, I no longer use that sig. But I still cling to the sentiment behind it to get me through the day, any day. It’s the sentiment which a whiskey river<\/a><\/em> quotation echoed in recent days, less epigrammatically maybe but also — and maybe therefore — much more gently:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.<\/p>

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. <\/p>

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now<\/em> as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Howard Zinn, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress<\/em> [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I can live happily with that thought. It’s not denial, it’s the opposite of denial; it’s open-mindedness, open-eyed<\/em>ness, consciousness that the world (animal, vegetable, mineral) has never been and never will be binary. When I’m tempted to think otherwise, I’ve fallen into a trap which Garrison Keillor recently alluded to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some morning I’ll get out of bed with an awful aching in my head and can’t find my shoes and I’ll say, “Good morning, blues,” but not this morning, I made coffee, it tasted fine, not at all like turpentine, and my good woman hasn’t left me, she’s right here, and as Solomon said, “The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong,” so do your best to be lucky. Say what you will, life is good. Newspapers don’t report this, just as they don’t report that the sun comes up in the east and H and C stand for Hot and Cold — you’re supposed to know these things. And you do. I know you do.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Garrison Keillor [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That. You get that, right? I’ve often said — in real life, not just online or in my mind: It’s called “news” because it’s not the norm<\/em>. On the contrary, it’s the exception. And when you turn away from the “news” now offered you 24×7, then you can finally see at least the outlines of the real world: <\/p>\n\n\n\n