Ladders

By Paul T. Jackson, Steilacoom.

A few years ago when I went out to change the hardware of the porch lamp, I realized I needed a ladder, and had borrowed one before from my ex-wife who lived 15 miles away. Light bulb jokes aside, this new occasion was, it turned out, just to change a light bulb, and thinking again, I’d ask my ex-wife, it could be a way to say, “I’m still depending on you,” or “I still love and need you.”  As I was about to call to ask the ex-wife again, I thought perhaps it would be easier just to ask the neighbor. He must have a ladder, after all, he’s got a boat, a riding lawn mower, and a dog; he must have a ladder. I was grateful he did, and he graciously loaned it.

The more I reflected on this, the more I was reminded of the small farms in Michigan where I grew up. In the 1950s everyone had their own tractor, but most farmers had only a few of the tractor accessories; cutters, bailers, post diggers, potato diggers, silage loaders, branch chippers, log splitters. The reason was, they were all family or relatives and shared their equipment. When it was time to harvest something, the dads, sons, uncles, cousins, and some of us village folk would get together and with the sharing of machines and family power, we would go from farm to farm and bring in the harvest. They were a hardy and fun bunch of people and just for lunch at the farmhouse harvest table, you would think it was Thanksgiving, and maybe it was…every day. I know it was like a celebration and everyone was grateful for so many things; maybe the machines didn’t break down, the harvest was all taken care of, it was fun being with all these folks and the thing we call camaraderie. 

Now, with some 23 million Americans cocooning; living alone, watching movies on their own VCR, DVD, HDTV alone, cooking alone, being in their homes alone, night after night like Howard Hughes, we have this phenomenon of everyone having all their own tools, their own toys, their own ladders. 

Few of us know our neighbors or appear to want to know our neighbors. I’m wondering if this is out of fear that we might find ourselves unwelcome or fear to reveal ourselves to others. It appears a lot of our tools and equipment end up in the garage sales, auctions and thrift stores, as rapidly, it seems, as our skin sheds its dead cells. Does this tell us something about ourselves?  Perhaps it tells us that we buy a lot of unnecessary stuff. Maybe it tells us when we get rid of it, how much it was really worth, and how guilty we feel now for having purchased the item in the first place. It should tell us how we have lost our sense of community; by a lack of sharing. Not only because we are not sharing our tools, but by not sharing our needs, our sicknesses, our happiness and joys and our gratitude.

Not too long before his death, I heard Robert Theobald, the futurist and an economist; considered one of the top 10 futurists, talk about his initiative for “resilient communities,” and what we must do to change the dangerous trends in our global society and culture. His vision was for a process of re-vitalizing communities, outlining the reasons and requirements in his book, The Healing Century, emanating from a speech. His work continues with his former partner Bob Stilger and his new organization, New Stories, enabling people to work together to promote “resiliency” at personal, family, community and ecological levels, and create new stories assets. Theobald’s work is based on his perception that there is a need to change the present model of making more, having more acquisitions and power, and come together to define a new way of living in a higher vision of human purpose of relationships.

One year I responded in a magazine to a question about how to be resilient. My answer was that people are resilient because they have to be. I saw this with my son’s father-in-law who had lost his mother, his wife and his daughter all within a month. My response led to a presentation about resilience I gave to a large national group of librarians, many losing their corporate jobs due to downsizing and mergers, not because of anything they were lacking.

Scott Peck in Different Drum talks about his attempts at building community; that feeling a group of people can build, like the summer camp experience, when it’s over, we feel a loss for it was a real experience in sharing, and most of us who have experienced this have a great deal of gratitude in being able to participate.

James Ogilvy sees a similar problem as he relates in his book, Living Without a Goal, and suggests that we live as a journey aware of our relationships and like the scientists such as Stephen Hawkins who saw the world and the universe as a systemic one — with connections to all.

It would appear that a lot of people, not just big names, authors, and economists, are coming to the same conclusions that we cannot sustain the wealth without somehow sharing it, and making everyone’s life and purpose apparent in relationships. 

I was involved in one community effort in ‘futuring’ for 2001. In groups we talked in terms of what was right with the city and what we would like to continue and what we would like to improve. The futuring process is about realizing one’s good assets as much as it is about strategic planning for the future, and this creates the right climate for good things to happen, although they may not because we get bogged down again in planning for the future instead of living in it. In the case of this city, their library came out on top of the good things about the city, but when it came to funding it, they lost considerable support.

It seems to the question of “should we be grateful?” it is like resilience. It’s something that happens, not something we choose. I’m currently dealing with cancer, but I’m grateful I have a wonderful wife who deals with my every day emotions. I’ve known at least one person who gave up on treatment because he didn’t like the life it gave him. I don’t know if he was grateful in his dying or not. I can say with honesty that many of us with cancer have thought about giving up on treatments. 

Gratefulness it seems, is just one of the emotions. It’s something we feel. Throughout the ages, philosophers have been writing about emotions, trying to get a handle on what causes those things; things like love, gratefulness—concepts of feelings. Spinoza, Hobbes, Damascene, Aquinas, all, look at passion as the movement of the sensitive appetite when we imagine good or evil. Do we choose gratefulness by saying, “I’m grateful,” or do I feel it first, and then say it. 

Do we feel pleasure? Are we appreciative? What are the actions which bring these feelings about? Is it cognizance of the mind, some apriority sense that this is good, fun, enjoyable? Is it outside actions which cause us to feel satisfaction, agreeability, or satisfied? I’m certainly gratified by my wife’s generous spirit toward others, and I think there are many grateful responses to others who do things for us…like loaning ladders. Someone has quipped, “If you can’t be grateful for what you receive, be grateful for what you escape.”

I remember traveling with my family, driving through a snow storm trying to get to our destination for Thanksgiving. We were traveling on the Interstate highway quite a while and it was getting dark. We then ran into what was a real blizzard, with lots of snow covering up the roadway and making it difficult to follow the road. One car followed a state trooper’s car into the ditch in front of us. I tried to stay alert and follow any sign of a snowplow marks along the side of the road. It was tough going and very slow; sometimes following other tail lights, or when they were too slow, passing them and leading others behind us. At some point, the blizzard let up, and we were able to see the way more clearly ahead of us. I teared up and cried, thankful and so very grateful we got through the storm with no accident or being in the way of anyone else trying to make their way on this time of vacations.

Perhaps someday I will have an open house or a block party to see who owns a ladder in our current neighborhood. I remember my dad organizing a neighborhood party in just about every neighborhood we moved to. I may have been too young or too busy to know if camaraderie was born, or if the neighbors were grateful for the visiting, but I do know it was fun and a good memory about my dad, for which I’m grateful.