Sylvia's Journal

Here’s some perspective taking – a useful technique I learned in my coach training, that was triggered by the comparison of the number of deaths (in the US) due to COVID-19 and deaths during the entire Vietnam war. At this first week of May 2020 it is about the same, 58,000 or so. It made me think about other parts of that comparison that may be true as well (recognizing that 60 years ago we were in a man-made catastrophe, a little different from this force of nature that has hit us now): 

At a societal level:

• people were anxious and angry
• when your number came up, you could lose your life
• a generational divide about how to act, what to do or not to do, accompanied by estrangement within families based on one’s views
• an economic recession
• a deep polarization in society.

At a (geo)political level there were then, and still are now, some things that are eerily similar:

• a president considered incompetent by many
• officials at the highest levels lying through their teeth
• fierce battles between the White House and the so-called liberal media
• a cry to battle competitors to the ‘America First’ position (USSR then, China now)
• reluctance if not outright obstruction to the strategy of ‘tax and spend’ to help citizens traverse the turbulence
• election strategies focused on disenfranchising those who don’t support the president’s agenda 
• open warfare between the White House and Capitol Hill. 

And finally, there are the historical wounds that do not want to go away and that are still releasing pus:

• state rights versus federal rights
• vengefulness due to forced desegregation and all the other judgments about the denizens of ‘the (elitist) north’ and ‘the common (white) men of the south.’.

And then there is the long hair – this time not a statement about one’s political philosophy but rather a result of the closing of barbers and hair salons.

Here is a little tidbit culled from the archives of the House of Representative. With some minor changes in words and names, it was easy for me to see that we are not entirely on unfamiliar grounds. 

The 91st Congress (1969–1971) faced several daunting challenges: an unpopular war in Vietnam, race riots in the cities, a rising crime rate, and an economic recession. College campuses erupted in protest when President Richard Nixon ordered U.S. troops into Cambodia and escalated the Vietnam War. Congress defeated the President’s attempt to change welfare policy, and rejected two of Nixon’s nominees to the Supreme Court. As animosity mounted between the White House and Capitol Hill, Congress reorganized itself in 1970 to foster transparency with new voting rules, a new budget process, and a more professional staff. (source)

We have made it through that time half a century ago. We will make it again through this one. And maybe, 60 years from now, people will look back at this time as a period that created the most amazing music, and the teenagers then wished they hadn’t missed it.

History, and life, consist of cycles, with suffering and wonderment traipsing rigth alongside each other.