A Life Well Lived
And sandcastle politics
Lots of travel recently. Saw some big trees (and big bugs). Left the country for the first time since the pandemic. Sweated in DC and NYC. Celebrated in Chicago – where Anisa was the life of the party.
I’ve spent time in 48 of our nation’s states. Wandered the streets of Mumbai, Cairo, El Paso, Paris, London, Tegucigalpa, Mexico City, Jerusalem, Boise, Bangkok, Rio, Karachi. Seen the pyramids at dawn (on horseback), Petra, the Taj Mahal, trekked through the Hindu Kush, held my breath on harrowing overnight bus rides, floated rivers in the backcountry of Alaska. Eaten the most incredible meals on the sides of roads, in random doorways, in the highest brow of high-brow joints.
I have lived a great life and I look forward to sharing the experiences to come with my newest travel companion, Baby Girl. More on that in a minute.
What has me thinking about travel is the fact that the first draft of this Cranky Dad post began on a Finn Air flight, enroute to JFK after a two-day meeting in Gdańsk, Poland, of the More in Common Board of Directors – an organization that found its calling in the light of a political assassination that, today, feels like a blip on a screen of political awfulness.
Back in 2016, one week before the Brexit vote, Jo Cox, a Member of Parliament representing Batley and Spen, was murdered by Thomas Mair, a far-right extremist incensed by her support of refugees and opposition to the Leave campaign. Out of the tragedy came More in Common; an organization whose name is gleaned from her maiden speech to Parliament where she said, “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”
These days, More in Common works in the US, UK, France, Poland, Germany and Brazil, to, “understand the forces driving us apart, to find common ground and help to bring people together to tackle our shared challenges.” In other words, the organization helps us understand how democracies thrive – or weaken – in the crosscurrents of time.
Gdańsk was an important place for our discussions as the city has played an outsized role in shaping history. Over centuries, it has been Prussian, German, independent and, of course, Polish. The first shots of World War II were fired by Nazi battleships aimed at Polish soldiers on the Westerplatte Peninsula in Gdańsk. It is the birthplace of, “Solidarity, the independent Polish trade union that four decades ago started an avalanche of dissent that swept away Communism.” And, just last year, the Civil Coalition of centrists and progressives that defeated the authoritarian Law and Justice Party found their inspiration in Gdańsk.
During one of the briefings, a country director referred to the elections results we are living through as “sandcastle politics.” In other words, the victories are not durable as election cycles sweep away one party, only for the next party to build their sandcastle in the same place. At best, the outcomes are broad, but not deep. And, as we see in the United Kingdom and France, waves are coming from the left and the right.
I used to think of these shifts as swings of the pendulum because only the rotation of the earth is in control. (I am brushing up on my astrophysics in preparation for my new boss.) But, in the case of a sandcastle, if you build it the right way (and far enough from the water), it lasts just a bit longer. It is more durable.
Tortured metaphors aside, why does this matter? Well, instead of building sandcastles on the edge, they should be built closer to the center. As Yair Zivan writes in The Atlantic, “[Centrism] isn’t a compromise between wherever the extremes happen to be dragging society at any given moment.”
Centrism, Zivan continues, “means managing the never-ending tensions between competing sets of values,” looking for, “the most effective approach to dealing with complex and ever-changing challenges.”
In other words, it is a complicated world that requires complicated solutions.
It is easy to build a sandcastle near the edge of the water. The sand is wet. The sand is heavy. The sand is easy to mold. A simple structure - a blunt message - will suffice. But one decent-sized wave washes it all away away.
Sandcastles further from the water line are harder to build. Require complicated foundations, work to carry water. Of course, they aren’t permanent – nothing is. But they are more stable. We enjoy them longer.
Wouldn’t it be nice if our politics were a bit more stable, enjoyable?
Instead, around the world, we are living through the final season of Veep. (The final episode.) Extremists are organizing legions to build deep movements with a multitude of leaders ready to simplify demands to the most maximalist of positions. Centrists, as effective as they might be in terms of addressing complex and ever-changing challenges, are failing to build durable coalitions, much less create a movement that can transfer leadership.
We are halfway through a year where billions of people around the world are voting. Sandcastles are crumbling all around us.
A life well lived…
From an early age, my parents would pile us into the family station wagon at a ridiculously early hour in order to catch a Pan Am 747 to take us halfway around the globe.
Those trips were more than an opportunity to see the world and visit family in Pakistan and India. They were a lesson that the world is bigger than us, that we are one of billions of people on the planet. And that everyone should have the opportunity to flourish.
These days, Anisa wakes us up well before we need to leave for the airport. And, as evidenced by our recent flight from Chicago to San Francisco, is more than happy to entertain the entire plane with her jibber-jabber. But I digress.
During a board dinner at Restauracia Kubicki, the oldest restaurant in Gdańsk, Tim Dixon, a co-founder of More in Common asked us, “What is a life well lived?” Huh. Got me to thinking a bit.
A life well lived begins with a sense of purpose. Who do we want to be in this world? How do we show up? It doesn’t mean life is a performance. But to have a sense of purpose in how you carry yourself, what you do, let’s us think more expansively about what is possible – and how we can contribute to what is possible.
With clarity of purpose comes an opportunity for joy. And finding joy in what we do creates a winsomeness that people gravitate towards; it makes what you do not just enjoyable, but also achievable. Then, the question is, what do you do?
I find joy and purpose in service. Both personal and professional.
The best job I ever had was working for the City of Boston. I learned an incredible amount, I met people from all walks of life. And, ultimately, I was directly contributing to the public good. Much to my regret, that was my only traditional public service role; although every organization I have been a part of was focused on the public good.
Coincidentally, the spirit of public service is what I miss most about living in Washington, DC. I never realized how much I admired folks on the DC Metro, wearing their badges, going to work every day to serve the public. When you think about it, it is really something.
Finally, a life well lived is one that is full of people. People you love. People you like. People you do not like. The richness and range of our relationships – and they don’t have to be many – makes for a well-lived life full of energy and perspective.
I have been fortunate to see how friends, family and, well, people, around the world lived a good life. From children walking to school in rural Pakistan to a fantastically quirky tour guide in Gdańsk to activists in El Paso, they were all living lives of purpose, joy, service and friendship.
So, as Anisa, Toya and I travel the world in the coming years, I hope we create a life together well-lived.
Watching
Nothing. Recommendations?
Reading
Just purchased Renée DiResta’s Invisible Rulers: The People who Turn Lies into Realities. She has recent pieces in the NYT and Atlantic that are worth your time.
Finished Azam Ahmed’s Fear is Just a Word and can’t recommend it enough. And, if there are any golf geeks out there, Alan Shipnuck’s LIV and Let Die is just a fun (and worrisome) read.
Met Danielle Tomson a while back. Author of the Substack Failure to Communicate. Just a brilliant writer.
More content about your time working for the city of Boston, please. And why it was the best job. And why you left