Russia – Page 6 – Oscar Valdes

Taiwan and China. Over Beer

They are drinking beer at a bar in Shanghai.
Feng is a businesswoman, 35, who’s started a clothing import company. Huan is a member of the communist party, 32, who went to her shop to ask her to join the party.
They’re sitting at a table in a corner of the crowded room.
It’s just past 8 pm.
The war in Ukraine continues and recently China has flown jets near Taiwan in a show of force.

Feng – That was impressive… all those fighter planes flying near the island.
Huan – We need to show them that they will have to submit to us. That’s what the Chinese people want.
Feng – I don’t.
Huan (surprised) – Why not?
Feng – Have you been to the island?
Huan – Not yet.
Feng – I feel different when I go there… no cameras following me and I can say what I want.
Huan (smiling) – But the people are not happy.
Feng (shaking her head) – People seemed happy to me, and the few people I talked to were content with their government. They didn’t want to join the mainland.
Huan – It’s the Taiwanese government’s propaganda distorting their views. Look, historically they belong to us. And the People’s Republic of China will take back the island, that’s all there is to it. We just have to wait for the right moment.
Feng – People in the mainland would like the freedoms of the Taiwanese.
Huan (mildly annoyed) – You do not know this. The party has conducted extensive surveys and almost 100% of the people agree with the party’s view.
Feng – Shouldn’t that worry you? Almost 100% agreeing? I would think people are afraid to tell you the truth.
Huan – The surveys have been done many times. We are sure.
Feng – My sense is that Taiwan should be left untouched, precisely because it has freedoms we don’t have here in the mainland, so we can compare and see what system works better.
Huan – We already know that. It is our system that has brought prosperity to the mainland. America is declining fast, and so is the West… and they will fail.
Feng – They have problems, agreed, but if they are declining so much, how come we keep wanting them to come here to start businesses? How come we keep copying their technologies? How come we want to import more and more of their sophisticated expertise? How come we keep cyberattacking them to get even more information?
Look, I’m doing it myself, my business is about importing women’s dresses from France, Italy and Spain so I can resell here, and I’m starting to do very well, which is why you came to visit me.
Huan – We have made a great leap forward, like comrade Mao said, and to do that we’ve had to cut corners, but the world’s businesses wouldn’t be so eager to come here if they didn’t think our work force was excellent.
Feng – I agree with you on that, and we are a creative people, but the West is too, and to think they are in decline is very self serving and deceptive. Instead, I think they’re going through a transition, like they have before, many times, and they will learn from it and emerge better.
The thing that worries me about a system like ours, is that we’re too rigid. We have to wait for the communist party to tell us how to do things. In democracies the discussion is free. Flawed and painful but free. We’re afraid of that here. Which is why we’re afraid of Taiwan and want to take it back so we can squash it, like we did with Hong Kong.

Huan smiles.

Feng – I think the party is afraid of letting Taiwan grow because people in the mainland would want to become more Taiwanese.

Huan laughs.

Huan – I don’t think you would be a good party member. Not right now. Maybe with time.
I will have to work on you.
Feng (smiles) – Meanwhile, I hope to grow the business and make more money. You are, of course, always welcome to come by.
Huan – With pleasure. Maybe the party will want me to audit your books.
Feng – You are welcome.

They drink from their beers.

Huan – Are you married?
Feng – No.
Huan – Never been married?
Feng – No.
Huan – I haven’t either… but I’d like to. No children?
Feng – Not yet.
Huan – But you’d like to?
Feng – Yes.
Huan – You are very attractive. I’d like to invite you out.
Feng – To work on me?

Huan laughs.

Huan – Maybe you can work on me.

They raise and touch their glasses of beer.

Feng – It’s possible.
Huan – We can always talk politics… but we don’t have to.
Feng – Will the party let you?
Huan – Date you? I think so… but I can always say, ‘I’m working on you.’

They smile at each other.

Feng – What do you think about the war in Ukraine?
Huan – Putin made a mistake.
Feng – Are you saying that because you want to go out with me or because you believe it?
Huan – No, I believe it. And he hasn’t been able to acknowledge it… instead keeps killing people.
Feng – That’s not the party line.
Huan – I know. I don’t agree with everything.
Feng – You should know… I have a mind of my own… If you’re willing to accept that, then I’ll go out with you.
Huan – Understood.
Feng – And I can always choose not to.

He nods. They touch again their beer glasses, drink once last time, get up and leave.

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Gorbachev

Photo by Ronu00ea Ferreira on Pexels.com

A visionary man has died.
The man who, after assuming the leadership of the Soviet Union in 1985, had the imagination and daring to bet that the people he was entrusted to rule had it in them to embrace freedom.
So he came up with the notions of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (opening) and for a brief period the people of that vast land breathed the sweet scent of freedom.
It wouldn’t last.
Some of his comrades began to plot against him and in the summer of 1991, staged a coup that nearly overthrew him. The conspirators were people who didn’t want to lose their privileges. Small minded people willing to do anything, such as insisting on the notion of a soviet empire to distract the people with dreams of grandeur, so they could continue to be first in line at the trough.
The Soviet Union was going through a very difficult time economically when Gorbachev rose to power. The need for change was pressing.
He bravely answered the challenge but the transition from a centrally directed economy to a market economy was slow and scarcity and poverty followed. His popularity plummeted and he resigned on Christmas day, 1991.
But in a few short years he had changed the face of the world. The Soviet Union was no more and the cold war was over. Germany was unified.
And the world saw, in astonishment, that even in a land which had been ruled for centuries by all manner of despots, czars and communists, freedom could blossom..
That precious moment had not been imported from the West. It had been a Russian thinker, a Russian patriot, a Russian visionary, a son of Russian and Ukrainian peasants who worked the land for a living, who had the courage to step forward and, putting his career on the line, say to his fellow countrymen, this is the path to follow, no matter what pains we must endure.
But the people he so loved and whose future was so dear to his heart, didn’t see the promise that shone in his eyes. And they rejected him. They would not endure the suffering he asked them to endure.
He resigned on December 25th, 1991. Some say that having the power to mobilize the army, he should have suppressed protests and kept himself as president. But that would have meant going against his core principles, going against perestroika and glasnost. That would have meant inflicting added pain on his people. He would not do it.
I am sure that in China, today, Gorbachev’s life will be studied for what not to do. For it is in the interest of that government to keep the Chinese people oppressed.
And Putin will celebrate quietly his conviction that Russians have no need for freedom. What they need is to listen to his wisdom, his insights into the human condition, the certainty that massacring the people of Ukraine is in the best interest of all Russians.
Putin will not win. The spirit of Mikhail Gorbachev will. It may take some time but just as Gorbachev changed the face of the world for the better, Putin’s actions are changing the face of the world for the worse. But the flicker of freedom that lives in the soul of Russia will soon burn brightly, and shine a light on their road to democracy.
Thank you, Mikhail Gorbachev, and your wife Raisa. We won’t forget you.
Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

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Putin and the Mirror of China

The war with Ukraine has not turned out the way Putin wanted.
And it has exposed how inadequate his system of government is.
The quick victory he envisioned, ‘everybody lie down because here comes the mighty Vladimir’, didn’t happen.
The West has united against him and seems willing to endure more pain from the energy shortages that are expected in the months ahead.
Russians in their homeland can’t even speak of the war going on in Ukraine – they must call it a ‘special military operation’ – or they will be thrown in jail.
In spite of the sanctions imposed, Putin has managed to sell his oil and realize a large profit, but there are things that are not lost on the discerning Russian.
Putin’s system is a failure. And to see that, they need only hold up the mirror of China.
Putin has been in office since 1999, and during that same period, China’s economic development has vastly outpaced Russia’s.
China opened up to the West and its investors and became the second largest economy in the world. Meanwhile Russia is not even in the top 10, behind Brazil and Canada.
What happened?
Putin happened. His autocratic style reserved for himself and his choice of oligarchs the right to benefit from their nation’s vast riches in commodities. And they have done so, at a price.
The price is wasted opportunity and diminished national development.
In the meantime, China, with all its problems, rose to become the second largest economy in the world. They came up with a system that let them take advantage of what the West had to offer and made the most of it.
China faces other difficulties, but their citizens were given enough economic freedoms to become inventive and in doing so have realized much of their economic potential with more in store.
Russians under Putin have not been able to do so. Yet they could have, for they are a talented people.
So Russians now have the mirror of China to stare at and wonder what they should do next.
Putin has not elevated them but degraded them instead. Russians need to acknowledge that. Their economic and cultural development has been stunted by a leader who, feeling diminished by the greater progress of many other countries, came up with the absurd plan to bolster Russia’s position by appropriating Ukraine, no matter how many people, men, women and children he had to kill in the process.
His action was born out of envy and the realization that he had failed as a leader.
He thought the West would shake in fear at his daring but he got it wrong. And now, trapped by his stupidity, he thinks only of how to kill even more Ukrainians as a way out.
But the West will hold.
It will because it’s the right thing to do, and because doing so inspires other nations now under Putin’s influence, to fight for their freedom and contribute to a better world. Countries like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, who may now feel invigorated to strike out on their own.
The time is now to join the Free World.

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Devaluing Another Human Being

How does it start?
We think ourselves as better than them.
And we may be better. We may be smarter, have a better education, a better job, be more capable, have more money, better prospects, be better looking, be stronger, etc.
But the moment we say, ‘take notice, I’m all these things and you are not,’ we begin to devalue the other. Devalue as in ‘they don’t have what I have, they will never have what I have and should be content with their lot.’
To start down that road is dangerous. Soon we will be making judgments based on those beliefs.
Mistreatment will follow.
Resentment will be elicited.
We can be better than another human being simply because we have realized our potentials in ways they have not, for whatever reason.
But to devalue a human being is to reduce them in such way that we think that even if they had got the opportunities we were given, they would not have been able to do what we did. The devalued would have come up short every time.
Devaluing others narrows our world.
It limits our ability to appreciate differences and leads to the shortening of our horizons.
One way to counter the possibility of devaluing others is to practice kindness.
Indiscriminate kindness. All the while exercising the limits we consider appropriate.
One way to affirm that we value others is to speak up against injustice of any kind.
Even if it may cause us discomfort.
Doing so helps us discover our voice if didn’t know we had one or enrich it if we did.
Having a voice is a powerful asset. It leads to our developing the sense that we can think, which put us in intimate contact with our uniqueness.
Tyrants everywhere are counting on our devaluing others, not properly valuing ourselves and losing our voice. So they, in turn, can do the thinking for us.
Mobs do that. Political mobs. Religious mobs.
Today we have lots of mobs here in America, each asking us to join their way of thinking.
Strength in numbers, they claim. We have done the thinking for you. Join us. We have done the work for you.
Our capacity to reflect, to weigh the pros and cons and make a choice is our most important possession, more important than material wealth.
In Russia, today, Putin claims to be speaking for 125 million people.
And he believes it’s okay to send a missile into a mall and a train station and kill 23 people, in addition to the thousands he’s already murdered, because no voices will speak against it.
One hundred and twenty five million people surrendered their voices to mob thinking.
How did he do it?
Slowly. Convincing others he knew better. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll think for you.’
How did he do it?
Saying it’s okay to devalue others, ‘those Ukrainians are not made of the same stuff we Russians are made of, so it’s okay to kill them.’
And Russians agreed to it.
Only Putin will one day tell us what made him into the man willing to force such brutality.
In the meantime, we have to learn to look hard into the lives of those who want to lead us to make sure they have kindness in them, and that they have practiced it, because if we don’t find kindness then there will be brutality.
Many men and women have given their lives to give us freedom. And many more will do so for it’s in them to fight for that precious gift, like Ukrainians are doing today.
The way to honor them and all those others who’ve sacrificed to give us freedom, is not to lay a wreath at their tombs, for the great majority may have no tombs, having been buried in unmarked graves, but to let our minds think, let our voices ring loud and dare to speak up in the face of injustice.

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Putin in his Bunker

He’s alone in the room. He’s ordered dinner but he has some time yet.
It’s an ample room so he has space to stroll.
On his desk a series of phones are neatly arranged, along with some papers that arrived earlier which he has not finished reading.
On the wall across, in front of the desk, a bank of monitors show images of the war.
He’s standing in the center of the room, hands behind his back, head slightly bowed.

‘I admit… the invasion has been a mistake. I underappreciated Biden… and I overestimated the power of the Far Right in America. I clearly did not imagine that Europe would embrace America after the way that Trump had treated them.
And also grossly underestimated the will of the Ukrainian people… and that a small time comedian like Zelensky would have it in him to rise as a leader.
Those are grave mistakes on my part… and I’m not coming up with a way to undo them.’

He walks a short stretch and stops.

‘I am surprised that the Russian people have been so cooperative… so willing to believe everything I say to them. Which gives me hope that I can pull out of this hole I’ve dug myself into. But there’s no hiding from the fact that I will be a diminished leader on the world stage.’

He rubs his face slowly.

‘That hurts. I’m not winning the war. I didn’t imagine that America would be so vigorous in their defense of Ukraine. That they would be willing to spend so much money to back them up.
Why, even Republicans have joined in the effort. I missed that completely.
Biden has not got enough credit for his leadership of the western alliance…but he will… which is why I think he will be reelected… if he chooses to run… and does not fall ill.
As to Trump… he’s done… he won’t recover.
But will I?
I’ve fallen from a position of being feared, even respected… to being called a killer. And what leader from the top nations of the world will want to meet with me?
I’ll have to content myself with meeting with Viktor Orban, Modi, Xi Jinping, Erdogan, Marcos and other lesser figures.’

He turns around to see images of the bombing of a Russian depot in Crimea on the TV monitors.

‘A lot of Russians have died because of my decisions. How long will they be patient? Daria Dugin’s car was bombed. It was probably meant for Aleksandr, her father. Will they try to get to me? Yes. But I’m well protected.
Still, it won’t look good if an attempt is made on my life.’

He walks a few paces forward.

‘What options do I have? The way things are going, I don’t think we can beat the Ukrainians. Not with their motivation to fight and their help from the West.
I have talked about using nuclear weapons but if I do, retaliation will come. Xi has been very clear that it would be a bad choice.
But there are other things I could try… like targeting Zelensky himself and bringing him here, if he survives. I’ve had a hit squad training for that purpose for a while.
It would be demoralizing for his people. In the confusion, we push forward, gain more territory and right away ask for negotiations to end the war. So we split Ukraine. Having gained territory I can call it a victory.
I then offer to resume gas shipments at lower prices and that would relieve pressure on Europe.
As to Zelensky, I’d keep him as a hostage… put him on trial for crimes against humanity.’

He walks forward a few more steps, looking up now, more confident.

‘I’ll never regain the world standing I had but… so long as Russians want me, I’ll be their leader.’

A call comes in announcing that dinner is ready. He buzzes in the waitress, Hanna, who brings in the dishes and sets them on his desk. She bows, turns and leaves.

‘I’ve diminished myself as a man by my own hand and yet… I still see a future for myself.’

He smiles.

‘Sooner or later… some courageous Russians will encircle my bunker and tell me it’s all over. Just go into retirement, Mr Putin. It could be anybody… anybody with the guts to risk their lives. I know they’re out there… waiting for the right moment to strike. But they’ll have to be good… very good.’

He sits down to eat. He inspects the bottle of wine and opens it. In the last couple of months he’s only been drinking wines from 1999. The year he first became prime minister. He pours himself a glass, swirls the wine, then raises the glass for a toast.

‘To my future. To never giving up’.

He drinks. ‘Delicious.’

He turns off the monitors on the wall and looks at his music selection. He picks Tchaikovsky. His 1812 Overture. The Story of Napoleon’s defeat by the Russian army.

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What China Gets

They get that they would not be at this level of development without the West.
They get that.
They know that without the infusion of western knowhow they would be far behind.
They have been smart to use western knowhow and to improve on it, and they still rely on cyberattacks on the West to keep stealing scientific and industrial secrets as detailed by our intelligence services.
Meanwhile, their ruling class, still adheres to the antiquated communist system of government.
They have trouble accepting that they need to move on to a different style of leadership.
It will take time.
As a reminder of the importance of making that move, they only need to look north to Russia, to see how an intellectually limited leader like Putin, is slowly pulling his nation backwards, all the while talking nonsense about how Russia can develop in isolation. What hogwash!
With every Russian shot fired in Ukraine, with every mother, father or child killed, Russia steps further backwards, and the harder it will become for them to catch up to the rest of the world.
It would be heartwarming for the world to see some sign of unrest in Russia, like an attempt by citizens to storm the prison where Alexei Navalny is held on false charges, and set him free.
But so far, Russians are hypnotized, listening to the blah blah of Putin talking about his special operations campaign in Ukraine and the glory that awaits the nation. Which will never come.
Instead, China gets that the creative minds of their citizens need to be given room to grow, though they’re afraid they may not be able to keep a leash on them, hence their harsh restrictions on freedom and the constant surveillance.
That’s the problem.
China looks at the West and wonders how is it that we can live with so much dysfunction.
How can we elect to our highest office people with no presidential qualities, and still function.
And in the meantime, industry keeps producing and inventing, science keeps flourishing, the arts keep pushing boundaries, and all of it happening while there is much social disorder that is unacceptable.
America is an open book. All our flaws are on display. And there are plenty. But we’ve learned that it is better to display them, to feel the outrage and shame that comes with it than try to hide them. Like China tries to do with their treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.
America is a very troubled nation. But there is a free press. Putin wouldn’t have become what he has become here in our land. Neither would Xi Jinping.
I believe that both Chinese and Russian citizens would much prefer a system where they had a voice in their future, rather than blindly trusting a leader to make choices for them.
But to get to that point they must take chances.
China is much closer to political freedom than Russia. And that is good news because China has become more important than Russia. On the other hand, it is tragic to see a nation with the potential of becoming a first rate nation in the free world, to waste it by surrendering to a single man.

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How Do We Lose our Freedom?

Through intimidation.
How do we get it back?
Through confrontation.
(Is there room for persuasion? Of course. The earlier the better.)
So we should be keenly aware of any evidence of intimidation in our interactions with other human beings.
Make a note of it.
We must be aware also of a tendency in frightened human beings to identify with the aggressor. The frightened person takes their side.
We’re all vulnerable to being intimidated but the more aware we are of it, the more likely we are to recognize it.
Fear is a powerful force. In America, the second amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms. Will it make a difference if our civil liberties were to be endangered?
It will depend on the civic education of the bearer of arms.
A person with a proper civic education will clearly understand the importance of respecting other people’s rights even if he/she disagrees with their views.
Increasingly, though, in daily discourse, we see evidence that people with strong views on any given subject are intolerant of those who disagree.
The opposing parties don’t want to give in, which leads to the shunning of civil dialogue as a means to building bridges between the dissenting parties.
We’re doing too little bridge building in America today.
Too little of holding conversations with those with dissenting views just to get familiar with the arguments.
Even if no agreement is found, bridge building lets us learn about the other side and that is invaluable, for it informs us about their humanity.
The learning of freedom starts at home, with parents encouraging their children to speak their minds, to feel at ease in expressing their opinions.
‘What do you think, Nancy?’ ‘And what do you think, Tommy?’
‘I hear you,’ replies the parent, ‘And I think this and that.’
The foundation of dialogue is laid out at the dinner table, or in the after dinner chat.
The beauty of it is that the child internalizes the exchange and begins to ask questions about other things as well.
The benefit will extend to the classroom, where the child will ask better questions in class. And also in their interactions with friends.
And so the civic spine of a human being is formed. Step by step.
If children like that want to later become soldiers when they grow up, they will have a sense that their acquired powers are to be used in defense of freedom, not to suppress it.
And so the people of that nation will not be fertile ground to grow a totalitarian regime like in Russia or China today.

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On Iran: Clarity, Mr Biden

We keep trying to reestablish the Iran Nuclear deal and yet, Iran is now sending drones to Russia to help them fight Ukrainians.
How does that work?
From what I understand, a reactivated nuclear deal has been deemed desirable because it would give Israel more time to prepare for an eventual confrontation with Iran.
But why are they not ready now?
All along there’s been the perception that Iran is determined to have their nuclear bomb.
From the skies over Syria, Israel keeps bombing Iranian positions deemed hostile to their state.
I have trouble believing that if a deal is struck with Iran, that they could be trusted with anything they agree to.
Is the oil they produce worth all this effort?
Are the sanctions now imposed on them having any effect, or are they getting around them?
And if the nuclear deal is reactivated, aren’t billions of dollars expected to be paid to Iran as a form of compensation?
Does it make sense to subsidize a state that is a Russian ally?
I’m sure Ukrainians could put that money to better use.
I believe that we and the West can live without Iran.
Iran’s theocratic dictatorship will one day crumble from within and we will welcome them back to the community of nations, although it may take years for it to happen.
It is very unlikely that anything we do will prevent the expected confrontation between Iran and Israel or between Iran and us in the Persian Gulf.
The Iranians have chosen sides. They are with Russia and China and against us.
To think otherwise is wishful thinking.
Efforts have been made to bolster ties with Arab states in the region (Abraham Accords), started by the Trump administration.
We should keep working on those. But the reactivation of the nuclear deal with Iran does not seem beneficial to us at all.
President Biden, do take a moment to tell us why you’re keeping those talks alive.
What are we missing?
We need clarity.

Thank you

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On Courage

It starts with the willingness to dissent.
To be able to disagree, to oppose, to not go along with something you do not favor.
It is a quality to be nurtured. It needs to be exercised because otherwise it shrinks and atrophies. And to allow that is to allow for our gradual devaluing. In our eyes and in the eyes of others.
You can be born with that precious quality or work to acquire it.
Having it makes life immensely satisfying for you have an essential tool to shape your life.
There are different kinds of courage. Physical, intellectual, emotional.
A physically strong person may be able to assert themselves in a physical confrontation but not so in an intellectual or emotional one, while an intellectually or emotionally strong person may not stand up for themselves satisfactorily in a physical confrontation.
But what sits at the center of courage? What feeds it?
Four things come to mind:
A willingness to set limits, to say, ‘I have before me the option of this or that but at this stage of my knowledge I set my limits here.’
The willingness to take the initiative on matters leading to our betterment, personal or professional.
The willingness to trust our intuition.
And the steady exercise of all the above.
Courage’s ever present companion is risk. Without risk there is no courage. They go hand in hand.
Courage can be built, if there is the desire. And it is most desirable for it makes life richer and fruitful.
Courage can be public or private.
Every one of us, in our personal lives, is always being asked by life’s circumstances to exercise a measure of courage. Everyday life presents to us a challenge.
Most of those demands are for private displays of courage. Sometimes, though, they are public.
If we have been thinking and acting on the matter, then we’ll be in a better position to meet the challenge.
And if we don’t, then we should learn from it, thus preparing for the next occasion which, unless we’re hiding under a rock, is sure to come our way.
Life is unsparing in that sense. It loves to test us. To incessantly ask us, ‘are you learning from what I bring you every day, or are you sleep walking through it?’ Pay attention.
Lives are better lived when there is courage. Of course, as in anything involving courage and risk, there is no guarantee of results. Every day could be our last one. But such is life.
A word about group or national courage.
Today we are witnessing a special moment. Ukraine has chosen to stand up against Putin’s aggression. It is a remarkable time in history. Thousands of men and women have lost their lives in defense of their land and their right to choose their destiny. Russians and others that stand with Putin, notably China, should be ashamed of their stance.
The rest of us should not forget this.
Political leaderships that silence dissent are a threat to all of us, even to those thousands of miles away.
And just like Russians and Chinese gave in to their leaders, we should be on guard that it doesn’t happen in our land.

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To Have a Center

To have a center as a person, is to be doing something you enjoy, and that something makes you feel stronger and wiser.
Having a center lets you manage your envy, accept that others have more than you do, if they do, and you don’t get rattled by it. You can say to yourself, ‘I have my power, they have theirs.’
If you perceive that you could be doing better at what you enjoy, then you double up on your efforts.
That’s where ambition kicks in, a topic for another day.
We can tolerate periods when we are not doing what we would most like to do, but the search for what is most desirable for us to do shouldn’t stop.
A sense of reality is essential to temper expectations.
If you want to be a famous anything and you’re not even working in that field, then that’s daydreaming.
If you want to be in music and you don’t have a good ear, then that’s a tough hurdle to overcome. I suppose you could write songs.
If you want to be an engineer or physicist, you have to be good at math.
If you want to be a carpenter, you have to have good manual dexterity.
So how do we discover what we enjoy?
Sounds like a silly question but it’s important to ask.
It takes freedom to follow your intuitions. Freedom and courage.
Here’s where the task of parenting comes in. Providing such freedom. The courage part is up to you.
Some years ago I had a dentist who had excellent manual dexterity. I noticed it right away and commented on it. There was a grace and fluidity to his movements. He’d always known it but hadn’t owned it. At university, he had been chosen to do demonstration videos, such was his skill.
He went on to do other things in life for many years, until it became clear that what he most wanted to do was work with his hands exclusively. So one day he chose to quit dentistry and become a carpenter. It had been a hobby of his but now he wanted to do it full time.
‘That’s what I want to do,’ he said to me with proud assurance. He was probably in his late 50s or early 60s by then, but he still had time. All those years he had been searching for his center and finally had found it.
I asked him if his father, who had been a dentist also, had ever commented on his excellent manual dexterity. He answered that the man had not. Which points up one of the essential tasks of parenting, identifying in their children what seems their most obvious talent.
It doesn’t take a whole lot. All the parent has to do is pay attention to their child as he or she unfolds.
The child may not know they have a talent. It takes an observant parent or interested adult to point it out. In doing so they validate it.
Not long ago, another person I know commented on one of her children’s career choice. She added that she thought he’d do well because he was strong in math. In this instance, that critical interaction had taken place. The parent had conveyed to the child, ‘You have that. I see it. It’s up to you to do what you wish with it, but it’s there for you.’
Of course, there are instances when the talent of the child is so clear that it’s apparent to all.
But those are the exceptions.
Having a sense that one has a center is critical in daily interactions.
There are lots of people in this world without a sense of purpose, drifting here and there, doing what they can to make ends meet, but not animated by a focus in life.
Those are grounds for apathy, resentment and envy.
Without a focus in life managing envy becomes harder to do and managing envy in life is a fundamental task.
With a sense that one has a center, one is more tolerant of imperfections, our own and that of others. It leads to patience and kindness.
When two people are attracted to each other, one may have a center and the other not.
But centeredness cannot just be transferred, it is acquired by each individual.
What a centered lover in a relationship with a not centered partner can do, is say, ‘this is what I perceive your gifts to be.’ And it’s up to the person to accept the feedback, work with it or not.
But it is important to do so, for, in a couple, the non centered party will tend to suffer the most when a breakup occurs.
And now to politics.
Are there politicians more centered than others? Of course.
Compare Trump and Biden.
Since I don’t know them personally I can only judge them by their actions.
Trump is not a centered person whereas Biden is.
Why is Trump not a centered person? Because he cannot manage his envy.
From this distant point, I ask, is Putin a centered man?
He can’t be. A man so committed to depriving others of their freedom cannot be a centered man.
His actions are motivated by envy.
That is a central driving force in his invasion of Ukraine.
Putin has not been able to lead Russia’s transformation into a first rate nation even though the country clearly has such capability.
A free Ukraine would stand as a model for Russians to emulate, like West Germany was to East Germany after WWII, and the yearnings for freedom that would flourish from such contrast, would lead to the further fragmentation of what we today call Russia.
Putin could not handle that.

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