Fear on the YBR. It comes in all forms…even in the shape of the Coronavirus.

Life for a kid growing up in the 1950s was not “Ozzie and Harriet,” “Father Knows Best,” or even “Lassie.”  That’s what my generation was led to believe, but the truth did not have a laugh track.  Early Baby Boomers were afraid of nuclear annihilation.

60+ years after the fact I still have nightmares about the monthly atomic bomb drills we had. With our heads tucked under our hands and our little bodies scrunched up against the wall we were preparing for the inevitable dropping of an atomic bomb.

Fear. It was part of our food chart, right between fruits and vegetables and protein.

Fear is what drives us to be less than human because it causes us to lose all sense of compassion.  Fear of the unknown was behind the Salem Witch Trials. Fear of taking a stand against tyrants is what led to the Holocaust.

Fear filled Dorothy’s slippers the moment she stepped foot on the yellow brick road. Fear of the Wicked Witch of the West haunted her on her journey to Oz. But, fear was not Dorothy’s undoing as it is for many of us. Dorothy wasn’t afraid of her fear. (That’s what I think FDR meant when he said “all we have to fear is fear itself.”)

The 9/11 attacks gave us something to fear, but as a people we didn’t let our fear get the best of us. Instead, we turned fear inside out and we discovered something magical. We discovered that what was dividing us as a nation was our fear.  It took a tragic incident to wake us up.

Today,  fear has once again reared its ugly head in the form of another deadly pandemic. It doesn’t matter a hoot that pandemics are a part of world history.  It doesn’t matter that the bubonic plague wiped out nearly 75% of the world’s population or that the Spanish Flu of 1918 eventually stole the life of 50 million people world-wide.  What matters is what is happening today…and along with the Corona virus fear is spreading faster than the germs of a sneeze.

There’s no denying that our nation is divided. There is no doubt that ignorance is what is fueling our fear. Our fear is getting the best of us. That does not mean to say we have no reason to be afraid of what COVID-19 can and is doing. However, our fear is making us turn into very ugly people.

It hasn’t happened yet, and I pray that it doesn’t, but our fear could drive us to turn savage. God knows what could happen between two people fighting over that last roll of toilet paper.

It reminds me of a Playhouse  90 television show I saw as a kid. It was called Alas, Babylon, and it was about none other than the dreaded dropping of an atomic bond.

The scene was burnished into my brain. People were in line at a grocery store.  It was pure pandemonium. The shelves were empty. People were beating each other up over food.  (The scene made me very sad.)

We are like Dorothy, but instead of dropping a house on a witch, the house has dropped on us and we are all crawling out from underneath the rubble. The look of fear is etched on our faces. We are beginning to fear that this is the end times.

I think we have to go back and see what Dorothy did. More importantly we have to remember that she didn’t do it alone.  She found friends with a common goal and marched arm-in-arm with them to Oz.  Even though she and her three traveling companions…and Toto, too, were filled with fear, they supported one another.

We need to do that.  That doesn’t mean we have to be care-free. We need to be cautious as cautious as the travelers were on the YBR when they were in the deepest and darkest part of the forest. (Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my. Rinse. Repeat.)  Dorothy had already embraced the Scarecrow (brains) and was filled with heart (the Tin Man), but she lacked the courage she needed to vanquish her fears.

It was fitting that the king of the forest had not yet discovered his inner courage because that’s what happens to us.  We never know how brave we can be until we come face-to-face with fear.

While we have to place our trust in the hands of scientists and “leaders,” we are not helpless.  We can relieve our fear by relishing the love that we share with family and friends. We can face this pandemic by using our head, heeding our hearts and finding the courage to do the right thing.  And what is the right thing?  Spreading kindness wherever we go. Don’t let this pandemic reduce us to savage beasts. Let’s all rise to the occasion and be kind to one another.  Don’t kill each other over that last roll of toilet paper. Figure out a way to meet each other’s needs.

Who knows, when this pandemic passes maybe we’ll all remember how kindness won the day and fear was sent packing.

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Commencement 2019 on the YBR. Today is your gift. Tomorrow is your responsibility.

It is fitting that I was asked to address the class of 2019 of Emerald City University because this year mark the 80th anniversary of the film that turned me from a beloved character in a charming book to an icon.

80 years ago President Franklin Roosevelt gave us a new deal and the maniacal Fuhrer Adolph Hitler gave us a raw deal. It was not the best of times for anybody and it was soon to become the worst of times for the millions of young men and women who gave their lives to save the world.

Today the world is different. Or is it? There is no depression, but millions of people the world over are living in abject poverty. Adolph Hitler might be dead, but he has been replaced by dozens of madmen who rule the world.

The world you are about to inherit continues to be a work in progress. The world you are about to enter does not need spectators who criticize from the sidelines. The world needs people who are willing to role up their sleeves to make the world a better place for all, not just a select few.

You have been called the entitled generation. Everything has been done for you. We’ve cut your meat, combed your hair, pushed you to the head of the line, and done everything to protect you from harm and hardships. But have we prepared you to take your first step on the Yellow Brick Road?

As a child my world was grey and I was at risk of turning as grey as my environment. I wanted more because I knew there was more. I also knew that I had to take ownership of the world I wanted. It wasn’t enough to dream about a world over the rainbow because dreaming without action does not change anything.

You might have earned a degree but you have not earned the right to think the world owes you the good life. The world does not owe you anything, but you owe the world everything.

At this moment in time all you can think about is your career.  You spent four years preparing for your future.  Nothing is going to get in your way.

Over 400 years ago Michelangelo said, “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with having career aspirations. But there is something very wrong if our aspirations don’t inspire us to achieve greatness, and by greatness I mean by being a person filled with love, compassion, concern and a willingness to make personal sacrifices for others.

In mathematics the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. In life there is no shortest distance between any two points. Take it from me there are pot holes on the Yellow Brick Road and there might be some detours you have to take on your life’s journey.

As you begin your journey, keep this in mind, it is your journey. As hard as it may be not to follow in someone else’s footsteps, resist the temptation. Become your own person. Don’t take ownership of other people’s opinions. Don’t become a slave to any particular political point-of-view. Have the confidence to stand up for what you believe in. That means you have to have intelligence, a heart, and most of all courage.

In the end there are only two really important things. To love and to be loved. All else doesn’t matter.

I would like to end with a song. And not the song that you all associate with me, but a song that I believe should help you along on your journey because if you love and are open to being loved, you will never walk alone on the Yellow Brick Road.

Your graduation song

 

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The journey starts before the first step.

Contemplation caused by discontent. This is what I believe precedes the first step in any journey. Sometimes the discontent is obvious. Sometimes discontent leads to contemplation. And sometimes after a period of contemplation the individual is ready to take the first step on a journey into the unknown.

Sometimes, however, the discontent lies buried deep inside us.  We feel it, but we can’t give it a name. Many of us force the feeling deeper inside us because we are afraid to let it rise to the surface.

In Oz, the book, Dorothy’s discontent is the buried kind, unlike the Discontent evidenced in Oz the movie. In the movie Dorothy is unhappy with her condition in life. The farm hands have dismissed her. Aunt Em is too busy counting chicks to pay attention to Dorothy.  Strike up the band and begin “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”  Dorothy’s lament ends with the question “why, oh why, can’t I.”

There are no lamentations in Oz the book.  Despite her surroundings, Dorothy still smiles and laughs.  She has no reason to go on a journey. Or does she?  She does, but she doesn’t realize how important a journey is to her.

Only the first five and the last two of the pages in Oz the book takes place in Kansas. Baum does not paint a picture of discontent the same way it’s painted in Oz the movie.  The word “gray” is used 10 times in the first three pages.

“When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.

“When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child’s laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy’s merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.

“Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.

“It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.

“Today, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes.”

If Dorothy did not go on a journey she eventually would have turned gray. She didn’t need callous farm hands to dream about going over the rainbow. Her soul was calling out to her.  That she didn’t deliberately embark on a journey is not unusual. More often than not we need to be pushed, or in Dorothy’s case, she needed to be whisked away by a twister.

There were no yellow brick roads in Kansas.  All the roads were gray.

We don’t choose to travel a gray gravel road.  We sometimes settle for it because we are too afraid to take that journey.

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Celebrating Oz in heroic style.

 

The movie officially turns 80 on August 25 although the celebrating began at the beginning of the year. The book is older. It was published in 1900. This blog is only nine years old. But in those nine years I have attempted to blend the book and the movie in a way that shines a light on the mythical meaning and message of the “story.”  I put the word story in quotes because story is an essential ingredient in life.  Without story we just exist. With story we flourish.

To join the Oz celebration bandwagon I want to spend the next few blogs talking about how L. Frank Baum’s little story has a bigger meaning when we look at is as a myth. But in order to do that we have to stop thinking that a myth is a lie. Myths  are, according to the esteemed comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, “clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.”

Fellow mythologist, Rollo May, had this to say: Myths are permanent. “They deal with the greatest of all problems, the problems which do not change because men and women do not change. They deal with love; with war; with sin; with tyranny; with courage; with fate; and all in some way or other deal with the relation of man to those divine powers which are sometimes to be cruel, and sometimes, alas to be just. A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence…myths are our way of finding meaning and significance. Myths are like the beams in a house; not exposed to outside view, they are the structure which holds the house together so people can live in it.”

There is no denying that even today we are all trying to make sense in a senseless world.  We not only want to find a comforting meaning of life, we long for the return of the hero.

Think about the number of contemporary movies that are all about heroes.  From the Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Spider Man, Wonder Woman, Black Panther franchises. It is not by accident that film makers have turned to making films about heroes. But not your normal hero, the mega hits are about super heroes with super powers.

We like our everyday heroes, but we love our super heroes, primarily because we have lost faith in down-to-earth heroes. We’ve stopped believing in our own heroic potentiality. And that’s a shame because we only live one life…our life…and if we don’t believe we are the hero in our life story, we’ve given up all the power we have to make a difference.

We often don’t think of Dorothy Gale as a heroic figure, but she was. And she did what every hero has to do. She had to take the heroic journey.

So, join me as we unravel the mythical journey of Dorothy in Oz.

 

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Finding our way on the YBR.

Even though I often ignore the pleasant-sounding woman who tells me when to turn left or right, I think any of the directional apps available are a true blessing especially for those of us who remember how hard it was to use a map the size of a picnic blanket while driving.

However, I think we’ve all lost something by becoming the slave to the GPS master.  Maybe we haven’t lost our way, but we’ve lost something I consider to be very important. We’ve lost our sense of direction.

Before Waze and the like took the world by storm, we had to develop a sense of direction, meaning that we had to have a map in our mind. We had to have a sense of where we were and where we wanted to go. In short, we sort of had to know where we were going was in relation to where we were.

Often this “know how” came from experience and a knowledge of roads and the location of towns. Even before I began driving on Long Island where I was raised, I knew the major roads and the connecting roads.  Living in Seaford, LI, I knew that Amityville and Babylon were to the east and that Baldwin and Rockville Centre were to the west. Manhasset was to the north and west of Seaford.  Got it?

I still might have needed written directions or had to refer to a map, but I could put my mental compass to work and use it to my advantage.

Waze and other similar apps make having a sense of direction obsolete.

Taking the practicality of direction apps and segueing into the realm of analogies and metaphors, I believe that many of us have lost our sense of direction.  Not only do we not know how to get there, we don’t even know where “there” is!

Many of lack any direction, and I think this is a problem facing today’s young people because our young people have been using a GPS their whole lives.  And I have to admit it isn’t entirely their fault. Their parents have plotted out so much of their lives that they never needed a sense of direction.

Don’t get me wrong. Parents should provide their children with direction, but they should not plot their children’s life out as if they were playing the classic game of RISK.

Today’s young person is told they have to do this and they have to do that. They are told they have to go to college and they have to major in this or major in that.  They spend four years in college following a GPS.  What they don’t do is think about where they are (and how they got there) and where they WANT to go.

I know that in math the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but life is not two plotted-points. Life is like a yellow brick road.

And to those who believe Dorothy was a victim of following a road not of her choosing, think again.  Dorothy was following her winding road. Her YBR was unique to her.

We are all, or we all should be, following OUR yellow brick road. And how do we follow it?  We follow it by using our head, following our heart and having the courage to keep on going.

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