Did you see that thief stealing across the calendar like the shadow of the wind? Thief? Nay, more like the drum major in the parade of days, running late and out of costume. He always does that at summer’s end, hesitating in the march of time just long enough to allow a few days of Indian summer. But then – PREST-O CHANGE-O! – he gestures magically and the trees become volcanos spewing molten streamers while ashen leaves pelt the earth as autumn hyperventilates and winter coughs politely in the wings.

Autumn and winter are biodegradable, but not so the deep wounds of the human heart. At best, the latter gloss over with scars; at worst, they just keep slowly hemorrhaging. Let me tell you about the teenager who reminded me of that.

It began when the kid threw his garbage in the street. I walked over, picked it up and asked him something like: “Was your mom such a bad mother that she didn’t teach you to clean up after yourself, or are you just terminally immature?” He bristled and I added that only babies and toddlers throw their trash, not grown-ups, but I could tell from how he looked that he hadn’t gotten past the idea that I’d insulted his mother. It would’ve ended for me there, but later someone told me he didn’t have a mother. They were short on details, but there I was with my foot in my mouth. The kid was wrong, and for just a few seconds I was his mother calling him out as he should have been, but he had only thrown his fast food wrappers in the street. I had thrown his wounded soul back in his face.

It exposed my own sanctimonious attitude and the same kind of narrowness that has us all judging each other as if living in the same country makes us all the same. That’s what intolerance is. We need to recognize that generalizing a conflict into over-statements and negative assumptions about each other is how bridges get burned. Tolerance receives lip service on places like Facebook, but no sooner does someone light a candle of openness to civil discourse than blind emotions piss on the wick. We need to separate issues from personalities. We need to try to understand each other instead of trying so hard to misunderstand each other. And it’s colossally clear that sourcing info from only one side of the media divide makes us stooges of deception and manipulation. If we want to slow the slippery slide that threatens fundamental freedoms, let us honestly diversify our sources of information and judge issues without reducing everything to caricature. There is nothing more pompous and controlling than oracles of moral authority, and nothing less diversified or more intolerant than political correctness.

One thing I don’t say enough is “thanks” for your responses. I cherish your correspondence. Your candor pulls my deepest thoughts out in the open and forces me to be honest about myself. You’ve taught me much and given me unique perspectives about life in our times, but too often I find myself shortcutting answers. The Q&As I occasionally post try to come to grips with that. So let me bundle some of that into a couple of responses.

Q: [composite] Much of what you share has to do with divisions in our society. Your communications express anxieties, depression over politics and fear for the future. It makes me painfully aware that my piecemeal responses, like the story I told above of the motherless boy and its object lesson, don’t do much. So, here are some added reflections.

A: Strange to say, I sometimes take great relief reading about the huge dysfunctions and alienations our free nation has endured historically over two and a half centuries. What’s unique in our time, however, is the degree of partisan media control of the narrative. Alarm and cynicism are grafted onto us by the caustic and calculating way “reporting” embellishes, edits, twists or ignores news. Journalistic dramatizations smother our common sense. Thus, tuning out media emotion and indoctrination is essential. Endless urgency, toxic tones, the word “but” after each statement that sounds fair because it goes against their main narrative – these should tell us that someone is trying to sell us a junk car. Not every story is “breaking news!” And we should be asking ourselves why stories that won’t go away take from two days to two years to be covered, and even then are dressed up to sound like fresh scoops. Separating facts from whatever is being juxtaposed against something else to make a political statement is another indoctrination tool we need to take note of. Ditto the complicity of “news” with a political party. In sum, we must try not to let agenda-driven broadcasts shape us with a Frankenstein patchwork of phobias, hysteria and false alarms. The term “silent majority” has strangely gone missing at the precise time when it is most appropriate, but the ability of the people to see through staged reporting may still be there. We’ll see in this coming election year when the full force of entrenched bureaucracy and activist media join forces at their worst.

Q: [composite of multiple questions] Why are you so anti-social? Why don’t you get involved in the things you say you are most interested in? Are you in a relationship? You should be an activist and a voice in the crowd.            

A: Anti-social? I don’t think you’d say that if you saw me in a social situation. And, yeah, “a voice in the crowd” – that’s an actual quote from an email I got. Makes me shudder. Groupthink. Herd mentality. I’m absolutely not cut out to be the junior varsity in someone else’s game. A second-string role in something that matters to you is an affront to your life. We all must live them to some extent because of the nature of society and relationships, but you don’t have to count on them for life’s sustaining rewards. You can accept that you are secondary or irrelevant, if you also accept that this frees you to be relevant somewhere else. It really comes down to whether you are capable of giving to one area but being compensated in another. Life is full of proxies and surrogacy.

This month’s photos below are lesser proxies of what I’ve experienced recently, but it’s almost a sure thing that if I was busy living something potent, I didn’t have time to take a picture. So, I’ll swipe a couple from my friend Linda, whose night shots capture a slice of heaven – and is that a dragon rising? The rest of the pix mark moments of seasonal transition in Mom Nature’s wardrobe.

Thomas "Sully" Sullivan