MOMENTS IN TIME : JANUARY 1, 2000

A REFLECTION

Sometimes memories return to me with uncanny clarity. It is not just the clarity that strikes me. More often I wonder why certain memories return to me so long after the event. After all, of all the things I have experienced in my life, why would one day's details suddenly reemerge? What triggered it? And then a more vexing thought crosses my mind: As clear as my memory seems to me, perhaps reality was very different from what I remember? Who can say now? That is one reason why memory fascinates me so much. It is exquisitely subjective. It seems real, but only to ourselves.

I got up this morning and suddenly remembered December 31, 1999. On that day, I worked from morning to night and beyond. Back then, I was a 22-year-old kid with a "bowl haircut" and a jean jacket. I wore ripped $30 pants for days at a time. I was a college senior who memorized Nietzsche quotes without fully comprehending them. I basically had no money; my mother gave me about $20 a week to spend. So starting in 1997 I worked as a DJ to make a few extra bucks. Much to my good fortune, I met a much older guy named Joe who had been DJ'ing parties around the city for decades. He used to tell me stories about going home with women after disco parties in the 1970s. He was a Vietnam veteran and--to be kind--rather eccentric. He lived alone in a food-strewn apartment on 122nd Street brimming with records and 5 or 6 yappy Chihuahuas (one or two died over the years; but a few more were born, so I can't remember the exact number). Basically, the place was squalid. But somehow Joe kept getting gigs and holding his life together really well. He kept a zillion post-it notes all over his bedroom to remind him to do this and that each day--and he always got it done. For years, we worked really well together. He farmed me out to jobs he couldn't do and I gave him a cut of what I made. Plus we became really good friends.

Both Joe and I knew that New Year's Eve on Y2K would be a gangbuster night for DJ's. After all, everyone was partying that night. Some people thought the world was going to end. I knew it wouldn't. But it was an unprecedented atmosphere. And most importantly, entertainers like us were in demand that night. So we could charge huge fees and we knew people would pay. We could name our price for a change.

Joe wound up scheduling a $2000 job. At the same time, he booked me a job for $1800. We agreed I would get $1500. He would take a $300 commission. That seemed fair to me; in fact, I was thrilled. For a kid who wore torn pants and got $20 a week to spend, $1500 was a treasure trove. I could live the whole semester on that--and all for just one night's work.

I remember the job exactly. We did it in a brand new loft apartment on 21st Street near 6th Avenue. Some nouveau riche woman and her husband were throwing a party. Joe and I drove down to the apartment the morning before the gig to set up. Joe drove a virtually unroadworthy mid-80s Chevy station wagon. It had no muffler and a pretty disgusting, food-like crust clung like a glaze all over the interior. The car had roaches. And Joe stuffed in so many speakers, wires, amps and record crates into it that I was amazed the bumper didn't scrape the pavement as we drove. In short, despite all appearances, Joe was a master of limited space management. The cops never pulled the jalopy over, either.

I remember schlepping all our equipment two flights up to the apartment. The woman and her husband were frantically decorating the place and setting up long tables for the hors d'oeuvres. I had a few words with her. She said she liked hip-hop and R&B. I said that was great because "that was my specialty." She seemed to like me. She didn't seem to like Joe too much, though. After all, at first glance he looked really gruff and he spent his time hauling speakers and wires all over the place. He was always polite and even charming. But he just didn't look the part. Some customers really used to treat him badly, and that hurt me.

After we set up the equipment, Joe and I sat in the car for a few minutes and talked about the plan for the evening. I would show up at the gig and do my thing. He would go to his gig and do his. Then he would pick me up from my gig and I would give him his cut. We would drive back uptown together and call it a night around 4 AM. It was a good plan. We then went our separate ways.

I remember the party went very smoothly. I got to play the music I wanted. The crowd was easy and did not complain. My DJ station faced east; the crowd looked west out the windows over 6th Avenue. Joe set up the lights and I controlled them with a little hand console. It took a while for the alcohol to get the party moving; eventually it did. I started off playing 70s funk and rare grooves. That gave a nice ambiance to the early part. Later, people started asking me to play hip-hop and assorted Top Ten pop. I obliged. I remember one Asian chick kept asking me to play Lauren Hill's "That Thing" over and over again. That tune always generated a huge crowd response, so I waited to play it until the place was really hopping. I kept telling her "it was in the pipe." She never quarreled with me; she just kept going back to her friends and dancing.

Before midnight, nervous excitement came over the room. People started wondering aloud whether the world would end at 12:01. I remember people throwing their drinks and hooting in the minutes leading up to midnight. I also remember looking outside and seeing helicopters flying low over the city with spotlights on. There was a lot of honking and yelling on the street below. I could hear it even over the music. Finally, 12:01 came. Nothing happened. A huge cheer went up on the dancefloor. Then the party went into overdrive. "Hypnotize," "Walking on the Sun" and "Backstreet's Back" were particularly popular that night. Oh, and of course "Groove is in the Heart" and "It Takes Two" made everyone move, too, even otherwise respectable-looking bourgeois with jobs: I always laughed when I saw white bankers singing along to rap songs. But by that point at the party, the alcohol was guaranteed to make everyone dance, no matter what was playing. Even so, as a DJ, I felt like I had accomplished something. Lots of drunk, happy people profusely thanked me for "all the great tunes" as the evening approached its end. It was always a nice perk to get compliments, even if the partygoers were fall-down drunk and virtually incoherent.

At about 3 AM, Joe showed up from his party. People had already started to leave. Beer and broken plastic cups littered the dancefloor, along with squashed finger foods and dirty napkins. Everyone was shouting, hugging, hooting, caressing and laughing. The mood was very good. Almost all the food was gone and the wine was running low. Joe went over to the hostess and whispered to her. She then came over to me and told me it was OK to start wrapping up.

Within 30 minutes, almost everyone had left and I stopped the music. The house lights came up. Joe started breaking down the lights and sound equipment. I chatted with the hostess for a while. She complimented me in the highest terms, even though she was utterly shitfaced. I still felt like I had done a good job; for my part, I did not touch a drink that evening. I had a few Sprites and some ice water. Finally, the hostess pulled out an enormous wad of $20 bills and handed it to me. I thanked her. She went away and I started helping Joe move all our stuff downstairs. Meanwhile, the hostess and her husband started brushing trash off the floor with two big push brooms.

It took us a good 30 minutes to haul all our stuff downstairs. We loaded it into the car and--once again--got it all to fit. After that, Joe and I shook hands and congratulated each other on a job well done. I handed him his $300 commission. Then he headed back uptown and he dropped me off at my dorm on 114th Street and Riverside. I wished Joe a happy new year and thanked him for being so generous to me. He said no problem and drove off into the predawn darkness.

I went upstairs to my room on the fourth floor. There was no way I could sleep after the night's toils. It was about quarter to five in the morning, January 1, 2000. I walked over to my single-size mattress. I took the enormous cash wad from my pocket and laid all the money out on the bedspread. I was in awe: $1500 in cash, all for me. I never thought I could ever make that much in one night. It was unbelievable. What a way to start the new year, the new decade, the new millennium. I felt like life could not get any better than this. I even felt that time had suddenly stopped, as if I could never get older, that this moment would last forever. After all, it was the year 2000! To that point in my life--indeed, in everyone's life--it had always been the 20th Century. I couldn't really fathom that life would go on as it always did. On that night, time froze as I sat there ogling my massive money pile. For a few hours, I felt utterly invincible. I felt that I controlled time and that I would never age.

I was hungry. I went out to get some food at Tom's Diner. It was extremely quiet. All the partying was over. A few stragglers appeared here and there, but that was it. I saw a few "2000" party eyeglasses in a trash can. It was still dark. As I headed down Broadway, a New York Times truck pulled up and a man tossed out the morning edition. I bought one. It had an unforgettably bold headline: 1/1/00. Underneath, in typeface almost as big, was a headline saying that Russia's President Yeltsin had resigned. A new man, Putin, was taking over.

Wow, I thought, everything was looking up! It was a fresh new morning in a fresh new millennium. I had $1500 in cash and there was a new Russian President. One era ended. Another was dawning. Time stood still and I was in control.

Then I went to Tom's and ordered a shake and fries. I stayed there for a while. I let myself get tired. Finally, I headed back to my dorm to go to sleep. It was dawning. Time for bed. It was a good night.

I still have never made that much money in one night as I did on January 1, 2000. I think that's why I remember it so vividly. It felt really good.

Too bad life got harder after that. But on that night, I didn't think anything could ever go wrong.

POLITENESS AND SMALL TALK

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

I am a very polite person. Even when it makes sense not to be polite, I am polite. It is almost reflexive for me to be polite. In my early life, I learned always to be polite. My mother always said: "Be polite! Say thank you! Do not ask for more!" My mother had another name for this institutionalized politeness: "Good manners."

I did not have a choice. I had to be polite. On the other hand, I grew up in suburban Connecticut. People were not out to get me; in fact, most people were extremely nice. Why not be polite to nice people? They deserved it; they meant me no harm. I didn't mind being polite. In the process, I learned to respect everyone I met. They never hurt me, so it was only fair for me respect them.

But things changed as I got older. Once I graduated from college and started living in the commercial world, I quickly found that not everyone was as nice as they were in my Connecticut childhood. To the contrary, I discovered that most people were dishonest scoundrels who would sooner backstab you than help you up if you slipped on a banana peel. In fact, they would probably even laugh if they saw you fall. Even if they weren't malicious, I found most people flaky and unreliable. If someone told me they "would call me again some time," in almost every case they did not.

Yet I was always polite with these people. I shouldn't have been, but I was. After all, it was reflexive. It was a vestige from my idyllic childhood. I smiled with them, said thank you, made small talk. I even did favors for some. Then I received nothing in return. Many even took advantage of my politeness and gained from it.

Slowly, I realized that it made no sense to be polite all the time. Most people exploited it. And almost no one appreciated it. In fact, it seemed that impolite people succeeded much more frequently than polite people. Impolite people ran right over the polite people and got away with everything. What good did smiling and thanking do? Not much.

Still, I was determined not to become just another impolite ogre on the New York streets. I simply learned to be more wary about according respect to everyone I met. I adopted a new rule: Be polite with exceptions. I used my intuition about whether someone deserved my respect. I tried to sense whether someone was worth respecting, or whether they were just another self-interested shark in the water. Sometimes it was obvious to me that someone was a self-interested shark. So I wasn't polite to them. They had nothing ethically in common with me. So there was no need to be polite. Why be polite with someone who would just as soon leave you dead in a gutter? That is just stupid--and servile, too.

I developed a real suspicion toward new acquaintances. Eventually, I could detect immediately whether someone was a complete selfish asshole or whether they were worth further emotional investment. In some settings, I was polite no matter what, as when I interacted with sales staff and other pathetic commercial pawns who obviously meant me no harm. But in all other settings, I kept my guard.

Recently, for instance, I walked back into my building after taking my dog for a stroll. I got on the elevator. A moment later, a very smily, well-dressed woman with a leather portfolio and an expensive cell phone joined me, along with some bewildered looking adolescent who wore his hat backwards. She was clearly a real estate agent showing apartments to this little punk, who probably had just graduated from college and whose dad was definitely paying the rent.

As soon as the doors closed, this insufferable woman opened her mouth. "What a cute little dog! What's his name? What's the breed? This is a nice building, isn't it? The elevator is very nice. It is very convenient. The lighting is good. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH."

I was about ready to vomit. I couldn't help but notice the Cartier bracelet on the agent's wrist as she spewed forth her endless, dishonest pleasantries. I knew instantly that she was just talking to keep things on an even keel with her client. After all, no one likes awkward silence. So she filled the air with condescending blather. "It's a wonderful building! You like it here, don't you? It's such a great location, isn't it? There's a grocery store right downstairs, you know," she told me, as if I didn't know there was a grocery store in my own goddamn neighborhood.

"Yes, there sure is," I said, without a smile. I consciously said it impolitely. "And my dog is a she."

"Oh, wonderful," she responded without missing a beat; and without really registering what I said. God forbid any silence should intervene to make her client feel uncomfortable. For his part, the youth-soaked client just stood there staring at the floor indicator as the elevator rose. He was wearing shower shoes, shorts and looked like a smug, boring-ass moron. On weekdays, he probably put on a suit and shlepped to some skyscraper to type emails for one of his dad's friends. Worse, he probably even felt important for it. I could see it immediately.

Thankfully, client and professional stepped off the elevator two floors below mine. They went about their business. The agent kept chatting the whole time. The client bumbled along a step or two behind. He was probably thinking about going out later that night. She mentioned something about a trash compactor as they faded from earshot.

I thought about how impolite I had been with this woman. It didn't bother me at all. Why should I have been polite to her? What did she mean to me? Would she have helped me with anything? And why was she even talking to me in the first place? To provide confirmation for her silence-destroying questions? She was using me as an instrument to avoid awkwardness with her client and talking to me as if I knew nothing about my own building. I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to seal the deal with this little brat by appearing "friendly" and glib with everyone she encountered along the way. I was just a bump along the road to her commission. That's what bothered me.

Why should I have respected this woman? Why should I have been polite? I do not award politeness to people in situations like this. I do not respect people who ingratiate in order to fill their own pockets. So I do not smile or act nice. Now, that does not mean I am an impolite person. Quite the contrary; it simply means I am judicious with my natural politeness. It also means that I resort to impoliteness with people who deserve to be treated impolitely. Don't be fooled: They are out there. And it is actually worse to treat them politely.

I have been walked over too often for being polite. That is why I now know when to be polite, and when not to be. Believe it or not, it is undignified--and very weak--to invariably be polite with everyone you meet. On the whole, people don't deserve it. So you need to learn when it works to be polite, and when it doesn't.

FACTS DO NOT NEED TO BE OFFICIAL; THERE ARE NO "REAL FACTS"

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

I went to Starbucks this morning to buy a coffee. I wasn't really thinking about anything. I was groggy and I was battling a cold. But as I waited for the barista to serve up my venti bold, I overheard the man behind the espresso machine say to his coworkers: "Wikipedia is written by us. Those aren't real facts."

My mind immediately sprang into action. I really did not care about the man's opinion about Wikipedia. Everyone knows that you need to read Wikipedia with a grain of salt. Its reporting can be unreliable, just like any other source. But I took serious issue with his assertion that Wikipedia does not contain "real facts" because "people like us" write it, as if "regular people" are incapable of reporting "real facts."

I was saddened for two reasons. First, the barista's comment revealed the widespread--and servile--public belief that "facts" must flow from certain "official" sources. Second, it revealed the belief that "regular people" do not deserve credibility when they report "facts."

Let us begin with "facts." More than a year ago, I struggled to formulate a workable definition for "facts." Everyone thinks they know what "facts" are. They think "facts" are "things that actually happened." But it is impossible to really know whether something "actually happened" if you were not there to perceive it. Everyone else must rely on second-hand reports to form an opinion about "what actually happened;" and that opinion may not reflect what "actually happened" at all. Facts intertwine with belief; a person calls something "a fact" as long as he subjectively believes it to be true, even if it is not. A person's belief, too, is a "fact." It is a "fact" to say: "John believes that Mary robbed her mother." It is not necessarily true that Mary robbed her mother. But if John believes it, John's belief about it is "a fact."

Viewing all human existence as a whole, most "facts" are incredibly banal. It is a "fact" that I just moved my eyelid and that I just pursed my lips: I perceived these "acts" through my visual and tactile senses, so they are facts. Facts are rarely newsworthy, and almost never "the stuff of history." Yet many people mistakenly believe that "facts" must be "official." Like the barista, they believe that something is not a "fact" unless some reputable source reports it. To use the barista's term, only certain sources can present "real facts," not plebeian sources like Wikipedia.

What is a "real fact?" How does a "real fact" differ from any other fact? After all, a "fact" is any event, act or condition that is objectively verifiable and perceptible by the human senses. Your own emotional state is a "fact" at this very moment. Whether you're wearing blue jeans right now is a "fact." These are "conditions" and "acts" perceptible by human sense. The New York Times will never report these "facts," but they are still facts. Anyone can recount facts. As human beings, we all can recount our sensory impressions through memory and language. Put simply, the power to recount facts does not require a reputable press pass or an advanced degree.

Facts do not distinguish. There are only "real facts" to the extent that another person chooses to believe them. Source is irrelevant to the inquiry whether something is a fact. Source is only relevant to the question whether a reported fact is credible or reliable.

But the barista confused theses issues in a deeply troubling way. He not only manifested a belief that certain sources were not reliable. He also revealed a belief that certain sources cannot even report "facts" at all. According to the barista's logic, only reputable sources dispense "real facts." Sources like Wikipedia do not. Yet this is pure nonsense. Wikipedia definitely reports "facts." It reports "acts, events and conditions that are objectively verifiable and perceptible by the human senses." True, its reports might contain inaccuracies and falsehoods. But that is a danger inherent in all reporting. And in the end, "facts" are not about "what actually happened," but rather about "what we are willing to believe." Both Wikipedia and the New York Times face the same "factual" dangers every day when they report on matters that occurred beyond their writers' own sensory range. Both Wikipedia and the New York Times ask their readers to believe their words to be facts, no more. In that sense, they are exactly the same.

It is dangerous to believe that only certain sources have the power to dispense "facts." When people believe that only certain "official" reports deserve credibility as "facts," they disempower themselves. They yield their power to judge the truth for themselves by conditioning their belief systems on "official sources." The barista's comment revealed this servile dynamic at work. He demeaned Wikipedia because "regular people" write it, not "official sources." As such, he refused to even believe that it reported a single "real fact," as if any fact were more real than another.

Worse, the barista tacitly acknowledged his inferior station in our society's truth-creating hierarchy. Our society perpetuates the notion that truth can only proceed from certain "official" sources, like news agencies, universities, government offices, courts, churches and science labs. While those sources might deserve credibility in particular circumstances, the ultimate decision whether to believe something is entirely individual. And when people do not do their own research by investigating as many sources as possible, they subject themselves to dominant power systems. They accept some reports as "fact" solely because they flow from some exalted source, not because they verified the reports themselves.

We all can perceive the outside world. We know facts because we perceive them. We can report what we know. When we are honest, we know our word is the truth, even if we are not an "official source." We might even write an article about our knowledge in Wikipedia or some other popular publication.

Yet according to the barista's logic, we do not deserve belief. More substantially, we are not even recounting "real facts," even if we saw them with our own eyes. Only "official sources" can dispense "real facts," not regular people. That is not just weak. That is outright capitulation.

I wish more people would understand that we all can report facts as long as we can perceive and communicate. All facts are "real" as long as we believe them. And we do not have to be news agencies to deserve belief.

A LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT FROM NIETZSCHE

A REFLECTION

Sometimes I wonder what all my writing will lead to. I never intended to make a career from my writing. People tell me: "Go write a book." But then they say: "You need to have a story that people will like, etc., etc." In other words, to be a successful writer I need to stop wandering and get focused. If I want a bestseller, I need to Grishamize.

If you read my blog, you know I'm no John Grisham. I simply write what occurs to me. But my writing is thematically consistent. An identifiable core runs through everything I write here. I think it's possible to glean my life philosophy from the topics I choose to discuss. That might not be a recipe for bestselling commercial writing. But what have I ever cared about commerce? If anything, I recoil from it. I'm an Aristotelean in that regard: Philosophy and commerce just don't mix.

Still, it's a lonely road sometimes. I look at authors who achieve commercial success and wonder why no one ever notices me. Maybe I am just too weak or too preoccupied to promote myself. On the other hand, I know that most Americans really don't care about--or care to think about--the issues I typically address in my writing. So my commercial non-viability is really twofold: (1) I do not promote; and (2) My substance is largely unpalatable.

To be clear, I am not complaining. It is exciting to write only about things that stimulate me. For the longest time, I lived life without commenting on it. Commentary simmered in my mind all the time; work just never gave me a chance to write it all down. This blog has given me the chance I always craved. It has transformed me. So even if this blog does not pay me in U.S. dollars, it pays me in emotional satisfaction. If I die tomorrow, people would know who I am. My voice would not be lost. This blog is as much a testament as it is a forum.

I always find inspiration and encouragement when I need them most. Yesterday, I sat thinking about the fact that no one will ever read what I write, at least not in my lifetime. It frustrated me a little bit. I even thought about my philosophical archetype, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche never achieved commercial success in life, either. His books barely sold a thousand copies. When he was 45, he lost his mind and never recovered. He died young. I don't think I'm losing my mind yet, but I identify with what happened to Nietzsche: I am defiantly proud of the fact that I am anti-commercial; but it nonetheless hurts to know I will likely never receive wide recognition.

So I felt a little down yesterday. It was cold, gray, windy and rainy outside. I reflected on how poor I am. I can barely pay my rent. In fact, this month I can't even pay it at all. I need to budget out my money to buy food. Plus I need to care for Steve, who is incapacitated. It pretty much sucks. I still experience joy these days. But it only peeks through like tiny patches of blue sky on a very cloudy day.

I decided to crack open Nietzsche's Human, All-too Human. I paged through the aphorisms. I stumbled on this one: "121. A Vow--I do not want to read any more authors about whom people say: 'He set out to write a book.' Rather, I only want to read authors whose thoughts became a book by accident."

Is this me? It sure sounds like it. I just write my thoughts. I never set out to write a book. I simply allow myself to pour out impressions on things that fascinate me or incite me. There is consistency in my thoughts. But they do not reflect a conscious plan to "write a book" in the conventional sense. Could they "accidentally" become a book? Perhaps. As a whole, I like to think that this blog resembles a collection of Nietzschean impressions. Nietzsche's unconventional thoughts transformed into books. Perhaps mine can too.

That was encouraging. Without even trying, I fit into the category of "authors" whom Nietzsche might have wanted to read. I am not one of those authors who "set out to write a book." I do not sketch plots or try to cram my writing into a conventional format that people like. I am not John Grisham. John Grisham's thoughts do not become a book "by accident." No, when he sits down to write, he knows what book it's going in. He's just fleshing out the formula he laid down before he starting writing.

I'm glad I stumbled on Nietzsche's aphorism when I did. I was feeling low and worthless. I was losing hope. But after discovering that Nietzsche, too, faced similar struggles in his time, I felt encouraged to face mine. I felt freshly secure in my writing. It did not bother me that I am not a bestseller. Rather, I felt hope that perhaps one day--like Nietzsche--my thoughts would "accidentally" transform into a book. That thought brightened me, even if the "book" appears after I die. I do not really value my life too much anyway. I would rather have people remember my thoughts than my "too too solid flesh." As the Germans say: "Wer schreibt, der bleibt" : "He who writes remains."

I blog because it is the only way for me to publish without editorial control or commercial pressure. Nietzsche wrote longhand and hoarded his writings in his desk. He found a publisher who printed a few editions. I can publish over the internet, even if my audience is small. At least it's something. And I will continue. That is my vow.

GERMAN BREAK

In 1999, I lived with a German family in Berlin. In retrospect, it was probably the happiest year of my life. I was still very young, but I just remember feeling exhilarated every day in my new environment. My German "parents" seemed to respect and understand me better than my own parents. It broke my heart to go home when I did. Although I have been back to Berlin many times over the last 11 years, I have never recaptured the pure joy I used to feel when I lived there.

As the years passed, I gradually lost touch with my German parents and their two daughters. I regretted this very deeply. I tried several times to contact them but to no avail. That is, until yesterday. My sister called me from Brooklyn to tell me that my German mother had called looking for me. She gave my sister her number. I was overjoyed.

I called my German mother early this morning. She was busy and couldn't talk, but we agreed to have a nice conversation tomorrow morning. I was a little disappointed that we could not talk at that moment, but I'm so glad we've reconnected. Now, I'm just full of memories and old emotions. I can't concentrate at all on my writing, so I'm going to take a day off. Tomorrow I might take another day off so I can talk to the German parents I haven't seen in 7 years.

I'm really quite excited! Hopefully I will have time to write a post, too, but if I don't, you know the reason.

Thanks again for checking in!

Oesterhoudt

COMMERCE VERSUS JUSTICE : A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE

A REFLECTION

It took me a while to name this blog. I wanted to make it memorable. At the same time, I wanted it to reflect my life philosophy. I didn't want to sound pretentious; rather, I wanted to alert the reader to the big questions that animate me. And I also wanted to hint that I am at heart a "satirical rogue." That's why I added "free beer" at the end.

I chose "Reason," "Commerce" and "Justice" because those subjects focus my critical energy. Everything I write in some way relates to those three concepts. No matter what style I choose, those concepts unite my work.

Reason interests me because it encapsulates the human capacity for thought. Reason allegedly separates human beings from other animals. I write about reason's limitations, as well as its less-than-reasonable corollaries: Emotions, reflections, memories, impressions. My fixation on language also involves "reasoned" analysis. No matter the specific subject, however, I cast a critical eye on reason. I do not praise it as an inexorable pathway to truth. Indeed, I maintain a healthy skepticism for reason. I am a qualified empiricist: Reason is just one tool to help me understand existence. But I certainly don't put all my money on it. Too much unreasonable stuff happens in life. In that light, putting full trust in reason is not only unadvisable; it's also really disappointing.

Commerce offers me plentiful material for both satire and commentary. I define myself against commerce. Its values repel me. I do not like promoting myself. I do not like circulating resumes or kissing ass in interviews. I don't like wearing little costumes and going to work for private employers. I also don't like unfairness, inequality and hypocrisy. Commerce is rife with all three. Commerce also interests me because it is all about instrumentalism; and that clashes with my steadfast respect for the individual. In commerce, people play roles to make money: Master, servant, employer, employee, officer, director, customer, client…the list goes on. In the process, they lose their humanity. They also tend to exploit one another for crass personal gain. Commerce is the stage upon which to showcase my ruthless cynicism. It allows me to ironically brandish my own colors while criticizing things I fundamentally don't like.

Moreover, commerce is the perfect context in which to explore the tension between flexibility and principle. I often write about principles and honor. Commerce weighs against both. And sadly, my satires take doubled strength from the unfortunate truth that most people live for commerce rather than honor. Just listen to the radio or watch television. You will see and hear a lot more commercial messages than honorable ones.

Finally, justice draws me because it represents something larger than commerce. Justice has obsessed philosophers for millennia. I am just continuing down the road. In my work, justice stands as something hopeful, something better than ourselves, something transcendent, something to achieve. Justice is that great, intuitive feeling that something is right, not wrong. I do not identify a source for it. It just "is." I am no theologian. But in my heart I know when a situation is just. And I know when a situation is unjust. Injustice reeks. It seems to revolt against nature.

Justice is about ideals. It is about striving for something more than mere convenience or comfort. In that light, I use justice to champion my zeal for principle, honor, equality and "better" things. I use it to underline the key distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, because justice is largely subjective and cannot be objectively measured.

I also use justice as a backdrop to criticize the law. My fascination with ethics relates to my suspicion toward law. Justice and ethics go hand in hand. Ethics clashes with law. Therefore, law and justice clash, too. If you've spent any time studying my writing, you will know that I have very little respect for the law. If anything, I relegate law to the "commercial" category. And that it is ultimate insult, because law claims to advance justice. I make a few exceptions in my criticism for law, especially in cases where the law protects individual rights and enforces principles that restrain commerce. But I castigate everything else. In fact, law in most cases does not serve justice at all. To the contrary, in most cases it serves commerce--my perpetual theoretical foe.

In essence, then, my writing boils down to a battle between justice and commerce. I even thought about renaming my blog "Commerce Versus Justice," because that dichotomy really dominates my arguments. Something is either "just" or "just commercial." No matter what subject I address, chances are good that it involves hopeful ideals and crass realities. I lament the crass realities and wish for the hopeful ideals. The hopeful ideals are "justice." The crass realities are "commerce." In the "real world," commerce usually wins. In my eyes, it is usually an "unjust victory." And that "injustice" provides me fuel for criticism, commentary and satire.

But I decided against renaming my blog. Although I consistently allude to the struggle between commerce and justice, I refuse to abandon my commitment to "reason." There is a significant self-exploratory element to my writing. I write about people, their motivations, thoughts, dreams, hopes, happiness, unhappiness and machinations. While these things often involve commerce, they also implicate reason. I need to retain my focus on "reason" in order to continue writing about human beings--myself included. That is why I am going to keep my original three-part title. Well, four-part when you drink the free beer.

I sketch my thoughts about my blog's title in order to provide background for an important story. After all, one of the reasons I opened this blog was to therapeutically resolve difficulties that began to arise in my mind around 2006. In 2006, three critical events occurred in my life: (1) I finished my legal education; (2) My father died; and (3) I rejected law practice on principle. In essence, my life expectations completely changed. For one, I began thinking about death more than I ever had before. Second, after spending three years submerged in legal study, I recognized that I had no place in legal practice. That forced me to reevaluate my life in a very basic way. Beginning in 2006, I started to understand the distinction between commerce and justice. And when my father died, I used my reason to reflect on life. My philosophical fixation on reason, commerce and justice had begun.

I was not a child anymore. I was suddenly an adult. And life was full of trouble. Wrenching, inscrutable trouble.

In 2007, my focus on reason, commerce and justice sharpened even more. As I have written in several other contexts over the years, 2007 was the year in which my life partner, Steve, suffered a life-altering accident. I have not gone into great detail about the event. Neither has Steve. Yet I am painfully aware of it because I lived through its aftermath. And in truth, Steve's story perfectly illustrates the tension between commerce and justice. In this sense, Steve's story cemented my theoretical focus with a real life example.

Late on August 1, 2007, Steve went to work out at an all-night gym in Chicago. Back in those days, we used to go our own ways. We stayed out late alone sometimes and it never mattered. I went to bed about midnight. At about 2:15 AM, I got a phone call from the Illinois Masonic Hospital. "Are you Steve's partner?" someone asked. Half-asleep, I replied: "Yes. What is it?" "Steve has been badly burned. He wants you to visit him." I could not really understand what that meant, but I was stunned. "I'll be right over," I think I said. Then I hung up. I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute or two thinking. Then I got up and pulled on my jeans. I had no idea what was in store.

I got to the emergency room about 3:00 AM. Steve was laying on a cot, incoherent, drenched in sweat. They had wrapped a huge bulky bandage on his right arm. I could see dark-red bloodstains on the upper part. It looked like his skin had peeled right off midshoulder. Steve managed to tell me that he had been burned in the gym's steam room. He said he had just walked in when suddenly a jet of steam burst from the wall and scorched his arm.

I did not really know what to make of his story at the time. He was delirious. He must have been in shock. He talked about our dog and his clothes. I stayed with him in the emergency room for about two hours while the hospital arranged a transfer to a burn center outside town. I dozed for a while on a folding chair. I remember when the emergency room staff wheeled him away and put him in the back of the ambulance. He was smiling. He said he would be fine. He told me to go home and get some sleep. He told me to meet him at the hospital the next day. Then they closed the ambulance doors. The ambulance rolled off into the brightening summer dawn.

I had a meeting with my law school dean later that morning. I think I wanted to talk to him about getting a job with a federal judge. I somehow managed to attend the meeting with a straight face. At the time, I thought Steve would be all right, so I don't think the meeting went badly. The dean told me he would "put a word in" for me with several judges. I was out within an hour. I immediately hopped in the car and went to visit Steve.

Steve was fine when I arrived. They had his arm suspended above him in a sling. The doctors said they were going to perform skin graft surgery on him at 9 AM the next day, August 3. I spent about 8 hours in Steve's hospital room, assuring him that everything would be all right. Steve was cheery that day. He was happy that I was at his side. I went home about 8 PM. At 9:30 PM, he called me and thanked me for being at the hospital during the day. I told him I wouldn't abandon him for the world. I also told him I would be there as soon as he came out of the recovery room after his surgery. He cried when I said that.

I went to bed that night confident that Steve would be fine. I thought they would just do the surgery, then he would be home in a week or so. I was tired, sure, but I did not think life would be much different after that day.

I got up on August 3 waiting for a phone call to let me know I could visit Steve after his surgery. At about 11:00 AM, I got a call from a nurse who told me the surgeon needed to speak with me. I figured the surgeon was just going to tell me that the surgery had gone well and I could visit. So I called the surgeon back. I didn't reach him. After two more tries, I did reach him. He told me to come to the hospital right away. That was all he said.

I was a little nervous at this point. I had never really spent much time around hospitals. I did not know the procedure for getting news about surgeries. I thought maybe the surgeon could only tell me details about the surgery in person, not on the phone. So I headed back over to the hospital. It was about a 40-minute drive. I remember George Benson's "Affirmation" was on the radio during the trip.

I made it to the hospital and parked my car. First I went to the gift shop. I bought Steve a "Get Well Soon" balloon and a teddy bear. Then, holding the balloon in one hand, I went to the main desk. I said I was here I visit Steve. The guard tapped the keyboard and said: "Burn ICU. Seventh floor."

Now I was getting more nervous: Why is he in the ICU? Why isn't he in the recovery room?

I followed the signs to the Burn ICU. I went through a few automatic double doors into a large room with a nurse's station in the middle. Patient rooms lined the walls in a big circle around the station. I asked one nurse: "I'm here to see Steve."

She pointed to a room on my left. It was full of doctors, nurses, interns, even executives in suits. I pushed my way in. Steve was unconscious on a bed, angled up. He was on a respirator. A thick silver tube stretched from the respirator into a hole punched through his throat. There were two tubes lined into his nostrils. More tubes funneled out from his arms. Wires were tacked on to his chest and legs. There must have been about twenty wires and tubes attached to his body. His mouth was wide open and his eyes were as if glued shut. His tongue was protruding from his mouth slightly and it looked completely parched. There was blood caked on the edges of his lips. Bleeping, whirring machines and monitors ringed his bed.

I let go of the balloon and covered my mouth with my hands. I left the room for minute to reflect on what I was seeing. At that moment, the anesthesiologist approached me and explained nervously that something went horribly wrong during the surgery. Apparently, Steve had a strong reaction to a particular anesthesia and it stopped his heart. He told me that he had jumped on top of Steve to perform CPR and that he finally got his pulse back after 53 seconds. After reviving him, they stabilized his blood pressure and rushed him to the ICU. He told me he was in an induced coma. They wanted to keep him motionless until they could place a stent in his heart. Apparently, his body had convulsed uncontrollably after his heart stopped.

I could not believe what I was hearing and seeing. Here was the man I had loved for seven years, reduced before me to a motionless vegetable. Here was the man who just two days before was strong, enterprising and courageous; and now he was on the verge of death. I felt utterly broken. I immediately thought about my father. Was I going to lose Steve, too, just a year later? What was this life? What was the point? Was I doomed to lose everyone I loved?

At that moment, I thought that Steve would die. At the very least, I thought he would never recover his brain function. The doctors were all very grave. They said: "We have no idea what will happen with him. But he did go without oxygen to the brain for over a minute." I just paced around the ICU all day. I made phone calls. Our best friend was flying in from New York that day. I took a break and picked him up at the airport. That was a good distraction; I needed support that day, and he gave it to me. We spent the rest of the day staring hopelessly at Steve on the respirator. We worried every time a machine made a noise. Finally, we left at about 8 PM.

Over the next two days, Steve was in critical condition. He could not open his eyes. I just sat at his side for hours at a time listening to the respirator and the other beeping machines that kept him alive.

On the third day, however, Steve suddenly opened his eyes. The paralytic had worn off. He looked around as if in a panic. Then he turned and saw me. His face glowed for an instant, then it crumpled into tears. He grabbed for my hand as the nurses struggled to keep all the tubes attached to his body. Tears streamed down my face. I clenched his hand and told him everything would be all right. I tried to explain what had happened, but it was obvious he could not comprehend what was wrong. He could not speak. He could mouth words, but the tracheal tube blocked his throat. Still, as pitiful as he appeared that day, I knew he would survive. It was a huge relief.

Ultimately, Steve stayed 33 more days in the hospital. I was there every day from morning to night. He got the stent he needed in his heart. He underwent three more skin graft surgeries to repair the arm. They had to shear skin off his thighs to replant it on his arm. At one point, the graft did not take; so they had to put cadaver skin on his arm as a "bedding." Toward the end of his stay, they took out the tracheal tube and he could speak again. His voice had changed and he lisped, but he could speak. There had been no brain damage. He was handicapped and slower, but he had survived. He went home September 5, 2007. The hospital bill came to something around $2,000,000.

In the months that followed, Steve pursued a legal case against the gym that caused his injuries. We hired a law firm to investigate and prosecute the claim. As a former trial lawyer, the case seemed a winner to me. There was nothing wrong with his arm before he went into the steam room on August 2. When he came out, he was permanently injured. His "special damages" amounted to at least $2,000,000, not to mention the "loss of a normal life," "disfigurement," "pain and suffering" and "mental anguish." There was no quarrel that the gym's facilities caused these injuries and Steve had no control over those facilities. Based on my experience, I estimated Steve's case at around $7,000,000.

Despite these compelling facts, the case went poorly. For its part, the gym denied it had done anything wrong. It actually came forward with some questionable "incident reports" that said that Steve "laid down in front of the steam vent" and "caused his own injury." The gym manager--who was not there on August 2--claimed that Steve must have "passed out in the steam room," then fallen in front of the vent for a long time. Yet the medical records all corroborated Steve's story. And the emergency responders who took him from the gym said nothing about "fainting" or "falling." They did not treat him as they would have treated someone who had just fainted. Steve's surgeon even said there was no evidence of a fall.

Still, our lawyers found the gym's self-serving reports troublesome. For some reason, they thought that if the gym's story were true, then Steve could not win the case. Yet Steve always told the same story about how he was injured: He walked into the steam room and a jet of steam suddenly burst from the wall. The gym did not provide warnings anywhere about steam vents. It was a very big steam room with several blind corners and crannies. I had been in it myself and often found it difficult to determine where steam was coming from. That is why it did not surprise me when Steve said the steam took him by surprise.

And no matter what story people believed, the logic of the case seemed obvious to me: You shouldn't allow access to something on your property that can cause an injury as bad as Steve's. It's almost like letting a wild animal loose in your house during a dinner party.

But our lawyers did not see it that way. They said they could never sell Steve's story to a jury. They said they could not convince people that steam could emanate from the wall when the pictures showed the vents were only at ankle level. They did not acknowledge the fact, however, that they took the pictures almost a year after the event. Who knows what "improvements" the gym had made in the intervening time.

Yet all these rationalizations took a back seat to an even more compelling problem for our lawyers: They discovered that the gym did not have any liability insurance. Liability insurance means that an insurance company pays if someone gets injured on your land. If you don't have liability insurance, an injured person can go directly after your assets. But if you have no assets--or if the assets are insufficient to cover the injury--it makes little sense for an injured person to pursue you. After all, it takes years to win a judgment, let alone collect on one. Insurance companies shorten the time needed to get money from an accident. Without insurance, most injury lawyers don't waste their time on cases, even if they are meritorious. After all, they don't get paid until they win. If they spend 5 years working a case, then discover no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they will have wasted 5 years for nothing. That is a terrifying prospect for a lawyer trying to pay his rent.

So our lawyers fired us. They never said that the gym's insurance situation was the reason they turned us away. But it was obvious to me. The gym got away scot-free because it strategically decided not to buy liability insurance. The gym knew that no personal injury lawyer would waste his time pursuing an entity without insurance, so it just did not buy insurance. In essence, it insured itself against lawsuits by refusing to insure. It understood that civil litigation is a time-consuming, expensive business. So it correctly guessed that most lawyers would avoid a case that does not promise a quick insurance payout.

In short, the gym acted in a commercially prudent manner. It minimized its liabilities. It saved money.

But Steve suffered injustice for it. Steve's life changed because of the gym's conduct. It offered its facilities to the public for a fee. Those facilities nearly killed Steve and gutted his entire existence, not to mention mine. And due to the gym's strategic failure to buy liability insurance, Steve will not even receive the psychic satisfaction that the law avenged the hurt he endured. Put simply, Steve did not get justice. The law failed him.

Or did it? Steve's case confirms me that the law does not serve justice. If it did, lawyers would have flocked to represent him. Yet none did. From an intuitive perspective, Steve suffered a gross injustice due to another's negligence. No one should ever have to endure such clear wrongs in life.

But the lawyers did not flock to his aid because justice does not motivate them. Avenging injustice, after all, does not necessarily pay the bills. Paying the bills is a quintessentially commercial function. And lawyers did not take Steve's case because they could not assure themselves that it would be "worth the investment." It did not matter that he suffered injustice. Rather, his case was not "commercially viable" because the gym did not have insurance.

In Steve's case, commerce won out over justice. That's a lesson in law for you.

I have no more illusions about the law. It is a business like any other. If a case doesn’t promise a quick profit, no lawyer will take it, even if a person has suffered obvious injustice.

DEAD FOR A GYM BAG AND SOME DEODORANT

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Two days ago, a Manhattan lawyer dropped her gym bag onto subway tracks on the Upper East Side. She leaped down to fetch it. She had difficulty getting back onto the platform, then she panicked as a train came rushing into the station. Horrified witnesses froze. Some told her to lay between the rails so the train would pass over her. Most said nothing and just watched. The lawyer tried to press herself against the platform wall so the train would pass her. It didn't; the train squashed her.

Later, officials reported that the gym bag contained keys, a cellphone, gym clothes and some deodorant. See N.Y. Post, Panic on tracks doomed subway victim, March 13, 2010 at p. 5. It did not contain priceless diamonds or even confidential client files. There was absolutely no need to risk life to save it.

I recount this sad story because it represents yet another occasion on which my writing has foretold true events. Just last month, I penned a satire called "Some People are More Valuable Than Things They Drop on the Tracks." See http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-people-are-more-valuable-than_01.html. In that piece, I analyzed the New York Transit System's admonishment never to chase dropped property onto subway tracks. I used satire to show that our society places disproportionate weight on property over human life. At the same time, I made my own perspective clear: That it is grotesque to assign monetary value to individual lives. Still, my own sarcasm now seems eerily macabre in light of this new incident: "Further, I understand that some customers might disregard their own safety if they drop something onto the tracks, such as an iPod or other relatively expensive object;" and "The bottom line is: Property is worth more than individual human beings."

I was trying to elicit uncomfortable laughter when I wrote those words. Anyone with a shred of compassion understands that property is petty compared to human life. Yet at the same time, it is incontestable that property wields immense influence over both our society and individual perspectives. All too often, property seems to mean more than life itself. My satire reflected on that sad truth. It dared to suggest that life was more important. Privately, I held out hope that people would respect their lives more than their property.

But my hopes fell on deaf ears. The Post story shows just how much property means to people, even in very small amounts. Here was a woman with a career--and ostensibly, something to live for--who disregarded her life to save some deodorant and gym clothes. Her property was more important to her than her existence. So she jumped after it, even as a train raced toward her. At that moment, she thought herself less valuable than her gym bag.

Perhaps there are alternative explanations. I can think of several. For starters, the Post article recounts that the victim was a "lawyer" who--according to neighbors--used to wander hallways and elevators in her apartment building "muttering to herself in a strange way." See N.Y. Post, Panic on tracks doomed subway victim, March 13, 2010 at p. 5. One neighbor even said she looked "distressed" and that she was "not 100 percent there."

Many functioning lawyers have latent mental problems. When I practiced law, I knew many "well-respected" attorneys who muttered to themselves in elevators, sighed loudly, grumbled in abject frustration and habitually balled their fists from stress. It is not an easy job. "Getting results" in court is not an exact science; in fact, it is not a science at all. There are no sure things in law practice. Lawyers live with biting uncertainty and deadlines every day. They live on a razor's edge; and they are surrounded by striving, ambitious, ruthless people at every turn. They make their living battling contentious people for money. It is an extraordinarily negative enterprise. Their success depends on chance as much as preparation. Everyone wants something from them: Clients, bosses, judges. Everyone wants results now and no one wants to wait. There is never enough time; and there is always something else to do. They live under the clock; and the clock does not forgive. In fact, no one forgives. It is a fretful, ulcerous existence. That is why it is no wonder that lawyers fall into alcoholism, drug abuse and mental illness at a far greater rate than the general population.

Lawyers on schedules are dangerously unpredictable creatures. You don't want to get in their way; they might do something impulsive. When they have somewhere to be, they get there at all costs, even if it means taking absurd chances with their own lives. I own recalled my uncomfortable days in law practice when I read the Post article. I remembered what stressed-out lawyers are like. My memories helped me understand why this poor woman jumped on the tracks: She was in a hurry; she was trying to squeeze in the gym during her busy day; she did not want to wait for help to get her bag because that would throw off her schedule; if she got behind schedule, she would have to make unpleasant phone calls to disappointed superiors; she wanted to get home before 9 PM; if she waited for help to get her bag, she would never finish her day; and she really wanted to finish her day on time.

On an impulse, she jumped onto the tracks. She did not want to wait. She did not want to make those phone calls. She did not want to fall behind schedule. So she took matters into her own hands and died for deodorant.

I am glad I don't practice law anymore. And no matter how much my satires presage reality, it really saddens me when they do. I am not proud of it.

In the end, it's hard to exaggerate anything to satirical effect. Reality always sees your bet, no matter how high you make it.

SEEING, HEARING AND REMEMBERING : PATHWAYS TO UNDERSTANDING

AN ESSAY

In ancient China, Confucius allegedly said: "Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand." I had never heard this proverb before. It captivated me because it encapsulates many of my views about sense, speech, memory, experience and empathy. All these things relate to each other. And they all aim for one thing: Understanding.

What does it take to understand another person? Is it enough to hear a person describe problems with words? How about observing something firsthand? What is the most effective way to find understanding and empathy?

I have often written that we humans are subjective creatures. We know only what we sense. Unfortunately, we must also depend on language because our senses have a limited range. After all, we only feel certain about something when we perceive it directly. We would prefer to see something with our own eyes rather than hear about it in words from someone who saw it. We want to understand our surroundings and the people in our lives. And the only pathway to understanding is sense.

But it is a troubled pathway. For what can we really know, let alone understand? Knowledge is not the same as understanding. Knowledge is more banal than understanding. Knowledge means that we merely manifest a subjective belief that something is true because we perceived it. Yet understanding is more subtle. Understanding means that we not only know things, but we intuitively arrange our knowledge to tell a larger story. Knowledge is about details. Understanding is about narrative. Knowledge is just an actor. Understanding is the whole play. And we don't feel truly fulfilled until we really understand something: What good are isolated facts unless they tell us something more significant?

Confucius recognized that human sense opens the door to both knowledge and understanding. Yet he also recognized that there is a hierarchy in human sense. He says: "Tell me and I will forget," implying that hearing is a weak sense. How right he is. How often do we hear language and immediately forget what we just heard? It is difficult to glean knowledge from language, let alone understanding. It is incredibly easy to forget words. After all, words are a poor substitute for actual perception. But in many cases they are all we have to reconstruct our perceptions.

Sight is better than hearing. Confucius confirms this when he says: "Show me and I may remember." Here, he does not say he "will forget." If he perceives something visually, he says he "may remember" it. Again, Confucius is right. Sight links intimately to memory. Our eyes leave "visual impressions" on our minds long after images leave our present view. When we reminisce, we engage our "mind's eye." We attempt to re-see images that have long since disappeared from sight. We may not precisely remember what we see; indeed, with time, memory weakens. So in that way, Confucius correctly points out that we only "may" remember something after we see it.

And we see all the time. It is simply impossible to recall every single thing we visually perceive every day. Our memory works best only after we see something worth remembering, namely, something exciting, unusual, captivating or appealing. To a large extent, our own subjective desires color what we remember. If we are infatuated with someone, we remember how they look with great detail. We hang on their words and even remember what they say. Yet those subjective desires obscure other details. We don't remember many things we see because we are distracted with our love interest. We are not paying attention; our emotions cloud our perceptions. Thus, while sight may be a better way to acquire knowledge than hearing, we will never remember everything we see. There is just too much going on. We cannot know everything because our senses are imperfect.

But Confucius does not end his proverb with knowledge. He goes beyond. He ends with "understanding:" "Involve me and I will understand." Understanding is the ultimate goal; the proverb builds up to it. He does not equivocate here, either. He says: "I will understand."

What is going on here? And why is understanding better than knowledge?

Anyone can know facts. You must merely have functioning sensory organs to know whether something is hot, cold, smelly, coarse, green or blue. Some facts require complex sensory deductions and inferences, but deductions and inferences are just mechanical mental conclusions. Anyone with rudimentary reasoning power can infer one fact from another.

But understanding is more transcendent than that. Understanding combines knowledge with experience and intuition. It is one thing to know whether another person is sick, obligated, depressed or happy. It is quite another to understand a person who experiences those circumstances. Understanding requires a person not only to listen, observe and infer facts about another. It also requires him to put that knowledge in the light of his own experience and honestly try to feel what the other person feels. That is no easy endeavor. It takes time to assemble experience. That is why we tell young people: "When you're older, you'll understand." After all, how can you understand a complicated emotional problem if you've never experienced the emotions that make it a problem in the first place? If you do not have experience, you cannot truly understand. You can know, but you cannot understand.

Confucius was right to extol understanding as the "higher result" of knowledge. Why do we learn? Simple: So that we can understand. And why do we want to understand? Because understanding enlightens us. It makes the world more comprehensible. Understanding equips us to help others. Understanding counteracts prejudice and shortsightedness. Violence springs from misunderstanding and ignorance. It is hard to go to war with someone if you actually understand them.

Yet the fact that human beings constantly make war on each other bespeaks a sad truth: Understanding is not common. It is hard enough to acquire reliable knowledge through hearing and sight, let alone to understand larger implications about life. Most people never even acquire the knowledge they need to understand others. Understanding is impossible without knowledge. And only a patient person takes the time to obtain the knowledge needed to find understanding.

Who has time for that in our society? Who has time to listen? And most importantly, who has time to get involved with others in order to understand them? Confucius' proverb said that involvement results in understanding. That means living with others and experiencing their lives first hand. That means living with their problems, too. Involvement is not just a pervasive sensory journey; it also is an emotional one. When you involve yourself in another person's life, you eat, drink, sleep and breathe their problems. You sense what they sense. You obtain knowledge at an astronomical rate. And because you combine your experience with theirs, you necessarily will understand them. Once you understand them, you can empathize and comfort. Or you can turn away. In either event, you are enlightened. You are no longer ignorant.

But that takes a very long time. It takes a lot of energy. To achieve understanding, then, a person must not only have experience and knowledge. He must also be patient enough to involve himself in others' lives in a compassionate way.

Sadly, neither patience nor understanding are highly prized virtues in modern American society. Yet people yearn to be understood. In most cases, they must pay others to understand them. After all, time is money in the United States. No one has time to sit down and listen to another person's deepest thoughts, let alone get involved in their lives in a meaningful way. This is one reason why people are desperately unhappy in this country. They want to be understood, but no one has the time, patience or intellectual capacity to "learn" their woes. This leaves many people feeling isolated and forgotten. Even married couples never take the time to really understand each other.

I venture that understanding offers its own rewards. It is satisfying to understand others and to understand yourself. True, it takes time, learning and effort. But it feels so good to know another person understands you. By the same token, it feels good to give back by understanding others. It is an enlightened and compassionate way to live. Despite all the impulsions to the contrary, sometimes it is good to be patient in our society.

MOMENTS I'M NOT PROUD OF

A REFLECTION

We remember moments in life. It is hard to remember particular days, or even particular eras in our lives. But certain moments inscribe themselves in us with uncanny detail. I think that's interesting, because moments are much shorter than days or eras.

On the other hand, it makes sense that we remember moments because they are sensory. Memory is little more than "stored sense" that fades over time. In a particular moment, we see, hear, feel or taste particular things. Sometimes our senses leave an impression. Most times, they do not. After all, we need to sense to survive; we can't possibly remember every little thing we sense. No, we only remember moments that are, well, worth remembering.

I have a lot of really good memories. My good memories generally fall into two categories: Moments when I felt inwardly good about a situation without external recognition; and moments when I overcame some external obstacle or achieved some popular reward.

I can give examples. First, I remember a night in November 1994 when my best friend and I frolicked shirtless through a school field in rural Connecticut. No one was there but us. The moon was shining. We laughed and screamed all night. We fell in the grass and just looked up at the stars. I talked about whatever came in my head and everything I said just seemed to be right. It was unusually warm for that time of year. Then we got into my car and just went home.

That was a "good memory" that did not involve any external recognition. I remember the things I saw, heard and felt. No one else witnessed what my friend and I did that night; yet it remains a cherished memory. I did not win any accolades for it. I just remember feeling so, so good. And I can relate that feeling to the things I saw, heard and felt that night in 1994.

Second, I remember several days in January 2004, during my first year in law school. I had just taken my first law exams and I was extremely nervous. I felt as if my entire future depended on how I did on those tests. For the previous four months, I had worked harder than at any other time in my life to that point.

New York Law School published exam results through a computer system. Every day, I nervously logged in to my account to see whether they had posted my results. I had to type in an ID code to access my information. There was always a brief delay between the time I entered my code and the time the webpage came up. I always held my breath during that moment. I remember that my heart even raced. I remember that I perspired a lot then, too. I remember feeling droplets of sweat fall from the top of my armpit onto my side.

After about a week of nervous checking, I finally saw results. I had gotten mostly A's on my exams and wound up with a Grade Point Average of 3.79, which placed me in the Top 10 of my class of 400. I felt a bizarre mix of relief, exultation and new confidence. Professors and friends congratulated me after the yearly rankings went public. I relished my success. It felt really good. I had overcome a huge barrier and received external praise for it.

Unlike the nocturnal moment in the field with my boyhood friend, this was a "good memory" that depended exclusively on official judgments. It was still "good," but for entirely different reasons. And I remember it differently, too.

But I am not ashamed to admit that I remember bad experiences as much as I remember good ones. In fact, I think I have learned more about myself by reliving my less-than-heroic moments and understanding why they were so bad. Our failures defines us as much--if not more--than our successes. After all, just as we can succeed in many ways, so too can we fail in many ways. We can fail externally, as through school grades or critical condemnation for "poor work." Others can tell us we have failed to reach an "acceptable" standard, and that feels bad. Or we can fail internally, as when we lose our composure or sacrifice our beliefs. We don't need other people to tell us we've failed when we fail internally.

I have suffered both kinds of failure. But I find external failure much easier to bear than internal failure. After all, you can always blame your judge or your critic if you fail externally. Maybe they just didn't like you. Maybe the test was unfair. It's easier to justify external failure.

But you can't run from yourself: When you fail internally, you've failed to meet your own standards. And you can't point your finger at some test-grader or theater critic for that.

I'm far, far, far from perfect. I have failed so much in life. In most cases, I can move beyond my failures. But I never forget them. I try to learn from them. Still, they sting me when I recall them, especially when I failed myself.

Here's a moment I'm not proud of. Last October, my partner, Steve, went to the hospital after suffering an acute manic episode. For several weeks before that, his condition had steadily worsened. He did not sleep for 60 hours straight at one point. He constantly busied himself with "tasks;" he woke me from bed every 15 minutes every night to help him re-clean the apartment or find some random webpage. He drew up long, detailed lists every day and tried to accomplish every little thing on the list, like buying a gurtel at some far-away store he found on the internet. He became angry when he did not complete everything on the list each day. Then he became hostile and profligate. He picked fights with random people on the street. He spent thousands on useless things, like Christmas ornaments and big rolls of fancy platinum ribbons for Thank You cards.

By the time Steve went to the hospital, I was ready to strangle him. Yet this was the man I had loved for ten years. I could not believe I was feeling the way I was. But I was so exhausted and so emotionally battered that I just wanted relief; and it seemed the only way to find relief was to cast him off. I felt better when I recognized that he had a serious disease. I tried not to take his abuse personally. The words still hurt, though. I was happy that he got the medical attention he needed. I was even happier to get a three-week break alone to rebuild my mental constitution.

I remember feeling somewhat disappointed when the doctor called to tell me that Steve was ready to come home. I felt a swirling mix of fear, resentment, childish selfishness and fatigue. I did not want to endure the same problems that arose when Steve fell ill. I didn't want to be woken up again every 15 minutes. Plus, I felt as if I had just caught my breath after a grueling bout, and now I would have to grit my teeth and start fighting all over again. Still, I tried to put on my most positive face when I went to pick Steve up at the hospital. I could not deny that I still loved him. I thought: "Maybe he'll be better now." I allowed myself to hope, even though my overall mood was dark and frustrated.

Steve was in surprisingly good shape when I brought him home. His doctors had found the medication he needed to achieve emotional stability, and he was on the path to a "new normalcy." I was glad to see that. We even went out to lunch late that afternoon. Steve moved very slowly. His eyes looked exhausted and glazed over. He was heavily medicated. One medication made him drool and he had to wear a bib. I had to help him walk from place to place. He used a cane because he was unsteady on his feet. Naturally, all these things aroused my pity. Steve cut a pathetic picture now. It hurt me deeply.

And I still felt past resentments. My temper was short. I was in no mood for any additional challenges. But sure enough, while we walked home from the restaurant, a challenge arose. As we crossed 4th Avenue at 12th Street, we tried to hail a cab. When the cabbie saw Steve's cane, he made a dismissive gesture and said: "No, no, no," then drove off. That made me angry. It also cost us time; the light was about to change. Steve was too slow to make it across 4th Avenue before the oncoming traffic got a green signal. It was around 5 o'clock. As we passed in front of a guy on a motorcycle, the horns started blowing. The guy on the motorcycle rolled his eyes at me and Steve as if to say: "Get going, will you?"

It touched a nerve. I completely lost my temper. I stopped right in the middle of the street and said: "What the fuck are you looking at? Can't you see I'm trying to help this man?" In the meantime, Steve made his way to the other side of the street. But I stayed. My voice rose and my heart pounded hard. I continued yelling. I remember saying: "So you think you're special because you're wearing that fucking hat, huh?" As I stood there cursing, the traffic started moving at full speed all around me. I was so enraged that I did not even recognize how much danger I faced. The guy on the motorcycle didn't say a word. He just smiled at me and shook his head as if to say: "What a fucking nut." He drove right past me. Another guy in a car almost rolled over my right foot. I remember feeling the tire graze the front of my sneaker. I was too livid to comprehend what was going on.

Ultimately we got a cab and headed home. Steve told me that my voice changed and that my eyes had bulged while I was out yelling in the street. After a few minutes, the adrenaline passed from my body and I started to feel extremely bad about what had just happened. I felt that I had made a fool of myself. Steve just shook his head. I tried to explain that I lost my temper because I was upset that people were so insensitive about his condition. That was partially true; I was also just really angry about having him back in the house again. Thankfully, the subsequent weeks proved that anger moot; Steve never went manic again.

I recount that story because it's a moment I'm not proud of. I take pride in my reason. I like to feel that I can coolly handle any situation with dignity. But on that day in October 2009, I completely abandoned my reason and fell headlong into dangerous emotion. Make no mistake: I do not flee from emotion; in most situations, I even relish it. But extreme emotion is dangerous. It undermines everything. I felt uncontrollable rage that day. It was as if I stepped from my own skin and became a wild beast. In addition, I reproached myself for the petty selfishness I felt that whole day. I knew that selfishness fanned my underlying anger, and that anger exploded into fury. That was out of character for me. I failed myself.

Still, I learned a lot from that moment. I learned that human reason hangs by a thread. Despite all our claims to rational intelligence and equanimity, pressures can drive the human mind straight back to animal depths in an instant. It is just a question of circumstance, mood and stimulus. After all, we are but sensory creatures. Sense might lead to science and discovery. But it can also lead to wrath and destruction.

Having said all this, I can still find some justification for my outburst. I truly feel anger toward people who are callous about Steve. I won't deny that. I love Steve. He is handicapped; it is obvious. When people look at him funny or rush him on the street, it really bothers me. For the most part, he stays indoors now because he knows that he can't handle the barbarians outside.

Most people just don't understand. I can't expect them to, either. But that doesn't stop me from feeling anger about it. I wish I didn't. I'm not proud of it. Yet I can learn a lot about others--and myself--when I reflect on it.

PRESIDENTS ARE BORING : WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTERESTING RULERS LIKE FREDERICK THE GREAT?

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

In centuries past, political leaders led much more interesting lives than they do today. They were not just politicians and party bosses. They were more than petty thugs and criminals. They did more with their time than merely sign legislation, negotiate treaties and give speeches. They had more freedom to be themselves, not the calculated personas we see in rulers today. In the past, rulers have not just been commercial administrators. They have been painters, singers, writers, sculptors, generals, conquerors, heroes, scientists, philosophers and theater lovers. But today, most political rulers have no outside interests: They are usually just devious lawyers and cutthroat business tycoons who crave reelection.

By American standards, Barack Obama may be "interesting." But he is still pretty staid compared to history's more well-rounded rulers. In brief, he's just another wealthy lawyer who wears a lapel pin and panders to business interests. Come to think of it, no American President has ever been very well-rounded. The office simply does not lend itself to flamboyance or rebelliousness. Perhaps that has something to do with Democracy: People in a Democracy want relatively boring "stewards" to manage their affairs. In the American Democracy, for instance, people want stability, not calamity. After all, you can't make money without stability. That explains why virtually every American President has been either a lawyer or business baron. Lawyers and business barons are "stable people." Boring as hell, generally, but stable. They don't invite calamity, at least intentionally.

By contrast, interesting people aren't usually very stable. And they court calamity. That's why American Presidents aren't very interesting. American Presidents just want to keep the economy going and get reelected. That might yield a comfortable existence, but it isn't very memorable.

But rulers like Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712-1786) are memorable. Frederick was no mere commercial orchestrator. He was a general, a conqueror and an arts patron. He invited French philosophers to stay with him in his palace and engaged in homoerotic banter with his all-male courtiers. He played the harpsichord and the flute. He carried on correspondence (in French) with Voltaire and wrote music in his spare time. He even penned marches for his army. About his wife, he said: "There can be neither love nor friendship between us." He never had children; his wife lived in her own castle and he visited her once a year for tea. And he even tried to flee his own country with his ostensibly gay lover when he was 18. His father caught them before they left. Then he forced his son to watch as he had his lover beheaded.

Now that is interesting. A man like that could never be President: Too interesting.

Yet Prussia became a major European power under Frederick's rule. Frederick might have been a composer, artist, general, philosopher and arts patron. But he also ran the country extremely well. He was interesting and well-rounded. He inspired faith in his people. His example shows that well-rounded rulers can be exceptional, despite the impulsion to be boring commercial orchestrators.

I find it significant that no one remembers Frederick for his commercial tact. In fact, no one ever thinks about commerce when they think about Frederick. They think about his military prowess, cultivation and Enlightenment. They think about the things that made him a well-rounded person, not his skill as a financier.

In a way, Frederick's example shows that great rulers transcend commerce. After all, people don't remember quiet bourgeois comfort. They remember unique personalities who vault beyond the banal concerns of prospering at business. They remember interesting people.

That is why most American Presidents are quite forgettable. They just aren't interesting. The only ones worth remembering did things beyond commercial management. Abraham Lincoln comes to mind. He saved the country from dissolution, led it through war and abolished slavery. He might not have been an artist or composer, but he spent his time attending to matters larger than commercial management. In America, that is memorable. After all, almost all the other Presidents did little but manage the economy. Like Frederick the Great, Lincoln transcended commerce. That is why he is the most memorable American President.

But even Lincoln was not as interesting as Frederick. Lincoln was just another lawyer in a long line of lawyers who became Presidents. An exceptional lawyer, to be sure, but nonetheless just another bourgeois. He was a creative statesman and even an amateur inventor, but still nothing like Frederick. America simply does not tolerate such colorfulness in its political rulers. They would never get elected in the first place. Can you imagine what the media would say if a Presidential candidate admitted he tried to flee the country with his gay lover? Or that he preferred to speak French? That would not go over too well in South Carolina. America just doesn’t like flamboyant originals in high office. Especially flamboyant originals who might be gay.

Instead, America likes mediocre career politicians in high office. America likes one-dimensional Washington insiders who know how to work the system just well enough to keep unemployment down and income up. It does not want men like Frederick the Great, or even Abraham Lincoln. Put simply, American democracy does not want leaders who rock the boat too much, even if rocking the boat improves things in the end. Well-rounded men might be brilliant, but they are risky. And commerce abhors risk.

It is no accident that someone killed Lincoln. That's what happens to American rulers when they get just a little too interesting for comfort. And that's a shame, because interesting people can lead Nations to incredible new heights.

CAR INSURANCE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

No, I'm not kidding. This is no satire. If there is any correlation between broadcast airtime and importance in life, then car insurance must be the most important thing in life.

Watch network television for an hour. I guarantee that you will see at least four commercials for car insurance. During the same hour, you might only see one or two advertisements for erectile dysfunction or prostate pills. There might be an appeal to send money to children in Africa, or the odd statement from a tax accountant or a lawyer--who usually wants you to join a class-action lawsuit involving prescription medication or car insurance fraud. Mixed messages?

But I digress. Let's get back to the real question: What's so important about car insurance? Why are companies spending so much money--and wasting so much of my time--simply to say that they are selling indemnity contracts for my car? I don't even have a car; why the hell would I want car insurance? They talk about low prices (Allstate), discounts (Progressive) and savings (GEICO). Some take a "trust me" approach (Allstate); others try to throw in humor (GEICO and Progressive). Some provide more specific information, like the fact that they also sell boating insurance, garage insurance, homeowner's insurance, life insurance, renter's insurance and lawn insurance. Other provide no information at all, just a slogan and a phone number.

Animated geckos with cockney accents do not provide commercially relevant information necessary to make a reasonable free market decision, no matter what GEICO's Board says. On the other hand, advertisers don't care about providing information relevant to a reasonable free market decision. They just want you to remember them and buy. It doesn't matter if it's the "most reasonable choice" you've ever made. Advertisers target the visual sense: "See this? Now buy this." That's how it works.

This simple strategy explains why car insurance commercials dominate the airwaves. If a company has enough money to advertise, it will advertise as much as it can. After all, an idiot is more likely to remember something he sees ten times in two hours than something he saw only once during the same two hours. Advertisers like GEICO, Allstate and Progressive know that, so they deluge viewers' senses over and over again. Even if people don't think about car insurance every single day in their lives, advertisers make sure that when they finally do think about car insurance, they also think of their company. By bombarding the senses, advertisers create a mental connection. When the mind strays onto the topic "car insurance," it triggers the connection: "Must buy GEICO." When that happens, advertising has done its work. Advertisers don't want reflection. They want reflex.

Broadcast airtime is a precious commodity. It is very expensive. It can reach millions of people in an instant. It has the potential to spread knowledge, understanding and enrichment. If something appears in a broadcast medium, it carries weight: Someone had to pay a huge sum to air it. To convey a message in such a costly medium, the message must be "important." In that light, does it not reveal something about our society that commercials are the only messages that regularly appear in this medium? The broadcast medium could be used to enrich the population with meaningful messages. But in the end, it merely barrages them with animated geckos, cavemen, obnoxious women chirping about discounts and various entreaties to buy boating insurance. After all, car insurance is important: It's on TV all the time.

Some will inevitably say that commercial messages are the only way that networks can finance their non-commercial messages. But most non-commercial material on most television channels is utterly unenlightening. In many cases, it even bows to commercial pressures. Networks will not broadcast material that alienates their commercial sponsors. In a strange way, then, commercial messages dictate which non-commercial messages ultimately appear on television. Advertisers will not advertise on programs that do not draw people likely to buy their products. This limits the kinds of messages that people hear on television because everything comes back to commerce: The programmer must placate the advertiser first. Only then can he exercise some expressive freedom. Without the advertiser, he can broadcast nothing. Who's more important then: The car insurance company or the viewer who wants to see a show about medieval England?

In my view, this is all very pathetic. In the end, car insurance gets more play than momentous world issues in the United States. It may seem absurd to suggest that car insurance is the most important thing in life. Yet I promise you that you will see more GEICO commercials on television than programs about Darfur, the health care bill or the War in Iraq. Those things may be more "objectively" important, but they do not pay the network's expenses. Insurance companies do. So we hear their messages more than any other messages.

That's why it's perhaps not so absurd to say that car insurance is the most important thing in life. Our country dedicates more airtime to it than virtually any other single subject. If airtime is as precious as we hear, doesn't that mean that car insurance is important? It's getting all the airtime, so it must be important. Very important, even.

WAR, DEATH AND TRUTH : PUBLISHING CASUALTY PHOTOGRAPHS

AN ESSAY

Associated Press photographer Julie Jacobson recently published a “disturbing image” in the New York Times. See http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/behind-13/. Specifically, she dared to snap a picture of a U.S. Marine moments after he suffered a mortal injury in Afghanistan. The image shows two comrades struggling to stabilize him. His lips are weakly parted; he stares at the ground as if in shock. His bloody leg (or stump) is clearly visible. His rifle lies powerless at his side. According to the article that accompanies the picture, the Marine died several days later. His father learned that Ms. Jacobson had the picture and asked her not to publish it. He did not want the picture to “sully the memory of his son.”

Ms. Jacobson published the picture anyway. Defense Secretary Robert Gates angrily denounced her decision. Although he acknowledged she had a “legal and constitutional right” to publish it, he claimed that “common decency” and “taste” should have stayed her hand. In response, Ms. Jacobson pointed out that she complied with the Defense Department rule for publishing “U.S. casualty photographs,” namely, only after the Department confirmed the casualty and notified the soldier’s family. This satisfied her sole legal obligation. From a strictly legal perspective, the fact that the Marine’s family objected to publication made no difference; Ms. Jacobson followed the only rule that constrained her.

Not surprisingly, Ms. Jacobson’s decision sparked a heated debate on the New York Times’ website. The debate broke into two camps: (1) Those who believe that the press must always respect a family’s wishes and (2) those who demand to see the “truth of war” uncensored and uncut. One angry commenter even went so far as to say that “acts like this” (ie, photographers defying military families’ wishes) were reason to “revoke the First Amendment.” But another applauded Ms. Jacobson for delivering a “dose of truth” about a war that seems all-too distant and “sanitized” in American eyes.

This is not a new debate. Americans have always been queasy about seeing pictures of their own men dead (or dying) on the battlefield. We have been in many wars since the advent of photography. Matthew Brady was the first man to photograph dead soldiers after the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War. His work sparked outrage and disgust. He said he was merely trying to show “what really happens in war” beyond all the glorious rhetoric and saber-rattling. Despite his commitment to “telling the truth” about war, the U.S. military took steps to curtail such publications. These efforts culminated in complicated rules about publishing “U.S. casualty images.” These are the rules that Ms. Jacobson’s image now calls into debate.

Interestingly, the military’s rules about publishing “U.S. casualty images” only apply to U.S. service personnel. If a civilian is killed, there is no rule prohibiting a journalist from immediately publishing the image. Similarly, if a soldier from the enemy army dies, a journalist does not have to wait until his family is notified. And naturally the journalist need not heed the foreign soldier’s family’s objections to publication (if they even know their son has died fighting the Americans). The U.S. military defends its rule because it wants to “uphold the dignity and memory of troops who give their lives for their country.” Yet that concern does not apply to any other human being who dies as our troops fulfill their mission. At the same time, the rule leads to a skewed impression: Americans only get to see dead enemy troops and civilians, but never dead Americans. In the end, this blinds the American public to the brutal reality of war. After all, American troops die in Iraq and Afghanistan every day. We know this from the “official casualty rolls.” Yet those rolls do not begin to tell the same story as pictures showing soldiers dying.

If America wants to wage war, it should know the costs. War is not about animated maps and strategic objectives narrated on the FOX News Channel. Nor is it even about geopolitical balancing or justice. Rather, for the men who fight war, it is about fear, carnage, brutality and death. For the men who fight war, it is an agonizing sensory experience. The sights, sounds and sensations of war irreversibly alter those who experience them. (See, e.g., All Quiet on the Western Front). Yet these sensory impressions rarely make their way back home for everyone else to see. War veterans cannot even start to “explain” what it is like to be in combat and to see young men suddenly die. Yet photographs can at least partially convey the sensory impressions that language can never capture. In so doing, they tell an essential story that would otherwise be forever lost. Put simply, when the government censors images capturing the visual, visceral, unforgiving “essence of war,” it deludes the public. If the public really wants to know the sacrifices men make on the battlefield, it should know about the uncensored brutality they see every day.

Yet many strongly disagree with this assertion. They say that the public’s “right to know” about war’s brutality must yield to the individual soldier’s family’s interest in freedom from the emotional turmoil that flows from seeing their dying son paraded in newspapers. They say that military families have a right to “cherish certain memories” about sons who die in combat, even if those memories are inaccurate or false. While it is true that military families will suffer immense pain upon seeing such images, their pain must be compared with the broader public interest in knowing the true cost of war. I venture that it is better for the public to know how bloody and senseless war is than to fall into ignorant delusion about its human price. The only way to truly inform the public about war’s price is to inflict additional emotional pain on the families of the individual soldiers whose dying bodies we see captured on film.

This sounds harsh. Yet this is the only way to drive home the cost of war. Nothing else even remotely tells the story.

My heart goes out to the father who lost his son in Afghanistan. I am truly sorry that he must bear the additional burden of seeing his son’s final moments in a photograph. I am also sorry that the public, too, can now see that image. But I venture that this image does far more than inflict individual emotional pain on those who knew the soldier who died. It does not disparage his memory, nor does it dilute his sacrifice. Rather, it honestly shows what he endured. It shows what war does to men. It reveals that there is nothing glorious or heroic about war. In so doing, it educates the public. When the public knows what war really costs—in visual, visceral, human terms—we can only hope that they will be less eager to start them in the future.

America needs to understand that wars have costs. Yet rules such as the military’s ban on “casualty photographs” blind us to those costs. They also deceive the public into believing that “we do the killing, but not the dying.” Ms. Jacobson’s photograph unsettles these assumptions, and rightly so. It illustrates that war is not fun for anyone, American or not. It is important for Americans to know that before launching another military excursion somewhere in the world.

Europeans learned the cost of war between 1914 and 1945. That is why they criticize us so much for our willingness to start new ones.