Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at [email protected] or click here.
Dear Matt,
I am a well-off retired senior who has no peace in his life. I fear greatly that our American way of life is in danger of deteriorating further. How can I find peace in my life?
Ronald Guell
Baton Rouge, LA
Well, your first mistake is entrusting your fate to a faux-advice columnist on the internet. Just because I’ve successfully instructed people on how to pick wedding music or on the environmental benefits of eating your own fingernails doesn’t mean I have all the answers. But since I’d rather answer just about any question than another one concerning this soul-rotting election, let’s take a whack.
You say you are afraid that the American way of life is in danger of further deterioration. You and me both, pal. (Sorry, all roads lead back to this soul-rotting election.) We might only be 16 years past the unofficial end of the American Century. We might still be the world’s remaining superpower, and on balance, still have a median standard of living that would make our immigrant forefathers consider every man a Sun King. But one would need to possess a near pathological sense of denial not to have noticed that over the last several years, and this year in particular, the collective mood has grown dark. If America, right now, were a teenager, she’d be a death-metal-listening cutter.
Even as I write, the Drudge Report is thick with stories about this election causing irritability, sleep loss and heart palpitations. One story cites a recent Monmouth University poll in which over two-thirds of those surveyed believe this election has brought out the worst in people, and seven percent have cut ties with a friend over it. Interestingly, a throwaway line in the same piece reveals that seven percent have done the same during previous election cycles. Just going to show that there’s no panic like the present. And yet, we live in a state of permanent panic.
So it’s understandable why this could eat into one’s peace of mind. It is nearly impossible not to ingest the all-you-can-eat bad-news buffet these days, since, unless you’re fortunate enough to be Amish, it is atmospherically unavoidable. It’s in our ear, it’s on our multiple screens, and soon enough, thanks to the evil geniuses of Silicon Valley, it will probably be implanted in our skulls (the ultimate wearable!), enabling us to eliminate the middleman (ourselves) as we discontinue the ruse of thinking our own thoughts. Here’s hoping the Good Lord takes me before the March of “Progress” gets that far.
But it seems that we’re making a lethal mistake when we assume that we must be as excitable and frantic as our news feeds are. Doing so reduces us to little more than the sum of the poisons that accrete in our system. Finding peace, of course, means learning to turn this sound down, if not muting it. And one of the best ways to find peace is to find something larger than yourself, and stand next to it, regularly.
Maybe it means standing next to a big-legged woman, as Muddy Waters had it. Or maybe it’s a cause. Or maybe standing next to your fellow man whose troubles dwarf your own, as nothing gets you out of the horrors in your own head like plunging into the horrors in someone else’s. When reporting a story in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that killed a quarter of a million people, I was camping out at a hospital that had brought in a bunch of gringo doctors to do amputations like Civil-War era field medics. After spending a week witnessing mass burials and grinding poverty and unspeakable conditions—Haiti was a disaster well before the disaster, and still is—I said offhandedly to one doc, “So, when are you going back to the real world?” He looked at me with mild befuddlement, and said, “Whaddya mean? For two-thirds of the planet, this is the real world.”
Maybe it means standing next to Creation. I kayak and fish regularly not because I want to, but because I have to. Standing next to nature is Prozac and bourbon and St. John’s wort all rolled into one. Get next to water often enough—or mountains or forests or whatever your preference is, minus your smartphone—and watch the magic happen. Your pulse will slow, your vision will clear, your breathing will get easier, and you’ll start seeing possibilities again.
And of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend the biggest thing of all you can stand next to—the Creator. My wife, who stands next to Him more steadily than I do, takes seriously the Scriptural injunction: “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Since I’m an Olympian-level fretter by nature, she enjoys taunting me with, “Do you want peace, or not? Because if you have peace, you don’t need anything else. All else becomes bearable.”
Though I am not without a mustard seed of faith myself. When I was a young military brat who spent a healthy stretch of childhood in the Bible Belt, the Southern Baptists got ahold of me. While many would consider that a prison sentence, I remain grateful. Maybe I’ve relaxed some of the untenable planks since then (see the SB’s no-drinking rule, for starters). But they drilled into my head—sometimes at the point of a gun—important peace-promoting precepts that still dog me to this day, and come back to me at the oddest times, such as when writing advice-inflicting columns. Things we’ve come to think of as unsophisticated, but that if everyone observed, would immediately cure four-fifths of the world’s ills. Things like loving thy neighbor as thyself, and doing justly, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with thy God. (Micah 6:8)
But I didn’t mean to fall down a biblical rabbit hole, and we like to keep things ecumenical here at Ask Matt. So in the peace-seeking department, I turn to the words of the Buddha. Not the ascetic sage who is responsible for eight percent of the world’s religious affiliation. He’s good. I admire his work. But rather, I’m speaking of my own personal Buddha, Larry King. Years ago, when my old pal Tucker Carlson was seeking advice in navigating the treacherous shoals of the cable-TV-news game, filled with more cutthroat pirates than Captain Hook’s Jolly Roger could ever boast, King wisely told him: “The trick is to care, but not too much. Give a shit—but not really.” Cable TV news and life—they’re not so different.
I should add that Tucker himself is no slouch in the wisdom department. As professional declinists, we often commiserate about the sad state of our country. But he wrote me something a few weeks back that applies to this conversation on how to find peace, outlining how even if you’re unable to find it, playing charades is a worthy second option. We were discussing the decline of journalism, as opposed to the decline of our political culture, or the decline of America herself. (For professional declinists, it’s a buyer’s market.) But in any case, I’ll yield Tucker the balance of my time:
Dear Matt,
Who won the [first presidential] debate and by what measure do you come to your conclusion?
Max
Washington State
By my lights, there was only one winner in this debate: Buckwheat Zydeco. I don’t say that just because of my deep, abiding affection for all things Louisiana, particularly the music. But because the esteemed Mr. Zydeco, the pride of Lafayette, shuffled off this mortal coil after a bout with lung cancer on September 24, over 48 hours before this debate atrocity took place. So he didn’t have to watch it. Nor did he have to witness any of the embarrassing aftermath, such as Trump going to battle with a washed-up Venezuelan beauty queen about whether he called her a fatty, or Hillary feigning sincerity while being sung to by Mary J. Blige. Warning: this video is NSFHYLD (not safe for holding your lunch down).
Luckily for Buckwheat Zydeco, aka Stanley Dural Jr., he got to skip all this. But just because we envy the dead, doesn’t keep us from missing them. So I will let him play us out, with my very favorite Rolling Stones cover of all-time, him singing “Beast of Burden,” while pumping his pristine accordion underneath it.
Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at [email protected] or click here.
