Matt Damon speaks,

I reshape the message just for me.

In The Adjustment Bureau, Matt Damon speaks to a crowd of adoring supporters after a tough election loss. He tells them that even though he is widely regarded as a natural, down-to-earth guy, as a candidate he has been no such thing. Holding up his shoe, he talks about the influence of consultants on him and his campaign and how unnatural he really is.

We paid this one guy, he says, to figure out the right amount of "scuff" on his shoes. If the shoes are perfect, voters will think you are a lawyer or a banker, some kind of snob, not one of them. If your shoes are scuffed like some kind of working class guy, the Damon character says, you won't get support from big money contributors. So, the right amount of scuff is a big deal.

This I have known personally all my life. My dad was a dominating, charismatic figure. He was also meticulous about his appearance, even fastidious. And he always went for maximum shine on his expensive shoes. He loved me, and wanted me to achieve great success in life, but the plan was never mine, always his.

I reacted to him, I think, so strongly that I've spent a portion of my time on this good earth trying to figure out the right amount of scuff for me. This is not so easy as it sounds. Knowing that you are not Bernie Epton is not the same as having the right footwear in the right condition for every occasion in life.

Egyptian democracy is a challenge to Israel

Watching the celebration in Tahrir Square moves me to tears. The Egyptian people have managed the peaceful overthrow of a tyrant who ruled them for 30 years. This staggers me. Imagine the possibilities.

And it suddenly occurs to me why Israel lives in mortal dread of democratic change in Egypt. It is not because the Egyptian people will suddenly turn on Israel. It is because an Egypt peacefully liberated by its own people will be a clarion call for Palestinians.

There is also this: the possibility of a democratic state in Egypt side-by-side with a Jewish theocratic state in Israel. That is the mortal threat to Israel--that its dispossession of the Palestinian people will become much clearer to Americans.

The Power of Our Grief

There was a time when nobody cared what I did. That is a time to which I am fast returning.

The difference is that the first time around I was unaware of anyone else's active interest in me (or lack thereof), but this time around I am clear that nobody cares.

But why should anybody do so? We all ply this dark river in our one-woman or one-man canoes, and it is too fast a river, and too turbulent. Under those circumstances active caring for another person is an act of grace. The pains and the aches and the memories of wounds and losses are personal burdens that can't easily be shared.

That is one of the things that sex is for--to bridge the gap, to greet the world naked and to share it, to love and be loved, to touch the sky. But one cannot ask too much of lovers, nor grab for too much sky.

It's a funny thing (and a blessing, I guess) when you, and maybe others around, believe that what you do next might make a difference. Might save some lives, or parts of lives. Might help set some people free.

That's where the promise of who we are comes in to play, the promise of who we are willing to try to be. Do we dream across the threshold of ourselves, a person who maybe makes the world a vanishingly small bit better? If ever we are to become that person, it will be love more than skill, openness rather than dedication, the power of kindness, of naked touching, of ecstatic longing and deliberate vulnerability; feelings that first come to us at birth, at sleeping deeply and with each loving encounter.

We can be awesome in our grief for the world. And we can be restored by our shared grief, and wonder that we might always have been okay.

The Internet and the Rush of Life

Alan Neff responded to the post about Arthur C. Clarke. "The rush of fully determined life in the Universe created the Internet," Alan wrote.

Arguable, to be sure, and it gets us a very safe distance away from Bill Gates, but I don't agree, which in itself may be unwise. Still, agreement or not, I wish I had written that.