The Process of Progress Tuesday, October 27, 2009 This past weekend, I attended a college friend's wedding and here we all were, thrown together again and at one point, one of my friends turned to me and said, "Hey, have you seen what a good place Susan is in? I've never seen her feeling so good about life." Granted, my best friends in life are a motley crew of certifiable lunatics, but Susan always seemed to be haunted by troubles that we could never understand. Now, almost ten years after college, Susan seems to be turning a corner. This made us happy and it reminded me of an article in The Atlantic that I've been meaning to share with you. It is entitled "What Makes Us Happy?" The article focuses on the work of a Harvard Professor named George Vaillant who committed to a longitudinal study of happiness in an attempt to discover an algorithm for a well-lived life. He tracked a group of Harvard students (including President Kennedy) and followed them throughout their lives measuring markers of well-being such as substance-abuse and depression, etc. The article is amazing, because Vaillant found that a person who seemed incredibly well-adjusted in young adulthood had as much a chance of unhappiness in late adulthood as a seemingly maladjusted young man had of finding happiness later in life. This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that past results are the best indicator of future results. What was happening? Well, the study seems to indicate that happiness is not necessarily an endpoint, but rather a continual work in progress. A well-lived life is a process in which progress is not impeded. It is a life where demons and afflictions become lessons and tools. Every person goes through dark times. Where those difficult times happen, chronologically, is variable. The happy person goes through the dark times and keeps pushing forward, emerging wiser for the experience. I find this study to be very inspiring when I begin to flagellate myself for not taking better advantage of certain opportunities or when I feel like I'm still foundering and struggling with personal demons. I've come to see that as long as I'm not getting stuck, I am living a well-lived life and this thought makes me happy. If I do get stuck, I remind myself that I don't always have to be stuck. So, for all you, likewise, struggling writers out there, just remember, where you are today is not necessarily where you are going to be tomorrow. Some of your peers may appear light years ahead of you, but life is a process in which everyone must encounter trials. Stick around long enough and your time will come. Just keep moving forward ... whatever forward means to you. If you've got something to say, don't ever give up. The muses are pulling for you. Incidentally, this notion of the power of progress has been very inspiring for my work. It's easy to be cynical and focus on all the ways in which the time we live in is so bad, but the truth is that mankind has made incredible advancements. We are living longer, more productive lives. Slavery is "considered" illegal and unacceptable in nearly every corner of the globe. Caste systems are being replaced by more egalitarian societies. Researchers found that people who reported feelings of deep, unabashed racism in 1950's America later reported an ardent belief that racism was "wrong" in the 1970's. Not all is peaches and roses, but people can and do change. The world can and does change. Who is to say that our generation is not going to be the one that ends poverty? That elects a woman to the office of President? That ends genocide? That treats gay people as fully enfranchised members of society? I get scared and sad when certain elements in our society ask us to swallow a lie that progress is an abandonment of time-honored ideals. Now, it's important for me that this blog doesn't become some liberal screed that serves to attack everyone on the Right. (My hard-working immigrant parents are Republicans and their reasons for being-so are well-formed.) Rather, this blog is designed to broadcast a message that there is hope in progress. In the span of four generations, my family has engaged with nearly every swing of the political pendulum. My great-grandparents became opium addicts when they were preyed upon by capitalist Englishmen. My grandmother's siblings were executed by Communists during the Cultural Revolution. Chased by xenophobic sentiments, my parents traced a journey from China to Burma to Hong Kong to Taiwan to Argentina to the United States. Here, they struggled to make themselves a part of the American story and, despite culture-shock, communications barriers, overt-racism and what sociologists term, "micro-aggression" (a low-level, ever-present form of racial oppression), have raised a son who has become an American cultural mouth-piece. My life's journey is a testament to progress and the fact that danger lies at either ends of the political spectrum, where radical men and ideas take advantage of people who are hopeless and stuck in the miasma of their own existence. As artists, we have to be there to provide hope. I believe that our mandate is to grease the wheels of progress, to help our neighbors to continue to believe in each other and a better future. We are the panacea to the cycle of bad thoughts and behavior that always threatens to bog down our society. May we inspire the process of progress. end of scene 7ZJJBYD9U6PX