"Spoiled by Convenience"

 With an old-fashioned winter storm arriving Sunday, I thought it appropriate to show the beauty winter can bring. The photo is of a painting by one of our grandchildren. It depicts the house in Old Lyme we lived in for twenty-five years. Our talented grandson begins an internship next week with the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

 

Enjoy the weather and stay indoors – a fire in the fireplace, a hot cocoa and a good book!

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Spoiled by Convenience?”

January 24, 2025

 

“I have known some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the use of theological

terms to which they attach no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight...”

                                                                                                                                G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

                                                                                                                                All Things Considered, 1908

 

We have all been reduced to the use of profanity when things go wrong, often over minor inconveniences. A few weeks ago, it was the hot water. It wasn’t as though we had none, but it trickled, not gushed. Shaving was difficult and showering more so. I swore and felt better

 

Nevertheless, I was able to shave and bathe. And I thought of how my life has become easier over the decades. If I am warm, I adjust the air conditioning. If it is cold outside and must go to the grocery store, I start my car remotely. So, I ask myself: have I become spoiled by convenience?

 

Innovation, fostered by individual initiative, abetted by aspiration and fueled by capitalism, has led to products and services that have made our lives easier and more comfortable – everything from flush toilets, refrigeration, heated sidewalks to instant communication. We don’t think about them; we accept them.

 

Man has been around for, perhaps, 300,000 years, yet as recently as 500 years ago life for most people had not changed. Yes, cities and governments had been established, cast iron plows were used in Europe in the 14^th Century, and Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440, but estimates are that in 1500 half of Europe’s population were homeless or lived in poverty and only about 7% of Europe’s population could read. Disease, wars and accidents killed millions. The Black Plague (1346-1353) killed somewhere between 30% and 60% of Europe’s population. In 1700, life expectancy was still under forty years.

 

The Industrial Revolution radically changed people’s lives. Health improved. A vaccine for smallpox was invented in the last decade of the 18^th Century. Anesthesia was first used in 1846. Antiseptic practices, which we accept as commonsensical, go back only to the 1860s – to a time when my great grandparents were young adults. Communication and transportation changed, with the development of the telegraph and railroads. Central heating dates back just to the late 19^th Century.

 

Autos replaced horse-drawn carriages, steam ships replaced sailing vessels, and air flight made the world smaller and more accessible. Air conditioning only became widespread in the 1950s. There is so much that we take for granted that earlier generations never knew – frozen foods, gas ranges, movies, television and penicillin. And the proliferation of labor-saving inventions, from dishwashers to push-button windows in cars, to on-line shopping, and the streaming of movies have made life easier.

 

Maps have disappeared as auto navigation systems became ubiquitous. “Find my Friends” app allow parents to track their children. One downside is that cell phones have replaced telephone operators. 

 

Standards of living have risen beyond what previous generations could have imagined, and today we have the free time that only the wealthiest could have imagined a hundred years ago. Yet we complain. Polls measuring happiness indicate declines. Have we become spoiled by convenience?

"Home"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Home”

October 19, 2024

 

“Maybe the best part of going away for a vacation – coming home again.”

                                                                                                     Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007),

                                                                                                     Meet the Austins, 1960

 

A couple of weeks ago Caroline and I returned from a long weekend visit with a grandson, whom we love and are proud; but what really brought happiness was returning to our apartment on Monday. Charles Dickens is alleged to have said: “Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”

 

I have always liked being home, whether it was where I grew up, school or college, but especially the homes Caroline and I have made – from our first apartment to our six houses in four Connecticut towns, to our new home, an apartment at Essex Meadows. As we age, we are embraced by those we knew, know, loved and love, as well as by the places we have been and the people and events we have seen and experienced, all of which can be recalled through photos and mementos. Even on the bleakest of days, I gorge on memories of bygone days by observing and picking up treasures: photo albums, books, sculptures created by my parents, paintings and drawings, a few by Caroline, my parents, siblings, children and grandchildren.

 

On my desk are photos of Caroline, our children and grandchildren. There are photos of my parents and siblings, as well as ones of my grandparents. There are postcards from a brother, now deceased, who suffered from Prader-Willi Syndrome, a photo of the group with whom I skied in Vail every winter for twenty years, and a framed photo of an evening with Wodehousian Drones of New York. On the walls are drawings of my parents, paintings of our house in Old Lyme, portraits of Caroline and my mother, and a framed letter from P.G. Wodehouse to my uncle when a student at Andover. In Emma, Jane Austen wrote: “There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.”

 

Home is awakening in a familiar bed. It is following a morning ritual – breakfast with the day’s newspapers. It is talking with Caroline about the day’s schedule, a few hours at the computer, a walk and cup of tea in the afternoon. A perfect day in eating dinner with family or friends, or while watching an old movie. In his book The Poet at the Breakfast Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. includes this poem “Homesick in Heaven.”

 

“For there we loved, and where we loved is home,

Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts,

Though o’er us shine the jasper lighted dome: –

The chain may lengthen, but it never parts!

 

In a 1938 posthumously published collection, The Coloured Lands, G.K. Chesterton wrote: “It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic to his own imagination as he can.” To which I reply, Amen!

"What Do I Want in a President?"

 In 1952, I remember being told that a President should be like us – only a step above. Perhaps it was my innocence (and while my parents were Republicans), but both Governor Adlai Stevenson and General Dwight Eisenhower seemed to satisfy that suggestion. The world seems quite different today. 

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“What Do I want in a President?”

July 27, 2023

 

“It is fun running for president if you know you cannot win.”

                                                                                                                Attributed to Governor John H. Sununu

                                                                                                                As quoted by Senator Mitt Romney

                                                                                                                The Wall Street Journal

                                                                                                                July 25, 2023

 

New Hampshire’s former Governor John Sununu had a quality lacking in most candidates today – a sense of humor. It is not that today’s candidates do not enjoy a laugh, but none appear to have the self-deprecating humor of President Reagan, a man whose temperament endeared him to the public. Consider: “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of emergency – even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.” Heading toward 2024 and another Presidential election, humor is high on my list of desired qualifications. 

 

This essay was suggested by a good friend. It may be something you, too, might want to try – and then see how various candidates (if any) conform to your standards. As I begin to write, I recognize the relevancy of that aphorism that the perfect is the enemy of the good. One can cite qualities and abilities preferred, while recognizing one will have to settle for someone with less than a perfect score.

 

A few of the qualities I deem important:

 

            Character Traits                                               Abilities                                   Knowledge

 

                        Integrity                                 Common sense                                        

                        Humor                                   Willingness to delegate                       Economics

                        Empathy                                Understand feasibility                         Geo-politics

   Diligence                               Good speaker & listener

                        Consideration  

                        

                        

As well, the good candidate should have a love for the U.S. and have had experience outside of politics, preferably in business or the military. They should be able to keep cool when tempers flare, and they should show no favoritism. While George H.W. Bush said he didn’t do “the vision thing,” a President should have a view of the future that he or she can articulate. As for race or gender, those make no difference.

 

The 2024 Presidential race is shaping up to be difficult for those who care about the Republic: Two men out in front; one an egomaniac whose sole purpose seems to be exacting revenge; the other a corrupt politician whose sense of values can be seen in his refusal to meet his granddaughter. The No Labels Party, therefore, with founding political leaders like Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD), Governor Pat McCrory (R-NC), appears (at first glance) a commonsensical alternative. However, third party candidates in the U.S. do not have a good history, apart from being spoilers. Since 1832, when the Anti-Masonic Party nominated Attorney General William Wirt, only twelve third party candidates have received any electoral votes, and none has been successful. Among the best known are Theodore Roosevelt, of the Bull Moose Party, in 2012; George Wallace of the Reform Party in 1968; and John Anderson (1980) and Ross Perot (1992) of the Independent Party. With the exception of Roosevelt, they will be relegated to footnotes in presidential histories.

 

But could one be successful in 2024? I don’t know. It would be difficult but not impossible. Abraham Lincoln was the first individual to win the Presidency as a Republican, a Party that had been founded six years earlier by forces opposed to the expansion of slavery. In 1860, in a four-way race, he won 40% of the popular vote but 60% of the Electoral College vote. Not surprisingly, four years later he won 55% of the popular vote and almost 90% of the Electoral College vote. Since, the two Parties have dominated presidential politics. 

 

Perhaps today’s two front runners will falter, stumble, or fade away. Perhaps people along both political divides will have more choices than now seems probable. Primaries do not start for seven months; thus, while it is an optimist’s dream, there may be time for other Republican candidates to surge in the polls and for different Democrat candidates to emerge. I pray that will be the case. At any rate, it is worth pondering what traits one prefers in a candidate before the lever is pulled. And don’t fall for the early voting trap – a procedural change designed to book early as many votes as possible; despite exhortations to the contrary, early voting benefits politicians more than voters. The latter should wait as long as possible to send in their absentee ballots, or, better yet, wait until election day to cast their votes.

 

We live in an age when most every word spoken and every action taken are recorded, and today’s communication technology means that blemishes are given as much publicity as virtues. For the voter, separating what is true from what is not has become Herculean. Nevertheless, judgements must be made. As for my criteria, they may seem an impossible dream – and perhaps they are. One would be excused for thinking me a combination of Dr. Pangloss and Walter Mitty, whistling “Over the Rainbow” in La La Land. Yet we must have standards, if only for our sanity. As political speak grows louder we should not be swayed by glad handshakes, fake smiles and promises from insincere politicians. We should look deeper. The Presidency of the United States is the most powerful job on Earth. He or she should be beyond reproach – at least as much as possible. Judgements of the candidates should not be arrived at lightly.

 

G.K. Chesterton, in All Things Considered, wrote: “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.” Likewise, it is a test of a good political system whether one can poke fun at those who represent us, while honoring their offices. As the 2024 election nears, let us not lean on an ideologically driven media and/or a tech universe. Instead, let us, in good spirits, seek out and support those whose views of government are in accord with ours, but who also have the character to serve as President of all the people.