Trump as Buddha (Or Christ, Muhammad, Krishna, Others), But Not In The Way You Might Expect

Morally, politically, and psychologically reprehensible though he may be, Trump embodies much of what is thriving in the shadows of the personal and social psyche. Yes, I want to wag my finger in accusation of how embarrassingly wrong he is as a human being, but deep down I know he reflects back parts of me I don't want to own, and owning them is part of  my movement forward, spiritually speaking, of making the "shadow conscious," as Jung says. I am not saying that I want to act of impulses of greed, narcissism, sexual predation, and ego run riot, but I am saying that he is a teacher. He is the me I don't want to be. "Everything is the Buddha," said my now deceased friend, Ken B. He meant that the world offers up a rich buffet of stimuli that I can either learn from or react to or both. The reactions are as much about me as them. Yes, there is much to revile about Trump and his behavior, much work to do to remedy the consequences of his political achievements, but, ultimately, he is a product of fear, pain, and human suffering. If I am to find some solace from the rage he inspires, I have to turn the guns around to see that inner work is part of the lesson here. In Twelve Step parlance, Trump is a call to do a Fourth Step, a "fearless and searching moral inventory," not of him, but me. Inner work, yes, but outer action, too, in love instead of righteous indignation.

The Real Bucket List

As the years go by, and the body gets slower, stiffer, and weaker, the question of how I want to spend my remaining days becomes more urgent and critical. Like most of my peers (and the advertising aimed at people in my Boomer demographic) I want to do things, go places. I want to play music so well that people can't help but dance, to publish that prison book, to ride my bike along the spine of the Rockies, drive off into the sunset in a new camper van, and to see the stone towers off the beaches at Phuket. Given the consumerist cultural narrative that happiness is dependent on conditions being perfect and pleasurable -- external circumstances, in other words -- it is no surprise that this bucket list is about having things a certain way, doing things that I have always wanted to do. These things are both wonderful and ephemeral; material goodies and rich experiences are fine, but the goal of acquiring them as the sole purpose of my remaining days misses the real point of what I want to accomplish before I expire. What I want is to learn to be happy no matter what. I don't want to need to burn up fossil fuels flying around the globe or be recognized for having done art, music, or writing that makes people swoon (though all of that would be a nice by-product) in order to feel fulfilled, at home, at peace; what I want is to feel happy with my life, content that I am alive and able to drink in the beauty of every passing moment. That's the real prize, the bucket I want to kick before the curtain comes down. Just sayin, that's all.