Encouragement

Robert Creeley, "Small Time"

Ashok Karra -

Hi all –

The President's "One Big Beautiful Bill" passed the House by one vote and now heads to the Senate. Hayes Brown from NBC News has an apt summary of it:

The bill the House Budget Committee passed late Sunday is packed with GOP priorities, with an extension of trillions of dollars in tax cuts as the centerpiece. It also includes over a $1 trillion worth of cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and a major increase in funding for Trump’s deportation machine.

Cutting Medicaid, as I've said before, would be devastating for the nation but especially Texas. 4.4 million people in Texas use Medicaid; nearly half of all births are covered by it, as are over 60% of nursing home residents. 3.7 million Texans rely on food stamps (SNAP). The way the Every Texan website puts it: "Despite record-low unemployment rates, Texas continues to be one of the hungriest states in America."

There's more in the bill that's problematic. I really like this flyer by @catwithonelife.bsky.social:

So yeah. You may want to remind our Senators and Representatives that they serve the people. I myself wrote Cornyn, Cruz, and Pfluger today. No tax cut is worth losing institutions which work. They may not perfect but they save lives. We don't have much of a social safety net in the U.S. and we need to preserve what we've got.

A few causes I give to which I'd like to advertise here:

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Robert Creeley, "Small Time"

Robert Creeley's "Small Time" is a conversational poem. You've met your friend at a coffee shop, you've got fresh blonde roast, you're chatting while people-watching. And slowly but surely you get to a deeper but slightly fragmented consideration of emotions: "Why so curiously happy / with such patient small agony..."

Small Time (h/t Tom Snarsky)
Robert Creeley

Why so curiously happy
with such patient small agony,
not hurting enough
to be real to oneself —

or even intimidated
that it's at last too late
to make some move
toward something else.

Late sun, late sun,
this far north you still shine,
and it's all fine,
and there's still time enough.

The conversation starts with a question that's already been thought through. "Why so curiously happy / with such patient small agony, / not hurting enough / to be real to oneself." Someone's been reflecting quite a bit with regard to a nagging, difficult feeling, a "small agony." A number of things could be causing this. Maybe they've been lying to themselves about something they did wrong. They're "happy," they're "patient" with the pain they feel. Maybe they're not over an ex. They know they're gone, they know they miss them here and there, but they're content enough not "to be real to oneself."

It's a quiet conversation you might be tempted to believe optional. I mean, if you're "not hurting enough / to be real to oneself," is anything at stake? You're saying you're "happy!" Why should we listen in? Why should we want to join? The second stanza outlines the stakes: what if you're happy because you're "intimidated," because you think "it's... too late / to make some move / toward something else?" The stakes are paralysis. This "small agony" might be happiness enough, but if you know you're lying to yourself, you may be really stuck.

At this point, I don't know what to say. In my life, I use two therapeutic techniques. First, the miracle question. "If you didn't have this problem, what do you see yourself doing?" I use this a lot because once I've got an answer, I can connect that answer to a larger vision. I thoroughly enjoyed taking a walk in light rain today to get a large latte. Is that what I wanted? Absolutely. I saw how green the neighborhood I grew up in is; I got to walk past some memories I know too well. Second, "if it's working for you, keep doing it." Obviously, this does not admit an answer of "drugs" or "sleeping 15 hours a day." Anyway, these two techniques don't prevent small agonies, but they force me to be real more often than not. Why do certain things work and others not so much? I'd better be clear with myself before I indulge a behavior.

Creeley chooses to go another direction. With poetic flourish, of course:

Late sun, late sun,
this far north you still shine,
and it's all fine,
and there's still time enough.

An appeal to the "late sun" makes me wonder about age and small agonies. Maybe "it's all fine / ... there's still time enough" because the cost of being real increases with age? Or because time will fix some things which seem urgent at the moment? Nietzsche would interject that lies–what acts as the truth–are as close to being as real as we can get. You can only insist on so much truth, I guess. Again, I don't know. I would like clarity on the possibility of paralysis. Why must we make a move toward something else? One thing that stuns those I know getting older: the amount of change one must absorb in such a short time. The loss of so many you knew, while circumstances change at rates skill and awareness cannot address.