Pilgrims’ Progress
Some of the greatest works of literature have been penned by people during their incarceration. While its origins are somewhat questionable as to who told the story versus wrote the story, The Travels of Marco Polo were put to paper while Marco Polo sat in a Genovese prison (Venice and Genoa were rival city-states and commercial competitors in the thirteenth century). Jump forward some four hundred years and move from merchant ardor to religious zealousness and you have John Bunyan sitting in an English prison for holding religious services not authorized by the omnipotent Church of England. What’s a person with a life of the mind to do when incarcerated but put his thoughts and memories to paper. And voila! Out comes The Pilgrim’s Progress, the fictional and allegorical tales of a Christian’s trek from Godlessness to Redemption, which becomes the great religious story of its age. The similar and important role of the journey and struggle to make for a meaningful story is notable. And now we have journeys being postponed all around us that make me wonder whether our all-important sense of imagination and wandering wonder will impact the course of human existence forever. For what is man if he cannot set his sights on the horizon and envision himself in a better place?
Today I read that Saudi Arabia is planning to cancel the Hajj for the first time in modern history. That means that while Lawrence was traversing the Sun’s Anvil on his way to Aqaba and The Desert Fox was conquering the desert in El Alamein, there were still pilgrims crossing the desert on their way to Mecca to fulfill their once-in-a-lifetime obligation to their faith to “head to a place for the sake of visiting”. Stop and consider that for a moment, the purpose of this difficult and purposefully burdensome journey is simply for the sake of showing reverence to the concept that we should all make a point of enhancing our work-a-day lives with the enlightenment of travel. And COVID-19 has put a unique and unprecedented (there’s that word again) pause on that very basic human need.
In Hinduism, the great pilgrimage is called Kumbh Mela and it is historically held every twelve years. It is a gathering of about 100 million people over its duration and takes place at four different riverside sites in India. The next Kumbh Mela is scheduled to begin in 2021. Depending on the path of the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of the efforts to contain it, that religious gathering may too be postponed. Those two religions (Islam and Hinduism) combined comprise 3 billion souls or 38% of the world (technically 55% of the world that follows any religion, meaning that over 2.3 billion people on earth do not attach themselves to a specific religion). Now put that all into the context that the other great religious gathering that is suppose to happen this summer is the Republican National Convention. Hallelujah! Actually, its no longer really the Republican National Convention as it has historically been for the Grand Old Party since its founding in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854. During those previous 166 years the primary purpose of the convention was to agree and formalize the policy doctrine or platform of the party such that all members could agree on what they stand for. But the RNC has decided that there simply is no time for such trivialities in 2020.
Think about that for a moment. A political party that has no platform on which to stand. Knowing what you stand for is perhaps one of the most important guiding principles of enlightened humanity, but Donald Trump does not believe there is enough bandwidth any longer to handle that. He is fighting with Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, with whom the RNC had contracted to hold the national convention (in Charlotte) over whether gathering 50,000 Republicans in one place at the same time is such a wise thing in the era of COVID-19. North Carolina is second in the nation at this moment in new COVID-19 infection cases, just behind (wait for it, wait for it…..) Florida. Naturally, Donald Trump has pushed to move the serious partying part of the convention (after his acceptance speech) to a more party-friendly state. Florida and his pal Governor Ron DeSantis have come up with Jacksonville as the perfect venue for the party. Meanwhile, as for that bothersome platform nonsense, braintrust Jared Kushner has suggested replacing the lengthy party policy statement with a small laminated card with bullet points. That makes a lot of sense. Tweets have replaced stodgy old reports and memos in the Trump White House as the common form of communication, so why shouldn’t something as outdated as a party policy statement get truncated down to soundbites that represent the actual attention span of Donald Trump and the average Donald Trump supporter?
I am also humored to read that LaGuardia Airport in New York City, the last great Black Hole of Calcutta of the travel industry has finished and is prepared to unveil its brand spanking new $4 billion terminal filled with enlightened artwork that is available for viewing by all, which means you don’t need a boarding card to enjoy it. I guess there is some symbolic message to us about all of this since opening a new airline terminal in an era when most of us are wondering whether we will ever board a plane again is a pretty bold statement. Turning an airport into a museum of modern art may be an even stronger and more poignant message of what might become of the world we used to know.
So by now, most of my regular readers are wondering how I am going to tie together Marco Polo, The Hajj, Kumbh Mela, the RNC and LaGuardia Airport into some semblance of a compelling message. So here I go.
We have all come to know the expression that it is not the destination, but the journey that matters in life. That was a gem penned by none other than Ralph Waldo Emerson on the subject of self-reliance in his famous essay titled Self-Reliance. Marco Polo, John Bunyan, Mohammed, Gandhi, Donald Trump and the Everyman that wanders into Terminal B at LaGuardia are all on a journey. That is the journey that changes them and obviates the need for the triviality of the destination. The medium is the message. The Silk Road traveler expands familiarity and commerce. The pilgrims all expand their enlightenment and reverence. The air traveler broadens his cultural awareness. But Donald Trump and the RNC just party towards the rapture, eliminating meaning and policy as they go. Emerson also said that “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”, so maybe we are all wrong or little-minded in thinking that a cogent and consistent policy and governance approach is of value. But in that same essay, the great and all-knowing Emerson also said that “to be great is to be misunderstood” and there’s the rub for Donald Trump. Marco Polo, Christian the Pilgrim, Mohammed and Gandhi are all easily misunderstood, but The Donald is as easy to read as the warning label on an iodine bottle, “Immediately induce vomiting”. There is no greatness, there is no enlightenment, there is no ideology, there is no policy. There is just our Pilgrims’ Progress to November Third and the hope that the journey changes enough of us to make the destination for this sordid chapter of history no more than a trivial footnote to history.