Wonderful piece, Asha. The arguments against prosecuting former President Trump, like the possibility of causing a civil war, or gasp, the horror of indicting and convicting a former president, go against everything our country is supposed to stand for: no one (at all) is above the law, and the rule of law.
Here's the rest of it. I love the second paragraph (which is the third in the original piece) tremendously:
"To have a temporary, isolated sense of power over all events and circumstances, is a lovely illusionary privilege and perhaps the prime and most beautifully constructed conceit of being human and especially of being youthfully human, but it is a privilege that must be surrendered with that same youth, with ill health, with accident, with the loss of loved ones who do not share our untouchable powers; powers eventually and most emphatically given up, as we approach our last breath.
The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door."
Wonderful piece, Asha. The arguments against prosecuting former President Trump, like the possibility of causing a civil war, or gasp, the horror of indicting and convicting a former president, go against everything our country is supposed to stand for: no one (at all) is above the law, and the rule of law.
I really like the David Whyte quote. Vulnerability is our natural state. Indeed. Thank you for the reminder.
Here's the rest of it. I love the second paragraph (which is the third in the original piece) tremendously:
"To have a temporary, isolated sense of power over all events and circumstances, is a lovely illusionary privilege and perhaps the prime and most beautifully constructed conceit of being human and especially of being youthfully human, but it is a privilege that must be surrendered with that same youth, with ill health, with accident, with the loss of loved ones who do not share our untouchable powers; powers eventually and most emphatically given up, as we approach our last breath.
The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door."