The Future of the Political Luncheon

Yesterday I found myself having political debate for lunch. It was all my father’s fault, or maybe, if we go far enough, it was mine. I had asked him that morning if he was free for lunch, but he already had an engagement with people from the New Israeli Fund. Rejection is never easy, even if it’s just for lunch, but I recovered quickly.

At one, my father called and asked if I wanted to join them. I answered (hopefully politely, but probably not) that I would not be caught dead having a business lunch with anyone from a fund. I thought he was talking about the Jewish National Fund, an organization I am only interested in because they plant trees -- if I had known it was a political organization I might have been even less excited about the prospect. My father, however, persevered. “His wife is a writer,” he said, and I assumed he meant the wife of the JNF guy, “She has six children’s books published with Random House.” I turned the car around and came to meet this guy and his fabulously interesting wife.

The fabulously interesting wife was not there at all. Instead, a man and a woman sat across the table from my parents, all four engaged in discussion about the future of Israel, behaving as though they were going to make some difference in the world. The sides were even: my father, the so-called realist, claiming that Israel has no future and springing on his opponent reasons why peace could never come to the Middle East, and NIF man, a starry-eyed optimist, stating that since the US now has a black president, which no one would have believed fifty years ago, anything could happen.

I explained to NIF man that I have heard my father’s diatribe before and suggested, still under the mistaken idea that he was from the JNF, that we fast-forward to hearing his plans about planting trees. Sadly, NIF man had no interest in planting trees and was convinced that he could change my father into an enthusiastic supporter of the future of the Zionist state. I chewed quickly, looking at the pictures on the walls, at my mother (who listened enraptured, but I knew it was all a mask -- she dislikes my father’s pessimistic outlook), and at the door, trying to calculate the speed by which I could reach it.

As I sat there, suffering intensely, it occurred to me that we need ultra-optimistic people like that NIF guy with his single-minded idealistic passion. Arguably, we also need pessimists like my father to fan the flames of their idealistic fire. But I had rather not be there when they meet. As soon as I could I excused myself, explaining that I live in a bubble, safe from political debate. And then, as politely as I could, trying not to show too much relief at my approaching escape, I got up and fled.

Living the Chicken-Eyed Life

My mother reads the New York Times, and for many years she used to cut out articles she loved and save them. One year, she gave me as gift a folder with thirty or so of her favorite essays from the NYT Journal. These days,she reads the newspaper on the kindle, and there are no more loose pieces of magnificent journalistic writing floating about the house. Instead, my mother points me out to links on the internet. “You have to read this,” she explains. And sometimes, like this morning, I do.

“Chickens on the Loose.” That’s the name of the Verlyn Klinkenborg editorial, recommended by my mother, which I read this morning. Even before delving in, I loved the title. I had chickens in my coop for more than a year, and then they stopped laying. I read somewhere that they can stop laying if they are afraid, which I considered could be the reason, given the owl, coyote and mountain lion prowling around my house. Having chickens was fun, not just because of the fresh eggs, but also because of their view of life. As Mr. Klikenborg says about his brood, chickens have boundless optimism, “the world seems perfectly adjusted to their expectations.”

How amazing is that! I can see Mr. Klinkenborg’s chickens running around his yard, pecking here and there, searching for grain and worms. Their world is a world of abundance, ask and it is given, search and the worm is there. They come to the door of the house, he writes, and look inside, “first with one eye, then the other,” and he explains, “they live in a monocular world, after all.” I knew just what he meant about the chickens tilting their heads as they looked at him, but what did he mean by monocular world?

Monocular Vision, according to Biology Online, “is a type of vision found mainly in animals with eyes placed on opposite sides of their head.” This has advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, these animals’ eyes work separately and they can see more than one object at a time. On the minus side, their depth perception is limited and they can’t judge distance very well. Mostly predators have this type of vision, and chickens, whether we think of them as such or not, are a predator to the worm and to little flies. How cool is this? Chickens have more than one perspective of the world and less depth to what they see. Maybe that’s what gives them their innocent trust in the world.

I am so different, continually judging the depth of impact for every single occurrence in my life. I look every which way, miss more than half of what is going on around me, and then over-think it to death. Perhaps it is time for me to learn something from the chicken, the wonder of discovery, the possibility that a worm hides behind every leaf, and the philosophical (yet careful) acceptance of danger nearby.