A brief history of 4,000 years

...a dispatch from bewilderness

On the last day of my first life, I got in a car and never came back. At about the same time, a woman named Mrs. Cream ran out of beer. It was 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday when she stole a truck, went out for a case of Bud, and compacted a parked car. I was in the car.

Pre-truck, I was a freelance writer working with clients like New York, Vogue and Vanity Fair. Post-truck, I was rolling Play-Doh balls and banging wooden pegs and boards. The good news is I survived. The bad news was brain damage. Which caused a few problems. For instance…

I couldn’t find the toothpaste or the shampoo.  The toothpaste was in the fridge between lemons and cheese. The shampoo appeared between towels and sheets.

I couldn’t say what was on my mind.  Or what was in my mind.  History? It was all in there somewhere.  Fifth grade, Mrs. Miller.  She had blue eyes and dark hair. Sixth grade, ducking under our desks to protect our heads from a nuclear bomb.

The world might blow up but our desks would be fine. Which sounds a bit like the world now —except no one is saying our desks will be fine.

Photo by Jonathan Meyer on Unsplash

This brings us to things that don’t make sense (or so I imagine) even if your brain is beyond reproach.

For example, people who hate Jews claim that a minuscule Jewish minority -- 1/5 of 1% of the world -- somehow controls the other 99.85%. 

But the truth is the opposite: The fate of Jews is not in the hands of Jews. Public policy is not set by the 1/5 of 1% of humans who are Jewish, but by the 99.8% who are not.

For 3,800 years, we haven’t been wanted and haven’t been safe. I’m on the side that wants bombs to stop, wants hostages back in their homes, and wants humans to live in peace.