This I Believe

Another essay from the book, This I Believe:

In Praise of the ‘Wobblies’

For years I really didn’t know what I believed. I always seemed to stand in the no-man’s land between opposing arguments, yearning to be won over by one side or the other, but finding instead degrees of merit in both.

I remember some 35 years ago, sitting at a table with the editor of The Washington Post and a half dozen Harvard kids. We were all finalists for a Post internship and the editor was there to winnow our numbers down. He asked each of us what we thought about the hot issues of the day — Vietnam, Nixon, the demonstrations. The Harvard kids were dazzling. They knew exactly where they stood. Me, I just stumbled on every issue, sounding so muddled. I was sure I had forever lost my shot at the Post. Why, I wondered, could I not see as clearly as those around me?

When the lunch was over and everyone rose to leave, the editor put his hand on my arm and asked me to stay. We talked again about the war and how it was dividing the country. A month later he wrote me a rejection letter. He said I was too young for the job but he liked my attitude. He told me that he “hunched I had a hell of a future” and to keep bugging him. I did.

Seven years later he hired me.

But that first letter, now framed in my office, had already given me an invaluable license. It had let me know that it was OK to be perplexed, to be torn by issues, to look at the world and not feel inadequate because it would not sort itself out cleanly. In the company of the confident, I had always envied their certainty. I imagined myself like some tiny sailboat, aimlessly tacking in whatever wind prevailed at the moment.

But in time, I came to accept, even embrace, what I called “my confusion,” and to recognize it as a friend and ally, no apologies needed. I preferred to listen rather than to speak; to inquire, not crusade. As a noncombatant, I was welcomed at the tables of even bitterly divided foes. I came to recognize that I had my own compass and my own convictions and if, at times, they took me in circles, at least they expanded outward. I had no wish for converts — where would I lead them?

An editor and mentor at the Post once told me I was “Wobbly.” I asked who else was in that category and drew comfort from its quirky ranks. They were good people all — open-minded, inquisitive, and yes, confused. We shared a common creed. Our articles of faith all ended with a question mark. I wouldn’t want a whole newsroom, hospital, platoon or — God forbid — a nation of us. But in periods of crisis, when passions are high and certainty runs rabid, it’s good to have a few of us on hand. In such times, I believe it falls to us Wobblies to try and hold the shrinking common ground.

~ Ted Gup is a journalist who has written for Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic and other publications. He is the author of “The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths At The CIA." Gup teaches journalism at Case Western Reserve University.

This I Believe

Another good one from This I Believe.

The Hardest Work You Will Ever Do

The day my fiancé fell to his death, it started to snow, just like any November day, just like the bottom hadn’t fallen out of my world when he freefell off the roof. His body, when I found it, was lightly covered with snow. It snowed almost every day for the next four months, while I sat on the couch and watched it pile up.

One morning, I shuffled downstairs and was startled to see a snowplow clearing my driveway and the bent back of a woman shoveling my walk. I dropped to my knees and crawled through the living room and back upstairs so those good Samaritans would not see me. I was mortified. My first thought was, How will I ever repay them? I didn’t have the strength to brush my hair let alone shovel someone’s walk.

Before Jon’s death, I took pride in the fact that I rarely asked for help or favors; I could always do it myself. My identity was defined by my competence and independence. Two hours after Jon died I canceled every obligation in my life. The identity crisis that followed was devastating. Who was I if I was no longer capable and busy? How could I respect myself if all I did was sit on the couch every day and watch the snow fall?

Learning how to receive the love and support that came my way wasn’t easy. Friends cooked for me and I cried because I couldn’t even help them set the table. “I’m not usually this lazy,” I wailed. Finally my friend Kathy sat down with me and said, “Mary, cooking for you is not a big deal. I love you and I want to do it. It makes me feel good to be able to do something for you.”

Over and over, I heard similar sentiments from the people who were supporting me during those dark days. One very wise person told me, “Watching your willingness to be vulnerable and to fully embrace your grief is a gift. The line between giving and receiving is constantly blurred.”

I began to think about how good it made me feel to help people, how the joy was always in the giving rather than the getting, and that maybe that was true for my friends and neighbors, as well. I also came to realize that I didn’t have to repay anyone in kind, but that I could pass on their love and compassion to others who needed it. Most importantly, I could accept their help in the spirit in which it was given – with grace and humility.

Surrendering to my neediness helped light the path to a new identity. I came to understand that we are much more than what we do, that our value lies in who we are.

~ Mary Cook works on the ground crew for an air taxi company in Gustavus, Alaska, a community of 450 surrounded by Glacier Bay National Park. In addition to loading and unloading planes, Cook handles the mail and tends the town’s only coffee house. She also serves as a hospice volunteer.


Though it was only divorce, and not a death I went through, this story hit home. I understand the author's journey through helplessness, struggling with her identity, but then learning to receive love and support of friends and family. Setting aside the need to be independent, and understanding the joy of giving (even when you are on the receiving end).

And of course, the power of a casserole.

This I Believe

Another story from This I Believe:

A Shared Moment of Trust

One night recently I was driving down a two lane highway at about 60 miles an hour. A car approached from the opposite direction at about the same speed. As we passed each other, I caught the other driver’s eye for only a second.

I wondered whether he might be thinking, as I was, how dependent we were on each other at that moment. I was relying on him not to fall asleep, not to be distracted by a cell phone conversation, not to cross over into my lane and bring my life suddenly to an end. And though we were strangers to each other, he relied upon me in just the same way.

Multiplied a million times over, I believe that is the way the world works. At some level we all depend upon one another to act in a way that avoids mutual destruction. Sometimes that dependence requires us simply to refrain from doing something — like crossing over the double yellow line. And sometimes it requires us to act cooperatively — as in the case of profound threats to our health or safety.

One familiar example of a serious problem that could not have been solved — or could not have been solved as promptly — without worldwide cooperation is the SARS epidemic. In 2003, SARS claimed 700 lives and threatened to spread around the world. The virus had to be quickly identified and controlled. That was too big an undertaking for any one country, but scientists from five nations were able — working together — to identify the virus in record time. Doctors around the world then brought the outbreak quickly under control.

Another area in which international cooperation is essential is terrorism. In the continuing struggle against this lethal threat, we cannot prevail without cooperation among the law enforcement agencies. intelligence services, and sometimes the military establishments of countries around the world. The daily news from Iraq and Afghanistan underscores just how much even America, the super power, needs such help.

Americans are a people who value their freedom to do what they want to do, when and how they want to do it. But we cannot escape the reality that in ways large and small, we live in an interdependent world. Only the unwise would say that an individual or a nation can go it alone.

Warren Christopher was U.S. Secretary of State from 1993 to 1997. As President Carter’s Deputy Secretary of State, he helped normalize relations with China, win ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, and gain release of the American hostages in Iran. A native of North Dakota, Christopher now lives near Los Angeles.

This I Believe

One of the last books we read in book club was This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. It was actually one of my picks because I had heard about the old radio show from the '50s, and the effort by NPR to revive it a few years ago. The original radio show was hosted by Edward R. Murrow and featured brief essays by both the famous and the unknown. Politicians, nurses, artists, construction workers, athletes, parents, students - anyone and everyone could contribute.

It is a difficult assignment to capture what you believe in three brief pages. From the introduction of the book: "This I Believe offers a simple, if difficult invitation: Write a few hundred words expressing the core principles that guide your life - your personal credo."

The book is based on the series, and features essays from both the original series and more current submissions. Many essay titles are serious like, "There is Such a Thing as Truth", but there are also some more lighthearted ones like, "Be Cool to the Pizza Dude". There was also two essays from the same person - one from the '50s series when the author was 16 years old, and another essay fifty years later. I originally checked the book out from the library, but after bookmarking about fifteen essays with scraps of paper, I decided it was a book I wanted to own.

I enjoy having the book to refer back to, but I have found that most all of the essays are also online. I thought I'd feature some of the ones that spoke to me or touched me in some way. These will be in no particular order, probably just in the order they appeared in the book. The first is from the 1950's by composer, conductor, pianist and educator Leonard Bernstein.

The Mountain Disappears

I believe in people. I feel, love, need and respect people above all else, including the arts, natural scenery, organized piety, or nationalistic superstructures. One human figure on the slope of a mountain can make the whole mountain disappear for me. One person fighting for the truth can disqualify for me the platitudes of centuries. And one human being who meets with injustice can render invalid the entire system which has dispensed it.

I believe that man’s noblest endowment is his capacity to change. Armed with reason, he can see two sides and choose: he can be divinely wrong. I believe in man’s right to be wrong. Out of this right he has built, laboriously and lovingly, something we reverently call democracy. He has done it the hard way and continues to do it the hard way–by reason, by choosing, by error and rectification, by the difficult, slow method in which the dignity of A is acknowledged by B, without impairing the dignity of C. Man cannot have dignity without loving the dignity of his fellow.

I believe in the potential of people. I cannot rest passively with those who give up in the name of “human nature.” Human nature is only animal nature if it is obliged to remain static. Without growth, without metamorphosis, there is no godhead. If we believe that man can never achieve a society without wars, then we are condemned to wars forever. This is the easy way. But the laborious, loving way, the way of dignity and divinity, presupposes a belief in people and in their capacity to change, grow, communicate, and love.

I believe in man’s unconscious mind, the deep spring from which comes his power to communicate and to love. For me, all art is a combination of these powers; for if love is the way we have of communicating personally in the deepest way, they what art can do is to extend this communication, magnify it, and carry it to vastly greater numbers of people. Therefore art is valid for the warmth and love it carries within it, even if it be the lightest entertainment, or the bitterest satire, or the most shattering tragedy.

I believe that my country is the place where all these things I have been speaking of are happening in the most manifest way. American is at the beginning of her greatest period in history–a period of leadership in science, art, and human progress toward the democratic ideal. I believe that she is at a critical point in this moment, and that she needs us to believe more strongly than ever before, in her and in one another, in our ability to grow and change, in our mutual dignity, in our democratic method. We must encourage thought, free and creative. We must respect privacy. We must observe taste by not exploiting our sorrows, successes, or passions. We must learn to know ourselves better through art. We must rely more on the unconscious, inspirational side of man. We must not enslave ourselves to dogma. We must believe in the attainability of good. We must believe, without fear, in people.