Not a Lost Generation

You are a lost generation.

from The Sun Also Rises

I’ve been gone for a month, camping out west, and staying less attuned to the news. At the time I left, Hemingway seemed like the appropriate author. If he was the poster-writer of the lost generation, then his worldview seemed to fit the era of the lost election. We seemed to be heading into a rerun of Trump versus Biden, with accompanying lack of enthusiasm and a drifting toward some inevitable ending that felt like the stagnant trench warfare of WWI.

And then Biden stepped aside.

I, too, retired this year, saying multiple times that part of good theater is knowing when to leave the stage. It was time to get out of the way and let younger colleagues move things in the direction they chose. I didn’t want to drift into the inevitable decline of cognitive skills, the tendency to say, “We tried something like that and it didn’t work,” and the going through the motions simply because they were familiar and relatively easy and paid decently.

So I cleaned out my office, said my goodbyes, and went camping.

But I expect it was a lot harder for Joe Biden to leave the stage. The fact that he chose to has my admiration. Whether you agree with his politics or not, many of us know how hard it is to get an aging parent to give up the car keys. Imagine trying to get them to give up the keys to the White House.

But giving up the keys is the right thing for a parent to do when their driving endangers themselves. And others. Biden’s clinging to his status as nominee clearly endangered his legacy and the well-being of many others. I convinced my mother to give up her car, in part by saying that my daughter, Ananda, would use it in college. Biden gave up his status as Democratic nominee for Kamala Harris.

During my trip west, I saw Ananda, who is still driving my mom’s now 22-year-old car, hoping to keep it going for another couple of years until  she finishes grad school. Ananda loves the old car, and it ties her to her heritage.

My mother wasn’t without regrets about giving up her car, even wanting to buy another despite being behind locked doors in a memory-care unit. I hope Joe won’t have regrets about his decision. I believe he has a history of trying to do the right thing. Like all of us, he isn’t perfect. You may not agree with many of his decisions. But I think most of you will agree about the importance of knowing when to leave the stage.

And when Joe and I have left the stage, a new act follows, more youthful, enthusiastic, creative, and joyful. Move over Hemingway—I want to believe that things are unfolding as they should. I recently reread Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist. As he says,

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.