The Subject Is Strength

Keep Yourself Strong

 

My previous post on loving care was a reminder to myself as well as to my readers that we need to take care of ourselves, and a couple images of meals I made with spinach pointed directly (with an indirect nod to Popeye the Sailor that younger readers, if any, might have missed) to the importance of building strength. Iron and vitamin D really do improve muscular strength, mass, and function in older adults as well as young people. These days, with every good meal I prepare, I tell myself I am building reserves of strength for an uncertain future. After all, outside of the certainty of eventual death for each and every one of us, the truth is that our futures have always been and always will be uncertain, so don’t wait for tomorrow to start taking care of yourself.

 

Physical activity, mental stimulation, and contact with others is nourishing and important, too. Sometimes when I’m feeling discouraged, it’s hard for me to call a friend, because I don’t want to spread my discouragement to anyone else. If I make the call, though (and sometimes it isn’t until the next day, I admit), before we’ve been talking long, my friend and I transition from commiseration to laughter, and laughing together renews our strength. 

Our playing field

Sunny Juliet and I had some physical activity on a cold Monday, the outdoors made more inviting by the presence of blue sky and sunshine. Frisbee is mental stimulation as well as physical activity for my girl, and often her dear little face makes me laugh with joy.

 

 

A Fable From Aesop

 

Book nerd that I have always been, now that I live alone there is always a book on the dining table, and these days I've been turning to Aesop with my meals. 

As you can see, the cover is attractive, page illustrations charming, but the book itself is falling apart, literally, so I felt no guilt for liberating this shabby treasure from a box of bookstore donations and calling it my own. My 1846 edition is also safely out of copyright, so I’ll be sharing a few more of the 300 fables and illustrations in weeks to come. 

For today, here is “The Lion and the Three Bulls.”

You might wonder where in the world lions and bulls both occur. Facts about Aesop are elusive, and many believe he was not a real person at all. Other scholars place him in the 6^th century BCE and identify him as born enslaved and eventually freed. While his birthplace (if he was, in fact, born) remains an open question, one possibility proposed is Ethiopia, and surely cattle and lions both are part of the fauna of many African countries. I’m content with that speculation. What is most important about Aesop, anyway, are the stories and their lessons.

 

“The Lion and the Three Bulls” is a very brief fable with an obvious and simple lesson. Three bulls graze together in a pasture and are safe as long as they remain together. The lion dares not attack one bull with two other formidable defenders on the scene. When the bulls separate, however, the lion easily takes them on one at a time, and all three lose their lives. 

 

“Union is strength,” is the way my old 19^th-century Routledge volume sums up the fable’s lesson. 

 

Running with that idea--

 

The phrase and general idea of “United we stand! Divided we fall!” has a long history, from the New Testament (Matthew 3:25, Matthew 12:25, Luke 11:17) to Abraham Lincoln (“a house divided against itself”) to the official motto of the state of Kentucky (since 1942) and the flag of the state of Missouri. Going back to pre-Revolutionary times, we find a song by John Dickinson, “The Liberty Song,” with the words “Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!” 

 

Never a sports fan, I learned something new when looking for the idea that we are “stronger together.” Those of you who do follow sports will be familiar with the name Walter Payton, running back for the Chicago Bears. Apparently, Payton’s most well-known words are these: “We are stronger together than we are alone.” This site includes many other wonderful Payton quotes. I'm glad to have learned about him!

 

Similar words were adopted in 2021 by the International Olympic Committee to honor teamwork and the unifying power of sports: “Faster, Higher, Stronger—Together.” Labor unions use such slogans for obvious reasons, pointing to the very reason for their, the unions’, existence. Team sports were not my forte, to put it mildly, and I've never belonged to a union (my paternal grandfather did), but I did play in orchestras for nine years, and an orchestra cannot make music except by making it together. Orchestral music is an ensemble production.

 

Maybe talk of strength in union makes you nervous? Irritates you? You say you’ve worked hard all your life and earned everything you have, with no help from anyone? The truth is that the most rugged individualist who clawed his way up the ladder of success did not spring full-blown out of nowhere but benefitted from a surrounding culture of knowledge and skill and law and examples built up over generations, in this country and others. We all inherit what others gathered and treasured for us before we were even born. Community is a much broader concept than communism, and you can have one without the other. The motto E pluribus unum dates back to 1776. Here's a case for returning to it.

 

Current Events

 

No, I am not going to get into details of the past week’s outrages. The observation I want to make is general. 

 

Most 21^st-century presidential candidates and presidents have vowed to be presidents “for all the people.” Tragically, the candidate who now sits in the Oval Office was not in tune with that popular promise and instead, while yet on the campaign trail, was already vowing vengeance. Retribution, not reconciliation, is his theme song. Now in office, he has wasted no time in making good on his threats.

 

(What is a threat? What is a promise? Do you see them as different? Why or why not?)

 

Calling journalists and Democrats and all Republicans who don’t fall in line with him “enemies,” today’s president encourages his loyalists to follow him in hating and demonizing, dividing rather than uniting. Why? Because keeping us divided distracts us from what everything else he and his henchmen are doing. Because keeping American citizens fighting among themselves lets the gangster billionaires take over. Because keeping us apart in information silos makes us weak. If Americans came together in defense of the rule of law, which "ultimately depends on the citizens" (go back and follow that link!), we would still have plenty of disagreements and plenty to debate and a lot on which to compromise, but surely we could stand united against the threat of autocracy. We would have strength in numbers. —And if our democracy fails to survive, none of the other disagreements will matter, anyway.

Right now, in this cold Michigan February, it's hard to see if and how Americans will ever come together again, isn’t it? But what a tragic waste of human thought and innovation and effort it would be if this country of ours were to slide into “absolute despotism” after being founded expressly to avoid such a fate!

 

Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day, to cite the old cliché, and it didn’t fall in a single day, either. The current administration is less than a month old. The wrecking ball started swinging on Day 1, and there has been a lot of destruction already, but we don’t have to sit back and let it continue to happen. We need to remind our members of Congress, our elected representatives, that they took an oath to abide by and defend the Constitution of the United States, and they are not working for the people they supposedly represent if they are knuckling under to a president who would set it aside—or, worse yet, if they are actively aiding and abetting that set-aside.

 

So keep up your strength, lend your strength to others, and draw strength from others, too. I promise (or is it a threat?) more Aesop in the weeks ahead. Other books, too. And if you’re very, very good, more dog news and notes. That’s a promise.