Two years ago, my best friend and I discussed the merits of the "big life" versus the "small life." It was the day before she moved to New York to start her M.A. program at Columbia, and I was finishing my B.A. and applying to graduate school at Middlebury. We reached the consensus that the big life deserved a try; after all, one can always return to the small life in the end. My concern was: what if you get trapped in the big life and can't get out? People get trapped in the small life and can't attain the big life, so why can't the situation work in the reverse?

Tonight, Adrienne and I drove out to Bloomington Park and sat on the beach. She recently submitted a strategic initiative to the prime minister of Nepal, on how to streamline the ideology of the youth revolution already taking place there. We laughed together about it, paused, and then sighed at the oddity that is our lives.

Having just returned from a year of studying and teaching English in Moscow, I have gladly ensconced myself in the small life. I tried the big life, in a way - I enjoyed it, but I longed for silence and steadiness. Now, Adrienne looks at my job, my benefits, my salary, my investment portfolio... and she envies the quietude and stability of my position. She's in limbo now, competing with the elite for jobs that most people don't know exist. She's dejected, her confidence is shaken, and she wonders if perhaps the small life isn't better.

I look at her fellowship in the country of Georgia, at her Ivy League diploma, at her NYC apartment, and I envy the direction of her life... but I do not envy her the rat race, the competition, and the uncertainty. I am proud of her, and constantly reassure her that she will indeed find a career doing something amazing - but because she's set her sights so high, it will take longer. It will be harder. But the payoffs will be greater, in the end.

I am happy here, having returned to my small life. I live the big life vicariously through my best friend. Sometimes I jump out and allow myself to experience a sample of the big life, just to remind myself that it's still there, in the event that I change my mind.

*The Life Span of a Republic*

I thought parts of this were interesting, especially the 8 developmental stages of civilizations:

"The United States is a Republic - but, how long do we have? About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: 'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.' 'The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage .'

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Population of counties won by - Gore: 127 million, Bush: 143 million;
Square miles of land won by - Gore: 580,000, Bush: 2,427,000
States won by - Gore: 19, Bush: 29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by - Gore: 13.2, Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare...' Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the 'complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the 'governmental dependency' phase."

Some of these quotes are of questionable origin: http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/athenian.asp

my grandparents' legacy

My mother constantly searches for the meaning behind her parents' death, behind being orphaned at 14 with an uncertain future and a lack of parental guidance. Their death is the cornerstone of everything that has ever gone wrong in her life; her failed marriage, her liberal daughters, her autistic son.

All my life, my mother prepared me to live - to survive, rather - without her. I would tell her I loved her and she would reply in kind, but add: "But you don't need me and I'll die someday." She longs for death as a paralyzed man longs for movement. When I was 8 years old, she starved herself to a mere 80 pounds with the intent of suicide. When she discovered she was pregnant with my brother, she began taking care of herself again (if only for his sake)... but now she blames her malnourished state at the pregnancy's onset for Scott's autism.

Until 2 months ago, I thought that my grandfather had flown his Piper Comanche aircraft into a mountain during a Wyoming blizzard. Now, over 34 years later, the FAA inquiry has resurfaced. My uncle tucked it away and never read it, but my mother seized it as though it contained the encryption that would heal her broken life. She's asked me to find the color photographs of the bodies, if they still exist; she's still looking for a closure that their closed-casket funeral couldn't give her.

I promised I would try.

The night of my grandparents' deaths is slowly beginning to reveal itself to us, although the details of their last minutes will never be known. They went on vacation in Wyoming with another couple, but they encountered a blizzard during the return trip. They had been warned of a low-pressure system in the area but paid no heed; they planned to skirt the storm to the south. My grandfather was actually not piloting the plane on the return trip; his friend was flying. Early that April evening, a man and woman on the highway noticed a small plane hovering low over the ground, as if trying to orient itself. When the plane never arrived in its planned destination, ground control knew that the worst had occurred, but the storm was so ferocious that rescue teams couldn't leave until morning.

The accident report includes a diagram of the mangled aircraft and three bodies laying in close proximity. Only one body appeared to have been conscious and mobile following the crash; there were frozen footprints in the snow, staggering only 50 feet beyond the wreckage before the injured person collapsed.

These 2 couples left behind 7 children, respectively. One family clung together for support and remains close to this day, while the other family completely disintegrated, turning on one another. To this day, we're still trying to restring the tenuous threads of our family - a delicate, Sisyphean task.

Whenever I fly, I think of the grandfather I never knew. I watch trees, homes, and highways lessen and disappear behind wispy clouds. I am entranced by the propeller, how it becomes barely visible as it gains speed, until it's nothing but a menacing reflection against the sky. I sigh as the setting sun sets houses afire on the ground... but I am safe up here.

Before I die, I will get my pilots' license, fate's lessons be damned!