Wondering What Will Be

The following piece will be published in tomorrow's Independent

We are on the verge of an historical, seismic shift here in America. I write this as we citizens begin lining up by rights, today, to affect outcomes of world events not yet ready to unfold. The pundits are in full form figuring the scenarios and measuring their likelihood. People stop me on the street and ask me what it looks like. They ask me what will be. There is little debate left in our lungs--we are out of breath, exhausted and exhilarated and wondering what will be.

I remember the day Richard Nixon won in 1968. That was a time that seemed certain to bring about long awaited seismic change in America. But events of tragic proportion took us on a turn. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were suddenly dead. The Viet Nam War was in full throttle. Thousands of American casualties every year and no end in sight. Riots threatened the sanity of our cities. I rode the subway to school that morning. I looked at people. They read the newspaper, cracked gum, ate muffins, nodded off to catch a few more minutes of sleep before work--no different than the day before. I thought the world would surely be different. I was sure I would see a darker place; a colder earth; an ugly city or at least a dirty look or sneer or some sign on my subway ride to school that morning that the world was in trouble.

Things happen to us and reaction is sometimes tough to measure. A cop told me once that when he pulled his weapon and shot a man for the first time the thing that struck him most was that the man seemed unbothered by the bullets that had entered his body. The man kept running for blocks--kept running and running.

I fell in love with my wife twenty years ago. I am only now, it seems, getting it through my very thick skull how lucky I am. I've been running and running.

If you are like me our most powerful epiphanies find us after their effect could have been put to good use. We are often too late with our brilliance. We are on time delay. The only instant gratification comes in the form of potato chips. The rest will find us by surprise somewhere down the road maybe as we sleep and dream of other things.

So I wonder about tomorrow. Is this a monumental moment in our lives? Is this the instance of epiphany or are we awakening from slumber and realizing and recognizing the effects of cosmic shifts in paradigms that have happened long ago from which we are too tired to keep running away.

I find myself wondering what would have been had Al Gore been allowed to accept his victory as our President. We would not be in Iraq--I know this. We would have heavily invested in green and alternative technology and we would be leading the world in an economic boon for the next generation. There are seminal moments in our lives where our brilliance is given the chance to unfold and show itself. In the collective American conscious we had such a moment. On election night 2000 the networks had all given Al Gore a victory in Florida after a tough and close battle all evening. The exit polls were showing a growing Gore lead that was insurmountable and so Florida was called for Gore that would also give him the electoral numbers to claim victory. There was a press conference announced that was coming out of Crawford, Texas where George W Bush and his team had holed up for the big night. Newsman and pundits anticipated a concession speech that would declare the night officially over. But there was no concession speech. There was no George Bush. Instead out came Howard Baker, a Bush senior campaign advisor, Karen Hughes, the Bush communications director and Bush brother, Jeb, the Governor of Florida. Huh? They proceeded to announce that they did not, in no uncertain terms, concede Florida on this night nor did they concede the general election and they were, and this is a quote: "Getting on the phones and getting to work." "We are going to win Florida!" The newsmen and women seemed stunned. I was screaming at the television asking the question: "Getting on the phone to do WHAT???" The polls had closed. There was no work to do. Everybody had already voted. Magically the numbers changed and showed an unlikely, to say the least, turn in the count that begat the infamous recount that begat the infamous hanging chads that begat the criminal Supreme Court decision that handed the reins of power in a virtual coup d'etat to the Governor of Florida's brother, George W. Bush.


Had we been a fighter pilot in a dog-fight we would have been blown out of the sky. If we were Luke Skywalker, we forgot to use the force. If we were a goalie on a soccer field, we went right and the ball went left, or worse, we didn't move at all and the ball rolled quietly through our legs. Had we had our senses with us that day, our antennas up and our muscles taught and in the ready position, we could have been brilliant. We could have stormed the Ranch at Crawford and taken our country before it was stolen from us. Instead we rolled over in our sleep.

So as we stand on the verge of a shifting earth I wonder is this the Big One, the epiphany that leads us to brilliance in real time, or is this one of the after shocks. Was the Big One Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery in 1955? The Civil Rights Act of 1964? Richard Nixon's Watergate? Crawford, Texas? 9/11? Maybe the Big One is the slow moving forward of lives toward death that allows evolution to do what it can by killing away ancient paradigms of supremacy of people and nation. That has allowed for a younger generation to be blind to issues of race and gender and to recognize climate change as science and not God. We laid asleep, we Americans, dreaming of making millions in mortgage madness, unbothered by battles fought and blood spilled by contractors and volunteers a million miles away. Though we did begin to worry about the cost. Has evolution caught us knapping? Has this new generation moved forward and with the kindness of their spirit brought us along for the ride?

I am in my home New York as it happens. I will ride the subway tomorrow. There will be gum and muffins and newspapers and some will be knapping. Will the city be beautiful this day? Time will only tell.

The piece above will run in tomorrow's Independent

Comments

[KevinTaylor]

Come on Richard/Toby... we need to know how your wife voted... your piece after the Dem Convention was the first time I got worried about the potential result... the palin factor reassured me that your wife would return to the fold.. but we need completion here...

[SonofLiberty1]

Richard,

Thank you so much for such a wonderful post.

Because of your work with Martin Sheen and all of your West Wing troup, you kept many democrats, many americans going through the long struggle with your inspiring work.

As Senator Kennedy once spoke "The work goes on, the cause endures and the dream shall never die"

Thank you so much!

[DLSteinhardt]

I keep thinking that The West Wing helped envision this successful candidacy, now winning tonight's election.

Thanks!

[ming099]

.....I never cared for politics UNTIL .......I happened to watch .....by accident....the first episode of The West Wing........because I was bored and there was nothing else on that night that mildly interested me.....from THAT moment....something inside me clicked and I have seen the world in a much different light since then......I even taped every episode because they were so well written and sometimes I had to watch each one a couple of times to get all the nuances of what was being presented.....as corny and as cliche as it may sound....there is a purpose larger than ourselves and what we are doing for this country TODAY...is far more important than the paltry things we are doing for ourselves.....I believe that our children will thank us for the decisions we made today....

........thank you Richard ...for this article....and being the believeable Toby that you played.....yours was the character I most closely identified with......for ONCE ....television affected things in a positive way........

.

[phoenix2000]

I am a BIG fan of The West Wing. Thank you Richard, sir!

[CoolPapa]

You gotta believe, right, Mr. Schiff, that this is what we were waiting for, and that now is the time to make some progress. Ohio just was called for Sen. Obama, and now I'm feeling much more relaxed. By the way, I watched you all morning with your West Wing crew to get jazzed up for the big day. Still the best show I've ever watched on television. Thank you for that contribution...

[Tiberiusfury]

I am surprised; I did not expect Richard Schiff to be a good writer, despite his character on The West Wing. Maybe he got some help from Aaron Sorkin?
Nice article.

[robeson]

According to Hagee, Palin, and Lieberman this is another step toward the Rapture.

[jpnairn]

Knapping? Napping?

[DoTheMath]

Thanks, Toby. As silly as it sounds, I think the West Wing helped to create the Obama movement. Usually, only young people are susceptible to the optimism (aka hope) required for this kind of movement. This time, many of us who have already been through too many of these quadrennial slugfests to believe they can lead to anything good have invested more time, money, and energy than we thought we had. Of course, the virtues of Barack Obama and the violations of the past 8 years go a long way toward explaining our motivation. Still, no matter how badly we may want something, most people don't tend to work this hard for it unless we really believe our efforts can make a difference. That's where the West Wing comes in. We saw Toby, Josh, CJ, Sam, Jed, and all the others work so hard, so effectively, so intelligently for all the right reasons, and we believed it was possible. Hey, good fiction may not be factual, but it is true to human nature.

Yes we can!

[TeriA]

While I hope for the brilliant moment, I'm inclined to expect glacial change. As a 51 year old woman with a severe and obvious disability, I have seen society go from segregating me, to grudgingly including me, to proudly acclaiming my legal protections. While still discriminating -- just in a more subtle way.
Yet, profound progress has been made, no question. And we have many more miles to go.

My fear is that our expectations for Obama and his presidency are too high. He is being handed a stinking mess that will cost trillions to repair, before he can begin addressing issues like health care. This is the hard truth that was not spoken during the campaign.

If his election can be the beginning of a movement to reject the "common" wisdom handed to us by Big Business in favor of more humanist analyses of issues, perhaps is the brilliant moment...

[Palookapalooza]

Wonderful article, just one factual issue: On Election Night in 2000, Bush was holed up in the Governor's Mansion in Austin, Texas. There was a stage set up in front of the Capitol Building across the street from the Mansion and people stayed out there very late, waiting and hoping for a victory or concession speech that never came.

Either way, the sun will still come up tomorrow, no matter who wins. It'll just shine a little brighter for just over half the country.

[provgrays]

I like your idealism, so unlike your great portrayal of Toby on the West Wing. Your show was a secret pleasure for idealists because in that well lit world, the Constitution was respected and Martin Sheen's Jeb Bartlett was an idealist himself.

If Al Gore had been allowed his rightful office, the GOP would have undercut his every effort with fillibuster threats and arcane Senate proceedure. Without a veto proof majority, real progress would have been glacially slow.

Still, this would be a better place, though by no means idyllic.

Why get up in the morning if hoping for something better is never practiced?

[Michael Gene Sullivan - Huffpost Blogger]

So, did your wife vote for McCain after all?

[SethBLiNK]

Thanks, Michael... I read the whole post waiting for that answer.

C'mon Richard, give it up... did she?

[7thCylon]

I have spent a lot of the past few weeks re-watching much of "The West Wing" becuase I find it very comforting during election season. Like a cup of Earl Grey and a fleece blanket in January, it makes me feel safe and warm. Things may not look different in the morning, but I think it will feel different somehow. Obama is my Bartlett and these last two year have been like the best season of "West Wing" ever! Viva la Toby

[jhw22]

ME, TOO!!! :) It's as if it never went away because of its timliness.

I always loved President Bartlett and hoped we would one day have a real President who represented what that show represented. It's cheesy, but Obama is the real Bartlett.

Jennifer

[laloofah]

LOL... we've been watching our West Wing DVDs for the past few weeks too! Darn, if we'd only known, we could have all gotten together with beer and popcorn. :-)

I hope Sheila finally came around and voted for Obama, and that joy and tranquility reign at Chez Schiff this evening!

[bmwracer]

Same here: I've gone through the entire seven seasons of "The West Wing" over the past couple of months... Great stuff.

It was predictable that Toby would get pardoned... But I'm still glad it happened. :)

[SethBLiNK]

I felt the Matt Sanchez run was very prescient of the Obama campaign.

My only wish would have been for McCain to keep to his principals the way Alda's character kept to his.

[theotocopolous]

Matt Santos was actually based off Barack Obama. Cool, no?
And, yeah, I spend a lot of my time with my West Wing DVDs these days.

[TCJakobsen]

Loved it. Especially the potato chips as the only instant gratification. A brilliant low comedy balance to the elegant and serious note of the piece.

Although seeing in Schiff's bio that he is doing stage work, I believe he must know moments of almost instant gratification when acting in front of a live audience.

Enjoy your moment as a nation.

From an envious European who would have liked nothing better than being American this year.

[provgrays]

If a European can envy an American during these last eight years, then all things may well be possible.

[TCJakobsen]

Only this last year, not these last years.