October Surprise

Only one thing never ceases to amaze.

Given our position on the timeline, we’re supposed to be in for a surprise this month. At this point though, in this election, what could possibly surprise us? It’s tempting fate to ask, I realize, but I begin to feel like the Red Queen: we’ve already seen six impossible things happen before October. Why shouldn’t we expect six more before breakfast?

We’ve seen countries around the world under nationwide house arrest while cop cars burned in the streets. We’ve seen an election that took months to end and a riot in America’s Capitol building. We’ve seen a president unseated from within his own cabinet on real time in social media; we’ve seen war on two continents and the sudden end of legal rulings from before my lifetime.

And come to think of it, is it really a surprise if it comes in the same month every time? Only, I suppose, if there’s a regular state of affairs to compare it to, a quiet backdrop against which individual anomalies can be considered unusual even if their timing is expected. But that steady rhythm of average politics is exactly what’s gotten jammed lately. If there’s no normal, can there be surprises?

I’ve often wondered if there’s some German word for being shocked but not surprised, which is how I feel most of the time. Many of the quakes we’re living through are releasing forces that have been building underground for decades if not centuries, so though they are dramatic they’re not exactly unexpected. These things happen slowly, then all at once.

And maybe it’s just that we’re learning what Arnold Toynbee wrote in 1952:

Life is just one damned thing after another, whether it is private or public life. And looking back upon history (which in reality, of course, has never stopped happening, even during our brief halcyon days), one can see that in almost every age in almost every part of the world, human beings have had to live their normal lives and do their normal business under conditions of uncertainty, danger and distress.

Our brief halcyon days…maybe I’m being nostalgic, but it seems like there was a little stretch in my youth when things proceeded so gently we could speak of “surprises.” But that was borrowed time; it always is. “Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice,” said C.S. Lewis as the world around him plunged into a vortex of war. We chart our paths through a disaster area, always. The little patches of respite are only patches. Usually, we’re on the run in a wasteland.

Which means, ironically, that nothing has really changed. There are better and worse options in this election; I think most of my readers know who I’m voting for, and no one could accuse me of neutrality. But this Substack isn’t about who to vote for. It’s about how to live. And the secret there is that the bright line of virtue cuts a straight and golden path right through the tangled bramble of world events and the noisy carnival of politics.

Wherever you are, whatever is happening, you can tell the truth and try to do the right thing. This is a miracle: good is still good even when bad things are happening. It has to be, or how could the bad things be bad?

Suffering makes doing good things infinitely harder and more painful—I know, my friends, I know. But after every skull-rattling blow, after ever blinding shock of loss or failure, you come to and find that the Good is not one jot less good. It’s still there, high star in the cold dark, and if you try you will find to your amazement that you can still aim at it. That’s the eternal surprise. It’s good news.

Rejoice evermore,
Spencer

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Image: ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons