Says Peter Marshall on life difficulties, pressure and diamonds.

"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure” Peter Marshall.

Comments

[Edward G. Nilges]

The trouble with old saws and proverbs is they destroy critical thought. We should be always able to say, well, that is sooooo true, but on the other hand, people have a right to be spared unnecessary surplus suffering at others' hands.

Y'know who believed "diamonds are made under pressure?" Leni Riefenstahl, that's who.

I am talking about Leni Riefenstahl, the film director and best buddy of Hitler, with my Dad today in his nursing home. Hitler and that crowd believed themselves diamonds, and as far as my Dad is concerned, they cocked up his life and killed is elder brother.

We talked about statesmen, like Churchill, Eisenhower, and Adenauer who as old men knew that life isn't about producing diamonds under pressure. It's about creating the preconditions for a decent society by ensuring full employment and a social safety net, with liberty and justice for all.

...not expecting people to "suck it up". Gina, we've just endured a generation of men who have put saws like the above on the walls of the break room. As a direct result, we have had, until recently, a public discourse so drained of the very idea of solidarity and justice...so ridden with hyperindividualism...that this public was sold a bill of goods in March 2003 to the effect that it was time for a war, in which we'd once again prove ourselves to be such diamonds under pressure.

We take you now, by way of illustration, to a middling sort of San Francisco home, perhaps in Noe Valley:

He: Sure, my boss is demanding, and, we cannot get a reasonable price for the house and move near your Mom. But diamonds are made under pressure.

She: Give me a break. You are no diamond, although I love you. Our difficulties aren't making us "better". Instead, we no longer do it and the kids despise us. You come home exhausted every night, and when you asked Howard for a promotion, he laughed at you.

He: What do you suppose I can expect? Nobody is going to hire a fifty year old. We're trapped, but like we read in Arthur Miller's play, back in Pete Dunderdale's English class at San Jose State, "a salesman's gotta dream". I work hard simply to show them that I'm not defeated.

She: Yet. But sooner or later, Mark is going to let himself get bought out, and retire to Cannes, and throw you out on the street. I think you're kidding yourself. This will kill you.

He: What the hell do you want to do? We've already ran away to Thailand...thirty years ago. That was fun...me in a Bangkok prison, and you going to the consulate every day to spring me.

She: And I did spring you, remember?

He: I think I still love you.

She: And I, you. But don't bullshit me anymore with sayings like "diamonds are made under pressure". That's soooo Eighties. Life is hard, we love each other hard, then one of us dies and the other is alone. Diamonds aren't a girl's best friend. You are.

[Fade to black]

The fact is that the sort of pressure that produces diamonds, such as experienced in Outward Bound, is a personal, voluntary choice.

It is the HEIGHT of bad manners to subject people to random and capricious ill-treatment and tell them it is good for them, and that they are demanding a life without difficulties.

You are not doing this, Gina. But, all too often, the above saw and similar maxims are used to deprive people of justice and fairness.

I conclude that it's O. K. to long for a life without difficulties of any sort for any person on earth.

O the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
On the big rock candy mountain

To wish for difficulties is self-contradictory and asking for trouble.