Barely a month ago, in the wake of all the pomp and glamour surrounding the Obama Coro... excuse me, Inauguration – I was reminded of the Matrix Trilogy where Keanu Reeves played the part of Neo, a human being with virtually superhuman abilities to beat the mind games of the machines that controlled the world in the 23rd century.  For the legions of humans who formed the resistance, their virtually hopeless cause could only be rescued by one thing, their deliverance could only come in the form of one man…Neo. Or more reverently referred to as …The One. 

Relax.  I am not about to grant Barrack Obama deity status or even anything remotely close to superhuman gifts.  Just an extraordinarily gifted and disciplined human being whose capacity for self awareness is beyond anything I’ve ever seen.  And it is this last quality of his that I hold in awe over all others and also the one that I pray does not fail him as it is tested like never before by millions (maybe even billions) of adoring fans.  For now, count me amongst those millions or billions.  In fact, you can even count me amongst a somewhat smaller number…2 million.

I was there

Three little words that almost 2 million people wanted to be able to say to their kids, grandkids and so forth.  The phrase, “I’ve never seen anything like that” is becoming quite the cliché around here and if you weren’t there, go ahead…believe it.  Every embellishment and hyperbole you hear.  It was like 2 million were all high on some kind of beatific happy drug.  Some kind of electricity was in the air.  All colors, shapes and sizes.  I stood there for 5 hours in excruciating cold right next to an elderly lady in a wheelchair who couldn’t even see the giant screens much less a view of the far off Capitol.  She sat quietly throughout the entire thing simply absorbing the feeling of being there as an occasional smile would come over her face.

Let me go ahead and say this, there was love in the air.  You know…Woodstock must have been something like this, come to think of it.  Except a whole lot warmer.  There were some tears here and there but mostly, as he took the oath of office, an exultant electricity was mostly what filled the air. 


He was right, it’s not about him

“This campaign isn’t about me…it’s about you!

This campaign isn’t about me…it’s about you!

What a great line.  So empowering. So different from the otherwise common theme of ‘this is why you have all your problems, this is who’s to blame and I’m the only one who can fix them’ mantra that modern day politics has taught us to expect. 

I can’t say that I am given to adulation or the trappings of celebrity.  So I had to understand what it is I was going to brave frigid cold for just to see a President take an oath.  Even if he was black.  And smart.  And made a lot of sense.  In fact, my presence on the National Mall on January 20, 2009 had very little to do with his color or this country’s history.  They both play a part in creating the circumstance that compelled me to be there but they were not enough in and of themselves.  If Barrack Obama had been elected President 8 years ago, I would have been impressed enough to make sure I watched his Inauguration on TV.  And that would be saying something since I have never watched any other inauguration or had the remotest desire to do so. 

So if I wasn’t there to see The One, then what was I there to see?

The Moment

JFK has been brought up a lot recently.  Going beyond the ‘Ask not what your country can do for you…’ speech, there’s no doubt that his was one of the most consequential presidencies in this country’s history. A civil rights movement in full swing.  The Bay of Pigs Invasion.  The Cuban Missile Crisis.  This last one really makes me think about pivotal moments in history.  Can you imagine what that point in time must have been like?  A world literally balanced on the knife edge between Cold War détente and nuclear annihilation.  That was a moment in which circumstance and choice could have easily gone either way and in one of them lay a path that would have irrevocably and substantively altered the very nature of the world we live in.  If indeed we would have still been alive or even born to see it.

Such moments come few and far between.  They are, I think, the linchpins of history upon which the fate of nations rest. And their ramifications are felt by almost every living being in the world, perhaps for generations to come. 

The Berlin Wall coming down was another such moment.  So was 9/11.  Many of these moments happen while others may have been building for a while until a flashpoint symbolizes their apex.

I believe that we are at such a moment today and that Barrack Obama is its emblem; the embodiment of a choice which the world – not just America – must make that will be as consequential as any in recent memory.  No.  I am not being dramatic.  Today, the world at large faces a plethora of deep rooted and serious issues that are fast reaching critical mass.  They are largely the consequences brought about by years or even decades of unbalanced actions and policies.  The physical manifestations of the situation I speak of are easy to see.  It is at the nexus of the tensest geopolitical time in the world since the Iron Curtain came down.  Climate change that is visiting its ravaging effects the world over.  And an economic crisis that has all economists stumped and searching for an answer.  Less visible but perhaps as pressing are matters such as planetary population growth and what many scientists believe will be increasing shortages of water on a global scale.

Unitary Purpose

The really scary part about all this is that solutions to these monumental issues will most likely require a unity of purpose from many nations, leaders and peoples.  Something that the world certainly has not seen much of in the past decade or so. 

Except of course, when Barack Obama was elected President.  It is why he is singularly the right person for this singular moment in history.  Not because he has the power to make these problems disappear by himself but because he has shown the ability to unite the world in single purpose.  And that is a necessary prerequisite for attempting to confront what may be the greatest confluence of serious challenges this world may see in our lifetimes. 

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