Dear Ger,
I hope you and your loved ones are well.
Here 'tis! My long-delayed review of your wonderful memoir.
I expect you will object to my loquaciousness, and I understand that.
However, now that I am deep into writing my own memoirs, I realize -- and proclaim! -- that one of my gifts (perhaps my singular gift) is being able to contextualize things that many people will never understand without deep contextualization.
And so, I have decided that for the rest of this lifetime I am going to use that gift and not "give in" to our "sound bite - bumper sticker" culture which is bizillion miles wide and a nanometer deep.
Here is an example of what I do by way of deep contextualization.
We gringos experienced ONE Twin Tower collapsing into jaw-dropping carnage, and we are still immersed in The National Lunacy unleashed by 9/11.... a quarter century ago!
Just what do we expect from the rubble and genocide in Gaza?
We have lived far too long in a body politic that has "let wealthy miscreants off the hook" - most recently, His Malignancy and erstwhile sidekick, Elon Musk.
I intend to use my "unique skills" to keep these twisted psychopaths and sociopaths "on the hook..."
I intend to make us stare -- however briefly -- at what we're doing with our lives, our tax dollars, and our addlepated political choices.
If folks don't want to look, at least let them be seen in God's eyes as people who deliberately chose to turn away.
In any event, criticize my draft however you see fit.
In particular, I am hoping you will correct any factual errors or egregiously mistaken ones.
But please know in advance that (I think) you -- like Cynthia -- will not relish my insertion of political commentary into my review of your memoir, "Underestimated, Mentally Ill, Yet Successful!"
Then, there's this.
Because I believe politics should be part of our daily conversation -- and, given how your values contrast so tellingly with The Dictator and his pitiable asslicks -- my review of your book spotlights these contrasts and comparisons.
Here's what Western Civilization is up against.
Mil gracias, compa!
Pax et amor
Alan
PS I realize that images do not upload to Amazon reviews. Nevertheless, I include them here.
******
This book could have been subtitled, "Scrooge ... Saved By Tiny Tim."
Marley's comin' to get you!
Gerald's life story is a page-turner, written from the vantage of an eye-poppingly successful businessman, despite persistent mental illness kept under control by prescription medication.
Predictably, Ger has taken considerable flak from a few friends and numerous co-workers (at his accounting firm) for being unabashedly open about his experience with mental disease, specifically depression and anxiety.
These critics wonder why anyone would want this "taboo information" exposed as common knowledge.
After all, mental illness is one of the very last "human conditions" that still carries a stigma, and knee-jerk judgmentalism is devastating.
But here's the nub.
A huge part of Gerald's success has been his candor: he is a straight-shooter who clearly hides nothing.
People want to work with honest people.
And Gerald is so honest, he simply "lays it all out."
Predictably, everyone sees everything.
Even in his professional life, Ger has been so honest that one of his non-profit-sector clients, Sister Serafine -- who was the motive force behind Rochester, New York's School of The Holy Childhood -- came to express her love for Gerald, just as Gerald was open about his agape-love for this greathearted nun.
Ger's autobiography inspires contemplation across Life's full spectrum -- family life, professional life, civic life, religious-and-spiritual life.
Gerald begins his life story by quoting The Beatitudes (from the Gospel of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount), and proceeds to a description of his Catholic formation in which family, parish, nuns and priests collaborated to produce an exemplary citizen, and a kind, congenial, unfailingly generous man.
My Brother Gerald's Attendance At A Public (And Charter) School Informational Event, Lead Me To Reflect On The Collapse Of Authentic Education In America
Starting as a kindergartner at St. Thomas the Apostle Grammar School, Ger continued his studies at Bishop Kearney High School, and on through his baccalaureate at St. John Fisher College, where, "accidentally," he learned the skills that made him wealthy.
But Ger reached his "unexpected" occupational goal in such a quirky way that he thought it unfair to make any proprietary claim to his personal wealth, instead considering his money -- first, last, and foremost -- an "accidental" vehicle to make other people happy while discovering, in the process, that unstinting generosity made him happy as well.
Like all five Archibald kids, Gerald loved the Mercy nuns who taught us -- K through 8.
Unlike numerous press reports that spotlight real (and perceived) mistreatment by elementary school nuns -- the Mercy sisters actually taught us not only to value mercy, but to prize Mercy, along with its indispensable twin virtue -- "helpful service to others" -- as the sine qua non of a well-lived life. (Sine qua non is a common expression in Catholic theology, meaning "that without which, there is nothing...")
As a consequence of the Archibald kids' thorough conditioning in virtuous living - with loving kindness uppermost - we all had the opportunity to discover (what Trump's unrelentingly cruel Capitalism prevents most people from even suspecting) that our lives are only meaningful when we help people "get the breaks" they didn't get when they were young, or were denied to them from the get-go.
In the process, it became clear to all of us Archibalds that happiness results from service-to-others, NOT from getting all "the toys" we want. (It is helpful to remember the motto of unregulated Capitalism: "The one who dies with the most toys, wins." We also have Senator Dick Durbin's motto for the GOP: "We are all in this........ alone.")
Gerald and his 4 siblings, Janet, Kevin, Billy and I contemplate our wealthy (mostly white) countrymen and tend to feel sorry for them, as we feel sorry for Donald Trump and most of his followers -- hollow, ungodly-rich people like Elon Musk who have the money to buy "everything" bizillion times over, but are neither happy nor joyful, plugging away at the futile task of trying to fill the bottomless hole where joy used to reside... before they turned their back on the happiness of youthful innocence, dedicating themselves instead to acquiring an endless supply of purchasable pleasures -- a "mad hunt" as interminable as Sysyphus' travail.
Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) Cuts To The Quick. Trump Followers Are Fundamentally Unhappy, Joyless People Because They Harbor Core Beliefs That Are False. (And Although Of Less Importance, They Are, In Consequence, Desperate To Fault Anyone But Themselves)
Decades ago, Gerald confided that "Money is no longer an object for me, except insofar as I can use it to make other people happy."
Read Ger's book and discover just how easily you can achieve profound satisfaction and buoyant high-spiritedness if only you relinquish the fatuity, vapidity and aimless acquisitiveness of lives devoted to masturbatory self-
Having said all this, there are notable voids in Gerald's memoirs: He did not write anything about two important facets of his life
Ger did not reveal that when his accounting firm -- Bonadio & Company -- started to expand at breakneck speed, finally reaching the milestone of one hundred full-time CPA employees, only Ger and three other accountants were registered Democrats; the rest were Big Business, Big Money, Winner-Take-All Republicans.
Which reminds me of a line by the character, Lena St. Claire, in Amy Tan's "Joy Luck Club": "My father could not enjoy his food unless he knew that somebody somewhere was going hungry.(I am writing this during the longest government shutdown ever. I am convinced that in their heart of hearts, Republicans do not want the shutdown to end unless they are assured that people WILL go hungry for lack of food stamps, while others suffer needlessly - and others still WILL die preventable deaths from lack of affordable healthcare.)
"The Hard, Central Truth Of Contemporary Conservatism"
"The Love Of Money Is The Root Of All Evil" - An Open Invitation To Christian Conservatives
No wonder all hell has broken loose.And, lest we forget, this infernal chaos was brought to us by "Christian" "conservatives," the very people who should have known better.
The fact is: "We humans cannot be happy without dedicating ourselves to making others happy."
Or, as one of Gerald's kindred spirits, put it:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
St. Francis of Assisi's "Prayer for Peace"
As night follows day, if you do not give abundantly, you WILL get spiritually flabby.
And often, you will be disproportionately afflicted - in Hamlet's words - by "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," including flaccidity, obesity and chronic disease.
Happiness?
Fugetaboutit.
*****
The other significant enterprise that Gerald did not mention in his autobiography is his decades-long practice of giving away -- on the street -- a hundred dollars a day.
Mind you...
Ger is a worldly-wise fellow who does not squander his resources on people likely to use 100 bucks to buy their next bottle of booze, or inject themselves with their narcotic of choice.
Instead, the kind of streetwise generosity Gerald has exhibited throughout his life is revealed by the following anecdote.
Like most Archibald males, going back 100 years or more, we fellows love to do grocery shopping.
And so, whenever Gerald was in a grocery store checkout line, he would occupy himself by observing other checkout lines in search of people to help. When, for example, he spotted a "single" mother being pestered by a passel of gripey kids, he asked the person ahead of him at checkout to "hold his place in line," then went to the register where the unruly children were driving Mom to wit's end, and whispered in the cashier's ear: "When the woman in the purple blouse checks out, just ring her up and I will come back shortly to pay for her groceries."
*****
If you look out on your future and don't like what you see, it's never too late to embrace kindness and generosity, for "it is in giving that we receive."
Now you can read, "Underestimated. Mentally Ill. But Successful!" and learn how anybody -- even a 9 to 5 wage slave -- can become happy by following Ger's simple instructions.
With the publication of Gerald's book, you don't have to re-wind to the Middle Ages or Elizabethan England to learn "how happiness works."
Now you can read, "Underestimated. Mentally Ill. But Successful!" and learn how anyone - even a 9-5 wage slave - can become happy just by using a chunk of their money to make other people happy.
Go ahead.
Read the book.
Practice Ger's method.
See if you don't feel happier.
Psychiatrists cost $350.00 an hour. (And often, they don't cure what ails you.)
Ger's book costs $14.95.
*****
It just occurred to me that when Gerald's autobiography becomes available in bookstores, you might find it in the Do-It-Yourself section.
*****
All's well that ends well.
If you look out on your future and don't like what you see, it's never too late to embrace kindness and generosity, for it is in giving that we receive.
*****
PS AI Overview reply to my inquiry, "How long would Elon Musk's money last if he spent a thousand dollars a day: Elon Musk could spend a thousand dollars a day for over a million years before exhausting his wealth. This calculation assumes Musk's net worth is around $400 billion and he spends a fixed amount daily without any gains, losses or compounded interest, an endeavor that would take approximately 1,095,890 years to spend it all.
Nota Bene: Musk, Trump and most ultra-wealthy people are wastrels, refusing to make
themselves happy by lightening the financial load of people who have been oppressed and downtrodden by a system that did not favor them. Increasingly, it seems to me that the ultra-wealthy are totally "at home" with those people they designate "the undeserving poor," going hungry, suffering needlessly, and dying young. This holy day season, check out a movie version of Dickens' "Christmas Carol."
My two favorite renditions are Alistair Sim's 1951 enactment of Scrooge, and Disney's 2009 animated movie.
How You And I And Everyone Can Create REAL Damning Evidence To Justify Any Damn Thing - Divorce; One's Religious Faith As "The One, True Religion"; Donald Trump As A Godsend; The Advisability Of Provoking Armageddon, Hitler's Heinous Extermination Of Jews
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