In the heat

Saw Sidney Poitier’s In the Heat of the Night while in the heat of the day.

He played a homicide detective from Philadelphia, on his way home with train connection through small town Sparta.

That’s where it all happened: from mistakenly jailed for murder to being slapped (and slapping right back) for the color of his skin.

We’re in the thick of the heat, and it’s not even officially summer yet.

Heat could kill as much as the cold. Long ago, I read about the elderly in Chicago apartment who died from heat strokes.

Every summer as it seems, we have something going on that was unlike the summer before: restlessness, hearings and anniversary (Jan 6 and Watergate 50th).

This summer however, it’s gas price and the Wall Street tumbling.

The grifters still enjoy their bounty. Cooling their heels in the French Riveria or else where. Got to spend away OPM (other people’s money), since it’s ill-gotten and might not last.

What moral arc? what karma?

Nobody believes in those ideals and concepts. If so, they wouldn’t have ventured into the dark side in the first place.

There was a segment on the Newshour about Somalia’s mothers, who had to migrate to find milk for their children. Of course I couldn’t bear watching it.

We have outlived our welcome on this Earth, as it seems.

When lies, cheat and steal seem to go unpunished, and poor people scrape the bottom of the barrel to get by. We do seem to have a problem.

Forget empathy. Forget charity. Just grant us justice and dignity.

Aren’t human lives worth-protecting? We grieved over Uvalde, before and after that incident.

We might soon have a bill to track and trace mental health trajectory (of young people who show signs of self-harm and community harm).

In the heat of the night! People confessed “I didn’t mean to kill him”.

Must be tough to get jailed, slapped and bullied yet all the while trying to help solve a case out of professional courtesy. “The measure of a man” is his memoir. BTW, I saw a WSJ headline on how a Jewish waiter helped Sidney out with his speech, after he had failed an audition.

When a man has strong command of his speech, he commands his body language as well (as actors should).

Practice, practice, practice.

The earlier in life, the better to rid off bad habits and acquire good ones.

Stack them, name them with details (calling out etc….) as Atomic Habits teaches us.

Over time, our life and in turn, larger society would benefit greatly.

Wealth and good habit accumulation. Keys to a fulfilled life. Self-leadership doesn’t come in a vacuum.

Its contour includes crucibles and valleys of death. On the other side, triumph over the still-animal self.

The dog-eats-dog nature, of getting something for nothing, of grifting and preying on others’ gullibility and herd instincts. If in “The measure of a man” we don’t find mutual uplifting, then it should in its next revision. We need each other to finish this unchosen race of life in dignity and grace.

It’s not what happened to us. It’s how we respond out of our inner values and strength.

Those reflexes are decades in the making. We started out in kindergarten with ABC’s then on that building block, arises our speech.

Control your thought and tongue, you control your lives. In real life, S Poitier, with help, articulated and rid off his Jamaican accents. On the screen, “in the Heat of the night”, he controlled his rightful temper.

Times will change. It’s us who would have to be ready to adapt, to new nuances and living conditions. Among which, as of late, grifters seem to rule the day….for a while. Until the moral arc righting itself. You’ll see. It happens every time. On time. Like a train that our protagonist was waiting for in Sparta , a 4:05 AM , with a stepping stool for passengers, no matter how many expected at that early hour.

Yours and my alibi for showing up and dressed up for the ride.