I’m not really a politically partisan guy. I’ve lived too long and too big of a life to honestly say one’s political persuasion, or person for that matter, is better or worse than another. I practice conviction in myself and look for it in others but not to the extent that it causes a myopic world view — I don’t think that is a very intelligent or a healthy way to live. I think any rational person recognizes there are merits and shortcomings in almost all big decisions we make in our lives. I have a big decision to make, and I want to be thoughtful about it. It’s been so difficult because it involves the “unimaginable.”
I have had an uneasy feeling the past year or so, and I’ve been thinking about this “unimaginable.” I wondered what the Ukrainians were thinking before their sovereign country was invaded by Russia. Even though seemingly unimaginable, there was a looming threat and advance knowledge of the invasion. We saw them sipping craft cocktails in upscale bars; schoolteachers and school children scurrying to their routines; contractors and engineers leaving their comfortable homes in the mornings to start their missions in life. I wondered what they thought when the unimaginable happened to them. A few weeks later after the Russian invasion, the morgues were so full they were digging trenches in the nearby public streets to install dead bodies.
What about the Jews in Nazi-ridden Germany? How did some people have the prescience to leave, and others succumbed to the unimaginable? What did some know, and others did not? Were resources or social status a factor?