Category: Uncategorized

It’s hard to have friends when you’ve killed them all.

Disclaimer: This post contains information about tragic and traumatic events, including war, violence, and inappropriate sexual relationships. It’s not a cheery topic, and not one for the kids. Please take care when reading.

I wish I had normal hobbies, like knitting, or crafting, or writing dazzling poetry. But instead, I find myself utterly fascinated by the lives and choices of the twentieth century’s worst dictators.

The internet and streaming services have taught me that I am not alone in my dark curiosity, and I suppose there is a comfort in this. Along with many questions, about the kinds of things we seek to learn more about. But I’m not here to ask those questions, only to share with you some of the fun (?!) facts I’ve learned about some of the worst people who ever on earth. Because if you’re here, reading this, you probably like weird stuff too.

Adolf Hitler

I hesitate to even write Hitler’s name here. Like Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, Hitler really must-not-be-named. Literally: It is illegal to name a child “Adolf” in Germany, as well as many other countries in Europe.

You may remember Hitler as the man who started World War II in the ashes of a still-recovering Europe, using the dictator’s favorite combination: economic devastation and hatred of any group of people small enough to marginalize but successful enough to resent. While attacking countries throughout Europe without provocation or warning, Hitler also shipped all of Germany’s Jews, as well as any other marginalized individual, into concentration camps. Estimates of how many people died vary, but according to the National World War II museum, 15 million people died in battle, 45 million civilians died, and 25 million people were wounded in battle. There is a footnote that some estimates say 50 million died in China alone, and some estimates say the Soviet Union alone lost 24 million people. These are unimaginable losses, prompted not only by one man’s absurd and profound hatred and insecurity, but by the other dictators who were very willing to sacrifice their own people to their own political aims.

Hitler was a very specific womanizer. It’s not surprising that a man like Hitler would fancy himself a real catch, but it is a bit hard to understand why women would agree. But Hitler possessed a knack for exploiting vulnerabilities, and he used this to his advantage in the dating game.

As detailed in the Noiser podcast, Adolf Hitler: Rise and Downfall, Hitler routinely approached young women and introduced himself as “Uncle Dolf.” Because what’s hotter than being seduced by your uncle? I guess being seduced by your uncle who’s also a murderous dictator.

Hitler had few public relationships, declaring himself married to Germany. But the Uncle Dolf routine became quite literal when his 17-year-old niece, Geli Raubal, moved to Munich with Uncle Dolf from her family home in Vienna in 1925. Hitler, almost twenty years older, took her everywhere he went, and rumors began to circulate. Though the facts of their relationship are murky (and highly suspicious), the relationship came to a tragic end when Geli was found shot dead in 1931, by apparent suicide.

Raubal would be the first of several women who committed suicide during or immediately after an intimate but undisclosed relationship with Hitler, the most famous being Eva Braun, who was Hitler’s consort for years and became his wife on the eve of their mutual suicide on April 30, 1945, as Hitler’s war ambitions collapsed around him and his enemies closed in.

Maria “Mitzi” Reiter met “Uncle Dolf” when she was 16 while walking a dog in 1926. A relationship developed, again undefined, but Reiter attempted suicide by in 1927, apparently jealous of Hitler’s relationship with his niece. She survived and married an SS officer, who died at Dunkirk. Hitler sent her one hundred red roses, and that was the last contact between the two.

Hitler was infatuated with film actress Renata Mueller, who seemed eager to move on from his advances. In 1937, she confided to her director Adolf Zeissler that Hitler had thrown himself at her feet and begged her to abuse him and cause him pain. Soon after, she was found dead in front of her hotel, having apparently fallen from the window. Rumors indicate that she was pushed.

Inge Ley was another woman Hitler was infatuated by, unhappily married to another man. It seems they had a relationship through letters, and after one particularly depressing one to Hitler, she attempted suicide by jumping out of a window in 1943. Her husband, Robert Ley, killed himself in 1945 while awaiting trial at Nuremberg.

Eva Braun, who met Hitler when she was 17 and Hitler was 40, also attempted suicide during her time as Hitler’s mistress. One wonders if Hitler, so soaked in violent rhetoric and black and white thinking, could only communicate through life-and-death scenarios, driving these women to dramatic gestures. Perhaps being in Hitler’s world was a vortex so powerful that there was no escape but death; that certainly seemed true for millions of others besides these confused young women.

I suppose to be attracted to a dictator whose goals are nothing short of glory through mass destruction would leave one with a distorted world view.

Saddam Hussein

I just finished one of my favorite pieces of all time, Tales of the Tyrant, written by Mark Bowden and published first in 2002 in the Atlantic Monthly and then in 2003’s edition of The Best American Non-Required Reading. But I think this particular article ought to be required reading, because it so perfectly portrays the brutal and patient strategy of one of the modern age’s most hated figures: Saddam Hussein.

I’ve long wondered why the US rushed eagerly into a war with Iraq, but I was young and remembered nothing of the Gulf War and knew even less about the history of the middle east. Was oil a primary motivator? I think yes, resources are always a strong impetus for war. Let’s not pretend it’s morals alone.

But Saddam Hussein was far more brutal than I had realized. Bowden details his routines (this article was written before the US invasion that led to Hussein’s death), the extent of Hussein’s quite accurate paranoia. The dictator switched his locations and times constantly, sleeping in secret places, and never in his palaces. Staying fit to stay alive, hiding his limp from public view, building walls and stashing weapons to protect himself.

The protection is not just from outside forces, but from the Iraqis who’d long realized their leader could not be trusted. Who’d witnessed the death of thousands of their countrymen for the smallest of offenses, and who lived daily with the threat of their own demise, detainment, or torture.

To meet with Saddam is to listen. Those who have the dubious privilege are warned not to speak, ask questions, or—God forbid—interrupt. They are strip searched, sometimes even having their clothing “laundered, sterilized, and x-rayed” while they are searched and asked to wash their hands. Then they are driven in buses with blackened windows, or blindfolded, to their destination. There, as Bowden says, the dictator dictates, and each man prays silently that he does not draw attention to himself. To do so could mean death.

Bowden’s article is full of fascinating insights into Saddam’s world. The effort it takes to be all-powerful, and the cost of striking deep fear into each person one encounters. People say only what Saddam wants to hear, and so, from behind his walls and amongst all the protective secrecy, Saddam does not know what is true.

Truly, you should read the article. But there are three things that stood out most for me that I feel compelled to share, because I need to talk about it with someone! And here you are. (Feel free to talk back in the comments).

The first is Saddam Hussein’s upbringing, and the nature of Iraqi culture. Hussein grew up in a small village in north-central Iraq, and is a member of the al-Khatab family.

At this time, the villages of Iraq seemed reminiscent of US gang culture, or perhaps Game of Thrones. If you have a family member that has risen to power, you take advantage of it, and Saddam’s family did just this. Bowden writes that other villagers complained as the al-Khatab clan were “seizing farms, ordering people off their land,” and in general, “was moving to claim the spoils” of Saddam’s ascendance to power.

The irony of this is that Saddam rose to power in the egalitarian Baath party, whose aims were more socialist and included Arab unity and sharing wealth and property, among other things. Saddam impressed these people with his patience, calm demeanor, intelligence, and refined tastes, but internally, he was playing an ancient, violent game, and using the Baath party to achieve his own goals.

He assumed power completely on July 18, 1979, when he gathered the members of the Revolutionary Command Council and other party leaders together in Baghdad. It was here that Saddam Hussein, looking deeply sad, accused party members of a betrayal.

A tortured party member was revealed and named names of other conspirators, who were whisked away from the hall by armed guards. 60 were taken in all, and all of these would be killed by firing squads weeks later after “secret trials.”

Bowden reports that in 1981 and 1982 more than three thousand Iraqis were executed. Hussein ruled for twenty-four years.

The second is the tragic story of Saddam’s spoiled and cruel son, Uday. Saddam was quiet, thoughtful, cautious, and strategic, and Uday was his opposite.

For years, Uday was known for his flamboyant dress, flaunting of his wealth, and partying. Bowden describes how a drunken Uday would routinely fire machine guns into the air during performances and parties, terrifying all in attendance. Being his friend was a privileged position, but also one that may lead to abuse, imprisonment, or death.

He bullied not just his society friends but also Olympic athletes, who he may have imprisoned and tortured if they fail to achieve their goals. But in 1988, Uday murdered one of his father’s top aides at a party, and his response to this crisis was to attempt to commit suicide (that classic response for the loved one of a dictator). Witnesses report that his father indeed was ready to murder him, but ultimately seems to have forgiven Uday. The event was ruled an accident, and Uday spent four months in custody, followed by four months with an uncle in Geneva (abruptly ended when Swiss police picked him up with a concealed weapon and asked him to leave the country).

In Baghdad in 1996, Uday survived an assassination attempt but lived paralyzed after being struck by eight bullets. The attempt on Uday’s life was likely more about his father than about him, though there were many in Iraq who would have been happy to see the death of either.

The third is Hussein’s own interest in dictators, especially Joseph Stalin. He is said to have had libraries full of books about the Russian dictator, to be fascinated by his story. This is not surprising; Stalin too was vicious and brutal, and ascended to power by killing those who preceded him. His world was one of secrets and paranoia, a legacy Russia continues today, and no doubt the subject of a future blog post.

While Hussein may have found creative ideas in those books, he must have also known how those stories all end. Perhaps he saw himself as a martyr, a leader who advanced the causes most dear to him: his own glory and power. As Bowden put it, “any man who reads as much as he does, and who studies the dictators of modern history, knows that in the end they are all toppled and disdained.”

Hitler, too, died hiding in a cave, isolated from the realities of the hell he had created outside inside his own personal hell. Paranoid, afraid, perhaps embarrassed that he had failed, Hitler hid with his best friends and killed himself to avoid his truer fate: the payback from the hatred he had wielded with such self aggrandizing confidence.

Such prophetic words; may they be a warning to all who hope to tread the tyrant’s path. No good can come from this.

Fifth grade was a big year for me. It may have been my best year so far, but I don’t want to rule out future possibilities for greatness. Fifth grade was the year we ruled the school, the year before we entered a massive middle school that combined three other elementary schools, where math got infinitely harder and socializing even more so. But that’s all for another post.

While fifth grade may have been the last year of real, child-like fun, it also unofficially marked the beginning of adolescence. Suddenly, crushes were real, and what you said, how you looked, what you did and what you liked were all ripe for criticism and competition. I recall, with vivid awareness, the music my classmates listened to, the shows and movies they watched, the clothes they wore, and the way they talked to one another.

This was 1997. We were listening to the Spice Girls, but it behooved us to have a wider musical curiosity. Time to delve into some rock, grunge, and R&B. Puff Daddy, BSB (if you know, you know), Third Eye Blind, and Shawn Colvin’s “Sunny Came Home” dominated the charts.

Some of these things I remember all the more because I was often the only kid not allowed to participate. Titanic, with its nude drawings and scandalous sex scenes, was forbidden to me, and it seemed at the time, me alone. Dawson’s Creek was absolutely not allowed, though I was allowed to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My mother watched an episode of each with me to approve them for viewing.

Unfortunately, the Dawson’s Creek episode featured a high school student having an affair with his English teacher. Meanwhile, Buffy was kicking vampires asses and being a general badass. Luckily mom did not watch the episodes where she had sex with Angel and he turned evil (although it may have been a useful cautionary tale).

My friends back then shopped at the Gap, whose tank tops I was not allowed to wear and whose famous jeans were deemed unnecessarily pricey.

At every sleepover, it seemed all of the girls had a pair of silk pajamas from the Limited Too, except for moi. But my babysitting earnings allowed me to participate in other vital trends, such as the tattoo choker necklaces and the comeback of bell bottoms jeans (suddenly popular again today, 28 years later).

But what really stood out to me in fifth grade was not just the many pop cultural items and tidbits I needed to adopt to save face, but the importance of my own personal “branding.” I will never forget chatting with a group of friends about another girl who we had all decided was a “follower.”

This particular girl, whom we’ll call Janet Morris, had, we surmised, inserted herself into the impenetrable gates of the skinny, rich, popular girls. The audacity of her presence there was mainly due to the fact that she was profoundly normal looking; not at all like the young girls she surrounded herself with. We thought she ought to be one of us, not one of them, and who was she to think she had any right to be over there, at the top of the pyramid?

I assumed Janet had climbed to the top in one of two ways: first, and, in my mind, the most likely, was that she was willing to be at the beck and call of the beautiful people, and would do or say anything to maintain her social status. Obviously they wouldn’t accept her, unless of course, she provided something useful to them, like a friendly servant.

The second possibility was that she had a secret, Machiavellian prowess and was actually in control of the whole group. Being that they were so beautiful, there’d be no reason for them to actually be intelligent. Someone with the right skills and gumption could certainly bend them to her will.

Whatever it was, Janet’s presence in this clique was untenable to me. I couldn’t imagine a world where she was simply and truly friends with these people, and so I looked at her with pity and curiosity. What had she sacrificed to be in their presence? She became a symbol to me of everything I wanted not to be, and in so doing, shaped all of my social goals.

Then and there, I thought to myself, I would never become a follower. I would never become someone’s lackey just to be accepted—no, I, strong and proud, would walk away rather than beg for friendship.

This became my guiding principle, and I thought I was doing a good job of “being myself.” Looking back, though, my paranoia of being a follower led to an obsessive observance of those around me. In order to be “different,” I had to have a firm grasp of what made everyone else “the same,” so that I could avoid it.

Because I feared the superficial, I became superficial. I had to style myself differently, I had to listen to bands “no one had ever heard of,” and buy strange clothes at thrift stores that felt unique but still let me blend into the background; I had to be likeable and uncontroversial… my friendships were light and fun and entirely superficial, I was a person with no real connections. I was so determined to not be anyone’s follower that I “independented” myself right out of any meaningful friendships.

My achievement was paradoxical. Instead of copying one idea of coolness, I simply copied another. Avoiding certain appearances made me obsessed with others. I spent so much time trying not to be things, that I missed out on a great deal of opportunities to have fun, to be lighthearted, to enjoy things just for the sake of them.

The desperation to be seen as I wanted to be seen eventually brought on anxiety and depression and a deep sense of isolation. I didn’t think I fit in anywhere, but looking back on it, that’s what I had cultivated. All of that effort to look effortlessly cool…and I was never cool. I was a hot mess and probably more Machiavellian than Janet ever was.

While walking my dogs today, many years later, I started thinking about Janet. How cruel we were to assume she didn’t belong. How willfully we reinforced stereotypes we’d learned from teen movies and TV shows and magazines; all of which seemed built to remind us that happiness and success belonged only to beautiful people, only to those with the right looks and bodies and social skills. I gobbled those sources up like they were water in a desert, and I regarded them as truth. With my attention and beliefs, I became part of the problem.

I know now that Janet’s place in her friend group could be attributed to a third possibility, one I’d never considered back in 1997. Perhaps Janet fit in just fine, and her friends liked her just as she was. Perhaps they did not care about appearances, perhaps they were not even aware of their own stellar looks, and perhaps they had more going on in their lives than just being cool in fifth grade. Perhaps they were just normal kids, with both problems and privileges, trying to figure it out like everyone else.

And perhaps people like me, who sat back and judged them all as cruel and cold and entitled just because they had things I thought I wanted, who spread gossip about those who didn’t “look” the part, well, I think I was the mean one all along.

And while I hope my insecurity didn’t hurt them, that my assumptions never reached them, looking back, I can definitely see how much it hurt me.

Today, I am mostly unafraid of looking stupid. In my thirties, I have learned many new things I would have been mortified to try as a younger person. I’ve attempted water sports that require being towed by a boat, and failed most of the time; I’ve taken up snowboarding and been pummeled by gravity; I’ve tried English and Western horseback riding and felt keenly how little talent I have for it. I’ve taken on chickens and dogs and home projects, and begun pursuing a masters’ degree in art. I am trying to create a website and finding it punishingly hard.

But I pursue all of these things because they make me happy, because I am learning, slowly, to enjoy learning and let go of the result. This is something I will always be learning. Setting the ego aside is a lifelong pursuit; there is no plateau.

I hope that I can set an example for my fifth grade daughter, who is kinder than I was, and far more confident, to continue to try new things and not care what others think. I hope I can show her that she should talk to people no matter how pretty or unpretty they are, or how cool they seem to be.

I hope she is less afraid than I was of looking or being silly, of awkward moments and not quite fitting in. These things happen, but we can still find our people. We need not bury our heads in the sand simply because we said a stupid thing and alienated a couple people. I’m living proof that you can put your foot in your mouth over and over and people will still be kind to you.

Over the years, I have gotten brave about meeting new people. I have often find the people I instinctively want to hate, the people who I perceive to be too pretty or too successful to be kind, are just as human as I am.

I hope Janet has had a wonderful life, full of friends who love her. I hope fifth grade was a good year for her too, and that she never let the haters bother her.

In spite of the desperate, paranoid kid I once was, things have worked out just fine for me. My fears made me unkind, and critical of myself and others. Those things almost killed me. I fervently hope that I can bring a different energy to the world now, and that I do not pass on those negative traits to my children. But if I do, may I have the heart to forgive them and lead them out of it. Life is not a competition; the world is abundant.

These are the things I pray for, and also, may mom jeans never again go out of style.

By the way, I finally saw Titanic. I have to admit, I didn’t really get what the hype was about. I missed the moment!

But if nothing else, I can be deeply grateful that I have not sunk into freezing waters, at least not literally.

Every year, as January 1 approaches, people in many countries around the globe reflect on the year that passed, and plan their hopes and dreams for the year that’s coming. The goals we set for the person we’d like to be in the new year are called “resolutions,” and I, for one, am tired of breaking them.

Every year I resolve to lose weight, yell less, achieve more, write in my blog once a week, take better care of all sorts of things from animals to laundry to my mental health, yadda yadda yadda. And every year I forget these goals after a couple of weeks.

While I do still have some goals for myself for 2025, what interests me more are the goals that perhaps we ought to set as a people: the human race.

I’m a spiritual seeker, and for years, I have heard folks in spiritual modalities from across the globe talk about a new age. A new church, a new spiritual era, an age of awakening, a new astronomical age, a second coming, whatever. Every faith system seems to have some version of this. And year after year I think we are approaching some massive awakening, where people will come to their senses (myself included) and shift into a more compassionate world with goals that revolve around love and peace instead of weight loss and promotions (though I would love those last two things also, how could they not bring more love and peace, right?).

Now I do believe these things are happening, but slowly, the way grass grows. And I wonder what condition we’ll be in when the wheat is ready to harvest. Today, I write from Stratton, Vermont, where the weather has warmed up enough for rain to fall and the snow on the mountains to melt, rendering skiing near-impossible. Vermont has also been the unlikely—or so I had thought—victim of serious flooding twice in the last few years. This is a state that relies on tourism, and it is not alone in its struggle to trudge on despite the weather.

Our changing climate hurts all of us. To claim we have no impact on our environment means also that we have no choices, that we are powerless victims.

Is that how we see ourselves? If so, we can never awaken. We can only haplessly crash into those around us, experiencing life by accident, with no stake in the game and no meaningful triumphs or struggles. No meaningful life.

I believe it is our duty while on this planet to cultivate relationships. I think there is no higher calling. We are here to love, to experience love, and to experience the hard things also that make love significant and precious. We are not just here to love each other, but to love the world we live in, its creatures and plants and weather and geography. We ought to be in awe.

To be in awe is to gaze at this tiny blue planet, apparently alone in the cosmos, a bright speck of life amidst darkness. What a miracle. How did it all begin, how did it get here? And how could it not be our job to care for this living organism that supports us?

I don’t write this to tell you all how great I am at caring for planet earth. I have deep anxiety about the massive carbon foot print I leave in my wake. I have work to do.

But I guess what I’m hoping to say is that awakening often starts small. With awareness, yes, but also with curiosity, reverence, awe, wonder. To get anywhere near peace and love, we must hold those other things too. With wonder, we can speculate about what we see, in our environment but also with other humans. With curiosity, we can learn the “why,” and the “how.” With reverence, we can hold compassion and take a beat before we define the things we see. And with awe, we can see the magic in anything.

Remind me that I waxed poetic about awe and wonder and reverence the next time you see me yelling at my kids. Hopefully, I can savor the small things better in 2025, and become the awakened person I wish myself to be, or at least grow a bit more in that direction.

Wishing you all a happy new year!