My Post-Election Conversations With Tolstoy, Vonnegut, and Buber

To say I was disappointed with the 2024 elections results is quite an understatement. I was devastated not only by the results, but also by what they meant about our country’s present and its future. I needed to speak with people who I respected and could help me process this and figure out how to move forward. Aside from family members and friends, three people I wanted to speak with were Leo Tolstoy, Kurt Vonnegut, and Martin Buber. When I go to cemeteries to visit my loved ones, I often speak with them. I just had to take one slightly further step in order to speak with these three.When they learned that I’d read almost every word they’d written, each of them was willing to speak with me. I wasn’t sure what news was getting to them – Tolstoy died in 1910, Vonnegut in 2007, and Buber in 1965 – so I filled them in on what happened. I then asked for advice, seeking their thoughts on how I could handle this now, and in the months and years to come.

Tolstoy’s advice was primarily political and historical. He doesn’t believe that the victors in the election are leading society down a path to destruction, because he doesn’t believe they are leading us at all. He felt that they are simply humans caught in the winds of history and are riding those winds and the social forces that are blowing them. He told me that the president-elect is an expression of our society and the times in which we are living, and not a creator of them.

I told Tolstoy that his thoughts may be impacted by the fact that most of his life was lived in the nineteenth century, before the age of internet, social media, mass dis-information, etc. I told him that the people who control those forces do impact society today. Tolstoy said that, unfortunately, his views are limited to the times that he lived in. He ending by saying that he hoped I could find some solace among the people around me.

I had the good fortune to speak with Kurt Vonnegut during his lifetime (a subject for a future blog), which made it easier to speak with him again. Vonnegut spoke with me about time. He felt I was much too focused on a narrow slice of time – even if that slice began several years ago and has several years to go. Vonnegut said that most of us have much too restrictive and linear a view of time. He wanted me to see it spread across a huge universe, from the Big Bang to dinosaurs, from cave paintings to the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, from the birth of religions to the Holocaust. He wanted me to look backward in time to a dying star as its last light begins its trip to the earth, and also far into the future to ages that are beyond my wildest imagination. He encouraged me to think about all of that, and to view this period as just one grain of sand within it. He ended by saying, "Cheer up my friend, it will be okay," and then, with a smile, "or not."

Buber was the most sensitive of the three, and focused our discussion on relationships. He felt that my best way of getting through all this was to communicate deeply, honestly, and regularly with my family and friends. He also encouraged me to spend time enjoying nature, and the beauty of the universe. He wanted me to care for my loved ones and let them care for me, and said that I should take good care of myself as well. He smiled and said that although he’d been gone for a few years when Abbey Road came out, he could hear it anyway, and really enjoyed the line “and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.” He wished me love throughout all my relationships, and felt that the light emanating from my relationships would keep me warm now, and in the years to come.

Speaking with my family and friends, and with Leo, Kurt, and Martin, has helped a lot. If this period has been challenging for you, what are you doing to help you through it? Have you found people to speak with? I’ll be okay. I hope that you will as well.