Whatever It Is, It Ain't Privilege

Forty-five years ago, I found the rock in this photo.  I love this otherwise unremarkable rock and the smooth finish my rock tumbler gave it. As a kid, I loved all kinds of rocks--still do.  And my prized rock tumbler, as they'd say in education, took my finds from good to great.

Rock tumblers are not for the impatient, though.  It took a month of waiting, a month of adding grit, a month of motion to transform this rock into its current, smooth iteration.

I'm pretty sure Donald Trump never owned a rock polisher. . . which is too bad, because the man could have used some grit in his early life, some opposing, outside force that required both his participation and his patience.

This, I've decided, is the bane of the so-called privileged. They lacked rock tumblers as kids.

I've been thinking a lot about privilege lately, mainly in the context of our president, who--on paper only--is a 70-year-old man. And I've come to believe that privilege is the wrong word for this thing that frames him.  Absence comes a little closer, I think.

As one of the very rich, Trump leads an insular life of immunity, moving through his days untouched by law or leper.   That absence of contact, though, comes with a cost, and it comes early.  What did he lose when his young life had no grit in it, nothing to move in opposition to his thoughts, his needs, his experiences?  I believe he lost the ability to connect with others and, as a result, he lost some of his own humanity.

And such absence--this gaping, gilded maw--does not a great leader make.