#62 / Sy

I suppose I could write a whole year's worth of blog posts that use a person's first name as the title. There are a whole lot of people I both love and admire, and I don't think I would mind telling the world just why.

My post yesterday, for instance, "Lennie," celebrated Lennie Roberts. She is, without any need for me to add my thoughts, already a celebrated personality, and correctly so. If you missed that blog posting yesterday, but are reading this one, check out Lennie's "Ten Tips For Advocates." 

I consider Lennie Roberts to be a personal friend. The guy in the photo above, Sy Safransky, is not someone I have ever met, or can claim to know. He is, though, a celebrated personality, and correctly so. 

Sy Safransky is the editor and publisher of The Sun Magazine, which I have come to honor and admire. I am late to the party, I must admit, since the magazine has been cooking along under Safransky's direction for the best part of fifty years. He started the magazine in 1974, the year I was first elected to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. While I am here confessing a pattern and practice of unfortunate obliviousness, I have concluded that late to arrive is better than never. 

I have been subscribing to The Sun for a year or so, now, and I find that every issue leaves me, in some way, shaken. You can consider this a definite recommendation. Oddly enough, I have also noted that almost every issue of The Sun that I have read since I started subscribing has included a contribution from someone in Santa Cruz.

Just by chance, I stumbled upon the article linked below, which is the article where I found the picture. The article is titled, "Beginner’s Mind: Sy Safransky On God, LSD, And The Magazine He Founded." I am providing a quick quote, which says something I never tire of repeating: We are individuals, but we are not only individuals. We are together in this life:

[Safransky] In the course of a year we publish nearly a half million words, and I want to make sure they’re the right words, not the almost-right words. I want to make sure they’re words that bring us together, because I want The Sun to remind us that separateness is an illusion — a very compelling illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. Are we really separate from this earth? Are we really separate from one another? This separate self we cling to — how real is it?

I may never have met Sy Safransky, but I have met his magazine, and I think that what Safransky has just said, above, is absolutely true. Ojalá that we can find a way to transform our politics, so that we turn from the illusions that have ensnared us and begin to "reason together." 

Image Credit:

https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/457/beginners-mind