Matthew Amsden

Crowds and History

Our generation (Generation X/Y) grew up in a time of extreme calm. No major wars that had a real impact on most of us. No major civil rights battles that caused any major stir. Most of us grew up fairly comfortably. Any struggles we may have encountered were on a smaller more personal scale – divorce, illness … Nothing really galvanized us. During high-school history classes, I often wondered what it would be like to be in a time when there were social and political issues that people actually cared about. Our great grandparents had WWI and the great depression, our grandparents WWII, and the Korean War, our parents Vietnam and African American civil rights. What did we come together and make a stand for other than MTV? I can’t think of anything until now.

Last night I was part of one of the most amazing crowds I’ve ever seen. Thousands on the steps and grass outside Cambridge City Hall witnessed and cheered on history - the first state-sanctioned gay marriages in America. Thousands wanted to see history first hand. For most of the evening I said nothing. It was simply incredible to feel part of a larger movement that will forever change the world as a whole and individuals personally. What do you say to that except experience it? I wonder, did it feel the same to be at Woodstock, or the civil rights march on Washington? Or was this even better because this was a realization of success?

Cambridge City hall sits on top of a small hill on Mass Ave one block from Central Square, several blocks from Harvard. I stood near the top of that hill looking down over throngs of people cheering a slow procession walk up City Hall steps two by two while riot police politely did their best to keep well wishers from blocking their path. Long before midnight, the streets were full of people. The sidewalks, buildings across the street, lawns, rooftops – people everywhere showing their support.

At 11:59, the crowd hushed as a Cambridge City employee gave instructions to those who intended to marry through a loudspeaker. Cheers from large crowds are powerful. Silence from thousands is earth shattering.

As couples exited the building, thousands applauded their union. It made me really proud to be an American – and the powers that be have not given us much help with that lately. I realized that We have not lost our ability to come together and be part of historical change and create real stories that will become part fact part folklore someday. This is a crowd that will take this story to the farthest corners of the country. Through word of mouth, the story will change in innumerable ways. What doesn’t change is the fact thousands experienced a change that will go down in history. A change that affects the world as a whole and each one of us individually.

'We'll Be Fine Come Spring'

My mother named me after a character in her very favorite novel, Come Spring, by Ben Ames if I remember correctly. The story about three generations of colonists who settle in what is now Maine just prior to the Revolution, is long out of print. Yet, each female member of my family cherishes one of the few remaining copies.

The book is long. Close to 700 pages - at it ain't a page turner or supermarket romance.

While I have not read the entire book, each time the weather turns at this point of the year, I am reminded of it - particularly the dialog on the very last page:

"We'll be fine come spring."

While I did not experience famine as early colonists in Maine did during the last winter chronicled in this book, the past couple of New England winters have been difficult. It is easy to become a hermit, maybe even get a little depressed. For me, the winter of 2003/2004 will be marked by boredom brought by my unwillingness to try anything really different. I'll remember it as a time when everything was good, but artificially unable to take a risk, wasn't great.

Spring in New England is a misnomer. However, by the end of March, regardless of how trying the past couple of months have been, the sky remains fully bright long after I've left the office - even thought the weather may remind that winter is still a possibility. The world begins to change, reminding that you can change too.

After a long borning winter, everything will be fine come spring.

Coming Home

In an e-mail, and friend of mine, who had been traveling a lot over the past couple of months remarked how glad he was to be home.

I really like to travel - even to places not considered travel worthy - Cleveland in March, the Dakotas in February ... However, regardless of how amazing my trip was, I find one of the nicest moments of any trip I take is that final stretch between the airport and my apartment. I'll maybe take the water taxi to Long Warf, or the subway to Quincy Market, and walk up in to the North End - rolling luggage is a must, and mine is definitely very beat up from the brick and cobblestone.

I'm not completely sure why this transition makes such an impression on me. I think in part it comes from the fact air travel to me doesn't really count as time somehow. I live fairly close to the airport, so that moment I am home is a moment to reflect how accessible and small the world really is, while being so diverse and vast.

I Saw it Again

A full moon on the water. Twice I have seen, the last not a month ago. This time it was windy, the water was rougher - but the moon was bigger. Big enough to clearly see the cartography on the surface.

If I have any alternative spirituality it is brought on by the pure beauty of a full moon reflecting on the ocean. This scene has always signified a real change in my life - always for the better. I have a feeling that one is coming. One that is bigger, more meaningful, and ultimately more rewarding However, I expect the change will be longer, rougher than those in the past, just as the water was rougher.

Both the beauty, and impending change sent repeated chills up my spine as I ran along the waters edge. Airliners took off from the Logan Airport moving people to and from destinations , responsibilities and opportunities my mind can hardly imagine.

It is as if I've been struck by a wave of alternative spirituality. On a shopping outing this weekend, it seemed inventory control systems in several stores went off without cause. Normally I wouldn't notice the alarm ringing over the store music. However, the shear number of times they went off ... stores large, stores small, discount, surplus, upscale, exclusive, boutique, chain independent, drugstore. It's as if a ghost was purposefully setting them off in my vicinity - not to falsley accuse me, but to catch my attention.

Is there a change coming that requires a choice? One choice is low risk, but low reward. The other choice is high risk, there is a significant chance of failure - failure that will be noticed by many and be terribly embarrassing and perhaps damaging. But if that risk is taken and performed successfully, the rewards could be extraordinary.

My sense is the choice is not the difference between right and wrong. My sense is there is danger in this choice, and the still water of several weeks ago a mirage. I fully believe the the full moon is a harbinger of major things to come. The complexity and size of this full moon, reflecting on the stirred up water, reflects the potential of a tumultuous process. One in which danger and very public failure are possible ...

Regardless of how rough, regardless of how dangerous. Regardless of how tough the choices. I am ready.

I thought it was big, but it's really small

I don't know why this is all suddenly just hitting me. On Monday I was amazed by the fact I called associates in San Francisco, LA, Montreal, Santa Fe, New York, Atlanta and Dublin - completing all seven calls within 30 minutes.

While speaking with Dublin, I made two reservations to Washington for the coming week. Despite making the trip hundreds of times, it hadn't occurred to me that it only takes an hour longer for me to get to the DC office than my local office here in Boston. That office is 5 miles from my apartment, the Washington office - 532 miles.

While on the phone with my research assistant in Montreal, I remembered a bakery, the name I've long since forgotten. I used to visit the place regularly for Tarte Sucre. She's worked from Montreal several times in the past. This was the first time I logged on to Yahoo.ca, entered the cross streets and searched for bakery. Within minutes, I suggested she Au Pain Dore just down the street to taste a Tarte Sucre for herself.

We all take for granted the instant access to information from around the world. I have only recently developed an awareness of my actual interaction with information being sifted around the world.

The real eye-opener came this morning. Having a little trouble setting up my accounts in Quicken for Mac, I called my brokerage firm. I have great luck with nearly any technical or financial question at the branch office in Post Office Square, not a fifteen minute walk from my front door. However the branch is closed today. I called the New York office. I was connected with a male voice with a very heavy Indian accent. He was very pleasant, but the ID he gave me didn't work.

I called again, another Indian accent. I had misunderstood one of the numbers in the ID code. Tried the code, wrong again. Called a third time, another male voice in heavily accented Indian English. Despite calling a 212 number, my calls were being routed to Bangalore. It then donned on me - the recent calls I'd made to my credit card to reset my password - also Indian accents - also in India.

I have no problem with service outsourcing. In fact for a project several years ago, I seriously considered it myself. I am not naive enough to think that an American would have offered me any better service. In fact all three Indian gentleman were incredibly polite. The accents? I've spoken to customer service agents in Akron, Charleston, and Omaha that I had a harder time understanding.

From a political, operational, quality and cost perspective I see no reason to be protectionist. Still, the fact even the most every day errands now are completed with an interaction literally on the other side of the world is difficult to actually process. I can't quite grip the fact what I used to consider a business trip over 500 miles away is pretty close to most peoples every day commute time. I'm not quite grasping that I'm interacting with people in such drastically different and geographically separated local environments within minutes of each other - maybe on the same conference call.

I've always considered the world small in terms of information that didn't really have much every day impact on me - news, politics, the media ... Now I do my every day errands in a city that is so different from my own that I used to call it a different world. I can't call it a different world anymore. It's an everyday part of my world now.

Sorrow in Spain

My thoughts are with the Spanish as they go to the polls today, soon after the country's worst terrorist disaster. I sympathize with thier situation. I was in Washington DC, on September 11th. I don't know anyone who was directly affected by the strike in either city, but I know how it hung as a dark grey cloud over my head for the following months. Would they strike my subway on the way to work? Would they let off a dirty bomb in my highly densly populated neighborhood? Would they try to highjack the shuttle that I take to DC and NYC on a regular basis?

While my thoughts do go out to those who lost family members, I can't help but think about everyone else. All of those who will have to deal with fleeting thoughts of politically motivated catastrophe.

If it is any comfort to Spaniards at all, ab out a year after September 11th, I have largly forgotten the ever present fears of another disaster. I am back to worrying about when the weather is going to finally warm up, how much money is in my bank account, and whether a ten ton machine with 250 people on board can really just get up and fly.

It is interesting to look back on how we as Americans grieved as compared to Spaniards. Many-to-Many makes an interesting observation,

"Americans dealt with the shock of 9/11 generally by going into our living rooms and turning on the TV. The Spanish have responded to 3/11 by going into the streets, 11 million strong."

Many to Many blogger David Weinberger asks "t’s a telling point, but what exactly does it tell?." I rarely read comments on blogs, but the responses here are very interesting. One in particular,

"I could suggest a number of things, or none of them:

(1) That Spaniards are more unified and monocultural than the U.S…. Americans are so diverse and America so large that we need media to provide us with a sense of unity that would be otherwise difficult to generate. Example: without television, people in Mississippi would have been far less affected by 9/11. Culturally, Mississippi and New York are very, very different places. The media helped everyone feel like a New Yorker that day. For better or worse.

(2) That the U.S. is an inherently macho place. We do a good job with anger, love, and so on, but we’re not big on sorrow, empathy, and emotional trauma. As a whole, we don’t mourn… we identify problems (corrently or not) and set about Fixing Things. In short, America is from Mars, Spain is from Venus.

(3) That Americans aren’t big on taking to the streets. We identify such behaviors with riots and political activism, two things for which the average citizen has little patience."

For the complete post, and comments visit Many-to-Many