This past year has been, without question, the worst of my life. It’s a long story that I’ll get into at some point, but not today. Today I want to write more generally about the power of words. If there is any such thing as a life preserver for just plain living, it is, at least for me, words.
Everyone who is fortunate enough to live long enough eventually encounters their own version of what Kerouac called “beat and evil days.” Times when, out of a full waking day, you feel good only for that first millisecond of nascent awareness in the morning before your situation grabs you from the respite of sleep and smacks you wide awake.
During the past year, I’ve done a lot of the two things that I do during good times and bad: write and play music. The former has been easier than the latter. There were a few months in the darkness of deep winter when I could not play music due to an inability to keep my mind clear of clutter and to concentrate enough to get through even modestly complex passages. Without music and writing, I’m just a lost soul wandering the face of the earth.
A few months back, an old friend from all of the way back to high school reached out to me with the following: “I’m always prepared for your articles that make me rethink what I think I know. This one, though, hits on all the feels. I hope your own words have a way to make you feel better, as they always do for me.” This was, of course, about the nicest thing that anyone ever said to me. After I read this, I knew that everything was going to be OK. Those 42 words got me through my own beat and evil days.
Words, at least for me, have always had great power. I would like to recall for you one of my favorite passages from any book I’ve ever read. It’s been my guiding star for decades.
"Nor that night we lived through in the land of the unconquered tribes of the Sahara, which now floats into my memory.
Three crews of Aeropostale men had come down at the fall of day on the Rio de Oro coast in a part of the Sahara whose denizens acknowledge no European rule. Riguelle had landed first, with a broken connecting rod. Bourgat had come along to pick up Riguelle's crew, but a minor accident had nailed him to earth. Finally, as night was beginning to fall, I arrived. We decided to salvage Bourgat's ship, but we should have to spend the night and do the job of repair by day-light.
Exactly on this spot two of our comrades, Gourp and Erable, had been murdered by the tribesmen a year earlier. We knew that a raiding party of three hundred rifles was at this very moment encamped somewhere near by, round Cape Bojador. Our three landings had been visible from a great distance and the Moors must have seen us. We began a vigil which might turn out to be our last.
Altogether, there were about ten of us, pilots and mechanics, when we made ready for the night. We unloaded five or six wooden cases of merchandise out of the hold, emptied them, and set them about in a circle. At the deep end of each case, as in a sentry box, we set a lighted candle, its flame poorly sheltered from the wind. So in the heart of the desert, on the naked rind of the planet, in an isolation like that of the beginnings of the world, we built a village of men.
Sitting in the flickering light of the candles on this kerchief of sand, on this village square, we waited in the night. We were waiting for the rescuing dawn—or for the Moors. Something, I know not what, lent this night a savor of Christmas. We told stories, we joked, we sang songs. In the air there was that slight fever that reigns over a gaily prepared feast. And yet we were infinitely poor. Wind, sand, and stars. The austerity of Trappists. But on this badly lighted cloth, a handful of men who possessed nothing in the world but their memories were sharing invisible riches.
We had met at last. Men travel side by side for years, each locked up in his own silence or exchanging those words which carry no freight - till danger comes. Then they stand shoulder to shoulder. They discover that they belong to the same family. They wax and bloom in the recognition of fellow beings. They look at one another and smile. They are like the prisoner set free who marvels at the immensity of the sea."
-Wind, Sand and Stars, by Antoine de St. Exupery
St. Exupery may be better known to you as the author of The Little Prince, which I have read to each of my young children over a period of weeks as a bedtime story when I thought that they were old enough to understand what it meant. But Wind, Sand and Stars speaks more to me. I am both too much like the pilot in The Little Prince, who was too wrapped up in his own triumphs and travails to appreciate his friend until it was too late, and like St. Exupery himself in Wind, Sand and Stars, who is bound to the adventure and danger that nourish his soul.
All of the words I have cited for you so far have meant a lot to me. And there have been many more. From Kerouac, I got the inspiration to hitchhike around the country as a youth. From Joseph Conrad, I learned what it meant to commit to an adventure that was like following a "creek that was like a gigantic serpent with its tail deep in my destination—the heart of darkness.” From Sophocles, I learned that the shepherd must be allowed to speak and that I must hear. From Hermann Buhl, I learned that the greatest accomplishments originate from within and are possible alone. From Rostand, I learned that all love is unrequited.
I learned about silent lucidity from the words in a song. That slant of light, from the words in a poem. And doing hard things specifically because they are hard from words in a speech.
So yeah, I get it: words are powerful.
It is precisely on this account that I am just about as close to a free-speech absolutist as there is. I’m almost never in favor of banning speech, books, or any other form of expression, except in age-appropriate contexts. As much as I rail and inveigh against DEI and other forms of oppressive left-wing bias, I’m not for banning any of it. All I want is to be able to counter the left’s poor speech with better speech without being sentenced to a gulag.
You run your ideas up the flagpole; I’ll run mine, and we’ll see who salutes what. I ain’t scared.
I’m a big believer that sunshine is the best disinfectant for bad ideas. Partisan wankers know this as well, which is why they eschew debate on subjects like DEI, gender-affirming care, policing, immigration, climate change, green energy, and other things on which they perceive an unimpeachable moral high ground that they alone occupy, rendering these topics above debate.
Though I have been a journalist, I am not functioning as one here on Howlin’. Given the current state of journalism, that would be a step down. I am a columnist. There is a difference. These days, the vast wasteland of opinion journalism has given a bad name to what used to be a venerable occupation. Mike Royko must be rolling over in his grave.
What I try to do with each column is channel the hopes, dreams, and frustrations of many of you. I do this as honestly as I can, without any pandering or bullshit. I’m not bound by any editorial policy (other than my own) or the wishes of any benefactor. So I call ‘em as I see ‘em. I intend to continue doing just that.
Evidently, there is an audience for this. Howlin’ grows daily, and a great number of new subscriptions are paid. Just this morning, a fellow writer for whom I gladly comped a subscription left $50 in an envelope for me at my favorite coffee shop. It was like the sun coming up twice in a single day.
The pen truly is mightier than the sword, unless, that is, you happen to find yourself in a 7-Eleven store in the middle of a holdup. Then, speaking for myself, I might go with a Glock 29 Gen 4 over a Sailor 1911L. Discretion being the better part of valor.
So, just as spring arrives, like the forest eventually returning to normal after a wildfire, I’m returning to myself. Some trees in the forest, like lodgepole pine, have resin-coated seeds that require fire in order to break free from the cone and germinate. In a way, that’s me right now.
When I was young, I never imagined that I’d live to be anywhere as old as I am now. I always imagined making a big exit via climbing, motorcycles, or some other close-to-the-edge activity that was bound to catch up with me. Then, unexpectedly, along came marriage, kids, and a home life. I started adjusting to the idea of checking out as an old man lying in bed with loved ones all around.
I have come to realize that, for better or for worse, that idea was an illusion and not one that’s true to me. Now I’m back to the idea that I get to go out with a bang and, in doing so, honor all of my brothers in arms who I cared about and respected and who were not granted as much time as me.
They get to live through me, at least for a little bit longer. And I’m OK with that.
Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.
The older I get the more these words make sense. Danny the shortest distance between any two points in the universe is a straight line in the opposite direction... Well unless they push it too much then it might be a straight line in their direction...