One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

This is a 115 page story written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, concerning a man named Shukhov, a political prisoner in a Siberian camp. The story encompasses a single day in prison life, with only brief moments in which the man remembers events or people outside the scope of his present reality. The cold is a constant presence in his telling, but takes on an inscrutable predictability which proves almost comforting compared to the unplanned cruelties of the camp.

The story begins with Shukhov's recollection of an old "camp wolf" who gave him three nuggets of wisdom in some earlier time. Indicative of the learned practicality he displays throughout the tale, he dismisses one piece of advice. The first, ignored, is an admonishment against being a snitch.

But he observes the other two with fervor, like a way to salvation, and in fact, as the way to exist in a place that attempts to displace the spirit. They are a warning to refrain from licking bowls and pinning hopes on the medical department. Each one can lead a person to lose their self-sustaining pride and succumb to the unrelenting personal violence of the prison camp.

One of his bunk neighbors is a Christian who offers his faith as a source of sustenance, but Shukhov rejects the symbolic religion of his camp mate and instead finds a self-sourced grace in his own actions. He says he believes in God, but not in either heaven or hell. Instead he follows a creed forged in the unending days of unrelenting discomfort of the prison camp; to not be a "jackal."

His existence is constrained physically by violence and psychologically by the wrenching uncaring and uncertain restraints that squeeze the temporal sense from camp dwellers' thinking like a rag twisted until it holds no more moisture. Shukhov instead relies on an "internal wristwatch" that allows him furtive intervals in which he can evaluate his condition and design his strategy for survival.

This is a tale from a Siberian political prison camp that was first published in 1961. In other words, a contemporary reckoning of repression that invokes violence as a means of terror and violations of thought process as a tool to inflict mental imbalance. It reduces men to living like a wolf, removed from a considered morality, left to a life of small decisions whose outcomes risk destruction from their environment or leave them prone to succumb to self destructive actions.

A Struggling Soul

A pastor still under the sway, and struggling against, the critical, discouraging words of his father. Sometimes he is able to overcome them and preach about an enduring promise of salvation that cannot be expunged by any act of a man. At other times he falls prey to the words he heard as a youth and can only repeat those that identify us as sinful and undeserving right from birth.

At times, the struggle is engaged with determination and the words are spoken in a low voice, not in rebellion but in defiance. I will not succumb is the subconscious message; I will make a place for these hopeful words. By speaking them, I proclaim an alternative to the doctrine of shame and sin.

But at others, particularly when the topic is of a supposed undeserved worth, the words flow unabashedly and unmodified. It is as if he has given in to this notion of unworth, and is unable to ascertain the larger effect they have. That their repetition gives a credence to the sorry thought they do not merit and creates a cachet within the minds of those who hear them.

In certain situations the speaking of such stark and demeaning words does not upset or confuse, since they are taken as a paraphrase of scriptural text. But there are others in which words like this are used to justify demeaning statements meant not to humble a person but to humiliate. And those who succumb to the gist of them is not confined to those who might be oppressed; it may be that one who finds themselves in a position to speak words of grace may instead recall the sentiment and accompanying pain and unwittingly repeat them.

From where do these words originate? A remembered past kept in a mind and accessed perhaps during a time of stress or other strong emotional state. Because they come from within they are not necessarily subject to the same restraint or skepticism as are words heard from friends or other casual acquaintances. As a result, words of great emotion and import can emerge and feel like just the right thing to say, even though by a more objective perspective, they are not.

And when such organic words and their accompanying thoughts are unexpunged, they can occupy a place both appropriate and dissonant in our minds. It is a challenge, unfortunately not solely a private one, to avoid falling prey to the echoes of words spoken by a parent or other spiritual leader. Our resolve must then be to heed and to feed - as in a depiction of a soul as two wolves, one good and one evil - only the virtuous one.

Chipotle comes to Palatine

Don't ever expect something new or innovative to come out of or to Palatine. It sits outside the realm of changing at the first wave of societal evolution and gives no truck to easily modifying its communal thinking. Palatine wallows in the intoxicating ether of tradition, conservatism and intolerance.

In the reactive minds of fragile thinkers the deliberate sway of time is a good thing. Raising children and maintaining property values works best within a cocoon of isolation safe from the swipe of radicalism and the tumult of evolving tastes. In Palatine change comes not in unexpected or unmodulated ways; it is managed so as to not upset the unmindful public cart.

Palatine exists in a netherworld between the dark city and the unrestrained expanse of the far northwestern suburbs. If it were placed in an aural landscape, it would occupy the place between beats - the rest. As such, there is some semblance of virtue to be in this place. It provides a sense of potential that can be gained by leaving, while also providing a refuge from an unstable, unexpected world.

One implication of being in this physical and psychological place is the slow adoption of change in the commercial face of Palatine. A concomitant feature is that a great number of businesses do have a place here, but they are typically stores that belong to established chains. It is notable that one chain which was early to Palatine, Whole Foods, is not the most disruptive of its kind.

So it is no surprise that a store such as Chipotle has now come, finally to Palatine. Whatever was once cutting edge or subversive about their restaurant layout or food supply chain has been so thoroughly enmeshed in our collective minds it's presence is about as disturbing as the imposition of a longer left turn arrow at a heavily traveled intersection.

We can sleep easily, knowing that we feel protected not only by the corporate sensibility that restrains the impish desires of the food chain, but by the constraints embodied in the Palatine planning process. Live large in your bounded community; be ecstatic about your new choice in meals and by all means, be thankful for the whole, well planned and considered, burrito.