THE LITTLE MAGICIAN

We normally equate magicians with trickery or artifice. However, every once in a while someone comes around who makes us believe that everything he does is truly supernatural. Lionel Messi is that kind of magician, and today he picked up his record-setting fifth Ballon d'Or trophy for being the best player in world football.

I have appreciated Messi's greatness for five years now since I first watched a Barcelona match on TV. Messi seemed to float around the pitch and to effortlessly do things that no other players was doing. Yes, there were goals galore, but it was the way he scored rather than the sheer volume of his goals that was awe-inspiring. Since that time, and even before I became an admirer, Messi has been thrilling fans worldwide, and 2015 was no exception.

To appreciate what Messi has achieved this year requires a formal accounting. First, he scored 52 goals in 61 games-one goal every 101 minutes and the second most in European football. Some of these goals were astounding, including this goal in the 2015 Copa del Rey Final that was one of three finalists for the goal of the year. Importantly, Messi scored many other goals that really mattered, including this brilliant strike in the Champions League semifinal that literally left one of the top defenders in the world on his backside and that secured Barca a spot in the Final.

Further, Messi is not just a goal scorer. He also provided 26 assists last year-the most in Europe. This is an amazing feat for a midfielder, never mind a forward like Messi, and speaks volumes about Messi's unselfishness and team play.

Finally, one must also consider what Messi helped his teams achieve this year-both Barca and the Argentine national team. Both of these teams were in every single final of every single competition available to them. Messi led Barca to five out of six possible trophies, a feat only surpassed once by Messi's 2009 Barca team. These trophies include: Spanish La Liga League title, Spanish Copa del Rey title, UEFA Champions League title, UEFA Super Cup title, FIFA Club World Cup title. Messi also led Argentina to the Copa America Final, where he executed his penalty in the shootout while his teammates badly faltered and cost them the title. Five trophies in a lifetime would be a feat, but to play an indispensable role in securing all five in a season is unheard of.

More than all of the silverware and plaudits, though, Messi exudes class and joy when he is on the field. I truly believe him when he said today, "I don't think about whether I am the best. I just enjoy the day-to-day and after all that if I am the best or not-it doesn't change much." His humility in the face of his achievements is truly unheard of, and that is another reason I love him.

Truly, at this point, Messi has nothing more to prove. He knows he will never win over some of his critics who constantly remind him of his empty World Cup cabinet. However, I hope that some of them can set aside their personal grudges with this man and simply sit back and enjoy the show he put on in 2015 and continues to put on in 2016 (5 goals and 2 assists in 3 games so far). I know I will enjoy this little magician's act for as long as he on stage.

Here's to Leo!

THE MEURSAULT INVESTIGATION

One of the most influential books of my young adulthood was Albert Camus' The Stranger. I have read the book over twenty times and even read the original French version on one occasion. The book is told from the perspective of a pied noir, or French Algerian colonist, named Meursault and depicts his mostly impersonal existence. It is only after Meursault kills an unnamed Arab for no apparent good reason and is sentenced to death that he comes to realize that he is alive and that our lives have consequences. Just before death, Meursault realizes that many our hopes and dreams are looked upon indifferently by the Universe (i.e God), and that we have only one life to live.

The Stranger is spartan in its writing, but it leaves the reader with many questions about his/her place in this world. Indeed, many consider it the best existentialist novel ever written, and this book is credited for the Nobel Committee's decision to award Camus the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.

It is not uncommon for great works of literary fiction to be accompanied by controversy. Mostly, these controversies center around the author rather than the content of a decades-old book. However, every now and then a work comes along that challenges the neat order of a great work of fiction like The Stranger.  Kamel Daoud's The Meursault Investigation is exactly that type of book.

Rather than serving as a rebuttal, The Meursault Investigation is more of a retelling of The Stranger. In Daoud's book the narrator is Harun (Aaron) the brother of the Arab killed in The Stranger. That dead man had a name-Musa(Moses), and Daoud seeks to explain how Musa's death had implications far beyond Meursault's prison sentence and ultimate execution. Harun's mother's life and his own are turned upside down by the killing, and they leave Algiers for Oran. Harun comes of age after the murder, and his mother's indifference and inability to cope with Musa's death severely impacts her ability to parent and care for her son.

In the new book, Harun tells the story of his life, Musa's life, and his mom's life to a stranger in a restaurant/bar. We see the toll that the French colonialist took on Algerian life as exemplified by Musa's senseless killing. Despite the connection to The Stranger, the book is told more in the style of Camus' The Fall-confessional but also seeking to engender empathy and complicity from the reader.

I was expecting this book to be an indictment of Camus and the West and Harun to one become a radical. However, the true tragedy of this novel is that after surviving the French occupation and gaining independence, Algerians like Harun must now cope with an even worse threat-Fundamentalist Muslims who do not agree with Harun's consumption of alcohol or religious and political moderation.  The narrator clearly laments what has become of his life and his country.

It is in this same environment that the author-a journalist in Oran-lives today. According to a wonderful New York Times review of his book, Daoud was sanctioned with a fatwah by a Muslim cleric after this book's publication, but Daoud soldiers on.  He apparently lives by the words of another Algerian writer Tahar Djaout who faced a similar sanction and who was ultimately murdered in the 1990s. Djaout wrote, "If you speak, you die. If you don't speak, you die. So, speak and die." I thank Daoud for speaking because his words have so much meaning and have helped me to see The Stranger in a much clearer and empathic light.

INDIGNANCE

This week President Obama came out swinging about the tragedy of gun violence in America. First, he gave a moving address from the White House, in which he was surrounded by victims of gun violence. In that speech, the President talked about the tragic, senseless loss of so many Americans to gun violence. He was angry, and he was also visibly emotional-even moved to tears at times.

He followed this up with an Op-Ed in the New York Times today-something that has rarely been done by a sitting American president. In that piece, the President called for common sense measures to reduce gun violence. He acknowledged that these measures would not stop all gun violence. However, he made it clear that they would be successful if they only saved one life.

I could not agree with him more, especially when I look at Nicholas and Cate. Cate is a first grader, the same age as the children who were gunned down in Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. I would be destroyed if I lost her this way. Wouldn't any politician-Democrat or Republican-feel shame if their loved one was gunned down because they failed to enact common-sense legislation? And yet, they do not act. This is because they view gun violence as someone else problem and because there is no political pressure for them to vote with their conscience rather with the National Rifle Association.

I hope that our leaders one day see the light. Perhaps it will take more Newtowns, San Bernadinos, or Rosebergs where these politician's families' lives are lost. At the current rate, gun violence will  certainly make its way to a community near them and us all. Oh, the indignity of this country.

THE MARE

Books can transport you to new places, but the best books can transform your point of view. In that sense, The Mare by Mary Gaitskill is a transformative book. This is not because the book uses some new literary device. Rather, The Mare is powerful because it forces you to step out of your comfort zone and to appreciate the points of view of characters who are seemingly so different from yourself.

The story begins with a young Dominican girl named Velveteen who lives in New York City. Velveteen has been matched up with a white family in rural New York through the Fresh Air Fund. The goal of that organization is to give inner city kids experiences away from home in nature. Ginger and Paul are the hosts, and they quickly take to Velveteen despite their very different backgrounds from hers Velveteen, in turn, is drawn to them and all the experiences that they have to offer, including horse back riding.

It turns out that Velveteen is quite a natural on a horse and becomes particularly attracted to a mare at a nearby stable nicknamed Fugly Girl. This mare suffered greatly at the hands of her previous owners, and to say that Fugly Girl is troubled is an understatement. Ginger, too, has a rocky past, and the book reveals that Velveteen's life has also been quite challenging. While the mare of the book seemingly refers to Fugly Girl, it soon becomes clear that all of these female characters have much in common. Each female is a mare in her own right.

We appreciate the similarities of these characters because the book is told in chapters of one to three pages-each told from the perspective of one of the characters, namely Ginger, Velveteen, Velveteen's mother, or Paul. Without these first person perspectives, it would be very easy to misunderstand the motivations of these characters. However, Gaitskill's tale puts us squarely in each person's shoes. This helps the reader to understand many of their fateful and seemingly self-destructive actions, and I am not sure I have ever read a more empathic book.

I will not give away the ending, but suffice it to say that I had a much deeper appreciation and understanding of all the characters in this book at the end. This was despite the fact that they were worlds away from me in location and experience.  We should be so lucky to have more experiences like reading The Mare-a book that truly makes this world seem a little smaller and that makes us all feel a little more connected.

COMING BACK HOME

This week we visited Barcelona for winter vacation. This was my fourth trip there in four years and the family's third trip there in the past three years. There are many reasons we keep coming back. These include the beautiful weather, scenery, football, and people. The sum of these parts create a whole and experiencing Barcelona is not so much about things, places, or people. It is a feeling.

Much of our life is spent going through the motions and not truly appreciating life's wonders. That way of being is impossible in Barcelona for me. Perhaps it is because of the sites, the friendly and beautiful populace, or even the distinctive clean, sweet smell of the city. What I do know is that this city had me at hello when I first visited in 1998 at the end of medical school, and it keeps drawing me back. I am sure there will be another trip back in the near future.

Barcelona, I cannot quit you! Fins aviat (See you later)!

RESOLVE

Each year at this time of year people around the world resolve to change their lives for the better. However, most resolutions fail. There are many explanations for this, but one important factor is that if our resolutions were easy we would already be doing them.

I do not have a complicated resolution for 2016. Rather, my vow is: Be more kind and show more empathy. These may sound like simple ideas, but they are actually quite difficult in our me-centric world.  However, despite the difficulty of living life this way, it is essential. That is the only way to make the world a little less dark. Imagine if everyone behaved this way. We would have no ISIS. We would have no refugees. We would have no mass killings-or at least less of them.

Our lives just like this world are works in progress. This means that each day we begin anew and can always try to succeed where we may have failed. Here’s to starting off 2016 on the right foot and to being mindful that there is a world outside our own full of people with their own hopes, aspirations, and baggage just like us.

Happy New Year!