A Perfectly Imperfect Union: Reflecting on America 250 with Morty Bachar

<p> Hey there, it's Michael. Welcome to Whole Again, the show that's here in support of you creating a meaningful life and the person you're becoming. And I'm excited to share a new series with you that will air this summer as America turns 250 years old, which is still pretty young relative to many other countries across this big blue marble that we all share.</p>
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<p>The series is called A Perfectly Imperfect Union. In 2022, I rode my bike across America from Astoria, Oregon, to the Lincoln Memorial. My wife drove our RV, and she had two co-pilots, Jester and Hope, two springer spaniels. And when we did it, America was coming out of the pandemic, and we were hurting.</p>
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<p>Hurting from things that had happened prior to the pandemic, of course, going through what we all went through. And at that time, and this is something I still believe today, is that we were entering an inflection point. An inflection point for us to hopefully pause, breathe, and reflect on who we wish to become as individuals, as communities, and as a country.</p>
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<p>As I pedaled across America, I wanted to share America's beauty with others, her natural beauty and the beauty of her people. And I also wanted to share where we were hurting. As America turns 250, I believe Kintsugi, which is something we use as a metaphor here at Whole Again, is a perfect metaphor for where we are as a country.</p>
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<p>There's so much beauty to celebrate, and we can also acknowledge that parts of us feel broken or are broken, but we can find a way to come back together, just like Kintsugi teaches us. And when we do, we don't try to erase or cover up where we have scars or blemishes. We highlight them in gold, and we celebrate them as symbols of our strength and resilience.</p>
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<p>Kintsugi is called the golden repair, and in essence, we can see beauty in something that's perfectly imperfect During this series, I plan to speak to at least two people in each state and the District of Columbia. So 102 conversations with real folk, as I like to say. We're gonna let the celebrities and the big influencers have their day somewhere else, but here I wanna reach out and talk to real people and listen to their reflections as they think about America turning 250 years old.</p>
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<p>And my hope is, is that you'll tune in to at least one, if not all 102, 'cause my theory going into this is that you'll hear different perspectives. Some may be aligned with yours, others may not. But my hope is that you hear the goodness in your fellow citizens and realize, as Maya Angelou shared with us, "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."</p>
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<p>We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. I've had the privilege of traveling all over the world and all over this country, and this belief is something that I hold deep inside of me. So yes, I do believe that we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. So if you're ready to meet one of your fellow neighbors, take a healthy breath in and a slow releasing breath out and get to know Morty Bakar.</p>
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<p>Morty, so great to see you, my friend. How are you? Same here. I'm good, thank you. Thank you for initiating this. Yeah. So for those that don't know you, I was hoping we could take a moment to, um, introduce yourself. So how would you describe who you are and where, where are you in this country? </p>
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<p>Physically or, or m- mentally?</p>
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<p>Or maybe both. All right. Uh, I'm in Lewes, Delaware, uh, for 10 years now. Prior to that, we had a art school for three-dimensional art in the New York area, Stamford, Connecticut. Then, uh, prior to that, I, I was working in the New York area as a technologist, corporate stuff. </p>
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<p>Okay, awesome. And so I, I notice an accent that isn't necessarily a Delawarean accent.</p>
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<p>So, uh- Y- </p>
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<p>yes, it is. I'm kidding. Yeah. No. Um, uh, my, my accent is unique. Even people from my own country don't know that I'm from there. Uh, I was born and raised in Israel. Okay But I grew up in a home that spoke Bulgarian and Spanish Oh, wow. Interesting And I learned my English in Zimbabwe Wow So, so it's sort of a hybrid.</p>
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<p>Zimbabwe's British kind of English. So, um, most people think I'm from France for some reason </p>
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<p>Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah That's good. Uh, thanks for sharing that. So for those that, uh, haven't been to Delaware, I... Like, it's my premise that since America is such a big country, uh, most Americans have not been throughout all the different states.</p>
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<p>So, you know, we, we tend to maybe travel i- in our, in our n- natural habitat, if you will. If, like, if we're on the West Coast, travel on the West Coast. So many people probably haven't been to Delaware. So what's something special about Delaware that, uh, people may not know about? </p>
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<p>It's not all of Delaware is, is like that, but the part that we've chosen and other parts near us, it stretches along the ocean and, and it's, um, it's Cape Cod-ish kind of a place.</p>
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<p>You know, it feels like- Mm ... Cape Cod, but it's a year-round kind of, uh, environment. The, the local love it here and then they're very, very, they have very strong roots and pride about Delaware. It's a small state. It just passed the one million. So, so politically, for example, I can call the, the senator and, and then they're gonna call me back, you know.</p>
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<p>So- Wow ... s- s- so there is this, uh, contact that people are responding to what you think and what you do. Um, and it's a little bit warmer than the New York area. Yes That's partly why we moved here. So, so we get one month at each end that it's still an outdoor-ish kind of, kind of a time. Um, but it's mostly the, the people.</p>
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<p>Uh, those who are not familiar with Delaware, it's a small state. It's, it feels like Maine or, or, uh, Colorado, where people love nature and, and the care for the environment. </p>
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<p>Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. I also love, like, the, the small size. My sense is that, you know, people really know each other.</p>
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<p>You know, you can say hi to your neighbors. If you can call your senator and your senator can respond to you, just going walking through town, you probably see a lot of familiar faces and there's some acknowledgement there. So, uh- Yes ... that's really cool. Yeah. That's awesome. So one question I've been asking people is this one.</p>
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<p>I encourage you to just imagine yourself, like, maybe at a nice, uh, picnic table, maybe it's the summertime, and you have your friends, uh, family, um, uh, p- colleagues, what, what have you, around the table, and they ask you what America means to you. How do you respond? </p>
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<p>It's, uh, involved response, but I, I'll do the executive summary.</p>
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<p>I left Israel, uh, for all sort of reasons, including After serving the IDF, beginning to understand that I was indoctrinated. I didn't see or I was privy to all the information and the reason why Israel exists in the first place. And by being a militant officer, seeing how another human kind becomes subhuman and are not counted as people, treated, manipulated, lens taken away from them with all sort of reasons, biblical myth or whatever that is.</p>
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<p>I decided that I want to raise a family there and I was thinking I need to really understand this better and the Zimbabwe thing was I just went camping for six months. I was by myself quite a bit, met people. So I needed to know that you are the sum of your experiences. I couldn't resolve what I see in front of me clearly and I figured out if I get a new experience, I might come back and see it clearer, which that would happen.</p>
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<p>As soon as I came back, it was clearly defined to me that that's not the country I want to live in and I came to the U.S., the country of the free and true democracy for all people, to recently in the last number of years hit a phase that I'm back to where I started politically. Right. So a lot of what I described Israelis to be is taking root here, not as deep because it's a big country, but it's very frustrating to see what I learned to see and many people don't see it yet.</p>
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<p>I can appreciate your answer just based on your lived experience. Like it's almost like it's an experience that's almost an echo or a repeat from. Yes. Familiar. Yeah. Familiar. Yeah. So one of the reasons why I reached out to you because we share a love of kintsugi. And so you're a kintsugi artist for those that don't know.</p>
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<p>And I know that when people come to you and ask for you to create kintsugi for them, most of those people are coming because they've gone through something. You know, they've gone through some type of suffering or pain. That was at least my entry into kintsugi because I have a whole bunch of scars from my traumatic event.</p>
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<p>And so it gave me a way to see my scars in a bit of a different way and also see myself differently. So when you think about the tension or maybe the hurt that Americans feel like in this given moment and sort of that tension between like where we are right now and what we could be. I was hoping you could speak maybe to that or maybe another way of looking at it, Morty, is like speak to like the suffering and hurt that people come to you with when they ask you to commission a piece of kintsugi.</p>
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<p>It covers </p>
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<p>the full spectrum. Like for example, we got a peak of request, and a lot of the requests people wanna talk to me. Uh, they feel it's personal. Often they tell me something, they said, "I can't believe I told you this. I don't tell anyone- Mm ... what I just told you. It's easier to tell a stranger." And, and I'm, and I'm allow that space for them.</p>
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<p>You know, I'm listening rather than I sit comfortably, I turn off the phone just to be with them for this five, 10 minutes they need. So, so, uh, and not everybody does it, of course, but many do. So for example, the, the, uh, Me Too movement, we got a lot of requests for, uh, a vase and a woman figure that I managed to source from Japan.</p>
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<p>Or they're... we have different ones. And then women w- or somebody that loves them, whether they're gay or different or just women that were abused, they, they wanted to express that, yeah, you're suffering and the scars are there, but let's celebrate them rather than suffer and become a better person. So you hear the story, uh, whether it's sexual abuse or diverse stories, right?</p>
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<p>So, so that's one group of, uh, concern people have. S- it's about half, half. Some buy it for themselves, and the other half buy it for others. There's a subset that are psychotherapists that, uh, buy them, and they ask, for example, what shapes work. So, so I, I, I began to be an advisor of what works 'cause I learn.</p>
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<p>You know, I, I do about 5 to 600 of them every year. It's a lot of them. So, so psychotherapists, I... we sort of n- 'cause I get feedback. You know, they want something small, something that fit on the palm of your hand. So as they talk about their issue to the therapist, they connect to that vessel- Yes ... more than visual.</p>
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<p>You know, they- Mm-hmm ... they feel the scars. It, it touch every part of their palm. Uh, so, so that's one group. The other group has to do with, um, PTSD, soldiers, people that came back. Um, I have, I have a case or s- the... in every story there are many of the same, but an example, this person is, uh, is a son of a shah.</p>
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<p>Now he's a shah. </p>
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<p>Mm. </p>
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<p>Uh, um, in Saudi Arabia. So he was educated in Harvard Business School, came back to his family and, and he comply with the tradition and religion of Saudi Arabia. He wanted to provide the same thing to his daughter. She went to Oxford, and she didn't wanna come back complying, and he shunned her.</p>
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<p>They didn't talk to each other for many years, and he began to have regret, and he wanted to bridge the gap. So he said, "I need to fly to England and give her something that indicated that our own scars can materialize to something beautiful." And he wanted a- A heart shape. I had to make the vessel a heart shape, organic heart shape vase with two stems, uh, bracket, and he s- he sourced for me a very high-end, um, gemstone to insert in there.</p>
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<p>And then few months later after the meeting, I get a picture of both of them in a hotel room smiling and hugging each other with a, with a v- with a, with a item that connected them symbolically. </p>
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<p>Wow. So, </p>
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<p>so that's ... S- so it's all over the place where we're ... where people are hurting and they want to ... and going into something that gonna remind them and symbolize the pain and the connection.</p>
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<p>Yeah. So if you could, um, if you could apply your, your skill as an artist and try to help America repair something, um, in a meaningful way but maybe not, you know, perfectly, maybe in the spirit of kintsugi where we repair and there's a, there's a scar left behind and ... but we, we celebrate that, uh, w- what, what is something that you would like to help the country, you know, heal or repair, if you will?</p>
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<p>I'm, I'm dealing with it every day. You know, I write something to somebody or somewhere almost daily. Um, it comes in a context of kintsugi. It's easier to connect to a person, build trust through the interaction, but then find out that in one hand they get connected to, to their soul or divine, if it's a religious thing, because the fact that they want kintsugi, they already have that sense of depth.</p>
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<p>But yet they lose that depth in other area- Mm-hmm ... by making or choosing leaders that don't have that depth. Um, so I use that vehicle that I have, knowing that they have that, to make them wonder, ask question, not answer the question, not create a conflict, and, and, and try to awaken that to apply to the other part of life.</p>
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<p>So in many times there is a follow-up, "Thank you," you know, "You made me aware. I'm thinking through that. Um, my father shunned me because I voted for somebody that, uh, he's not agreeing with, and, and that's silly, and it made me connect with him," et cetera, et cetera. So, so, so people need to talk to each other behind the materialistic, um, and gossip or, or whatever that human</p>
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<p>You know, like, like we're a pack animal at the end of the day. You know, we- Yes ... we have that thing in us. Uh, and, and make them aware that this pack animal, we must have that in us. Otherwise- Yes ... we wouldn't survive as a species. Yes. Awaken ... So awaken that. </p>
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<p>Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Wake up to the, the need for us to connect and be with people, you know?</p>
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<p>Yes. Yeah. We, um, we can-- I think we, we've lost it, or it's atrophied in such a way because, uh, one culprit I think is just how much we look down at our phones, and that can like, uh, separate us. Um, maybe intentionally, maybe unintentionally. So, um, I love, I love that. I love that notion. So since it's a birthday, we get to have cake, and we get to make a birthday wish as we blow out the candles as America turns two hundred and fifty.</p>
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<p>So my next question, Morty, is what kind of cake is your favorite cake to serve, uh, for a birthday? Chocolate cake, of course. Choco- Okay, so chocolate cake, chocolate icing? Yeah. Well, uh, this, this was a selfish response. Uh- That's okay. Most people are, most people are providing selfish response to this because people are very particular about what kind of cake they like.</p>
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<p>I don't know. Uh, I, I mean, you're thinking metaphorically, I'm, I'm assuming. Um, a cake with many flavors so more can join and eat it. </p>
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<p>Yeah. </p>
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<p>Maybe </p>
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<p>a tutti frutti cake. Whatever. Yeah. So, so there is something good for everybody, yes. Yes. I like that. I like that. And so as the candles are being blown out, like two hundred and fifty candles, so it can be a long wish, but what would you wish for, for America as it celebrates its two hundred and fifty?</p>
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<p>I wish it, it, it's the same wish that I was thinking about Israel forty years ago. Uh, I wish that, um, we are gonna be truthful and authentic about recognizing the good and the bad- Mm ... historically. And only when you understand the good and the bad rather than omit books from libraries or, or, uh, control media or whatever.</p>
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<p>S-speak the truth, tell the truth, uh, as-- and accept it, and apologize for where apology is needed. </p>
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<p>Yeah, I like that. I felt that as I rode my bike across the country. You know, where like the, the goodness of America, the awe, its natural beauty, but also just our history. And so we, we need to be honest with our, our history as well.</p>
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<p>So I, I share that. So what I've been doing is I've asked the person that I talked to last, one of your fellow citizens, it happens to be Chris, he's out in Colorado. So he has a question for you, and then in turn, you get to ask the next person I talk to a question. So his question is this. Over the-- as you look out across the next decade, if you will, or it could be over the next five years, what are you most optimistic about?</p>
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<p>And the second part to his question is, are, is there anything in particular you're doing to help realize that optimism? </p>
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<p>So we have five children and nine grandchildren. Wow, congratulations. Uh, obviously we're not cross-section of society. It's, you know, they're, they're all over the spectrum as far as who they are, what they do.</p>
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<p>So, but I see through them that they realize what they have done, uh, with social media in, uh, being removed from human connection through the screen. Uh, materialistic. They decided that they don't want that for their children. Mm-hmm. They, they've identified that they failed themselves, and they don't want the kids to fall in the same trap.</p>
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<p>So optimism, I see awareness of the current generation of what can be changed in the f- in the following generation. </p>
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<p>Well, in a couple hours I speak with Brian, another one of your fellow citizens. He lives out in California. So what question would you like to ask Brian? </p>
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<p>It's gonna be a question, but it's also gonna be instruction.</p>
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<p>Um- Sure ... if Brian, if you really want this country to be wonderful as it could, as a potential, what action do you need to take on a regular basis to add to the collective effort of all of us? </p>
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<p>Ah. Well, we'll find out his answer here in a few hours, Morty, so, um- Yeah, I would </p>
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<p>love to hear </p>
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<p>that. Yeah. We'll, I'll play it back to you.</p>
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<p>So, uh- Basically we all </p>
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<p>have to be responsible- </p>
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<p>Yes. </p>
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<p>I- ... and do all we can do rather than be... You know, like I, I, I, I, I define people as, uh, are you an audience or are you an actor? Mm-hmm. We need more actors. </p>
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<p>Yes. Daily actors taking action. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I, I, I love that. I love that image. So thanks for joining me on this and doing all that you're doing to help us, uh, step into becoming a perfectly imperfect union and, uh, I appreciate you, so thanks for doing this.</p>
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<p>And, </p>
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<p>and, and I, I thank you for the journey you put yourself through to connect and understand and share. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time. You bet, Morty. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.</p>
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<p>I know I could have spent a few more hours learning from Morty. I would love to know what you took away from what he shared. I, for one, I'm down for a tutti frutti cake, or at least a cake that everyone can appreciate. Something for anyone. And I appreciate his wish that we can authentically recognize the good- and bad of our past.</p>
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<p>That's something I definitely took away as I cycled across the country in 2022. And it's in the spirit of Kintsugi. So a very fitting response from Morty. Of course, I think we all know that if we really want to come together, it will take more than just wishing. It will take action. And maybe that action starts with a conversation.</p>
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<p>A conversation that allows us to be fully seen, heard, and appreciated. Or I would say loved. One human to another. Even if we don't see the world the same way. I believe that 97% of people are good. There's a like-heartedness in that goodness. And if we lead with our heart, we can be open to different mindedness.</p>
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<p>That's how we can come together and form a more perfectly imperfect union. If today's conversation resonated with you, I hope you'll share it with someone you know. And if either you or someone you know would like to join me for a conversation, please reach out. And until our next episode in our Perfectly Imperfect Union series, let's remember to celebrate our scars as golden symbols of our strength and resilience.</p>
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<p>Happy birthday, America. And don't forget to have fun storming the castle.</p>
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<p>And if you wish to learn more about creating beautiful ripples and how to prevent a bad moment from turning into a bad day, please visit my website, michaelobrienshift.com and sign up for my newsletter called The Ripple Effect. And join us each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday here at Whole Again and discover how you can heal, grow, and become more resilient and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience.</p>
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<p>Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this and we've got you.</p>