The View From the Titanic: America Has Met the Iceberg
So, this is what it must have felt like on that glorious but now doomed craft, only two short hours after the iceberg, hidden just beneath the surface, tore violently through its hull:
Desperately clinging to a frozen rail, struggling to stand on a badly tilting deck that is becoming more vertical by the second, while all around swirl the sounds of glass shattering, wooden planks splitting, and people coming undone.
This must have been the utter horror of watching something unfathomable unfolding in front of you; the helplessness of trying to solve a riddle that seemed to hold no possible solution.
The disbelief would have been breathtaking.
You can hear the words ricocheting wildly inside their heads:
This isn’t possible! This can’t be happening!
They had been assured of their safety from the outset.
Something this massive, this sturdy, this powerful was supposed to be unsinkable, impervious to any threat, immune to any danger.
I imagine it would have been that myth of invincibility that filled some with a hubris that made them feel no panic, even as the integrity of the vessel had already been mortally compromised. They heeded no instructions from the shaken crew, ignored the screeching alarms, paid no mind to the raw-throated, panicked shouts of the already convinced passengers.
Standing here now, it’s easy to understand how a false sense of security could have anesthetized so many there, so much so that they were not concerned despite the rising chaos surrounding them. They believed what they had previously heard rather than what their eyes were now telling them. Even as the beams beneath their feet gave way, they assured themselves that all was going to be well, if for no other reason than up until this point, it had always been well.
As the quickly darkening stern began to rise high above them, so many still inexplicably insisted they were safe.
But I can now easily imagine that for many in that disabled, damned ship, there eventually came a point when, despite all their efforts to think away the nightmares, the grim reality descended from the pitch black sky and settled like a stone upon their chests as they realized: We’re probably not making it out of this.
We… are… sinking.
And yet, pressed up against their imminent extinction, faced with the inevitability of the end, fully saturated with a heavy grief, they too must have realized they still had one question left to answer: Who am I going to be in these final moments?
Will I numb myself with spirits and get drunk upon denial, defiantly refusing to believe things are dire until the moment the black water engulfs me and the truth can no longer be avoided?
Will I withdraw to some hidden place and try to quietly ride out the end, as if not watching and not listening will somehow exempt me from suffering?
Or, will I choose to spend every possible second before sinking into the frigid abyss, being as human as I can be?
Will I bring comfort to those whose hearts are unsettled? Will I rescue those in peril, even if it is but a reprieve? Will I exhaust every muscle trying to get some to safety, however unlikely the prospects? Will I fight until the last breath escapes my lungs, knowing that no matter what transpires after I am gone, I fought like hell while I was here.
Right now, my 340 million fellow passengers and I may or may not be pressed up against our premature end, but we are surely finding out we are not as invincible as our mythology has always convinced us we are. Back in November, the iceberg breached our hull, and the damage may indeed prove fatal.
But regardless of how our national story plays out from this disorienting, terrifying season onward, we are each finding out who we will be when chaos descends, when danger visits, and when the reality of our destruction is more possible than it’s ever been.
Whoever we are at our core is being revealed.
Sink or swim, may we be the best of ourselves now, America.
John, you’ve nailed the metaphor so precisely it’s almost painful. Titanic indeed.
Not the Hollywood one. Not the love story. The real one. The cold one. The mechanical groan of twisted iron beneath your boots, the salt wind that smells like endings, and the quiet, shared knowledge that something enormous has broken—and that some of us already know we’re not getting off this ship. Your reflection lands like truth always does: with gravity, and clarity, and the kind of beauty only found on the edge of ruin.
And yet—
In the face of self-extinction, something miraculous begins to stir. When we reach the end of the illusion—when even denial runs out of breath—there is still something left. Something unkillable. Something that refuses to drown.
It is not power. Not armor. Not status.
It is character.
You said it, John. When all seems lost, the real question remains: Who will I be, now that it matters most? And in that question lives the secret many never learn in easier times:
That the soul, when stripped of comfort and illusion, finds its truest form. That some people do their finest work in the last hours of the shift. That what you choose when you’re powerless—when there is no reward, no applause, no rescue—that is who you are.
And this is where your words find the deepest purchase in me. Because despite everything—despite the cynical rot of politics, the cowardice of institutions, the bad-faith liars pumping out fog by the hour—I still believe in people.
I believe in the nurse who stayed past her shift to cradle a dying stranger.
I believe in the dad who holds his trans child’s hand through a world that tries to erase them.
I believe in the janitor who cleaned the floors of the ICU while the world clapped for doctors.
I believe in the teacher who spent her last $40 on snacks for kids who came to school hungry.
I believe in the millions of ordinary humans who keep showing up, not because it’s safe or easy or rewarding—but because it’s right.
As Viktor Frankl once said: “What is to give light must endure burning.”
And there are people burning quietly all around us, every day, to keep the light alive.
I believe in them. In us.
And I believe there’s a kind of secular grace in that belief. A kind of defiant benediction in the choice to love what’s good, to tell the truth, to hold the line, even when you’re standing on a ship that’s tilting toward the dark.
That’s the miracle, John. Not that the iceberg was avoidable. It wasn’t.
The miracle is that even as the stern rises and the rivets burst, there are still those passing life jackets to strangers.
There are still songs being played on deck.
There are still hands being held.
There are still voices speaking truth into the wind.
There are still people—beautiful, fragile, brave people—refusing to be anything less than human in the hour of collapse.
And when future generations look back on this era—and they will—they may not understand how we let it get this far. But if we are faithful to the goodness still in us, they will see the footprints of those who fought like hell, not because they were promised victory, but because it was right to fight.
So may we keep showing up, even when the end feels written.
May we be honest, when lies are easier.
May we be kind, when cruelty is cheap.
May we be light—blistered, burning, but unextinguished.
Because the ship may sink. But the spirit does not have to.
Not today. Not yet
We must be the best American's now. We must reach out, swim with, tread water, doggie paddle with others during this unbelievable time in our/at least my personal history on this earth. We must continue to be the light in fog, we must simply care enough about others to make a difference. Thank you John for the article. We must not go down, we must not turn away from humanity, we must not!