Wanting to Be Snoopy, Feeling Like Charlie Brown

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Peanuts. Not just the Sunday comics or the TV specials we all grew up with, but the deeper psychology behind Charles Schulz's simple genius. It's amazing how much truth he packed into those four-panel strips—truth about human nature, loneliness, imagination, and the quiet struggle to keep showing up.

If I'm honest, most days I feel like Charlie Brown.

There's something so painfully relatable about Charlie Brown—the kid who tries and fails, who organizes the baseball game no one wants to play in, who never kicks the football but always runs toward it anyway. He's the eternal optimist living under a rain cloud, and I think that's why so many of us see ourselves in him. But the genius of Peanuts lies in its cast of characters who don't just support Charlie Brown, but actively challenge him. Lucy, for instance, is more of an antagonist than a friend. She's confident and outspoken—with a streak of bully in her personality—and she delights in pulling the football away just as Charlie Brown is about to kick it. Her actions aren't meant to help or encourage; they're meant to knock him down, test his limits, and sometimes mock his persistence. Yet, what makes Charlie Brown so endearing is that he keeps running toward that football anyway. His perseverance isn't because of Lucy's encouragement—it's despite her attempts to trip him up. Lucy embodies those voices in our lives that push back, that doubt us, or that challenge our optimism. Charlie Brown's struggle against her reminds me that resilience often means standing strong not with the help of others, but in defiance of those trying to hold us back.

But then... there's Snoopy.

Snoopy is everything we want to be. Confident. Cool. Imaginative. Unbothered. He reinvents himself daily: Joe Cool, World War I Flying Ace, bestselling novelist. While Charlie Brown is down in the mud, Snoopy's dancing on the doghouse. He doesn't worry about fitting in or getting it right—he just is. And isn't that the dream?We all want to be Snoopy. But most of us walk around feeling like Charlie Brown.

I've noticed this theme popping up in my own writing more than I realized. In The Unfinished Work, I stood on the battlefield at Gettysburg, grappling with Lincoln's call to continue the work of democracy—wrestling with whether we're living up to the sacrifices made there, whether our civic understanding is strong enough to sustain what so many died to preserve. That kind of deep reckoning—questioning whether I'm doing enough as a citizen, whether we're all worthy of what we've inherited—feels very Charlie Brown to me. It's earnest. A little anxious. Overwhelmed by the weight of history and responsibility. But it's also rooted in hope, in the belief that showing up matters even when the task feels impossibly large.

Still, there's a part of me that longs for Snoopy's spirit. His creative energy. His ability to turn a boring afternoon into a full-blown saga. As I look back at older posts—from travel reflections to musings on leadership or family—I see flashes of that spirit. Those are the moments when I'm trying to channel Snoopy. When I let my imagination run, when I let humor or curiosity lead, when I step out of the box long enough to ask bigger questions.

But inevitably, I come back to Charlie Brown. I come back to doubt, to duty, to the desire to do better even when the odds aren't great. And maybe that's okay. Maybe the goal isn't to be Snoopy, but to let his spirit visit us when we need it most—to balance the worry with a little wonder, the failure with some flair.

This tension... surfaced deeply in my Christmas reflections from 2010. I admitted to dreading a certain kind of Christmas—the one filled with "lasts." Last Christmas with all the kids at home. Last Christmas with a true believer before the Elf era began. That felt very much like a Charlie Brown moment: the melancholy, the ache of change, the worry that the magic might fade.

But then came the Snoopy side of that Christmas—the passing of the torch. Inviting my youngest into the quiet fraternity of Christmas elves, just as my mom once did for me. That difficult but hopeful conversation wasn't a moment of loss, but of legacy. We talked about belief—not just in Santa, but in something deeper: the enduring magic of generosity, wonder, and love passed down through generations. That's pure Snoopy—the imaginative spark that turns endings into new beginnings, that celebrates mystery and keeps the magic alive.

And it's the same dynamic in Trains, Presidents, and Baseball, my account of a cross-country road trip with my daughter. What started as a practical move to Philadelphia for medical school became a journey of reconnection. We shared national parks, presidential history, and ballgames, but it was the quiet, in-between moments—the misfires, the museum closures, the unexpected laughs—that brought us back to each other. That felt like Charlie Brown's honest longing for connection paired with Snoopy's joyful improvisation. It reminded me that relationships, like life, don't come wrapped up perfectly—they unfold in fits and starts, with hope and humor intertwined.

All of these reflections—ranging from solemn civic duty to family celebrations and travel adventures—trace the emotional arc between Charlie Brown and Snoopy that runs through my life and writing. They remind me that we don't live fully at either extreme, but somewhere in between. We ache, we aspire, we stumble, we imagine. That's what makes the journey real.

What Schulz understood—and what I'm starting to accept—is that we contain both: the melancholy and the magic. We are Charlie Brown with a little bit of Snoopy inside, trying to break free.

So I'll keep chasing the football. I'll keep pitching no matter the score. I'll keep showing up. And maybe, just maybe, I'll dance on top of the doghouse every once in a while too.