Month: November 2023

November 26, 2023

The Transformation of a Man Without Love

Something new entered the heart of a 55-year-old man.

J had been alone in the world for twenty-five years. He had never been a father, lover, spouse, or friend. In prison, he was bitter, gloomy, celibate, ignorant, and solitary. The ex-convict’s heart was nonetheless full of virginal innocence.

His sister and her children had left him only a vague and far-off memory that gradually disappeared; he made every effort to locate them and, having failed, forgot them. Such is human nature. Other tender emotions of his youth, if he had any, had fallen away.

J promised a dying woman to find her eight-year-old girl who was hostage to an abusive couple. When he rescued and took charge of the little one, he felt stirred to the depth of his being.

Whatever affection within him came alive, and was directed towards the child. He approached the bed where she slept and trembled with the joy of a mother with her new born.

I will tell you who this man is, but first, I want to address his loneliness. It is not uncommon.

I have met such men. Some have themselves been abused, others neglected. A few received little parental guidance and grew up clueless. Usually, they had difficulty making friends and often endured being singled out and bullied. They never found the gift of making social contact and lacked the confidence to approach anyone attractive to them.

Family and relatives may be their most reliable and closest contacts. They tend to live with or near their kinfolk for much of their lives. Perhaps they make a decent living but remain in the shadows.

All of us have walked past them without noticing. They don’t cause trouble. Indeed, such males have mastered the art of invisibility and the rest of us the trick of recognizing an untroubling slice of what the world offers us, but nothing more.

It is worth wondering what they do during the holidays. Occupying themselves with themselves, I imagine. Unless, like J, they have the good luck of discovering a friend or neighbor’s kindness — or becoming a loving uncle or unexpected guardian to a young person.

There is a door to ending loneliness. I’ve known a few like J, the gentleman described above, who waited for another to open it.

Sometimes, one does well serving as a doorman.

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The little girl in the story above is Cosette. The man is called Jean Valjean. They are characters in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables.

The photos are sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Both are pictures of fathers and daughters. The first is the work of Caroline Hernandez, while Reinhard Breitenstein photographed the second.

November 23, 2023

Without Tom Cruise, a Performable “Mission Impossible”

The Chicago Symphony, as a Thanksgiving gift, has just released a “live performance” of the theme music from “Mission Impossible.”

Here is the June 17, 2023, video featuring Gene Pokorny as the tuba soloist. The conductor is Riccardo Muti:

November 19, 2023

Money and What You Make of It

Let me show you something. Three things. Artworks — EXPENSIVE ones. Let’s talk about that.

Artistic creations, including the performing arts, are not necessary in the way food, water, and shelter are. Yet, a life lacking them is considered less fulfilling. 

Imagine your existence without TV, movies, fiction, drawings, paintings, music, theater, dance, sculpture, and the comic relief of a standup genius.

What amount of time do you spend enjoying them? How much would you pay for the opportunity?

On November 9, one possible answer came at the sale of Mark Rothko’s 1955 painting Untitled (Yellow, Orange, Yellow, Light Orange).

Christie’s sold the item at auction for 46.4 million dollars. Now, assume you loved his color-layered floating forms to the point of purchase and had enough money to do so. Let’s also imagine you intended to hang it on a wall in your residence.

Assuming you saved $100,000 annually after taxes and every other expense, accumulating the means would take 464 years. So much for your retirement plans.

Let’s say you’d like something closer to what you can afford, this time by a female. At the same sale, Joan Mitchell’s 1959 Untitled painting, described on ArtNet as “a 7-foot riotous explosion of color in the artist’s signature sweeping, muscular brushstrokes — netted $29.2 million.”

Your $100,000 would require only 292 years of life and labor to reach the needed sum. I’m sure you’re jumping on the train to the nearest fine art gallery now.

Whatever painting you might obtain, think about the experience of placing your favorite where you will see it every day.

Would you spend hours basking in your superb luck and the genius of the genius who was its author?

Might you have bid in pursuit of the canvas as an investment? Many do.

Or was your desire for its beauty trumped by your search for the applause and jealousy of those who wished they were in your shoes? You’ve met people who live to “top you,” I’m sure.

Like a new car smell or a child’s Christmas toy, any masterpiece would, to a significant extent, sneak into the background of your life.

Why? Even a recording of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony would wear on you if you listened to one version daily. The composer’s grip on your attention diminishes with excess repetition over time.

Humankind doesn’t seem to stay satisfied. No matter the wonder of a delicious meal, people get hungry again before long. They have sex, but however spectacular, they don’t remain ecstatic forever. Not even a piece of chocolate is enough to satiate men and women, not to mention the kiddies.

More is required. Robert Wright, the Princeton psychologist, talks about this in lectures on Buddhism. He believes this is part of why people come to be dissatisfied with how things are.

Were anyone over the moon about a single supper — contented for weeks — they’d starve to death. Nor would a one-time, permanently blissful sexual encounter 5000 years ago have motivated the pair to try again. Without the ongoing sexual desire of our ancestors, we wouldn’t exist today.

Most of us search for a spark because we encounter the gradual diminution of the light.

I’m guessing you might not approve of those who view material things as a way of generating envy or treat masterworks as a path to riches.

However, before criticizing these folks, remember that wealthy people have been responsible for preserving art forever. Not stopping there, they form small groups of like-minded associates to start and support magnificent musicians, hospitals, and museums. 

One example of such civic virtue relates to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO). The Theodore Thomas Orchestra was a touring ensemble named after the conductor who created it near the end of the Civil War. He could only hope for a comparable group in one location when few cities had one. 

The CSO’s website tells the rest of the story:

In 1889, Charles Norman Fay, a Chicago businessman and devoted supporter of the Theodore Thomas Orchestra, encountered Thomas in New York and inquired, “Would you come to Chicago if we gave you a permanent orchestra?” Thomas’s legendary reply was, “I would go to hell if they gave me a permanent orchestra.”

The inaugural performances took place in 1891 without a hellacious detour.

The maestro had no complaints. Perhaps one should be careful about vilifying the rich without first consulting the conductor’s ghost.

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The final painting above is Richard Diebenkorn’s Recollections of a Visit to Leningrad, 1965. It was also sold on the same evening as the others for a fantastic sum.

November 12, 2023

What Begins as Mourning Ends?

The sadness of loss usually fades. Is mourning then finished?

How does one know?

The positive news is that grieving past a human’s departure can open doors you believed were forever closed.

The danger of unfinished grieving is how much it captures us, holding hostage our present and future as ransom to the past.

At the end of our most important relationships, many realize they held the unspoken fantasy that the departed would always be there. The idea persisted because of how much we depend on and hope for secure possession of a stable, warming presence nearby.

A death mocks the innocence we maintained. We are without the loved one we could not live without. The earth underneath us gives way, and “the winter of our disconnect”* appears endless.

The one who abandoned us was present for many of our efforts to meet challenges, triumph over adversity, and achieve fulfillment. What will happen now?

Psychotherapy raises this issue and more. How will I get along? Where is a cure for a broken heart? I need permanent support; who else will give me happiness and the pleasure we shared?

Even when the most acute phase of distress ends, the psychotherapy patient often hides from the world. Reaching for attachments, he thinks, invites another blow.

Giving up on possibilities, fresh relationships, and self-reliance goes nowhere productive. The retreat to safety is unsafe, promising only solitude.

The death of a beloved pet offers an example of the problem. Not everyone chooses another gentle companion, fearful this animal, too, will pass.

To complete bereavement, treatment helps the suffering individual recognize he is responsible for himself and the creation of his further existence. 

Any hidden, barricaded adaptation must be set aside to allow horizons to widen and new meaning to enter. Taking responsibility for personal satisfaction is the sole path to revitalization.

Remembering and honoring those who meant so much often includes lighting memorial candles and grave site visitation. We are left with such reminders, but even these demonstrate that the place of those who have left us has changed.

It is essential to admit the departed had imperfections lest we create an altar to them frozen in place, a false object of worship. Any such icon remains silent, failing to offer us the solace and joy of another living human, imperfect as we all are.

Our task is to allow the memories a space for transformation. This includes laughing at the dead’s peculiarities and foibles while respecting their guidance, wit, affection, and wisdom. Openness, enlarging over time, enables memory to move from a source of pain to a blessing.

This can be unimaginable immediately after the excruciating loss, but the work of grieving progresses for many — an outcome that the absent one most likely would have wished for us.

The best individuals of our acquaintance are irreplaceable. Yet, we replace them via our work, creativity, travel, spirituality, helping those in need, or another leap into the uncertainty of human contact.

Flourishing remains possible with enough courage to begin a more artistic and expansive view of what the world can offer despite everything.

The world waits for us to reenter. To move ahead comes with the knowledge that change cannot be wished away, and we will be unsettled in ways sizable and small.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote, “We are thrown into the world.” Sometimes, we land badly, but fulfillment depends on getting up, however long it takes.

Humanity has never been without the fading of those closest to them. For most of our history, disappearance came with speed, often overnight and almost always at home. The wheat fields still needed harvesting, and the animals required transport to market. We wouldn’t be here if our ancestors had not gotten on with life.

Those who wrote the Egyptian Book of the Dead lived an average of 35 years. At the beginning of the 20th century, men could expect to see 50 summers.

At first, it is almost impossible to enjoy gratitude for the gift of lengthy periods with our darlings, a circumstance our ancestors would have marveled at. And yet time works its strange magic and may save room even for this.

The imperfect solution to our emptiness requires searching for joy, attachment, and delight. Desire need not die with the another’s departure.

Death and other losses are the ultimate denial of control. They challenge us to be imaginative and pursue life ravenously, aware that anything can happen in a fleeting, unprepared instant.

Without our persistence and courage, no bliss will enter to pull us out of a chosen, lightless cavern. A singular attempt at reshaping ourselves and our prospects moves us from the past into the here and now, from which we can envision a liveable future. With time, perhaps even more.

Personal resilience will be tested. Contentment — for as long as it lasts and as often as we can achieve it — requires us to raise our hand and volunteer for the search for renewed meaning and love in whatever form.

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*This quotation comes from Shakespeare’s Richard III.

The three outdoor photos are courtesy of the gifted Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The first is A Sunrise in the Italian Dolomites, in Late October 2022. The second image was taken at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 2023. Finally, a vision of the Milky Way in New Mexico, October 17, 2023.

November 9, 2023

Learning to Laugh: Washroom Policy

https://i0.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Williamsburg_restroom_sign_cropped.svg/240px-Williamsburg_restroom_sign_cropped.svg.png

We do our best to laugh at the upside-down world.

Here is your opportunity to join the hilarity.

A “memo” follows from the company stationery of a now-defunct psychiatric hospital in the 1990s. It lays out a new “personnel policy.”

I must emphasize this is a joke.

TO: ALL EMPLOYEES

RE: RESTROOM USE POLICY

In the past, employees were permitted to make trips to the restrooms as needed. Effective May 1, 1995, a restroom trip policy will be established to provide a consistent method of accounting for each employee’s restroom time and to reduce unproductive overuse of the facilities.

Under the new policy, a Restroom Trip Bank Account will be established for each employee. On the first day of each month, an employee will be granted twenty (20) “Restroom Trip Credits.”

Within the next two weeks, the entrances to all restrooms will be equipped with personnel identification stations that include computer-linked voice recognition software. During this period, the Human Resources Department will schedule recordings of each employee’s voice. One recording will be of the individual’s normal speaking voice, the other done under stress.

From April 1 through the end of April, the use of the Voice Print Recognition Stations will be optional upon entering the restroom. However, it is recommended that each worker acquaint himself with the new installations during this period.

Beginning May 1, each staff member must use the Voice Recognition Station in order to gain entry into the washroom. If the employee’s Restroom Trip Bank Account should reach zero, the door to the facility will not unlock in response to that employee’s voice until the beginning of the next month.

In addition, all restroom stalls are being equipped with “timed toilet paper roll-retractors.” If the stall has been occupied for more than three minutes, an alarm will sound. Thirty seconds after the alarm sounds, the roll of paper will retract into the wall, the toilet will flush, and the stall door will open automatically.

If the stall remains occupied, your photo will be taken.

The picture will be posted on the bulletin board by the beginning of the next business day. Anyone whose photo appears three times will be immediately terminated.

Your supervisor can answer any questions you may have about the new policy and procedures.

Have a nice day!

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The top image is of a pseudo-17th-century women’s restroom sign taken in November 2007 in Williamsburg, PA, by Kilom691 and altered by AnonMoos. The photo of a Bell & Howell Digital Camera is the work of Indiana Jo. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

November 3, 2023

How Our Personalities Change as Life Goes On

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfDvdYj0_fA
At every stage of life, people make decisions that profoundly influence the lives of the people they will become — and when they finally become those people, they aren’t always thrilled about it. Young adults pay to remove the tattoos that teenagers paid to get, middle-aged adults rush to divorce the people whom young adults rushed to marry, and older adults visit health spas to lose what middle-aged adults visited restaurants to gain. Why do people so often make decisions that their future selves regret?
Multiple studies by Jordi Quoidbach, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Timothy D. Wilson attempted to answer the question they posed in the 2013 Science article quoted above. Over 19,000 people participated. They concluded that people from 18 to 68 years of age underestimated how much they would change in the next ten years. Their traits, values, preferences for food and music, partners, and career choices all displayed vulnerability to these predictive mistakes. The authors called this tendency The End of History Illusion.  The time comes when we believe we are, more or less, a finished product. Our history of significant personality change has ended, so we think. We characterize ourselves as mature, self-aware, wise to the world’s ways, and if not fully developed, pretty close. We do not expect a noteworthy metamorphosis within our psyche despite the obvious transformation of our bodies. For example, most of us express unhappiness upon receiving a new driver’s license photo, thinking it is the most unflattering picture ever. That is until the license expires, and we get the current close-up only to realize the earlier one was attractive by comparison! In other words, we recognize the unappealing modifications in our physical state. Nonetheless, their implications for the future internal version of ourselves don’t occur to us. Our outsides get outsized attention. Some people do their best to prevent, minimize, or disguise the bodily decline before or after it happens. Health foods, diets, exercise, botox, cosmetic surgery, comb-overs, hair transplants, wigs, Viagra, etc. Without expecting significant alterations of the self inside our heads, we give little consideration to that part of our future. Decisions impacting the time ahead are determined with confidence. Thinking about an older self who is a near duplicate of our present version in his character, likes, and dislikes allows us to rest easy. As Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman used to say, “What, me worry?”

The authors of the Science article aren’t certain why we operate this way. One possibility is that since we believe our personalities are well-developed, change might be threatening. Most adults like themselves as they are, bolstering their personal security. A second explanation involves the difference between recognizing past changes and imaginatively envisioning times to come. The latter is harder to do. Because our future selves are unimaginable, we may confuse the difficulty of conjuring alterations with believing they won’t happen. The psychological defense of denial might help us understand the End of History phenomenon, as well. Telescoping ourselves into becoming not just older and different but less able or close to life’s end is unlikely to produce a smile. As noted, physical signs can sometimes be camouflaged. The “out of sight, out of mind” form of denial assists more than a few to live with less distress. The dilemma and the opportunity we are left with is this: Rather than conceiving ourselves as near the end of the change process, we can think of our being as an endless work in progress. Acceptance of this encouraging news allows us to improve and fulfill who we are. We can learn how to live better, enjoy and repair the world as needed, benefit from more self-knowledge, and grow wiser and happier. Our job is to look backward and forward as we reach within to unfold, open, and refine the best of our God-given talents to become what is possible for us. Ever creating, revising, and recreating. In a coming post, I will offer suggestions on how this might be done.