love

September 22, 2024

What Can We Learn From Heartbreak?

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” — James Baldwin

It may be that everyone who ever reached the age of reason has suffered from a broken heart. Even those afraid of approaching someone for romance might imagine the person they desire and pine away.

Real hearts are resilient. They keep pumping, indifferent to the wound.

The loving kind of hearts have their own type of resilience. They mourn, endure, and often try again. Changed? That can be for the better, though it is a costly loss that leads you there: the end of courtship and countless plans and hopes.

Since we all have or will suffer in this way, might something positive come from the experience? Something to help us lead our lives and learn from hardship?

I think so.

Here is a short list of ways to enhance ourselves in the aftermath.

  • Learning Who We Chose And Why

One of the most valuable tasks we can undertake is to reflect upon the kind of people we are drawn to. Are they hard to get? Have they had many broken relationships themselves? Do they often blame others to justify their actions rather than take responsibility?

Did we ignore the danger signs our friends warned us of? Do the people we pursue remind us of someone else? Were we so taken by their appearance and sparkle that we ignored their minds and hearts?

We cannot change our former lovers, but we can change ourselves and increase our chances of finding a better-suited person.

  • Enhancing Our Empathy

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” wrote the French philosopher, teacher, and activist Simone Weil. It is possible to enlarge one’s empathetic capability by experiencing pain.

Weil’s life exemplified not only witnessing the suffering of another and giving the attention of which she spoke; she chose to experience it herself. Though this woman came from a privileged background, she took on punishing factory jobs for a year, entered the Spanish Civil War battlefields, and worked in the harvest.

None of us choose heartbreak, yet it offers something to learn about adversity. We can apply our experience and awareness to help those who have lost the one they loved in whatever way.

  • Acquiring Knowledge Of Our Resilience

When my patients explained their affliction, they often doubted they could take it on and get past it. I asked the following frequently: 

“Please tell me of the hardships you lived through before this.”

They ran down a mental list of such situations. 

“What inside you enabled you to survive?”

The sufferer proceeded to identify the human characteristics within him that got him through his previous misfortunes. 

“Do you still have those abilities and qualities inside yourself?”

The answer was yes, more often than no. Thus, the client affirmed the forgotten strengths he could still draw on.

Life contains everything imaginable: beauty, wartime horror, hope, and despair. If our ancestors lacked resilience, the planet would be without humankind.

Not everyone is resilient in every circumstance, but most have elements of a hard-won or inherited capacity to survive the heartbreak caused by a lover’s departure. We live to love again or not, as we choose.

  • Learning Kindness

The pain of breakups sometimes adds insult to injury. There are many ways to say, “We are done,” and some people hurt us with cruelty or indifference. 

Think of those who blame the person they left while failing to recognize his value or visible torment. Some people end a relationship by ghosting the other or sending a text rather than face-to-face. A few tap an intermediary to deliver the bad news.

Once we experience this kind of ending, it can instruct us on what not to do when we break up with someone. If we have loved another, the best we can do is honor what made them desirable in the first place and show them the respect we would wish for ourselves in the same circumstances.

St. Paul advised the Ephesians to speak “the truth in love,” not hate.

  • Changing Ourselves

If a gentle ex-partner had been insightful in revealing what we lacked, valid shortcomings might have been understood despite the pain of taking in this information. 

With former partners who were less wise, some of us might have thought the indictment unfair when hearing the list of our deficits. Others among us flee from the truth. We do well to discount falsehoods when considering the judgments of others in any case.

Most of us avoid or regret these discussions. The closure we seek then must be found alone.

There is an alternative path to the same knowledge. We can recognize our deficiencies by looking in the mirror and reflecting on why the relationship ended.

If we conclude that the mirror provides a sense of recognition worthy of internalizing, the future offers us a chance to change.

A long pattern of breakups leaves us with this task—not on the first day or the 50th day, but someday.

  • Enlarging Our Humanity

As James Baldwin wrote in the quote at the head of this essay, his heartbreak led to a new awareness about the human community:

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

I wonder why we find it so hard to remember the connection Baldwin describes. Perhaps it is because a significant portion of the shared pain of life—the unhappiness we all experience—is hidden. Maybe it is also because much of it happens to people we have never met or who live far from us.

We persuade ourselves we will outsmart fate.

Imagine this: one day a year, as if by magic, we could see through the momentary gladness of our fellow men to the physical and emotional scars they hide. On the same day, we would witness the tears they carry from the episodes we call the Dark Night of the Soul.

Would that cause us to treat each other more kindly?

I can only say that the message we take from heartbreak and suffering, however long or short, informs us of one of the reasons we are here, not alone but among others of our kind: that our foremost purpose in life is not to gain wealth, status, victory, or material things but to care for others.

To this, I believe Simone Weil would say yes.

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The top image is a Broken Heart symbol by Orazon. It is followed by photos of Simone Weil and Her Family in 1916 during World War I and Weil in a Cafe. Finally, a Kid Caring for Young by Joseph Lionceau. All of these were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

September 8, 2024

More Than Beautiful: A Story about Love

The most eloquent writers make me marvel at how their art disguises their effort. They trigger a rethinking of old ideas and offer new ones.

But the new words below are those of a woman who wants no part of the admiration and applause that might be produced by writing a memoir. She offers enough of her experience to warn women like her about the nature of love and leaves it at that.

This gifted and accomplished lady (who calls herself H.) tells us who she is and who she was. Even though H. reveals few details of a headline trauma, she persuaded me to understand why she calls her life a tragedy—a tragedy about the absence of love and how that can happen.

Her comment came only recently in response to my 2009 post Beautiful and Smart, But Unlucky in Love: The Reasons Why:

When this article was originally published, I was 47. I was in the midst of the worst year of my life until then, even starving for months on end, and alone, alone, alone in my grief. And yet, I was still so beautiful, still in that girlish sort of way, that 20- and 25-year-old men (literally) sighed when I passed; and I saw their dreamy, bashfully eager eyes. Even in 2016, very young men that had been eyeing me with romantic interest were SHOCKED (again, literally) when they heard my age. (It wasn’t pleasant to experience, I can tell you that: the shock in their eyes, as if I had done something appalling, perhaps as if I were a freak out to get them.)

In the past few years, but especially in the past eleven months, I have lost almost every remnant of my beauty. While I still have my beautiful skin and gorgeous legs – funnily, nobody notices them anymore after they’ve seen my jowls and slightly sagging neck – I suspect I’ve become even slightly grotesque to see. (This is often the lot of beautiful people, strangely enough – but probably not a coincidence.) It matters to me, but not because I were “after” some man. It is too late for that because have no love left to give. (And also, let’s be frank, I have no interest in being a nurse to some old man, not do I wish to be a mother figure – or worse, a fetish – to some youngster.)

Anyway …since this exceptionally fine article (No. 1), especially, is priceless advice,** certainly applicable in my case) is precisely about women who have – or are perceived as having – an overabundance of desirable qualities, it should not be too immodest to mention that I am an extremely thoughtful and kind person, at the very top of my (creative) profession, with many (sadly untapped) talents, speak many languages (English is my fourth), and an IQ the measurements of which have varied throughout my life (for obvious reasons), but the lowest score was cca 170. I used to be great fun, too, witty, adventurous, with stars in my eyes… I was EXPECTING love – great, all-consuming love – to find me (how and why on earth would it give me a miss, right?) – so I never tried to “find” it; I still don’t believe in that approach, anyway.

Well, for some reason, “Love” either lost track of me (yes, we did move a lot when I was a child, but that wasn’t the problem) or just decided that I was, I don’t know… too good for any mortal man? OF COURSE I am joking. But let me tell you something: more than once I’ve heard men – some, not all, drunk (always listen to drunk men) – tell me literally: “You are too good to be true.” Others – not many (I don’t live in a “romantic” society) – have approached me to tell me how 20 years ago they were madly in love with me… (With all due respect: WTF?! You are telling me this NOW – why? Because I am no longer a threat to you, right?)

If a (wo)man tells you you are too good for him/her, or just “too good to be true”- believe them. It means they would always feel inferior to you. (*I* certainly wouldn’t want to be with someone who would feel – let alone BE – inferior to me.)

Anyway, I had ONE “relationship” (and he was married when we met) in my early twenties. He was a physically gorgeous man, but physically and verbally abusive. After that, I only had a few short affairs – and I loved (or even liked) none of them, but wanted to at least experience sex (that happened to be laughable in almost all cases, except the first one). It was as if, deep down, I’d always known – literally from early childhood – that I was never to experience LOVE.

I could go on and on and on… in fact, my life would make quite a puzzling page-turner, but I am not going to write it. Nobody else will, either, because nobody really knows the tragedy that is my life; and “older” women cease to be interesting to those who are still living the high summer of life, anyway.

BOTTOM-LINE: In some cases, there may not only be nothing much wrong with you – it may be that you are perceived as TOO good… at least by men who are afraid to approach (and rightly so, because who wants a wimp?). Who we meet – as friends, as lovers – really is down to dumb luck. You can help your “luck” by moving to a milieu that is at least vast and varied enough for you to offer enough choice. Because there are many, many good, excellent men out there… but in the wrong milieu you may never meet a single one.

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**1. This is the portion of Beautiful and Smart, But Unlucky in Love: The Reasons Why that was referred to by H. in the third paragraph of the quoted text above:

If you came from a home where you were neglected, criticized, or abused, your self-worth is likely to be less than what it should be. Recall Marilyn Monroe: famous, beautiful, and talented, but insecure and unlucky in love. A woman with the background I’ve described often looks for approval from someone who unconsciously reminds her of someone who failed to love her as a child. It is as if the unconscious mind is still looking for the thing never achieved before (love or approval), and it only has value if it comes from a similar person. Since the parent in question was neglectful or critical, the chosen substitute will likely be that way, providing the woman another chance to win loving attention. Given her poor choice of a partner, the sought-after affection and approval are no more likely than they were in childhood.

My response to H.‘s 2024 comment to the 2009 post can be found here: Beautiful and Smart, But Unlucky in Love: The Reasons Why.

It is currently at the bottom of the long list of comments.

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The first photo is called Attractive Beautiful Red-Haired Girl by Jerzy Gorecki. The second is Hedy Lamarr by A.L. Whitey Schaefer. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

June 2, 2024

When You Can’t Admit the Relationship is Over

Ending relationships is no fun, but humor sometimes creates the insight needed to do so.

The therapist must be careful before entering the laughter zone, however. Time, trust, and compatibility are essential. First, the time it takes to build the individual’s confidence and comfort. Second, the counselor must have joked more than once. The doctor and client should enjoy each other’s company and have a firm, enduring relationship history, including the comic side of life.

The psychologist provides something close to indirect advice in the example below. The therapist’s timing and capacity to make his client laugh will diminish the sense that he is giving instructions to be followed.

The following encounter occurred more than once in the course of my practice:

The woman had been in treatment for some time. She had tried to persuade her lover to show less mean-spiritedness and more concern for her needs. Nothing worked despite repeated attempts. In the course of her office visits, I asked about the effectiveness of her efforts. My question, “What does that cost you?” was not new to her.

Frustrated with her boyfriend, this charming lady was not ready to leave him. One day, well into treatment, she began recounting yet another episode of disappointment. My response was unfamiliar.

“Dr Stein, is there anything else I can do to get him to respond to me in the way I’d like?”

A pregnant and thoughtful pause ensued.

I don’t think they make mallets that big.

An enormous laugh exploded into the room.

That line is not the only one I used to deliver a similar message. My female partner in our psychotherapy practice suggested a different one:

Get off the cross, we need the wood!

Between the possible risk of giving religious offense to the client and the implication he or she was whining, I rarely used the latter comment. Nonetheless, my partner assured me the patient’s response was the same whichever of these statements was made.

When the laughter died away, the client shifted to a pensive mood. “Yeah, I know you are right,” was the characteristic, sober, regretful response. It wasn’t unusual for the woman to begin to reflect on the history of her relationship and all the attempts she had made to recreate it. Pondering how to untie the connection to her boyfriend often ensued, though not always in the same session. Her thoughts, not mine.

This blog post does not guarantee hilarity or a turning point in the client’s life, but none of my patients became resentful or defensive upon hearing either punch line.

No one ever found a mallet and used it on the fellow they talked about or me. Nor do I believe a license is required to carry it. One word of advice, however: Be sure you don’t get a hernia when you lift the thing.

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The top image is called “The W-ST-T Just-asses a Braying-or-the Downfall of the E. O. Table” by James Gillray, 1782. The photo below it is Utah Moonset, 2024, by the wonderful Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

May 11, 2024

First Love and Recovery From Heartbreak

First love has a long lifespan. Indeed, the intensity of affection can survive well past the twosome’s formal breakup.

A transformative romance stretches time like taffy, far beyond the last goodbye. When it does, the memories impact the former lover and those who take her place.

The first time packs a wallop. Risks are surmounted, among them opening your heart, exposing your unclothed self, and saying three words that total eight letters.

Is that number lucky? It all depends.

At its best, first love combines enchantment, joy, and touching intimacies. For those who doubt themselves, it represents an affirmation, too.

The message of love demonstrates your worthiness of the consideration and affection of another, about which many lack certainty. The partner gives you wholeness sufficient to salve your insecurity, at least as long as the relationship continues.

Assuming delirium-inducing emotions persist on both sides, the gift of substance and meaning endures. 

More often, one has either found someone else, decided he is unready for a permanent connection, discovered troublesome qualities in the admirer, or realized the spark is gone.

A young heart shatters.

What happens then? Several possibilities exist.

Questions are asked. Why? Wasn’t I good enough? Did you meet a guy you liked more? What did I lack? Tears have been known to enter the conversation, including those of person who decided to end things.

Denunciations are spoken or written. Blame. Indictments. Accusations of infidelity or lying. Rage.

Perhaps the one departing offers friendship. The invitation to a platonic relationship tends to sound like a guaranteed last-place finish in the Kentucky or Epsom Derby. 

Deal making. Promising to do better even to the point of begging and pleading.

And then? Nothing but memories unless torturous photos of sunnier days survive. 

Closing the door produces a formal conclusion of the partnership if the one left behind plays by the rules. No more emails, texts, phone calls, surprise appearances, or dates will be written in the calendar, nor rapture emerge in response to a touch now forbidden.

Shadows persist, nonetheless. The image lives on, as do both the best and worst recollections. 

Scenes are replayed by the abandoned one. Return visits to favorite old places recall better times and delightful occasions. “Our song” is back on the open market, no longer ours. After grieving, perhaps the sad one begins to date again, but he is not the same.

In many cases, the first love carries a part of you away, like a thief in the night. Your heart is now a hostage without a payable ransom for its return. The emotional attachment is the property of the ex. 

Once a welcome visitor in everyday life, now makes regular appearances within. She pays no rent for the space or heartache inside, rendering automatic comparisons with appealing newcomers and serving as a measure of perfection unlikely to be matched.

Any fresh flirtation must contend with the one who loved you for too short a while. Sleepless and thinking of her, you carry a torch, hoping to rekindle her interest.

A first love tends to be idealized regardless of your need to shrink her to size. The previous lover becomes the gold standard because the one who is hurt makes her so. She is unique, as all “firsts” seem to be. Seem …

She now inhabits a mental and emotional room in the individual she left, where all her gifts grow in the guise of a phantom.

Yearning can persist for years. The spark of such a one lasts, in part, by making an imprint that cannot be duplicated. 

The initial feelings of a person being swept away are similar to the astonishment associated with the birth of your first child. Neither the newborn’s enlivening effect nor the electricity of first love had ever been encountered before. 

No matter the virtue of any new romantic interest, the entrance of another is hard-pressed to produce the wonder that came earlier. The advantage of the predecessor was her entrance into another life innocent of love.

We can only be innocent once.

Revisiting old emails and texts, if the bereaved chooses to, is a self-imposed twist of the knife. Writing letters you don’t send can express the pain and perhaps drain some of it. 

Sometimes, taking inventory of all the former lover’s good and bad qualities is helpful. Doing so may reveal fewer reasons to continue worshiping the one you paint as a goddess.

Destroying old photos and written communications can reduce the temptation to think of her over and over.

A question arises—a question that needs an answer. Was #1 irreplaceable, or were your emotions the simple product of the human desire to love and be loved? Were you ready and waiting, ripe for the taking?

Potential mates, some quite remarkable, can still be found nearby if you seek them. The right moment awaits. You carry it with you.

In the end, the magic of your first love almost always diminishes as the breakup recedes in time, but requires returning to the dating game without her. 

Yes, you erected a statue of the one you believed was the only one. Still, as you reconsider the pain and preoccupation of something that cannot be, one hopes the sculpture will be seen with new eyes and without adornment: the remnant of a spell that must be broken.

The initial sweetheart was on time at the right time, and now that moment is past.

Perhaps you are ready to realize, as did Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, that the wizard was unnecessary for the life she wanted. There were other possibilities there for the taking if she pursued them.

Kansas and her family might not be your destination as it was for Dorothy, but love doesn’t only reside in a single place or departed heart.

As Shakespeare’s Coriolanus reminds us upon being banished from his Roman homeland, “There is a world elsewhere.”

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Rejected Suitor at the top of the page is the work of Norman Rockwell. It originally appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1926. Next comes Salvador Dali’s The Ghost of Vermeer Van Delft from 1934. It is followed by Arcimboldo’s Summer, completed in 1563. Finally, The Torero of  Broken Hearts, 1902, by Gerda Wegener. They are all sourced from Wikiart.org/

 

April 7, 2024

Where to Find Acceptance

Everyone wants acceptance from friends, bosses, and those we love. We also search for self-acceptance, the knowledge of oneself, and satisfaction with who we have become and what we have achieved.

One other kind is not less important. A rewarding life requires assent to the terms of living, the inevitable joys and sorrows, along with all our fellow travelers in the same air and water on or above the earth.

I’m speaking of accepting the rules of the game of existence, which include how to survive, live in the moment, take joy in small things, develop resilience, and mindfulness of the shortness of time.

No other creature knows the last of these conditions. Homo sapiens do.

The other side of the equation is expecting too much and believing time is endless. Thinking we can “have it all” when no one can.

What does all mean?

Those of us in the Western World want a significant measure of wealth and the material well-being that accompanies it. Many seek status and admiration of a substantial kind and amount.

People wish to be known by a select group and accepted for who they are, though this comes with risks.

Virtually everyone prays for a long and healthy life, maintaining the body and appearance of a preferred version of an earlier self. Countless others also hope to produce robust, handsome, happy, and bright children.

Men and women search for a society fit for fellowship, laughter, liberty, and a fair chance at happiness. Most tend to believe they’d “do the right thing” while hoping the daunting challenges pass them by.

One more desire should be added to a potentially longer list. To live in a peaceful world in a country striving for justice and the flourishing climate enjoyed by our grandparents.

Since a guarantee of winning all of the above and the entirety of whatever else you seek is beyond us, I’ll add a more attainable goal.

You can’t have it all, but you can have enough with effort and good fortune. Yes, despite much of it being out of your control in the hands of fate.

No one achieves a delirious, perpetual state of happiness. Even then, it is an elevated mood not because of but in spite of misfortune–looking for life’s randomly distributed good, joyous, incidental kindnesses and strokes of luck even when obtaining joy seems foolish.

Enough depends on rewriting your objectives and discovering a decent share of happiness in a more limited life. It is accepting life’s downside.

Enough is in need of patience with time, friends, (and therapy, if necessary) to return you to the set point of well-being you used to inhabit. Something close, at least.

Enough asks you to empty most of your bucket list and change your goals as you age. You might discover that 4-star restaurants don’t matter to the extent you used to believe, and becoming the chief of the tribe carries more unhappiness than the status it confers.

Enough is recognizing the day is short and choosing a modified catalog of priorities because you realize earthly eternity is out of reach.

Enough means learning to give to others and honoring their value as more fulfilling than receiving riches from them.

Enough is doing your part to repair the world. And being accepted by a few of those with the open hearts you seek.

You have one life. None of us will ever know all the universe’s secrets, win every game, produce a squad of Olympic gold medal children, and never encounter the people who like to fight.

There will always be scoundrels.

Will you rate your life high only if you do and see everything, with a perfect score on each new test?

Shooting for all the glorious targets exists in our imagination but not elsewhere. You, those you love, and the planet depend on a more nuanced set of expectations and efforts.

Modesty, humility, and acceptance provide a softer landing place.

Safe travels.

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The top photo is of A Local Morning Fish Market at Lake Awasa, Ethiopia. Next comes Sunset on the Candian Plains in Saskatchewan in August 2023. They are both the work of Laura Hedien, with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

 

February 18, 2024

Marital Games and Other Games of Life

“There are at least two kinds of games,” writes James P. Carse. “One could be called finite; the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”

Continuing the play? Yes, like the marriage envisioned by a couple on the day of the ceremony. Educating yourself is similar since it is expected to continue until the end of your days.

The finite games feature fixed rules and known players. The encounter comes to a defined end in which a person or a team wins. Examples Olympic athletes, election winners, or defeating the bad guys in a war.

Some games include various features. Your company wants to make more money than its competitors (a finite target), but the rules of how they do that are flexible. The freedom to develop new products reveals the absence of confining limitations. The game can last as long as the business survives.

A finite game tends to be public or have an audience. Infinite games are often more private. As in the case of learning new things, no challenger is required. Self-fulfillment is all that counts.

If you wish to become the wealthiest man on your block, you can be said to have created a hybrid type of contest, perhaps in your own mind alone. 

You might achieve a temporary triumph by purchasing a grand, spacious, custom-built home. Ask yourself, however, whether this would offer the lasting joy of a lifelong love of a spouse or dear friends. Does a house in some personalized competition give you the sustenance of a profound religious faith?

 
Your conduct in daily life, displaying kindness to your neighbors, and trying to establish decent and fulfilling relationships might also be considered an infinite game.

Other infinite games include raising a child in a satisfying lifelong bond that transforms itself as the youth learns, grows, and becomes an adult. For this arrangement to flourish, there can be no winners or losers.

Both parties in the parent-child pair must modify themselves, adapting to each other and being considerate and loving as they grow and age. Victory is not the goal. Maintaining affection is. 

Doing so enables the relationship to continue even as it develops new versions of itself. It begins with the mom and dad serving as caretakers of the baby, sometimes ending when the roles are reversed. Ideally, those changes fit the evolving nature of each one’s human qualities.

At their best, infinite games between two people are transformative. The best of them allow the parties to learn more about the other, trust more, find ways to recover from differences, learn to apologize, show generosity, negotiate, and understand their partner as the individual wishes to be understood.

An infinite game’s lack of rules is inherently flexible but needn’t always be respected. 

If you come to a marriage in which the man’s way is dominant, the husband’s intention is to have power over the other. You might say he has established a finite game and set the conditions to suit himself. 

Such a set of circumstances has been founded within what might have been an infinite setting.

Even if his partner agrees, time may alter her wish to live by her husband’s regulations. Instead, she might try to transform the game, which will require abandoning the behavior specified when the couple began their life together.

 
To the extent that we live in a complex society encompassing multiple endeavors, almost all of us participate in both finite and infinite games, in addition to others.
 
Musicians in a string quartet are among those others. They are employed in a hybrid endeavor, still governed by unchanging rules but with a loftier objective than accumulating wealth.

How is it like an infinite game? 

Suppose you ask string quartet players of long-standing. 

They often liken the group to a marriage, where the musical interpretation is created by the ideas and differences among the two violinists, violist, and cellist. They must get along, meld, adapt, and grow their musical intelligence. The four also travel together on tour.

The only winners are the composer and the audience.

 
One of the questions we are left with is how much of ourselves do we throw into the games we play? What are our priorities and goals? If we have a family, will long hours on the job take one away from creating and maintaining the infinite game relationships back home?

Of course, one must make a living to fulfill their needs, as well.

In playing music, raising a family, working on a marriage, or fostering a charity, I’d like to think there is something more elevated than making stacks of dollar bills we will never spend if we become rich enough. 

It is your turn to create the answer we are all searching for: how shall I live without gaming myself?

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Each of the photographs was sourced from Wikimedia Commons. In order, they are:

Snowboard  Figure at the 2008 Shakedown, by A. Carpentier, Chess Openings by Joansala, Baseball Positions by PhoenixV,  and the Allegra Quartet by Biljdorp23.
December 31, 2023

Joy, Three Ways

In the Western World, many display a kind of radical positivity. They lean into thoughts of beauty, opportunity, health, friendship, and family. Prone to smiling and laughter, they carry a mindset in which all problems offer a solution. Optimism rules the day and evening, too.

Life is not always easy, but I can only applaud those who travel this path while offering two additional ways to joy less often thought of. Let me move beyond the first road mentioned to the second, possibly overlapping the previous one.

Way #2 includes the gift of living in the moment as much as possible. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the late University of Chicago psychology professor, described the occurrence as a “flow state.”

According to Csikszentmihalyi, in moments of flow, “people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

Flow persists undistracted, mindful only of that in which one is engaged. Time passes unnoticed, a perfect, unselfconscious episode. There is no thought of before or after. The individual is present and focused beyond the self. Others might walk by him and or say hello without his awareness.

This is not the day-to-day happiness mentioned in the first paragraph. Most of us would be pleased if we could achieve that much — a beautiful day with a companion in sync with us, laughing while viewing the future with optimism.

Way #3 is different.

Rather than being fully in the moment, this avenue to joy includes realizing the temporary nature of most everything, including you and the person you are with. Implicit is the recognition of life’s shortness. Because you and the other are mortal, the idea of losing possession of the experience of touch, tenderness, excitement, or companionship is not far away.

Tears sometimes appear, as do expressions of affection and the thought this might be the last time you and the other are together. The engagement is captured in the word bittersweet. The intensity of such an event is more complex than the first two paths to gladness but brings urgency and poignance — a different form of joy.

The depth of emotion produced on the third road allows one to behave with the knowledge of life’s impermanence. Saying “I love you” takes on more importance. Expressions of sentiment and telling the other what they mean to you hold the same necessity.

Informing loved ones and friends why they are precious fits Way #3. Some believe any word or action suggesting life’s brevity risks bringing unnecessary darkness. Still, countless individuals regret unsaid tenderness and gratitude, just as they carry unhappiness over caustic and rageful last words. 

You could argue Way #3 is not conventional joy, and I might agree. But it comprises little different from tears upon your child’s birth, the pride in her successful performance on stage, or the happiness of a reunion after wartime.

I am not here to tell you which type of joy you should prefer. No one requires you to choose. We do well to be grateful for bliss in whatever form. Yet, we have the most control over the last of the three because it involves a specific action.

I offer you a recommendation. Consider expressing your love to all those you care for before the New Year’s Day ends. Say this in the hope you embrace them many times in the years ahead while recognizing immortality is the one gift a fellow mortal cannot bestow.

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Both photos come from Wikimedia Commons. The first is called The Joy of Playing Together by Rasheedhrasheed. The second is Happy Men by  BornThisWayMedia.

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.

October 29, 2023

Fame and Fortune or Something Better?

We live in a world where everybody wants to be somebody. What is the real value of such distinction, success, or wealth?

Among Merriam-Webster’s definitions of distinction, one finds what all the future somebodies are shooting for:

  • the quality or state of being excellent or superior
  • special honor or recognition
  • an accomplishment that sets one apart
  • a degree or measure of succeeding 
  • the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence

Becoming distinguishable from others wasn’t always difficult. It amounted to knowledge of your name.

Had you lived among a small group of people, as mankind did for almost all of human history, you’d have been identifiable. 

For example, one might have been the tribe’s medicine man, a reader once written language arrived, or a caring neighbor. Perhaps a church elder and the tallest person around. Maybe even a garment maker, the village strongman, or the expert midwife.

You encountered little competition. Everyone heard whether you were courting, married, where you resided, the names of siblings and kids, and nearly all spoke your name when they extended a greeting.

It might not have been paradise, but you weren’t anonymous. Your position was relatively secure, enjoying a unique spot or place within the modest group you lived with or the town you inhabited.

By contrast, in the so-called First World of the 21st century, accountants, psychologists, surgeons, and lawyers are as plentiful as apples and the trees from which they fall. Unlike the apples, however, no one automatically has knowledge of your origin or the type of apple you might be.

These days, without the desire to be a big fish in a small pond, you have to make a splash in the ocean instead of becoming a fish out of water that some say is all wet.

Competition now requires marketing oneself. Not everyone wishes to turn into a brand, however. Many prefer recognition as a person, as imperfect as they are.

Is this unacceptable? Might the current definition of somebody be part of the problem?

To my mind, Frank J. Peter has the answer:

The best way to be somebody is to matter to somebody else.

You get to choose whether this works for you, though others might disagree. Do you wish to be a hostage to their opinions and live at their direction? This sounds rather like remaining in the eight-year-old role you occupied when your parents set the rules.

Here are possible ways to be somebody that don’t involve widespread acclaim or the things money can buy:

  • Create or preserve beauty. The planet can use another Shakespeare and an endless number of gardeners.
  • Be a mentor.
  • Raise and guide a child.
  • Make friends and express gratitude for your intimacy with those you are close to.
  • Love someone.
  • Display kindness to all those who enter your life.
  • Be a citizen who furthers the survival of the democratic republic of the USA.
  • Heal others with touch and concern.
  • Hug and hold hands.
  • Stand up for what is right, for the innocent, and for children.
  • Teach.
  • Take care of yourself so you can do the above and reduce the worry of those who care for and about you.
  • Give money to worthy causes and those who are needy.
  • Be a helpful neighbor.
  • Do your part, however small, to save the planet.

None of these guarantee fortune of the dollars and cents kind. Nor is fame likely.

Such rewards aren’t necessary. Look at people and offer what all of them need and some appreciate. Seeing them as they wish to be seen is a gift many have never received.

The pursuit of awards and riches has had some detractors. One was Epictetus, a lame Roman slave in the first century A.D., known as a Stoic philosopher:

“Wealth does not consist in having great possessions…but in having few wants.”

To do enough to matter to someone else is a form of wealth worth the effort.

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The painting at the bottom is Mark Rothko’s #14, 1960, a part of the collection at San Franciso’s Museum of Modern Art.

October 23, 2023

Making Friends With Your Siblings

Parents often say they raised all their children the same way. This assumes the impossible. Since robots do not give birth, the couple changes with time. Moreover, successive little ones land on a transforming planet, often in a retrofitted country — their corner of a changing world.

The presence of a second or third child always impacts those who came before and vice versa. The wife and husband who meet the newest addition have already been reshaped by experience. The sight of a later cellophane-wrapped infant doesn’t usually produce the over-the-moon moment of the emergence of #1.

Catching lightning in a baby bottle happens but once for most marital pairs. Sorry to say, routine invades even Mother Nature’s magic.

Parents experiment when past child-rearing strategies fail, perhaps because their newly baked schemes must be done on the fly, when half-baked plans are created. Some realize the necessity of kindness and affection, while life drains others of their capacity for love and the energy for loving.

When the children are of different genders, a further complication occurs. The varieties of physical attractiveness, temperament, and intellect also stir the melting pot.

It is helpful if mom and dad recognize their little ones don’t all come from an assembly line in a widget factory. The adults’ task is to adapt to each new face and pint-sized brain, not to demand the child adjust to the adults.

The best of folks try to become the new and improved version of the guardian and guide each one needs. For Dancer E, the parents must twirl to the right, for Wordle Champion K to the left while jumping up to meet Studious G and stretching to reach Muscle Man S.

Fairness to Kiddie #2 feels like unfairness when defined by #3. In the end, the children often sense Mom or Dad playing favorites, though the basis for this can be natural affinity to a particular offspring, not something intentional. Yet, singling out individuals can happen, for worse or better, leaving an unseeing, well-treated witness in denial over the abuse the other reports.

As kids age, the weight of real or imagined unfairness accumulates. Periods of competition and dislike test the family’s adaptive ability and the wisdom of the adults. Friendship among the sibs isn’t guaranteed. Financial preference for one generates lifetime grudges.

Illness and health, accidents, and triumphs impact the group, sometimes in unpredictable ways. It should be no surprise that one teen sometimes perceives a different family from the rest. An insightful child in a troubled home tends to become an alienated outsider if she considers the time in their shelter unsheltered.

Even a person who remains close to longtime friends tends to find no one but sisters and brothers who recollect so much of her early experience. Moreover, the memory of those who brought them all into the world is unique because they lived under the same roof 24/7.

This is still true when living together doesn’t create togetherness. In such instances, something precious is lost.

Shared memories frequently provide the motivation to allow differences to be set aside in those relationships that have turned bitter. This is most true as former members of the same household move into and past middle age, all the more if their begetters are gone.

Often, at least one grown sib must apologize to make friendship possible, while the other accepts it with sincerity and gratitude. Making amends can come into play, as well. They both realize grudges should have an expiration date.

The wise among them recognize time is short, and they are bound together by their shared origin. No others carry within themselves the same set of memories, the jokes and idiosyncracies, the aroma of certain meals, the sound of departed voices, the games they played, and the winding way to school.

If they are lucky, get-togethers permit a unique source of happiness long set aside. As Rabbi Nachman of Breslau wrote, “Nothing is as liberating as joy. It frees the mind and fills it with tranquility.”*

If your sibs live, there is still time to create or recreate delight in the tie to brothers and sisters.

How do I know?

I am proud to be Eddie and Jack Stein’s brother; the Stein Boys have done it together.

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*Thanks to Micaela Bonetti for drawing my attention to Rabbi Nachman of Breslau’s quotation.

The first image is Irene and Her Sister,1925, by Tamara de Lempicka. It is followed by Picasso’s Two Brothers from 1906. Both of these were sourced from Wikiart.org/ Finally, Brother and Sister, an 1898 sculpture by Julien Dillens sourced from Wikimedia Commons.