relationships

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 19, 2023

Giving Too Much: When Others Use You

Can you be too sweet, too giving, as if the goal were to disadvantage yourself and permit friends to use you routinely?

Is excess yielding fun? Do you defer as a matter of routine, forever allowing people to go first, hoping this makes you saintly?

At day’s end, are you at the end of the bread line?

Have you become invisible?

How might you determine whether you are providing too much?

Here are some signs your social life appears too much like social work, caring for another to the point you fail to take care of yourself:

  1. Are you the person who listens to others’ problems, the first person your acquaintances go to? By itself, this might indicate you are kind and sympathetic. But these relationships change to problematic when they do not go both ways.
  2. Do the same people impose on you unreasonably? Are you regularly asked to drop your needs to help them? Have the same individuals called late at night over minor upsets?
  3. Beyond words of thanks for your kindness, do the beneficiaries of your generosity express gratitude in more than words? Do you receive greeting cards, flowers, or candy? Dinner?
  4. Are you disappointed when “friends” contact you only when something from you is needed, without offering invitations to get together when their days are sunny?
  5. By your estimate, does your only value consist of working as an errand boy? If you failed to “give,” would your social life collapse? Do you doubt your worth beyond the ability to assist or console?
  6. Might relationships begin with the other’s gratitude for your kindness but move to a point where your generosity is taken for granted as an entitlement?
  7. Are you exhausted by the demands and requests of others?
  8. Can you say no when something is asked, whether this involves your time, money, or a ready ear?
  9. Do you fear being dropped from the A-list if you should become less available to them?
  10. Do you worry about hurting others if you refuse a request?
  11. Do you hesitate to express strong opinions? Are you afraid of rejection or criticism if you disagree?
  12. Are too many of your friends troubled souls? When you consider your contacts as a group, do they have more than their share of problems? Do you have a reputation for helping that draws more people to seek your assistance?
  13. Do you believe saying no is selfish or inconsiderate? When you don’t perform the required task, are you accused of being too much for yourself? Do you endure guilt regardless?
  14. Were you told you were selfish growing up?
  15. When unappreciated, might you believe you haven’t done enough?
  16. Do you make excuses for the other when your efforts are unappreciated?
  17. Do your friends make excuses that they don’t accept from you under similar circumstances?
  18. Are you unable to assert yourself with those who use you? If you do speak up, are your concerns dismissed?
  19. Do you hesitate to end toxic relationships?

If you have answered yes to several of these questions, you might have problems with self-confidence and an inability to assert yourself.

A dilemma exists when others regularly take advantage of such individuals as you. Might you suffer from a fear of abandonment?

This style of relating to people doesn’t go away. Consider psychotherapy if you recognize yourself in the above examples.

Life is easier and more fulfilling when those claiming to matter to each other show concern in action. The sooner you address this problem, the more likely your life will provide satisfaction.

As an old friend likes to say, “Buddies don’t count.” They don’t keep track of helping the other or paying for a cab ride. Keep in mind, however, that this can be taken too far. My buddy would tell you so.

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Both images above come from Wikiart.org/ The first is called Two Lotus by Huang Youngyu. The second is entitled Opera Figures by Ding Yangong.

September 24, 2023

How to Avoid Guilt and Regret

If you have a conscience, you will experience regret at some time, somewhere, about someone. You cannot avoid it completely, but you can reduce the lingering unhappiness if you are lucky and understand the potential pitfalls ahead.

I hope to show you how.

First, what is regret?

In her book Regret: the Persistence of the Possible, Janet Landman likens it to the dilemma of coming to a fork in the road and making a choice. You walk down the chosen path until you realize your selection isn’t as satisfactory as you hoped. “I should have gone the other way.”

No matter which lane you pick, “the persistence of the possible” is present. Nothing in life is without blemishes, but in your imagination, the alternative — the avenue you didn’t travel — remains idealized as a better option.

Perfection resides in your mind alone – in the world of abstraction and fantasy. The perfect job, the perfect mate, the perfect performance of whatever kind.

Sometimes, you can retrace your steps and begin again — a kind of do-over. However, the one thing you cannot change is something done or not done to someone lost to you — irrevocably out of reach because of distance or death.

Yes, occasionally, you can call or write a living person and apologize without excuses for your behavior. Perhaps he will allow you to make up for the harm you did in words or deeds. But death is the red line impossible to cross. Your chance has passed, and now he is gone.

You cannot say “I love you” to one you loved but never told. You cannot ask them to utter those words to you. Nor can you discuss the history you share.

The decades of memories only he contained vanish unless a close confidant fills in a few of the puzzle pieces you seek. Knowledge of where he came from, what he did in life, and how he met his spouse all disappear.

Some regrets are possible to predict. Imagine dear friends you have not spoken with or seen for a time. If you assume they will live indefinitely, the Grim Reaper may punish you for waiting. 

The chance of an accident or medical emergency rises as the months pass, not to mention the slow development of natural causes as he moves toward the end of life. Without knowledge of his status, you discover the demise too late.

What then, while you and the other still share a future on earth? Call or email him. Make arrangements to meet. Travel to do so if necessary. Avoid the possible disappointment of taking action too late or not at all. 

Some of us, perhaps all of us, believe time is on our side. The friend or loved one is healthy, young enough, and cautious, we say to ourselves. Genetic inheritance predicts a long life for him, we like to think, despite no guarantee.

Maybe you have never told him how much he means to you. That’s what email and letters are for, but face-to-face contact is better than Zoom, more personal, and more touching. Are you afraid to cry? No one will prevent you. The sincerity of your words will be enlarged thereby.

Our parents and those older than ourselves rank high on most lists of the people we should visit, speak with, embrace, or all three. Too many clients in my psychotherapy career never heard they were loved. Too few addressed the other injuries they believed the parent inflicted.

As hard as reconciliation is to accomplish, living mothers, fathers, and siblings provide the chance to put right their wrongs simply by their continuing existence.

Many believe talking with seniors about their inevitable death is improper. One thinks the parent or older relative will be discomforted and will assume the questioner intends to discover or influence an inheritance.

Some might, but not all. My father agreed to complete a videotaped four-hour history I conducted with him when he was 74. He understood the reason I made the request. Were he guaranteed a lifetime to match Methuselah,* the chance to consult him, keep him close, ask questions, and display my love would long be available.

I wanted to retain something of him beyond the time of his death — his voice, his movements, his life story, and our way of relating. This video was for me, my brothers, my children, and their kids to receive and witness. Those hours brought my dad and me closer.

Consider personalizing what I have written here — applying it to your life. Unfortunately, some people you might have spoken with perished too soon. As Goethe wrote, “Names are like sound and smoke.” Here and gone.

If you are experiencing guilt over lost opportunities, ask yourself if the departed was the sort of person who would hold a grudge. Think back and recall if she or he would have wished for your continued happiness. In many cases, the answers to these two questions will be no and yes, in order.

Mourn their loss and remember the goodness in them that would have enabled their kindness. Indeed, perhaps they never gave a single thought to the injury you inflicted nor carried it inside. They would have thought of you with fondness even today.

Then, having accepted the truth of their unspoken forgiveness, forgive the only one left to forgive.

Yourself.

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*Methuselah was a biblical patriarch who lived 969 years.

The top photo is of a sculpture by Michal Klajban called Passing Time, located in Christchurch, New Zealand. Next is an Analog Clock animation by CeeWhite. It is followed by a photo of Regret (Verdun, Meuse), a city limit sign by Havang. Finally, a 19th-century watercolor of Two Men Shaking Hands on Meeting. All of these are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

August 27, 2023

What Might There Be … After Life?

File:Sc 2.jpg

Never having been there, I am short of first-hand knowledge of the afterlife. Nonetheless, my focus here is to treat this topic as a thought experiment, including what I and others have imagined about life in the hereafter. 

———-

When I was a kid, an athlete who hit a home run or scored a touchdown didn’t make an enormous deal of it. Today, a significant number point to the sky, presumably to heaven, to give thanks.

In some cases, this represents a “Gott mit uns” attitude, a tribal view some countries adopt in and out of war-time: “God on our side.”

Other jocks state they are expressing gratitude for the gift of health and talent they received from God. This assumes one’s definition of an omnipotent deity includes distributing individualized skills to humans.

A casual conversation about heaven often includes the hope that our parents are looking after us from beyond the grave.

Of course, the thought is lovely. But what implications follow if paradise consists of people concerned about what is going on back home?

One such question this raises is how interest in our sometimes problematic lives might interfere with their never-ending happiness once they have entered the great beyond? Witnessing a child’s continuing hardships, accidents, injuries, and disappointments is heartbreaking and challenging enough when you live here.

Who among us wishes for emotional suffering to be written in the playbook of life after death?

Instead, let’s assume “the dead don’t care,” a refrain in Thomas Lynch’s book Undertakings. Lynch is a published poet and a professional undertaker, so his vantage point is unique. If our parents and loved ones no longer care about us (assuming they reside in heaven), they must be different creatures than those we knew on Earth.

Consistent with Lynch, when the actress Farrah Fawcett died in 2009, Michael Jackson’s nearly simultaneous demise overshadowed her life’s conclusion. A few of my patients expressed sadness that the media didn’t attend more to her passing. As Thomas Lynch envisions it, however, Farrah wasn’t bothered.

Again, “not caring” appears outside our customary belief about the nature of the hereafter. The petty jealousies of life, the hunger, the (at least) occasional insomnia, the worry, and so forth do not fit most heavenly visions.

If indifference to what occurs on our planet is characteristic of the afterworld, I doubt we would recognize celestial inhabitants as similar to their earthly incarnations. Moreover, I imagine one would be so transformed in conveyance to heaven as to have difficulty recognizing oneself.

A change of that sort might point to a different explanation of how heavenly life would be untroubled among deceased Christian parents who hold on to the attachment to their kids past the death that usually precedes that of their child. Romans 8: 28 offers these words:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.

———-

After Life is an intriguing Japanese movie from 1998. Recently, deceased countrymen assemble at a transit station to the “beyond.” Each is given several days to decide on their version of eternity. They would then live forever in whatever brief interval they choose from their just-ended time on Earth.

The wayfarers are assigned a counselor to assist them in choosing. To live “in the moment,” that is, a particular moment forever, necessitates relinquishing the ability to think back and remember the past, as well as gaze forward and anticipate the future. 

Experiencing the most precious happening one can recall involves sensations and feelings attached only to a sliver of time. The dead then would no longer have access to thought, analysis, worry, reflection, or concentration on other things, including positive experiences and events.

Because of that limitation on their future, the people in the waystation struggle with giving up all other recollections and relationships in return for eternity within a single juncture in time with a singular focus.

From the outside, once past the choice point, eternal bliss sounds like a heaven worth wishing for, assuming one chose a joyous, exciting, or touching event from one’s life. It also raises an interesting question: What moment would one choose?

Another possible future after death might be to reside beside a righteous, all-knowing, all-mighty being so dazzling as to render all imperfections and doubts mute, allowing us to share in his glory and shining presence.

Yet most of us fear our ending, the act of dying, or both. Why?

Shakespeare’s Hamlet fears a terrifying afterlife. As you learned in school, his famous soliloquy begins, “To be or not to be …” Hamlet is considering whether to kill himself: “not to be.” The King of Denmark, his father, has been murdered, and his mother unwittingly married the murderer, his uncle.

At first, this young man imagines a post-worldly existence consisting of eternal, restful sleep. But what of the possible nightmares, the Prince of Denmark wonders?

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. …

Another film on life and the afterlife is Defending Your Life. Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep star as two forty-something deceased yuppies who meet in a beautiful metropolis after expiring, a place of ease for those who have just departed life. In a few days, they fall in love.

During their stay in Judgement City, as their temporary location is called, they are subjected to a three-person tribunal determining whether they will go to a higher level of existence, something like heaven.

Streep’s character was a heroic, generous, and loving woman in her lifetime. A better future seems certain for her. For the Brooks persona, however, things aren’t looking up. He never overcame his many fears and always played it safe. As a result, he risks being returned to his home planet, never again embracing the woman he loves. The future remains in doubt.

No spoilers. The story is a funny, entertaining, and wise take on the need to grow in wisdom and courage throughout our lives: to be brave in facing whatever comes.

Next stop, Judgement City? Not too soon, I hope.

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The top image is Stratoculuili from German Wikipedia, September 2004 by de: Benutzer. Living Shadow.

It is followed by four glorious 2022 photographs by Laura Hedien with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website. The first two are pictures of the Sunset in the Italian Dolomites. Next comes a Great Plains Summertime Sunset and, finally, an Italian Dolomites Sunrise.

July 30, 2023

I’d Like You To Meet My Deceased Father … Sort Of

When you meet someone new, you try to catch up to the life he lived before the moment of your arrival. Who were you before? Where did you live? Who did you love? What were your parents like?

Maybe you don’t ask. Perhaps you think the backstory doesn’t matter. After all, it’s who this person is now that counts, you say to yourself.

But I’m a psychologist by nature, training, and experience, so I’m the sort of person who asks. My wife’s dad, Thomas Henek, died a couple years before we met. He had his issues, but he survived battle in World War II, something he volunteered for despite being too old to be drafted.

Mr. H. had many friends, the kind of men who knew Tom would stand with them if the chips were down. They came in droves to his wake and funeral, and, at a time when men weren’t supposed to, they wept for his loss.

We sometimes miss knowing people by inches. Think of performers who passed away or retired before we had a chance to see them.

Yes, they leave recordings behind, but the communal experience of sharing the concert hall with others is rarely reproduced fully by electronics. Thus, the opportunity for a state approaching intimacy is gone forever.

Face to faceness becomes impossible.

Several years ago, however, I was prompted to rethink all this. Maybe there was a way to “meet” someone deceased, short of retrieving her from Hades, as Orpheus tried with Eurydice.

This brings my favorite uncle, Sam Fabian, to mind. My brother Jack acquired some old soundless movie film that had been transferred to DVD and gave a copy to me as a gift of sorts. Sam had been filmed by his wife almost 75 years ago while he played golf, probably on his honeymoon.

My uncle died when he was 50 in 1972. The silent film reminded me of his antic quality and the imposing 6’4″ animated presence that made him irresistible to almost everybody. He was a big man with big ideas and towering, thick-wristed strength; you had to look up to him.

The film recreated and enlarged my memory of Sam, something that stories about him or still photographs never do with anyone. If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, a movie film is worth far more.

Mr. Fabian moved, and the movement was both touching and delightful. You had to watch him move, or you could not know him any more than you can grasp the measure of a gifted athlete without seeing him play or a magnificent orator without hearing his voice.

Think of all the people we missed because cinema came so late in human history. Women and men like Joan of Arc, Plato, Harriet Tubman, Moses, Jesus, Jane Austen, the Buddha, Pocahontas, Marcus Aurelius, Caesar, Cleopatra, George Washington, and more.

But the title of this essay suggests I might “introduce” my late father in a palpable way, a man who is forgotten by history except for those who loved him. Impossible in the conventional fashion because he died 23 years ago.

Ah, but he lives on in audio recordings and a four-hour oral history video I made of him almost 40 years ago.

Were you and I friends or mates to whom fathers mattered, you might want to know him, the better to know me. If you wished to understand how I came to be as I am today, you’d learn how he spoke, the way his mind worked, the manner in which he told stories, and the values he communicated to his three sons: myself, Eddie, and Jack.

You might look into his eyes.

I made that video because I knew there would come a day when Dad would vanish, as we all do. I made it because he could speak to the generations of his descendants and allow them to learn where they came from and the goodness of his being.

I made it because I loved him.

The past is valuable if we learn from it, just as books and films are essential to our self-understanding. To my mind, they are of desperate importance, now as much as ever.

Maybe more.

One piece of advice. If you ever meet someone who means the world to you, don’t forget to “introduce” her to your deceased parents or ask to meet her own. They still have something to say, to influence, and to reveal.

No matter what you believe, they are not done with you yet. Or with those you meet along the way.

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The top profile of Milton Stein, my father, was made in Paris in 1945 during World War II. The city had been liberated from the Nazis six months before.

The second image is Thomas Henek at the time of his confirmation in 1923.

The photograph of my Uncle Sam, probably taken in the 1940s, is uncharacteristically somber. His family was desperately poor during most of the 1930s. You can interpret the few dollars he placed on his body as you wish. The photo on the dresser displays a picture of himself.

July 16, 2023

The Take and Give and Forth and Back of Love


When we think of love, do we wish to give or receive? The answer is personal and includes both, but not always.

Let’s begin with reception. We wish to be loved, to feel it, and recognize the other’s patience and fixed attention.

Who doesn’t want to be heard, known, and understood? No one.

We dream of three words. Many wish they could speak the exact phrase unafraid: to utter “I love you” while holding the hand of the beloved and viewing eyes full of color, luster, and lust only for you. There is freedom and risk in this; a tightrope walk to a fuller life or a shattered heart.

We hope to be taken seriously, beyond appearance, to the recognition of our wholeness — neither objectified nor commodified. Sex, yes, but more. Tenderness, concern, sacrifice, poetry, and astonishment, too.

Flowers and candy are desirable but don’t necessarily convey much thought.

Which flowers? What kind of candy? Do you know her favorites? 

The best gift tells of a search for what will bring tears to this person and no other because such a present comes from insight, awareness, and comprehension of a non-generic heart.

Love is the unmarked path from complexity to simplicity — intense but easeful in the end, alive with smiles, humor, and touch. 

You extend yourself not to create indebtedness but because you wish your partner joy, and her joyfulness pleases you.

As the French call it, amour exists in the space before and after scent and sensuality. It lives between seeing and hearing, words spoken and those unsaid. There is a back and forth to it, a fullness inside to the point of bursting.

To be in love seeks no replacement part or participant. Someone new is unnecessary. It does not wait for a more fitting other, more dazzling magic, a trade of this for that as if dealing in stocks and bonds.

There are always possible substitutes, but the lover does not seek them like next year’s cellphone, with new features and claims of more than you imagined.

The nature of “the one” creates beauty lasting in the eye even when other heads no longer turn in her direction. You see her image afresh, permanently as she was.

Bonded hearts contain shared challenges and friendship, as well as intellectual admiration. The sensation is like an anesthetic trance you wish to last forever. The appreciation of the other fills your hours and fuels the want to say “yes” and give until the waterfall crests. 

Some important advice: do not take this wondrous state for granted. You must renew its lease. 

A living, loving romance is playfulness and laughter. Youthful when aged, the grateful amazement and contradiction of excitement amidst stillness. Secure because you are not alone and as close to oneness as possible.

How do you know it isn’t an illusion? You don’t, not yet, maybe never, though it helps to share histories and hardships, your separate worlds before you joined them.

Here is an unreal reality worth seeking. That at least once, when together, the world will disappear. Then, no women or men shall exist but the two of you. Call yourselves Adam and Eve, or whatever names and genders apply.

And when you eat from the tree of knowledge, you will know who stands before you as if for the first time.

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The photo is the 1898 work of Frank Eugene, initially published in Camera Work. It is called Adam and Eve, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

June 18, 2023

The Strange Choice of Self-Isolation

Nothing satisfies me, nothing consoles me, everything–whether or not it has ever existed–satiates me. I can be neither nothing nor everything: I’m just the bridge between what I do not have and what I do not want.

The writer describes an impossible dilemma. He has no faith in achieving satisfaction by pursuing what he doesn’t have. That much of his statement, though unfortunate, is not remarkable. Many believe they lack something and doubt their capacity to obtain it, whether what escapes them is internal or external.

But the voice of the speaker declares something else. All the rest of what is contained in the peopled world is worthless. He chooses to have none of it. Only the unobtainable things are of interest.

As he states at the beginning, nothing satisfies or consoles him. This poor individual lives between giving up on one side and disdain for what is within reach on the other.

Every dream, as soon as it is dreamed, is immediately embodied by another person who dreams it instead of me.

How did he or she get this way? One can imagine he lost more than he won. Rejection caused permanent hesitation and giving up. He concluded that his lack of personality, strength, sexual appeal, material goods, status, a satisfying career, and friendship or love were beyond him.

The path he chooses is surrender, a road without destination or hope, but not entirely. He preemptively rejects others and turns away from the aspects of their lives that engage and fulfill them. In doing so, he escapes much of the rejection he anticipates.

A self-fulfilling prophecy exists. He is alone whether others reject him or he pushes them away.

This gentleman has chosen to live in solitary confinement, like a quarantine without a disease. No one incarcerated him. His cell door is unlocked, the jailor is absent, and the prisoner stays because he cannot think of a purpose for leaving.

By abstaining internally from action, taking no interest in things, I can see the outside world, when I look at it, with perfect objectivity. Since there is no point, no reason to change it, I do not.

Mathematicians tell us the multiplication of two negatives makes a positive, but such a person stretches this rule too far. In fact, he fools himself into believing his life stance is not only objective but superior to others. He thinks he knows better than they do. Thus he justifies avoidance of his fellow man.

Such a person’s angry state of loneliness and exclusion has morphed into a sense of superiority over those individuals who will not invite him into their social circle or, if they do, inevitably cast him off.

Let us not forget to hate those who take pleasure in things because they take pleasure in them, to despise those who are happy because we ourselves do not know how to be happy.

And let us despise those who work and struggle and let us hate those who trustingly wait.

The self-imposed limitations press down. The solitary man has renounced everything. What is left for him? What step forward exists when loneliness, sadness, avoidance, and inertia accumulate, leaving passive-aggressive anger toward humankind?

I find the slightest action impossible, as if it were some heroic deed. The mere thought of making the smallest gesture weighs on me as if it were something I was actually considering doing.

I aspire to nothing. Life wounds me. I feel uncomfortable where I am and uncomfortable where I think I could be.

Not knowing what life is, I do not even know whether I am the one living it or if my life is living me …

Early treatment is preferable, but nothing inside of him argues for it. Indeed, shirking from social encounters and his self-protective stance risk making him appear unusual or stuck up.

Time’s passage and more suffering might be motivating. The beginning of insight can arrive in response to a therapist’s question: What does your way of living cost you?

Other queries follow if he stays in treatment. Have you ever had any success or joy? What did it feel like? How did it come about? Might you enjoy the experience again?

Tell me why you haven’t killed yourself? This question is not intended to encourage suicide but rather to discover what still attaches the patient to a life he claims has no value. There is always a reason, and if the client tells the therapist, they then have something to build on together.

The pain of human existence begs for compensation, whether the reward comes in heaven or on earth. We only know of the latter with certainty, and such life as we possess is ours to make.

If we are to flourish, there are always questions. The stricken creature described above doesn’t change because he doesn’t reconsider his “solutions.”

To some degree, mankind is defined by the questions we ask and those we don’t.

Hillel the Elder, a Jewish religious leader, proposed these over 2000 years ago:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

If I am only for myself, what am I?

And if not now, when?

The protagonist discussed in this essay is not for himself, and he knows it, at least to some degree. Since his imperfect solution to the problem of life is isolation, he is unlikely to act on behalf of others, as the second question suggests he should.

To the extent that he wishes to change nothing, the passage of time referred to in question three doesn’t matter. Without a sense of urgency to take action for himself or someone else, counting off the days has little meaning.

How would you answer Hillel’s questions? The quality of your life depends on it.

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The top two photos are the work of Laura Hedien, with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The first is a Low Precipitation Supercell Storm at Sunset, Near Hartley, TX, on June 11, 2023. The second is a Great Plains Sunset, Kansas, on June 8, 2023.

All quotations come from The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition by the Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa. The final image is the cover art for the book.

June 8, 2023

The Difficulty of Understanding Others

How often has a friend said, “I just don’t understand him.” Sometimes the buddy promises one thing and does another. Perhaps he repeats mistakes time and again. Maybe he picks foolish friends or has crazy ideas.

With all life’s opportunities, a workable understanding of beings who share our basic physical appearance, language, and desire for happiness should be a cinch.

But we don’t manage that, do we?

Indeed, we go off the track in lots of ways.

Assuming we prefer to get better at perceiving the peopled planet as it is, here are some “outside the box” ideas for you to mull over.

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Each of us claims personal insight, a slippery skill because we have blind spots. No one manages to figure out how to recognize himself as others evaluate him, at least not to the same extent.

Beginning with an incomplete grasp of our makeup, our part in relationships will not be fathomable in all aspects. Therefore, our best attempts to interpret acquaintances’ words and deeds can be off the mark.

Put into other words, imprecisions of our self-understanding hamstring our appreciation of human nature. Our species possesses ingenuity, intelligence, and intuition, but these qualities are placed within the messiness of each person’s awareness. 

No one has lived any life but his own. Thus, our experience is the model from which we try to discern the lives of others.

All of us make an uncountable number of choices. As Mark Twain said, “It is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.” Boy, we have differences of opinion, wheelbarrows full.

Unthinkingly, we put our ideas and choices into a “This Makes Sense Library” lodged in our brain. The next fellow does too. Everyone owns one such compilation of bright and not-so-bright ideas, and none of the libraries are identical.

No one takes offense if contrasting decisions, preferences, or alleged knowledge involve ice cream flavors. Nor do we give such minor considerations much thought. 

Not so for differences that pertain to where to live, who we love, the value and proper use of money, opposing political affiliations, or our favored deity. These dissimilarities might be troubling.

Our evaluations often assume we are logical folks. Seen through our eyes, it soon becomes apparent that when the other fellow differs too much from our point of view, he is the cause and might be a problem.

Generally, women and men are born with a need to think well of themselves or, at least, rank themselves above the bottom of any list. For example, a person chosen for the baseball team after everyone else may soothe himself by remembering contrasting talents that are superior to those picked earlier.

Such beliefs make life livable and not a permanent state of chagrin. There are limits to our self-persuasion, but few are without the capacity to boost their status a bit, at least in their mind.

Those souls walking on two feet also do an excellent job of rationalizing their behavior. To think you are a bloody mess — subject to the whims of emotions or actions you come to regret — creates greater unhappiness than most of us can endure.

Moreover, we overrate our rationality. We think our hold on reason renders us more clear-thinking than we are.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, likens man to a Rider who sits on the back of an Elephant. The person on top believes he is in charge of navigating this two-creature team. 

The little dude represents our analytical or rational side, while the colossal pachyderm plays the role of our powerful emotional component.

Chip and Dan Heath describe the relationship between these two:

Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched.

Despite the data supporting the description of these contending parts of man, few of us think we (the logical Rider) are at the mercy of the Elephant.

When faced with strong emotions about politics or religion, the data support the almost instantaneous flight of our analytic capacity. Feelings triumph with speed, while our rational side makes up reasons for our decisions almost as fast.

At the end of this match between rationality and irrationality, irrationality wins, but rationality thinks he has won and might not consider his emotional side a profound influence.

By the way, I realize you believe you are the exception to this formulation. Sigh…

All of the above leaves us in the following situation.

If we cannot bridge our divergence from the other, we become more likely to call him mixed up, stupid, or evil. Our self-evaluation, however, remains more or less intact. Unless we suffer from a compromising psychiatric condition, any questioning of our part in the world of “us and them” is minimized.

By this, I mean we find our internal mental condition more functional than someone else’s. Our self-protectiveness finds a way to comfort us whenever it can, except when the alarm bells ring and signal danger is ahead.

If our counterpart is seen as alarming, we tend to classify him as bad in his entirety.

The more troubling the differences we perceive between ourselves and the other guy, the harder to fathom why he thinks and acts as he does.

Condemning him is easier than understanding him.

Thus, we achieve reassurance if we think he and those like him are the sources of much misery.

Holding tight to this impression is simpler (though not easy) than reconsidering the possibility of our role as a contributor to the difficulty.

For all the evidence of kindness, courage, sacrifice, creative genius, inspiration, and medical advancement, few would doubt that we can also be our own worst enemies. You need only think of war, genocide, deceit, betrayal, religious persecution, slavery, and our susceptibility to conspiracy theories.

On balance, humans are well-rationalized, which is better for us. Reality offers perpetual discomfort if one is always looking at oneself, giving microscopic attention to our every thought, and wondering whether they could or should be otherwise.

On the other hand, if we desire fewer wars, an absence of discrimination, reduced political friction, a liveable climate, and well-functioning democracies, it might be helpful to get past some of our self-delusions. 

The pain of seeing ourselves would be part of the cost.

I’m not suggesting the people who we find challenging are correct in their judgments and behavior or that they are pure and we are not. Still, we have encountered the only “enemy” we can take on daily every time we face the mirror.

It won’t be easy for you or me to do this.

“We have met the enemy, and they are us,” as Walt Kelly added to the fund of written wisdom in his Pogo comic strip in 1970.

Sorry, but the store where you can purchase this kind of self-awareness charges enormous prices and offers no free lunch.

Nonetheless, I wish I had the address.

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The top cartoon is called “A Misunderstanding.” It was the work of Samuel D. Ehrhart and came from Puck Magazine on February 20, 1901. The second image of “A Little Misunderstanding in Gdansk” was photographed by Artur Andrezej. Finally comes “Face Off” by Aaron. All are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

 

May 21, 2023

The “Zoom” Effect and Other Thoughts on Social Isolation

 

I’m worried about Zoom. I understand how marvelous it is, but still …

To the good, it enabled the miracle of COVID-free work during the worst of the pandemic. Today your employer remains 2000 miles away without requiring your relocation. Zoom also permits a (sort of) face-to-face friendship with someone you never met and might never meet.

Yet I am worried about Zoom and its unintended maiming of people skills. In the Information Age, we have lost personal contact with our human brethren, and Zoom furthers that disappearing act. I fear for our youth, who have known no other way of being and shall be less equipped to manage outside of the dimensions of a rented apartment.

If you are physically shut in and shut out of the world of trees and grass, this video service is a blessing. That said, standing alone or nearly alone, especially for a person who hasn’t overcome his people-to-people discomfort in the real world, Zoom is a permanent bandaid preventing the fulfillment of yearning even on summer’s most inviting days.

A peek-a-boo computer life is then nearly all of your life.

Next stop, the Age of Alienation and Loneliness.

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How did those of us who lived in the B.Z. era (before Zoom) overcome awkwardness and find comfort? What rite of passage led to success in business and social situations? 

All the tutorials were free. Right there in school, the playground, the ball field, the church, the office, or the dance studio. Others were around you, talking, laughing, working, and looking at you.

Eyeball to eyeball and close at hand.

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We need social experience and someone to touch. You can enjoy many things on Zoom but can’t purchase the satisfaction of shaking hands and holding hands. You can’t hug on Zoom, kiss, or reach for a tissue to wipe away another’s tears. Nor will two bodies become one, attaching, embracing, and obliterating the solitary nature of life, our one-bodied universal predicament.

I’ll grant you pets provide close-by companionship. A dog, for example, offers tactile warmth, tenderness, and an enthusiastic greeting. He initiates his version of tongued affection, wetness to the max. Thereby, man’s best friend achieves an element of the touch we need — up to a point.

No matter how much the animal gives of his earnest devotion, he remains an unknowing creature, unable to comprehend our lives as can a partner who possesses the heart’s secrets.

Zoom was preceded by other inventions separating one person from another. Before automobiles, one might have walked to the bus stop and chatted with strangers. You cannot reveal your soul while dodging traffic in a car empty of intimates.

Before home air conditioning arrived in the 1950s, hot days brought people onto the stoops of their buildings to avoid being boiled by the hallucinogenic heat inside. Fred and Joe would talk about baseball, work, and their oldest children’s achievements or troubles. And, if the night was a muggy one, public parks delivered a sleeping destination where one encountered other sweltering souls. The experience was shared.

Friendships that might have arisen from daily routines and sidewalk meetings now take dedicated effort. No one’s fault, but the world has changed. Zoom is one more step.

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The shy and the anxious, already prone to avoidance, take heart in the virtual life of such inventions, the life of almost but not quite real faces and voices. 

The more of us who take to the ease of the safe place in our home space, the fewer who find the necessity to befriend a fellow man.

Yesterday’s opportunities to learn about making contact and finding romance have been discarded. Or perhaps they are to be found in unread novels of times past, collecting dust on a closet shelf. Big cities chill the stranger with anonymity and indifference. Few look and smile in the citified rush and cell phone distraction. A potential love of your life or new best friend ambles past, and you don’t even know it.

Hesitancy about spending time within the peopled world is reasonable. Crime and the lingering danger of COVID are enough to make us pause. But safety is a relative thing. You still have yourself to contend with, including the loneliness and depression you bring as the entry fee to the dark night of your soul.

Drugs, too, find a way inside your flat despite the doors you choose to lock.

A May 2022 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates that the number of working age Americans (25 to 54 years old) with substance use disorders has risen by 23% since pre-pandemic, to 27 million. A figure that’s about one in six of people who were employed around the time of the study. It’s caused a 9% to 26% drop in labor force participation that Karen Kopecky, one of the authors of the report, says continues today.

But there is more:

The drug recovery firm Sierra Tucson concluded from a November 2021 survey that about 20% of US workers admitted to using recreational drugs while working remotely, and also to being under the influence during virtual meetings. Digital recovery clinic Quit Genius found in August 2022 that one in five believe that substance use has affected their work performance, also according to a survey.

Is this self-medication? Perhaps. Social isolation has done harm.

Life demands much of us. Therapists are oversupplied with calls from good people challenged by current conditions, some of which were created to improve life. Zoom has given the gift of such improvements, but it is a knife cutting both ways. At its best, it connects the unconnected. But, if you are able-bodied, beware. It starts by slicing off your bottom half and freezes the rest of you in place — a hiding place.

Yes, our world holds dangers — plenty of them. But opportunity too. I would take a chance with the human race if I were you. Zoom’s tv show is a counterfeit. Close, but not near enough to touch.

Once upon a time, long before Zoom, I was you. Since I wanted friendship,  the old-fashioned way of presenting myself was the only option. Things got better because I rolled the dice and took the one road that would take me there, potholes and all.

Nostalgia, you say? Just a bit. But most people are decent and still walk the earth. Here’s hoping you meet a few off-screen — and smile.

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The top image is Conversation, featuring a photo of Sithembele Mbete in 2020. It is followed by a snapshot called Wedding Hugs by Braden Kowitz from 2007. The canine picture entitled Pretty Please is the work of Sheila Sund. All three of these were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

The final image is a cropped version of Gustav Klimt’s Death and Life from Wikiart.org.

The Zoom Effect

May 14, 2023

Of Love, Hate and the Love-filled Joy of Children

My grandson got married, but I wasn’t invited.

Amazing, isn’t it? All I did was show him love and buy him things. OK, he just turned four years old, and his parents weren’t invited either. Nor, from what I hear, were the parents of the bride.

I’ve seen photos of him holding hands with his “wife,” even in preschool.

Shameless!

Who knows what they do when no one is around?

But if this is how love starts, I approve. Fill your hearts full, children, because life will drain them, too — then, with luck, refill them again. Kind of like going to the gas or petrol station.

As to anger, let me say a little about that.

Anger is like a multi-blade knife with blades sharpened to a keen edge, mindless of who it cuts and capable of slicing both ways.

Where does such intense dislike come from?

First comes love, then rejection, then reaction to the dismissal from the life of another. A whisper saying you’re fired, no matter how delicate the voice.

Or, perhaps the starting point of antagonism is a failure to win respect, approval, and acknowledgment. Loathing can grow from the absence of caring parents or the simple difficulty of achieving success, however you define it.

Therapists have all heard the conventional wisdom that depression is anger turned inward. Don’t forget, however, that anger can result from disappointment in life turned outward.

We live in a competitive world, including competition for mates. Someday these two kids will seek consolation for a broken heart.

Someone will say, “Oh, you are better off without him,” or “He isn’t right for you,” but such statements rarely console.

Neither do they provide solace when the words are, “Oh, you are better off without that job — it wasn’t right for you.” Of course, both the young ones are far from the job market.

As we witness a world with more than its share of anger beyond romantic and professional disappointment, many of us are triggered by something less tender than lost love.

Some feel displaced from their spot in the world, their previous role as a worthy breadwinner, or as a person known for giving good advice and helping a neighbor fix his car.

Populist politicians and their allies play on this sense of injury, fomenting anger upon anger like a giant test tube full of bile with daily inflammatory statements, addictive but strangely validating.

Yeah! He gets it. It’s not my fault. I’ve been screwed! It’s THOSE people. They don’t look like us, don’t believe in our god, and steal our birthright.

My grandson and the love of his life don’t know about any of this. They only know about respect, affection, friends, and toys. Maybe an occasional “enemy,” meaning a minor league bully or two, but nothing serious.

We all want love, don’t we? We all hope for applause, a job that pays well enough, status, and an appreciative mate. We all hope to be well thought of, praised, and admired by those to whom we are close. 

In a different world perhaps this wouldn’t be much to ask for, but these days we are too often replacement parts that have been replaced.

Confronting a sense of disappointment in life, too many hunger to pay back those they think are responsible. They only need a model and some encouragement. When all the guys are whining, somehow whining is OK, not as shameful as it used to be.

Still, we search for someone loveable. If politics enters that pursuit, it can be contaminated by opinions that tend to be unloving.

We are not as companionable as we were a few years back. Now we grind our teeth or laugh at the ones “ruining” our country, whoever they are, however preposterous the claim.

We lack the innocence of my grandson and his companion. Indeed, when she was ill and away from school for a week, he missed her and worried about her, dear boy.

Lucky for them, they are not on the internet, an occasionally monstrous place. Many of our interactions with fellow humans come electronically, where plenty of anonymous hatred can be found.

Despite all its wonders, metaphorical bombs are easily thrown by those who are literally out of sight.

If one imbibes the toxic message of anger now widely distributed, I doubt one will become more tender or charming. The four-year-olds have innate wisdom and sweetness, qualities not characteristic of those addicted to TV’s political anger-fests.

Nor will the Rageaholics have much reason to approach those of different races, nationalities, ethnicities, or religions, perhaps even those who pray to no god.

Trust me — one of them might be “the one.” Or, at least, a friend not so different from you as you thought.

We live in a time of loneliness, the anonymity of cities, and the solitary pursuit of “being your own person,” however worthwhile that may be.

Though the small ones don’t know it yet, the time of our lives walks and whistles quickly past the clock, especially if one desires to be loved.

Companionship begins with a decision to pursue it, knowing armorless vulnerability places the heart at risk. The kids haven’t learned that yet, either.

Bless them.

The second decision is this one, made by a wise man over 2500 years ago:

I don’t have time to hate people who hate me because I am too busy loving people who love me.*

An ancient Chinese man said this, but the kids I’m talking about live it.

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*Laozi, also known as Lau Tzu (the “Old Master”) born in 604 B.C.

The first image is a 1957 photo of Two Children Holding Hands by Irvin Peithman, sourced from Wikiart.com.