We'll be pretty short this week, I think. It's been a long rough one in the capitalist jungle, and I'm feeling rather ragged. The economy's been rough for a lot of folks in a lot of places for a long time. This week the hard times came precariously close to home, and my animal side came dangerously close to taking over...
We all knew it was coming. Not exactly what or when, but you can't keep suffering the losses we've been suffering in my small firm month after month without something finally giving. About 30% of our work force was laid off, totally without warning, which is the norm for my industry. Too much dangerously sensitive information in play to risk a disgruntled soon-to-be ex-employee wreaking havoc. Still when the axe falls that quickly and brutally, it leaves everyone on edge. "Could have been me..." Yep, could have been...
Those of us most senior had been given about 24 hours notice of generally what was coming, without any details or identification of the victims. We all gathered together and had a big kumbaya about how we were going to pull together, work harder and smarter as a team, and fight our way through the firestorm. All for one and one for all. Bosses and minions all doing their best, pulling their share of the load. Right? Right...
Within 24 hours my superior decided to push a point that had been a burr between us for some time - technically a violation of procedures but one which might have been left resting for the time being, given the tensions of the moment and the fact that I am currently the top producer in the firm. I countered by confronting him in, shall we say, less than diplomatic fashion. It was the corporate capitalist version of two wild dogs snarling at each other over a steaming scrap of carrion, fangs bared and jowls dripping saliva, hackles raised and eyes blazing. He, the old and faltering alpha in this case, chose not to press the fight at that point, so it was left to fester. And all undetectable by the casual observer, but we both knew. Today we went back to circling and growling, but no real attacks and no blood drawn. We are dozens of miles apart over the weekend, both cooling off and headed toward some peaceful resolution in the new week, hopefully. If not, I may be blogging more regularly soon and for a bit...
I have only in a few instances in my life been under such physical threat that I hackled up and got the blood lust. Most civilized people in this and other industrialized countries can make it all the way through their lives without ever having that experience, unless they're in the military or law enforcement or have the misfortune of tangling with violent criminals. I'm neither proud nor ashamed of the experience, although I am afraid of the person I become, and would prefer to not go there again...
Which is why this week's confrontation frightened me. I am a great appreciator of the efficiency of capitalism, a system I find myself detesting more and more each passing year. But I've been here before, in not dissimilar circumstances. On more than one occasion in times past, this visceral physical or near physical response to a threat to my livelihood has been an instantaneous one. While I don't much enjoy working for a living, and wouldn't as I do if I didn't have others depending on me, the idea that I can respond with physical and near physical aggression over mere economic matters is frightening to me, and more than a little disheartening. I've worked fairly hard to better myself, to have a more spiritual and compassionate approach to living - have never held any sentimentality for workers "going postal" or wackos flying small planes into IRS offices. And yet here, the slightest threat to the meager livelihood with which I help provide for my family, and I'm nearly dagger drawn.
The saving grace, from an economic and employment standpoint, is that the boss doesn't know how close the call was, and in truth I suppose I should be proud that I was able to conceal and control as well as I did. Had I actually acted out what I felt and scarcely contained, it is possible I would be incarcerated and he hospitalized. I would absolutely be unemployed. I would like to write it off to the tension of the week's events, the lying and dissembling of the Republicans in Washington, the phases of the moon. But I know better. My children have told me on more than one occasion that I can be scary. Sometimes I scare me too. And I don't like it anymore...
Friday, February 26, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Decisions, decisions...
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
From "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, Interval 1920
One of the first lessons I learned in my recovery program was that the two driving forces behind every addict's disease are fear and resentment. The outward manifestations might be anger, aggression, sadness or melancholy, promiscuity, belligerence or excessive boisterousness, but these two simple drivers make the addict's engine run. I've run across nothing in the intervening months to make me question the validity of this postulate.
Active addicts are infamous for our indecision about anything other than feeding their addiction. We fear making the wrong decision, trapping ourselves somehow, selecting a course that will eliminate all other possibilities. We fear choosing a course that will bring us pain, or hurt those we care about. Some get so hung up in these fears that they lose touch with reality - there is a reason that mental illness and addictions are so often connected.
And we addicts resent, in addition to real and imagined transgressions against us in the past, those few decisions we did make that didn't turn out as we hoped, or, more often, decisions we didn't make, leaving us, looking through our fun-house fractured prisms, living in a spot seemingly not of our choosing, that we don't like, and that we can't see our way out of. Healthy people find themselves in these same spots and situations, but generally find a healthy way beyond the snag. Sometimes not, in which case we hope you'll join us at a meeting when you're ready...
By the way, the transgressions against us that are real are worth exploring. This is true for everyone - addicts and non-addicts alike. The news of the day is Tiger Woods' pseudo apology pseudo press conference on Friday. For what it's worth,I do believe he's sorry - about equally for his transgressions against his family and for being caught, err...stupid. I do believe that sex addiction is a real malady, but with less of the chemical component than drugs or alcohol. Probably more on line with kleptomania or gambling or shopping addictions. Point being, all of these behaviors, regardless of the chemical component, are unhealthy and often pathological responses to past experiences...
And Tiger Woods, for all his fame and glory, had one pretty fucked up childhood. Maybe not as bad as Michael Jackson or Danny Bonaduce or some other celebrity kids who are pressed too hard too young, but bad enough. We hosted some young golfers at a youth tournament Tiger played in when he was 14. These kids were 17 or so if I recall, and scared to death of him. Here was this robotic superhuman black kid kicking butt in a white man's sport, with controlling manipulative parents driving every aspect of the show. No pressure on anyone there. Children who are not allowed to be children, and in Tiger's case not allowed to develop normal relationships with other children and those of the opposite gender, will wind up with behavioral problems. He is not the first celebrity who counter-balanced his seemingly superhuman public self-control with theoretically private and unbelievably destructive behavior. That he chose to act his out with some pretty skanky ass women, many of questionable repute, seems the classic enactment of the Madonna-Whore complex, which is not one generated by a healthy upbringing. In this analogy, by the way, the Madonna would be either his wife or perhaps his mother. So...
Enough about my golf idol. I hope he makes it back, and soon. I'll still use golf as my Saturday afternoon nap inducer, with or without him. Without him, though, I don't usually last more than 10 minutes, vs. the 30 or so I can usually keep my eyes open when he's on his game. Its all bout me, ya know?
The opening quote was about paths taken and not taken, and we discussed decisions, fears and regrets. Again, I think that there's not much difference in the life experiences of healthy folks and addicts. We all have victories and defeats, fears and resentments. The difference is that the active addict drinks or drugs to run away from them, while the healthy person confronts and deals with them, sets them aside, and moves on with life. There's a middle ground, too,where most folks live on the bell curve of healthy functionality. In this segment, the actor as often as not compartmentalizes life traumas, at least temporarily, in a way that allows them to generally operate normally without developing destructive behaviors. Some are fortunate enough to make it out of this life without ever having to deal with these traumas or suffer any measurable damaging effect. Others are able to pull them out at various intervals and deal with them one by one in a timely and healthy manner, growing stronger through introspection, understanding and increased self-awareness. Others might well have the trauma manifest itself suddenly or damagingly at some point, seemingly with no specific trigger. This is why we have shrinks...
My shrink told me that the average human life runs something like this: Our first 25 years or so, our parents screw us up big time, owing largely to the reality that children don't come with instructions. The second 25 years or so we live the effects of this upbringing, settle into our place on the aforementioned bell-curve of mental health, and as often as not go about fucking up our own kids who, amazingly, also arrive without instructions. Somewhere around mid-life, the toxic waste of the first segment, as often as not, begins leaching up to the surface and manifesting itself in ways large and small. For the handful who are self-aware from an early age, lucky enough to have been raised by insightful and generous parents, and who have dealt with life's experiences fully and completely as they arrived, they continue on their steady and generally satisfying path. We all know folks like this, although not many, and envy them deeply. Don't. Envy is ugly and unproductive, and leads to resentment, which leads to...
For those in the middle (of the population and of life), this can be an interesting or depressing time. Henry David Thoreau wrote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." I think that this describes well a significant majority of those in the middle of the bell curve, and virtually all of those on the active addict side. I have a vision on the periphery of my mind of a poem or movie or television episode or painting or some-such, can't pull it up right now - of armies of gray men with briefcases and fedoras marching listlessly through the hum-drum of modern industrialized life. Like the Japanese "salaryman," you know? None of us know one of those previously mentioned enviable people who fit this mold, do we? I know I don't. But I know a fair bunch like this in the middle, and a lot on the active addict side, marching listlessly through life, feeling trapped by decisions they did and didn't make. This is the segment and period in which suicides go up, divorces happen, addictions manifest themselves or are exacerbated. But this is also the time where many find spirituality (real and imagined), set aside destructive behaviors and take up healthy ones, make radical changes in lifestyle or career to take control over lives that prior seemed to be controlling us. Welcome to my world...
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Decisions, decisions... I've said before and will say again, that where we are at any instant of our lives is the aggregate of the circumstances we've been exposed to and the decisions we've made in response to those circumstances. Based on that viewpoint, and on decisions I've made in the past year or so, here's what I know about me today: (1) I will not stand still, for I would die. (2) I will not go back, because I cannot. (3) I will not let life dictate to me, because I refuse to be a victim. (4) I will not fear the future nor resent the past, because neither are productive.
These are all attitudinal changes, but significant I believe, because the attitude we bring to the enterprise of living goes a long way toward determining our effectiveness in and appreciation for the act of living. Where I will go, and what I will do, as I travel through these middle years remains undetermined at this point, and that's a decision I've made as well. I'm tightening and provisioning my vessel, and one day in the not distant future, when the wind is right and the sun up bright and my affairs in order, I will cast off. And I may check in with you from time to time. Or, maybe not...
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
From "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, Interval 1920
One of the first lessons I learned in my recovery program was that the two driving forces behind every addict's disease are fear and resentment. The outward manifestations might be anger, aggression, sadness or melancholy, promiscuity, belligerence or excessive boisterousness, but these two simple drivers make the addict's engine run. I've run across nothing in the intervening months to make me question the validity of this postulate.
Active addicts are infamous for our indecision about anything other than feeding their addiction. We fear making the wrong decision, trapping ourselves somehow, selecting a course that will eliminate all other possibilities. We fear choosing a course that will bring us pain, or hurt those we care about. Some get so hung up in these fears that they lose touch with reality - there is a reason that mental illness and addictions are so often connected.
And we addicts resent, in addition to real and imagined transgressions against us in the past, those few decisions we did make that didn't turn out as we hoped, or, more often, decisions we didn't make, leaving us, looking through our fun-house fractured prisms, living in a spot seemingly not of our choosing, that we don't like, and that we can't see our way out of. Healthy people find themselves in these same spots and situations, but generally find a healthy way beyond the snag. Sometimes not, in which case we hope you'll join us at a meeting when you're ready...
By the way, the transgressions against us that are real are worth exploring. This is true for everyone - addicts and non-addicts alike. The news of the day is Tiger Woods' pseudo apology pseudo press conference on Friday. For what it's worth,I do believe he's sorry - about equally for his transgressions against his family and for being caught, err...stupid. I do believe that sex addiction is a real malady, but with less of the chemical component than drugs or alcohol. Probably more on line with kleptomania or gambling or shopping addictions. Point being, all of these behaviors, regardless of the chemical component, are unhealthy and often pathological responses to past experiences...
And Tiger Woods, for all his fame and glory, had one pretty fucked up childhood. Maybe not as bad as Michael Jackson or Danny Bonaduce or some other celebrity kids who are pressed too hard too young, but bad enough. We hosted some young golfers at a youth tournament Tiger played in when he was 14. These kids were 17 or so if I recall, and scared to death of him. Here was this robotic superhuman black kid kicking butt in a white man's sport, with controlling manipulative parents driving every aspect of the show. No pressure on anyone there. Children who are not allowed to be children, and in Tiger's case not allowed to develop normal relationships with other children and those of the opposite gender, will wind up with behavioral problems. He is not the first celebrity who counter-balanced his seemingly superhuman public self-control with theoretically private and unbelievably destructive behavior. That he chose to act his out with some pretty skanky ass women, many of questionable repute, seems the classic enactment of the Madonna-Whore complex, which is not one generated by a healthy upbringing. In this analogy, by the way, the Madonna would be either his wife or perhaps his mother. So...
Enough about my golf idol. I hope he makes it back, and soon. I'll still use golf as my Saturday afternoon nap inducer, with or without him. Without him, though, I don't usually last more than 10 minutes, vs. the 30 or so I can usually keep my eyes open when he's on his game. Its all bout me, ya know?
The opening quote was about paths taken and not taken, and we discussed decisions, fears and regrets. Again, I think that there's not much difference in the life experiences of healthy folks and addicts. We all have victories and defeats, fears and resentments. The difference is that the active addict drinks or drugs to run away from them, while the healthy person confronts and deals with them, sets them aside, and moves on with life. There's a middle ground, too,where most folks live on the bell curve of healthy functionality. In this segment, the actor as often as not compartmentalizes life traumas, at least temporarily, in a way that allows them to generally operate normally without developing destructive behaviors. Some are fortunate enough to make it out of this life without ever having to deal with these traumas or suffer any measurable damaging effect. Others are able to pull them out at various intervals and deal with them one by one in a timely and healthy manner, growing stronger through introspection, understanding and increased self-awareness. Others might well have the trauma manifest itself suddenly or damagingly at some point, seemingly with no specific trigger. This is why we have shrinks...
My shrink told me that the average human life runs something like this: Our first 25 years or so, our parents screw us up big time, owing largely to the reality that children don't come with instructions. The second 25 years or so we live the effects of this upbringing, settle into our place on the aforementioned bell-curve of mental health, and as often as not go about fucking up our own kids who, amazingly, also arrive without instructions. Somewhere around mid-life, the toxic waste of the first segment, as often as not, begins leaching up to the surface and manifesting itself in ways large and small. For the handful who are self-aware from an early age, lucky enough to have been raised by insightful and generous parents, and who have dealt with life's experiences fully and completely as they arrived, they continue on their steady and generally satisfying path. We all know folks like this, although not many, and envy them deeply. Don't. Envy is ugly and unproductive, and leads to resentment, which leads to...
For those in the middle (of the population and of life), this can be an interesting or depressing time. Henry David Thoreau wrote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." I think that this describes well a significant majority of those in the middle of the bell curve, and virtually all of those on the active addict side. I have a vision on the periphery of my mind of a poem or movie or television episode or painting or some-such, can't pull it up right now - of armies of gray men with briefcases and fedoras marching listlessly through the hum-drum of modern industrialized life. Like the Japanese "salaryman," you know? None of us know one of those previously mentioned enviable people who fit this mold, do we? I know I don't. But I know a fair bunch like this in the middle, and a lot on the active addict side, marching listlessly through life, feeling trapped by decisions they did and didn't make. This is the segment and period in which suicides go up, divorces happen, addictions manifest themselves or are exacerbated. But this is also the time where many find spirituality (real and imagined), set aside destructive behaviors and take up healthy ones, make radical changes in lifestyle or career to take control over lives that prior seemed to be controlling us. Welcome to my world...
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Decisions, decisions... I've said before and will say again, that where we are at any instant of our lives is the aggregate of the circumstances we've been exposed to and the decisions we've made in response to those circumstances. Based on that viewpoint, and on decisions I've made in the past year or so, here's what I know about me today: (1) I will not stand still, for I would die. (2) I will not go back, because I cannot. (3) I will not let life dictate to me, because I refuse to be a victim. (4) I will not fear the future nor resent the past, because neither are productive.
These are all attitudinal changes, but significant I believe, because the attitude we bring to the enterprise of living goes a long way toward determining our effectiveness in and appreciation for the act of living. Where I will go, and what I will do, as I travel through these middle years remains undetermined at this point, and that's a decision I've made as well. I'm tightening and provisioning my vessel, and one day in the not distant future, when the wind is right and the sun up bright and my affairs in order, I will cast off. And I may check in with you from time to time. Or, maybe not...
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Ravishing the Monk
The monk toiled diligently in his cell, only occasionally glancing out his tiny window into the outside world. When she appeared in the courtyard, he didn’t notice her at first, so engrossed was he in his work. She brushed at his window, entreating him silently from beyond the glass to come away with her, dancing right up to the pane, then flitting away, dancing merrily about the yard, playing for his attention. Only slowly did he become aware of her, turning hesitantly from his ritual tasks, and began to focus on her. As if in a spell, he beheld her beauty, her effervescent white gossamer veils billowing to and fro, waxing and waning between solid and dream…
He had known her and of her from his youth, admired her from afar and quickened in her proximity from time to time. But never, in his early days, had he felt so deeply drawn to her– her otherness making her too alien to consider as anything more than an occasional curiosity, despite her obvious and inescapable beauty. Finally, as a young man serving in the King’s armies, they had shared an intermittent dalliance in the frigid mountains of a far away land. She had come to him then on clear crisp nights when the air was so chilled it pained one to breathe. She would have her way with him then, leaving him gasping, exhausted and confused, shivering naked in the thin mountain air as she disappeared into the rustling forests, leaving no sign of her passing, and no hint of whether she might some day return. So long ago…
Now she was back, suddenly, unbeckoned. But just as in those days so far past, he felt almost helpless against her spell. He tried, repeatedly, to ignore her enchantments, her silent entreaties beyond the glass. “Come away with me.” He could read her lips, almost smell the sweet crisp tang of her perfumed tresses. He would not. Could not. He had work to do, a new life now with meaning and responsibility and others relying on him. And he knew that no good could come of his falling back into her spell. He had, after more than two score years, managed to banish those sweet but too brief memories from his tortured mind. He had erected walls and gates and bars, dug deep moats, donned new armor and the accoutrements of his calling, found a certain if somewhat confining safety. And here she was, back again, threatening it all…
“Master, I must go,” he pleaded. “If I do not, I will surely go insane right here at my work table.” The Master, of course, didn’t understand. “We have work that must be done, and you are the one who must do it,” he replied sternly. And so the monk made his strongest effort to ignore her and the rest of the world outside his cell, and settle back into the routine that had become his refuge. But it was no use. She continued her silent torment, begging and pleading soundlessly for him to come back into the embrace he’d not shared in so many years. Finally, in desperation, he pleaded one last time. “Master, please release me. Only for the day. If I don’t go I will kill myself and be of no use to you or anyone else. Just a single day and night, and I will be past this madness and back to my old self. Otherwise, I will surely kill myself before the sun goes down.” The Master relented, shaking his head with a sardonic grin as he followed his acolyte’s fevered gaze to the tiny window, through which he saw absolutely nothing but swirling snow…
The monk had scarce stepped through the gate when she grasped his hand and whisked him away in that magical fashion he’d forgotten, with images and colors and castles and towns merely blurs, until suddenly, they were alone. They jostled back and forth only briefly, reacquainting themselves like the old lovers they were, and then she took him into her wholly and completely, gripping him like a vice and coaxing him onward – ever onward. He exerted himself until he was spent, the sweat running down his brow and back, slowly cooling in the chilled air, only to turn to steam again as she demanded more and more. He took her into his mouth, savored her sweet juices trickling down his fevered throat. She smiled in pleasure as he savored every inch of her, gurgled with delight as he coaxed her stream into a raging flood. For hours they went on, giving and taking, sparing nary a moment to rest. And then dusk approached, and she wrapped him fully in her embrace, gave him a firm and final squeeze, and as he gasped in rapture, she was gone…
He came to, as years ago, in darkness, with bright stars dancing tauntingly overhead. He lay on his back, naked in the snow, shriveled and shivering, but at a strange peace he’d not felt since those days long ago. He slowly got up, gathered his garments together, shook the powdered snow from them and eased them onto his body now ice crusted in frozen rivulets of sweat. He beat and rubbed himself and jumped up and down until the blood, which had too nearly ceased to flow, regained its current and sent needles of fire into his fingers and toes. Slowly he gathered his bearings, and began the long trek back to the abbey, where he’d promised to be by morning. And in the bleary corners of his mind, he recalled the day’s events, blending seamlessly with those from so long ago, and felt both exhilaration and exhaustion as his feet crunched through the trackless snow. He knew that sometime before he died, she would be back for him again. And he knew the next time she would kill him. And he longed for her return…
He had known her and of her from his youth, admired her from afar and quickened in her proximity from time to time. But never, in his early days, had he felt so deeply drawn to her– her otherness making her too alien to consider as anything more than an occasional curiosity, despite her obvious and inescapable beauty. Finally, as a young man serving in the King’s armies, they had shared an intermittent dalliance in the frigid mountains of a far away land. She had come to him then on clear crisp nights when the air was so chilled it pained one to breathe. She would have her way with him then, leaving him gasping, exhausted and confused, shivering naked in the thin mountain air as she disappeared into the rustling forests, leaving no sign of her passing, and no hint of whether she might some day return. So long ago…
Now she was back, suddenly, unbeckoned. But just as in those days so far past, he felt almost helpless against her spell. He tried, repeatedly, to ignore her enchantments, her silent entreaties beyond the glass. “Come away with me.” He could read her lips, almost smell the sweet crisp tang of her perfumed tresses. He would not. Could not. He had work to do, a new life now with meaning and responsibility and others relying on him. And he knew that no good could come of his falling back into her spell. He had, after more than two score years, managed to banish those sweet but too brief memories from his tortured mind. He had erected walls and gates and bars, dug deep moats, donned new armor and the accoutrements of his calling, found a certain if somewhat confining safety. And here she was, back again, threatening it all…
“Master, I must go,” he pleaded. “If I do not, I will surely go insane right here at my work table.” The Master, of course, didn’t understand. “We have work that must be done, and you are the one who must do it,” he replied sternly. And so the monk made his strongest effort to ignore her and the rest of the world outside his cell, and settle back into the routine that had become his refuge. But it was no use. She continued her silent torment, begging and pleading soundlessly for him to come back into the embrace he’d not shared in so many years. Finally, in desperation, he pleaded one last time. “Master, please release me. Only for the day. If I don’t go I will kill myself and be of no use to you or anyone else. Just a single day and night, and I will be past this madness and back to my old self. Otherwise, I will surely kill myself before the sun goes down.” The Master relented, shaking his head with a sardonic grin as he followed his acolyte’s fevered gaze to the tiny window, through which he saw absolutely nothing but swirling snow…
The monk had scarce stepped through the gate when she grasped his hand and whisked him away in that magical fashion he’d forgotten, with images and colors and castles and towns merely blurs, until suddenly, they were alone. They jostled back and forth only briefly, reacquainting themselves like the old lovers they were, and then she took him into her wholly and completely, gripping him like a vice and coaxing him onward – ever onward. He exerted himself until he was spent, the sweat running down his brow and back, slowly cooling in the chilled air, only to turn to steam again as she demanded more and more. He took her into his mouth, savored her sweet juices trickling down his fevered throat. She smiled in pleasure as he savored every inch of her, gurgled with delight as he coaxed her stream into a raging flood. For hours they went on, giving and taking, sparing nary a moment to rest. And then dusk approached, and she wrapped him fully in her embrace, gave him a firm and final squeeze, and as he gasped in rapture, she was gone…
He came to, as years ago, in darkness, with bright stars dancing tauntingly overhead. He lay on his back, naked in the snow, shriveled and shivering, but at a strange peace he’d not felt since those days long ago. He slowly got up, gathered his garments together, shook the powdered snow from them and eased them onto his body now ice crusted in frozen rivulets of sweat. He beat and rubbed himself and jumped up and down until the blood, which had too nearly ceased to flow, regained its current and sent needles of fire into his fingers and toes. Slowly he gathered his bearings, and began the long trek back to the abbey, where he’d promised to be by morning. And in the bleary corners of his mind, he recalled the day’s events, blending seamlessly with those from so long ago, and felt both exhilaration and exhaustion as his feet crunched through the trackless snow. He knew that sometime before he died, she would be back for him again. And he knew the next time she would kill him. And he longed for her return…
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Spirit Spark, Spirit Flame
"I believe that man will not merely endure. He will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." - William Faulkner-
As usual, I have only the slightest sense of where I will go with this, although I knew that this week I'd be putting closure to my rumination's on my Bert story, trying to draw some meaning from the experience. As I may have mentioned in the past, I am poorly read in a classical sense - was actually an English minor, but one needn't actually read so much or well to achieve that dubious distinction. Anyway, as sleep was falling from my eyes after some really weird and off-topic end of night dreams, I began discussing As I Lay Dying with my wife as a source for today's discourse, not remembering its topic, authorship, etc. - only the title. She, who had in her youth tricked herself into doing a term paper on this brief tome, based solely on the fact that it was "a skinny book," assured me that if I want to close my Bert chapter on a bright tone, As I Lay Dying would not be an assist. Those of you who know, know. Those who haven't read Faulkner, please do find the time. Just start with The Reivers to fall in love with him, then go from there...
Leaving this week's memorial service for Bert, I thought, and perhaps stated aloud, that it was the most moving service for a Caucasian that I ever recall attending. I've been to several black funerals, and there is a spirit there that I've never really sensed in an Anglo or Hispanic event. Somehow, I think that the spirit of life is more comfortable making itself felt in Black churches than White, where I can safely say I've seldom felt much of anything despite some arduous efforts on my part.
I would say that there were at least 150 in attendance, of which I knew only a handful. And it was pointed out that this was true of many there - Bert having so enmeshed himself into so many lives and disparate groups, that the lament and celebration of his passing didn't only bring individuals together, but actual groups that under normal circumstances might never intersect. The most prevalent were the role-players from Scarborough Fair, a local medieval celebration in which Bert had long been an energetic participant. I'd never interacted with this lively crew, except the few that Bert introduced or invited to our brewery rendezvous location. And there were the pubsters, the cyclists, classmates. In his too short life, Bert never met a stranger, and I don't think much tolerated them. If you were going to take up space in his proximity, you were going to be part of the game...
I'm not going to ramble on about my friend Bert, or his memorial, or his untimely passing. I will express what joy it was to be at a memorial where the drinking of beer was prevalent (and more than a little shocking to the funeral home directors), and nary a single formal prayer was muttered; where singing and laughter easily outweighed the wailing and lament, although we of course had that too. It was at this moment in time that Bert's spirit was formally recognized and finally distributed among those of us who shared his life, and I think we were all a little shocked to realize the full extent of the gift he had given us. A crew of us gathered last evening for a final farewell, and now we'll spin off in our various directions, each of us taking a piece of Bert with us, with a few making a real effort to have that piece invigorate our own lives, and the lives of others we touch. But everyone that Bert touched will, intentionally or not, carry him with us and continue to have him influence our lives well beyond his point of departure. And that, my friends, is the moral of today's ditty which I will strive to make more concise than the last few...
Faulkner says in the quote above that Man has a soul, and that this is why he will persevere. Then he says Man has a spirit, and attempts to leave a reader the impression that the two are the same. I contend that they are not, believe that they are not, and expect I shall so believe to my grave. Following is my belief regarding the spirit and the soul, and it is only a belief, unprovable, as are all matters spiritual. My thoughts and feelings surrounding Bert's passing have only served to strengthen this sense. For those of you who choose to believe in the individual soul, resurrection, life everlasting, a communion of saints, cherubim and seraphim and such, please feel free...
As usual, we will begin with a disclaimer regarding my formal education. I've not read much of Plato, Aristotle or any of the Greeks, nor of Thomas Aquinas, de Chardin or other philosophers and theologians who have reached into the realms we will be lightly treading this week. I intend to, before I die, but haven't yet gotten around to it so my thoughts are not much informed by their thoughts or teachings. If a reader should see some parallel or conflict in my thinking and theirs, feel free to share, as this may help guide my future studies...
I believe that each individual is entrusted with his or her little piece of the Spirit of Life while still in the womb - not at the moment of conception, but at the moment of either self or other awareness. When a woman becomes aware of the stirring of life within her, and either thrills at the knowledge or shudders in fear, the spirit exists. Can we trace it to when the strip turns blue? That's getting a bit esoteric for me, but I would suggest not. I think, and this will be a recurring theme, that the new life must be actually felt, sensed, experienced, either by itself or others - not just intellectually recognized...
It has been fairly well established that, while still in utero, the fetus intakes information from the outside world. I would say that this intake might, but doesn't necessarily, constitute the growth of the fetus' spirit and perhaps a step in the transformation to human from living tissue. It is precisely this gray area that allows non-ideologues to rationally discuss the morality and ethics surrounding the abortion debate. I will say that these in utero experiences, when intentional - mothers reading to their unborn, music seeping into the formative experience and such, are most assuredly the mothers and the greater world's portions of spirit reaching inward and attempting to expand, and I can't help but see these at some point making a connection. One of the many great unknowables that permeate existence...
It is estimated that as many as fifty percent of human pregnancies result in miscarriage, many so early they are never recognized. Was a piece of the human spirit extinguished in these cases? I will argue vehemently not, as I don't believe the spirit is ever extinguished, nor ever solely contained within the individual. It is a shared thing, exists as a function and result of sharing in fact, and in many of these cases it may well have been shared with none of the parties being consciously aware of it. If the mother doesn't know she was pregnant, and the fetus doesn't know it exists, and the pregnancy terminates, whence the loss? A topic too complex to ruminate on today, but one worthy, perhaps, of pondering or of further discussion somewhere down the road...
At some point, we become aware, a point that always precedes our recognition that we are aware. When a newly born baby cries out upon its first exposure to light and crushingly loud sound and temperature differentials and new discomforts, its spirit is growing, as is the mother's when she is relieved of the pain of delivery, the weight of her physical burden, and feels the joy of that first welcome cry. When the child learns the comfort of nuzzling at the mother's breast, of being swaddled in a quiet room after exposure to the noisy and raucous outside world, of soothing music or sounds differing from those experienced in the womb, the spirit is growing. And so it continues...
So, does this early spiritual growth and learning differ markedly from that of other sentient beings? I would argue that it really doesn't. The earthworm, the fish, the kitten and calf, they all grow through generally the same process. If anything differentiates the growth of the spirit in humanity from that of other beings, it is living the human life - developing and appreciating the incredible capacity of the human mind, the ability to be self-aware, and the human experience overall. And the more intensely one lives life, experiences the world, enmeshes the self in the world and interacts with the world, both human and non-human, the greater grows the spirit. And then we come to the fun part...
My friend Bert lived a life of unparalleled intensity, a notion that was alluded to over and over during last week's and last night's memorials. I believe that, at least partly because of his ADD, each moment was in many ways more real to him than to those of us not so afflicted. Every conversation was, at the time he was having it,the most important conversation of his life. Every bike ride, scuba dive, pub crawl, role-playing antic, construction project, lover - almost like his first and only. To be around this remarkable man as he lived life more fully than most of us can imagine, was to be touched by an energy that was almost superhuman. And as I looked at photos of him on a collage friends and family had assembled, photos I'd not seen before, I could see that this intensity was not some late in life manifestation, but had a been a hallmark from childhood. I can comfortably say that, more than anyone else I can remember in my life, Bert embodied the maxim, Carpe Diem. Indeed, the day, the hour, the moment - have never been more firmly seized than when in his grasp. In AA we're told, "One day at a time," and "Live in the moment." Bert lived these lessons for me...
During the celebrations of Bert's life this week, I had an opportunity to meet his German father, and a brother I never knew he had. Both seemed to me to want desperately to be angry at Bert, as is the normal reaction when one we love takes his own life. And yet I sensed they could not, because it was so evident that the spirit of the enormous crowds of friends and lovers who coalesced to comfort family and each other, and to celebrate a life so fully lived, were the direct result of Bert's life and spirit. Most of us touch people and share our spirit through a lifetime of fourscore years and more. Bert's spirit flame burned so bright and intensely, that it consumed itself in barely half that time. Yet I would argue that, to the extent that intent and effect are factored into the analysis, his spirit is far greater for having touched so many in such a concentrated period of time. Because Bert's flame was hotter and brighter, and such a large portion of his circle of influence was younger and more vibrantly active than the average, it will spread farther faster and have more effect than that of the average liver of life. And how can any of us hold that against him?
My take away, then, is that, just as Socrates stated regarding an unexamined life, so too does the reverse apply: "An unlived life is not worth examining." Yup, just coined that one myself. Hah! I like it!
And of course, to circle back around, I have utmost confidence that I will never see Bert again, in any dimension or realm. His fragment of the spirit of life, first sparked into being in his mothers womb, was tended and stoked and fanned into a mighty flame that in the end consumed him too early, but not before it had touched me and warmed me more deeply than many of us have been or will be again, and been passed along to me, and to countless others, to spread and grow in small ways and large over many generations. Many of the great spirits of humanity are preserved and recognized through recorded feats, works of art and architecture and literature and music, execution of wars, development of religions and languages and philosophies and technologies. But here, a 45 year-old bi-polar ADD suffering dynamo of a man, publicly unremarked, made a much greater than average contribution to the human experience, one for which I am truly grateful, and one which I can only hope to match through my own living of this wonderful gift of life.
Amen.
As usual, I have only the slightest sense of where I will go with this, although I knew that this week I'd be putting closure to my rumination's on my Bert story, trying to draw some meaning from the experience. As I may have mentioned in the past, I am poorly read in a classical sense - was actually an English minor, but one needn't actually read so much or well to achieve that dubious distinction. Anyway, as sleep was falling from my eyes after some really weird and off-topic end of night dreams, I began discussing As I Lay Dying with my wife as a source for today's discourse, not remembering its topic, authorship, etc. - only the title. She, who had in her youth tricked herself into doing a term paper on this brief tome, based solely on the fact that it was "a skinny book," assured me that if I want to close my Bert chapter on a bright tone, As I Lay Dying would not be an assist. Those of you who know, know. Those who haven't read Faulkner, please do find the time. Just start with The Reivers to fall in love with him, then go from there...
Leaving this week's memorial service for Bert, I thought, and perhaps stated aloud, that it was the most moving service for a Caucasian that I ever recall attending. I've been to several black funerals, and there is a spirit there that I've never really sensed in an Anglo or Hispanic event. Somehow, I think that the spirit of life is more comfortable making itself felt in Black churches than White, where I can safely say I've seldom felt much of anything despite some arduous efforts on my part.
I would say that there were at least 150 in attendance, of which I knew only a handful. And it was pointed out that this was true of many there - Bert having so enmeshed himself into so many lives and disparate groups, that the lament and celebration of his passing didn't only bring individuals together, but actual groups that under normal circumstances might never intersect. The most prevalent were the role-players from Scarborough Fair, a local medieval celebration in which Bert had long been an energetic participant. I'd never interacted with this lively crew, except the few that Bert introduced or invited to our brewery rendezvous location. And there were the pubsters, the cyclists, classmates. In his too short life, Bert never met a stranger, and I don't think much tolerated them. If you were going to take up space in his proximity, you were going to be part of the game...
I'm not going to ramble on about my friend Bert, or his memorial, or his untimely passing. I will express what joy it was to be at a memorial where the drinking of beer was prevalent (and more than a little shocking to the funeral home directors), and nary a single formal prayer was muttered; where singing and laughter easily outweighed the wailing and lament, although we of course had that too. It was at this moment in time that Bert's spirit was formally recognized and finally distributed among those of us who shared his life, and I think we were all a little shocked to realize the full extent of the gift he had given us. A crew of us gathered last evening for a final farewell, and now we'll spin off in our various directions, each of us taking a piece of Bert with us, with a few making a real effort to have that piece invigorate our own lives, and the lives of others we touch. But everyone that Bert touched will, intentionally or not, carry him with us and continue to have him influence our lives well beyond his point of departure. And that, my friends, is the moral of today's ditty which I will strive to make more concise than the last few...
Faulkner says in the quote above that Man has a soul, and that this is why he will persevere. Then he says Man has a spirit, and attempts to leave a reader the impression that the two are the same. I contend that they are not, believe that they are not, and expect I shall so believe to my grave. Following is my belief regarding the spirit and the soul, and it is only a belief, unprovable, as are all matters spiritual. My thoughts and feelings surrounding Bert's passing have only served to strengthen this sense. For those of you who choose to believe in the individual soul, resurrection, life everlasting, a communion of saints, cherubim and seraphim and such, please feel free...
As usual, we will begin with a disclaimer regarding my formal education. I've not read much of Plato, Aristotle or any of the Greeks, nor of Thomas Aquinas, de Chardin or other philosophers and theologians who have reached into the realms we will be lightly treading this week. I intend to, before I die, but haven't yet gotten around to it so my thoughts are not much informed by their thoughts or teachings. If a reader should see some parallel or conflict in my thinking and theirs, feel free to share, as this may help guide my future studies...
I believe that each individual is entrusted with his or her little piece of the Spirit of Life while still in the womb - not at the moment of conception, but at the moment of either self or other awareness. When a woman becomes aware of the stirring of life within her, and either thrills at the knowledge or shudders in fear, the spirit exists. Can we trace it to when the strip turns blue? That's getting a bit esoteric for me, but I would suggest not. I think, and this will be a recurring theme, that the new life must be actually felt, sensed, experienced, either by itself or others - not just intellectually recognized...
It has been fairly well established that, while still in utero, the fetus intakes information from the outside world. I would say that this intake might, but doesn't necessarily, constitute the growth of the fetus' spirit and perhaps a step in the transformation to human from living tissue. It is precisely this gray area that allows non-ideologues to rationally discuss the morality and ethics surrounding the abortion debate. I will say that these in utero experiences, when intentional - mothers reading to their unborn, music seeping into the formative experience and such, are most assuredly the mothers and the greater world's portions of spirit reaching inward and attempting to expand, and I can't help but see these at some point making a connection. One of the many great unknowables that permeate existence...
It is estimated that as many as fifty percent of human pregnancies result in miscarriage, many so early they are never recognized. Was a piece of the human spirit extinguished in these cases? I will argue vehemently not, as I don't believe the spirit is ever extinguished, nor ever solely contained within the individual. It is a shared thing, exists as a function and result of sharing in fact, and in many of these cases it may well have been shared with none of the parties being consciously aware of it. If the mother doesn't know she was pregnant, and the fetus doesn't know it exists, and the pregnancy terminates, whence the loss? A topic too complex to ruminate on today, but one worthy, perhaps, of pondering or of further discussion somewhere down the road...
At some point, we become aware, a point that always precedes our recognition that we are aware. When a newly born baby cries out upon its first exposure to light and crushingly loud sound and temperature differentials and new discomforts, its spirit is growing, as is the mother's when she is relieved of the pain of delivery, the weight of her physical burden, and feels the joy of that first welcome cry. When the child learns the comfort of nuzzling at the mother's breast, of being swaddled in a quiet room after exposure to the noisy and raucous outside world, of soothing music or sounds differing from those experienced in the womb, the spirit is growing. And so it continues...
So, does this early spiritual growth and learning differ markedly from that of other sentient beings? I would argue that it really doesn't. The earthworm, the fish, the kitten and calf, they all grow through generally the same process. If anything differentiates the growth of the spirit in humanity from that of other beings, it is living the human life - developing and appreciating the incredible capacity of the human mind, the ability to be self-aware, and the human experience overall. And the more intensely one lives life, experiences the world, enmeshes the self in the world and interacts with the world, both human and non-human, the greater grows the spirit. And then we come to the fun part...
My friend Bert lived a life of unparalleled intensity, a notion that was alluded to over and over during last week's and last night's memorials. I believe that, at least partly because of his ADD, each moment was in many ways more real to him than to those of us not so afflicted. Every conversation was, at the time he was having it,the most important conversation of his life. Every bike ride, scuba dive, pub crawl, role-playing antic, construction project, lover - almost like his first and only. To be around this remarkable man as he lived life more fully than most of us can imagine, was to be touched by an energy that was almost superhuman. And as I looked at photos of him on a collage friends and family had assembled, photos I'd not seen before, I could see that this intensity was not some late in life manifestation, but had a been a hallmark from childhood. I can comfortably say that, more than anyone else I can remember in my life, Bert embodied the maxim, Carpe Diem. Indeed, the day, the hour, the moment - have never been more firmly seized than when in his grasp. In AA we're told, "One day at a time," and "Live in the moment." Bert lived these lessons for me...
During the celebrations of Bert's life this week, I had an opportunity to meet his German father, and a brother I never knew he had. Both seemed to me to want desperately to be angry at Bert, as is the normal reaction when one we love takes his own life. And yet I sensed they could not, because it was so evident that the spirit of the enormous crowds of friends and lovers who coalesced to comfort family and each other, and to celebrate a life so fully lived, were the direct result of Bert's life and spirit. Most of us touch people and share our spirit through a lifetime of fourscore years and more. Bert's spirit flame burned so bright and intensely, that it consumed itself in barely half that time. Yet I would argue that, to the extent that intent and effect are factored into the analysis, his spirit is far greater for having touched so many in such a concentrated period of time. Because Bert's flame was hotter and brighter, and such a large portion of his circle of influence was younger and more vibrantly active than the average, it will spread farther faster and have more effect than that of the average liver of life. And how can any of us hold that against him?
My take away, then, is that, just as Socrates stated regarding an unexamined life, so too does the reverse apply: "An unlived life is not worth examining." Yup, just coined that one myself. Hah! I like it!
And of course, to circle back around, I have utmost confidence that I will never see Bert again, in any dimension or realm. His fragment of the spirit of life, first sparked into being in his mothers womb, was tended and stoked and fanned into a mighty flame that in the end consumed him too early, but not before it had touched me and warmed me more deeply than many of us have been or will be again, and been passed along to me, and to countless others, to spread and grow in small ways and large over many generations. Many of the great spirits of humanity are preserved and recognized through recorded feats, works of art and architecture and literature and music, execution of wars, development of religions and languages and philosophies and technologies. But here, a 45 year-old bi-polar ADD suffering dynamo of a man, publicly unremarked, made a much greater than average contribution to the human experience, one for which I am truly grateful, and one which I can only hope to match through my own living of this wonderful gift of life.
Amen.
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