Industry is the Enemy of Melancholy

I was fortunate to retire from my traditional work career at the relatively young age of 56. Retiring early had become a goal of mine ever since I observed how much my father enjoyed his 30 year post-work life. My father was perfectly content to leave the working life behind and fill up his days with fishing, tending his vegetable garden, solving the daily crossword puzzle, taking naps and watching the home town Sports teams on his television.

When the time came for me to retire, I had an idyllic vision of spending my days in similar fashion. Finally, after 56 years, I was looking forward to being my own boss – thrilled to have the opportunity to wake up every day and do whatever it was that interested me. I believed that every day would feel like Christmas!

And those first few months of retirement really were magical. Gone was the stress of having to be available 24/7 to my company’s sales and management teams who were battling to close million dollar deals, gone was the daily 3 to 4 hour commute in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and gone was the chronic sleep deficit.

It was goodbye to all that. What replaced it was the pleasure of deciding which book to read from my list of “books I always wanted to read“, fly fishing in the beautiful rivers of New England, taking long rides on my electric bike, spending quality time with my grandkids, and attending stimulating concerts and plays with my wife.

Something begin to happen, however, that I was not expecting about six months into my retirement. As the novelty and thrill of being retired began to subside I began to notice that I was experiencing melancholy moods and moments of soul searching. I was spending time reflecting on topics like past loss, the certainty of my physical and mental decline, and the uncertainty of how future generations will deal with the big existential challenges the world is facing.

Without the rigors of work to occupy my attention, my mind was set free to wander where it wanted to go and to my surprise I discovered that it often wanted to contemplate dark and doleful topics. I was not that concerned about these sometime melancholy moods because I reasoned that it is one of life’s natural reactions to harbor feelings of both happiness and sadness; and I remembered the wise old grandmother who once said: “A good day is a laugh and a cry“. Still I wondered why my pensive thoughts were increasing in frequency at a time in my life when I expected to be most content.

Then I happened to read about a study conducted by Harvard psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert which could help to explain the phenomenon I was experiencing. These researchers developed a smartphone app that allowed them to collect the thoughts, feelings, and actions of a broad range of people at random moments as they went about their daily activities.

Using the app, Killingsworth and Gilbert asked people what they were doing and how happy they were while doing it. They sifted through 25,000 responses from more than 5000 people and reported that 46% of the people were thinking about things other than what they were actually doing at the time (in other words, they were daydreaming about something other than what they were doing). They discovered that those people who were daydreaming typically were not happy; while those who were fully engaged in their activity were the happiest. 

The researchers wrote that unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating instead events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or will never happen at all. This “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the brain’s default mode of operation.

Although this ability is a remarkable evolutionary achievement that allows people to learn, reason, and plan, it apparently comes with an emotional cost. “We see evidence that a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” they said in their report. The bottom line is that we’re more likely to think negative thoughts when we let our minds wander.

Maybe that is why people who are waiting in line or stuck in traffic appear to be more irritable. And maybe my melancholy moods have increased in frequency since leaving work simply because my mind is no longer required to spend 10+ hours a day focused on the demands of my job.

This study confirms that many philosophical and religious traditions are on to something true when they teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and by training their practitioners to resist mind wandering and concentrate on the here and now. Yoga teachers and those teaching meditation practices usually stress the importance of “mindfulness” or “being present” for a good reason — because when we do, it usually puts us in a better mood.

When I look back at my work career, I can see now that those moments when I felt most fulfilled was when I was in the middle of product development activities, being part of a team inventing electronic test solutions to solve complex manufacturing challenges. During those moments all the powers of my mind were fully engaged in solving the problem at hand and there was a sense that the results of the team’s collective work would have a positive impact on the company, our customers, and to a certain extent, society in general.

William F. Buckley put his finger on the unique ability that meaningful work has in preventing the onset of depressive feelings when he wrote “Industry is the enemy of Melancholy“. Simply put, if we are busy doing work that requires a focused mind it becomes difficult for the mind to wander and contemplate spirit dampening topics that are likely to cause the blues.

I happened to listen to an online homily about work that touched on a similar theme from a spiritual point of view that was given by Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop Barron made the point that our very being is deeply influenced by our actions and that the kind of work we do has a lot to do with the kind of people we become.

People who have no work usually struggle with depression because our sense of dignity often comes from work. Those who suffer from unemployment feel not just the financial burden of a lost paycheck, but also the loss of dignity brought about from the loss of their livelihood.

When you are feeling down one of the things psychologists recommend is to get to work on a project. It tends to make you feel better because work engages the powers of mind, will, creativity, and imagination and we become awakened when we give ourselves over to a project.

It doesn’t have to be a grand or complicated project. In fact, Bishop Barron mentioned that he found that one of the things that brings him the most satisfaction is doing the dishes. His day is usually filled with meetings and intellectual activities, so it is a relief for him to do some simple physical work at the end of the day. It brings him satisfaction to make order out of a dirty kitchen and to see everything clean and in its place when he is done.

The Bishop referenced this lyric from Bob Dylan’s song “Forever Young” to emphasize that work is a blessing and that souls can not fully prosper when their hands and feet are idle.

“May your hands always be busy, may your feet always be swift, may you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift”

Bob Dylan; Forever Young

Not all work is physical, though. Pope John Paul II categorized different kinds of work for the faithful. There is physical work (the work of the body), intellectual work (the work of the mind), spiritual work (the feeding of one’s soul), and moral work (charitable work on behalf of the poor and mistreated). When we are attentive to each of these categories of work in our daily life, it is then that we best fulfill our divine potential and become collaborators with the purpose of God.

I like that idea. May we all come to see our work, in all its different manifestations, as collaborating with the purpose of God and as bringing us into a more perfect union with a higher power.

Is it not better to see yourself truly, than care about how others see you?

When I was 10 years old (in 1970), I was part of a play group of six boys that spent their days roaming about the small Massachusetts town where I grew up. We would hang out together after school, on weekends and during school vacations doing the things that interest most boys of that age – building tree houses, camping out, riding bikes, playing sports and pulling pranks on one another.

I remember the TV networks began broadcasting a weekly television show in 1972 that quickly became the favorite topic of conversation among my group of friends and an endless source of inspiration for our role playing activities.

The show was called Kung Fu and it  followed the adventures of a Shaolin monk named Kwai Chang Caine. He was born to an American man and a Chinese woman in mid-19th century China, but was orphaned as a young boy. The Shaolin Monastery took him in and trained him to become a priest and martial arts expert.

In the show Caine is seen traveling from town to town throughout the American Old West in search of his half brother. Each episode shows him dealing with difficult people and situations armed only with his spiritual training and his skill in martial arts. Flashback scenes specific to the moral dilemmas he faces in each episode are employed to recall specific lessons that were learned by Caine during his childhood training at the monastery.

There inevitably comes a point during each episode when he is forced to call upon his martial arts training to defend himself or others, even though he was taught to avoid violence whenever possible, and to use it only as a means of self-defense – or as a last resort to protect the weak and vulnerable,

Those fight scenes were what my group of friends enjoyed the most. We would watch each episode religiously and then spend the following week looking ridiculous trying to re-enact the fight scenes with one another while mimicking the martial arts moves that were displayed.

Over time I began to see there was something else beyond those superficial fight scenes, that made me to start to question the way that I looked at life and how a man should conduct himself. It was the first show that exposed me to the wisdom of other cultures, the ugliness of racism, the practice of non-violence and the value of all life.

The admirable qualities of the man that was portrayed in this show were polar opposite to the qualities that were being promoted by other shows of the time. The American heroes like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood were depicted as loud, prideful, violent and self-destructive. Kwai Chang Caine on the other hand was a different kind of protagonist; one who is strong but quiet, humble, peaceful and harmonious.

Those childhood memories came flooding back to me because I happened to be scrolling through my Netflix movie options and noticed that the Kung Fu TV series had recently been added to their roster of streaming options. I thought it might be enlightening for me to watch the shows again, 46 years later, to see what further insight I could gain.

I am finding that each episode imparts some bit of new wisdom or truth that speaks to me. In the most recent episode I watched it was a flashback scene at the monastery in which Caine is found to be showing off his fighting prowess to the younger students. He is blindfolded, yet adroitly fends off three attackers.

While he is in the midst of the battle, his Teacher comes upon the scene and when the fight is over questions Caine’s motives for the martial arts demonstration. Caine explains that he was simply seeking to test himself, but after further questioning admits what he was really trying to do was impress the group of young students. His master rebukes Caine by saying:

    Is it not better to see yourself truly, than care about how others see you?

That question jumped out at me as one that we all should ponder given the ubiquitous nature of social media in our lives today and the seeming competition among friends and acquaintances to relentlessly craft a social media narrative that depicts lives filled with perfection and happiness.

My wife and I have acquaintances who seem to be miserable, because whenever we see them we hear them speak about their troubles or lament the injustices they have had to endure. Yet if we happen to go online and read their Facebook postings we see only positive images of an idyllic life alongside messages about how good their life is. There is a disconnect – they are obviously not happy, yet they want the world to believe they are.

It seems to me that our lives would be better served if we took all the effort we spend trying to perfect how others see us and spent that energy instead on trying to see ourselves truly. Seeing yourself truly requires focusing on the inner life – not on the relentless demands that are imposed on us by the outer life.

The outer life is all about managing how the world looks at me (my body, my home, my possessions, my intelligence, my job, my family, my followers) – we try to impress a whole universe of people who only judge us based on what they see with their senses. The inner life on the other hand, is about how I look at myself – my private thoughts and values, emotions, fantasies, spiritual beliefs, my capacity to love and my sense of purpose.

The outer life is visible and public while the inner life is invisible and private. As human beings we are naturally “show-offs” and tend to focus on things that will improve our outer life; things like studies, degrees, job positions, fame and money. We believe that if we are successful in our outer life then we will be happy and content.

Today’s culture does little to value or nurture our inner lives. We keep much of our inner life hidden from others, even those to whom we are closest. Some people don’t even acknowledge their inner life because it can be difficult to answer internal questions like who am I, what do I believe, what is my purpose, how should I change, what do I regret, what do I want my future to look like?

But if we become absorbed by our outer life and fail to cultivate our inner life, we risk becoming blind to the the things that give life ultimate satisfaction and meaning. Spending time on the inner life can refresh us and make us feel more balanced so that we will make wise outer life decisions that are in harmony with our inner life thoughts and beliefs.

I am often guilty of focusing too much on my outer life at the expense of my inner life. I give too much thought to the materialistic demands of my outer life and care more than I should about how others see me. I do not spend enough energy trying to see myself truly.

But I do make a concerted effort to include activities in my schedule every week that help me focus on my inner life and take my mind off of the outer life distractions that drive most of our days. That is why I take time to write this blog on the life examined and why prayer, meditation, church, contemplative walks, reading poetry, listening to music and being out in nature are important contributors to my well-being.

It is those activities that refresh me and I recognize that when I fail to do them, my life becomes unbalanced. I hope you find a way to be your true self always so that you will, as the Shaolin monks say, “…never fear thus to be naked to the eyes of others.”

Going Inside to Greet the Light

This month’s blog will be brief because I have not had much time for contemplation or reflecting on the examined life.  My former employee has commissioned me to work on a software project with a tight deadline that has occupied most of my waking and sleeping thoughts.

I must admit, though, that it has been a good experience to get my hands busy coding and my mind devising algorithms again. I’m happy that it is all coming back to me after 14 months away. There is something to be said about the restorative benefits the mind and spirit derives from doing productive and useful work.

However, one of the things that I have sacrificed over the last few weeks in order to get this work done is meditation. I started practicing meditation a couple of years ago and recently took an online class on Mindfulness Meditation that helped expand the practice for me.

The Quaker community characterized Meditation as “going inside to greet the light“, and my time spent going inside has helped me to better live in the moment, to see events and situations as transitory in nature and to let go of the things that typically bothered me in the past.

One of the meditation exercises in the Buddhist tradition is called the “Five Remembrances“. It calls for contemplating the five statements shown below during the meditation session:

 

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The Five Remembrances

1.  I am subject to aging; aging is unavoidable

2. I am subject to illness; illness is unavoidable

3. I am subject to death; death is unavoidable

4. I will be parted from everyone and everything that is dear to me; there is no way to escape being separated from them

5. Whatever I do, for good or for ill, that I will reap  

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I find that meditating on these five remembrances is a very grounding experience for me. It brings to the forefront things like the impermanence of life that most people tend to block out of their daily consciousness – and it helps me to consider that all my actions will live on in some way and have ripple effects in the world.

Some people believe that meditating on these subjects is too gloomy and depressing, but for me the practice leads me away from denial towards acceptance, increases my gratitude and appreciation for the life I have been given, and teaches me about the freeing power of detachment and generosity. It helps me to look at the world with new eyes, be fully present with my loved ones and make sure they know how special they are to me.

Once the reality of impermanence is accepted, you begin to realize that time spent struggling and fighting against unavoidable events are causes of suffering – and only letting go allows you fully celebrate every moment of life. After all, the problem is not that things change, but that we try to live as if they don’t.

Here’s hoping that you find the light inside of you…

“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking”

My co-worker at the high technology company I once worked at was the software architect for a sophisticated manufacturing test system. He was highly skilled at both hardware and software design and was responsible for inventing and implementing many innovative test features that made our products a success in the marketplace.

I thought it strange that I would often see this brilliant engineer walking the corridors and halls of the company with his hands behind his back or stroking his chin – his mind so deep in thought that he did not even acknowledge the presence of those passing by.

I learned that it was his habit to get out of his office and walk whenever he was trying to work out solutions to complex problems or devise efficient algorithms to improve system performance characteristics. That memory of him flashed across my mind when I came across Nietzsche’s quote: “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking“.

I can’t claim to be the author of any great thoughts, but I have found that walking has also helped me in ways that have benefited my body, mind, and spirit. I have tried to include a walk in my daily activities ever since I was a young man; and most of my major life decisions were made during my solitary walks – many of them illuminated only by the light of the moon in the nighttime sky.

I am not sure what it is about walking that lends itself to constructive thinking, but for me it is a combination of factors:

• It removes me from my environment and all the multi-tasking distractions preventing me from letting my mind wander. When you go outside, you interrupt what you are doing – and stopping what you are trying to achieve allows the subconsciousness to work on different ways to achieve it. The human species was designed to thrive outside, not at a desk or a couch.
• It boosts my mood and improves my circulation which seems to improve my creativity. As Henry David Thoreau once wrote; “Methinks the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow“.
• It moves me from focusing on myself and my problems to contemplating things that are bigger than myself and it makes me realize how small I am in comparison with the greater world. Admiring nature and the vastness of the universe prompts unrestrained thinking.

So next time you have a problem you can’t solve, an important decision you need to make, or are seeking consolation from life’s sorrows, all you really need do is go for a walk. Remember the wisdom of the famous naturalist and father of the National Parks, John Muir, who remarked; “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in“.