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.

My Mind is in Darkness

There is a moment in the Rock Opera Jesus Christ Superstar, when Judas – right before he is about to commit suicide by hanging himself – sings out:

My mind is in darkness.
God, God I'm sick. I've been used,
And you knew it all the time.
God, God I'll never know why you chose me for your crime.

Judas’ realization that his mind was moving into darkness and his acknowledgement that he is sick struck me as a painful description of what many people with mental illness must feel as they try to overcome life’s challenges and often impossible expectations.

According to the World Health Organization, Depression is one of the most pervasive and debilitating health conditions in the world, one that affects an estimated 350 million people worldwide and contributes to the suicides of 800,000 people every year (one person every 40 seconds). It is recognized as being at the core of numerous mental health conditions and it is a leading cause of disability among adults.

In 2015, UCLA launched a study to better understand the causes of depression and to find ways to improve detection, evaluation, and treatment methods. Nearly 10,000 of the school’s freshmen were subjected to depression screening during their student orientation. The depression screening found that almost 12% of UCLA freshman reported “frequently” feeling depressed in the past year.

“That depression has not been identified as our number-one health issue astounds me,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in announcing the results of the screening program, “…if you haven’t experienced depression yourself, you know someone who has“.

The familiar symptoms of depression are persistent low mood, exhaustion, loss of appetite and sex drive, an inability to enjoy life or cope with everyday activities. Less obvious symptoms include disordered and distorted thinking, agitation, physical aches and pains, and insomnia.

Depression is difficult to treat because it is not really known what causes it. We know it results from a complex interaction of social, psychological, biological and genetic factors; and that people who have gone through adverse life events are more likely to develop depression.

Further complicating diagnosis, depression doesn’t always act the same way from individual to individual, or from episode to episode, which can range from mild to severe. An episode can last from a few days to weeks, months, or even years when there are multiple interrelating causes.

Treatment for depression is a bit of a guessing game, with only a 50% success rate after the first treatment. Each sufferer often needs something different. Antidepressants sometimes work, but not always. Talk therapies help some people, but not others. Someone may feel better with increased social contact, a change in relationships, or a new job. For others, becoming less busy or starting an exercise regime is what makes the difference. Sometimes the passage of time is what helps. Unfortunately, because depression plays havoc with the capacity to see things clearly, it’s hard for a depressed person to know what they need.

Too many people, especially in the past, shunned people suffering from mental disorders and labeled them as crazy, defective or even criminal – categorizing them as people to be avoided and deserving to be outcast from everyday normal society. Mental health professionals now say that those struggling with mental illness should not be punished or ostracized, but looked at instead with compassion and empathy – and provided access to medical treatment and services.

I was listening to Outsiders, a podcast series about the homeless community in Olympia, Washington that was developed by KNKX Public Radio and The Seattle Times. The team spent one year in the city documenting the stories of people grappling with the hardships of homelessness.

One episode tells the story of Jessica, a woman in her 30’s who has been homeless for two years. During her interview, Jessica reveals that her father left her when she was young because “he loved the drink more than he loved her“. Her mother became addicted to methamphetamines and shacked up with a series of boyfriends to support her drug habit. She was first molested at the age of 4 by one of her mother’s boyfriends and during her teen years she was pimped out to pay her mother’s bills.

Jessica was constantly moving and never lived in a stable home. She first got pregnant by an abusive boyfriend, who made her give up the child for adoption. She had a second child and lived in an apartment as a single mother for several years, but she was evicted when she could no longer afford to pay the rising rent. She lost custody of her daughter when she became homeless. She is striving to find employment and a place to live so she can reclaim her daughter; but she has developed a drug habit that helps her to block the pain she feels during the long nights spent in her tent under the city bridge. She is losing all hope.

So often, one’s lot in life is determined by its beginnings – whether a person grows up in an environment where they feel loved, respected and supported. What chance did Jessica have to become a functioning adult given the circumstances of her formative years and the trauma she has endured? How can a person live with hope when they grow up with nobody they can trust? Can I honestly say that my situation in life would be much different than Jessica’s if I had grown up under similar conditions?

As a society we are quick to judge people without knowing their full story. It is no surprise that the majority of the homeless population consists of individuals who have a tragic story to tell. Many suffer from PTSD like symptoms due to childhood traumas they suffered at the hands of their dysfunctional and abusive families.

Military veterans suffering from PTSD are provided subsidized government housing and free access to medical services to treat their symptoms; but no such programs are offered to homeless people who are left having to fend for themselves and end up falling through the cracks and becoming invisible.

The homeless population do not even benefit from temporary Government assistance programs which could have a meaningful positive impact to their life (like direct payments given to citizens through the stimulus plan) because they do not have a permanent address and there is no way to contact them.

Breaking the Blues

But you don’t have to be poor and homeless to suffer from depression. All you have to do is follow the lives of the rich and famous to understand that money and possessions do not guarantee happiness. The fact that there are over 12 thousand mental health facilities in the United States alone demonstrates that Depression is an equal opportunity illness that affects all levels of the socioeconomic ladder and every class of society.

Over the course of my life, I have encountered close friends and family members fighting to overcome frightening episodes of mental health distress that have darkened their minds. Most of them were fortunate enough to seek out and find professional treatment that helped them navigate their conditions.

To be honest, I have noticed that my own mind is subject to occasional bouts of the blues. These bouts appear irregularly in my life and it is often a mystery to me what brings them on or how long they will last. I tell myself it is OK to feel blue sometimes (reminding myself of the expression that a good day is a laugh and a cry) as long as it doesn’t negatively affect my relationships with the people I love or make me blind to the beauty that can be found in each day.

Over time I have discovered various coping techniques which I can employ to help me bust out of these bouts of the blues. Employing one or more of these techniques usually helps light to sneak in and drive out the darkness trying to spread over me.

• Exercise – I don’t know the science behind it, but I do know that when I exercise regularly I tend to feel better both physically and mentally.
• Meditation – Helps me to empty my mind, lowers my stress levels and allows me to look at life’s problems and uncertainties from a new perspective.
• The Arts – Listening to a concert, visiting a museum, attending a play; all of these activities bring to life for me the infinite capacity and wonder of the human spirit.
• Writing – When my first wife was fighting her losing battle with breast cancer, I began a Gratitude Journal. Every day I would write down three things that happened during that day that made me grateful. It helped me to think about something positive beyond the big sadness in my life. This Words To Live By blog also gives me a monthly opportunity to express myself about the topics that are taking up space in my mind.
• Religion – There is something comforting in attending Catholic Mass, knowing that the same rituals – celebrating the Good News that there is a higher power and that death is not the end – have been practiced by my ancestors and by untold millions worldwide for centuries.
• Wilderness – My happy place is being out in Nature, whether it be taking extended hikes through wilderness areas, walking the trails of my town, biking down a scenic road; or, my favorite – wading a cold mountain stream in search of hungry trout.
• Reading – A good book is like a magic carpet which can transport me to different worlds and different ages. Somerset Maugham felt that the habit of reading provides a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
• Grandchildren – Seeing the world through the eyes of your grandchildren is one of life’s most rewarding experiences. Watching them grow brings back happy memories of the past and instills hopeful thoughts of the future.
• Sleep – It’s hard to be joyful when you are tired. I’m amazed how much more pleasant the day is when I get a good night’s sleep or when I get to have a nap during the day.

I suppose all these blues busting techniques share one common element; they all tend to steer me away from the self-absorbed thoughts that typically run around in my head and they get me to start thinking about other people and about higher callings.

Warren Zevon, in his song “Don’t Let Us Get Sick“, describes how he uses this coping strategy to deal with his problems:

I thought of my friends
And the troubles they've had
To keep me from thinking of mine

Bob Dylan once gave his prescription for fighting the blues on his Theme Time Radio show, which I think is good advice to follow whenever we find our minds shrouded in darkness:

“I’m gonna tell you the magic formula for fightin’ the blues. What you got to do is go out and help someone more unfortunate than you. Go to an Orphanage. Play football with kids. Go to retirement homes. Go to Soup Kitchens. Go into Prisons. Go see some people. There are people everywhere who aren’t as well off as you. No matter how bad you have it, somebody’s got it worse. Instead of adding to the sadness in the world, why not lend a hand. Help somebody out and not just on Christmas. Why don’t you give it a try year round.“

Bob Dylan – Theme Time Radio Hour (Christmas Episode)

Wishing you all good mental health and a way for you to always make your dark clouds disappear…

‘Tis a Fearful Thing to Love

I recently facilitated a memorial service for my mother’s sister who lived to the goodly age of 100. My Aunt Jeannette Marie was a loving daughter, mother to 6 children, a grandmother, great grandmother and wife to two husbands.

The Last Photo of my Mother with her Sister

She was one of those people who would light up and make you feel good whenever you were in her presence. She always had a good word for everybody and even though she suffered tragedy in her life – her first dying in a train accident when he was just 24 – it was not in her nature to complain, choosing instead to focus on her many blessings.

With her sister’s passing, my mother, at 91 years old, became the last surviving person of that close 10 member family clan she grew up with. My mother was close to her sister and loved her dearly so it is natural that she is experiencing feelings of sadness, loss and grief. Especially because she no longer has anyone in her life who she can talk to about the “old days” and all the good and bad times they went through together as a family.

To begin the memorial service, I asked my wife to recite the poem ‘Tis a Fearful Thing’ that is believed to have been written by a Jewish Rabbi sometime in the 11th century. It is a moving poem about the intersection of grief and faith and love and it is often shared by Hospice teams with the families of those who are grieving a loved one who is nearing death.

‘Tis a Fearful Thing

‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be –
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.

One of the Five Remembrances that Buddhists contemplate during their meditation practices is this one:

I will be separated and parted from everyone and
everything that is dear to me

Anyone who lives long enough knows the pangs of sadness that come with loss. From the moment we are born and bond with our parents, grandparents and siblings; fall in love; marry; have children of our own—we are destined to endure the pain of losing someone we love—over and over again. My mother, at this point in her life, has had to say painful goodbyes to her husband, parents and 7 of her siblings, not to mention many close friends.

It’s enough to make you think that life is just an elaborate setup for suffering. But somehow we still manage to choose life. We choose to make friends, marry, bring new life into the world. We lose a spouse or partner and we decide to give our hearts to a new companion, opening ourselves up to more eventual sorrow. Are we in denial to think that death will not touch this new love too?

Why do conscious and highly intelligent beings make themselves vulnerable to the eventual pain and sorrow that comes with losing the one you love. Is love really something for fools? Is it not insanity to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result?

What is it that makes us choose to invest in love and life? The poem teaches us that it all comes down to love – because it is ‘a holy thing to love.’ Love, life, death and love again is what it means to be human.

The poem’s closing words reflect a profound truth that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit and the best character traits of the human species:

It is a human thing, love
a holy thing, to love what death has touched.

Love survives death. Death destroys the body but it does not touch love—or erase love. The body is impermanent but Love is eternal. We somehow know at the deepest level that life is about love. It may be that our divine purpose is to love, no matter how painful the loss of a loved one will be, and to send that love out into the heavens.

We choose to deeply love someone because we believe and trust that it will always keep us connected. Love becomes the unbreakable tether between those of us “here” and those who have passed on. It is knowing this that enables us to overcome our fear of the certainty of death and separation.

To love deeply is holy. Holy. Love keeps us connected to the Creator of all Beings, to all of those we have loved and all those to come.  Even though my mother is sad when she thinks about all the loved ones in her life who death has touched, she still feels a holy connection with them which helps season her grief with painful joy and a spiritual component of hope that leads her to believe she will be reunited with them someday in the afterlife.

Let us embrace that love which is not severed by death. Painful, fearful, a thing for fools? Perhaps. Perhaps for some, at first. But it is also a holy thing… A holy thing to love.

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.”

Parable of Perhaps

My town has what is called a Transfer station where residents can bring their home trash and recyclable materials to be collected for proper disposal. This is one chore that I actually look forward to every week because it gives me an opportunity to stop and peruse the on-site Book Swap Shack. It is typically stocked with an eclectic mix of adult and children’s books that reflects the diverse reading habits of our small community.

I have picked up – and dropped off –  many books over the years in that messy little book shack and I have discovered topics and titles that have served to send my mind wandering off in interesting and unplanned directions.

One such book I picked up last year,  “The Wheel of Life and Death” by Philip Kapleau, combined historical writings of Eastern and Western religious literature to examine how death, if viewed as an extension of life, can become a joyous occasion.

The book explains that our past actions influence not only our present life, but also our future death; therefore life and death are interrelated and desiring a good death highlights the importance of living a good life. With this in mind, the author explains that practices such as suicide, euthanasia, and pain-doping are obstacles to achieving the good death.

The book provides practical guidance about hospices, organ donation, living wills and funerals – along with helpful advice on meditations for the dying, ways of consoling the bereaved and checklists of things to do following a death.

The parts of the book that I found most appealing, however, were the supporting stories and perspectives on life that conveyed the wisdom of numerous authors, including Tolstoy, Socrates, and Ghandi.

One such story that I call the Parable of Perhaps is about a farmer who is trying to understand the meaning behind a series of sudden events that happen to him. I often think about the lesson of this parable whenever I experience unexpected misfortune or sudden good luck in my life.

Parable of Perhaps

A man’s horse broke out of his barn and ran away during the night. His neighbors came over to console him saying that it was very unfortunate he lost his horse. The farmer said “Maybe”.

The next day the farmer’s horse returned bringing with him seven wild horses. His neighbors then said how very lucky he was to gain seven more horses for his farm. The farmer said “Maybe”.

On the following day his son tried to ride one of the new wild horses and was thrown and broke his leg. “O how awful!” cried his neighbors. “Maybe” answered the farmer.

The next week soldiers came to conscript the young men of the village to fight in a war but the farmer’s son was not taken because his leg was broken. “How wonderful for you!” said the neighbors. “maybe”, said the farmer.

The lesson is that we cannot know the outcome of the things we experience in this life and whether they will turn out good or bad or both. What appears “good” to us today may be the cause of some future misfortune. In the same way, we may look back tomorrow with appreciation at something “bad” that happened to us today.

To illustrate, I can relate a series of events from my own life. When I went off to College I was a quiet boy lacking in confidence as I took my first steps toward independence. I became attracted to a beautiful girl who I met in one of my classes but I felt that she was out of my league and would never be interested in going out with the likes of me. Over the course of time I noticed that her and her friends were particularly interested in the members of a certain on-campus fraternity and they encouraged – even dared me to pledge the fraternity.

I really didn’t want to join this particular fraternity, as it had a reputation for harsh hazing practices and crazy campus stunts, but I signed up to pledge anyway, hoping it would encourage Miss-Out-of-My-League to look my way.

The hazing that occurred over the two week pledging period was even worse than I had imagined, but I managed to survive the ordeal and to my great excitement also to win the first of several dates with that prized girl.

I approached the first date with nervous anticipation and high expectations but it didn’t take me very long to notice that her beauty did not extend to her personality. It became obvious to me fairly quickly that she was self-centered, shallow and somewhat mean-spirited. I was not surprised or disappointed when she broke up with me after a couple weeks of dating.

I joined the fraternity for the wrong reasons, but when I think back on it I realize that my involvement with the club had the unintended effects of helping me to become more social and to gain the self-confidence that I was lacking – so much so that I eventually rose to become President of the Fraternity where I used my position to begin to modify some of those “harsh” hazing practices.

But even more important, my membership in the Fraternity made it possible for me to meet a Sorority girl, one who was beautiful both inside and out, who would eventually become my wife and the mother of my children.

So, in retrospect, the decision to join the Fraternity that I thought would be a “bad” experience, turned out to be good not because it won me a date with the girl (which turned out to be “bad”) but  because it helped me to gain confidence and lifetime friends and started me down the path that led to the true girl for me.

Some Eastern Religious philosophies teach that assigning events in our lives to tags like “good’ or “bad” is a prescription for suffering because these ideas just cause us to fear events that may never happen in the future or lead us to disappointment when events do not bring us expected good fortune.

That is why Mindfulness meditation practices instruct practitioners to look at events in their lives objectively and unemotionally as neither good or bad. If we can detach ourselves from these tags then we can better focus on the moment and not expend energy wishing things were different or worrying about events whose outcomes can not be known.

Taking this approach to its logical conclusion, we should also consider death, not as the  ultimate “bad” event in our life and something to be feared – because we cannot know what lies on the other side. Maybe it will be good…

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…

Mathematics is the Poetry of Logical Ideas

One of my post retirement goals is to spend more time reading. After living in my town for 8 years it felt good to finally visit my library last week to request a library card. I have a long list of books that interest me and plan to dedicate at least one hour every day to reading.

My reading list contains novels and biographies but it also includes technical books on engineering and mathematics. There is something profound and beautiful about the laws of mathematics which led Albert Einstein to equate math and logic with poetry and the philosopher Aristotle to observe that the mathematical sciences exhibit order, symmetry and limitation; and that these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.

Math is beautiful because it is governed by proofs, logic and a set of laws that can not be disputed. Mathematical laws properly applied to solve problems lead to insight and truth – solutions that can be trusted. In a world where so much of life falls into areas of gray, it is refreshing to work occasionally in the black and white world of math.

Today’s polarized political environment generates a lot of arguments and misinformation. Too many people purposefully practice the politics of division and fear – spreading select information that matches their personal biases of what is right and wrong; telling people what they want to believe; and keeping a closed mind to alternate facts that contradict their preconceived positions.

Decisions made with insufficient facts always invite danger. At critical moments, people tend to see exactly what they wish to see, rather than objectively considering all the facts. Logic is the beginning of wisdom and without logic bad decisions will be made. The country would be much better off if our governing officials eliminated  emotion and party politics from their decision making process and instead used logic, facts, statistics, chemistry and science to craft wise policies that will best solve our nations problems.

I have discovered that there also appears to be health benefits associated with doing math. I recently worked on a book of Math puzzles which occupied and focused my mind over a period of several weeks. I was surprised that working on these puzzles had a positive effect on my mind and body similar to the effects I get when I meditate. While I am working on a math puzzle, all other life distractions temporarily disappear and I find that my mind becomes more focused and my body less stressed. I think a topic on “Mathematics Meditation” would make for an interesting TED Talk and be a good area for future studies in the meditation sciences field.

One last cool thing about math is that it can be used to perform magic tricks that will amaze your friends and encourage them to further explore the mysteries of math and numbers.

Try this Math as Magic trick with one of your friends:

• Have a friend give you any 3 digit number [For example, the number 519 – this trick will work with any 3 digit number]
• Repeat the digits to make a 6 digit number [519519]
• Tell the friend that your magical power leads you to believe that the number is evenly divisible by 13 [519519 / 13 = 39963 : No remainder!]
• Now tell the friend that you feel the resulting number is evenly divisible by 11 [39963 / 11 = 3633 : Again no remainder!]
• Now, have your friend divide this new number by lucky number 7 and say Shazam when the number that is returned is the original 3 digit number they gave you [3633 / 7 = 519!]

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God” – Euclid

 

 

“The crow of anxiety always finds some branch to land on”

This is a quote I read by South African artist William Kentridge who was asked during an interview why his desk was so messy. He explained that the scraps of paper littering his desk represented the remains of different fragments of ideas that were moving across his mind – awakening him at 4 in the morning as his brain was jumping between 50 different anxieties.

The image of crows landing on the tree branches of my mind is a wonderfully descriptive way to capture the anxieties that I sometimes obsess over in my own life – the thoughts that stay in the back of my mind, preventing me from living in the moment and enjoying life to the fullest.

We can become our own worst enemies when we let the worries of tomorrow prevent us from enjoying the blessings of today. There is a lyric verse from a Tom Petty song “Crawling Back to You” that speaks about how worry just leads to exhaustion and futility:

“I’m so tired of being tired
Sure as night will follow day
Most things I worry about
Never happen anyway”

People can make themselves sick and tired worrying all day about things that will never happen. How much better and more productive we all would be if we could just let go of our anxieties and devote our energies to making the most of each day.

It is easier said than done though – and it is difficult to stop anxieties from lodging on the tree branches of our minds without employing one or more stress relief coping mechanisms. I find the following activities help me to keep my anxieties at bay:

• Prayer – daily prayer has a power to comfort me because it reminds me that there is a higher power who sees all ends and that I can take those concerns and worries I have that are beyond my control and place them in the hands of divine providence.
• Exercise – regular exercise seems to have a strong effect on reducing my anxiety and I don’t know why. It may be related to brain chemistry, improved blood flow, or just being too fatigued after a workout to worry. During prolonged exercise I often find myself working through my anxieties subconsciously which usually helps me to put them aside at the end of the workout.
• Meditation – I am a relative newcomer to the practice of meditation, but I have been surprised given my limited experience how effective this ancient technique can be. Meditation teaches you to empty your mind, to put aside concerns that enter your thoughts and just concentrate on your breathing. A mantra can be used to help concentration – I have used simple phrases like “Grass Withers”, “All is Vanity”, “Must Pass” because they help remind me of the transience of life and the insignificance of things that I mistakenly believe are so important.
• Music – this is my go to activity for clearing my mind of thoughts that are bouncing around my head and keeping me awake at night. I keep an iPod by my bed loaded with a special collection of peaceful and contemplative songs. Listening to these songs seems to break the cycle of thoughts in my mind, pushes my anxieties into the background and allows me to relax  enough to fall back asleep.
• Journaling – this is something that I do infrequently, but I find it especially helpful at times of greatest stress. When my wife of 22 years was struggling with illness and losing her battle with breast cancer I began a gratitude journal. Every few days I would write in the journal three things I was thankful for on that day. They were usually simple things like a shared family meal or the warming sun on my face on a cold winter day – but for a brief moment that journal activity forced me to focus on the blessings in my life and not just my struggles.

So, I hope any readers of this blog have discovered their own effective techniques for pruning the branches of anxieties in their life and in the words of that renowned radio Psychologist  Frasier Crane, “I wish you good mental health”.