Elixir of Nepenthe

Nepenthe (pronounced [nə-ˈpen(t)-thē]) is a medicine for sorrow, literally an anti-depressant – a "drug of forgetfulness" mentioned in literature and mythology. 


Imagine what that would be like, a drug of forgetfulness. My first thought was that it would inevitably be abused. Who would take it? How severe must the trauma be to demand forgetting? Would their be psychological gatekeepers of the nepenthe?

Would a bad break-up be sufficient distress to prescribe the drug? I think not.


The loss of a child. Perhaps, yes. Direct, immediate psychic trauma would meet my criteria. War experiences, torture, physical abuse. But "a medicine for sorrow," we learn so much from our experiences, particularly from death. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, an elderly neighbor; don't these losses prepare us for the truly painful losses. We all have different attachments to friends and relatives, but what if we never learned about death, about how it feels. Yes, we become callous; we call it experience, wisdom; we call it life, the measure of being human.


No, I think nepenthe would have to be saved for those really awful experiences, those that carry such sorrow, such trauma that forgetfulness would be the humane course to recovery.


Surely nepenthe would come in a gilded chalice and possess a bitter yet forgetful taste.

Rest In Peace Gator

A good friend died this week. He took his own life. We are all shocked and saddened by his passing and we are all asking ourselves - why? Which is to say, we are having the normal human reaction to such an unnecessary loss.

I am not going to praise him here, most of you did not know him. For those who did, we will find the time and place to share our memories. Today I am going to do something in his honor.

This is for our lost friend.

If you read this blog and you have my phone number then I ask should you ever feel so lost, so alone that you consider leaving us, I beg you to use that number and call me. If you read this blog and you don't have my phone number then I ask that you call that person today, the one who you talk to when times are darkest. Call them today and agree that should you ever walk too close to the edge, you will reach out to them. You make that promise in the light of day; promise you will cry out past the darkness. Make the promise, make it today.

My friend called me at times when he brushed against his demons and we would look at the world in ways only two friends in conversation could, I believe it helped. This time he didn't call and all of us are left to ask - why.

Rest in Peace Randy, we will miss you for a long, long time.

Silly Bigotries

Church leaders [in the 1780s] saw theaters as competition with the kind of indoctrination they provided. Laws were passed in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island banning the performance of plays. Preachers spoke of theaters as 'the Devil's Synagogues,' places where fabricated human emotions were on display. The contempt continued into the nineteenth century, a time in which many religious leaders forbade dancing in public. Acting was considered an even viler form of expression, one step down from public drunkenness. - Finding Oz by Evan I. Schwartz

We read those words today and think how pedestrian, how silly, how deluded were those ancestors of ours. Banning theater seems so ridiculous as we think back from our place in the 21st century. Yet while plays were being banned as works of satan, there was also slavery; women couldn't vote - well you know the list.

Fast forward to the 60's and coalesce the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement and the anti-war vietnam protests. One might have thought that the baby boomer generation would have swept away all forms of prejudice as they aged through the society and took control of the means of production and the direction of zeitgeist. But no, it has been left to the children and grandchildren of the boomers to put down prejudice against homosexuals, hispanics and political independents. As the boomers die off, so too will those lingering pockets of prejudice and injustice.

But before the Gen. X and Gen. Y members get too smug, I have to wonder what lingering anthropocentric chauvinisms the Millennials will have to step up to extinguish. Will they be the ones to finally address environmental degradation? What lingering discriminations will they put to rest? And what narrow-mindedness will today's youth carry to their graves?

The good news is that we seem to be evolving in the right direction. Each generation does seem to be shedding the blind hatreds and unfounded fears of their elders. Want to accelerate the process - it might be as simple as watching what your kids do and emulating them.

Snowpack

I wrote a short post the other day about our late wet season this year. As some of you know I have this tendency to follow single facts down the rabbit hole that is the internet. I like research, I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on the topic. Yes, the snowpack interested me, so I looked a bit deeper as it were.

Yesterday and today it was been wet and grey outside my windows and I read an article by a water management district representative who said that we should not be worried about flooding just yet because this "usually wet late season storm would keep the temperatures cold in the mountains." He went on to say that this system was also going to add even more snow to the already above average snowpack, so the flood watch would continue much later than usual, probably until the end of July.

Off I went looking for data on average snowpack and runoff. The first good source I found was a chart based on the average snowpack as of April 1st. It seems that is an excellent date to measure from because late March and early April is statistically the height of the snowpack throughout California. The melt begins around then followed by the streams and rivers beginning to rise.

First stat I found was that as of June 1st we were at 109% of the average April 1st snowpack up here in northern California. Not a worrisome total at all, but you gotta be careful with statistics. If we are at 109% of normal that would be one thing, but the numbers say we are at 109% of normal for April 1st that arbitrary measured date. So I had to ask: On June 1st, how are we compared to average for June 1st? I mean shouldn't we already have had about two months of melting?

It took some searching but I found the numbers. Before this big storm came through, the one I am looking at outside my window right now; before this drenching we were at 559% of normal snowpack for June 1st. No typo there - Over five times normal. Its a double whammy of a big snow season and a wet spring that has delayed the spring melt.

Donner Summit at the top of the pass between Sacramento and Reno has seen a staggering 740 inches of snow this winter/spring (so far). Only four years since 1900 have seen snowfall in excess of 700 inches. The average is just over 400 inches. In 1982-83, Donner got 880 inches of snow; that summer in many higher elevations the snowpack did not completely melt, not until the following spring after a more normal winter in 83-84.

What does this all mean for the 2011 fire season and for potential flooding? Well short term predictions are generally unpredictable. But as far as global warming or climate change as is the current PC label - this year's wet winter adds nearly nothing to that conversation. Annual or decade long variations do not preclude the scientific evidence on the long term effects of greenhouse gas emissions. The only piece of evidence I can verify is that it is very wet outside at that moment and snowing up in the Sierras.

Meanwhile, could someone please locate two wolverines and a pair of pythons.

Constructing a Personality

"I am just a bundle of reaction formation responses."

I don't know if I love my friends because they are my friends or if they are my friends because I love them. But I do know I love the wonderful things they say. So much laughter, learning and blog fodder.

Reaction formation refers to a coping mechanism (Freudian defense mechanism) by which we replace unacceptable or anxiety producing behaviors and emotions with their direct opposite. Or at least what is perceived to be the opposite. Different flip-sides for different folks as it were.

Of course, as with all psychological theory it all gets much more diffuse and complicated as applied to various personas and personalities. For instance, if you are reacting to a parent who is often angry then you might avoid anger yourself by overly compensating, being always agreeable, never oppositional. Perhaps trading one dysfunctional behavior for another. How then does someone express an emotion like anger when reacting to a pathological use of that same emotion in parents or peers?

Well fortunately we are not just a bundle of reaction formations. We really do have free will; we actually can break free of whatever traits our childhood imposed upon us. Our maturation allows us options other than reaction formation. Still buried down deep or not buried at all lurks the remanent of all we have been and might have been. All twisty and turny (psychological terms) yet changeable, malleable and unique.

All my friends are nearly normal and I love them for exactly those qualities.

Evocative Music or Not

"Music jerks you around to feel stuff 
you could better have left alone."

That quote comes from a good friend of mine. She said it sometime last year and like a diligent writer I jotted the words down for later use. Our conversation didn't stop with that line, she went on to say that feeling big emotions was just not worth it because the really bad ones are very painful even when evoked or relived via music. And, she continued, the good emotions that music pulls forth always end when the music ends and you lose them all over again.

Yes, that is a fairly dark view of music and perhaps of the world in general. It contrasts sharply with my own feelings about music and my personal worldview. Remembering even reliving long ago emotions is not only healthy; I believe it is healing and growth oriented. Yes, music can recall old hurts and stir dormant memories but catharsis is good for the soul. Stirring the pot brings all the flavors of wisdom to bear on our place in the present.

I let my friend know I was going to post this blog because I wanted to hear her say it out loud -

"You know I've started listening to music again."

Yes I did notice, which is how I knew it was time to share this nugget with my blog friends.

It's All Your Fault!

The student section at Yost Hockey Arena in Ann Arbor is a raucous, some might say rude bunch. One of their favorite cheers comes after the Michigan squad scores a goal. They all stand and point at the visitor's goalie and chant:

"It's all your fault. It's all your fault. It's all your fault."

I was reminded of this recently when a friend had a fender bender. An expensive event when you carry a $1,000 deductible in a society where no auto repair is less than a grand. What was unnerving was listening to her on the phone with her insurance agent admitting it was her fault. Unfortunately she had said exactly those words to the other driver at the scene of the accident. Even in the description of the incident I overheard, I had doubts about her culpability. But, of course, the moral of the story is not that you should never admit guilt; nay, the object lesson is the mindset in life that it's all your fault.

My friend is one of those guilt-ridden personalities. You know those people who do guilt so well, so often and so quickly that there really is no room for anyone else to shoulder any part of the burden. I will not mention her heritage here, you are allowed to speculate. I will, however, say that upbringing is the key; with the true guilt focused directly on the parents.

Guilt is instilled at an early age, most personality traits are. What one has to wonder is why of all the gifts to give a child, a parent would select this one? The answer, of course, is that the adult is compensating for their own feelings by projecting them on their child. Some parents are wise enough to compensate by giving their child the opposite or positive referent to their own tortured soul. Others - not so much.

Moral of the story - At least 50% of the time, it really isn't your fault. Ponder that possibility and we'll work on lowering the number next session.

A Blog is Not a Life

Guilty! I offer no excuse, I have heard myself say it in various forms.

"I mentioned this in my blog."

"I have a post about that in my blog queue."

"I told this story awhile back on my blog."

I do sincerely apologize for any truncated or abandoned conversations that have sprung from my egomaniacal references to one tiny cul de sac on this infrequently traveled cyber street. Blogging like nearly every other endeavor in life has some positives and some of those other things. One of those negative qualities is the author's belief that everyone they know in the real world reads their blog and retains the essential and life altering insights the blogger believes were conveyed therein.

We really are all brilliant in our own minds. Sometimes that attitude leaks out through the keyboard.

Sorry, it will probably happen again.

--

cartoon from americanhell.com

Shopping

In some ways I am very much a boy. One of my y-chromosomal deficiencies is shopping, as has been recently chronicled thru my IKEA experience. Last month, while I was up in Weed, I took the co-pilot seat on the monthly "big shopping" trip to Yreka. Many of you city folk may not realize that when you live out in the country you really can't be running to the supermarket every other day, not when that means a 30, 40 or 50 mile drive each way. So you plan ahead. Since I was basically crashing at my friends house while the Berkeley apartment was being remodeled, I felt it only fair to make at least one shopping run, despite my aversion to commerce and over consumption, I do believe in eating.

So I took the passenger seat with my hostess one Tuesday afternoon and we hit the road with an empty trunk and a bin of tote bags. I discovered only after we were on the road north that the modus operandi for a "Big Shop" allowed for side trips, which in this case meant we would be stopping at The Spawn of the Devil Store (Wal-Mart) and the Dollar Store. I had clearly not taken enough medication to get me through this forced march of consumerism, but I felt obligated since the Wal-Mart stop included chemicals for the spa, which I used every single day. And yes, I cannot tell a lie - I bought an item that was not on the shopping list and was not edible, it truly is a vortex of evil and impulse spending.

But this post is not about any of what I have meandered on about thus far. Nah, tis about our checkout experience from the Arkansas-China outlet store. We had finished in the garden section (spa products) and since there was an open register with only one other customer, we decided to checkout there. Did I mention we had bough a month's supply of individual serving meals for both the cat and the dog, on sale don't you know. Let's just say we had a full basket in excess of eighty individual items. But only one person in the queue in front of us and she had exactly six items. We were good.

I now change professional garb and step in my psychologist demeanor. The lady in front of us wanted to divided her purchases into two groups, not unreasonable she could have been picking up a few things for a friend. However, I heard her say:

"I only buy food on this card." and she produced a Visa debit card, which was then followed by having to guess several times at her passcode and then not having enough in her account to cover the four food items. I made the assumption that she was poor and considered paying for her food items.

She and the slow burn clerk then switched to a second card, which was a $25 gift Wal-Mart debit card someone had given her for Christmas (our story takes place in March). That had enough remaining balance to cover the food items, but having to put food on anything but her food debit card as very disconcerting to our slowly becoming bizarre shopper.

By this time two more shoppers had pulled up behind us, but when another register was opened they bum rushed it and did not allow the next in line (me!) to take my rightful place. So we stayed behind our single shopper, who had now moved on to her non-food items and another card, this time a credit card. This card went through but there was an issue with one of the items, which apparently had been listed as on sale for $2.59 but was showing up on the register as $2.89. A call could have gone out for a price check but the register clerk decided not to go there and keyed in the 30 cent savings. Methinks the large male in line may have influenced her decision, but I was only standing that close to hear the next bit of disturbed dialog.

All items are now purchased, but wait. There is the matter of cashback, which I (because now I am paying very close attention) understand goes only on the credit card, but this was the credit card that had to be used in place of the first debit card that did not have enough credit to debit the four food items; so the concern is whether one can cope with using the credit card twice in the same day. I am not sure if this is because the credit card gets frightened if removed from the wallet more than once a day or if perhaps two transactions dated the same day on the monthly statement resembles the sign of satan. I'm just speculating here.

Our shopper is not poor; I inferred this from the Lexus key she pulled out when searching her cavernous purse. Not poor but definitely certifiable. Wait, you say, too harsh an assessment. OK then, she finally decides she can indeed use the card twice and runs it through the card reader again in order to get three dollars cash back. Three dollars!

Hold on, you say again, maybe she is poor. She finally gets her three bucks and tucks them into her wallet with what I can see is a stack of bills totaling at least several hundred dollars.

I would say more but I was busy stacking thirty individual cat dinners in succulent gravy on the checkout counter. Eventually our queued up shopper drifts away into whatever universe she alone inhabits and the checkout lady turns her attention to me, I say:

"There are thirty of these cat dinners if you want to scan just one."

"They make us run them through one at a time," she sighs.

"I'll want to put these on separate credit cards."

I couldn't resist.

Message in a Bloggle

I have been giving feedback to a friend about a new blog she is participating in. There are several contributors and right now while they are already adding content, they are also wrangling over the look and feel of the website as well as the explanatory text for potential visitors. My continuing comment to them has been: "Who is your audience?" after you answer that question then I ask: "Do you think you have reached them?"

Insider comments and ambiguous text at the beginning invariably means you lose some readers at the outset, which is fine if you really want only the insiders who "get it." The problem is too many cliches and everyone begins to feel like they are reading text without the secret decoder ring. Just because you know it and even consider it common knowledge doesn't make it so. 

Always, always, always be considerate of your audience otherwise you are writing to yourself and as I have told my agent many times: "I don't need to write the stories down for myself, I have already experienced them many times over. I will only take the energy to put them on paper if someone else might benefit from them."

So today a wee bit of un-decoded message from me today, all of it contained in the artwork at the top. Just enjoy the picture, all but one of you. I will say that I really miss the fall season, I am going to attempt to plan my wanderings better so that I may be in the midwest or northeast for as many falls as possible in the future. The colors, smells and temperament of the season just resonates with my soul. I really enjoy the Bay Area all year round but the fall simply lacks in birch, maple and oak.

--

art: Robin Rose

Think For Yourself

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I seldom queue my blog posts, generally I write within 24 hours of making them public. But I do keep a file of potential topics filled with ideas for future posts or issues that needs some research before I expound. Earlier this fall (Sept. 6th, 8th & 10th) I put up quote inspired posts. I had gone through my cyber-stock of quotations and pulled out four that tweaked my fingertips; I then produced three posts and one draft. That draft has sat here in the blog queue for two months; every week or so I post-date it by another week and then it rolls around again and I shove it into the future again. Clearly I want to say something but I also just didn't seem ready.

The quote I am kicking around is the one by Goethe above:

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

Which sounds a bit like #99 on my 100 Things About Me:

I have one prejudice; I abhor voluntary stupidity.

Last week Monday I spent an afternoon searching for "Voter on the Street" interviews just a day before the mid-term election, I continued that experiment on election day watching exit interviews done at polls around country. What struck me is that it may not be stupidity I dislike so much.

My issue has never been with IQ or education, no it has always been with entrenched points of view that are resistant to facts, logic, open discussion or new information. Voter after voter parroted some sound byte created by some political wonk or wonkette for the express purposes of giving those voters a rational for their position. Further investigation showed that these pithy bits o'wisdom were nearly always focused on a set of beliefs not on a particular policy or candidate. It seems if you question a single nugget of illogic you are, in fact, shaking the very foundations of an entire complex of beliefs that a person has constructed to frame their view of "How Things Really Are" and/or "How Things Ought to Be."

I do believe I am going to alter my point of view. Stupidity is not really what bothers me. What I abhor is the inability to change; the unwillingness to hear another point of view and consider the merits of that position. To believe so fervently in your own worldview as to be invulnerable to enlightenment.

Perhaps they shouldn't have started this great endeavor with words like: "We know these truths to be self-evident . . . " But then again, I've been wrong before.

Some Kind of Confusion Here

I needed an early morning walk. Our brief flirtation with an overly heated Indian summer is over, at least on the ocean side of the Bay, so I headed out the door on my way to Golden Gate Park just two blocks away. The fog still lingered in the near distance with a grey bank just above tree top level. I was swaddled in layers, hood up, just a meander to clear my mind, no need for human interaction, just movement and today at a slow pace.

My mood was a bit sour, I noticed the far off construction noize and not the chirping birds. A dropped chunk of trash was more annoying than the late season blooms were uplifting. Sour, yep that's a good word.

I angled away from every sound of people. Eventually, I had stumbled a half-circle path back to what passes for civilization. Rather than go directly back into the neighborhood, I stayed in the park and moved east to shorten the distance between park exit and the house. Less development, more green and fewer humans to encounter.

I could hear them from a distance. A couple arguing, a bit drunk, at 7am probably still drunk from a chilly night in the park. Homeless I assumed, fighting over something mundane rather than face their real problems. The words were worn bits of verbal fencing, they had volleyed like this before. 

I could have doubled-back a block and not passed them but I was suddenly tired and wanted the quickest route back to my book and the sofa. I didn't have my wallet but as always I had stuck a twenty in my pocket just in case. I pulled it out with the intention of handing it to them without comment, I couldn't save them from themselves but maybe today could be a little better.

I stepped around the last bush between me and the verbal battle. Wait! she was in an evening dress, he a tux.

"I don't recognize you any more."

"ME! You're going to vote for Palin!"

Were they actually standing next to a limo?

"This is not about politics..."

"No it's about money and you wanting more and more."

Yep, a limo and driver idled thirty feet away at the curb.

I went for the mixed berry scone with a hot chocolate and gave the change to Emma the homeless lady who I have seen in this neighborhood for several years now. I am fairly sure its not about politics or money for her.

---

art by Andrzej Krauze

The Fabric of Friendship

I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.

-Gilda Radner

Like Gilda I make my sartorial selections based solely on comfort. I once wrote that "96.4% of my clothes are cotton" but I really don't think I own that many shoes anymore. I remember as if it was yesterday the first dress slacks my mother bought me, they were gray and felt like fiberglass on my legs. I just don't get scratchy garments, perhaps there is a wide variation in tactile sensitivity or it may be that I am simply too sensitive for this harsh world. But this is not a post about clothing but rather one about comfort. I stumbled upon the Gilda Radner quote and it reminded me of one of my absolute favorite lines -

I like my friends as I like my sofa that they may easily be reclined upon.

Unfortunately I am reminded of this by an olde friend who is ever so slowly slipping away. Not from life mind you but from our friendship. I had not been able to figure out exactly why this was happening until recently when I was with him and a small gathering of his friends. The conversation was sarcastic, critical of everyone identified as "they" and just plain unhappy. I don't know what happened to my friend but he now runs with the truly disenchanted and morose.

I enjoy the company of bright, talented, interesting and interested friends and those who seek comfort in our friendship. Opinions can held and defended without vitriol, disagreements tend to be of degree not of core beliefs. Laughter is genuine, conversation is expansive and care is inclusive that they may be easily reclined upon.

Peripheral Epiphany

I got a call last night from the east coast, which made it a very late call for him. He was on his way home from the emergency room, she would stay the night for observation. During the call I switched off the reading lamp to accentuate the audio, after he hung up I sat in the gloom and wondered. The diagnosis was not life-threatening, there had been a couple of options in that ominous category but they had been ruled out. Probably just an added pill taken twice a day forever. Those were facts or at least medical opinions, not what I was pondering alone in the dark. Once again dis-ease, a lack of ease, eventually I drifted off.

This morning on my walk there was an accident. There was a car, there was a bike, it was an unfair fight. I was less than a block away and drew the bicyclist as my charge, a nearby neighbor got the hysterical driver, 911 had been dialed. He was fairly cool, the collision was mostly his fault, we agreed on the diagnosis - broken fibula, maybe the tibia too but the fibula for sure. His only real concern was not having to deal with the overly distraught driver, another neighbor ran interference for us and kept the victims separated. I asked about calling someone and then he got a overly defensive and much too nervous, I cut that off at the lymbic system by offering to make the call for him. "After the (now arriving) paramedics tell us which hospital and play it down, he can be a real drama queen." In twenty minutes the whole scene was over, only the police lingered with the driver but my supporting role had ended. 

I was not a block further on my walk when some semblance of clarity descended, I had been resisting mortality as the easy answer to what has been vexing me, then I began to assemble this list - in reverse order:

-the car/bike accident;

-late night phone call from the emergency room;

-she loses her job, they move-in together it's the "right thing to do";

-drowning death of a 4 yr. old. - three degrees of separation;

-second parent slides slowly into dementia;

-benefit for a lung transplant;

-another retirement date set;

And that's the list from just the last seven days. I kept on rolling back in time with illness, aches, pains, many more retirements, several additional job losses. I resisted once again the easy answer - just time and mortality.

The reason some events are labeled cliches is because we all recognize them as basic, common human experience. It is indeed normal, but we do so resist being normal. Part of me wants to come away from this with a simple and truthful acknowledgment that I am indeed a very fortunate fellow. Another part of me doesn't.

You Say You Want a Revolution

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.    
                                                                    -Thomas Jefferson


Nope not a Tea Party fan here. I have stopped calling them tea baggers because of Bill, oops I did it again - nevermind. I am not a fan but I completely relate to their feelings of being disenfrancised and so should everyone of my generation. Remember the resistance of the great silent majority to the "revolution" of the 60s, you remember the one born of drugs, sex, rock & roll and then fueled by the war in Vietnam. There was simply mindless opposition to what was being said. Change was an evil word.

Now I will admit that the opposition to the Tea Party rhetoric is more articulate today and the opposition holds both the White House and the Congress. The Johnson and Nixon administrations had all the power around Vietnam until we took it away from them.

How did that happen?

Recruitment, which is precisely what the Tea Party movement must continue to do. Winning a couple of seats in November from a few old, worn political soft targets won't do it. Any revolution that seeks to overturn the current order without burning it down must have a strong, vocal base. Wacko speeches and thinly veiled conspiracy theories won't reach enough of the disgusted voters who may be sympathetic to the emerging platform of the Tea Party.

Many on the left and in the middle thought that Obama was going to be like a little rebellion now and then, clearly they were wrong. Sorry friends but I did tell you. Yes I know "only two years" and "Bush left the financial mess" and "worldwide economic downturn" but the left wing talking heads on CNN are just as much talking point mimes as are the Fox News naysayers. We've been through one revolution, how was that for you? I mean compared to today . . . Yes, you can work within the system, if the system works.

I'm not sure if the Tea Party will ever be the storm in the atmosphere that Jefferson was referring to but I, like most of you, feel the days of slow gentle rains are not going to cut it anymore. What we need is another good cleansing tsunami.
---
art: Barry Blitt-NYTimes

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. -Andre Gide

The San Francisco Bay area has a lot of teachers. A wide variety of traditions spawn these transmitters of wisdom - buddhist, hindu, new age, tantric, christian, jewish, islamic, gaian, feminist, eco, gecko, whacko and other. With several invitations to local events this past week, I have once again encountered a cross-section of these teachers. Invariably I am struck by the same observation when I attend such a gathering, a reflection I first had over twenty years ago which seems to be as accurate today as it was then.

Nearly every lama, priest, rinpoche, tulku, mahatama, guru, maharishi, mawlawi, mullah, rebbe, goddess and just plain teacher I have encountered over lo these many years has devotees. I have no problem with the teachers, my issue is with the followers. OK, so maybe I have some issue with some of the teachers, but they can teach, push, hawk, sell or prostelytize any position, scripture, devotion, gospel or worldview they like. As someone once said: "It's nearly a free country."

No my gripe, complaint, distain is not with the guru but with the devotee. The slavish devotion, which in many eastern traditions is referred to as Bhakti -- that I have a problem with. I simply have a full body revulsion listening to any presentation where when the speaker enters the room, half of the audience falls on the floor in worship. What brilliance has this person offered up that prompts someone to extremes of adulation?

"He's a man, he's just a man and I've had so many men before in very many ways. He's just one more." lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar.

The title of this post is incomplete, the full title of the book by Sheldon Kopp is: If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!

True teachers, in my view, tend to admonish their listeners away from disciple-hood; they advocate a free and questioning approach to their teachings, not a prostrate worship of someone who is just another seeker with some insight to share. But clearly there is some wide spread need to bow and scrape to a slightly more enlightening being than oneself, which is why I suppose I stop to pet every cat that crosses the path of my journey.

Stuff

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness. -John Ruskin

For me it began in 1999, I was moving from San Francisco to Ann Arbor. I had lived in the Haight-Asbury section of the City for a decade and while I had not accumulated a lot of new stuff there, I was still living with the detritus of my profligate years in L.A. Besides I was moving to a fully furnished house in Michigan and there was simply no place for my stuff.

The living room went to a couple of friends who had just returned to the City. The kitchen I still visit in Sonoma, there was a lot of divestiture and donation. But still a load went by moving van to the midwest, far less than had made the L.A. to S.F. move a decade earlier but I still was burdened.

After six years in Michigan I uprooted again, this time for Las Vegas. Once again, I tried to untether myself from more of the stuff of life. I gave up my 15 yr. old platform california king and my wide wooden desk of 25 years. I managed to depart for the desert with only a car load of personal items and three boxes shipped ahead. I was feeling lighter.

Three years in Nevada and I was even less encumbered, the memorabilia box was ceremonially cremated, the family album was sorted and parsed. I do still have a half empty storage closet up in Sebastopol waiting for my next surge of dispossession. 

Since moving into the Berkeley apartment I have acquired the high mag. binoculars w/ tripod, which break down and fit under the back seat of the car; one rotating fan, which will be donated to a forever overheated friend and one blow-up bed. I really, really don't want stuff. I have also learned that actual baggage is much easier to put down than the psychological leavings of a life. Real permanent things truly do make me weary. The head stuff -- well that's what wisdom is all about.

Dis-Ease

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

-Albert Camus

Today a little vignette to illustrate my point. About twenty years ago, I knew a lady, perhaps she was a client. Marnie was 36, had three kids and a husband who traveled for work often. She worked full time, kids were in school - 9th, 6th and 3rd grade; family planning don't you know. Big comfortable house that came with a big uncomfortable mortgage. The office where she worked was about fifteen miles from home, not a long commute but not right around the corner either. Dean, the husband, worked in the city a solid 40 miles one way and he was out of town two weeks a month though not always for the full week each time. Enough frequent flyer mileage that airport travel and big winter weather patterns were a family concern, at least for the adults.

Money was not tight but they did spend what they made. They did not want for the stuff their social standing required but without any real savings they were precariously perched on the lowest rung of the upper middle class. There was no marital cheating, no heavy drinking except perhaps at the two or three major social events of the year. Sometimes they had sex but mostly they were too tired. The kids were everything and as Marnie said at our first meeting: "Our family is everything and that's not enough."

I had scribbled in my notes: "middle class malaise" - a pithy but accurate diagnosis.

A couple of months into our conversation I had a vacation coming up and Marnie joked about patient abandonment. When I returned there was a cancellation for her next appointment, so we had a interlude of nearly a month between sessions. When we met again, she had a new plan for her family. There had been an accident, four of the neighborhood boys were in the car and one was killed. He was the son of one of Marnie's neighborhood friends. He was one of her son's friends but David, her son, had been at a weekend soccer meet and not in the fatal car. 

Marnie and her family were past the trauma, it had been over three weeks since the accident. But her plan came out of the realizations of that loss so close to home. She and her husband were about to tell the children that they were going "slow down the treadmill" -their imagery not mine. No more designer clothes, no more new gadgets, more home cooked meals, more family time. Eventually, dad was going to cut back on travel. Basically, they were going to stop living up to some ideal that Madison Avenue was promoting, again their language. Oh and -- no more therapy.

If you will, try to put yourself inside Marnie's body before the life changing accident. Feel the pressure of keeping up, get a sense of the frustration that comes out as "it's just not enough." Imagine the stress of each child, not one not two but three, the husband, job, bills, the future and the path that stretches in front of you. Got it?

Now take all of that angst, pack in all into one big amorphous blob; detach the family, the job, the entire external world. All you have left is the feeling of dis-ease, of not being calm or content or quiet or relaxed or at ease. Now stuff that big gob of unsatisfactorness into your body, your heart, your spirit, your soul. And wake up every morning feeling without ease. Nothing to attach the feeling to, not a job or a bad relationship or too many bills. The feeling of dis-ease exists as an entity unto itself and unto yourself.

There are people who have that experience every day of their life.

Sure there are degrees, sometimes you can control the darkness with strength of will. Pharmaceuticals work sometimes too, of course, what suppresses the anxiety also damps down the joy. Then you get to add in life, you remember this dis-ease comes fully formed without the everyday anchors of work, money, relationship, health care, Iraq, hurricanes or oil spills. No you get to start your day already burdened by the grey of greys, now stir in what the "normal people" call life and prepare for the big overwhelm.

The point? 

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

Don't be a nobody [or be a nobody, wait reverse that].

Backwaters of Time

August, die she must

The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;

September I'll remember.

A love once new has now grown old.

-Simon & Garfunkel, April Come She Will

Autumn is my favorite season, not so much in California and not at all in Las Vegas but I do get nostalgic for the midwest come autumn leaves. This year I will have a different perspective, not only does my apartment aerie have a grand view but I look down on about ten square miles of Berkeley and this city does love its trees. Granted there are a fair number of evergreens and I can even see a few palm trees, not the brilliant maples and oaks of my dappled memories but color is acomin'. Already the greens have muted and dulled or begun a subtle yellowing. The trees are withdrawing their life force for the winter, more a seasonal ritual here than a freezing winter necessity.

So as fall in Berkeley plays out, I thought I would ponder and muse about where life doth wander. Time has been on my mind often lately. My high school friends gathered last weekend for a 45th reunion, the pictures from the pavilion at the legion made we wonder. I placed a couple of calls to olde classmates from those days and wondered even more. Facebook has put me back in touch with several college friends, many of whom I saw last fall at our 40th class reunion in Kalamazoo. Makes you think, OK makes me think and then write.

I am going to devote September to all of this nostalgic meandering, mixed in with autumnal musings from my perch, I might have to toss in some musical references not only because it was the sixties, but I've also just received six new remastered CDs that will occupy my ears for the near future.

Come October I shall be ready for something new. A leaping off or a vaulting over but this month, well this month we shall laze in the backwaters of my times.

A final word to those readers who never click thru my linked offerings out onto the wonderful world wide web. Try it this month, I promise at least two or three delectable surprises. I will turn one hump day into a super special link day and include several other hidden gems for your amusement and bedazzlement.

What To Do, What To Do?

If there's something I learned about in life, it's that you have to stand up to bullies and assholes every once in a while. Because let's face it -- an asshole is not going to be less of an asshole because you call him/her out on it. However, they definitely will become a bigger asshole if you let them get away with it. --- Dr. Pauly

As I have said way too many times, the general arena of standing up to socially inappropriate behavior is a lot easier for large males. My own personal philosophy on generalized assholery is to ignore it unless the perpetrator will take such silence as license to continue. The exchange can almost be scripted:

1) Begin with behavior and associated verbalization that meets the criteria for inappropriate conduct. 

2) Ignore it.

3) Reoccurrence of behavior.

"Hey dude, enough already."

"What?"

"You're being a dick. You're annoying everyone, so just stop."

[insert key response here with or without escalating levels of bad behavior or attitude]

"No really --stop. This is not a debate. Stop now or go away, those really are your only options."

Part II: What do you do when someone you really care for goes off on a wild ass tangent with their life? I mean sure let them explore if the adventure is about growth or finding a new way or just outright fun. But what do you do when they return and are just so screwed up that no one can deal with them. 

I am not talking about drugs, alcohol or other addictive evils but more about a philosophy of life that just doesn't make sense to anyone who was there when they began their adventure. In my current particular case it involves a close friend who has late in life come to politics and now espouses certain views that while not completely out of the mainstream are being advocated with the fervor of a conspiracy nut.

Tolerance can only come with distance. The necessary distance means ending a relationship that I have valued for many years. I really don't want to do that but history does not always override current behavior.