Tag: peace

Critical Thinking

Writer/journalist Joan Didion said:

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” 

Me, too. I am coming to understand the value of writing in this way. Life and life events unfold around us willy-nilly every day that we wake up and engage with the planet. Every day is the herald of new experiences, events and, inevitably, change.

Writing gives me a platform from which to analyze what is happening in the world and corral events within logical boundaries. It is a form of intellectual sheepherding if thoughts were sheep.

It also keeps me honest. I often ask, “Is what I am writing today consistent with what I’ve written before? Is it a shift or alteration in my perception or belief system? Am I growing or regressing or stagnating?”

If we’re lucky, our daily analysis of what is going on in the world draws from multiple disciplines and experiences gathered during our own life stages. The fundamentals of a liberal arts education that includes economics, history, medicine, engineering, political science can enrich that analysis.

We don’t need to be experts or steeped in a particular discipline to apply its principles. It can be enough to simply be aware of the discipline and that certain principles may apply.

Take the recent Super Bowl, for example. That was a sociological and psychological phenomenon. It had the largest TV viewing audience since the 1969 moon landing.

Why? Okay, let’s apply those education principles.

The Super Bowl is a massive and increasingly worldwide cultural event. Attendance (in person or via TV screen) means belonging which is a widely acknowledged social and psychological need.

The Super Bowl spectacle demonstrates tribalism. “My team’s better than your team!” That is a higher level of “belonging” and reinforces the twin conceits of superiority and dominance over another group.

Whether that inflated sense of superiority is an actual need or not is debatable, of course. What isn’t debatable is that many people seek out and sign up for a cause they can get behind and take pride in. Whether that is a sports team or a charity or a church or a cause.

When “the cause” (or team or country or chess player) we support excels, we can feel vicariously excellent, too. We can congratulate ourselves on our good judgment and shrewd sense of discernment.

I have heard guys talk about sports (hockey or football come to mind) where you’d think that they were actually playing on the team and had something to do with its victory.

If we stand back and look at the phenomenon of sports hysteria and fandom critically, we can appreciate what a complete and complex construct these sports events are.

Much like religion, these events have been wholly invented by humans to serve as a distraction and opiate for the masses. I am not including money-motivated in here though that bears closer economic analysis.

You really have to admire humans for their ability to elevate humble sports competitions into the histrionic mega-events that they are today.

By comparison, humans had nothing to do with the creation and fundamental dictates of nature. Sure, humans dabble extensively to intervene and alter natural processes, but humans didn’t “invent” trees.

They didn’t build mountains. They discovered how to use them to their advantage. Science taught us that.

Nature also has inherent concrete laws. Try as we might to do otherwise, we are going to die. It is an inherent process in each human that science has not yet managed to stave off indefinitely.

Each day, I am aware I observe and explore events and issues through my own personal filters. I have biases and values that influence what I write. I have formal education which further influences what I think. I have professional training where objective facts are essential.

I suppose this mixed background bag is what makes my writing different and maybe distinct from other voices “out there.” I am learning where my thoughts are likely to take me, what issues grab my interest and, most important to me, why they do.

I have frequently said in this blog that I write for myself. Like Joan Didion said. It is as much an exercise in self-exploration as any kind of pontification that should be seen as gospel or objective truth. It is an expression of my truth as I see it in this mind and body at this particular juncture in world history and my personal history. Absolutely nothing more than that. A single voice.

And yet, if individual raindrops didn’t fall, rivers would not run, plants would not grow and the ocean would eventually dry up. Sure, other raindrops would step in to keep the water flowing and countless writers could easily take my place.

But in the daily doing of this writing thing, I learn more about myself and the world I live in. My life then becomes an example of living authentically in concert with my own motives and beliefs, if I but follow those internal dictates.

I don’t know about you, but for me that state of being is “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Getting to know one’s own heart and mind sufficiently to travel through life with maximum joy and minimum chaos is well worth it to me.

The lessons of history – globally and personally – have taught me that pursuing that approach works. It may not seem like much when compared to the great men and women and the course-altering achievements of history. But I’ll take it.

Peace is the prize.

Turning Point

How I love early mornings. Around 6 AM is ideal. This sacred state can usually last up until somewhere close to 8 AM.

I love the birdsong behind our house. We have a scruffy patch of untouched forest where committees of birds consort every morning to plot and plant their day. Or so it seems.

Lately, a murder of crows has taken up residence in the remaining live oaks behind us. I don’t actually know how large a group of crows has to be to be a “murder” but there is a bunch.

Straight out of birdworld central casting, they caw incessantly. Sometimes in unison and at other times, a single crow with a particularly large and booming caw rings out over the others.

The crows occasionally fly away in unison on whatever mission they have decided is necessary. I am struck by how little I know about birds as I listen to them and watch their aeronautic displays. It piques my curiosity.

I love early morning when it is quiet and the only voice I have to listen to is the voice in my own head. Uninterrupted by abrasive external distractions, I can enjoy my own sense of peace and calm.

I hear garbage trucks way off in the distance. A small aircraft buzzes by overhead. There is traffic way, way off in the distance. Soon cars will start up around me as neighbors head off to their jobs. I am no longer part of that morning migration and I am so grateful that is so.

Yesterday, I wrote what was for me a fairly disturbing post about an art installation replicating our collective Sisyphean task of chasing money to sustain our lives with increasingly diminishing returns until we die. I used to be acutely aware that there was an inherently unbalanced tradeoff between time and money in my life and that of others.

When I had enough free time to pursue personal interests, I rarely had enough money to freely do so. When I was employed and earning money, the time I needed to pursue personal interests was eliminated. A devil’s bargain.

I am at a stage where I am resetting my goals. I am no longer convinced I will write the Great North American novel or bank countless millions with which to address the world’s ills. In truth, I never really had those goals but, at least when I was younger, they seemed attainable. Of course, almost everything seems possible when you are young.

I have come to one simple conclusion for my future direction. My life, my rules. I fervently pray (and hopefully believe) I will never have to work at a boring and unfulfilling job again. I grieve for the people that do. I grieve that I had to for so long.

I will no longer “dress to impress” anonymous others whom I hope may look kindly upon me and bestow some favor or another – financial or emotional.

I will no longer be silent or cagey in the face of outrageous circumstances. Strategic maybe, but not cagey. Life has taught me the truth of that you can attract more flies with honey than vinegar … if it is flies that you are out to attract, of course. And for the life of me, I can’t imagine why one would.

This is a time of transition in my life unlike so many other transitions that preceded it. Life used to feel like having a bolt of fabric from which you could endlessly pick patterns and play with design and create costumes ad infinitum. Now I know the bolt of cloth I was handed is not infinite. Going forward, I must pick and choose the patterns and designs much more carefully and wisely.

Even these thoughts about my future are just forming. So much that used to drive my ambition and thinking has ebbed away. I am not as angry or tortured as I once was. I am wiser. I have made immutable choices in career, children and partner which have created a clearly boundaried paddock within which I will live out the rest of my life. Best make it the best it can be for me and my loved ones.

Dangers abound on the road ahead [like they always did] but so does adventure. And learning. And friendship. Blessed friendship. There are so many people without whom I would not be here today.

It is the harvest time in my life. To reflect on where I’ve been more deeply than where I’m going. To appreciate what went right and forgive myself and others for what went wrong. And for the most part, most of it no longer matters.

In a hundred years, it will matter to no one, except in one way. The external dragons and internal demons I’ve slayed will be a lesser threat to my children and theirs and the children of my great grandchildren ad inifinitum. I hope.

Knowing this in my bones has, if for no other reason, made all of the struggle worthwhile.

To Be List

Today’s prompt from the 30-day blog challenge intrigued me.

“People come to your blog or website to learn from you,” Frank Taub exclaims. “So teach them something! Maybe a step-by-step guide …. ” Right.

That got me thinking.

I write about healing from an abuse-riddled childhood with addicted parents. Essentially I write about how I got from there to here where life is now stable, happy, and largely peaceful. Quite the leap if I do say so myself.

Frank Taub is right. There were steps to get here.

1. Be born.

2. Ensure one (or preferably both) parents are addicted to some kind of substance.

3. Make super sure they both come from dysfunctional childhoods that were riddled with abuse and neglect.

4. Try to be born into a professional, middle-class family where it was very important to keep up appearances.

5. Have the parents make their primary values making money and acquiring prestige.

6. Have the parents believe: “Children essentially raise themselves.” Another handy belief would be: “Children’s characters are formed by the age of seven and cannot change in adulthood.”

7. Make the parents generally oblivious to the pain or damage their addictions are causing.

8. Be sure your parents don’t take your fears and concerns seriously and dismiss you when you raise them.

9. Push a parent to a suicide attempt. (Having both try to off themselves would be excessive.)

10. When their marriage fails after the suicide attempt, either have them abandon the children or inappropriately parentify them. Now the kids are cooking the meals, doing the shopping and keeping the house clean. So Mommy or Daddy can rest.

11. Withdraw all financial support and necessaries of life in their mid-teens so the kids will have to figure out life and how to make money for themselves.

12. Expect those kids to have a mountain of issues in adulthood that are left for them to work through and overcome.

13. When they raise complaints about their childhood with their parents as adults, have the parents demonize them and make sure everyone knows what bitter disappointments they are.

14. Make sure the parents lie, refuse to take responsibility for any of your troubles, and are there for you only if and when you succeed. Do not object to this.

15. Finally, after years of pain and confusion, and destruction in both your personal and professional, walk away. Leave those parents to the beds they have made for themselves. Love them but from a distance. Preferably a great distance.

SUMMARY: Have kids. Settle down. Start writing about your childhood. WARNING: This could well take years. Your parents may actually have to die before you are able to do this. This is not unusual and does not mean you a bad person.