Tag: suicide

Twelve to Thrive

I fell in love with American-Italian educator Leo Buscaglia in the 80s. And not specifically because he was known as the “Dr. Love” professor.

Felice Leonardo Buscaglia (March 31, 1924 – June 12, 1998) was a professor of special education at the University of Southern California. When one of his students committed suicide, he was moved to investigate the meaning of life and the causes of human disconnection.

For Buscaglia, love and learning were the keys to a meaningful life. He was a gifted public speaker and often appeared on PBS giving his lectures on our vital need for interconnection with fellow human beings. He also deeply believed in education and exploring the many wonders of human life here on this planet.

I remember one of the funnier anecdotes from his lectures about growing up with a “demanding” father. With warmth and humor, Buscaglia recalled how every night at the dinner table, he, and then his siblings, were asked in turn, “What did you learn today?” Woe betide the sibling who had nothing to share. The shame must have been withering!

Buscaglia eventually taught a course at the University of Southern California called Love 1A. They were always filled to capacity and often oversubscribed. He was the first to state and promote the concept of humanity’s need for hugs: 5 to survive, 8 to maintain, and 12 to thrive.[4]

He wrote a bunch of books. Fittingly, his greatest bestseller was simply called Love. At one point, three of Buscaglia’s books were on the New York Times’ best sellers list at the same time.

Buscaglia explored and promoted the importance of love and loving relationships to human beings. His lectures may be deemed a little over the top in a culture where the almighty dollar is touted to be the primary source of all happiness and pleasure.

I miss him and his voice. I miss his message.

In our troubled era of mass murders, and suicide and online bullying, I miss the presence of Leo Buscaglia more than ever.

Quick Fix, Not

Here is a basic dichotomy these days.

We are inventing fools. Interpret that however you like.

Forget the industrial revolution and the upheaval it brought.

The technological revolution is on a whole other level.

There are so many new and improved appliances, processes, gadgets, vehicles out there for us. They are supposed to make our lives “easier.” And “better.” And “happier.” And more “personally satisfied.”

You feeling all that, yet? I know I’m not.

I laugh now at the early promises of “new technology.” We were all sold on how these new abilities were going to make our lives easier. The four-day work week. Paperless offices. More time for “leisure” and “creativity.” I snort in my coffee.

That ship sailed a long, long time ago.

So here we are awash in the daily frustrations and idiocy as a product of countless “technological solutions.” I’ve talked about this before.

What I’m experiencing later in life is the huge social deficit caused by diminishing face-to-face interactions. Like connection. Like getting to know each other. Like shared experience. Isn’t that quaint?

It has left us vulnerable to all manner of snake-oil salesmen. Because if we don’t know anyone well, and don’t have access to information about their track record and have never met their parents or siblings, anyone will do in a pinch. Right? We need to believe.

Ideas about belonging to a community of like-minded individuals who know and support each other seem quaint and pedantic now. We imagine, crave and seek out a community of similar seekers who might be out there for us to connect with. At this particular time, it is harder to do than it was in the past.

So what do we do instead? We join online groups. We have countless ZOOM calls. We sign up for Facebook groups with people who have causes or interests that we also believe in or care about. We “lol” and “ffs” and “FOMO” ourselves into low-grade stupefication.

No wonder FOMO is so prevalent. People are so disconnected from the ebb and flow of life and each other that the manic chase to “keep up” is reaching epidemic proportions. Young people no longer have a shared social history that taught them how to be part of a group or community.

I believe many believe the internet is the way, the truth and the life. What will happen to them if it ever fails them?

The anonymity of the internet nourishes all kinds of negatives: bullying, sexting, false information, false scenarios and facts. Oops sorry. I didn’t mean to post that. Oops sorry. I have no way to retrieve that post and obliterate it from the internet.

No problem. Instead of overcoming their shame or finding ways to deal with their pain, young people injure or kill themselves. Is that surprising?

What stupefies me is the tolerance we all exhibit in light of widespread social and psychological deterioration. Rigid, conservative, prejudicial attitudes and actions have always been with us. That needed shaking up. But the parameters of human civility and interaction were tighter then.

People once seemed to understand that humans had a limit to their capacity for enduring pain. They had enough sense of belonging that they understood their actions were a vital part of the collective whole.

How does that tee up with how you are experiencing life these days? Safe and happy with a community of people you know you can count on and who know you and support you and love you anyway? No wonder the internet and Facebook and who knows what else are awash in corrective “positive affirmations” and meaty memes that promise to guide us to the “meaning of life.”

Our heads are in such a constant twist scrambling after the next “big thing” in guidance and insight, we have collective whiplash.

My heart aches for young people today. Young people desperate for individuality and attention and belonging dye their hair fuschia, wear three inch fingernails and one inch eyelashes. They tattoo meaningful Chinese characters on their arsm.

For those for whom this is not enough, they simply pick up an AK-47 with their allowance money at the shop around the corner and go out and murder a bunch of people. That we have collectively managed to breed such troubled, alienated souls reflects our failure to inculcate the fundamental “rules” of becoming a human being in our children: with all the warts those rules contained.

I believe a majority are scrambling to make sense of life today and need to understand where we fit in it. I watch my adult children struggling to internalize the reality of out of control housing prices. Once a surefire road to financial security, more and more that is reserved for fewer and fewer. It has affected their future and family planning and stability.

Who wants to start a revolution?

Castles in the Air

Here’s something to think about, I thought. For much of my life, I created many of what you might be inclined to call “castles in the air.” I’m not alone in this I’m sure. (Well, I hope I’m not.)

That tendency started early in my childhood when “anywhere but there” would have been preferable to my actual home life. It is beyond tempting to live in your head when what surrounds you is unstable and unpredictable.

I remember how savagely my mother fought me in adulthood when I tried to bring up some of the more dreadful childhood issues. She had a mantra. Several actually. “Everyone has heard about YOUR pain, Margot!” “That happens to girls all the time. That’s life.””This is what your father did to me!! She would then proceed to tell me a horrendous story (or several) about my Dad …. And most of all: “We don’t need to talk about “the bad thing.”

The bad thing would be the life-altering, wrist-slashing event Mom had when I was 11. After that, Mom ended up in a mental hospital. My sisters went who knows where. And I ended up with Dad.

It was around that time the wheels of my life pretty much flew off the bus as opposed to simply falling off. At least then, you might have had time to slow down the inevitable crash that was coming. The parents’ multiple businesses had failed. The bank was calling loans. As a result, not only was the family rent asunder, the money dried up.

The accusations flew thick and fast between my parents as to who exactly it was who was responsible for the downfall. They engaged their children as sounding boards and referees.

In early childhood from about 6 to 11 years old, we were awash in activities: piano, horse riding lessons, swimming lessons, Y membership and summer camp, and birthday parties galore. After “the bad thing,” those activities soon became distant memories and were now unattainable.

I was desperate even in early childhood for escape and order. I desperately wanted to attend the Netherwood School for Girls in Rothesay over an hour away from our home. The parents once took us on a drive to a nearby village called Codys where a seven-bedroom mini-mansion was up for sale. I would have moved in that afternoon. My heart sank as we turned around to drive back to Fredericton to head back to home, home.

The “castle in the air” never really materialized. My life has been marked by a series of moves and course-altering events. I have to come to understand that everyone’s life path might be marked by some chaos and drama. However, chaos and drama were my entire life experience.

When a counselor told me I was raised in a “void,” that both shocked and helped me tremendously. I didn’t feel safe or seen or protected or highly valued as a child. My life began to take greater shape in my head dreaming up impossible goals than into creating my actual life. When you have nothing, even anything is something, if only in your head.

Today, I have come to a fitful peace with the “void” I was raised in. I’ve been diligently seeking to replace unrealistic “castles in the air” with more tangible and grounded dreams and wishes. Looking back, my happy life experiences have now been distilled into a montage of sorts. The void was real and so were the happy memories I gathered along the way that sustained me.

I still nurture and appreciate the memory of little things that I found or devised in those troubled environments to bring me hope and joy. It kind of gives me a lift as it was a real accomplishment when I think back on it. Especially now that I can think back on all of it from a much better and happier place.