A NEW ATTITUDE

A NEW ATTITUDE

I had thought for quite a while now that there is nothing new in the area of feelings and attitudes, now I am not so sure that what I knew to be true is so. Here is what has happened so far:

Until about two weeks ago it looked as if I could expect to live another three or four years; this is from the statistics for people who have what I have, and is a number not too far from the average expectancy for all men in this country. I am well aware that these statistics imply and I intend to do anything that I can to come out on the far side of that bell-curve; I also found the study that found people with heart failure often over estimate how long they have to go. I had asked a few medical people, found more than a few articles online that all said about the same thing. My chore had been to get my head around that notion, to accept what was and then to get on with my life.

As I wrote a week or so ago I had an appointment with someone who discovered that I have severe apnea, but that with treatment I can expect to add perhaps four years to this cruise that I am on. And one other thing, he now has probable cause for something that I had been told many times was idiopathic. Treatable and redeeming–quantity and quality.

In effect I have just have just been offered a doubling of my expectancy; this idea is taking a while to root in my cranium and germinate, but it will. There are events and situations all through life that cause feelings and attitudes; except that this business is different, what I am feeling and how I am seeing the world is not quite like any I have ever experienced. I am not ready to say that this is unique, it might just be a variation on one or more, I just can’t say yet.

Obviously I am happy with the news, I have long ago discarded any wish to be dead notions; have reached the conclusion that whatever pains and discomfort come along, no matter how intense, they cannot overwhelm that of being, of becoming. This new thing is a testimony to perseverance, to scratching at the tunnel face until the gold vein is completely discovered; and for that I am relieved, perhaps more than a bit smug. This that I have just received is a gift, more to God than from; but it is such an overwhelming gift that no words are appropriate. Perhaps it would be as if someone gave me a new car–then I see that it is a brand-new Rolls convertible; what the hell do you do with such a thing! A great problem to work at as I go on.

I may write more about this as I figure it out and believe it would be of interest to someone, anyone else. Let me add one more thing: To say that this is more a gift to God than from God is because I know that without man God is irrelevant; He is what we are about, that makes us what we are.

UNCERTAINTY

There are times that bring on feelings of uncertainty or helplessness, they may arrive at four in the morning or as I walk down Michigan Avenue on a beautiful spring day. There are times when I look to what I have depended on and trusted, only to find that they are not enough or have disappeared. These are the times when I am sure there are no alternatives left in my cupboard.

When this happens I have found out that there is a reason:That somehow or other I have put myself in the center of my universe, this weak bearing. If I then imagine that I am not the center, and even though I can’t put into words or images what is I do know, I am certain of its Presence and know instinctively that it doesn’t disappear or disappoint. And when I do manage to get my head around that idea I find that I am in a better place, a place where I ought to be.

This is not a piece of any religion or cult, just something I discovered that fits right, and so I thought I’d pass it along.

Begining the universe with a word

William James once asked Helen Keller to describe what life was like prior to learning her first word, her response was that there was nothing, no description, nothing to re member, a gray miasma; it was when t that first word, water, became real that ideas became real,that Helen Keller became a human being. Her universe was created.

It is reported that as a species we have been around for about 180,000 years, a number that becomes more accurate as scientists examine new evidence using new techniques; but examples of what we are as human beings goes only to cave paintings, the oldest writings are but a few thousand, does no one want to talk about that gap? What about the first 150,000 or so years? The animal that is us existed, ate, fornicated, shat and begat for a long, long time, but apparently without language.

From the mists of our past a truth came through far enough to be put down in what was to become part of the bible, something to the effect that-the word was the beginning. It was not until the first of our ancestors put her hand on something and uttered ‘rock’ that rock was created, and then she gave her partner that look, look was all she had to give him as she had no other word, gave him that look that says ‘pay attention to me the one with the vagina, this is important what I have just done, she repeated the sound until he understood, until he slapped an object and made the sound ‘rock’, I can only imagine the joy them both as they created a world ‘rock’, and then he slapped another object, what we now call ‘tree’, he repeated ‘rock’, she gave him that look again, he eventually came to see that the world was ‘rock’ and not-’rock’. In the beginning was the word.

A baby sees that the object incessantly put in front of its face, and the sound ‘ball’, are the same thing, object is ball, ball is object, there is now a world and it is ‘ball’. There isn’t one of us who hasn’t enjoyed watching an infant with the first word, the world is ‘ball’, the word is repeated ad nauseum; remember the look on the infant’s face, pure joy, the first joy of a human being. That child has become a being with a universe, has the joy of creation.

Periodically the New York Times reports or copies the bleatings of physical scientists and the bible-beaters as they throw their paper weapons at one another in exasperation, frustration arising from the intuitive knowledge that neither one has anything worth while to say.

Newton, and then Einstein, stated clearly, without evasion that this is what we have, there can’t be more and there can’t be less; Einstein made it even more inclusive by adding energy to matter, making the point even stronger. This is what there is, there can’t be more and there can’t be less.

So what the hell is a physical scientist doing talking about creating the world, that ain’t his game, he has all that there is, the scientists job is to explain it.

So what the hell is the bible-beater doing talking about the physical world, that ain’t her game, she has all that she needs, if she would just examine herself within.

It is that that arises from being, from knowing, from learning that the spiritual world is about; examine what happens the first time you fall in love, that surprising event that defines fifth grade, that took over my life bringing great adventure and sorrow, examine what that is about, that is the world of creation and the spirit, perhaps even the Spirit.

The One True Way

Last night I was discussing with a friend the nature of the religious experience (perhaps this explains why I spend so much time alone); and the only way to maintain or repeat the experience. It will be no surprise that mine is the only right way to do this is by going the route that I do, that every other direction is misguided and leads to dead ends.

That someone else would have the temerity to claim that connecting with others, to do something in concert was a road to enlightenment or even epiphany seems so contrary. My ascetic struggles obviously are what has brought me to this stage of development. The argument was going absolutely nowhere nor could it; if each of us finds ourself in a new place, with new perspective that is so life changing and defining it seems impossible that someone else could have done this differently.

I now have first hand knowledge of why there are religious differences; that there will always be differences; why they are so violent in defending the true way.

That Abject Feeling

There are times in everyone’s life when the terror of aloneness approaches the limits of what can be handled, if the loneliness was any more painful it would push me over the edge. When I see that boundary coming at me I automatically look for diversions, we look for diversions because allowing or welcoming pain is weird or pathological. They might be: work, booze, drugs, orgasms, casual friends, games and entertainment, there is Twitter and Facebook; all these and more allow me to shy from this abject feeling, this most horrible of feelings.

There are times in everyone’s life when the bliss of solitude is the greatest pleasure imaginable; I then travel with the knowledge that I am where I ought to be and who I ought to be. I need nothing; I will have activities but they are no longer necessities. When I have let myself drift from being the center of my universe and that necessity to control I get to enjoy this rightness.

To find the latter I have to allow abject loneliness its time on stage, letting it cavort and destroy the sets, frightening us actors. It is when I stay for that complete show, all three acts, watch the curtain descend that I can allow myself to be–to leave the theatre in peace.

Forcing myself to feel the pain of loneliness and emptiness is not masochism because there is no pleasure in it; but from the depths of that terror arise bliss, joy, rightness and a knowledge of that that allows all this to be.

John Updike existentialist

FEBRUARY 24, 2009 WEBLOG

There is a lighted sky after five in the afternoon.

Snow and ice are gradually being reduced as the mercury peeks above freezing now and again.

People are responding to these changes even though February isn’t quite finished.

I awoke about four this morning feeling that abysmal dread that can arrive at that hour; a void that is filled with the blackest of blacks, and from which there seems to be no way out. As this despair swept over me I knew that I could avoid the strongest of what was to come by getting out of bed, turn on the television or go check the computer; I also knew that it was and is an honest feeling that is appropriate especially now.

I have an elderly patient in the hospital for whom I have consented to do medical approvals which are coming daily. I received lab results on tests I had done last week; I entered them manually in Google Health and noticed where they lay in their respective ranges. A very good friend who has agreed to do some things for me has just moved in a couple of blocks away; and I have another test this week.

All these combined as a perfect wave of anxiety that carried me upward to despair at that blackest hour; and today I read a review of John Updike’s life in the NYRB, how he recognized and handled the existential anxiety that he recognized early on and grew to be his muse. Reading that article meshed with what was going on with me, what goes on with anyone who will avoid the computer and television when it arrives. I didn’t get out of bed but lay there feeling and examining the great truth of meaninglessness that this despair brings.

And today the sun is shining through a thinly clouded sky, there are paths down most sidewalks that are free from snow; people are pleased to be experiencing these days because they have gone through a hard winter, a winter which tests but cannot destroy.

On seeing her photo

I recently came across a web picture of someone whom I had loved unconditionally but haven’t seen in many years. The photo caused a pang of remembrance of that old feeling, even though our mutual rejections were right and necessary conclusions.

Neither of us could have lived on as we had become, we had mutually created a monstrous situation. That picture was not of what came at the end of our scene, it is of the person whom I had loved and realize I still do. Is it possible to have had a religious experience, to know what it is like to transcend this mundane situation—-and then to not know it? No; it may be that I don’t always find myself in that holy place, but I don’t or can’t deny it nor would I try. So can I deny or should I try to reject someone whom I loved greatly just because of circumstances, would that not be a rejection of the honesty of my search? I cannot deny the great pain her rejection caused me, and am sure that I brought her unhappiness in turn.

And yet I cannot understand or accept the concept of rejection, it just doesn’t compute. As I write out my reaction to her picture I wonder what it means if anything. Is this just the nature of going along, that somehow feeling that loss again, that love once more means nothing other than the piercing of strong emotion?

A Short Follow-up

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February 11, 2009

This is the third day of my ‘five minute a day writing exercise’ which I hope will graduate into something more, different, better. The first challenge is the subject and if the right one is found everything follows well from there. The post of yesterday could be thought of as heavy and even morbid, that is not an unknown criticism. Heavy? Yes, the topic of what goes on in the very center of a soul can’t be anything but heavy, except when it is frivolous; morbid? I don’t think so because it was a fine lines describing the utmost in living, in being. Remember that shying away from something means that I never get to know and enjoy it. For reasons that aren’t all that clear I do enjoy untangling the knots that are at the edge of my reason, my emotions, my spirituality.

I am going to leave this here.

Goals and answers

Yesterday was my fifth and last session at the Chronic Pain Clinic; everyone I met with asked the same question–if I had met my goals for the program? To each one I answered the same: I had no goals, I could have no goals because I was ignorant of what the program had to offer, what my body could accomplish, I can’t foresee the future. This didn’t sit easily with any of the therapists, as I well knew from previous discussions; they have forms to complete, statistics to be calculated, and they are trained to having goals in what they do. What I answered each of them was whether I was happy with what had happened at the Clinic, was I discontented over any part of the program?

I am pleased with every part of the program: with the attention and focus of the physicians, the alternate medication they offered; with the attitude and professional nature of the nurses; with the insights and understanding of the psychologists; with the advice and attention of the O. T. staff; with the exercises and rehabilitation offered by P. T.; with the increased management offered by the bio-feedback portion. All areas offered benefits that I attempted to absorb to the fullest. But I had no goals, I had only attitude, to get all that I could out of what this clinic was offering, to do whatever I could to minimize my pain and discomfort, to be open to whatever benefit might come along.

This is of course an attitude towards the spiritual or Spiritual life; I can’t say that I am in full communion with the Divine, who could know that? I cannot say what my Spiritual quest will give me, if I could then it wouldn’t be a quest for what is unknown to me now. This is an attitude that often results in anxiety of the unknown, it would be comfortable to know that if I prayed a certain number of times, if I did so many good works, if I followed a particular method I would gain enlightenment. That’d be a great thing if it was so, but it is not, it has never been the path to enlightenment, never will be; it may be the reason that the organized church is on the edge of irrelevancy, except for the lack of alternative. To be catholic is to be a good follower, it has never been anything else.

I received far more from the Pain Management Program than I could have predicted, and I am pleased that I did not have quantitative or qualitative goals that may have given me temporary pleasure but would have restricted my growth. The same can be said of my spiritual journey; I don’t know where it will lead, I have faith that good will result, but I have no knowledge of the future or of the infinity of the Spiritual. And that’s the way I have always been.

And that would be a difference between being a conservative and what I am.

Wearing my new hat

Last Saturday I was wearing my new hat when I went to visit Bert in the home; I had worn it on earlier occasions, for about a month, but they were ‘test runs’, Saturday I was a guy wearing his own hat.

I have worn hats off and on for almost seventy years, but this is different, this is the first good hat I have ever worn or owned: Printed on the sweatband is “RESISTOL ’self conforming’ Made in Texas, USA, 4xxxx BEAVER”; that pretty much explains everything. I do like wearing it, it is sitting on my head as I write; I have had floppy hiking hats, berets, and those ubiquitous one size fits allbaseball hats. I have a big head, the baseball caps look like undergraduate beanies, missing the propeller at the crown; this hat is “7-5/8″, there were only two in the store that fit me, a black and a brown, I left the black. It isn’t accurate to say that there were only two hats in the store that fit, there were straw hats of the cowboy variety in my size;but this has not been a straw hat kind of winter in Chicago, this is very much felt hat weather.

I am self-conscious about wearing a hat indoors, was raised when a hat was removed in an elevator, restaurant, addressing a lady, in the house; it was with that background that I went to the second floor to see Bert.

I found him in the day-room, his wheelchair was part of a circle, with Molly in the middle, a woman in her mid-twenties, of unending energy and enthusiasm, she was dancing around while waving a stick with a piece of ribbon attached. Everyone had a stick with ribbon attached, I was offered my choice, I took a green stick with green ribbon, Bert’s was a blue stick and ribbon. Molly would go from one to another of her dozen attendees, dancing, waving encouraging; she would hold someone’s hand and dance, she would make her ribbon shiver and shimmy; looking to elicit a reaction from each and every one.

All the wheelchairs had alarms attached, the alarm would sound if the sitter attempted to rise, Bert is always in a chair and alarm, it will also go off if he comes too close to the elevator.

A couple of the women were in regular chairs, their walkers standing next to them; one woman, I think her name is Carol, is always in a special chair that looks as if it is a hinged mattress folded to be a long chair, with high, padded, arm rests. I have seen Carol strapped into this chair on some occasions, today she was not; Carol’s limbs are in constant motion, irregular waving and bouncing, jerking, twitching she seems never to be still; her head swings from one shoulder to the other, the chin near her chest or pointed to the sky, the chords on her neck visible much of the time. Carol never talks, she moans, she howls, she screams; the last time she saw me she began shrieking, a nurse had to come and assure her that I was not there to harm.

Molly pushed a chair into place for me, between Bert and Carol, sat down clasping my stick with the ribbon attached.

Bert saw me, there was that pause before that warm smile, he raised his hand a few inches so that I could grasp and shake it; “hello old friend” is how I have been greeting him, that elicits an even warmer smile. He has no idea of my name, when he last saw me, just that he recognizes his friend of several months.

Molly finished dancing, a one sitting one standing sort of dance with each of the dozen women and Bert; thankfully she did not dance for or with me. A beach ball was produced next, and a game of catch began; catch turned out to be more appreciated than the dancing, most everyone opened their arms in an attempt to catch the beach ball, many attempted to return it. There were a couple of women who were not awake long enough to complete that give and take, their wakefulness is measured in seconds.

As Molly went around the circle giving everyone a chance to play she came to Carol; Molly threw the ball, Carol caught it, and then Carol threw the ball right back at Molly; there was a pause while I understood what had just happened, while Molly understood what had just happened, while Carol herself understood what had just happened. I had never seen Carol do anything purposely before, I don’t think Molly had either; all three of us laughed, others in the circle smiled, we had all witnessed something really good.

Within the last week I have corresponded with a theologian, had my attention brought to the religious statement of Oliver Sacks, talked with a woman interested in hospice work, drove someone who has a hangar at Midway Airport: That few seconds with Carol were the most interesting, the most memorable, the most spiritual.

I have read a few books of philosophy, theology, some great novels; all of them worthwhile, but that few seconds when a person concentrated her all, invested whatever she has, to catch and return that ball, that was something really good. The intensity of that situation lasted just a short time, it cannot be sustained, but it will always be remembered.

I was glad that I was wearing my new hat, that I was now grown up enough to wear a good hat, to appreciate it, take it to important events.