David Letterman, a public man

DAVID LETTERMAN

Last night I watched a very public man do what men should do when they go along the wrong way, he did what so few public people ever do; he had made errors, he admitted them without excuse, he stopped someone else from taking advantage of his mistakes, and is now focusing on what he can to protect all that he loves in life.

The list of public people who give in to the knee-jerk reaction of denying and lying is a long one, one that has grown continually for decades; the actions of people who ignore the truth that they are responsible. We are all responsible, we all occasionally go down a regrettable path; and then we are similarly responsible for doing what we can to make amends. Letterman has done all that, he has not asked for pity or special favor; he is paying a price now and will to pay more in the future, perhaps a long future.

That some people will feel the need to throw ashes on his head makes me ask how they have responded when they did something wrong; remember that no one has never made a misstep or two, that is how we learn, that is what we are about, it is how a man responds that shows how real qualities of character.

How do you and I respond when we do something wrong? The answer is what is relevant and important here.

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.

A Refurbished Part for the Engine

I have never had the imaginative cues that would have me starting a book nevertheless a saga, I have never done much writing at all other than journals and these few unscripted scribbles, so I don’t know the rules or guides for starting a new chapter, finishing another. About all that I know is intuitive aided by the thoughts of just a few authors and a friend or two.

I know intuitively that I have just completed a chapter of what voyage.

Without resorting to those rules and guides for either novels or non-fiction writing I figure that a chapter has characters whose role grew, diminished or evaporated through the circumstances that the protagonist experiences and how the characters may fit and be important, appropriate or irrelevant. Out of the weather of events and fates the main character emerges into the next chapter a different person, one who is more fitting to his fate. Routes and passageways have been explored carefully so as not to damage the keel although the loss of a little hull paint is no great price as it will be replaced at the next haul-out.

It is not that there are or ever will be winners and losers, instead there is a crew who may or not be aboard for the whole voyage. One plans then begins a cruise with the idea that the plank owners, the original volunteers and the paid crew will be there at the final port; there is no reason at all to believe this, it is a wish coming from inexperience and love. At each port along the way there is the opportunity for some to leave and some to sign on; there is languishing on docks ahead a few whom I have no reason to choose or be chosen because they are as yet unmet. There may or may not be berths open at that time, and once leaving port it is rare to return to sign on someone who had been left on land.

Yesterday I was informed that the engine needed a new auxiliary part and that it would lengthen the time I can be at sea and maneuver me more easily through squalls; this addition came as a complete surprise to the engineers but it will be installed shortly.

Right now the pilot is obtaining charts of what opportunities have just been offered by the current repair, the charts he thinks he needs are now being drawn as the previous are now out of date and will be stored away in the map drawer. Like all charts they provide information, but no chart, no meteorologist, no pilot knows all that lays just beyond the horizon—and that uncertainty is what makes everyone anticipate the long cruise. The pilot has a few more lines from squinting in bright sun , he is not as quick to bend or haul a line as he had been, but this is of little concern because the tackle we carry has been proven and maneuvers well practiced.

The boat will make a test run of but a few days to check out the maintenance and fitting of the rig while thinking again on those new charts that are arriving piecemeal from the cartographer. The anticipation, that anticipation, tomorrow’s anticipation sparks the crew-ready to embark and hoist sails.

POSSIBILITIES

POSSIBILITIES

It is possible to cherish something so much that I destroy it.

It is possible to desire someone so much that I frighten.

It is possible to proclaim so loudly that they cover their ears.

It is possible to do and be all of those efforts; but it is necessary that I try again today and then tomorrow.

The possibility is the prize.

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.

My Old Pal Ben

FEBRUARY 10, 2009 Just as I was about to sit and start my five minute daily writing exercise I received a phone call from the social worker of St. John’s hospital. After introducing herself she asked a few questions to make sure that she had the right person on the phone, then she asked about my old pal Ben. Ben had been hospitalized a couple of days previously with pneumonia; he doesn’t exercise much if at all so I wasn’t surprised that what might have been a chest cold became something else; but that wasn’t her concern. Does Ben have any relatives that I know of, any friends whom she might contact, was there anyone else? The answer to all of these is no Ben has no one in his file except my name and number because I have been visiting him for a couple of years; not as a hospice patient, just as an elder who received the occasional visit. Ben has had dementia from the beginning although recently it has become severe, he no longer recognizes my face, never mind my name. Ben lives in the here and the now, can’t look backward and is frightened to look forward, although he sometimes does talk about that. It has become difficult to visit Ben and the others since I had the heart experience, not that I am near being a candidate for either a home or hospice, just that I sailed a little closer to that shoal than was comfortable. If I go over and see Ben tonight I will have to introduce myself, expect that nothing we have said previously is remembered, and that as soon as I leave all is forgotten. Why go?—- To give a guy the few minutes of conversation and maybe a joke or two that will be all he gets in the course of a day; and immediately forgotten. The reason that it is more difficult to make visits is that it forces me to face the meaningless of all of this, that nothing one accomplishes means anything other than at the time and place; that whether we are or whether we vanish is irrelevant, except that we need to do whatever it is that we are about in order to be complete. This is the fucking paradox that has been giving people headaches and into arguments for thousands of years; and in the end it is about visiting Ben for a few minutes.

Dave has a girlfriend

Dave, at the video store, has a girlfriend; they have been going out for a couple of months now, it looks as if it might go on for a while. My question is—how do I write about relationships without looking like somebody who is sitting home on a Saturday night, and decides to do homework? On behalf those of us who have rent videos often because we need to, as a member of that great Saturday night community—what is there to say about Dave having a girlfriend? That I am jealous but not envious; that’s about all I can say about that.

It was easier when I was starting down this road because everybody was so horny that connecting was just fervor; now it has to be based upon understanding. It is much harder to weld with this cooler flame.

I have this friend who told me of his model of all relationships:

• The first step is that there must be something that attracts, that makes you want to get up and walk across the room to say hello.

• The second step is that the two must be able to socialize, to be able to hang out, drink a cup of coffee, just get along.

• The third step is that to have common values, emphasize the same issues.

• The fourth step is to be traveling along the same path.

It’s that fourth step that defys. I haven’t met anyone who is traveling the same road that I do, nor am I travelling the route of anyone else. My big disappointment is finding so many that have decided to sit down and rest, to be satisfied with the distance gone, to have no will for further travel; whose goal is comfort.

This model isn’t just for romantic relationships, it holds equally for other friendships. His model works pretty good; I can see where and why no romantic relationship of mine has gone the distance, and why the friendships I have now are just right.

And there is this other thing, this really big thing.

It has taken me all of this time to learn how to get along with myself, to accept that who I am is alright, that what am about is what I should be about; if it took me this long to do that for myself, it might take a while to forge a relation with another; until I find someone who is also comfortable with who she is, what she is about.

I was reminded of all this yesterday when a friend of mine agreed that what I have been writing these last few days has been ‘weird’; I was the one who said ‘weird’, he immediately agreed. This guy is a conservative, so getting that kind of assessment from him is a sign that I am on the right path. What I write is weird in that when I get it right I am describing being in the moment. I think that it is right to let people know about being in the moment, we don’t have so much of that going on right now, we can use more of it.

To sit alone in a dark room: to accept everything that comes along; to take a daydream, examine it, know why it arose, and then to let it go on its way, that is a good thing to do. To take a strong emotion, accept it with the same good will, to examine it as it roars around and screams in my ear, then watch it as it tears away down the road. To see my deepest fear, to feel it yank the strings of my gut, to understand what and why it is, where it came from, and then to watch it wither when it fails to do real damage. This is living in the moment, this is “taking constant inventory”; a process that goes on forever, and should go on forever; I observe myself; I observe that I am observing…..and so on.  With mineral patience.

I have one very good friend, perhaps two. That may be just enough. Although it would be nice to have one that involved being in bed together.

Out of beans

I went out for coffee this morning; it was my habit to go to Peet’s every morning, did this for several years until I realized that firing up a cold car on a winter morning for a drive of less than three miles wasn’t quite right just for a cup of coffee. Today I was out of beans so I had this morning’s coffee there and bought a pound of Sumatra; I had a chance to say hello to most everyone who goes there in the morning.

Eric came in on his way to take his dog to the beach, he is about finished his police training, something he had wanted for years, now he has it. I asked if he is learning not to talk to civilians, he agreed that he is learning to stay clear of people who are not cops, people who want to talk to him, ask him, about everything in the world, or out of it. I also asked him if he was carrying, he allowed as he was; there are some crazy guys who hang around the beach where he exercises his dog, you can’t be too careful. Eric has become the attitude of the weapon: have a gun because you might meet up with a crazy guy while at the beach with your dog—–that sums it up.

I was reading that great article by Elizabeth Drew in this week’s New York Review of Books, the one analyzing the state of the political race. Steve came in, Paul came in: all three of us agreed on who should step down, why it should be soon, that the heavyweights of the party need to step in and settle things. There came out again that thing about the need for an idea that will lift us from where we are right now.

I went for a walk afterwards, stopped at Transitions Bookstore to see what books were in their window display, Transitions is a new-age store, a store that sells books at list price, that is success. All of the titles and blurbs offer an answer, the answer; you can tell the really important answers because they are endorsed by Deepak or Oprah, who are the Housekeeping Seals of Approval for answers to your life.

Yesterday I was reading Tillich’s Courage to Be, the part where he writes that faith is being grasped by that that carries you where you ought to be (the book is in the car, so the quote may not be exact).

The thread here is that every single one of us is looking for an answer, a guide, a direction: so you can spend some money to have a certified author tell you what you are missing; next month you can spend money for that month’s certified author to tell you what you are missing. Or you can wait for a political leader to become a national leader, to become an international moral leader to tell you what you need to be, to become. There seems no end of options of answers to what you need.

On the other hand Tillich leaves his answer as “that that grasps you”, you can’t be less specific than that; but he is right, just as Jesus was right when he suggested that whatever I require I already have. If I would only accept that I have it all I could stop searching, why do I hesitate?

It takes a whole bunch of courage to look deeply, to examine clearly each brick of my foundation, to know what it is that I am about, to peek at pillars that are usually left in the dark; a truly scary experience.

It’d be so much better to open a beer, watch some television, read a new book, work a little bit longer; that would be so much easier.

I visited Bert in the home yesterday, he was hospitalized earlier, now his agitation is so strong that he can’t talk about anything other than a single idea, he cycles it again and again, there was nothing to do but leave—nothing that I could do but to leave him. That is hard idea to accept.

There are more than a few hard ideas to accept, but I bet that I can.

March 18

For a week now I have increasing discomfort and pain; the pain in every ligament that connects to muscle, to bone; so many tissues connecting my collection of bones one to another, exerting the tension that makes me sit upright, allows me to stand and to walk. From the tip of my big toe, to top of my ear, from each of the dozens of creaking joints came sensation that are interpreted as pain by my brain. I don’t have a disease, an injury, a deficiency; it is just that every report by every nerve comes through too strong. This is like the comedy sketch in which a guy yells every word in the other person’s ear, or the writing which is has multiple exclamation marks; everything screams for attention, even though there is no emergency in my body. At its peak the pain was at level 8+ on the scale from 0 to 10. Yesterday I increased my pain medications to the maximum; that seems to be working this morning after being in bed almost all of the last 24 hours. Now I need to get back on track with my life.

I want first to put down some things that I learned from this experience: That wish for control comes constantly, the belief that I should have control no matter what; in order to control I need know the cause, the explanation, where to place the blame for my pain. This strong wishful thinking needs to be obeyed, so I give in to it by reaching out for cures no matter what; I look out for causes, what do I eat, how do I exercise, what is my life about that causes this to happen to me? What am I doing wrong that has caused this?

This unquestioned belief in control and blame builds upon itself, causes even more discomfort, leads to less actual control. To suggest that I should accept what is would be a traitor to my belief in control.

And here I have the real problem, somewhere, somehow I came to believe that I can be, that I ought to be the master of my being. The idea of acceptance is foreign and ought to be rejected; this led me to fight the idea to accept that I am acceptable as is.

Here is what I did: It took a while but I admitted that I was in a painful place; then I took the maximum amount of the two medicines that I have worked on my pain; by email I let my doctor know what was going on, including the numeric level of my pain; afterwards I lay as quietly as I could and used transcendent mindfulness that I have been practicing for over a year now. It helps take my mind away from constantly focusing on pain, go to where pain cannot follow.

Going to this place is not to be unconscious, I was always aware where the pain was and how strong the sensation; I observed the pain for arm’s length, watched its progress, noted its character, measured its strength. I hoped that the pain would go away, but if it didn’t I would continue living as I do, living with it.

An effect of control is optimism, that things will get better; I have no knowledge that things will get better, sometimes they do, sometimes they do not: It doesn’t matter, I’ll handle whatever is.

Cook a piece of trout

I met a guy I know in the supermarket the other day, he asked me what I was cooking, I showed him the fillet of trout; he told me that he was going to make some kind of soup with a standard soup recipe; then he told me that he liked fish but was afraid of cooking it. His fear keeps him from what he really likes; fish is just a little bit of flesh, to be cooked as any other kind of flesh, and if he screws it up the worst that could happen is that it is thrown away and he has to make a peanut butter sandwich. I suggested that if he is afraid to cook fish that that is what he ought to be making.

There is this really bright and effective guy who has done something that caused him to lose his big job and strain his family.

There was a time when I often used sex as an antidote to anxiety. I don’t know if I have ever written that before, admitted it before:– it really doesn’t matter in the scheme of things what I did, what anyone did, and so we might as well admit to them.

There are people who feel the need to put down their children’s aspirations, who can offer only conditional love and acceptance; there are people who are so afraid of human interactions that they must have everything on a competitive or unemotional level; there are people who do all sorts of things because of anxiety and the other demons. These demons are in the nature of all people, always have been, always will be. Perhaps we could admit that, and go on from there?

Now that nature has relieved me of the sex option, or toned it down somewhat, I need to live with and face my anxiety without the sex option, which I have been doing for about a decade now.

I write this with the understanding that it is not guy talk, not something to be discussed, and that is the problem. All of us have something or other, the more we sit on that something or other the more it hurts both ourself and others.

I am fortunate that I am in a position now that I don’t give a shit who knows what is going on, I have more important matters of concern; I now spend my energy examining what has been called the ultimate concern.So maybe I can do a bit of service by just putting down here what I feel, I experienced, I did, without the worry of concealment.

I don’t know if the guy who lost his big job yesterday has anxiety problems, don’t really care because it is none of my business; but he does have something that he tried to conceal, concealing causes a lot of damage. A decade ago there was this guy who nearly lost a very big job, because of concealment of something that affected him unduly. His wife may not get that same very big job because it is perceived that she conceals herself.

I have written previously of the instances of family members not admitting that dad is dying, keep believing that a new medicine will keep him from dying, that the medicine he now gets is making him act the way he is; family members who are looking away from what is the most natural thing in life, who are missing the opportunity to share and befriend dad as he goes about his business of dying.

I have no illusions that admitting to anxiety, writing about avoidance will change anyone’s mind; but I feel that it needs be said, that yesterday’s example will be taken by at least one person.

Buy a piece of trout, cook it just like a hamburger; the worst that can happen is that you will have to eat a peanut butter sandwich.