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 cause of fibromyalgia

FIBROMYALGIA, HOW COME?

My fibromyalgia has returned with the vengeance that only those who have known this beast can appreciate. For about a year I had about forgotten that I had been under the control of this fiend for three decades; the Cymbalta was working like a charm, I assumed that there is a silver bullet, I had found it. I wrote several posts about how peace had finally come to my universe, I stopped writing because it was repetitive, there was nothing new to say.

Recently the nasty one has slunk out of the woods and sank his fangs into all the parts of my body; the wounds seemed slight, reaction to a new exercise program, a hamstring that I must have overstretched or somehow damaged. As the pain grew worse I checked with the people at the Chronic Pain Clinic who couldn’t think of anything different to do other than perhaps increasing the amount of Cymbalta. The pain led to fatigue that led to excessive worry about my recent heart situation; and so I began a series of tests which showed almost nothing except for apnea, which is now being managed pretty well thank you. The future was to either crawl into my hole and feel sorry for myself, a procedure that is not unfamiliar; or make a different noise about what is going on with this attack. Messages were sent to various people in white coats over at the Great Hospital by The Lake, allusions to the Baron Münchhausen were included, dramatic appeals to look at this differently than before were made.

There will be a gap here because testing, hearing results, passing to the next specialist, retelling the old story—that part doesn’t need repeating to those of you who have learned it well.

I finally braced my internist to examine what is going on right now with an eye to a million dollars worth of testing or to go home and live with it. Out of the conversation was his observation that there can be a cyclical nature to bouts of FM, had I noticed that, had anything big happened just about the time of this latest flare? There didn’t seem to be anything until I threw out my last comment about a family situation that had made the holidays the most painful of my life, but that it wasn’t a new situation and certainly had no physical aspect. When did the latest bout of FM begin? When did it become severe? The answer to both coincided with another family anniversary that also connected to the Christmas situation.

That was a day ago, in the time since I have been able to remember other instances and other flaring of the FM. The instances where I never had the courage to admit the pain caused by the rejection of almost everything I hold important, these things were too big to be expressed and just had to be endured, my cross to bear.

Needless to say I think we are on to something here, I can feel that release of tension and return of the easiness of understanding that comes at times like this. It certainly isn’t over yet but the beast has a vulnerable area and my knife is pushing deeply.

The internist suggested that on this blog I ask others if they had circumstances that might be coincidental, trauma of various kinds, patterns of recurrences such as anniversaries or reaction to events; any difficult situations that were too painful to express fully.

If you respond to this know that I don’t want to know personal details that might embarrass or identify you, you can send me private responses if you wish. I will merely pass the information along to the white coated guy who sparked this, to see if we can find some way to help others. If I have missed any comments about confidential matters or professional guides please let me know; I ain’t in the medical profession, I am not interested in passing along or even knowing your private events, just if you had them and could they have preceded a flaring of fibromyalgia?

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.

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.

More about options

There is more to say about options than my preachy statement a couple of days ago; I didn’t write about suicide from the attitude of a conservative, of one who needs to tell others in order to keep the spotlight diverted from myself (or maybe I did); I have been there, I know the territory intimately, lived there for decades; anyone who has read my Lydia post knows this. Some days it has been difficult, and some days just really, fucking tough, some days are wonderful; that is how I learned the difference between optimistic and hopeful.Optimism means that I think things will be better, the future will be good; to be hopeful is just that, I hope things will be better in the future; the first is a statement that I can read the future, which is bullshit, no one knows the future, no one has ever known the future, it is a logical fallacy. I hope that the future will be better, I hope that there will be less pain and disappointment; perhaps I can do something to help make things a little better in the present and hopefully for the future.It is important to live with just what is; I have had anxiety problems since I was an infant, there are days when the anxiety is high, when I am so uncomfortable that I can think of nothing else, and then there are days when I thought that I would do anything at all to stop the pain; there are days when the joy of being is all that any human could wish; those are the days that are dealt to me, the only ones I have, the same as everyone else.

I was not conscious of it, but I had an intuition that below all the turmoil of anxiety, and its cousin depression, there was, is, something within me that is solid beneath the waves of the storm; even though it took me a long time to see it directly I knew that there is something superficial to anxiety, to guilt, to disappointment, to loneliness; I can’t describe it, it is beyond words, images or sounds; everyone is capable of trying to know it, writers have been attempting for thousands of years to describe it. I am trying to say to those who may not yet looked at it—there is more to all of this than what is going on today in your life.

I don’t always know that that I wrote above, I sometimes forget or am blinded; yet, behind the scenes, there is that glimmer of knowledge, that source of joy, even though we all know that we must die; the special nature of humans is that we can see that we will die, and yet I can know the joy that almost bursts my seams at times. It is a strange business this being human, that we know we exist makes us special, that we know that we must die is also knowledge for us alone; and that we know, have known since the day that guy in the desert proclaimed it, that there is something deeper, imperturbable. And that’s the way it is.

I filled the bird feeder even before having coffee this morning; I had to go out and move the car, I parked it last night in a place that invited a ticket, before coming back inside I dumped a load of seed into the hopper. The area under the feeder is tanned with swollen seed that the birds can’t eat, it had fallen and become wet, then frozen, then wet…. The dead sparrow lays there still, it has been there for about a week; I thought that I might push it under the bushes, out of sight, but then I didn’t, I want to see what happens to it.

I had intended to write more about vegetables today; what I do when I go to the produce department, how I match the vegetables and whatever meat or fish that appeals, that kind of thing. But I didn’t; I wanted to put down here for those who have trouble admitting it that I know how it feels, and I know something else as well, we all do.

There are four doves on the ground with the sparrows, eating what is spilled by the enthusiasm of those that are at the trough; doves never stay for long, and so I like to stare at their colors and shading, that interesting contrast with the lively,dull brown sparrows.

Are there any options?

The story in The Times was about the increase in the suicide rate of people in middle-age, the rate for women was somewhat lower than for men, but the increase was large for both; no one who listens to what is going on would be surprised, that people who have sampled what the life they have chosen rewards them, that they are in despair. If the goals are ephemeral the rewards rewards will be superficial, that the excitement was temporary, that they have ignored great portions of what life has to offer; they have denied the interesting bits.——————————————————————

It is a bitter cold morning, although we have clear blue sky with a full sun the temperature is +5 and with the breeze we have wind-chill in the negatives. I had it in my mind that I was going for a long walk today, by ignoring the weather forecast yesterday I was able to convince myself that I’d go for that long walk that I need, straighten a few kinks, burn off some excess, get out and around to see what has been going on. But it isn’t going to happen, the cold is too much today, the ice on the walks treacherous enough to take all the fun out of a hike.

Instead I’ll go and buy the cups and plates that I have been putting off doing; A few weeks ago I realized that I had come to a place where I have nothing whatsoever that matches anything else, that the cupboard looks like the remainder box at a garage sale; and there is less pieces of anything than I thought, the handle breaks from a mug, a dinner plate slips while being washed, wine glasses never last; it is that dreaded time that I am not equipped to handle. A couple of weeks ago I went to Bed Bath and Beyondwhere I felt as out of place as any I can imagine; they have about twenty styles of liquid soap dispensers, the things that go around the bottom of a bed are arranged in numbers too large to count; pots and knives chosen for their looks instead of function take up an acre or two of store space; that business of breathing into a brown paper bag came to mind as I was overwhelmed by choices that had no distinction. I looked at some display plates, and then promptly left. Today I intend to buy two each of those plates, bowls, cups & saucers; plain white, open stock; never have to return for years to come.

Yesterday the papers reported on that recent suicide study, the one that showed that the middle-aged are killing themselves at rates much higher than previous; the numbers for women were lower than men but still up quite a ways. The article made an impression on the half a dozen people I encountered at Dave’s video store yesterday, they were talking about dementia, infirmities, the impossibility of handling being aged; this was not a conversation that I started, I just walked in on it. I remembered that a friend of mine had done research and written a book or paper about why people kill themselves (or should it be the singular event?).

People tend to commit suicide because they believe that they have no options left, that whatever it was that was important has failed, there is no where else to go than into that void. If one is looking for a time to be disappointed, middle-age is a good choice.

There is a scarcity of education in the midst of career training to become an executive, a lawyer, a doctor, a whatever focusing talents, time and energy, to the exclusion of learning anything else, in order to rise to the upper levels; only to find that the thing about upper levels is that there aren’t many seats to be had there, and those seats are expensive and uncomfortable.

The rewards for being successful are obvious and numerous and empty. I drove a fellow once who was part of a private bank, a number of rich people start their own bank to buy companies and securities and such; he was here to buy a chain of steak-houses and needed to look at each one of them before making a recommendation to his partners, so we spent about six hours driving around the area, and we talked. It turned out that we had a common interest in cars, that is what we talked about; then he said a most telling thing—I have had 7 Porsches, and I just get bored with each one. He currently had half a dozen fancy cars and was considering a Rolls convertible that had just come on the market.

He becomes bored with each one. Mr. Porsche is listening to guys like that, he continues to make even more expensive and exotic toys that stimulate, for a while. It is time to remember that deal that Faust made.

I have a handful of books at a bindery, to be given new and more durable covers, they have been used long and hard, the original covers are paper, to be affordable for the students who normally buy them; these books give me something new, something that challenges me, every time I pick one up and peer inside, one in particular has been doing this for over four decades, and continues, these hard covers are worth it.

I have gone through that period where whatever I held important disappointed, anything and everything that is mundane, that can be destroyed or will turn away, eventually will do just that, it is the nature of almost everything. Only that knowledge, that truth that is in the deepest part of our hearts, will never fail or leave.

Here are a couple of sentences that never fail to resonate in me: “ , the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known “

That is what is missing in those who have to kill themselves, that failure to look inside and find what cannot disappoint, to find what will always excite; come to know what has been found by everyone and anyone who has the courage to look. To know what is beyond creed, cult and tradition; available to everyone and anyone.

My days of considering killing myself are behind me, but I do remember the haunting allure of that simple and eternal option, and I have come to know the alternative; I know that it is difficult to figure out, that the route to that knowledge is frightening, but it is there for everyone and anyone who has that courage to look.

There is silence outside my window, the feeder is empty except for a bit of seed in a corner that can’t be reached by fat sparrow heads; in my mind I can feel my bare fingers fumbling with the shackle that holds the feeder to the apple tree, my finger nail searching for the end of that split-ring on the cotter-pin.

The coffee is finished, this post is written, it is time to go outside and do it.

The old battle once again

Yesterday I traded messages with a friend who was beating herself up over something or other or nothing at all, it turned out to be the latter; that somehow it is imprinted in her that if she is she is flawed, the bell rings and the dog drools.

A while back I was driving a psychiatrist in town for a meeting, I don’t know if the fact that he was an Indian Hindu had anything to do with his attitude, it really shouldn’t; we were talking about something or other, perhaps it was a political event, he made the comment that we are all flawed one way or another.

That comment stuck in my craw we are all flawed one way or another is just plain wrong: it is wrong logically, it is wrong philosophically, and it certainly is a bad attitude for someone whose job it is is to treat the mentally ill. To say that we are all flawed one way or another says that there is a standard, and that I don’t meet it. That there is a standard, and that I will never meet it. That there is a standard, and that he is aware of it.

It is wrong in that some sort of human perfection is what we are all about, that is a mundane attitude that needs to be transcended.

It is wrong to judge me even before you know me, what does that say about you and our relationship?

Within each one there is the knowledge that we are, and that knowledge is above and beyond any act that we do, it transcends the mundane and is the basis of our spiritual side. It is why Luther could state that each person is equal before God, that Jesus could say that whatever we need we already have. It is what stuck in my craw when this healer assumed that I am flawed.

You are acceptable, as is.

You always were, always will be; it is inherent with your being.

It is clear that accepting this notion requires courage, the courage that it would take to look at a bright light. Earlier on I had mis-connected the idea that my progress along this trail of life was related to something deeper within me, that my mundane activities reflected upon my being as such. I was wrong, and it took a lot of work to rid myself of this erro

I see this same error of connection in others, and that is why I am writing about this same idea again, and will probably repeat it in future.

Accept that you are acceptable, and then get on with whatever it is that you are about.

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Condensed steam is drifting, white against the blue, from chimneys, ambling towards the northeast, sometimes to the east. There isn’t much push to the cold air this morning, there will be activity later as the warmth comes in, they predict a rise of 20 degrees today, something more than that tomorrow, that’ll bring higher wind and some snow.

The bird that I earlier called a kestrel certainly ain’t one, I finally found a picture of a kestrel instead of the written description. I don’t know what kind of bird mine is, my description is limited because each time I’ve seen it it was backlit, I saw mostly contrasts; it is larger than a kestrel, the size of a large crow is what I would guess.

Afraid to believe

A man I know assured me yesterday that Hilary’s tears before the New Hampshire primary were staged, false, done to manipulate; this fellow runs a health care company and so may no more about what was inside her mind than I do, or that is the way he would have it. There was no way that he was going to be taken in by her trick, and he wanted everyone else to know it, so there.

Of course he missed the point: People responded to her show of emotion, voted their desire to believe in a woman who believes in what she is about; this caused a reaction in my friend, why?

What is there about believing in something that frightens?

What is there about believing that attracts even as it frightens ?

Is my friend afraid of being disappointed, being hurt?

Is he embarrassed to be seen as believing?

Is that why he has decided to be a cynic?

It is no secret that the penalty for being a cynic is that one has to live without belief, there is no greater punishment than that. To be driven to that state of mind where he has to insist that Hilary is trying to trick us, to have that attitude is to be like a stopped clock, right twice a day. He could be right, eventually he will find an example to show that he is right, twice a day; the rest of the day the cynic doesn’t know what time it is in his empty universe.

Yesterday I wrote that the greatest act of love is to let someone be, accept without cynicism, accept without fear of disappointment, accept without fear of pain. There is a joy that comes from accepting without qualification, that joy overwhelms any pain or discomfort that comes along occasionally.

I accept her, him & myself- as is.

A man from Darfur

I met a man from Darfur; it was an early evening in August, I was walking in the livery staging area at O’Hare. The lot can hold about 200 livery cars and over 300 taxi cabs, a lively place to be on a pleasant evening. I doing what exercise I do, he the same, we walked and talked together for a while, I never saw him again.

The man told me that he had just returned from Darfur, that he had grown up in that area, emigrated to the U. S., had just returned from a visit. He described holding a child as it died, knowing there were other children in the village who were about to die, so many had died in the place he had grown up, so many more would die in the future. There was nothing he could do about it. He was sad, angry, confused, frustrated, and had to come back from that place.

He told me that he was a Muslim, but not a practicing one, that the religion based destruction and killing kept him from the rituals and ceremonies that he had learned growing up. They were responsible for the death of this child, the other child, and all of the others, they who were supposed to be his spiritual guides.

His angry argument against the religious authorities was familiar, I don’t imagine that there is anyone growing up in our culture who has not gone through the argument and history of religion based cruelty, it is something that we start in high school and keep through the early years of college: examples and blame, the frustration of not having a spiritual organization with clean hands. That there is no religious group that has not killed and injured. I don’t need to go through this old harangue, there isn’t anything new about it.

I suggested that he should temporarily lift the words from this business, Allah, Muslim, whatever the nouns are they should be set aside for now. Don’t throw them away, keep them close to hand, within sight and reach. Then go to how he had once felt, what feeling that the practice had given him, just the feeling experience. Stay with just that for a while. He understood what I was offering, agreed that it felt good, was a comfort against his frustration.

All of the words of a Spiritual life carry baggage, so much of it that it is almost impossible to grow from under that weight. Put aside God, Jesus, Christianity, Jehovah, Allah and whatever words, and let whatever it is that is behind those words rise to the surface. There is, always has been, something that needs to be felt, that can’t be ignored, it is the basis for all religions and cults. Just go to that place within, relive the feeling that that you find.

This is nothing more difficult than doing this, nothing takes more courage, and it is the most wonderful. Leave the safe words passed down from your father and mother, the authoritarian laws and directions that were to give lifelong guidance; set them aside, for a short time, be courageous.

The symbols, ceremonies, laws will always be there, they can be picked up and carried at any time—-but for just this short time set them beside me, when I come back to them they will have even more power than previous.

This piece has been the most difficult to complete, has taken nearly a week to get this far. It is far from complete, is disjointed, the words not exact. Writing about this is like engraving smoke. I feel as if I had done too much exercising, I am sore and creaky, and I have a headache; all for those couple of paragraphs. I’ll post this today, will come back to it again, and then once more.

To buy a new television today, or not?

My Sony is old and small, it dates to years before the divorce of fifteen years  ago; it’ll be necessary to move up to a HDTV, they do give a much better picture (and bigger), the bulkiness of a CRT set won’t be missed; so why not buy a new set?

This is more than spending what for me is a large sum, this is something else; the “green banana” syndrome, sometimes referred to as the reluctance to buy the largest tube of toothpaste; this is about living in the past instead of the present, a refusal to be the age and at the stage of life that I am. This also refers to why I do hospice volunteer work, I am afraid of the next stage, and the stage after that, and so I have this urge to cling onto the past. I have fought the battle against being conservative all of my life, and now I want to be one, to recreate a past that never was. (That last idea is from Tolstoy.)

It ain’t just about an old Sony, this is about accepting and embracing what is; the tension between the two poles is never equal, what is now must always be more powerful than the urge to go backwards, but there are the oscillations and decisions.

And that’s what makes this day interesting, grist for my mill.