Noticing

I was such an oblivious young person. The world revolved around my perceptions, and they weren’t very nuanced. Aging changed all that. Not nearly fast enough. I remember going to grad school when I was in my late thirties still believing the world was like I perceived it to be. It wasn’t until my stroke in my mid-fifties that I began to get a clue about how far off I was. When I realized everything was passing so quickly I began to perceive the world so much more accurately. Still, I had a long way to go. I’ve had to get old enough to be occasionally embarrassed by my age to grasp and begin to believe what I actually noticed. It is when I could take in the real complexity of everyone, and began enjoying the uniqueness of who they were, and could sense the wild profusion that surrounds me, that I began to get that things are not at all what they seemed to be. There is something going on, that I am catching glimpses of — but am somehow only being let in on, if I pay real attention.

Finally, I noticed, that I hadn’t truly noticed much. That is what started me writing the Slow Lane. I attributed much of my failure to notice to speed. No doubt that was partially true. Speed does distort everything. But, I came to grasp that it was my arrogant beliefs, that kept me away from the what melded unpredictability and uncertainty into the world I was living in. Since then, I’ve grasped that I have a lot to unlearn. Instead, of arrogantly trying to fit in, I am now quietly trying to let things come to me. The Mystery is friendly, but requires a deferential presence.

Growing older is certainly a lesson in humility, especially with regard to noticing. Happily, aging has provided me with a kind of ballast that helps me withstand much of the pretense that appears almost everywhere. One of the reasons we older people struggle so much with loneliness and isolation is that many others prefer pretense to what we now are capable of perceiving. Life has some requirements that go way beyond the cultural moment. I’ve grown up, as I grew less and less what I was supposed to be.

I was trained as a psychotherapist. I was supposed to notice some things, mainly what was wrong. But, something happened on the way to a successful career. I noticed what was right. Going from pathology to wholeness, from noticing failure, to noticing courage and success, altered everything, and introduced me to a Universe of possibility. I began to wonder. I noticed other things about Life, that I’d been misinformed about. The stroke, which drove me to the edges of social reality, helped me notice that there was a lot more not known than there was presumably known. I fell into nonconventional noticing. Aging became a romp in an untethered world. What a delight, I noticed the freedom from dreary pretense!

I cannot claim to be fully grown. I simply say “I’m ripening.” But, noticing has developed into awe. I can rarely have an encounter where I don’t come-away with some deep impression. What I perceive isn’t always accurate, but is a lot nearer the mark than before. Plus, now I’m imbued with a more demanding curiosity, that insists I notice the uniqueness of the ones I face. I am always poised for surprise. Noticing has become a kind of passport into the magical-spiritual realms. Lately, I’ve come to believe there is no such thing as a failure to communicate. Aging, has resulted in openness to Life’s impingement.

As I said before it didn’t start out this way. I was granted the same senses as everyone else. I noticed something in the air. I didn’t know it. Life directed my attention. It ran me through a mill I could never imagine. In my case, being reduced to a portion of my former self (something I think happens to all of us, as we age), had the affect of sharpening my attention, and awakening me from the dream I was compellingly lost in. The world took on a glow I couldn’t adequately account for. Sensations bombard me now.

Noticing, now goes beyond my attitudes. I periodically lose heart, I go into a funk where hopelessness assails me, turning me back into a human doing, trying again to earn my salvation. Even when that happens, noticing distracts me. Reverie overtakes me, and I am delivered back into this strange world that always captures my attention. I notice, whether I want to or not.

Sometimes I feel this is a blessing, sometimes not. It doesn’t seem to matter. I end-up noticing stuff anyway. At-the-moment, I think I’m some kind of noticing machine, a flesh and blood probe, sent here by some truly sentient species to gather impressions. In other words, programmed to drink it all in. If it weren’t for my youthful blindness, I might believe that. Instead, it appears, as though aging has made me more aware.  Not just more aware, quantitatively, but qualitatively too. I seem to notice more what matters. Each moment seems to have a patina of meaning.

I can’t get over it. I’m so depressed I’m thrilled. Life keeps running me through the wringer. I’ve become slap happy. Noticing goes on like a nightmarish dream, turning into a warm bath of belonging.  I would be remiss if I said this was the way it is. I’ve noticed how myopic I can be. But, and here is the good/bad news, it goes on anyway. My shortcomings are just more gris for the mill.

Now tell me, how does it play out for you? Have you noticed?

 

 

  

A Social Koan

For years, as a community-builder, marital therapist, and relational man, I’ve had the recurring problem that I am about to describe. Briefly, what I found, in myself, and in all of the others I worked with, was an intolerance for difference. This was so prevalent in relationship everywhere, that I found myself thinking about it a lot. People were so prone to emphasize their similarities with each other, and to fear, hate, and run from differentness. I experienced this over and over. It seemed like this intolerance was a feature of separation.

After years of experiencing it intimately, and witnessing this intolerance in long-term relationships, and in the politics of this nation, I began to view this tendency as a fatal flaw in our relational practices. My thinking about it went so far as to consider this tendency to be impeding the evolution of our species — the problem that hangs over us, and is behind our wars and divorces

As a marital therapist I began my sessions with a new couple by seeing how they related to their differences. There were stages where differing was considered a strength, and others where differing was seen as a threat. How they dealt with differing was often the root of their issue. The things they did to protect themselves from how they differed, were all too often, perceived by their partner as offensive. A relationship would become hollow, dead or dissatisfying, and even violent when they were unable to avoid being different. Irreconcilable differences is the most common explanation for divorce in our culture, and is more commonly the root of dissolution of many unmarried relationships. Differing is unavoidable and dangerous relationally.

You can see the same thing playing out in the political arena. It isn’t just about immigrants, race, gender, or worldview. It is the basic threat that differences pose. We, as a species, are intolerant of those who seem to be different from us. These could be great, or little differences, but in the end these variations lead to disputes, conflict and warfare.

I’ve come to consider this weakness in our species’ make-up, to be such an important one, that it is a kind of developmental dilemma, that is impeding our growth (ie. a social koan). We will never achieve becoming citizens of the Universe, if we cannot get along with ourselves. The things we do to defend ourselves, are not only offensive to others, but eventually threatening to ourselves. The environmental crisis is a good example of our intolerance of otherness, and how we undermine what we ourselves depend on.

This isn’t just an abstract problem that happens occasionally. You can feel its presence in your life right now. Tune into the tensions you feel around the on-going challenge you have being yourself. How different can you be and still be loved?

This mostly unanswered question haunts anyone in relationship, maybe not now, certainly not always, but eventually. It is one of the great uncertainties of our time. Old people are focused upon freedom, particularly the freedom to be themselves. Some of them are able to achieve it, but all have to grapple with an intolerance of differing that is so deep that it makes the joy of uniqueness a real accomplishment. Relationships of all sorts are haunted by the chasm of difference, that makes relationship so rewarding and so damaging.

There is no cure for this intolerance. Diversity, being exposed to lots of difference is helpful, but we have to grow ourselves; our awareness of differences, our ability to handle negative reactions, and our capacity to stay ourselves while engaged with otherness. All of this, calls for a rare maturity — a growth of the self— that also means coming to terms with our own inconsistencies. The mystery of who each of us is, is great enough, to teach us how to deal with what we don’t know, and don’t want to deal with.

The way out of the bind of difference, is through those differences. It takes a rootedness in our mutual dependency, a rootedness that comes more easily to those who bear up, and let themselves be tested by wild profusion of Nature, ours and the unexpected.

 

 

 

  

What’s So Good About Getting Older?

The supreme reward of growing older might be

 

“our widening capacity for patience,

for the spaciousness that meets life on its own terms

and becomes one with the unfolding mystery.”

                                                                                                               Kahlil Gibran

I was introduced to being older by my stroke. I jokingly said at the time, that I was aged from 55 to 95 in about 4 years. Now, at 75 I no longer think that was a joke. My interest in aging has grown over the years. It has led me to, and through, a lot of things, and a lot of relationships with older people. Plus, in the meantime, I’ve become one of them. All of that experience has sharpened my interest in this particular era of Life. I think it holds some unique attributes, that make the final laps around the track, some of the most meaningful and important stages of Life.

In the early years after my stroke, I used to regard myself as a ‘precocious elder.’ I became one early (before my 60’s), but aging has made it really clear that I still had a lot to learn about what getting older involves. The last few years I‘ve had the feeling that this stage of my life is unlike any I’ve experienced before, and certainly more compelling. Everything up till now has been important, and involving, but this last phase of life, is having the effect of bringing it all together. I am turning out to be familiar and unknown, an unfolding mystery, like Gibran says.

The feeling of being old, and new again, is somewhat disorienting. I am surprised by what I regularly forget, and by what I amazingly remember. I experience déjà vu a lot, and then I’m struck by the beauty of some formerly pedestrian event. It is as if I’m a child again. Older and wiser, and even more sensitive and open. Moments last longer, strike me deeper, and more regularly blow away my pretenses. I am not what I used to be, and am on the way to what I have always been. I am broken down, frailer than I’ve ever been, and somehow more spiritually alive. I no longer believe death isn’t coming for me, but strangely, I am more welcoming than ever.

Letting go has become a big thing in my later life. I have an ambivalent relationship with it. I hate having to get rid of stuff, the shedding of identity, that comes with a life careening toward the finish line. I’m not finished yet, and I’m more finished than I’ve ever been. Getting rid of myself is an inexplicable way of finishing. I am ready to move on. And already I’m living as a ghost of myself. There is the pain of loss and surrender, and the joy of freedom. This is a bittersweet brew, that had to steep a lifetime, to be aged properly, so that the paradoxical flavors of simplicity and complexity could blossom.

I am the penultimate result of a lifetime of human longing. Aged with care, and just another one of a host that are passing quickly. It is some kind of demented race to a finishing line that one never sees coming. Sometimes gone even before one starts. The metaphor of a journey doesn’t begin to describe the weirdness baked into this transition. Thank the Mystery, Nature had the sense to create a beginning and ending.

Unlike other eras in life, the uniqueness of old age is how palpable is the ripening that takes place. No matter what one’s circumstances are: rich or poor, privileged or not, disabled, demented, savvy or naïve, this is an equal-opportunity action, that is imposed on all of us by nature. It puts everyone through the wringer. And it squeezes out of us our truest nature. That is a late-life gift that makes all the ups and downs precious. 

 

 

  

Extinction

 

“He who does not at some time, with definite determination

 consent to the terribleness of life,

or even exalt in it,

 never takes possession 

of the inexpressible fullness 

of the power of our existence.”

                                     Ranier Maria Rilke from Selected Letters                                                                                                                                                                                                 

I am a dead man. Worse yet, I am still alive. I am on the extinction line. We, the shut-ins and house-bound, are the ones who are already more dead than alive, we are about to be gone, to exist no more. In my case, I am human. Proof positive that this extinction event is going to take humans down too — it is, in fact, already doing so.

Going out of existence, dying isn’t new, or unusual, but in today’s terms, being made extinct is. Waiting to die has usually been left to the old, now it can happen to anyone. Extinction is a global phenomenon, hurried along by the massive ignorance of our kind. So, in some way, there is a kind of justice that accompanies the ending that awaits us all. An ending that is already happening, especially for those who are most vulnerable.

I am one of them. The ones that are out of sight, voiceless, and powerless. Shut-ins and the house-bound. The first to go. Condemned early by the force-field of ignorance. Humanity’s refusal to recognize limitations. I am going to go early, like many of the species who rely on others for their survival. Our limitations insure it. And, the limitations of those who recognize no limitations.

It’s a terrible thing recognizing that your time is up. It is even more poignant when one recognizes, that one is fated to absorb the same hit that is going on in the natural world. I have always known our destinies are linked, but now I know the same insensitivities that doom one, also affect the other. Climate change also means social change. All of it is driven, in part, by human consciousness, or should I say, lack of consciousness. It could be either, or both. The effect is the same.

It’s not that I don’t want to die. I accept that part of my fate. It is that our inhumanity extends to each other, and particularly to our most vulnerable. Just as we should be trying to preserve our endangered species, we should be trying to preserve the lives of those who have lost the means to help themselves. Equal justice should apply uniformly.

What troubles my heart is that we seem intent upon ridding ourselves of those who know dependence isn’t just a bad thing, and that all Life depends. In some painful ways, we are disposing of our chances. Drowning together, is anxiety-provoking, but dismissing those who cannot help themselves — wherever they lay in the animal kingdom— is not my idea of how I want to go out. Integrity matters too! If that is the result that we have made inevitable, then I have a lot to grieve in the time left to me.

From this sad place, the world looks like a trampled miracle. The faces of the suffering are, oddly, more beautiful. The glory of who we are, is increasingly hollow, and in some strange way, more awesome. I accept the refusal that permeates much of human life, and yet I long for, and dream of, the few who live by broader laws. 

  

Dependence

I usually take a kind of perverse pride when I approach a taboo area in these missives. But, not this time. The stigma is just too great. There is an impenetrable field of darkness around this one, a kind of consensus agreement that devastates. It reflects the kind of stubborn injustice that rebounds especially harshly upon all of us. Oddly enough, I want to address a very beautiful part of our human nature, that is treated like a dirty and inarticulate street person. I’m talking about what makes us a social animal — that we occasionally need and depend on each other.

Dependence is a dirty word, an even more branding and socially stigmatizing event. If one is forced to hang out in it for very long (like the diseased and disabled), then all manner of slurs can come one’s way. Self-sufficiency is the coin of the realm, and anything less is highly looked down upon and avoided.  It is as if welfare queens and self-pity are going to swamp the land. Needing is un-American, and for sissies.

So, it is, that our greatest strength, our bond with each other, is de-graded and demeaned. The reality of dependence is so marginalized and scary, that even good souls, like most of us, are drastically unprepared for it when it surely comes. Even the old host this element of ageism. It is the tragedy of the commons we are still perpetrating.

Dependency is actually a good and very heart-warming quality. Sure, it’s reality is misconstrued, but it offers a real chance that one can feel truly loved as one is. There is nothing like a warm hand on the brow. Most of us are so busy maintaining our pretense of wholeness, that we totally miss the wholeness we make because we actually need each other.

In more confident times, I used to think of myself as the ambassador of need. But lately, I have been worn down, more psychically-disabled by the social environment that views neediness like cooties. There is a naïve child-like viciousness that rules the land. Needing, in any form, is an insult that threatens our way of life. Sadly, most of us, without really thinking about it, apologize for being human, and further participate in the unraveling of human community. Meanwhile, the environment, and those who live on the outskirts, suffer more, and sink more thoroughly into our calloused ignorance.

Depending is not a sin, although it is often treated like one. The reality of those who depend is not inherently parasitic. We who depend are not a burden — we are an opportunity to care. To that extent asking for help is giving a gift.  The real burden is the uncaring world of mistrust that prevails today.

Dependency is actually a doorway into the world of connection. It is an engraved invitation. Falling into need is kindness, it provides access to a kinder, more loving world. Most of us shrink from the opportunity, fearing the worst, and avoiding marginality.

We aren’t being taught to be compassionate for strictly or own soul’s sake, but because we thrive best, in a world where compassion is present.

Falling, becoming less than we once were, is a human trait. It is a fate we all share. Inevitably, more than gravity takes us down. That too, is a gift of Life. One we can be sure of. Life, to make more Life, to actually evolve the whole thing, depends on an inevitable descent. Depending is part of the way. Let’s get better at honoring this feature of our existence.

Let’s let our hearts be broken open for each other, and for ourselves, because in doing so, the world becomes a more caring place.

 

 

 

  

Onliness

“I am too alone in the world

but not alone enough 

to make each moment holy.”

                                                             Rilk 

I am too alone in the world——The darkness of isolation is spread over the world.  Many people experience it. We, in Western cultures, have a particularly bitter share of it. Loneliness is epidemic. How many deaths, suicides, personal doubts, and how much social emptiness, originates in cut-off and loneliness? As an old person, I have little doubt, that the quality of my life revolves around the amount of real social contact I have. The echoes of a lonely mind form the headwaters where a lot of painful craziness begins. So, the experience of loneliness is a precursor of mental health, an indicator of social status, and a difficult way to come to terms with being human.

Is it really any wonder that solitary confinement is seen as a form of punishment?  Loneliness eats at the well-being of we social animals. Too many of us have grown used to the undermining effects of loneliness. We are punished by our own lifestyle.

The Universe, like our neighborhoods, feels like a lonely place. There is a fragility, a laDck of confidence, a feeling of being misplaced, that comes with the corrosive silence of being alone.  It is hard to be fully, magnificently human, when one is impaled by involuntary aloneness. This is the way the cold can get colder, the emptiness can grow, and personal life can become hollower. Loneliness is like walking death —it raises the specter of pointlessness.

Loneliness is also part of the human condition. It seems to be a secret part, rarely talked about, and avoided like a bad, and too revealing tattoo. Without some of it, though, inner life is impossible. Strangely, Life which is so dependent on relationship, is also so dependent upon loneliness. Whole realms are revealed thru adequate aloneness. It is clearly a complicated thing.

but not alone enough — —Loneliness can kill, so can the lack of aloneness. One’s spiritual health, as Rilke points out, can be jeopardized, without adequate aloneness. As a disabled person, a shut-in, I have experienced a lot of aloneness, of the isolation variety, and while it is deeply painful, it paved the way for an even more powerful solitude. One of the greater gifts of my illness is how it introduces me to my inner life. Isolation becomes solitude, and I experience life anew. Being alone enough now is a prerequisite. 

Aloneness is a double-edged gift, sometimes involving involuntary hurt, sometimes delivering voluntary awareness. Each time it arises, invited or not, one gets a glimpse of our true nature; connected to a greater whole, and uniquely ourselves. Loneliness is a life-long servant of that awareness.

to make each moment holy ——I find myself differing from Rilke a little here. I don’t think we ever have the power to make any moment holy. Each moment is already holy. With the right amount of solitude, or vigilance, the holiness of any given moment can be perceived. We do have things to do, which can render the holiness of a moment palpable, but that holiness exists whether we are aware of it, or not.

Our own holiness can also be brought to awareness. The light within is always there, and the loneliness of solitude, whether it be formal (as in a sitting practice) or informal (as in a walk in Nature), can reveal a whole other perception of Life.

Loneliness can be luminous.

May yours be so!

 

 

 

  

Intentional Suffering

I am beginning to have a new understanding about the role of suffering in my life. I thought I understood, I was a trained psychologist, who had read Carl Jung, and his famous dictum, that “there was no coming to consciousness without suffering.” I grasped suffering like a pet understanding. Life was difficult enough to promote awareness. I was informed, in a somewhat abstract and quite normal way, but it wasn’t until I really suffered the pain and uncertainty of my stroke, and its on-going nature, that I grasped the true nature of suffering.

For me, and many of those who have to endure, the ravages of painful grace, suffering is something far beyond the pedestrian beliefs of mainstream culture. Suffering awakened me, it sensitized, humanized, and enlarged me. So much so, that I now feel that the hardship I experience has grown and enabled me. I’m not as disabled, as I am enabled, by what’s happeningI know the heart of Jung’s dictum, because the suffering that has come to me, has made it clear that a painful yet extremely grace-filled kind of learning can come with it. Amongst my many beliefs, is the knowledge, that my greatest learning, and the most shaping influence in my life, has been the times I was ravaged by the unthinkable. In my book, God can be dark.

Learning suffering can be grace-filled, took time, unsettled me, and released me into the wild. Now, I look at suffering as a gift that can free one’s spirit, not as the curse it always seemed to be. Aging has helped wise me up. Now, I look at suffering as a natural part of the humanization process, as essential as the rest of Life, a gift from the Divine. There is nothing special about it, and it is an opportunity that few get to know the privilege of.

Lately, I have turned to service as a way of experiencing Joy. Oddly, thanks to Gurdjieff’s words, and the hardship associated with helping the truly marginalized, I have discovered another grace-filled aspect of suffering. The will to serve those who live in the shadow of our culture (shut-ins and home-bound people), has introduced me to what Gurdjieff called ‘intentional suffering.’ This is the suffering that comes with advocating for, and caring about, the unformed future.

Strangely, the difficulties that accompany caring for what is so enthusiastically ignored (the shadowy realms), becomes the source of learning, development, and most importantly, joy. Who knew, or would have even guessed, that there are forms of suffering, that are related to Joy. Apparently, Gurdjieff did, and now, so do all of us.

The upshot is, suffering has been given a bad name. It now seems likely that the word on suffering is part of the misinformation indoctrinated into us. It could be, that the most learningful and growth-producing periods of Life, have been the ones that were most disruptive, painful, and liberating. Bruises, scars, disappointments, and losses of all kinds, might just be the signs of being well-loved by the Divine.

Luckily (that is my name after all), this kind of thinking accompanies a good case of brain damage. Everything gets turned over. Life remains a mystery, but one that isn’t what it appears. In this case, suffering is a sign of love.

May it be with you, in the wisest way.