The Noise

Asking for help has been illuminating. Watching what happens, feeling the agitation it evokes, waiting for responses, hoping for the best, and learning how hard it is to penetrate the noise, distraction, and preoccupation of others, awakens one. Asking is anything but a straight-line experience. It exposes one’s humanity, while revealing the human condition. Somehow, the word “we” comes more alive, vivid, and poignant. Collective wholeness is such a rare bird.

I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, by how difficult it has been for me to get people’s attention. The plea for help does not have much resonance in the modern overactive world. Last time I wrote about how speed kills. These last few days, I’ve come to experience how easily we lose touch with ourselves, and each other, in the mesmerizing rush of this violent version of modern life. I go to pieces each time I answer the call of being a normal agent of this kaleidoscope of activity.

My disabled self relishes the slowness it has imposed upon me. I am Lucky, and I feel a certain compassion when something, like my request for help, reminds me that the price of normalcy in this world is so exacting.  Then I feel the tidal wave of grief that is extracted by this fragmented, speedy life most of us are living. I know I feel inadequate, like I have failed the test, and I should go home and crawl under the bed. Luckily, most the time, I’m off this treadmill.

The treadmill, that is such a good metaphor for the kind of constantly distracting effort that modern life insists upon. From the vantage point of this go-go life, one can easily see how difficult it is to have a semblance of an integrated self. The world of commerce, efficiency and actualization throws everything and everybody into the hopper. What’s left is truly gross national product. Effluvial quantity rather than humane quality.

My simple request for help is making me too aware of the brokenness of this social moment. I wanted to help marginalized old people, only to get a big dose of how marginalized most of us are. The suffering of the old — not-knowing what a miracle we are, and this life is — is a debilitation that is wide-spread in this world. It has become normal suffering.

There isn’t enough money, balm, medicine, or realization to staunch this flow. It is no wonder the Earth is reeling. The old are only the harbingers of what is to come, and of what is happening. Modern times is a misnomer.

There is time for adjustment! There are still neighbors, family, partners —and most importantly, the one within — who can experience the glow of recognition. The redemptive quality of life hasn’t gone away because our attention has been diverted. Life cares more than that for us. Now, we just need to care that much for each other.

Once upon a time, I read of an anthropologist, who claimed he had discovered the missing link between modern man and our animal past. He proclaimed, “it is us.”

We still have time on our hands. Maybe we can discover the missing link within ourselves.

 

 

 

 

Stop

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence

 to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork.

 The rush and pressure of modern life are a form,

 perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.

 To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns,

 to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects,

 to want to help everyone in everything, 

is to succumb to violence.”

- Thomas Merton

 

This is a painful one. I have no expectation that anything is going to change. Writing about slowing down is a lost cause. I’ve been writing about the dangerous pace of life since 2005. The Slow Lane got its name from the perception that arose in me, because my stroke stopped me, and revealed a world that I had missed in my daily rush. If that hadn’t happened I might not have had a clue. Now I am impressed by how slippery, and easy to miss, this perception of cultural time is. It is more than the water we swim in, it is the blindness we extol.

I cannot believe that a form of violence this profound could be so invisible, so imperceptible to us. Worse yet, some of us, take pride in being so busy as to be totally oblivious of time.  Some of us even take pride in our harried lateness. There is a form of mass murder that is disguised by rushing. It isn’t necessarily of others, but of the spirit. “Speed kills” in so many ways, some gross and obvious, and others, so subtle and thorough. Being mangled is just part of doing business in this culture.

All of that, the disfigurement of our kind, the disregard of our souls, the neglect of our own higher sensibilities, is the price we pay, while all along we pretend to be evolving.  It would be a painful dance were we not so distracted. Getting more done in less time is a powerful brew. Smiling absently, we have too great a tendency to celebrate our own unconsciousness. The race to the finish line is exactly that.

Lamentably, this painful tract can go on and on. There is no limit to the effectiveness of speed. Happily, there is an antidote. It is called a breakdown.

In this twisted-up world what looks like breakdown is sometimes breakout. In those rare, painful and debilitating moments, through the alchemy of real life, little clearings reveal a less violent way of being. This is a world that moves in a more paradoxical way. The urgency of machine time gives way to the primacy of the eternal moment.

Strangely, old age, the bane of the crowd, provides as much of this lax freedom as most people can handle. For many it is confusing. There are no time stamps, deadlines, or appropriate seasons, no way to objectively measure progress, value, or productivity. Instead there is only the spacious unfolding of desire. The advance that occurs outside of time, without effort or intention. Aging takes one beyond the rush, to the heart of the matter. The clock ticks differently when urgency disappears.

One could even say hurrying debilitates, while slowing down illuminates. In this way, the old, who are pushed out of the way, and treated like they cannot arrive at what’s important, see better what matters, and are essential aspects of the meaningful journey. The old tend to dodder, thereby insuring the magnificence around us gets noticed.

Downshifting happens naturally to all of our benefit. It looks like old age, but it is really the return of good sense.

 

 

 

 

The Second Placenta

Only in old age with the proximity of death

 can one truly experience a personal sense of the entire life cycle. 

That makes old age a unique stage of life …...

                                                        Pulitzer-Prize winning gerontologist Dr. Robert Butler                                                                              

Death is a topic that many old people talk about. Unlike the general culture, older folks know the proximity of death is closer, and therefore consider it a part of their advancing years. Conventional knowledge, what passes for common knowledge, places death in a taboo zone where it is rarely talked about. Old people are not so bound by convention, and non-conventionally consider death part of a larger picture that is surprisingly unfolding as they age. Some say, something unheard of is coming into sight.

This leads to some pretty creative speculation. No one knows what is transpiring when we humans pass from this world, but there are nearly as many stories as there are people. Some are compelling because they convey compassion, justice and peace. Some render to the void all that passes. Some convey only a deep sense of mystery. All revolve around uncertainty.

For a long time now, I’ve had my own story. It started without my knowledge in the seventies when I was in my late twenties, working as a vector control technician for a local mosquito abatement district. I had to learn the biology of all the pests that can plague we humans. Rats, gophers, fleas, yellowjackets and especially mosquitos, were the objects of my day-to-day attentions. In order to combat mosquitos I had to learn about their complex three-stage life cycle. Two stages in water, as pupa and larva, then onto adulthood, in the air.

Later, I began to think of human life composed of stages. Our complexity unfolding along the way. Even later, as I was confronted more with the enigma of death, I began to think about a multi-stage life trajectory. It occurred to me, that like the mosquito, we might with maturity achieve a stage unlike any before. For me, non-material being is as plausible a shift as the mosquitos venturing, with greater maturity, into the air. I became enamored with the idea of death being just another stage of life.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve become less and less afraid of dying.  I think Life has delivered so many unexpected wonders that I basically trust what I know is coming. I know, not everyone can say that. I am Lucky, and I know it. Never-the-less, I am going to disappear, like everyone else. I know that too. So, it is helpful to me to maintain my illusion, and to think of being cradled in a natural form of progression.

Recently, another similar idea came over the horizon.  Suppose this body I rely on  that is breaking down, is really only a temporary vehicle, a placenta, designed biologically, to help sustain and convey what’s inside me, to another different stage of Life. The idea of my body being a second placenta appeals to me. Especially because it conveys the lived experience I’ve had, my current life being a kind of amniotic fluid that has held me and nurtured my development. Maybe I am just aging — slowly maturing — into a yet to be, ripened being.

Anyway, each of us carries an image of the transition we have to make. Each is extremely powerful, determinative, and speculative. I hope yours satisfies you, and contributes to you making the best of your time here. The second placenta does that for me. May something like it be true for you.

 

 

 

  

Exposure

 

Is being here— alive that is — anything else! At every moment — masked or unmasked, Ukrainian or not, air breathers, secret deniers, perpetual smilers — we are always at risk. The real challenge of being, is to live with the vulnerability of knowing that each moment everything could change. Everything teeters! Impermanence rules. Life evaporates, oh so quickly. Everything, each of us, our children, hopes, satisfactions, fears and delights — all go into an invisible black hole, never to be seen again. Our fate is to surely to not exist as thoroughly as we do exist.

 

Out of that reality — of the pure momentariness of our being — comes the feeling of being exposed. It isn’t just a fear of catching a lethal disease, or of being short of liquid assets, or not having enough to feed your family. It is one of the primary conditions of existing. Each of us has to face the fact, that we came to the party to discover this is it. Soon, it will be over.

 

I don’t know what that means. It is probable that you don’t either. All we know is that there is an inevitability to the trajectory we are on. We have no idea what form of exposure is going to do us in. We just know it will be something. All of us, to the maximum degree, are exposed, all of the time.

 

I’d like to think I can’t live with that awareness. Whereas, the truth is, I do live with it. I keep it dimly tucked-away in the deep recesses of my mind. I don’t let myself often dwell on this fact of my existence. I prefer to believe I haven’t really noticed. I am here for the course — whatever that is? In the meantime, I’ll just pretend I’m immune.

 

Sometimes, I have a breakdown. I feel vulnerable. I get scared. I realize that I live is a house of cards, that could come tumbling down at any moment. For a while, it gets pretty hard to breath, but then it occurs to me, that this isn’t that moment. But for some reason, far beyond my station in Life to know about, I feel more acutely than I would like, just how exposed I am. I’ve wandered into the place of no return.

 

Loneliness accompanies the realization of exposure. No one else can make being exposed any less. Each of us makes our own dead-end canyon. Unknowingly. The only way out is the way in. And, there is only room for one.

 

Today, I might wonder what this sets up, how does this serve the Universe, does it someway make me more human, compassionate, caring? I don’t know. I can’t even conjecture. But none of my reflections change anything. I still feel shaken by my sense of exposure. Somehow, it seems, as if I am meant to live with being exposed. Is that a privilege, or a curse? Or both?

 

All I really know for sure, is that my current state of panic looks like I look today. Sometimes flailing can look creative. I pretend to have something together, look somewhat calm, am semi-coherent, and pass, but the truth is, I am drowning here. Drowning seems to be what I am capable of. I can go down, into the depths, the obscure future, with the best of them.

 

There isn’t any end to this line of thought. The mystery of this existence is really impenetrable.  Conjecture isn’t really a waste of time — we each seem to go down in our own way — it helps me wriggle as I go down. This is my own form of overwhelmed dance. This, and then, my way of responding momentarily to the fact that I, and everything and everybody I know, are so quickly passing.

 

I’d say good-bye, but I’m not really sure I said hello. We just have this moment, when whizzing by each other, when we get to decide whether we are going to pretend we are not drowning, or going to greet each other, as unique snowflakes passing in a quiet snowstorm. Fall well, whatever that means.

 

 

 

 

Ridiculous Courage

One willing heart can’t stop a war.

One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.

And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,

I tell myself what’s the use of trying?

But today, the invitation is clear:

to be ridiculously courageous in love.

 

                                                                     Rosemerry Trommer

 

 

There is a little bit of this wild exuberance inside each of us. The issue is unleashing it. Letting it go, is like being willing to bleed. A heart sometimes has to weep. Tears and blood are artifacts of being open. They mark the territory of passion and healing. They express the nature of compassion, heartbreak, and wild unselfconscious love. Love that is blinded, by being crazed with connection. That kind of love grows, when it flows out into hurt places.

 

Rosemerry is a good poetess, I recommend her. In this case, she is addressing a heart ache I hear everywhere, but especially from the old. It comes in the form of a question. What can I do to minimize the damage being done by the war in Ukraine, the polarization taking place in our politics, the pandemic, inequality, and the warming of our planet? 

 

It is our fate to live in this dangerous and tumultuous time. How do we respond to it?

 

This is an unprecedented era. None of our ancestors ever faced this kind of existential uncertainty. Sure, there were animal powers to fear, and wars which defined our history, famines and droughts, but never before now, have our actions become so dangerous, that we ourselves are the greatest fear we face. In so many ways, we know we humans are culpable for great uncertainty. Can we survive ourselves?

 

This is an open question. The jury is still out. Some unforeseen development may give us more time. It may be too late. No one knows what is going to happen, or when. Living, now incorporates this profound uncertainty. We all live with an edginess that cuts deep into our well-being, and asks us to be human in unimaginable ways.

 

The Earth is in a spin. Human culture is at risk. Evolution is pressing. All of this is happening way beyond the reach of we individuals. We see it, we know it, we are affected by it — and it largely is beyond each of us. Rosemerry — bless her soul — suggests that we do what we can. In a world that has spun beyond caring, let us do the ridiculous, and open our hearts and care anyway. 

 

Opening the heart now won’t change the world, but it will change you. Running up against all the insensitive blockages that we humans are capable of, hones the heart, and rouses the soul, making it possible for one to love with abandon. That ridiculous courage comes from within, and affirms itself.  

 

Maybe, that is what we are here for. To find the bit of light that still prevails, inside, and to let it shine.

 

 

 

 

Doddergasm

 

My birthday is coming up in a few days. I’ll be 74. I decided to do something special for myself this year. So, I’m making a birthday wish. This one is just for me. I wish that when I’m old enough to be a doddering fool, I’ll still have some erotic impulses. I like being juicy. I want to stay that way. I have been Lucky enough to experience the joy of being immersed in the great Spasm of orgasm. It has introduced me, from early on, to the mysteries of Life. Each time, I am blessed to feel a full-bodied connection with the Divine. My wish is that I always feel that connection viscerally, and celebrate it all the way through my old age.

 

I cry when I come. At first, I was mystified by this occurrence. Embarrassed even. But that passed as it kept happening, and I came (so to speak) to know better what I was experiencing. At the moment when everything goes beyond my control, it feels like I fall into an ocean of grief. It is a strange kind of grief, painful like you would expect, but laced with a form of hilarity. Sometimes amongst the sobs, there are moments of great exultation, like I am getting away with something precious. The sobbing wracks my body, sometimes going on for as long as 15 minutes. My sweetie has enough sense to just hold me. When it is over, I am wrung out, relaxed, and always bewildered. I have no idea, other than the softening of my soul, of what is happening.

 

I want some version of it to continue. There is something humbling, and deeply blessing, about having such a moving experience, that one is not in control of. I know I’m headed toward the barn, and after that, to the graveyard. Maybe this experience will evolve with me. I hope so. In the meantime, my birthday wish is that I develop the erotic chops that will allow me to keep playing in this field.

 

I expect that aging is going to further change me. If I don’t die, before reaching really old age, I would love to be capable of being part of the erotic nature of the Universe. It keeps on creating! I am so impressed, and humbled, by the generativity of what made us. I’d like to participate in that amorousness. Maybe I already do! I don’t know.

 

All I do know is that I would like to keep myself in the flow, aroused by the incredible, and dazed by life springing forth. Getting old is getting closer to the source. Some kind of dizzying delight is hopefully on my path.

I’ve always been a little bit shy about my erotic preoccupation. But, just like the book about aging and wearing purple, I’ve come to not be so sensitive about what others may think. That has freed me to be as exactly as horny for Mystery as I am. What a relief. I can now talk about my sense, that sexual desire lies on the same continuum as spiritual longing. Sometimes, I would submit, they coincide. Happy

is the day that happens!

 

Anyway, what I am wishing for myself this year is that I discover that the fountain of youth lies inside me, in the most devoted of places. A doddergasm may take a long time, may only come once, or be totally decimating, but it will move me a little closer to the Mystery that animates us all. At least, that is what I’m wishing for myself.

 

Happy Birthday Lucky one!

 

 

 

 

Friendship

Isolation is everyone’s problem. It makes believing in a made-up reality deriguer. Conspiracy theories about others are easy to believe, when you don’t know any others. Humans fail to thrive when they are not touched enough, when they lack meaningful and loving connections. When loneliness prevails, then a whole society can fail to thrive. The lonely stories of neglected old people are our stories, they drive us deeper into believing each of us is unimportant. I’ve heard many such stories, and have come to see the art of friendship as being essential to life in today’s social madness. It is an art form that has been too much neglected and insufficiently talked about. Connecting with another, makes feeling connected an important, life-saving reality.

Friendship is one of the true things, it cannot be bought. Everyone can do something to respond to the uncertainty of these times. Uniting with another is one form of self-preservation. It goes against the cultural grain, letting another be as important to you as you are to yourself. Lay yourself on the altar of your friendships, because that is the place where you are going to discover who you truly are.

Friendship is elusive in this busy commercial world where most people are on the move being wage slaves, having little, or no time, for personal moments. The ties that bind can be very loose, when they depend on shared work, commutes, and workout clubs. Bars provide a distorted form of social club. Retirement throws people out of the social-commercial rat race leaving them unsupported, beyond others, and drifting into the hands of social entrepreneurs. True friendship doesn’t follow all the commercial currents, it only concerns itself with the tide of connection. Social love provides an antidote to the isolated loneliness that is so characteristic of our times.

Friendship is an art form that has almost gone away. Few have the quality and quantity of friends to make it through the gauntlet of challenges that face us today. It is as if the importance of being human has gone the way of Dodo birds. We all suffer when that is true. The light dims. People wander, feeling unknown, and like they don’t matter.

Fortunately, this is something we can do something about. It doesn’t even take that much courage. All we have to do is listen, admire, and recognize. Also, making some time to hang out. The ability to be a friend is hardwired into we social animals — it is like falling off a log. No matter how our training for the economy has proceeded, no matter how shy we are, no matter how old we are, the bonds of friendship are available. All we have to do is reach out. All we have to do is let another know that the desire for connection is present.

Good friendship relies upon periodic moments of intimacy. These moments, when one goes beyond oneself, are like food.  They feed connection, meaning, and trust. They have the effect of nourishing the soul.  But, they require a little more. Friendship then becomes a practice field where new aspects of oneself can be tried out. Conversations that one has never had, revealing something new about oneself or our shared humanity, bring us closer to each other. Friends can provide solace. There is no more comforting feeling than knowing a friend has your back. Physical safety and emotional support are parts of the art of friendship.

There is something ineffable about certain friendships. Some form of synergy arises that makes an invisible relationship more. It becomes something magical, possessing and turning distance, time, and memory into a lasting unity, a special miracle of love. Siamese twins are not closer. That which cannot be named dances in the between, illuminating possibilities.  

It is relatively easy to find words that extoll friendship. They positively drip with warmth, contact and compassionate loving. Harder, is the effort that brings on the kind of affiliation that touches us with reassurance. The outside validation that friendship brings is precious. It isn’t part of what is available in our normal exchanges. We have to make it through life mostly by ourselves, so the honest feedback that friends can offer is a marker buoy, helping and revealing the unique path each of us is unfolding. Friendship makes the Universe warmer, companionable and hospitable.  The relational engagement that characterizes a friendship models the expectant attitude that best prepares us to meet the unknown.

Old friends are the best, and the most necessary. Reminiscences have power, but not like the shared power of combined memories.  There is something so gratifying about the welcome of someone you have known for a while. Calmness can set-in, and belonging melts anticipation, relaxing one.  Knowing the love of a friend translates into well-being.  The Universe, through this other, loves you.

So, why is it so hard to make time for friends? Besides the fact that genuine friendship is not commercially valuable and takes time, there is the fact that friends don’t grow on trees. Befriending someone is an iffy proposition. It takes a certain amount of self-revelation — a desire to be known. Most of us are prone to eschew friendship because of that possibility. We humans are also prone to be judgmental. We would rather fight with another, than with ourselves. Friendship rests on a paradox— it is the relationship where one gets to know oneself, as you are letting yourself be known.  If one doesn’t have time for oneself, then one seldom has time for a friend. It is very possible to find someone who shields themselves, and thus you, from reality. They, however, are not really a friend. They are the way one maintains pretense. That’s all.

Friendship is an exacting art form. The more of you that you put into it, the more you get out of it. Even more paradoxically, the more you try to get out of it, the more you miss what’s really there. You only have this moment; there is a special kind of grace, that comes with sharing it.