tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12259261807017273582024-03-12T22:20:05.730-07:00Who Am I? Who Are You?Supporting the writing of life stories as an aide to personal growth and healing.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-21626659161359597602011-05-29T18:45:00.000-07:002011-05-29T18:45:56.627-07:00The Beachcomber<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjVUtQo9B8LPWRZKLXUEax4R_mv-3lyRIbpA67qDcH0pgXmGZh8DKNhkn_Nr2Dd3WyinXjFEb_SscrROwW-FshlPT0475CbYgaa29mVh1fPENRgDYNgQAxaYN9B4DzDM1zDO4mV59fPYAB/s1600/image11751.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjVUtQo9B8LPWRZKLXUEax4R_mv-3lyRIbpA67qDcH0pgXmGZh8DKNhkn_Nr2Dd3WyinXjFEb_SscrROwW-FshlPT0475CbYgaa29mVh1fPENRgDYNgQAxaYN9B4DzDM1zDO4mV59fPYAB/s200/image11751.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>This being combs beaches. Flotsam from the sea and objects left alone on land provide livelihood if not existence. Lean frame, moderate height, medium fair complexion showing effect of long exposure to sun and wind, of a not unhealthy but not entirely benign sort. Brownish hair, thinning some, a beard mostly brown, a sprinkle of red, invading white. Leather sandals, evidence of long wear. Blue Jeans and a Sears work shirt of the old fashioned kind-- bleached more happily by the wind and solar rays than his own biological hide. Green blue eyes, like the sea.<br />
<br />
Walking the evening walk, in the middle of the dry sandy beach, a ways up from the true shoreline. Occasionally eyes turn toward the wet sand, the place where waves roll up, stretch and then fall and die. Now and then skimming the moving water itself. Sometimes, even at the end of a day when the beach teems with people, there is treasure perhaps overlooked by all those mostly looking at each other, or perhaps appearing late after they were already off the beach. <br />
<br />
But these late afternoons eyes mostly wander lightly over the dryer sand, recently the home of beach chairs, blankets, coolers, even open sided tents, balloon tired baby strollers. And people-- with objects, equipment, possessions. The evening treasures aren’t hard to recognize, just hard to see. They are human made and human lost—coins, pocket knives, toys, cell phones, cans, and bottles, key chains, bracelets, knives and forks, <br />
<br />
Not focusing very intently, keeping in touch with present time and space, aware of the significance and importance of this moment, this place-- the meeting of the land and the ocean, wind and clouds, the unceasing moving energy of the sea, the relative inertness of the land, the beauty of space, the stretching out of time not too filled or clock divided. The comber has no watch.<br />
<br />
Tonight’s gleaning about average. 3 quarters, two dimes, a nickel, and 5 pennies. Also a paper back book— The Dispossed-- a Frisbee, and a small pair of scissors perhaps from a manicure set. A small can of tuna fish, unopened. The book to read. Tossing the Frisbee up toward the path out of the dunes so that some child might find or refind it tomorrow. The scissors, good quality German go to the notions store where they’ll likely fetch a dollar. The coins enough for a cup of coffee to go with the tuna fish for supper. Not bounteous, but enough.<br />
<br />
Real money makers are rare. A diamond ring once, a few gold wedding bands over the years-- perhaps jetsam rather than merely lost-- a charm bracelet (gold rabbit’s foot, horseshoe, four leaf clover—certainly good luck for the comber) , a $50 bill, s gold cigarette lighter. These bonanzas, bring in enough cash make the rainy days, the winter, the days with nothing found survivable. Occasional other delights. A whole bottle of wine, a Cuban cigar in a mental tube, a small flashlight with lithium battery that works for two years. <br />
<br />
Sitting in the sand as the stars appear. Can opener on Swiss army knife opens the tuna fish. Coffee still warm, two bags of little oyster crackers left on the counter by someone who’s had clam chowder and hadn’t wanted the crackers. The tuna delicious tasting like the sea, the crackers sea salty and crunchy. Sleep in the still warm sand, stars overhead, the gentle sound of the waves, <br />
<br />
Walking the morning walk, pale yellow softly glowing on the far horizon. Moving with dignity and meaning, but without purpose. Eyes alert, but without expectation. Mind sometimes aware of body sensations, pleasure of picking up and putting down feet, feeling the wet solidness of the sand, enjoying the rhythm of movements, the power of muscles to propel body and mind along the shore. Body pain, too. Aching knees, sore shoulder, cramped belly. Mind sometimes aware of itself—memories, projections into the future, creating problems and sometimes solving them. Sometimes just worrying them along. Mind sometimes breath-ing and soaring on the spirit of the wind. <br />
<br />
Three treasures almost at once. Small flotsam crystal vial, tightly stoppered and still half full of expensive perfume. From the sea itself, some mussel shells, shiny black, very similar to one another and yet each distinctly if subtly different. Finally, not tangibly harvestable, a small area just above the horizon, become increasing light and bright, rays of anticipation and energy. Then suddenly a tiny intensely red spot, almost too hot to look at. Growing steadily moment by moment and then violently, gracefully boiling up out of the sea. Sunrise. <br />
<br />
Joyful surging of the heart. A pause, arranging the five shells in a circle, thinner ends pointing inward at each other and toward the center. Balance for a moment, then a wave, overreaching all recent ones, splashing over mandala, fragmenting the arrangement and tumbling the shells back into the sea.<br />
<br />
*******************************************************************************<br />
<br />
For background material on this short story and a guide to understanding it as a suppot for personal change, growth, development and healing, visit my Website: <a href="http://www.supportforchange.com/">www.SupportForChange.com</a> and use the link to<u> Website Contents</u>, then the link <u>Writing Narratives as Support of Change</u> and then the link <u>The Beachcomber: How This Personal Narrative Has Been of Support (and Hinderance to Change) </u>Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-30959657988192355412010-09-30T06:13:00.000-07:002010-10-01T04:23:06.474-07:00Truth: The Individual and Society<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAaVEa8Rr94KH-MheN66rfMoDlnd_mkrVLdQTmQAi87Rd4o8Y8qHn4IDdQaPrrLptAsARf9JHvfLJi7_LhF2oAuEie26LrjAZyStSUDLeg4JRUIri8FZGM_uPCghcvaOUY3neaIUrhSZk/s1600/Mandala+I.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 150px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523034667627725010" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAaVEa8Rr94KH-MheN66rfMoDlnd_mkrVLdQTmQAi87Rd4o8Y8qHn4IDdQaPrrLptAsARf9JHvfLJi7_LhF2oAuEie26LrjAZyStSUDLeg4JRUIri8FZGM_uPCghcvaOUY3neaIUrhSZk/s200/Mandala+I.jpg" /></a><br /><div><em>Sacrifice might be demanded of the individual, but never compromise; for though only society can give security and stability, only the individual, the person, has the power of moral choice—the power of change, the essential function of life.____</em><br /> Ursula Le Guin <em>The Dispossessed</em>, p. 333<br /><br />In this psychologically brilliant science fiction novel, Ms. Le Guin raises fundamental questions about the relationship between the individual and the group (society, culture). I understand her to say that they are inextricably bound together and must be in a balanced relationship for a society or an individual to be healthy. The details of that balance are always in tension, complex, mysterious, not fully able to be conceptualized or spoken. </div><div><br />This view is different from the one so romantically expressed by Ayn Rand in her novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Although both authors see the individual as the ultimate source of creativity (and change), Ms. Rand’s heroes , Howard Roark and John Galt, are presented as only hindered by their societies. As I understand her, Rand would just like the group to get out of the way and let the individuals create a perfect world. This is partly why Rand has been such a darling of some American political conservatives –because she also states that wealth can only created by the individual and that the collective, as represented by government can only inhibit the creativity and productivity of the individual. (The development of this philosophical, psychological and political view seems to have been heavily influenced by the suffering Rand witnessed and experienced as “collectivism” {Communism} invaded the world of her childhood.)</div><div><br />Rand’s View is much simpler than LeGuin’s, and perhaps more satisfying upon initial encounter. It is also one-sided and out of balance. It is clear to me that wealth is always a social construct and cannot be created by an individual outside of a social context. A man can have in his possession a cubic yard of gold. The worth (or is it value?) of the gold is determined by what others are willing to pay for it and their having something to pay for it with (something that is wanted or valued by the person in possession of the gold). (Of course, the gold possessor may just like having a big gold cube in his cave--living rooms don’t exist without a group culture. In that case the gold might be valuable {or worth something} to him, but it is not wealth.)<br />Shevek, Le Guin’s “Hero”, is a physicist and, Le Guin makes clear that in her view his creative achievement in his field is both an individual one and a collective one. There is no physics without a community of physicists, without a language of physics, without a history of physics thinking and development. But only one man is the source of the creative “synthesis” (or fountainhead of creation) that moves that history to something new that innovates, changes things.<br /><br />It is clear that Le Guin believes that groups seem to inevitably move toward restriction of freedom, conservative inhibition of change and innovation and that the individual has to take the responsibility and consequences for his or her creative innovations—for the truth that they discover/create. This view is similar to Rand’s.<br />We can’t create anything without the conceptual linguistic community but only the individual can really use those tools to articulate new truths. Shevek comes to realize that the rules of thinking (logic in the larger sense, mathematics) can lead him to truth within the system of reasoning and number, but the usefulness of the truth depends upon its acceptance by the community of physicists and people willing to test it empirically and practically.<br />Le Guin’s view is systemic and spiritual (because meaning is not merely rational or material in her view) Rand’s view seems to be entirely rational/materialistic as evidenced by John Galt’s long speech endorsing what he understands as the Aristotelean view of reality: to whit, “A is A”. Le Guin’s view is also constructionist and existential because she indicates human beings create their world through thinking about it and talking about with language. This view is also put forth in her Novel, The Telling. Language is not an individual creation. Human languages are born out of communication between individuals within groups, and they grow and develop within human societies. </div><div><br />Most broadly conceived, science is the search for truth that can be consensually validated and mutually agreed upon. The particular rules about what constitutes scientific procedure or evidence is itself a subject of inquiry and discussion, a human construction. If truth in physics lives in this tension between individual and group thought, how much more so for the field of psychology? </div><div><br />Physics had to accept Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminancy, which seemed to imply that we can know about what the group of atoms is doing but not the individual atom; this was followed by even less rigidly “materialistic” physics (particles that go in and out of existence, anti matter, the relativity of time and space (the tradition within which {the fictional, of course} Shevek creates and solves problems).</div><div><br />Most “scientific” psychological research has been based upon a statistical model, in a way mirroring the Heisenberg principle that we can know something about a group, but not an individual. Although I know very little about it, modern physics doesn’t appear to me to be heavily based on statistics—and in fact the most important experiments in physics seem to rest on single cases where something either can be observed to happen or not (for example the bending of light in a gravitational field). </div><div><br />When I went to graduate school a lot of scientific psychology consisted of research carried out with animals as subjects. This was partly based on the notion that the study of behavior can be used to build up a full psychology of people, which I believe is utterly false. It is not that the biological/body foundations of human existence cannot be explored and understood in the context of our relationship to other animals, but human existence is something else entirely and requires its own psychology which has to be radically different than studies of other animals . This is true because what is unique about humans is not our behavior, but rather the psyche, the inner world that influences that behavior. This creates the difference between behavior and action (which has to do with the meaning that is associated with the behavior). We are not likely to learn much about human existence (and its potentials) by building up from smaller units that exclude what is basic to that existence—namely an inner world of ideas, feelings, images, goals, intentions, time, etc. We can’t study that inner world without data, but the most important data is often linguistic data—what people say (or write) about existence. This is what differentiates human action from animal behavior. </div><div><br />As Le Guin writes, there is no human action without a past and a future—and these are conceptual/linguistic realities which human beings create and which become the necessary framework for our existence. Other animals do not have a past and future other than as human beings conceptualize time in relation to them. They do not conceptualize it for themselves. (Jean Piaget, the developmental episttomologist/psychologist saw the cognitive aspects of what he calls sensory/ motor intelligence in the behavior of pre-verbal children; but he is very clear about the limitations of this system and what enormous impact the development of language has upon thinking—and therefore of the world the child inhabits). </div><div><br />To be valid our science of the psyche must include the psyche (the inner world of people) and it must give us an understanding and ability to influence individual human beings in human ways. By necessity this includes issues of meaning, value, ideals (truth beauty and goodness) as well as our behavior, our social life.</div><div><br />I am not envisioning at the moment what a “science” of human psychology would be like, other than that it must include the basic dimensions alluded to above. The search for consensually validated or agreed upon methods of arriving at truth and agreement is still what I think we ought to mean by the term science—and nothing more. And psychological science will have some very different dimensions than other science, because human beings are radically different than other phenomenon (we aren’t just phenomenon).<br /></div><div>This throws us back into the dilemma that Shevek faces—because his truth is in some sense created individually by him in relation to standards he understands (logic, mathematics, consistency, etc). However, to be useful, to be “knowledge”, these “truths” have to be understood and accepted by others. But this cannot mean that their truth is limited to the dumbest and least educated person, or, in his case, every non-physicist, or every not- understanding physicist. Shevek has to be open to being disproved or even superseded, but he has to have the courage and take the responsibility for the consequences, the personal consequences for him, of standing up for the truth that he has arrived at—and relinquishing that truth only when he is satisfied that it has been found wanting according the criteria he understands. Even if he is wrong, his task is to stand up for the truth as he sees it.<br /></div><div>Copernicus collected evidence that the earth revolved around the sun, and not the other way around. Since this view was not accepted by others, and since the church threatened to (or perhaps did) excommunicate him because of his interpretation of his data, Copernicus publicly renounced his conclusion. He was not willing, publicly, to endure the consequences of standing up for his truth. It appears that he didn’t renounce his truth privately, within himself, and eventually, the group accepted his evidence and conclusions. I don’t know enough of the history of these events to know if Copernicus’s public renunciation of the heliocentric view retarded or actually hastened the acceptance of his views.<br /></div><div>I relate all of this to current debates about best practice and evidence based practice in psychology. Individual psychologists are under pressure from the collective (immediately our own professional organizations, more remotely and perhaps causally, insurance companies that seek to influence the services they pay for) to use evidence based practices. Some of us question whether the science that leads to these collective opinions about what research shows to be best practice really enhance or optimize psychological services such as psychotherapy.<br /></div><div>It is clear that the same forces that operate in the realm of psychology, have distorted medical research and practice, which in some sense is more tightly bound to the physical reality of body. A wholisitic (holistic) view of health, which even medicine is beginning to consider, is certainly essential for psychology (foundationed in all of the arguments I have put forth above as well as many other lines of reasoning and evidence)<br /></div><div>The” truth” statements which “evidence based practices” represent come out of various institutions—research labs, universities, journals, which are collective efforts of individuals. But these are individuals who are highly integrated into a cultural setting and often are not very self aware in relation to the limitations in their own ways of seeking truth. Nor are they usually sensitive to how much the institutions to which they are loyal are embedded in a culture whose truths are biased toward the materialistic, toward the statistical (group rather than individual), toward the simplistic rather than the simple (Ochams Razor), toward profit, toward narrowly defined self interests. </div><div><br />As I consider these matters, and as I write the above, I am aware that I many of my earlier experiences and biases and predilections have led me to be a minimal reader and consumer of primary source psychological “scientific” (academically sanctioned) research. I am committed to changing this so that if I am able to present at least some outline of what I think psychological science and research might look like when it includes full dimensions of human existence, it will not be done in ignorance of more specific details of how at least some sample of current psychological research is being carried out. I hope that I will find more reliable and useful guidance from it than I have in the past.<br /></div><div>I do find that these biases lead me to a question as I make an effort to renewed objectivity about the usefulness of current psychological research. Is there good, scientific evidence that “scientific” psychological research has clearly contributed to the improvement of human welfare? I can offer some rational argument that it is has been harmful in certain ways, but this grows in part, out of my above alluded to biases and predilections. Which doesn’t mean I am “wrong” in my conclusions, of course. Hopefully, more about this later. </div>Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-10125683789127530772010-09-15T15:51:00.000-07:002010-09-15T16:37:32.202-07:00Meaning and Time<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEANYjoLEQ7PN_smghxJ2lVE7hW-EIXD9FMhbTfHU2YC_9O0aK8cnRKvaS-KvbUV9hH4Bk8R691EJe1Xt7TqP_NvLDek6YLWcnNDMkVWC1xIyy5sylX2uNemDP3u5LI5Hne3gUS92-Lz8h/s1600/Balls+I.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 268px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517284156480899074" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEANYjoLEQ7PN_smghxJ2lVE7hW-EIXD9FMhbTfHU2YC_9O0aK8cnRKvaS-KvbUV9hH4Bk8R691EJe1Xt7TqP_NvLDek6YLWcnNDMkVWC1xIyy5sylX2uNemDP3u5LI5Hne3gUS92-Lz8h/s400/Balls+I.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>I am an atheist who prays. I believe there is no God in charge of our daily lives and daily events in the world. I entertain several creation myths and believe they are all equally true--Evolution and the creation story in genesis are two of my favorites. I believe we humans have to experience our lives as meaningful in order to live. I believe that we have to create our own meaning--collectively and/or individually. My prayers are those of thanksgiving and pleas for support when I am feeling really scared or experiencing myself as espeically powerless.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I believe that individual human existence ends at death. I believe that the only way we can conquer death is through the experience of meaningful activities that give us timelessness.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>Almost every Monday this summer I walked along the Schuylkill River about 3/4 of a mile from my apartment. I took along a net and a bag or two. I fished bottles and cans and plastic bags and styrofoam cups and plates and a couple of T shirts and several flip flops out of the water with my net, and used my bags to carry them to the trash cans located along the bike/hike trail that runs along the river. </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I also fished out balls--baseballs, soccerballs, undersized basketballs, rotting nerf balls of various sizes, handballs, (no ping pong balls), several footballs (not round), and many many tennis balls of various colors. Also 2 dozen plastic fishing bobbers of various sizes and 2 rubber duckies.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I kept the balls and bobbers and the rubber duckies. I collected them on a shelf in my apartment entrance way and wondered what I would do with them when fall came.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>Mostly the hour that I spent harvesting bottles and cans and balls every Monday was timeless. No rushing, no worrying, no hurrying, no past no future, just presentness. I did have to practice letting go of thoughts related to wanting balls more than cans, rewarding myself by letting myself collect balls after fishing out a certain number of bottles and cans.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>Years ago, I would not have been timeless in this activity for, even if no other worries or thoughts of present and future came to steal the present, I would be drawn into thoughts about pollution and pollutors and self righteous indication and anger at those who dirty up the river. I probably would give some of my serenety to depression--hopelessness and powerlessness about changing the world.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>Now I accept that I am a pollutor even though I don't throw cans and bottles away on the street or in the water. I accept that I am no better than anyone else and that I have my defects and failures that are at least as serious as those who litter. </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I really don't know if we can save the planet from our polluting. We might. We might not. What I do know is that I can take 30 bottles and cans out of the water this Monday Morning and this little bit of the Schuylkill river looks a little cleaner.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I find this meaningful. And the activity timeless. While I am doing it, there is no death, only the enjoyment of these present moments. </div><br /><div></div>see more at <a href="http://www.psychologyforpsychotherapy.com/">www.psychologyforpsychotherapy.com</a><br /><div></div>Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-38782495492606632732010-07-18T23:30:00.000-07:002010-07-18T23:30:00.455-07:00Parallel Universe?This morning I received an email from a friend who is living in Japan. The subject bar said,"Parallel Universe"? The only content was a link to a website that had a headline and story reporting that one of the NFL teams had forfeited a game when the co-captain realized that flipping a coin raised the existential problem of meaninglessness for him and he could not continue with the coin-toss calling or the game. (if our whole season is determined by chance, what purpose does it all have?)<br /><br />I was about to face my own Sunday morning challenge to Meaning as part of my six month encounter with the New York Times Company. The external problem is that I am not able to encounter the actual <em>New York Times</em> in the manner that the New York Times Company and I contracted for, although I keep my part of the bargain by paying the bill every month.<br /><br />The larger ironical aspect of the situation (and perhaps irony usually points to a situation where meaninglessness is breaking through into awareness) grows out of the juxtaposition of the fact that the New York Times Company is in the Communication business and produces one of the best (reasonably reliable, well written, concenred with ethics if not always ethcially outstanding) "commuications" --its newspaper-- with the fact that communicating with the company has been for me, ultimately, an exercise in meaningless--(also known in some existential circles as absurdity--as in the absurdity of life).<br /><br />One level of absurdity is related to the following facts. Last winter I subscribed to the <em>Times</em>--to be delivered to my apartment in Philadelphia on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Mornings. (I can remember living in Miami and not being able to buy the Sunday <em>Times</em> til Sunday afternoon; I remember living in Austin, Texas, and not being able get the Sunday <em>Times</em> til Wednesday--in those days being damn glad to get it at all). <br /><br />For about six weeks, I recieved the morning paper on Fridays and Saturdays, but never on Sundays. <br /><br />Well, not exactly never. If the paper wasn't delivered by 8:30 I was permitted to call the New York Times Company, wade through the muddy waters of their phone answering menu, keying in all kinds of information which a few minutes later (or many many minutes later) I would have to provide again to a person on the line for "verification purposes". Then I had the choice of asking for a credit to my account or for the paper to be delivered by 2:30 PM. Sometimes it was delivered Sunday afternoon, but not always, and I didn't always receive the credit on my bill that was promised in case of non-delivery (but I really didn't want my money back, I wanted my paper).<br /><br />I guess my first level of encounter with meaningless and absurdity grew out of my awareness that 1. the Times delivery network had my real address (on Fridays and Saturdays) and 2. that my neighbor right down the hall got his Sunday Times every week before 8:30. I couldn't understand how those two facts could be true--the New York Times (company) knows my address and they do deliver papers on my floor on Sunday. Why didn't I get mine? Even after all these months, I don't know how to make sense out of these facts.<br /><br />After several weeks of exploring this issue with representatives of the <em>Times</em>, and encountering their apparent inability to solve the problem, I gave up and cancelled my subscription, with the compnay, by my rough estimate, owing me perhaps $10-$20--you have to pay the regular rate even if you have to call them and get the paper late (see below)--not to mention the time I wasted (and the time and money the New York Times Company wasted, although not the people who work at managing their home delivery, because some of them wouldn't be employed if there were no problems with delivery, I guess).<br /><br />Since, my neighbor continued to get his paper, and I continued to feel envious (this touching on my inferiority complex and my underlying existential anxiety about who I am--not helped by people on the phone who keep asking me to verify my identity), I got a new idea.<br />I started a new subscription to the <em>Times</em>, this time only for Sunday. I assumed that if there were difficulties in getting the paper under these conditions, there would be a rigourous purity to the reality of the situation and that it might be confronted more easily and actually solved. When they were solved I then could add back the Friday and Saturday paper.<br /><br />I was right about solving the problem of getting the Sunday paper, only unfortunately it was finding a solution through restricting variables that seemed to work, not that the new, second, subsription itself didn't include the problem. That is, I didn't get the Sunday paper delivered by 8:30 Sunday morning, but again had to call up every Sunday, after 8:30, and usually my paper was delivered by 2:30 on Sunday afternoon. One Sunday, I told to my story to a "subscription manager" named Wanda who answered the phone in Miami Florida (see reference to that city above) who insisted that she would get me a paper that day and that she would fix the problem. I was very skeptical, but in fact, a paper was delivered to me about an hour later that Sunday and the next Sunday morning there was a paper outside of my door at 7:15 when I went to look for it. This continued every Sunday for the next three weeks. I called her and left a message in Wanda's voice mail box thanking her for her help and congratulating on her impressive exercise of power. <br /><br />(Another of the four existential challenges we all face is the issue of powerlessness and I certainly had a wonderful opportunity to work on this issue also in this encounter with reality of the Times. I might have started writing about that challenge if my friend hadn't sent me the link to the story on meaninglessness).<br /><br />I know. I know, I should have been content with this "victory" and let myself and Wanda live with savoring our successes. <br /><br />I really like the Saturday crossword puzzle (one of my less self destructive compulsive, anxiety reducing activites and which I have perserved after giving up several other more destructive ones), and so, I decided to take what I assumed would be a small risk. I changed my subscription to include the Friday and Saturday papers. Since the compnay had solved the problem of getting me the Sunday paper, which was where the problem was in subscriptions number one and two, and since they had no trouble getting me the Friday and Saturday papers during the period of Subscription number one, I thought it unlikely that there would be a problem during subscription number three. (And if there were a problem, I assumed that it would be with Friday and Saturday, and, even though I like other parts of the paper those two days, I could get the crossword puzzle from the internet, free as a Sunday subscriber--assuming I had to cancel the Friday and Saturday parts of the subscription).<br /><br />My estimate of risk was wrong. The week after I enlarged my subscription to include Friday and Saturday delivery, I received both of those papers, but not the Sunday paper. I have recived no Sunday paper before 8:30 A.M. in the six weeks since I began subscription number three! Sometimes, I have gotten the paper Sunday afternoon--once I got two copies, but they were both delivered to the desk on the first floor of my building and I didnt' find out til Sunday evening, once I got a paper on Monday--but it was missing the magazine section and the news of the week in review. I have never got a credit for any of the missed papers.<br /><br />Although these facts themselves clearly might challenge many people's sense of living in a meaningful world and having a meaningful life, they do not represent the most serious assaults on meaning in the situation. Remember, I write blogs as an exercise in self narrative and the issue here is how do I handle challenges to my maintainence of personal meaning in an often absurd world. I have to continue to the second level of my experience of this situation to show the full challenge to my belief that we live in a world, a culture, that has coherence and meaning (and can function at basic tasks that it sets itself, like delivering objects to a certain time and place with some regularity if a person is willing to pay for the service, the price that is asked.)<br /><br />As I indicated above, if the newspaper is not delivered to your door by 8:30 AM you are permitted to call the New York Times Company and exercise your "rights". Unfortunately your rights at that point do not include having the delivery that you paid for so that you can read the paper in the morning. <br /><br />The people on the phone were always at least superficially polite (sometimes in a corporate kind of way, sometimes genuinely warm after the initial run through of their trained responses) and always apologetic and reassuring that the problem would be taken care of and I would get the paper soon. The second level of challenge to meaning has to do with my dawning realization that the New York Times Company has a system related to delivery that 1. doesn't work and 2. that the people involved in its management really aren't in charge of it, or don't understand it themselves, in its reality. For me this is a more serious challenge to my belief that our world has meaning.<br /><br />At first, I thought that the people I was talking to really knew how the distribution system worked and simply wouldn't tell me. In other words, when I asked them, how could it be possible that I could get the Friday and Saturday papers and not the Sunday paper (since thier frist responses were that they probably didn't have my correct address), no one ever gave me an answer. I began to believe that really they didn't know. Their job was to take calls about non-delivery, and notify some distributor who would then fix the problem. They didn't need to know what caused the problem, nor to make sense of the problem, nor how to solve the problem. Their idea of solving the problem was simply to make a note in my file that I didn't get delivery and to notify the distributor that I didn't get a paper, ask that a paper be delivered to me, and note that the distrubtor shouldn't let this happen again.<br /><br />I don't know how Wanda solved the problem of getting me my Sunday paper during the period of Subscription number Two. She either couldn't or wouldn't tell me, and perhaps she was just lucky when the several subscription managers on previous Sundays hadn't been. (I do believe that they sent the notices, because at least some times I got the afternoon delivery; and when I checked the following week, there was always a note in my file, indicating that I had called with a problem and that the "appropriate" steps were taken. Perhaps Wanda's Son-in-Law had a job in Philadelphia delivering the newspaper. I wish I had been able to get in touch with her directly again about the problem with Subscription number 3, but actually I wasn't even supposed to have her voice mail number and I never could talk with her directly.<br /><br />After two weeks of the problem during Subscription number 3, a subcription manager whose cousin wasn't in charge of delivering the New York Times in Philadelphia, realized that this problem was more than run-of-the mill--and therefore not likely to be responsive to her routine "solutions"-- that is notifying the distributor. She called in a Subscription Supervisor. <br /><br />Jody, the subscription supervisor, has not only been polite, she has done something almost unimagineable to me after my vast experience as a consumer and provider making phone calls to companies--she called back the next week to check on the problem and every week since she was called me about my "case". Not only that, after two weeks of failing to solve the problem, she notified the district subscription manager, who actually called me two weeks in a row in the middle of the week to tell me he was monitoring the situation and that it would be solved. Again, neither Jody nor he told me how it was possible that I could get the Friday and Saturday papers and not the Sunday paper, especially in view of the fact thtat I was regularly getting the Sunday paper under Subcription number two, until I re-added Friday and Saturday under subscription number three. I don't know if they knew how it could happen or not, but they didn't tell me. They also weren't able to solve the problem.<br /><br />Something interesting did happen after this district subscription manager had been called the first time (on Sunday). A few minutes later I got a call from a "local" distribution manager. He was polite and promised to get someone to bring the paper to me quickly and he was willing to reveal that he actually worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer, which is, apparently, in charge of distributing the New York Times in Philadelphia. He said something which made it sound as if, when I changed my subscription, on "his" list I was switched <strong>from</strong> Sunday<strong> to</strong> Friday and Saturday delivery (it did seem likely that the New York Times didn't make this error--since they had immediately charged my account for the added deliveries under subcription number 3 and their records reflected the switch to that kind of subscription on the date I requested it). None-the-less this Philadelphia Inquirer manager assured me he could fix the problem and that I would have no problems in the future, but that if I did I should call him and he gave me his personal extension. I did call hm back later that day when my paper didn't show up--and it turned out that he had actually arranged for the paper to be delivered twice--but since that was the Sunday these papers weren't brought up to my apartment, I didn't know it. In the two subsequent weeks, that I haven't gotten the paper, he has not answered the phone when I called on Sundays and he hasn't returned my calls. (Perhaps he has been fired. I would guess that the Inquirer is delivering the Times because of its own dire financial condition, which may have something to do with why the arrangment apparently doesn't work. All speculation on my part, of course. I also speculate that the New York Times may be printed by the Philadelphia Inquirer for Philadelphia delivery. Underlying reality in our culture has gotten more and more complex and counter-intuitive--aren't the New York Times Company and The Philadelphia Inquirer Company competing in the Philadelphia market? Isn't competition in the market place what makes our capitalistic system work?).<br /><br />This week the District supervisor from the Times' Company didn't call midweek to check on last week's delivery, as he had promised. Perhaps he has been fired also. I think it more likely that he has had to face his own powerlessness to solve a problem which is probably within the range of authority and responsbility of his job description, so he is either using denial or having an existential crisis of meaning and powerlessness himself.<br /><br />The above paragraph may be completely true, but there is another slightly more challenging (for me) possiblity as well. This morning, faithful Jody called me again to find out if my paper had been delivered. I told her "no" and that I had decided to give up and cancel my subscription again. Jody as always been extremely polite and apologetic (not as warm and human as Wanda, but clearly doing her job, including trying to keep customers happy, to the very best of her abilty). According to what I imagine is corporate policy she asked me if there was anything she could do to get me to change my mind about cancelling. I said "no". then I said, "yes. Cancel my subscription, arrange to get me the paper on a regular basis and I will be happy to start paying, retroactively, from the week I get all three papers". Jody responded that it was not within her power to arrange delivery if there is no current subscription. She said if I ever changed my mind and wanted to renew my subscription that I should feel free to call her and that she would try to make sure that I got the paper. I told her that I would never subscribe to the New York Times again and probably I'd never read it. <br /><br />(I cancelled my subscription to the New Yorker when they had a picture of Barak and Michelle Obama on the cover looking like Arab terrorists; I did sneak a peak at a couple of cartoons one week in an airport magazine rack, but other than that I have kept my pledge of non-support to such tastelessness, and what I consider very poor judgment on the part of a magazine that I treasured in many ways).<br /><br />There have to be consequences for actions and inactions on the part of people and businesses. And especially information carriers.<br /><br />Later in the day, another thought came to me. I'll bet that both Jody and the district manager by now know that the New York Times Company does not have the capability of getting me a paper on Sundays. The corporate policy, or perhaps for the security of their jobs, they are never permitted to say that, so that in fact they will keep saying that they will solve the problem as long as the customer is willing to keep calling, going through the automated menus, waiting for someone to answer or return their calls, calling again to get credit for missed papers. In this game, the customer has to quit so that in that way it becomes his fault (for giving up, when in fact the problem was "certainly" going to be solved). Maybe Jody and the district manager really did believe every week that the problem was going to be solved next week (although their never telling me what actually needed to happen to solve it, adds to my skepticism on this point). I believe that it was in their interest (or the interest of the company) to make me the quitter.<br /><br />Now for the personal part. I used to get very angry when confronted with situations that challenged my sense of meaning. Ditto for when I felt powerless. I became self righteous and judgmental and often very negative in my speech to the people representing those realities which were evoking a sense of powerlessness and meaninglessness in me.<br /><br />I am doing much, much better. My awareness of the larger situation--that the people I talk to on the phone are as powerless and facing absurdity just as I am--and they are as human and worthy of respect as I am--never fails for more than 10-20 seconds at a time. For me, this now seems like a long time, because living outside of my own authority, giving up my sense of meaning and my power, is quickly in my consciousnes and it is painful. Out of the 30 or 40 phone calls which I must have had with various representives of the <em>Times</em>, I know there was one, and there may have been two, when I had no lapses into anger and self righteousness. In that one or two calls I remained, the whole time, calm, serene, centered, curious, good humored, polite and considerate of the person I was talking with,<br /><br />The habit of forgetting who I am, of losing touch with my own power, my own authority, my own sense of purpose, my own humanity and compasssion is very strong even after so much work and after so much success in weakening it. I am grateful that I have come this far. I am accepting of my ongoing imperfection. I am decdicated to continue to do my best to deiminish this bad habit even more.<br /><br />I am not even bitter when I consider the possibility that the reality is that I was forced to be the one to give up in this situation, with the implication that I should have more faith in the New York Times Company to honor its committment to me. In fact, I am proud of myself for surrendering to the reality, after having gotten about as much practice as I can from this situation of challenge to my serenity and centeredness if the face of absurdity and powerlessness. <br /><br />One final point. This is support of writing personal narrative--as a part of maintaining mental health, or meeting existential challenges, or keeping balance in one's life. After my subscription termination ( more properly: resignation;surrender) I thought of writing this essay for my blog. Clearly this is an exercise in support of meaning creation. This story is not about how bad the New York Times is, or about what terrible shape our country, our culture, out society is in. This is a story about my individual struggle to create meaning, to keep balance, to live in serenity, to document for myself my own growth and its processes and value. Even if no one else were to read this essay (well perhaps you will, Loyal Arlee: thanks), writing it helps me to let go and helps me to know I didn't waste time (nor did the New York Times Company waste my time). Even though I failed to achieve my goal of having <em>The NewYork Times</em> delivered to my door that goal, I did succed in my more important tasks of growth, development and healing.<br /><br />Al, thanks for sending me the link.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-25489896536219569972010-06-26T15:06:00.000-07:002010-06-26T19:55:47.623-07:00MOM AND DAD HAVE A DONNYBROOKThis Blog site supports using life narrative in support of change, growth, and a happier life.<br /><br />When I say that we create our existences, in part, by the stories we tell about ourselves, this does not deny my belief in the autonomous power of the psyche.<br /><br />That is to say that my experience of myself and of other people, including people I am close to personally and those whom I work with professionally, leads me to believe that our will is not fully or always in charge of our life.<br /><br />How to bring our will into balance with our total Existence--which I think of as having Body, Mind, and Spirit aspects and into balance within our Mind (or psyche) which I think of as having Feeling, Thinking and Willing aspects--is a challenge for all of us.<br /><br />Our Psyche or Mind seems to develop a mind of its own, sometimes separate from our awareness and our will. This has both positive and negative consequences. The psyche can be a source of healing energy and movement without our having to will it to be so.<br /><br />For fuller discussions of these matters visit my Website PsychologyForPsychotherapy.com.<br /><br />A few weeks ago I was working with a client who was trying to make a life decision--not in a life-or-death situation--but in relation to an action that was important to him. He experienced himself as deeply conflicted about the matter and he experienced himself as paralyzed. His will was of no help in making the decision. As I helped him to articulate the two horns of his dilemma, I began to think that I was hearing internalized aspects of his mother and father battling within him. I concluded that the intensity of the conflict was not because of his own judgment about the matter, but related to opposing life and self outlooks he had learned from his parents. These beliefs and attitudes were still alive and active in his psyche and were being activated by his facing the life situation which confronted him. <br /><br />My helping him to become aware of these aspects of his paralysis helped him to make a decision and begin to move forward, although it did not entirely free him from the power of these internalized parental imagoes which seem to have autonomous and conflicting power within his psyche.<br /><br />Strangely enough, I found myself facing a very similar internal situation last week and I feel free to write in more detail about my own experience so that it might be illustrative and helpful to others.<br /><br />Reading Ursula Leguin's Earth Sea stories has added a hero to my life. (I think I'll write a blog about the place of Heroes--not hoagies-- in the development of personal narratives as part of our psychological growth). Ged the wizard goes on a journey to confront his shadow--first he had to realize with support from someone else that he had to stop running from what was chasing him and chase it. On a sparse and foreign shore he is given a small boat in which to complete his journey. In payment for the boat, Ged removes the cataracts from the eyes of the man who gave him the boat allowing the man to regain his sight. The man told him to rename the boat the <em>Look Far</em> and to paint eyes on her prow so that the man's thanks could look out from the blind wood and keep him from rock and reef. <br /><br />Soon after reading this story, I became aware that I actually live on the water and that I could conceivably have a small boat. Not really being a Wizard, I began searching the Internet for a craft which might be small enough to fit into my apartment or some nearby storage space and which I could easily transport down to the River. <br /><br />Eventually I found what seemed to be what I was looking for and I sent a down payment for the collapsible dinghy to the man who manufactures these boats in Canada. I was pleased and excited, and while I still had some problems with storage and transportation to the water to solve (I purchased a wagon which I think will get the <em>Look Far, Look Deep </em>down to the Schuylkill), I managed to quiet my fears and keep alive my sense of adventure and hunger for the experience of being able to be on the water.<br /><br />And then, I began to get messages of delay from the man who was to be making the boat. His chief molder had a family emergency, a part needed was not available. The time for shipping crept beyond the outer limits of the time "promised", and I found some surprising doubtful thoughts arising in my mind.<br /><br />I found myself reviewing the evidence that I had which had led me to Pay-Pal the money to this man in a foreign country, 3000 miles away, whom I had never met and really knew nothing about other than what he had told me. I suddenly began thinking how possible it might be that I was being scammed and that no <em>Look Far, Look Deep</em> was being built and that I had already thrown away the money I had sent as a deposit. Furthermore, I knew the time would come in the not too distant future when I would have to send another equally large payment in the same manner over the same electronic path and still without having any tangible evidence that my boat had existence other than in my mind.<br /><br />I felt fear creeping into my body and when I decided to call the boat maker and three times got messages saying that his number could not be reached as dialed, the fear invaded by whole body and began taking over my existence. My stomach churned, I felt nauseous, my body felt as if its temperature was rather rapidly moving from cold to hot and back to cold again. <br /><br />I began working to soothe myself, reminding myself that I had talked to the boat builder on the phone for quite a long time before I ordered the boat, that I liked his voice and what he said. I know that there are con-men in the world that can fool anyone, even a trained psychologist like me, but I had felt a lot of confidence in this person's sincerity and his being who he said he was. I reminded myself that his website seemed perfectly in harmony with his business as he described it. I reminded myself that I had gone looking for him, he had not solicited my business. I reminded myself that my judgment has been quite good in my life, that I am not easily taken in. Finally, I reminded myself that this was not a life and death matter. At worst I would lose some money, and although it would be a real loss, I was spending the money on something that was not a necessity and that the worst consequence would be that I wouldn't get something I wanted, not needed. I would be disappointed (sad and angry) and I would not have these feelings forever.<br /><br />In spite of all this soothing, which worked fully at the cognitive level--I stopped most of the worrying that I had been doing--my body staid full of turmoil and emotion. Not as intense, but the fear had not disappeared. As I was letting myself continue to be aware of these sensations and feelings, I became aware that I knew all along, that the thoughts that evoked this fear had been spoken by several years departed mother. The words--"How could you send all that money over the Internet to someone you don't even know? You are being foolish. You trust too easily. You shouldn't be buying a boat anyway. No wonder you don't' have enough money to retire"--all of these are her words and when I listened carefully I realized that I heard them in her tone of voice.<br /><br />I also realized that in part her words were aimed not at me directly, but at my father. My father, perhaps partly in reaction to my mother's extreme caution, fearfulness, avoidance of risk taking, lack of valuing of adventure, was--overtly-- fearless, overly trusting, seldom cautious, adventure loving. They were often at war about these matters, and perhaps had not too bad a balance in their joint life because of the over-caution of one and the under-caution of the other.<br /><br />In me, they exist as an internal war, that when engaged brings about fear and a sense of paralysis. Until I actually exchanged some more e-mails with the boat builder and heard what seemed like plausible explanations for the delays and apologies for not communicating more regularly and his reassurance that his phone was still connected and his giving me his cell phone number as an additional back up, I wasn't sure if I would really be able to send the rest of the money, without some kind of "proof" of he existence of the boat. And would I take a bill of lading from the shipping company as proof? And if not that, what?<br /><br />The fear passed, I didn't feel doubt, I was again excited about the prospect of actually getting the dinghy. I let let go of the disappointment that it would be later in the summer than I had hoped.<br /><br />When the boat builder wrote me an e-mail saying that he had to have my Social Security number to give to the customs agent who would be getting the approval to import the boat into the United States, my mother "went crazy" again. This time, I had very little visceral reaction, not much feeling, but I could clearly hear her voice--"You see, now he wants your Social Security number. He is going to steal your identity. You can't send your Social Security number to someone in a foreign country you've never met. You are not just going to lose the money for the boat, he is going to steal everything. Don't be stupid, just cut your losses and don't send anything more. Or, go get the boat yourself, it will be worth it so that you don't lose everything you have."<br /><br />I listened to this tirade much more peacefully this time and began speaking directly to my mother. "Now Mom", I said, "I will be cautious and I will find a way to communicate my number to the custom's agent rather than the builder, but beyond that I am willing to take this risk. I want that boat and I don't believe I am in the clutches of a identity thief. It is all going to be alright. I am going to get the boat I want and I am not going to lose all my money. Why don't you help me solve the problem of where I am going to put it instead of worrying about the money?" I could hear my Dad in the background quietly saying, "I always wanted a boat of my own, I am so glad you are going to get one. You're not going to be cheated."<br /><br />I don't yet have the boat, but according to all the electronic sources she is on the way and I am about to send the money.<br /><br />What was surprising to me in all this is how much reality and power my parents still have inside of me. They are both dead and I spent many years in therapy working on achieving a great deal of psychological independence from their neuroses which they shared with me and my own which I developed partly in relation to them and partly all on my own. In the process I battled overtly with them, as a teenager, as a young adult and even into my middle age. At some point that external battle ended, in more than a truce, and we were able to claim our love for each other in spite of the pain we had caused each other and our ongoing fundamental differences as people. I have reaped so many rewards from the positive aspects of their love for me, and I was fortunate enough to have gratitude for that before they died so that I could share it with them, and I still have it today.<br /><br />Yet, some of the negatives still remain, as legacies, as remnants in my psyche. They are autonomous, the operate at times without my awareness, and at times beyond my own will. I am, thankfully, not at their mercy most of the time. I have resources that balance their negative influence and I can make use of the legitimate caution my mother passed on to me (I should have reviewed the evidence for my trust, I should have had caution in whom I sent my social security number). I can also make use of the trust and love of adventure my father bequeathed to me (I am glad I am getting a boat at age 70; I expect to find joy in the access to adventure it will give to me. I will experience my connection to my Dad and his love of the water as I row and sail up and down the Schuylkill).<br /><br />Since I am not a wizard I cannot magically write my warring parents out of my life story (even Ged had to confront his Shadow and incorporate it--he couldn't magically obliterate it). I can write a story which includes their ongoing place and autonomy (with by grace and hard work, now limited power) in my psyche. I can then recognize them when they make their presence felt and work with them to achieve the best possible results for myself. that's the best I can do.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-29686212352846209762009-11-29T06:07:00.000-08:002009-11-29T06:31:53.372-08:00"I know this much is true"Wally Lamb's Novel, <em>I know this much is true</em>, <em> </em>offers strong support for writing personal narrative as a source of healing. The novel itself is written in the first person and thus it represents the (fictional) character's (Dominick) efforts to write his own life story and to find the meaning in his life. He struggles with twinship, mental illness, death, abuse, love, absence and loss of love, parenthood and parentlessness, anger, self destruction, sexuality, culture, religion....and all of the other issues that challenge us to combat meaninglessness and create meaning. <br /><br />A central aspect of the novel is a personal narrative written by Dominick's grandfather at the urging of a priest who believes that he might find healing and personal redemption from the writing and from discussing his writing and life with the priest. Domencio puts off writing his life story for many years after the priest suggested it, and he completes his narrative just before his death. The story itself is full of self justification and pride, much of it in relation to things that Domenico might well have been ashamed of. One imagines that if he had written the story earlier and if he had worked with it, for example by discussing it with the priest, he might have found the transformation and healing he was in need of and perhaps seeking.<br /><br />As it is, the narrative he wrote becomes a central aspect of the healing of his grandson and namesake--Dominick--who eventually finds the lessons he needs for his own growth and healing in his grandfather's story. The novel is long (and wonderful). Most of us don't have the time or talent to write this kind of full life story. And, while each of our lives is rich and complex, Dominick, as a fictional character is given more challenges and more dramatic challenges than most of us. Dominick's grandfather also has a life that is more dramatic and externally complex than most, but his narrative is much shorter. <br /><br />We don't have to write novels, or even 75 page narratives, to participate in the growth and healing that writing autobiographical stories can provide. Short vignettes, little pieces of our lives considered one at a time, and in relation to one another can be a powerful vehicle for self transformation. Reading helps, too.<br /><br />I invite you to write short narratives of your own and post them as comments here. Better yet, start your own blog and write your personal stories there. Link them here so that I and others can read them and grow with you.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-39153439180721313492009-11-20T17:41:00.000-08:002009-11-20T17:51:29.454-08:00Dream: The Gray GooseA few weeks ago I had a dream. The actual visual imagery was not as vivid or powerful as in many of my dreams, but the verbal and then tactile/kinesthetic experience was very clear. I was in a sled race in the snow. The sled seemed like the sort that would be used with a dog team, but I have no memory of dogs in the dream and it seemed more that I was pushing the sled (which was perhaps reddish orange in color and which now, several weeks later reminds me in color and structure of the Golden Gate Bridge [which I was planning to walk across as I usually do in visiting San Francisco where I was to go the week after the dream]). At some point, I turned off the main trail to take a break and perhaps drink some water. I then heard a voice say—“Keep going, there is something you need ahead”. I did keep on for quite a while, although I was beginning to worry about being out of the race for so long and falling behind. I eventually came to a small lake (again the visual imagery is not powerful), but the voice said something like “There, catch that goose. You need her”. I was surprised, but I went to the edge of the lake and managed to scoop up this rather large grey bird. The voice then said, “Hold her tight. Don’t let her get away. Tuck her under your jacket.” I did all this, still bewildered. The voice then said, “Now she’s going to show you some affection, just relax and accept it”. At that point, I felt the goose stretch her neck a little and she began rubbing her beak gently on my neck and cheek. If the voice hadn’t prepared me for this and given me an interpretation of it, I probably would have found it mildly unpleasant and disconcerting or annoying, but as it was, I was able to experience it as something (mildly) positive. I then thought or said, “I have spent too much time away from the race and I am going to lose.” The voice said, “No you need to have the goose with you. She will be of help. When you get back to the race, you will be at the top of a big hill. With the goose’s help you will be able to make it directly to the top of the next hill and you will not have to go down into the valley. This will put you ahead in the race and it will give you a chance to win.” The next moment, I was indeed, on top of a high hill, my sled was perched on the summit in front of me and I was both holding onto the sled and clutching the gray goose tightly, still under my jacket. I seemed poised to take off for the crest of the next hill in the distance in front of me (again the visual imagery was not very vivid or clear) and then I woke up.<br /><br />Two weeks later, having returned from the visit to San Francisco to see my son and grandchildren and my first ex-wife, and having told the dream to them, I was reading some novels my son had given me. The heroic, nature, masculine themes in these novels reminded me of some heroic/romantic books written in the 1920’s by James Oliver Curwood, that my father had introduced me to as a child. I had purchased a few of these books on the internet in the past few years and re-read them. I decided to send one of these to my son and I looked at them on the shelf and eliminated three of them for various reasons and decided to send him one called “the Valley of Silent Men”. It was about an adventure and love story in the Canadian Wilderness in the 1920’s as were most of Curwood’s novels. I decided to quickly read the book once more before sending it to my son. I was astounded to read, about 2/3’s of the way through the book, after the hero has been rescued by the woman he falls in love with, she speaks of the three major rivers of that part of Canada—and she says “The Athabasca is Grandmother, the Slave is Mother, and The Mackenzie is Daughter, and over them watches always the Goddess, Niska, The Gray Goose. The Gray Goose blood is in me, Jeems. I love the forests”. Throughout the rest of the novel, the hero calls his Love his gray goose, his Niska. (I did some research on the internet and discovered that in some very obscure Canadian Indian language the Canadian Goose is indeed called “Niska”).<br /><br />A few weeks later I have remembered that my mother told me that as a toddler she called me the “spruce goose”, because I had a long neck and I reminded her of Howard Hughes’ giant wooden aircraft (which flew only once). The press called it the spruce goose, a derogatory name which Hughes hated. He named it the "Hercules".<br /><br />I am still working on understanding and integrating the messages of this dream into my consciousness and life. It did suggest to me that I might yet complete some of my life tasks if I recognize the help I need and hold onto it tightly when it appears. That help might keep me from making an unnecessary and perhaps time- wasting descent into the “valley”, and the time and effort saved might keep me in the race. (I also had an association of an experience that occurred in Austin Texas during the year I was riding my bike everywhere and almost never got into a car. On my way home from campus there was a Creek, at the bottom of a ravine between two steep hills. To get home, I had the joy of soaring down the hill as if I was flying; followed by the very challenging task of pedaling up the steep incline on the other side. After a time, I realized that I was letting the fear and worry that I couldn’t or might not get up the hill, destroy my ability to live fully the moments of joy in racing down the hill toward the creek. It became an exercise in letting go of concerns about the future to stay in and enjoy the present. I was able to do this, by taking away any expectations or goals about the trip up the other side. I gave myself permission to get off and walk my bike up to the crest if it was too hard to pedal up. My experience of this nightly journey changed dramatically and the lesson as always served as a model to help me let go of worries about the future that destroy the enjoyment of the present.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-17533396310960364852009-11-14T18:11:00.000-08:002009-12-04T13:58:34.843-08:00My Story of my father's Death: Version OneMy father, Mike Stern, is given a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He is 85 years old. He has diabetes, he has walked with pain for a number of years, his heart is not strong although he has not had a major heart attack. My father enjoys life a great deal. He loves to eat, he loves my mother and my sister and I and his granddaughter and grandson and great-grandchildren. He still likes to read, play bridge, work on the computer which he learned to do in his 70's, communicate with a few family members spread around the country and a few good friends from high school and college and even elementary school.<br /><br /><br />My father is not full of regrets about his life and he is not especially afraid to die. He is spritually oriented in a non-relgious sort of way. He believes whole-heartedly in God. He isn't sure what, if anything comes after death (at least he says this, but he may have some private beliefs which he is reluctant to share for fear that they might be questioned or belittled). He seems quite convinced that there is nothing bad likely to happen when he is dead other than never being able to eat at Galatoire's again and not seeing his great grandchildren grow up.<br /><br /><br />My father is grateful for the joy and accomplishments that he has experienced and he doesn't want to live forever. Most of my father's family has died--including his three brothers, and one of his two sisters, all three of his brothers-in-law, and all three of his sisters-in-law. Most of the men who were his best friends are dead. My father has already lost a fair amount of his competency and he can see that this is certainly going to get worse the longer he lives. He wants to die at home, he wants to be cared for as much as possible by his wife and children, with no more money spent on other kinds of care than has to be. He doesn't want painful and undignified medical procedures or long stays in the hospital.<br /><br /><br />My father was told he would have about six months to live. He had some moments of pain and some moments of fear. He went on playing bridge, enjoying food, bickering with my mother, making birthday cards on the computer. He had a lot of interest in and energy for planning his funeral and memorial service. My father involved me in this ways that represented enormous gifts to me. He asked that I invite the men's group I had been a part of for several years to help create a service for him. He requested that his ashes be scattered in a creek that he helped the men's group clean up one spring. He agreed to come to visit the site for this scattering and memorial service with the men's group during the time between his diagnosis and his death.<br /><br />On a chilly Sunday afternoon, toward the end of winter, we carried him in his chair to the bank above the creek. He took a breath or two and said to the five men sitting around him, "well, men I am going to die, soon. Is there anything you want to ask me about what I feel?"<br /><br />A few weeks later, a little more than six months after his diagnosis, a few days after his birthday dinner, he died at home, in his own bed. He had had little pain, no more stays in the hospital, having been attended to mostly by my mother and my sister and I (with help from hospice and some home care aides).<br /><br /><br />A few weeks after he died, about 35 people sat on the bank above the creek and eulogized and celebrated by father's life and shared some of the mourning of his death. Words from anciet Hebrew prayers and spiritual calls from Native American traidtions were chanted. Some hymns were played on a CD Player and their melodies floated out over the creek. People spoke of my father with love and affection and humor. Members of our family scattered spoonfuls of his ashes on the land and on the water. Some of them were poured into a hole we dug and we planted a young Dogwood on top of them. Many of us smiled and wept.<br /><br />***********************************************************************************<br />In this story, My father's dying is a beautiful, spritial, peaceful, and inspiring process. It is a time filled with love and caring, bravery and beauty. For me, there is a little sadness, immense gratefulness, a sense of having been loved and of having been loving. Acknowleding and being acknowledged. Responsibility lovingly and succcessfully carried out. Completion, resolution, closure, peace.<br /><br />A good life come to a good end.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-10510074100179806062009-11-07T19:56:00.000-08:002009-11-17T06:18:03.833-08:00My Death Story: Version TwoWhen I was a child, my parents taught me to brush my teeth every night and every morning, and at some point they taught me to use dental floss. I don't remember having any special fights about this, or any special feelings about it.<br /><br /><br /><br />I first remember going to the Dentist when I was about six (perhaps a couple of years after I started going to the barber--but that's another story). I don't remember that being a very intense experience either. As I got older-- about 8-- I started having cavaties--which was not shocking in my family, my mother's kin all had "soft" teeth, as they said in those days, and lots of cavaties and dental work.<br /><br /><br /><br />I do remember there being pain in the dental work--there were slow grinding, noisey drills in those days, no streaming water, and the dentist was at first reluctant to give children novocaine. It hurt. I do remember getting novocaine once or twice and I didn't like having my tongue numb, it was scary.<br /><br /><br /><br />As I got to be about 10, I entered a phase of "super masculinity"--I went barefoot in summer even when the pavement was hot, I wore a "sheath" knife whenever I could, I went hunting and loved guns, and I took pride in being tough and not minding pain. As part of this, I became proud of my ability to have cavaties filled without crying or yelling and pretending I was indifferent to the pain.<br /><br /><br /><br />Skip many years.<br /><br /><br /><br />I am 38 years old. I am in the dentist's chair. He is holding my mouth open with some kind of instrument and he is saying: "Oh no! I can't believe what I am seeing. I can see the cavaties without even an X-ray. And your gums are bleeding and I haven't even started to work on them. When was the last time you went to a dentist? How often do you brush your teeth?" Do you Floss?"<br /><br /><br /><br />I am filled with shame. Fortunately I don't have to answer his questions, because I can't speak. He is holding my mouth open with a cold metal instrument. I haven't been to a dentist for three years. I usually brush my teeth in the morning, but almost never at night. I almost never floss. (I also smoke cigars, eat lots of sweets, and drink a fair amount of wine and beer).<br /><br /><br /><br />The dentist goes on with his exam, identifies several teeth that need filling, one or two that might need crowns and/or root canals. When he is finished examining my teeth, my mouth is full of blood and my gums really hurt. He tells me to make several appointments.<br /><br /><br /><br />He also gives a lecture, the gist of which is that I am probably going to lose all of my teeth if I don't start brusing and flossing twice day, using oral rinses, and having my teeth cleaned twice a year. He lets me know that he is schocked my neglect of my teeth and he can't believe that someone who is middle class and has a Ph.D. could be so self destructive.<br /><br /><br /><br />As I leave his office, I am filled with shame and fear. This is a familiar experience because I have left dentist's offices in several states over the past 15 years with the same lecture and the same feelings. I have usually only gone to each dentist once or twice, before I move, and wait a substantial amount of time before going to a new Dentist.<br /><br /><br /><br />As I calm the fear and shame, I ask myself, "Why don't I take care of my teeth?" And more particularly why is that these dental lectures (and my parent's teachings about what happens if you don't take care of your teeth) have no effect on my behavior.<br /><br /><br /><br />I introspect on these points for a while. I come to an insight. The fear that the dentist's evoke in me is not motivating because I am already avoding terror and the additional invitation to be fearful, only strengthens my avoidance and denial.<br /><br /><br /><br />But what am I afraid of? I was never really afraid of the pain of going to the Dentist. And the dental experience had become much less of an ordeal than in my childhood--better anasthesia, highspeed drills, water pumped into the drill site, headphones with the stoothing music of my choice.<br /><br /><br /><br />I also was aware and believed entirely, that if I took care of my teeth, I would have less pain, fewer cavaties, less need for dental procedures, less expense. And, when I let myself think about it, I was certainly afraid of losing teeth. So why was I finding it so hard to change my behavior?<br /><br /><br /><br />I pushed myself to keep asking this question for a couple of days. I kept coming back to the insight that all of the fears that the dentist was quite effective in arousing in me clearly were already there but not in consciousness most of the time. But bringing them consciousness didn't seem to be doing a bit of good in getting me to follow his regime. Just as it hadn't helped when all of those other dentists said the same things and touched on the same fears.<br /><br /><br /><br />Finally I got it. An acceptance of the fact that my teeth are perishable and are subject to decay and even mortality, meant that I had to accept my own mortality. I had been pretending that my teeth would last forever and that so would I. To brush them "religiously" was to admit that they were vulnerable. And so was I. Going to the dentist and having to confront the evidence that they in fact were decaying and deteroirating and moving toward mortality, was also evidence that my existence was also moving me toward mortality. I didn't want that consciousness of Death.<br /><br /><br /><br />This is my <strong>Death Story</strong> number two. In this story I am terrified of dying. It is so overwhelming that I cannot face any evidence that my body has a limited life span and is wearing out. In this story, I am going to prove that I can live forever, because my body will not wear out and I don't even have to take care of it. In fact, I can abuse it. I can be overweight, I can not exercise except when I want to, I can eat and drink what I want and when I want, I can not go any medical providers. I can ignore my family inheritance of fairly early heart disease and heart attacks and fairly early cancer. I am going to live forever. The alternative is unthinkable, unimaginable and unacceptable. I can brush my teeth when I want to and I do not have to go to the Dentist until I am ready. I don't have find a meaningful way to face death because I am not going to die!Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-4446505411858345282009-11-07T19:11:00.000-08:002009-11-14T08:29:08.983-08:00My Death Story: Version OneI am 15 years old and a Junior in High School. I have broken up with my girl friend just before the Christmas Holidays. I am very upset--I am having trouble sleeping, I am sad and tearful much of the time, I have trouble thinking about anything but her.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />My parents suggest that perhaps it would be good for me to take a trip so that I will have something fun to do over the holidays. They propose that I go to visit my Uncle and his family who live in Texas. I will have to fly from New Orleans to Houston. I have never been in an airplane before.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The plan to take the trip does lift my spirits some and I agree to go. I get on board the four engine prop-jet plane and take my seat over the wing. I look out of the window and I see an enormous engine most of whose length sticks out far beyond its apparent anchoring part within the margin of the wing.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I am certain that the way the engine's placement is designed is unsafe and that the engine is likely to fall of at any moment, but certainly when the plane takes off.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I fasten my seat belt and prepare to die. Since I had never been scared at the thought of dying, I do not feel fear. Just a strong conviction that I probably will not survive the take off. As I contemplate my likely death, a wave of sadness comes over me and the thoughts that generate this sadness are related to my young age and a sense that I have not yet accomplished anything worthwhile in my life. I think that I have a lot of potential for achieving something significant and that I am going to die before I get a chance to do it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />These thoughts and the sadness stay with me as we taxi toward the runway and await our turn for take off. When it is our turn to take off, as the plane begins to move down the runway, my body is more and more filled with the sensations of acceleration, and I begin to feel some excitement as well as sadness. As the plane surges forward and suddenly leaves the ground and soars into the air, I am pressed back into my seat and I feel really excited and somehow transformed as if I have participated in a miracle.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />After a few moments, the exhileration seems to fade away with the passing away of the acceleration, and I am calm, even though still looking at the cantilevered engine, surprised that it has survived the stresses of take off, and surprised that I am still alive. It still seems likely to me that the engine might fall of at any moment. Both the sadness and excitement are still with me in mild form and I do have a strong sense that I hope to survive and get to fulfill my life's potential.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />In the years following this flight, I probabaly took a trip by airplane every two years until I was 30. My internal experience always paralleled my experience of that first flight, not with the same certainty that I was going to die, but rather with clear thoughts that I might well die, accompanied by the feeling of sadness generated by a judgment that I had not done anything very significant with my life.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />As the years went by, my life moved ahead in many ways. I went on to love and be loved by other girls, I graduate from high school, I graduated from college, I got married, I fathered a child, I earned a doctorate. Yet every time I flew, I thought of the possiblity of dying and felt sad that I still hadn't accomplished anything that was a clear fulfillment of my own special gifts and potential.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />When I was 32 years old I spent a year as an intern in clinical child psychology at The Judge Baker Guidance Center in Boston, Massachusetts. The internship involved some seminars, a few hours of individual supervision by senior psychologists and several hours a week of testing and providing psychotherapy to children.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />That spring, as I was nearing the end of the internship, I made a flight to New Orleans, to be with my father who was having cancer surgery. As the plane taxied toward the runway, the usual thoughts of the possiblity of my dying as the plane took off came to me. I noted that I did not, however, feel sad. And as I thought about the absence of sadness in the post take off calm, it occured to me that the therapy I had done with the 8 or 10 children who had been assigned to me, represented a signficiant achievement and that it would not be especially tragic for me to die, since some of my potential had been fulfilled.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I should add that I was somewhat surprised by this experience, because my earlier definition of what would have constittuted fullfilling my life potential would have been a lot grander (grandiose?) and involving a lot more externally visible success. However, it was a very clear experience and I knew that some important change had occured in my life.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />For several years afterwards, I continued to have that sense of facing death when I flew, but the sadness never returned.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I became more conscious or self conscious of this story, and began telling it ocassionally to people in my life. At some point, I labeled it as my <strong>death story</strong>, and took it to mean that I was quite comfortable with the knowledge that I would die someday and that I could accept that with no special sense of tragedy or loss and without fear.<br /><br />It is true that I have no sense of tragedy in relation to my death. I have had a rich, full and meaningful life. I am not ready for it to be over and I am grateful for the time I have had and all that I have accomplished. I have loved and been loved, I have had joy, I have given life, I have been of help to people, and I have used many of the talents I have been blessed with.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-53042864836855030032009-11-07T17:32:00.000-08:002009-11-12T05:43:23.162-08:00Martha and MeaningMartha was 96 years old when I met her. An African American woman, she lived in a one bedroom apartment in a lovely 17 story building that is rent subsidized for the elderly and handicapped residents of Philadelphia. <br /><br />Martha had children, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren who loved her and who visited her often. They frequently took her out and brought her to their houses as well as out into the community for shopping and entertainment. More than one of her Grandchildren tried to persaude her to live in their homes.<br /><br />Martha prefered to live by herself, saying that there was too much drama in her family's lives. She enjoyed overnight visits at holidays, but after two days she always longed to get back to her own apartment. Family members also wanted her to change--what she ate, how she dressed, what medications she took or didn't take. She loved to visit them and have them visit her, but she prefered her independence and her autonomy.<br /><br />Martha was in good health, although she had chronic pain from arthritis, especially in her hands. Her blood pressure fluctuated some as well--it tended to get too low. She had fallen a couple of times in her kitchen, and her family had some concern about her living alone, even though many people in the apartment building were close friends and noticed pretty quickly if Martha was having difficulties.<br /><br />Martha was a deeply religious woman, and her church and God played a central role in her life. She went to a church where she had been a member for many years. The church had a van which picked her up for Sunday and Wednesday services and for various social outings. If the van wasn't available, Martha was known to wait on the corner for a SEPTA bus and get to Church on her own.<br /><br />In the group therapy sessions that I led at Martha's building, she explored some of her resistances to living with family members and some of her feelings about living with so much physical pain. She also talked about the many losses in her life, the poverty of her childhood and the deprevations she lived with.<br /><br />Martha's ability to live a life of serenity and peace as she approached the century mark, was centered in her deep faith that God was looking out for her and that she had a secure place in heaven when she would die.<br /><br />In discussions of aging and facing death, that had a prominent place in the weekly group meetings, where many of the members were 20 or 30 years younger than Martha, she was able to provide encouragement and courage to others who lacked some of the certainty of Martha's belief. When one of Martha's best friends, 92 year old Bessie, who was also in the group, died one spring, Martha was appropriately sad, but she was able to comfort herself and others in the group, by pointing out that Bessie was as firm a believer in Jesus as she herself was, and that all of them would no doubt be meeting again in heaven.<br /><br />Martha's defined the meaning of her life in religious terms and she faced death with a strong faith, culturally based and supported in her church life. She accepted the culturally provided meaning system that told her that there was a purpose in her life, and that God loved her and that there was nothing to fear in death.<br /><br />There were a couple of weeks one spring, not too long after Bessie died, and when Martha herself was struggling with less physical health than usual, and when there was some talk among her family members about helping her be placed in a nursing home. At that time another level of struggle with meaning in Martha became evident.<br /><br />In the group she was able to talk about her fear of going into a nursing home, her fear of dying, and her fear of dying alone. She talked about her uncertainty about what it would be like to die, and the sadness she felt at the thought of losing her life which was full and positive even at age 97. Martha talked about how lonely she sometimes felt from the loss of so many, including three of her children--one in childhood. She expressed some amazement and some pride that she had endured on the basis of her own stregnth, in spite of having had so many deprivations and disappointments in her life.<br /><br />In the group session after these two meetings, Martha returned to her more secure, religious and spiritual foundation, and expressed her acceptance of the fact that she might have to go to a nursing home at some point and that she might well die there. She still preferred that to going to live with her family members. And her faith that God and Jesus would take care of her, and that she would enter paradise when she died had reemerged with full force and she was again peaceful and cheerful and able to offer comfort to others.<br /><br />Some people might suggest that Martha had a loss of faith, when she was faced with a frightening threat of change that would mark a clear step closer to dying. Others might suggest that such faith is an illusion, or unreal, and that her "real" thoughts and feelings about death emerged in those two weeks of "crisis".<br /><br /><strong>I would suggest that Martha simply demonstrated the very widespread truth, that in relation to the important dimensions of our lives, we all have more than one story.</strong><br /><br />Death is too awesome, too large (a Tremendum, Jung calls it), too mysterious, to be captured and tamed by any one story--culturally or individually.<br /><br />I believe that both of Martha's "stories" are equally true. One is no more "real" than the other. Her religious faith is a very real source of meaning and therefore stregnth and comfort to her life. It is her dominant story and the one that she lives by most of hte time. <br /><br />Martha has other stories, she doesn't always tell them, she is not always aware of them. The one that emerged when her health weakened is also there in her, and while in one sense it is less positive and more painful than the dominant story, its presence is a testimony to the complexity and richness of Existence which she shares with all of the rest of us. Her ability to tell both stories, to let the second, darker one emerge every now and then, doesn't make her less authentic or less honest. In fact it attests to the strength and fullness of her life. The strength of her religious faith is highlighted and made more precious by the acknowledged presence of other competing stories.<br /><br />The group ended two years ago. I still have dinner with several members of the group every couple of months. Martha is among those attending. She is getting very close to 100, she hasn't gone to a nursing home. Her hands still hurt a lot. She still visits and is visited by her family. She still doesn't want to live with them or go to a nursing home. She still goes to Church twice a week. Martha still shares her deeply held religious faith with others in her efforts to offer them access to the same blissful meaning to life that she expeiences.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-65895451567757496912009-11-07T17:22:00.000-08:002009-11-11T05:36:26.828-08:00Existential Challenges to Meaning in LifeIn creating our lives, in writing our life stories, we all face FOUR unavoidable Challenges. These Existential Problems have to be addressed as we attempt to establish and maintain MEANING and PURPOSE to guide us in living our lives. Our culture may provide ways of meeting these challenges which may be satisfactory to us individually-- either completely, partially, or not at all. <br /><p>In writing our own life story, we have to address these Existential Challenges, whether the solutions come to us directly from our culture or we generate meaningful solutions for ourselves.<br /></p><p>The four challenges to meaning that are part of every Human Being's Existence are:</p><br /><br />1. <strong>DEATH.</strong> The most central and powerful challenge. We are the only form of life that we know about that has awareness that our life as lived on the earth will come to an end. <strong>How can Life be meaningful if we are going to die?</strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />2. <strong>ALONENESS</strong>. Challenges meaningfulness because we are biologically social creatures and our societies are more and more interdependent. We each have an internal world that is unique, only directly experienciable by ourselves, never fully able to be put into words and never fully understandable by anyone else. Yet we are bioloigcally social creatures, born dependent on other people for our survival as infants and children. And we live in a world where we remain interdependent on our fellow human beings for our survival. Moreover our biology creates a yearning for emotional and physical connection with others. We are subject to deep feelings of Loneliness. <strong>How can life be meaningful if we are ultimately alone?</strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />3. <strong>POWERLESSNESS.</strong> Human existence has meaning only if we believe that our actions effect the outcomes in our lives. Yet, we are clearly powerless over many of the forces that greatly effect our lives. We are thrown into the world with certain abilities and limitations, we are born into a place--family, social setting-- that we do not choose and that may or may not meet our needs. Events happen in our lives that we cannot control--natural disasters, social changes and disasters, bodily events, death itself. We are powerless in many things, but making responsible choices and exerting our will can make a difference. We need to believe that we have free will even though we can only influuence outcomes, not control them. <strong>How can life be meaingful when so much is outside of our control?</strong><br /><br /><br />4. <strong>Meaninglessness.</strong> The world as we experience it is often not understandable. Events may seem to unfold out of chaos, things happening randomly or only by chance. At other times we may experience the world as goverened by fixed natural, scientifc laws that are indifferent to our individual wants and desires, our invidivdual merits. We may expeience the world as unfair, irrational, even absurd. How can life be meaningful if the world we live often appears meaningless?<br /><br /><br />As we write our life stories, we have to address the Existential challenges so that we experience life as meaningful. Then we can define our purposes and goals, we can make responsible choices, we can can act in ways that make sense to us.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-18735797246778138602009-11-07T16:28:00.000-08:002009-11-11T04:37:19.822-08:00When Culture Fails Us; Writing a Life Story to Create MeaningWriting a life story is a way to explore the meaning of our life. Writing life stories is a way to create meaning in our life.<br /><br />As Lao Tzu says, ultimate reality is a unified, pre-conceptual, formless, timeless, flowing, watery way (the Dao).<br /><br />We humans have a mind, a knowing, cognitive, representational function, and it creates the world as we know it.<br /><br />This knowing function also creates our existence, since, in part, we are who we think we are.<br /><br />And it seems that in order to have a human existence, we have to have a story that is meaningful to us. (perhaps at another time we can explore what it means to have a meaningless life story).<br /><br />Culture is a set of blue prints of meaning that are shared by a group of people who participate in a particular human group--tribe or society, clan or nation. Well acculturated humans derive a lot of their life's meaning from the beliefs which are provided by their culture.<br /><br />A Human culture is a set of beliefs, a philosphy, a religious or spiritual outlook, a set of folktales or myths and a set of practices or behaivors which people in the culture believe in and carry out, and which give meaning to the individuals who believe and act in those shared ways.<br /><br />Some Cultures teach that it is heroic deeds which define the worth of an individual and that dying in a heroic cause that is in the service of defending others is the highest form of meaning. In such a culture people will be eager to show their bravery in the face of dangers that threaten others and they may even die in the defense of their friends or tribe or state. They will find it meaningful to do so because they share in the belief system of the culture which endorses this kind of meaning.<br /><br />In some other cultures meaning may be defined in terms of competence and the ability to solve problems in new and novel ways. In such cultures people may be eager to show their intelligence and creativity in order to provide new ways of doing things which are of benefit to themselves and the group.<br /><br />There is usually more than one blueprint for meaning available in most cultures (there are different roles available to different individuals). In a coherent and well functioning culture, most people will find a set of meanings to guide their lives and to keep themselves well integrated and well functioning.<br /><br />What happens when a particular person in a culture isn't properly taught the cultural meaning system? Or when a particular cultural system isn't well suited to an individual born into the culture (someone who has a temperment or abilities that don't fit well with the cultural meanings that are available in that social group)? Or what happens when the culture itself is in disarray, in transition, or failing to adapt well to changing conditions?<br /><br />This situation creates both a challenge and an opportunity. Since we can't be healthy without finding meaning in life, we will have to find some way to create meaning or discover it outside of the culture we are being offered, if meaning isn't provided by our culture in a form we can use. This challenge may be stressful and it is also an opportunity to experience Freedom, since we are asked to use more of our own intelligence and creativity to make choices that give meaning to our lives.<br /><br />Writing a life story is a way to explore the meaning of our life. Writing life stories is a way to create meaning in our life.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-32209949888805195652009-10-13T19:04:00.000-07:002009-10-23T16:25:16.496-07:00Different Stories Lead to Different ExistencesWhen a hurricane hits and destroys a block of houses, everyone is a victim of the storm. We didn't create the storm and we are not responsible for the losses we have suffered.<br /><br />The loss and suffering require emotional processing. We need to experience the feelings that have been evoked in us by the losses and there will no doubt be suffering. In the aftermath of a sudden and unwished for upending of our lives, we will very likely be sad, angry, and scared. Each of these emotions has a meaning and purpose and requires certain responses on our part for healthy resolution (see my website at <a href="http://www.supportforchange.com/">http://www.supportforchange.com/</a> the sections on feelings for a fuller discussion of emotions and health).<br /><br />The loss of a home requires changes in many of our thought structures as well. It changes our finances, our sense of security and safety, our expectations about the future, and might call into question our judgment and planning. It may erode the foundation that our sense of meaning is built upon. The need for readjustments of our inner expectations, attitudes, and beliefs also requires resolution and our sense of purpose.<br /><br />Following a major upheavel such as losing one's house to a storm, there will be major individual differences in how long this kind of processing and resolution will take. Also people require different amounts of external support for these processes and different people may have available different amounts of external support.<br /><br />These factors determine how long it takes for people to move out of victimhood. Healthy people do move from being victims, and do not continue to define their lives in terms of the losses that they have had. Some people recover quickly and some people take a long time and some people get "stuck" and remain victims for the rest of their lives.<br /><br />The people who first got on the cell phone and started sifting through debris in the hour after they arrived at the site of their destoyed home, were starting to move out of victimhood very quickly. (Probably even before their mourning was complete. Hopefully, they would also make time to experience and resolve their feelings about the loss, even as they continued to cope with the injury).<br /><br />The people who were still sitting in their lawn chairs in front of the rubble of their former home ten years later, had apparently made a decision at some point to make victimhood the defining aspect of their existence.<br /><br />Presumably if we asked the people who rebuilt their houses (or even the ones who sold their lots and moved away and renewed their lives somewhere else) and the people remaining in the lawn chairs to tell their life stories, they would read very differently.<br /><br />For example: .......in 1982 we were living on this block when hurricane Isabel hit. You wouldn't believe the devestation. We'd only finished our house five years before and we really loved it. When we returned after the storm, I just couldn't believe what I saw. The house was leveled, just a pile of junk and everything we owned had been torn apart or blown away. At first glance, it looked like there wasn't anything left. At first I thought my life was over and that the loss was just too great to be endured. Then I noticed that there was a small iron table that had been in my mother's house that was sticking up out of the debris and I was curious. I went over and felt like I had to dig it out of the pile of rubble and when I discovered that it was intact, I realized I wasn't going to let this storm destory my life. I told Joan to get on the phone and call our insurance agent and I started digging to see what else I could find. It was a really hard few months, but we knew we could make it. We had to fight the insurance company to get enough money to rebuild and we could only afford to build a smaller house than the one we had. In the end, we came to see even that as a blessing, because we ended up with more yard space and when we got back on our feet, we were able to put in a small pool. We still miss our Florida room sometimes, but we are really glad to have the pool. It was a terrible ordeal, but we survived it and I think it made us closer as a couple--we worked together, we shared the pain and the joy of rebuilding our lives.<br /><br />For example... in 1982 we were living on this block when hurricane Isabel hit. It destroyed our home and wrecked our lives. We lost everything and we've never been able to have a real life since. The insurance company didn't want to pay to rebuild the house and we spent years fighting the bastards, but they never would give us a fair settlement. By the time they wrote us a check, we owed most of it to the damn lawyers and there wasn't enough to build a decent house. So we just stay in a trailer that my cousin owns and pay a little rent from what we got from the insurance company. Most days we just come over and sit in the yard and remember wht we used to have and what we were planning for our future. All that is gone now, we've got nothing and it looks like we never will. Life is so unfair. We know people over in Citrustown just a few miles away that didn't even get any damage from the wind when that storm hit us. Those lucky dogs have a beautiful house and are still living just the way they always wanted. We deserved to have a good life just as much as they did.Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-30467959339546146582009-10-13T05:00:00.000-07:002009-10-13T05:54:31.941-07:00I AM A VICTIMOn Monday, September 25, 1989 hurricane Isabel hit Southeast Florida. The 3700 block of Orchid Lane in Edenville was destroyed--63 homes reduced to piles of rubble.<br /><br />When the homeowners, who had been evacuated before the storm made landfall, were permitted back into the neighborhood on Thursday, September 28th, they were accompanied by Loni Rogers, reporter from the Miami Coronet. She witnessed the shock, the disbelief, the first signs of overwhelming grief that was sweeping over the members of the 57 families that returned to that block of Orchid Lane (6 families did not return until sometime during the weeks after the storm--they had been warned of the devastation and delyed facing it for various reasons).<br /><br />On that Thursday morning, Loni watched as each family approached the lot on which their home had existed and watched as they surveyd the bits and pieces of roof, walls, furniture, appliance, family pictures, rugs, twisted bicycles, mangled small sailboats, soggy bits of clothing. It appeared that everyone had lost almost everything.<br /><br />The tableau that Loni saw an hour after the residents returned to the neighborhood mostly consisted of men, women and children sitting on the grass, or perhaps on a box or lawn chair. These people were generally staring at the ruins of what had been their houses and their lives, glassy eyed, sometimes tearful, speaking little or in hushed tones. A few people were standing or more frequently slowing circling near their homesites, also with somewht vacant stares and frequently with tears streaming down their faces.<br /><br />Loni noticed in her first glance, that at one site, a woman was on a cell phone, speaking with apparent intensity and her husband was within the perimeter of the foundation of what had been their residence, and he seemed to be pulling out objects and sorting them into two piles.<br /><br />Three hours later, when Loni returned to the 3700 block of Orchid Lane after surveying the general neighborhood in Edenville, she saw that what she had observed the couple doing at one fallen house, was now being repeated in various ways at 5 or 6 houses. At those former residences, people were talking on phones, sifting through debris, making piles, apparently to move from the site, to save, to discard. She noticed that some of these people were crying, even moaning as they encountered elements of their previous lives which had to be related to and reacted to in entirely new ways.<br /><br />At the other home sites where families had returned, there was still mostly inactivity--people staring, people sitting, people wandering in a daze. There were more tears than before, and at some sites people were comforting one another. In some places, families seemed to be meeting near the boundaries of their lots and sharing their shocked disbelief with their neighbors and offering consolation to one another.<br /><br />Loni went back to her office and filed her story, which appeared on the front page of the Coronet on Friday morning. She returned to Orchid Lane about mid-day and she saw greatly increased activity, in various stages at various homesites. In front of several lots, there were many cars and service vans--from insurance companies, building contractors, utility companies. Back hoes, loaders and even dump trucks were at one former house, already taking away some of the ruined house and unsalvageable contents. At other sites, people were just beginning the process of sorting through their wreckage and triaging their possessions from out of the chaos.<br /><br />There were still lots where people were sitting, more of them on lawn chairs today, but some still on the grass, or wandering aimlessly about, still glassy eyed and unfocused in perception and inactive or aimless.<br /><br />Loni filed a f0llow up story and the next day was assigned to write about a restaurant that had been badly damaged by the storm, but was now serving some of its customers using several propane powered camping stoves.<br /><br />Two weeks later, Loni returned to Orchid Lane, and saw that there were signs of progress and recovery at probably 2/3 of the 63 destroyed home sites, in various stages. On two of the lots, the old houses had been totally cleared away and constructions machinery was excavating for new foundations. <br /><br />There were still perhaps 15 sites, where little seemed to have happened and where one or two or more people were just sitting, usually in lawn chairs, perhaps talking among themselves, with little sign of movement or direction.<br /><br />Loni went on to other stories and mostly forgot about Edenville and Orchid Lane. 10 years later, a friend of hers moved to Edenville and invited Loni and her husband to come for a barbecue on Sunday afternoon. When Loni drove past the small center of the town she remembered Orchid Lane and decided to swing by and see how the 3700 block had fared.<br /><br />As their car approached the place where Loni had witnessed the aftermath of the storm and people's reaction to it, she was amazed. There was new houses all around, gardens and flowers as typical of this semi tropical climate, the usual evidences of outdoor life for adults and children--barbecue grills, bicycles, scooters, an occassional small sail boat or Kayak. It was hard to believe that this was the place where so much had been utterly destroyed and taken away.<br /><br />Loni noticed one lot, where even from some distance, it was apparent that there was not a house. She drove closer and she recognized the couple sitting in two lawn chairs, in front of their former home, that still was a pile of rubble, little changed from the Thursday after the storm, only slightly more decayed and unsightly. Edith and John were sitting in their lawn chairs, an ice chest between them and he was drinking a beer, she a diet Coke. <br /><br />Loni, got out of her car and approached the couple and when she asked them what had happened to their house, maintaining an assumed reportorial ignorance, Edith said, "Oh, we are victims of that Hurricane, it destroyed our lives." John added, "Yes, Isabel took everything from us. We have nothing left. We were ruined."Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1225926180701727358.post-38593394100245349942009-10-11T18:33:00.000-07:002009-10-11T18:42:43.326-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCND1K9vM9WSBeTFd_FXgkrwx9a3nCmBlz2A4FisoZ6KXi8NRHPLPYQwxxv48X54jMA7mAyzZSr1F5U2arLk8h0JDa8dfXUdjxYTcwovRauC7pxe_33CsnBki2rBEVQ-_9c-8FSatgPXgl/s1600-h/Harris's+Logo+reduced+size.gif"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 196px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391522815658051602" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCND1K9vM9WSBeTFd_FXgkrwx9a3nCmBlz2A4FisoZ6KXi8NRHPLPYQwxxv48X54jMA7mAyzZSr1F5U2arLk8h0JDa8dfXUdjxYTcwovRauC7pxe_33CsnBki2rBEVQ-_9c-8FSatgPXgl/s200/Harris's+Logo+reduced+size.gif" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>We are, in part, Who we Say we are.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Our Human Existence is made up of the stories we tell about ourselves.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Our experience is strongly influenced by the stories we make up about our lives.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>This Blog is intended to support myself and others in the effort to create valuable written answers to the question, "WHO AM I?".</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>As part of this support, the Blog will contain a fuller explanation of why I think writing autobiographical material is important and how it can be useful.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>The blog will also provide some guidelines, both theoretical and practical, for people wanting to write stories about themselves.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I will also publish here some stories about myself as examples of the kind of writing that might prove useful.</div>Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15443254693897401042noreply@blogger.com0