Suppressing the Warbles

Henry David Thoreau once wrote "As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so I had my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest." As I stepped outside to pick up the paper on this chill February morning, I took a breath, sighed and walked to the mailbox. Nothing wrong with hanging around here. No suppressed warble though, as I spotted my neighbor and first greeted him, then greeted his dogs by name--dogs are people, too, you know. Even on a Saturday morning, the notion of just watching remains just out of reach, natural as it is. Years of conditioning have reinforced the other natural activity--constantly flowing thoughts of everything but just sitting still. Even so, I'll settle for what comes along, just being here. I listened to two friends talk last night about their lives, one remarking he was just glad to make it this far alive, "With each year better than the last," he says, "what could be better than just being here?" The other talked about the joy of just being free to experience life in such a beautiful place. He said he has no room in his life for people who whine about their situation. Look on the bright side, he urges. So this morning, I will join them and enjoy just being here, and I'll warble if I want to.

Intersections

The other day, I used an expression I don't remember hearing anywhere or reading anywhere, so I must have just made it up. It was about lives intersecting. On many levels, when or where our lives intersect determines our future. But that's just the result. Something precedes it, and it is one of life's great puzzles. Many cultures have developed explanations for that something that is "in charge." Some are religious, some philosophical, some spiritual, even astrological--think karma, divine providence. the stars, and all the philosophical answers to life's questions about why we are here.

There are even many who believe it's all a random process and pure chance dictates how your life intersects with the lives of others. I do prefer the former, even though chance seems to be the only thing that prevents someone from rounding the corner and running into you. And what was it that landed your resume a few slots behind the last candidate chosen for interview at a company on the Coast that you were perfect for? Was it really preordained that you would attend a university 500 miles southwest of your home town, and not due east? There are pivotal moments in life, and we really don't know what causes lines to intersect or not, do we? Oops, I seem to have moved metaphors—from traffic and geography to linear algebra and geometry. I kind of like the traffic and geography metaphor better, don't you? It's easier to picture a missed bus or train or a traffic light turning yellow seconds too soon; as opposed to riding some sort of vector or parallelogram. But mathematics probably lends itself to analysis more readily than traffic lights, rounding corners, college applications and resumes.

Neither really addresses the chance that determines how we connect when our lives intersect. There are first impressions, which can derail any connection. There is eye contact. If no one makes eye contact, no connection seems possible. On the other hand, eye contact can put some people off. A smile just naturally prompts a return smile (see brain research). So, even eye contact if and when intersections occur, seems to be a factor in determining what happens after lives intersect. Even if connections are made, things like words and touch strengthen or truncate those tentative connections before they can grow. The people you encounter, the vast, vast majority of whom never connect with you or even try. So those with whom you connect, regardless of where or when, are valuable and precious. Through them you become the human you are.

There are chains that begin with a single person that become phenomenal. Think of the National Kidney Registry. Without its founder, hundreds of lives would no longer be. And, if Michael J. Fox had not contracted Parkinson's then his foundation would not raise money for research, and its trial finder would not be connecting people with researchers for clinical trials that must take place to find a cure. Or, if you do not connect with other humans wherever and whenever you can, then you will be less for it, and so will we all.

 

On Being Crabby

Someone told me (for the 2nd day in a row) I was being crabby. Having denied it, I was informed I "must not even know what crabbiness is." I looked it up, and found several definitions, synonyms, and even translations, e.g., Grincheux is the French word for crabby (Oh, Dr. Seuss, I never knew your secret--Grinch was not a made-up word). Grouchy, ill-tempered, grumpy are words commonly found in the definition. I find none of the above that fit, especially the French one. Even if it were so, two days in a row is nowhere near the record (see the world record holder below)

Even so, I have found this little writing space a perfect antidote to lots of pains and other puzzles. Thus I sat down here to explore crabby, just in case herself was correct to label me crabby. So far, the best thing I learned just nosing around to see if I was even close to crabby myself is this--the best way to deal with being crabby is to act as if you aren't,


It turns out there is brain science behind this. I am not making this up, but it has been proven that humans are hard-wired, so to speak, to respond to a smile with a smile; to respond to a frown with something less than pleasant; to crying with a congruent look of sadness and an offer of sympathy.

Secondly, the brain tends to store memories by emotion, so when you let a crabby emotion run its course, it is bound to stir up memories of other times you have been crabby and soon your crabbiness is spiraling even higher--or is it lower? Probably depends on whether it is depressed-crabby (downward) or stressed-crabby (upward). Now, if you act as if you aren't crabby, you don't dredge up more memories of other crabbiness.

 

Now, this is me, acting as if I am not crabby. I'm reminded of the story about the power of suggestion that went something like this, the doctor tells you to take some medicine or other, but cautions you that it will only work if you don't think of monkeys while you drink it. How in the world do you not think of a monkey without telling yourself "I am not going to think of a monkey"—which means you are thinking of a monkey? So, I'm sitting here not thinking about not being crabby….It's stopped raining, think I'll just go for a walk.

 

What to Leave Out

It's Sunday, the day stretches ahead. There are routines, exceptions; chores and special events; plans and blank spaces; energy and idleness. Routines can be comfortable, but I'm not sure the rest of my world appreciates them. Routines have seldom been something shared, except maybe walking the dogs—who had no choice. Setting the routines aside, the exceptions are what move us along. If all we do is our usual routine, nothing new happens. So, even those who appreciate routine tolerate those necessary exceptions.

The chores make for some purpose in the day. I still like to be able to tell myself at the end of it that I got a few things accomplished. In college, my friend Gerry Murphy and I had a memorable dorm room discussion (I'll bet it was on a Sunday) about the effect of a sense of accomplishment. We argued that the sense of accomplishment encourages the one who is having this feeling to rest on his or her laurels, so to speak, and reduces motivation. The most obvious cause of this sense of accomplishment was the accomplishment itself. Avoiding this sense of accomplishment that only reduces motivation and encourages languor is best achieved by avoiding the task itself. So we determined that we were best served by doing nothing in the first place. (What? We were in college, for heaven's sake!)

So, you might think avoiding the chores would be my preference, but then I grew up, so here I am placing a value on doing chores. Then, there are the special events. I'll take a few of them, as long as a reasonable period of rest follows soon.

I like some blank spaces, too many big plans make me feel trapped, then driven. Just for today, I want to stay with the blank spaces. (Thanks, Gerry). I put up with the big plans, but I think I undermine certain portions of those big plans to make sure they don't overlap, but have blank spaces in between.

There is a downside to too much blank space—lethargy. Merriam-Webster says it's "the quality or state of being lazy, sluggish, or indifferent." In my view, you have to program your Sunday a bit. But, once you open that door, plans proliferate and to restore balance, you have to ask yourself "what do I need to leave out?"

Next thing you know, I'll be trying to write one of those "Six Word Biographies."

THE FULL CATASTROPHE

In the novel, Zorba the Greek, Zorba is asked if he was ever married. He says, "Am I not a man, and is not a man stupid? So, I married. I had a wife, children, a house, the full catastrophe." In today's stressful world, life can be "the full catastrophe," at times. Did Zorba mean married life is a catastrophe? Or was it merely a slice of his life, a truly "full catastrophe."

To me, Zorba and his response personify a remarkable appreciation for the richness of life and its dilemmas, sorrows, tragedies and ironies. Zorba's response was to dance in the gale of the "full catastrophe," to celebrate life, to laugh with it and to laugh at himself, even in the face of personal failure and defeat.

So how can anyone cope with "the full catastrophe?" First by just being in the present moment, which is all we really have. We often spend our time reliving the past or "pre-living" the future. We remember a past that is gone forever, and worry about a future that might never happen, while the present slowly slips away. The term for just being in the present moment is mindfulness, and it takes a lot of practice. In the present moment, the full catastrophe in our past disappears, and the future catastrophe doesn't arise.

Do you sometimes see your life as "the full catastrophe?" I do… now. Like Zorba, I am a man, I married. I have a wife, children, and a house—but don't get the wrong idea, that didn't convince me. No, what made me a believer happened two years ago this month. The neurologist said simply "Jim, you have Parkinson's disease."

He went on to explain that

• Parkinson's is a chronic and progressive movement disorder. Medical science knows neither the cause nor the cure.
  
• The most common symptoms are tremors of the hand and leg, slowness of movement, muscle rigidity and in some cases, impaired balance. There can also be depression, problems with emotional control and cognition in some patients, as well as sleep disorders.
  
• The neurons that normally produce the neurotransmitter dopamine, which controls unconscious motor activity, begin to malfunction and die off. As some point, your brain stops producing dopamine, which controls much of your unconscious motor function.
  

He probably went on explaining, but most of that didn't register… I was lost there for several moments. I later did a little of my own research and learned, oddly enough, PD does not have the same effect on conscious motor activity, and that's significant for those of us living with Parkinson's.

Another doctor I consulted two years ago said to me "Jim, the most important thing you can do with this diagnosis is to exercise an hour a day."
I said "Doctor, that's a pretty tall order for me; thirty minutes, twice week is a good week for me these days." In the nearly 2 years since that conversation, I have exercised more than I did in the previous ten. Consequently, I experience virtually no back or joint pain, can do more pushups than I ever could, I can bend and reach farther, and move better than I can remember. I go to yoga class. Did you know the Sanskrit word for pose is "-asana?" In yoga I am learning what my teacher and I call "old-guy-asana," each day you bend and stretch just a bit further than the old guy you were yesterday. All this new muscle activity is building up that inventory of conscious movement, unaffected by Parkinson's DIsease.

Often, when we are not practicing mindfulness, we are relying on unconscious movement. When we multi-task, we can only have one task at the top of mind. The rest is being handled unconsciously. Think about the last time you drove home only to arrive at your driveway having no recollection of actually driving. You were too preoccupied with other things, and your unconscious took over and took you home. So, the second part of practicing mindfulness I have to re-learn is to do just one thing at a time, mindfully.

It turns out mindfulness is a highly effective way to treat stress, some intractable pain, Parkinson's and other chronic illness. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn started work in this area with his pioneering Stress Reduction and Relaxation Program at the UMass Medical School more than twenty-five years ago. There he and his colleagues have taught thousands of people with chronic illnesses, intractable pain and more to live more consciously and mindfully, helping them deal with their own version of the full catastrophe with their eight week program.

A few weeks ago, I started Dr. Kabat-Zinn's program myself, and I feel the difference. Over the years, I have read a shelf full of books on mindfulness meditation, and off and on tried it. But, until now, I never had the motivation to stay with it. But that's changing, just like my attitude toward fitness. I am trying, in Dr. Kabat-Zinn's words, to become "an island of being in a sea of doing"

It's all a part of the "full catastrophe" that my life has become, and I wouldn't trade these moments for anything. You see, to me the "full catastrophe" captures something positive about being a human. We have a way of taking what is most difficult in life and finding within it the room to grow in strength and in practical wisdom.

Two of a Kind

I started thinking about Christopher Columbus when I ran across a mention of an important anniversary observed on January 9th this week. The event took place in 1493, but let me back up a bit. I want to talk about Christopher Columbus. He was a remarkable man in many ways. I say this even as history has tarnished his image as the “discoverer of the New World.” He was a phenomenal navigator, sailor and even astronomer. Four times he sailed across the uncharted Atlantic and returned safely. Each time, he found his way back to the very island he first claimed for Spain in 1492. Hundreds before him sailed off into the Atlantic, never to return.

Until now, however, I never realized how much he had in common with Don Quixote, and not just because both spent a great deal of time in Spain. Throughout his years of adventure, Columbus was, like Quixote, an idealist. He encountered many things, and, just as the Man of La Mancha did, he chose to believe they were something more noble.

To Don Quixote, Aldonza the serving wench and part-time prostitute became the Lady Dulcinea, and Aldonza’s dishrag a silken scarf. Sancho, the manservant, became a squire. A barber’s shaving basin became a helmet that granted the wearer the miraculous power of invulnerability.

To Christopher Columbus, the Dominican Republic was Cathay or China, the island of Cuba was Japan and the outskirts of paradise were in coastal Venezuela.

Don Quixote had a quest and so did Columbus. His was both a material and a religious quest. In the preface to his journal on the first of his four historic voyages, he says (speaking of Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain)

“…Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians… thought to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said parts of India, to see those princes and peoples and lands…and (showed me) the manner which should be used to bring about their conversion to our holy faith and (you have) ordained that I should not go by land to the east by which way it was the custom to go, but by way of the west by which down to this day we do not know with certainty that anyone has passed…”

And so he sallied forth, four times between 1492 and 1504. While he explored much of the Caribbean, Central and South America, by all accounts he never found China or Japan, or the passage to India, but you wouldn’t know it by reading his journals. To the very end, he persisted in his claims to the contrary. It seems he spent his time convincing himself and the sovereigns of Spain that what he found was indeed the dream he had set out to pursue. He returned each time from his journeys with gold and other treasures. But he dreamed of finding Solomon’s mines in the areas he had explored on his earlier voyages.

He believed he was close to Solomon’s realms of gold when he explored the outer regions of earthly paradise (Coastal Venezuela as it turns out). But another story persists about Christopher Columbus. The one I learned about him earlier this week. Let’s drop in on him for a moment.

It’s early one evening, some months after Columbus and his ships have discovered San Salvador, Cuba and Haiti, which he renamed Hispaniola and claimed for the Spanish Sovereigns, Columbus is standing on the deck gazing out to sea, about to leave for Spain. He is mentally composing the day’s entry in the ship’s journal.

“When the winds once again become favorable we shall sail for Spain. I have indeed found the way to Cathay, and have explored the outer reaches of Japan. What else shall I report? (PAUSE) Oh Ho! Look, there they are! I see three mermaids. I see their eyes and eyelashes. And there, see their tails! With each movement, their great fins break the surface of the waves. Come closer, sea creatures, so I may look upon your beauty. Whoa, you’re not nearly beautiful enough to lure a sailor to his watery grave, are you? In fact, you’re quite homely. (Looking around now) Is anyone else around to see this? Hmmm, they’re all below deck. I am the only witness.”

With that Columbus rushed to his quarters and made this entry in the voyage record:

“Ship’s Journal, January 9, 1493. I have finally seen them with my own eyes—mermaids. They aren’t half as pretty as artists portray them on canvas.”

Columbus returned three times in his search for a strait that would give passage to India, but he was never to find it, and he never again reported a mermaid sighting He was convinced he had come quite close to Solomon’s fabled city of gold, his insistence led the Spanish Sovereigns to fund multiple trips for him. Each time he returned with more treasure, but never the big hit. He returned from his fourth voyage a beaten man in some ways. He’d been denied entry into Hispaniola by its new governor, Queen Isabella was dying, and he would never again enjoy the same favor in the court of Spain. But, like Don Quixote de La Mancha, he kept his vision—that he had found China and Japan, and explored the outer regions of Paradise.

He faced many doubters, but he steadfastly denied discovering a “New World.” In one of his final letters, he lamented the doubters but remarked “at least they never claimed I did not see those mermaids.”

Historians, those myth-busters, point out the mermaids were, more likely, manatees, commonly found in the warm waters of the Caribbean. Would Columbus ever know or admit those homely mermaids were manatees? Did the Man of La Mancha ever stop seeing the Lady Dulcinea where the wench Aldonza stood?

Rules and the Joy in Life

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

Now I don't know about you, but I am a little surprised to hear a leader of a nation, albeit in-exile, and a religious leader suggesting breaking rules. Most of my religious education in early days was about commandments you had to follow, and rules about when you could eat and what you could eat on certain days. Being told to learn enough to break them effectively may have been my natural bent, but it was "bent" and that was some of the fun of breaking rules. It was getting away with something that was attractive about lots of the things I did in my youth--why else would a teenager take up lighting rolled up dead leaves that came with names like Lucky Strike and Camel and sticking them in his mouth if breaking the rules wasn't fun? And who liked the taste of beer in the beginning? Not me (although you'd never know it now).

I have retained that penchant for wanting to break the rules for most of my adult life, too. I enjoyed being different, not conforming to what others expected, surprising people, being the contrarian. Not that I didn't learn to be the quintessential organization man. I made up for not always following the rules and living up to what was expected by working hard to ensure mostly I was above reproach. But there was always that moment I would seize when I could surprise someone or myself, by doing or saying the unexpected.

It would syphon off every bit of the joy in life if I had to conform all the time. Maybe that's what he's talking about--that little spark of joy that comes from upsetting the apple cart. For a while I was not so sure. I looked up the Four Noble Truths, they are all about suffering, its causes and putting it to an end. I went on to look into the Noble Eight-Fold Path to Nirvana. They are all about wisdom, ethical conduct and concentration--not much room for rule-breaking at a quick glance. I did notice one thing casting about for an answer--I never once saw a picture where the Dalai Lama wasn't smiling. I think I know why.