If You’re Going….

A friend of mine is planning to spend the summer in San Francisco, and I think she's looking forward to it. She's a much better writer than I, so I am hoping she'll write a sort of travelogue describing her experience. It's all for purely selfish reasons, as I am planning to spend a week there in October and would like someone to screen it for me so I only see the best parts—we don't have all summer, you know. For now, the best way I know of to share the experience is to pretend it was really me heading there. For reasons I do not understand, music is often the first thing that pops into my mind when I picture myself traveling somewhere. I am not a musician, and, while I enjoy listening to music, I don't take the time to work it into my life with ear buds or stereos. I'll listen in my car, but, living on an island, I am blessed with a life of only brief car trips in my leisure time—twenty minutes is a long car ride.

Anyway, back to the task at hand, it is not "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" that comes to my mind first (old fogeys come in degrees, and that one is just a few degrees older than I am). Instead, I remember this is the 45^th anniversary of "the Summer of Love" and the tune that comes to mind goes like this—

If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there

For those who come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
In the streets of San Francisco
Gentle people with flowers in their hair

Yes, it's Haight-Ashbury in the 60's. Newly formed hippies (perhaps as many as 100,000) flocked to this old bohemian neighborhood in SF, seeking an ideal some never found, some found and lost, and some found and still retain. There were skyrocketing ideals, and lowlife experiences. As Bob Weir, guitarist for the Grateful Dead, puts it: "Haight Ashbury was a ghetto of bohemians who wanted to do anything - and we did, but I don't think it has happened since. Yes there was LSD. But Haight Ashbury was not about drugs. It was about exploration, finding new ways of expression, being aware of one's existence."

The musical artists they flocked to hear still reverberate in my head, among them the The Doors, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Otis Redding, The Byrds, and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin.

But, with all that said, I wouldn't seek the hippie experience. I loved the music, but…. Even by October after that summer, homelessness, drug abuse, poverty and more set in.

Yet today, we still spend more time asleep to the present moment, reliving the past, and pre-living the future, and missing out on the real present. Still, it's the mindfulness and the awareness I seek. Being in the present moment was a part of all that and probably the only part worth keeping. It's still worth seeking for as long as we still breathe. So, if you're going to San Francisco, you can wear some flowers in your hair (some of us look better than others that way), but better yet, be mindful of the precious moments you have and aware of where you are.

Taking A Chance

Early today, someone told me a story about three statements he heard one day in a hospital room, and he asked me to think about them—"Why am I here?" Then "It must be something important." And finally, "I don't have much time left." The point is, spending a bit of time with these questions can be worth your while and might make a difference in how you live.

"I don't have much time." Without being morbid about it, none of us knows how much time we have. Surprises happen.

"Is it something important?"I am not among those "who feel that life is but a joke." There have been just a few too many meaningful and rewarding moments to let me believe what we do doesn't matter. I prefer to view that one on the smallest of scales—there are people I can directly touch and that has added meaning to my own life. So "why am I here?" and am I on the right track?

Someone reminded me today that every time I've made a change or moved, I've wound up better off. Now, these are life-changing choices I'm talking about. This comment was made on the anniversary of a lucky change I made many years ago. There have been thirteen since the one I just mentioned—some of them overlap--moves from job to job, company to company, house to house. I count nine jobs, within three companies, in ten different places we've called home. Counted that way, it's twenty-two. Either way, I regret none of them. Oh sure, I wish I could have avoided the equity drain from my current house, but who has been able to avoid that one, besides renters?

Choices. As you might have guessed, I am facing a couple of them right now. I'm sure it's time to just get on with it, but still I wish I knew for certain which way to move and when. But, if I reflect on most of those choices, I was just ready to roll the dice. It often had to do as much with what I was leaving behind as it did with what I was moving toward. Oh, I know you aren't supposed to be running away, but I know it was a factor at least four of those times, maybe more. Only once was there no clear evidence I expected the change would improve my life—a lateral move motivated more by who/what I was getting away from than what I was moving into. Ironically, that move proved to be a real game-changer, perhaps the best move I ever made.

So, today I'm making the first step in a two or three step change. I know what I'm leaving behind, the good and the bad about it, and I know an increasing part of my motivation is coming from a desire to leave it behind. Leaving it will entail some sacrifice, but I think it's time. The first step is really making this change possible. But the focus is still on what I'm leaving to an extent. So, where to? I think I'll figure out why I'm here just by taking a chance.

How Well Do You Know Your Brain?

Earlier this week, I received an email with the question above in the subject line. It prompted several thoughts, none of which landed anywhere close to the subject of the email message which was sent by Web MD. I am not sure if Web MD has me pegged as someone interested in brain research, or if they were just trying to attract the attention of all their email subscribers. In any case, it was a quiz on brain research. I started it twice and, the 2^nd time I had 88% right, and was branded 'an Einstein among responders,' for answering 88% of the questions correctly. That's 15 out of 17, but I guessed right on three of them, so I could as easily have scored 70% and been an 'also ran' like anybody else.

The truth is I thought it was a message about knowing yourself, a subject I don't suppose even occurs to modern email publishers, including those at WebMD. Reading a PR expert recently, I came across the notion that the best speakers aren't those with the best content, but those that share a little bit of themselves when they speak. It reminded me of Thoreau, who famously wrote "I should not write so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.' People can engage with writers like Thoreau, not because they like the woods, but because they know they will get a bit of Thoreau himself in the mix, and they keep coming back for that—at least I know that's what I come back for. The facts about the woods surrounding Walden Pond hold no particular interest for me. There's a pond back of my house I could walk around, but Thoreau wouldn't be along sharing what enters his mind.

The other thought all this gives rise to is Socrates' oft-repeated dictum—"know thyself." It is inscribed atop a famous building from that era, too….OK; I looked it up—the Temple of Apollo at Delphi… There are at least a dozen ancient Greeks to whom scholars attribute the statement, but Socrates spoke about it a great deal. One of the many takeaways from Socrates on the topic was the folly of attempting to learn the seemingly obscure things without first attempting to know oneself. You simply don't have a reference point for all those factoids you assemble. Makes a lot of sense to me. All too often, I hear people drone on and on about some obscure notion, but they never relate it to themselves (and thus don't reach me).

But another lesser-known aphorism Socrates liked was "nothing too much," a concise way to say "all things in moderation." So, enough about all this.

 

 

 

    

This One Is Different

In New Orleans on business, we went to the French Quarter to dine on "expense-accounted gruel." (Excerpted from Jethro Tull's "Cross-Eyed Mary" 1971). Afterward, for health reasons, we took a walk onto Bourbon Street. Recalling my very first trip to New Orleans, when I was nineteen, I looked for the Velvet Swing, whose memorable feature was a trapeze swing above its door on which a young underdressed woman swung, pointing her legs skyward each time the swing cleared the top of the door and swung out toward the street. It wasn't there. Of my three visits to New Orleans in the forty years since, this one seems different.

As we trudged past the bars with "hawkers" in the street waving us in at every other doorway, I began to feel silly about my being overdressed. Gallatoire's, our dining choice for this evening, was a "jacket-required" establishment—at least for gentlemen. Amid a throng of younger people who were dressed as casually as one can while still being dressed, I walked along with my gray hair, a navy wool blazer, tasseled loafers and buttoned-down shirt. On my first visit, it was bell-bottomed jeans, a parson's shirt, and sandals. My point of view in the 1960's was expressed by my attire during that visit, but this visit's different.

People from all walks of life strolled along the street, gazing with wonder, grinning at oddities, listening to the assortment of street musicians. Most drum, pick or blow familiar tunes. This guitar man strums, this drummer drums, another plays a sitar with his thumbs. While most play songs I've heard before, I hear a coronet, just blowing away. And I know this one is different.

Some are panhandlers. There is even a young man with an empty plastic beer glass approaching people with full glasses, just asking for a pour. I've seen all sorts of beggars, but this one is different.

It's nine o'clock on a Tuesday. We find ourselves walking for just a moment behind a young teenaged woman, clad in worn-out, dirty jeans and a scoop tee shirt. A five year old little girl (I know what five looks like these days, my granddaughter is just that age) clings to her hand, sucking on a sucker, gazing all around. A co-worker turns to me and says, "That little girl just doesn't have a chance, does she?" I sigh, and surmise the young mother "just had to go out," and had nowhere to drop her, so she brought her along. As my co-worker turned, shaking his head, I said, "Some people overcome it, maybe this one is different."

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.