The poem she is referencing is this one here.
I'm not sure whether I have more to say about the subject besides this. But yes, sometimes I do miss owning a house....
Monday, April 27, 2020
Home ownership
Back in February, Marie and I had a conversation (over text) about home ownership. It started when she was talking about some routine natural disaster in her area -- I don't remember if it was heavy rain or sudden snow or quite what it was. And she talked about a coworker who had been delayed getting to work by having to mop up after the crisis. Anyway, from there the discussion went on like this: ....
The poem she is referencing is this one here.
I'm not sure whether I have more to say about the subject besides this. But yes, sometimes I do miss owning a house....
The poem she is referencing is this one here.
I'm not sure whether I have more to say about the subject besides this. But yes, sometimes I do miss owning a house....
The absolutism of youth
I debated calling this post "But you have so much to live for!" It is still possible that would have been a better title, but "the absolutism of youth" picks up a phrase I used in a post a couple days ago. Mostly I just want to capture an idea I have had for some years, so it is recorded somewhere.
Why do the young commit suicide? From the perspective of those of us who are no longer young, it looks foolish: they are throwing away decades of future opportunity, and there is every likelihood that somewhere in those decades the thing that is upsetting them so badly will resolve itself in some other way. So it just looks inexplicable.
The thing is, that's not what it looks like from the inside. When you are young, the choices that you can see look very stark. And frequently all the available options look pretty bad. When you try to take an inventory of what you have inside yourself, what tools you have to confront a threatening and terrible world, it's a pretty bleak and empty picture. The tool chest doesn't have a lot in it. The room you live in, when you retreat deep inside yourself, is shabby and spare. There's not much furniture, and the carpet shows wear and holes.
And as a result, suicide doesn't look nearly as irrational as it does to those of us who are older. We are accustomed to think of the opportunities lost as worth something, and so we look at the suicide of the young as an incredible waste. But the young themselves have no way to assess what these hypothetical -- or perhaps imaginary, fictitious, fantastical -- opportunities are worth, so they tally them up as worth nothing. Zero. When they try to evaluate the worth of what really is there, that they might be throwing away, it's easy for them to overlook assets (I mean spiritual or psychological or emotional assets) that they have never had to imagine life without; it is easy to treat those as just part of the wallpaper. And so again, it is easy to come out with a much smaller, paltrier inventory than an older person would sum up. And if are in great pain, and all you have to give up to get out of that great pain is a handful of pocket change, ... what the hell? Why not throw it away and be done?
Of course, the old kill themselves too. Minutes before I started typing this, I googled the question how suicide statistics vary across age groups, and found (for example) this article which states that, "In general, the suicide rate increases with age," although it then goes on to concede that there is "a major spike in adolescents and young adults." But my own recollection from my days as a teenager or an undergraduate or a graduate student is that life felt like it had less ballast than it does today (in my late fifties). Maybe it is just that back then my own depression was undiagnosed and I wasn't taking antidepressants. Maybe the whole experience is chemical. But it feels like ballast. And back then my life did feel much lighter and flimsier, much sparer and emptier, much cheaper and easier to imagine throwing away without losing much. I never did it -- I'm afraid of pain, and I often drag my feet before taking any big steps; so then I'd go to bed and wake up feeling less dismal the next day.
In other words, the very thing that makes the old so alarmed when they see they young kill themselves -- that they have their whole future in front of them -- is exactly what makes it (comparatively) easier. Nobody can feel the future. It is purely abstract. And so if all the value that gives substance and meaning to your life is in the future, that's the same as saying that you have none of it in your hands to draw on right now. It's like when you say, "This stock has tremendous growth potential," and what you mean is "It's selling for a penny a share so there's nowhere to go but up." Having so much (in the future) to live for is all very well, but it is only after you have done some of that living, after you have converted some of that potential into actuality (for better or worse), that you can really feel like you have something to lose.
Why do the young commit suicide? From the perspective of those of us who are no longer young, it looks foolish: they are throwing away decades of future opportunity, and there is every likelihood that somewhere in those decades the thing that is upsetting them so badly will resolve itself in some other way. So it just looks inexplicable.
The thing is, that's not what it looks like from the inside. When you are young, the choices that you can see look very stark. And frequently all the available options look pretty bad. When you try to take an inventory of what you have inside yourself, what tools you have to confront a threatening and terrible world, it's a pretty bleak and empty picture. The tool chest doesn't have a lot in it. The room you live in, when you retreat deep inside yourself, is shabby and spare. There's not much furniture, and the carpet shows wear and holes.
And as a result, suicide doesn't look nearly as irrational as it does to those of us who are older. We are accustomed to think of the opportunities lost as worth something, and so we look at the suicide of the young as an incredible waste. But the young themselves have no way to assess what these hypothetical -- or perhaps imaginary, fictitious, fantastical -- opportunities are worth, so they tally them up as worth nothing. Zero. When they try to evaluate the worth of what really is there, that they might be throwing away, it's easy for them to overlook assets (I mean spiritual or psychological or emotional assets) that they have never had to imagine life without; it is easy to treat those as just part of the wallpaper. And so again, it is easy to come out with a much smaller, paltrier inventory than an older person would sum up. And if are in great pain, and all you have to give up to get out of that great pain is a handful of pocket change, ... what the hell? Why not throw it away and be done?
Of course, the old kill themselves too. Minutes before I started typing this, I googled the question how suicide statistics vary across age groups, and found (for example) this article which states that, "In general, the suicide rate increases with age," although it then goes on to concede that there is "a major spike in adolescents and young adults." But my own recollection from my days as a teenager or an undergraduate or a graduate student is that life felt like it had less ballast than it does today (in my late fifties). Maybe it is just that back then my own depression was undiagnosed and I wasn't taking antidepressants. Maybe the whole experience is chemical. But it feels like ballast. And back then my life did feel much lighter and flimsier, much sparer and emptier, much cheaper and easier to imagine throwing away without losing much. I never did it -- I'm afraid of pain, and I often drag my feet before taking any big steps; so then I'd go to bed and wake up feeling less dismal the next day.
In other words, the very thing that makes the old so alarmed when they see they young kill themselves -- that they have their whole future in front of them -- is exactly what makes it (comparatively) easier. Nobody can feel the future. It is purely abstract. And so if all the value that gives substance and meaning to your life is in the future, that's the same as saying that you have none of it in your hands to draw on right now. It's like when you say, "This stock has tremendous growth potential," and what you mean is "It's selling for a penny a share so there's nowhere to go but up." Having so much (in the future) to live for is all very well, but it is only after you have done some of that living, after you have converted some of that potential into actuality (for better or worse), that you can really feel like you have something to lose.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
A new post from 2017
Yesterday I posted something that I wrote to Marie back in 2017 ... and I set the date to the day I actually wrote it. Not that anyone is tracking this blog any more, but if you were you'd miss it. So here's a pointer.
https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/as-if-summons.html
Sometimes I think it's kind of entertaining how I can make one post count multiple times in my overall stats just by doing what I'm doing here: post it in one place and then point to it from another. If I were, you know, paid by the post or something that might almost be cheating. I'm not, so I suppose it doesn't matter much.
https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/as-if-summons.html
Sometimes I think it's kind of entertaining how I can make one post count multiple times in my overall stats just by doing what I'm doing here: post it in one place and then point to it from another. If I were, you know, paid by the post or something that might almost be cheating. I'm not, so I suppose it doesn't matter much.
My cough is getting better
I mentioned that back in January I came down with a chronic cough. (It was certainly not COVID-19! None of the symptoms matched.) Some time later, maybe around the end of March, I had a routine doctor's appointment. We conducted it all by telephone (because of quarantine) and during that time I told him about the cough. He recommended to do a couple of things I wasn't doing, and to call him back in 7-10 days to let him know how it worked ... in particular, if it wasn't working.
Well in 7-10 days I noticed no difference at all, but I didn't get around to calling. Another week or two went by and I still kept putting it off. "I'll call him Friday, when I'm not so busy." "Oops, it's too late now but I'll call him Monday, for sure."
Then in the middle of this week that just passed, I was on a phone call with someone from work who suddenly said, "Gee, your cough sounds a lot better!"
Of course as soon as he said that, I coughed. But then I started paying attention and realized that it really had gotten incrementally better, so slowly that I really hadn't paid any attention.
It hasn't gone completely away. I still cough a little bit and on specific occasions ... for example, if I'm lying down to go to sleep, or if somebody asks me how my cough is doing. But on the whole it seems to be drying up and going away. And that's good.
Well in 7-10 days I noticed no difference at all, but I didn't get around to calling. Another week or two went by and I still kept putting it off. "I'll call him Friday, when I'm not so busy." "Oops, it's too late now but I'll call him Monday, for sure."
Then in the middle of this week that just passed, I was on a phone call with someone from work who suddenly said, "Gee, your cough sounds a lot better!"
Of course as soon as he said that, I coughed. But then I started paying attention and realized that it really had gotten incrementally better, so slowly that I really hadn't paid any attention.
It hasn't gone completely away. I still cough a little bit and on specific occasions ... for example, if I'm lying down to go to sleep, or if somebody asks me how my cough is doing. But on the whole it seems to be drying up and going away. And that's good.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
The Oscar Diggs problem
I own only a small number of movies, and I've seen most of them multiple times. But I'm also stuck home alone for weeks on-end in coronavirus quarantine. So one by one, I've been re-watching them.
Last night I re-watched "Oz the Great and Powerful," and I found myself thinking afterwards about the Oscar Diggs problem. Oscar Zoroaster Diggs is the protagonist, played by James Franco; he's a con man and a stage magician in a traveling circus in Kansas around the turn of the last century (the movie starts in 1905), who gets caught in a hot-air balloon during a sudden tornado and is blown into ... the Land of Oz. Right away people start to ask him if he is perhaps the great Wizard who -- according to prophecy -- was destined to appear mysteriously one day and save the land from its troubles. And of course you can tell right away where this is going. From the beginning, we all know that James Franco is going to grow up to be Frank Morgan.
So what do I mean by "the Oscar Diggs problem"? Right near the beginning of the movie, Oscar (still in Kansas) is talking to a beautiful young woman who is apparently a sweetheart of his, about his future and prospects. She has come to tell him that another mutual acquaintance, a man named John Gale, has proposed marriage to her; and to her clear disappointment Oscar tells her that John Gale is a good man and should make her a fine husband. She suggests that Oscar, too, is a good man, and he replies, "No, I’m not. I’m many things, but a good man is not one of them." When she then goes on to say, "But you could be, if you wanted to," his reply shows that he has really thought this question through in a serious way:
The first two years after we married, Wife and I were both in graduate school. At the time I wanted to be a great scholar, and I believed (based on having been patted on the head so nicely all the way through school) that I had the raw talent to get there. We fought a lot during that time, because we both had unstated agendas that we never bothered to articulate for the other (let alone discuss, negotiate ... anything like that). And after two years, Wife announced she was leaving. OK, it was more complicated than that. She had interrupted a burglary and was the only witness to it; the accused was another graduate student, but Wife is white and he was black; the University (mostly white or immigrant) had a deplorable history of arrogant and entitled racism with respect to the surrounding Town (mostly black), stretching back for decades, so when criminal charges were brought against a black student by a white one it became a political hot potato overnight. There were threats against Wife, and the local police suggested she might find it easiest just to leave town. She finished out the semester but then did exactly that. And she told me I could come with her, or I could stay in school, but I had to pick. I had one summer to make up my mind.
Oh, that was also around the time she met Boyfriend 1, started fucking him within the same week, and admitted it to me a week later. He lived in our home state, so if I followed her back she wasn't going to promise that it would save the marriage because she might decide for him instead of me. But if I stayed at the University she would for sure divorce me.
What a "might-have-been" .... Wow.
So I spent the summer thinking about it. I figured that if I left graduate school, I would never go back. (This turned out to be true, although Wife went back to graduate school -- a different one! -- after three years of teaching high school.) I had no idea what I would do instead. The only thing I had ever done in my life was to go to school; so while I knew I was pretty good at it, I had no idea what else there was out there I could do. On the other hand, with the absolutism of youth, I also interpreted this as a make-or-break moment for me as a married man. That is to say, of course it was critical for this marriage; but I also felt that if I failed at this marriage, it would be careless or reckless for me ever to enter another one. I had entered this marriage partly in a spirit of desperation, because I knew that my social development was weak and I was shy-to-the-point-of-aphasia around personal questions or relationships or sex. I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life like that, and I oversimplified the question to myself to the point where I assumed I had to stay in the marriage to get any better.
In fact the way I framed the question to myself was this: Is it better to be good, or is it better to be great? Exactly the Oscar Diggs question. I figured that staying in school meant greatness as a scholar (though of course nobody ever promises us anything). And I defined goodness to mean the ordinary life of a householder: job, children, house in the suburbs, dog (though I've never really been a big fan of pets).
I also realized that the problem -- as phrased -- is a loaded question, not a fair one. Which is better? But better means "more good" by definition. Suppose I had asked, "Which is bluer, blue or purple?" What would that question even mean? And how could anyone possibly answer anything but "blue"? Of course blue is bluer than purple. So likewise if the question is, "Which is more good, goodness or greatness?" how can the answer possibly be anything other than "Goodness, of course." It's a glib, sophomoric answer to the question, but strictly speaking it's correct.
At the same time I also spent a lot of time thinking about Doctor Faustus -- and especially about Thomas Mann's version of the story. What I find truly distinctive in Mann's version is the Pact with Mephistopheles. Unlike every other version of the Pact scene, in which Faust conjures up the devil and asks for his service in exchange for Faust's soul, Mann has Mephistopheles initiate the meeting and his message to Faust is, in essence: You and I have already signed a pact years ago, and it is implicit in the very way you live. But it is time that we clarified the terms. If you don't like those terms you can always reject the offer, but it means giving up a way of life to which you have already become accustomed, giving up the productive genius that you are already starting to exhibit and which you can already see carrying you forward to great things in the future. If you don't like the terms of the pact you can always turn your back on your genius; you can walk away from the greatness that already stretches out in front of you. Having tasted that greatness, you can choose to be poor and simple and mediocre. Having ventured onto the high seas, you can piss away the rest of your life chugging back and forth in the shallows. But if you continue in the way that you have already started, and in the way that you are already well confirmed on -- then you are mine.
That's not the only sense in which I identified with the story of Faust (see also here) ... but it was certainly one of them.
As I write this now, I realize that the "choice between goodness and greatness" isn't really a loaded question. It's just badly worded. Because the first alternative isn't really "goodness". "Goodness" is just whatever is good. Really the choice means, "What is good? Is it found in victory and acclaim and glory? Is it found in what Homer calls κλέος ἄφθιτον -- undying fame? Or is it found in the quieter life of daily duty, kindness, honesty, and consideration for others? Is it found in the mundane disciplines of marriage, parenthood, and holding a job? (Mundane, but no less demanding for all that!)"
That's the real question.
I still think I made the right choice, even if I made it on the basis of a sophomoric argument. Partly I guess my opinion is based on my deep ambivalence about academic life: at the same time that I am convinced of my own potential for scholarly greatness, I also still harbor the reservations that I spell out at some length here. And I do think that there is a huge value in the "mundane disciplines." To be sure, scholarship also requires its own disciplines; but I mean that there is a value to the kind of discipline that doesn't simultaneously pander to the ego: that while there is some value in hearing, "In order to grasp the greatness which is rightfully yours, you have to submit to this and that first," there is far more value in hearing, "You are nobody special, and you have to submit to this and that anyway ... just because!"
Also, if I had taken that fork in the road I would always have wondered what would have happened had I only taken this fork. No matter what choice a person makes, it is possible to regret the loss of the other one.
And while I recognize now the foolishness of believing (as I did back then) that this was the only chance I had to learn how to be with other people, to learn how to be intimate, to learn how to face my feelings, ... nonetheless if I had abandoned my marriage there's a level at which it would have made it just a little easier to do the same thing the next time things got tough. And so, while nothing would have been foreordained, I would have made it a little easier to reach old age without ever growing up. Some people do exactly that. (I think my Father was one of them, although exploring that topic would take a whole post on its own.)
In the end it all works out for Oscar Diggs. He gets to be great and good, both at once. But of course the implication of that outcome is that being good doesn't have to mean falling down dead behind your plow. Somehow you can be good by using what you've got. If you are a con man, be a con man in a good cause. If you are a philosopher-manqué, write a blog. It's a nice idea. Does it work? Well it worked for Oscar, and I suppose I'm not especially discontent with where I find myself these days either.
.
So what do I mean by "the Oscar Diggs problem"? Right near the beginning of the movie, Oscar (still in Kansas) is talking to a beautiful young woman who is apparently a sweetheart of his, about his future and prospects. She has come to tell him that another mutual acquaintance, a man named John Gale, has proposed marriage to her; and to her clear disappointment Oscar tells her that John Gale is a good man and should make her a fine husband. She suggests that Oscar, too, is a good man, and he replies, "No, I’m not. I’m many things, but a good man is not one of them." When she then goes on to say, "But you could be, if you wanted to," his reply shows that he has really thought this question through in a serious way:
Well, that’s just it. I don’t want to. See Kansas is full of good men, churchgoing men that get married and raise families, men like John Gale. Men like my father, who spent his whole life plowing the dirt, just to die face down in it. I don’t want that, Annie. I don’t want to be a good man, I want to be great one. I want to be Harry Houdini and Thomas Edison all rolled into one.I give Oscar Diggs credit for seriousness even though in many ways he presents as a very unserious man, because he is clear-headed enough to see that this is a choice and that (mostly) you can't have both. The things you do to be good are not the things you do to be great; and he is willing to lie, deceive, seduce, use others, and walk out on his commitments — all without a second thought — in order to get closer to being great.
The first two years after we married, Wife and I were both in graduate school. At the time I wanted to be a great scholar, and I believed (based on having been patted on the head so nicely all the way through school) that I had the raw talent to get there. We fought a lot during that time, because we both had unstated agendas that we never bothered to articulate for the other (let alone discuss, negotiate ... anything like that). And after two years, Wife announced she was leaving. OK, it was more complicated than that. She had interrupted a burglary and was the only witness to it; the accused was another graduate student, but Wife is white and he was black; the University (mostly white or immigrant) had a deplorable history of arrogant and entitled racism with respect to the surrounding Town (mostly black), stretching back for decades, so when criminal charges were brought against a black student by a white one it became a political hot potato overnight. There were threats against Wife, and the local police suggested she might find it easiest just to leave town. She finished out the semester but then did exactly that. And she told me I could come with her, or I could stay in school, but I had to pick. I had one summer to make up my mind.
Oh, that was also around the time she met Boyfriend 1, started fucking him within the same week, and admitted it to me a week later. He lived in our home state, so if I followed her back she wasn't going to promise that it would save the marriage because she might decide for him instead of me. But if I stayed at the University she would for sure divorce me.
What a "might-have-been" .... Wow.
So I spent the summer thinking about it. I figured that if I left graduate school, I would never go back. (This turned out to be true, although Wife went back to graduate school -- a different one! -- after three years of teaching high school.) I had no idea what I would do instead. The only thing I had ever done in my life was to go to school; so while I knew I was pretty good at it, I had no idea what else there was out there I could do. On the other hand, with the absolutism of youth, I also interpreted this as a make-or-break moment for me as a married man. That is to say, of course it was critical for this marriage; but I also felt that if I failed at this marriage, it would be careless or reckless for me ever to enter another one. I had entered this marriage partly in a spirit of desperation, because I knew that my social development was weak and I was shy-to-the-point-of-aphasia around personal questions or relationships or sex. I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life like that, and I oversimplified the question to myself to the point where I assumed I had to stay in the marriage to get any better.
In fact the way I framed the question to myself was this: Is it better to be good, or is it better to be great? Exactly the Oscar Diggs question. I figured that staying in school meant greatness as a scholar (though of course nobody ever promises us anything). And I defined goodness to mean the ordinary life of a householder: job, children, house in the suburbs, dog (though I've never really been a big fan of pets).
I also realized that the problem -- as phrased -- is a loaded question, not a fair one. Which is better? But better means "more good" by definition. Suppose I had asked, "Which is bluer, blue or purple?" What would that question even mean? And how could anyone possibly answer anything but "blue"? Of course blue is bluer than purple. So likewise if the question is, "Which is more good, goodness or greatness?" how can the answer possibly be anything other than "Goodness, of course." It's a glib, sophomoric answer to the question, but strictly speaking it's correct.
At the same time I also spent a lot of time thinking about Doctor Faustus -- and especially about Thomas Mann's version of the story. What I find truly distinctive in Mann's version is the Pact with Mephistopheles. Unlike every other version of the Pact scene, in which Faust conjures up the devil and asks for his service in exchange for Faust's soul, Mann has Mephistopheles initiate the meeting and his message to Faust is, in essence: You and I have already signed a pact years ago, and it is implicit in the very way you live. But it is time that we clarified the terms. If you don't like those terms you can always reject the offer, but it means giving up a way of life to which you have already become accustomed, giving up the productive genius that you are already starting to exhibit and which you can already see carrying you forward to great things in the future. If you don't like the terms of the pact you can always turn your back on your genius; you can walk away from the greatness that already stretches out in front of you. Having tasted that greatness, you can choose to be poor and simple and mediocre. Having ventured onto the high seas, you can piss away the rest of your life chugging back and forth in the shallows. But if you continue in the way that you have already started, and in the way that you are already well confirmed on -- then you are mine.
That's not the only sense in which I identified with the story of Faust (see also here) ... but it was certainly one of them.
As I write this now, I realize that the "choice between goodness and greatness" isn't really a loaded question. It's just badly worded. Because the first alternative isn't really "goodness". "Goodness" is just whatever is good. Really the choice means, "What is good? Is it found in victory and acclaim and glory? Is it found in what Homer calls κλέος ἄφθιτον -- undying fame? Or is it found in the quieter life of daily duty, kindness, honesty, and consideration for others? Is it found in the mundane disciplines of marriage, parenthood, and holding a job? (Mundane, but no less demanding for all that!)"
That's the real question.
I still think I made the right choice, even if I made it on the basis of a sophomoric argument. Partly I guess my opinion is based on my deep ambivalence about academic life: at the same time that I am convinced of my own potential for scholarly greatness, I also still harbor the reservations that I spell out at some length here. And I do think that there is a huge value in the "mundane disciplines." To be sure, scholarship also requires its own disciplines; but I mean that there is a value to the kind of discipline that doesn't simultaneously pander to the ego: that while there is some value in hearing, "In order to grasp the greatness which is rightfully yours, you have to submit to this and that first," there is far more value in hearing, "You are nobody special, and you have to submit to this and that anyway ... just because!"
Also, if I had taken that fork in the road I would always have wondered what would have happened had I only taken this fork. No matter what choice a person makes, it is possible to regret the loss of the other one.
And while I recognize now the foolishness of believing (as I did back then) that this was the only chance I had to learn how to be with other people, to learn how to be intimate, to learn how to face my feelings, ... nonetheless if I had abandoned my marriage there's a level at which it would have made it just a little easier to do the same thing the next time things got tough. And so, while nothing would have been foreordained, I would have made it a little easier to reach old age without ever growing up. Some people do exactly that. (I think my Father was one of them, although exploring that topic would take a whole post on its own.)
In the end it all works out for Oscar Diggs. He gets to be great and good, both at once. But of course the implication of that outcome is that being good doesn't have to mean falling down dead behind your plow. Somehow you can be good by using what you've got. If you are a con man, be a con man in a good cause. If you are a philosopher-manqué, write a blog. It's a nice idea. Does it work? Well it worked for Oscar, and I suppose I'm not especially discontent with where I find myself these days either.
.
Friday, April 24, 2020
It's all in how you frame it!
You can find the most amazing things on Twitter! I don't remember where I saw this or whose property it is, but I love it!
Thursday, April 23, 2020
But anxiety is normal, dammit, part 2
Three months ago I posted a short note that should have marked an end to all my whining about low-level, undifferentiated anxiety by observing that, according to the Buddha-dharma, this feeling is just dukkha and it is a fundamental fact of existence. Complaining about it is no more productive than complaining about the Second Law of Thermodynamics: that's just how things are.
So far, so good. But I just stumbled on the note I made to myself (a month before writing the post) on which the post was based. I wrote it right after Sangha one evening, based on that night's dharma study, and it turns out there's a whole batch of thoughts I forgot to include.
The dharma study talked about how our natural reaction to unpleasantness is to try to escape from it, but this reaction ends up being a lot like scratching at a poison ivy rash: it just makes it worse. The author of the article (I think it was Pema Chödrön) had several examples of times she had tried to scratch the itch of unpleasantness when she felt it, and every time it just made things worse. And worse. Her advice, unsurprisingly, was therefore just to sit with unpleasantness when you feel it. Notice it, be aware of it, but don't try to do anything. Just wait it out.
And I realized all of a sudden that this is exactly what I had figured out to do on my own -- very belatedly -- as a way to deal with Wife's cyclonic tantrums. When she got in the grips of fear or despair (and for years that was pretty common, even after she went on antidepressants), she would lash out in fury at the world. Usually she would wait until she was safely home in bed before doing this, so that she wouldn't actually run any serious risks by lashing out at people who might hurt her. But that meant lashing out at me instead, regardless whether I had anything to do with the problem or was just an innocent bystander ... someone that it was safe to get mad at. And the more worked up she got, the less rational she was, the less sense anything she said actually made, and the less it had to do with me. (I was going to link one or two examples, but you know what? Just click "Wife loses it" and browse through the stories there.)
At first when this happened -- and I mean over years, here -- when she shouted at me I'd shout back. I'd say this wasn't my fault, I had nothing to do with it, and she was being completely irrational. Bet you can guess how well that worked for me, huh?
So finally -- years and years into the marriage -- I decided to try something else. Bit by bit (and with regular backsliding) I forced myself to stop reacting. She would start screeching at me ... and I would just sit there and take it. Saying nothing. Or possibly going so far as to agree, "Wow, that really sucks." But saying nothing else. Not defending myself. Apologizing, if I could squeeze a word in edgewise, but otherwise sitting silently.
Did it work? Define "work." It didn't make her stop. It didn't shut her up. It didn't make her suddenly see reason. And it sure didn't make me feel good! It did none of those things. If "work" means that it stopped me feeling desperately, horribly shitty every time she went into a tantrum, then No, under that definition it didn't work.
But another way to look at the situation is that that outcome was never on offer to begin with . That was never going to be available, no matter what I did. The alternative was not between my feeling bad and my feeling good, but between (on the one hand) my feeling desperately, horribly shitty and (on the other) my feeling even worse than that! And it that sense, ... yeah, it worked. I felt terrible, but at least things didn't go to the even worse place that they had gone to so many times earlier in our marriage. It's grim and depressing to look at one of those scenes in retrospect and say it represented progress. But yeah, it was progress.
Coming back to my evening at Sangha, I think I actually commented on exactly this when the leader asked us if anyone had any reflections on the reading. And this is the story I meant to tell you when I posted on this topic last January, only I forgot.
Just remember: poison ivy. Don't scratch.
It sucks to suffer, but it sucks even more to make it worse.
So far, so good. But I just stumbled on the note I made to myself (a month before writing the post) on which the post was based. I wrote it right after Sangha one evening, based on that night's dharma study, and it turns out there's a whole batch of thoughts I forgot to include.
And I realized all of a sudden that this is exactly what I had figured out to do on my own -- very belatedly -- as a way to deal with Wife's cyclonic tantrums. When she got in the grips of fear or despair (and for years that was pretty common, even after she went on antidepressants), she would lash out in fury at the world. Usually she would wait until she was safely home in bed before doing this, so that she wouldn't actually run any serious risks by lashing out at people who might hurt her. But that meant lashing out at me instead, regardless whether I had anything to do with the problem or was just an innocent bystander ... someone that it was safe to get mad at. And the more worked up she got, the less rational she was, the less sense anything she said actually made, and the less it had to do with me. (I was going to link one or two examples, but you know what? Just click "Wife loses it" and browse through the stories there.)
At first when this happened -- and I mean over years, here -- when she shouted at me I'd shout back. I'd say this wasn't my fault, I had nothing to do with it, and she was being completely irrational. Bet you can guess how well that worked for me, huh?
So finally -- years and years into the marriage -- I decided to try something else. Bit by bit (and with regular backsliding) I forced myself to stop reacting. She would start screeching at me ... and I would just sit there and take it. Saying nothing. Or possibly going so far as to agree, "Wow, that really sucks." But saying nothing else. Not defending myself. Apologizing, if I could squeeze a word in edgewise, but otherwise sitting silently.
Did it work? Define "work." It didn't make her stop. It didn't shut her up. It didn't make her suddenly see reason. And it sure didn't make me feel good! It did none of those things. If "work" means that it stopped me feeling desperately, horribly shitty every time she went into a tantrum, then No, under that definition it didn't work.
But another way to look at the situation is that that outcome was never on offer to begin with . That was never going to be available, no matter what I did. The alternative was not between my feeling bad and my feeling good, but between (on the one hand) my feeling desperately, horribly shitty and (on the other) my feeling even worse than that! And it that sense, ... yeah, it worked. I felt terrible, but at least things didn't go to the even worse place that they had gone to so many times earlier in our marriage. It's grim and depressing to look at one of those scenes in retrospect and say it represented progress. But yeah, it was progress.
Coming back to my evening at Sangha, I think I actually commented on exactly this when the leader asked us if anyone had any reflections on the reading. And this is the story I meant to tell you when I posted on this topic last January, only I forgot.
Just remember: poison ivy. Don't scratch.
It sucks to suffer, but it sucks even more to make it worse.
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Twitter advice
Somebody on Twitter posted the prompt: "Start tweeting things that you would want your younger self to hear."
I came up with three:
I came up with three:
- Difficult people are not exciting.
- Niceness counts.
- If she'll lie to them, she'll lie to you.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Failing to email Girlfriend 1
Of course, time has marched on and now she's 30 years older. From time to time I have looked her up on the Internet -- hey, it's only stalking if you try to make contact! -- and she's still luminously beautiful. She has also made a career genuinely helping people. I won't go into the details, just for the sake of anonymity. But over the years I've found plenty of pictures online of her being applauded by crowds of people for the work she's done, or of accepting awards with her team. You don't find any of those pictures of me anywhere. (I'm actually not sure there are any pictures of me on the Internet at all, come to think of it ...?)
And for all that time I've wondered to myself about trying to email her. I've never done it, or not until today. Partly I've always been pretty suspicious of my own motives. Girlfriend 1 was (and is), as I've said, luminously beautiful. Thirty years ago she was also blisteringly hot, and I'm sure if I ever met her in person I'd think she still is today. (If I ever meet her in person, I assume she will still look 18 to me.) Not that my admiration ever did me any good; she was in love with Wife but never had that kind of interest in me. How much of my intermittent thoughts about contacting her were just residual lust, even though I'm an old fart now and I don't get it up as easily? If I'm totally honest with myself, probably some of it.
A while ago I did find her picture and bio online, on the website of an organization which (according to LinkedIn) she still works for. Not that LinkedIn is necessarily up to date: I know one guy I used to work with who died 15 years ago, but his LinkedIn account is still there and still shows him working at the same place all these years later! Still, this website included an email address. I copied it down to later and went back to telling myself, "No, Hosea. Stop. Don't even think of it."
Lately I've been thinking about it more again, possibly because when I look at Twitter in the age of COVID-19 I keep seeing notices of young, healthy people who have dropped dead of the disease. And given Girlfriend 1's line of work, I can't be certain that this wouldn't be her too. So over the last week or two I've been figuring out what I wanted to say. I kept it light -- mostly talked about an author she introduced me to, way back in the day, and very briefly mentioned that Wife and I had split up. I re-read it two or three times, added the email address I had found, ... and clicked SEND.
Right away I got back an autoreply telling me the message was undeliverable: this-address
Interestingly, the message said something about how Office 365 couldn't find the address. Is that different from the address itself not existing? I have no idea.
More likely, of course, is that she stopped working there ages ago and they just never updated their website. Or they gave everyone new email addresses and didn't bother to set up the old ones as aliases. Or maybe the pandemic got her (God forbid!).
I have no idea what really happened. But somehow it seems entirely on-brand that when I finally quit dithering and make up my mind, when I finally get my ass in gear ... I fail because it's too late or I just addressed it wrong or some mind-numbingly stupid thing like that.
It figures. Oh well.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Adventures in social distancing
I just texted Marie with my highlights from the last couple of days.
" So yesterday I got bored with having done so little physical activity for so long, and after work I went on a 3.5 mile walk around the extended neighborhood...."
" Today I had to go to the drugstore to pick up some prescription refills, and they actually had toilet paper in stock! So of course I bought one pack. (I was running low, not hoarding.)"
Gosh, I seem to be living in such exciting times. Of course excitement would probably mean disaster, so maybe I'm fine with "boring" instead. At least it's on-brand!
Sent from my iPhone
" So yesterday I got bored with having done so little physical activity for so long, and after work I went on a 3.5 mile walk around the extended neighborhood...."
" Today I had to go to the drugstore to pick up some prescription refills, and they actually had toilet paper in stock! So of course I bought one pack. (I was running low, not hoarding.)"
Gosh, I seem to be living in such exciting times. Of course excitement would probably mean disaster, so maybe I'm fine with "boring" instead. At least it's on-brand!
Sent from my iPhone
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Sheltering in place
I've been at home for four weeks now. At first it was just my company "recommending" that anybody who could work from home should do so. Later on, of course, the Governor ordered it. The good part is that I can work from home ... though I will add that it's a damn good thing I finally got myself Internet access in the apartment last year.
I still have work. That's the good part. Of course part of my work involves travel -- always has -- and that part's now in Limbo. I've made proposals for how to handle it, but we'll just have to see what works out. Also my company has noticed that our customers are closing (we sell to other businesses) which means we don't have as much income as we did. Every division is handling this differently. For us, everyone has to take four vacation days in April. Then starting in May we shift to a 32-day work week at 80% pay. They say they'll review the business situation every month, but we should be prepared for this to last three months. (That would mean until the end of July.) Nothing I've heard in the news gives me any hope we'll be through the crisis so soon, but what do I know? Also I've got no grounds to complain, because at least I still have a job. For now.
Marie, for what it's worth, is working harder than ever. She's in retail, but her family-owned business has been designated part of her state's "critical infrastructure." So they are still open, but some team members are out sick, demand is high, and they have to figure out how to service customers while maintaining social distance. When I told her it was definite that we would be transitioning to a 32-hour week in May, she told me her management had promised not to ask more than 65 hours a week. Yes, that's double. A little more.
I've held grocery shopping down to once every two weeks, and laundry once every three. It's amazing ... if you don't go anywhere and never bother to shower, you don't really have to change your clothes all that often either. I sure could use a haircut, though.
Marie and I text each other every morning, each to make sure the other is still alive. (A couple of months ago a coworker of hers never came back from vacation and was finally found dead in her apartment. In her case it was diabetes and not COVID-19, but it seriously spooked Marie and she recommended that we check in with each other like this.) Once she gave me the idea, I started to do the same thing with Son 1 (now in his own apartment since February) and my mother (eighty but still working). Son 1 had a fever for a couple days several weeks ago; he says he assumes in was COVID-19, but he was never tested and seems to be feeling better now. I haven't seen him since then, but he just ordered a new computer and is having it delivered to my place; so in another week or so he'll come and get it. On the other hand he is postponing any trips to visit Wife until he's sure he's not a carrier, because with her lupus medication she is definitely immunocompromised.
What is amazing to me is how seemingly easy it has been for me to adapt to this new way of living. Honestly, hanging around at home not going anywhere or doing anything is a pretty easy target for me to hit. I try to go outside once a day just to walk around the street, so I remember that there really is an outside world. But I've blocked out an hour on my work calendar to take a nap, or interrupted what I was doing to go fetch a snack -- the latter any number of times. It's really easy. My weight and any semblance of an exercise regimen have both gone completely to hell. At least I haven't yet started drinking in the middle of the day. I guess that's something.
One other bright spot is that I've been emailing a couple of guys I used to know (in a virtual way) on a discussion board years ago. I've reworked one of my posts into an essay over on the Patio and there are a couple of others that could follow it if I'd just get my ass in gear. So that's been fun.
This is terrible but I'm not sure I want it to end. Of course, the bad news is that maybe it won't.
I still have work. That's the good part. Of course part of my work involves travel -- always has -- and that part's now in Limbo. I've made proposals for how to handle it, but we'll just have to see what works out. Also my company has noticed that our customers are closing (we sell to other businesses) which means we don't have as much income as we did. Every division is handling this differently. For us, everyone has to take four vacation days in April. Then starting in May we shift to a 32-day work week at 80% pay. They say they'll review the business situation every month, but we should be prepared for this to last three months. (That would mean until the end of July.) Nothing I've heard in the news gives me any hope we'll be through the crisis so soon, but what do I know? Also I've got no grounds to complain, because at least I still have a job. For now.
Marie, for what it's worth, is working harder than ever. She's in retail, but her family-owned business has been designated part of her state's "critical infrastructure." So they are still open, but some team members are out sick, demand is high, and they have to figure out how to service customers while maintaining social distance. When I told her it was definite that we would be transitioning to a 32-hour week in May, she told me her management had promised not to ask more than 65 hours a week. Yes, that's double. A little more.
I've held grocery shopping down to once every two weeks, and laundry once every three. It's amazing ... if you don't go anywhere and never bother to shower, you don't really have to change your clothes all that often either. I sure could use a haircut, though.
Marie and I text each other every morning, each to make sure the other is still alive. (A couple of months ago a coworker of hers never came back from vacation and was finally found dead in her apartment. In her case it was diabetes and not COVID-19, but it seriously spooked Marie and she recommended that we check in with each other like this.) Once she gave me the idea, I started to do the same thing with Son 1 (now in his own apartment since February) and my mother (eighty but still working). Son 1 had a fever for a couple days several weeks ago; he says he assumes in was COVID-19, but he was never tested and seems to be feeling better now. I haven't seen him since then, but he just ordered a new computer and is having it delivered to my place; so in another week or so he'll come and get it. On the other hand he is postponing any trips to visit Wife until he's sure he's not a carrier, because with her lupus medication she is definitely immunocompromised.
What is amazing to me is how seemingly easy it has been for me to adapt to this new way of living. Honestly, hanging around at home not going anywhere or doing anything is a pretty easy target for me to hit. I try to go outside once a day just to walk around the street, so I remember that there really is an outside world. But I've blocked out an hour on my work calendar to take a nap, or interrupted what I was doing to go fetch a snack -- the latter any number of times. It's really easy. My weight and any semblance of an exercise regimen have both gone completely to hell. At least I haven't yet started drinking in the middle of the day. I guess that's something.
One other bright spot is that I've been emailing a couple of guys I used to know (in a virtual way) on a discussion board years ago. I've reworked one of my posts into an essay over on the Patio and there are a couple of others that could follow it if I'd just get my ass in gear. So that's been fun.
This is terrible but I'm not sure I want it to end. Of course, the bad news is that maybe it won't.