Ever since COVID-19, the Unitarian Sangha that I meet with has been meeting over Zoom. This has meant, in turn, that Debbie (who founded the Sangha years ago) has been able to join us regularly, even though she now lives in a different state far away. We met last night, and during the Dharma study we were talking about some of the Buddhist precepts.
One of these is the precept not to kill, and—to my real surprise—Debbie said she had a problem with it.
I heard from Marie a couple days ago. She had a painful rash on her face, and finally one of her friends prevailed upon her to go to the doctor and have it checked.
She has shingles.
Since it was on her face, they were concerned that it not get too near her eyes, because if the shingles virus infects the eyes it can lead to blindness. (Or I think that's what she said. I'm not a doctor and might have gotten it wrong.) So they made sure to check out her eyes.
She has cataracts.
Not badly enough to plan for surgery yet, but badly enough that the doctor said she might have trouble driving at night because she couldn't see well enough. She confirmed for me that she hates driving at night these days.
Also she has bad knees. She's considering knee replacement surgery.
A few days ago I got a call from Son 2. His employer is rolling out paid life insurance as a benefit for everyone. He realizes that he doesn't really need life insurance: he's 24 and has no dependents, so there's no urgency. But his company is paying for it, so he figured he'd take advantage while he could.
Umm, ... sure, I guess so. He added a couple more remarks to fill the empty space in the conversation, but they just made no sense.
"I figured you'd be sure to have all those numbers handy." Yes, of course. In fact not only do I know my own SSN, but I know Wife's by heart as well. And I've written down yours and your brother's. I could find them if you want.
"I also thought of listing my brother because he's the only other member of the family who's working right now." Wait—did he really mean because, or did he mean although? "But I can't call him at work because they don't allow it." And I guess you couldn't wait till this evening.
I tried to explain that I have all of these numbers, so really he could pick any of the four of us. I even made a joke of how many times I'd had to fill out Wife's SSN on this or that medical form, so of course I've got it memorized! He laughed and never mentioned Wife in his reply. He wanted my SSN.
I gave it to him, but I also wonder why he asked me for it?
There's a funny aftermath to my story immediately preceding, about the discussion of anger in Sangha last night. Already then I was thinking that I wanted to write about it here. So I'd been mulling that post since last night.
"Aha!" I told myself. "This card is just telling me that some time today I'm going to write that blog post. Good to know."
Then at noon I joined an online class on Platonist thought, discussing Simplicius's commentary on the Enchiridion of Epictetus. (Yes, I know, I need to get out more.) Most of the discussion focused on Simplicius's claim that when you choose a friend, the most important thing is to choose a friend who is ruled by reason rather than by irrational emotions. Simplicius talks about this quite a bit, gives many reasons, and the class spent a lot of time deciding whether we agreed.
Last night in Sangha, one of our members was pretty upset about something she had done during the week. None of us was there at the time, so none of us knew what it was. She said there were other members of Sangha that she had hurt directly, but they—whoever they were—apparently chose not to show up last night. But she explained about other times that her anger and frustration had gotten away from her recently, and said that she was genuinely frightened of the possibility of becoming an angry, bitter, helpless old lady.
So we all talked about anger for a while. I volunteered that yes, having anger sneak up on you can be very frightening, and I talked about how I struggled with anger when I was younger. When I was a teenager and before—but even into my twenties—I would get angry with no warning, even to me. I wouldn't see it coming and then POW! Then the anger would dissipate just as fast, and I'd be left with the shame of the mess I'd made. That happened a lot, particularly (... oh for example ...) in the early years of my marriage to Wife, and it didn't get us off to a good start. (See here for some discussion of the lasting damage.)Even into my thirties, I remember struggling with anger. I remember one evening in particular when I was musing on the Seven Deadly Sins (I must have been drinking) and I realized that the one I had the most trouble with was Anger. Many of the others (I told myself) I could take or leave; but even thinking about Anger sparked a resonant chord down deep in my viscera somewhere.
I assume that must have been in my thirties. That's also the decade when the boys were born. Son 1 was born when I was 35, and Son 2 when I was almost 37. And when the boys were little, they coined a couple of phrases that wrenched my heart, but that they used as superlative expressions of (respectively) sadness or anger: "as sad as Mommy," and "as mad as Daddy." It was awful to hear. (I realize I have already told that story here and here. Sorry for the repetition.)
