You can just do things!

A long-expected party

The Ecosophian community is an informal collection of people who follow the books and blogs of John Michael Greer. There is no formal organization; nobody collects dues, or organizes formal events, or publishes meeting minutes. But if you check out either of his blogs—Ecosophia, or Toward Ecosophy—you'll find many of the same people commenting over and over. And of course there are plenty of people (I'm one of them) who rarely comment or post, but who read the materials regularly.

For a few years now, there has been a social gathering of ecosophians in Providence, Rhode Island, on or around the summer solstice.In the past, this gathering generally took the form of a big potluck. I remember seeing the announcements and thinking, "Gosh, wouldn't that be fun!" Of course I never went, because I don't live anywhere near to Providence. There was no simple or easy way to pop over and bring a contribution to the feast, so I didn't think about it beyond that.

You can just do things.

Last year, Greer traveled to Glastonbury, England, in early June. He announced his plans the previous November, and in the end his visit turned into a kind of impromptu convention. People gave talks and workshops. There were (by all accounts) good food, good beer, and good conversation. Of course it sounded like a delightful time in the run-up before it happened; and it sounded even better afterwards. But I'm an American, after all. Glastonbury is a long ways away. I toyed with the idea of going there, but I didn't take it very seriously. So in the end I stayed home, and read about it after the fact.

You can just do things.

Then after the 2025 potluck, the man who regularly organizes the events in Providence proposed that "next year" (meaning 2026) he wanted to change it up a bit. Why not hold a convention in Providence, just like the one in Glastonbury? Surely we have people on this continent who would like to give talks on some ecosophian-related topic? Or workshops? It can't be that hard. So he put out an announcement in July of 2025, for the following year, to get people's attention and start them thinking.

You can just do things.

Solitude

This weekend I visited my mother. I drove down on Saturday. When I got there, she was at her storage unit with Brother and SIL; but it wasn't long before they came back, along with a friend of Brother's. We sat around and talked a while before they all went home. Then Mother and I stayed up until 2:00 in the morning, drinking brandy and talking some more. Sunday, Mother and I drove into the Big City to go to a concert. We met Brother and SIL there, and we chatted after the concert before going home. Today (Monday), Brother and SIL came out, and we all contributed to a nice meal outside in the early evening. So it sounds like I spent the weekend socializing with family.

You'd think.

But in reality, not so much. Saturday, sure, we sat around chatting for a bit, but in a superficial way. I got to talk to Mother more after everyone else left. But then we drank enough and stayed up late enough that Sunday was pretty miserable. I mostly tried to stay out of those conversations because I was still wiped out. And today? Mother was in the kitchen cooking; Brother and SIL were in the kitchen cooking. I tried my damnedest to stay away, somewhere else, for hours.

Why? I worried about saying something thoughtless that might offend someone. I guess I was thinking particularly that I might say something to offend SIL (see especially this post and this one, for example), but at the same time I was prepared for the possibility of equal-opportunity offensiveness. Not of purpose, of course! Just because I don't trust myself a lot in social situations any more. (If I ever did.)

Maybe I worry too much. Besides, if you are weak at a particular skill, you get better by exercising it more, not by avoiding it. 

Right, whatever. Anyway, after we had our meal (where I was careful to praise every dish!) I announced that I needed to get back home. I cleared the table of dishes (see, I helped out a little bit!) and then took off. Now I'm back at home, and I feel much more at ease. So far as I can tell, I didn't offend anyone this time. And thank heavens for that! 

      

Cheer up! We're all going to die!

Tonight at the UU Sangha I attend, we started a discussion about fear, and politics, and how to talk about them both. That is to say, our Dharma study was a reading of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, and after we read them one member of the group started to discuss the Ninth one:

Aware that words can create happiness or suffering, we are committed to learning to speak truthfully, lovingly and constructively. We will use only words that inspire joy, confidence and hope as well as promote reconciliation and peace in ourselves and among other people. We will speak and listen in a way that can help ourselves and others to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. We are determined not to say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people, nor to utter words that might cause division or hatred. We will protect the happiness and harmony of our Sangha by refraining from speaking about the faults of other persons in their absence and always ask ourselves whether our perceptions are correct. We will speak only with the intention to understand and help transform the situation. We will not spread rumours nor criticise or condemn things of which we are not sure. We will do our best to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may make difficulties for us or threaten our safety.

I'll call this woman Lisa, which is certainly not her real name. Anyway, Lisa said she knows she has trouble with this precept, because whenever she talks about politics (for example) her words never "inspire joy, confidence [or] hope." In fact, her hairdresser recently told her, "You always bring division, antagonism, and negativity with you whenever you come here." [The quote might not be exact.] Then she went on to say that she knows exactly why she talks this way—namely, that she is afraid. Lisa believes the worst about the political currents or possibilities in our country and world today, and she is afraid of all of them. (If you hadn't guessed, she is for example afraid of climate change and Donald Trump.) And this fear causes her to speak in very negative ways.

Then another woman—whom I'll call Liza (also not her real name, but her real name is very close to Lisa's)—said basically the same thing about herself, too. A third member of the group—a man, this time—got us off the theme of politics (thanks be to God!) but expressed a lot of anxiety about how his kids are turning out. His kids are 18 and 21, and only in the last couple of weeks have I started to hear any of the story. Admittedly it sounds grim, but I won't go into it now.

As I listened to all this, I was struggling with whether to say anything of my own. What I wanted to do was to teach, to instruct, to lecture. (You know, the kind of thing I do here so often and so effortlessly.) 

Meeting my Shadow

Last night during dinner I had an encounter with my Shadow. The Jungian kind. Perhaps I'd better start again.

I haven't read very much Jung, and I'm no expert in the tenets of Jungian psychology. Most of what I know about the Shadow archetype, I've learned from reading John Michael Greer—for example, in this essay here. See also this YouTube video as a quick summary:

But his description has always been a bit difficult for me to apply to myself. 

• Your Shadow consists of all the parts of yourself that you don't like. OK, so far, so good. 
• But specifically they are things you hate so much that you refuse to acknowledge that they are part of you. This makes it harder, because I freely acknowledge many of the unpleasant sides of my own character. I talk about them in this venue, not infrequently. Do I have to rule out all of those?
• Because you can't admit that your Shadow characteristics are part of you, you project them onto your enemies. Gosh, do I have enemies?
• And whenever you see someone else exhibit one of these behaviors, it makes you crazy.

I wasn't sure what that left me. But it turns out that's because I have a bad memory.

Fear of flying

You all remember I'm going to Scotland, right? I'm traveling there with Debbie to hike the West Highland Way. In fact, at this point I check in for my flight in just about 60 hours from right now. 

I've bought all the things I think I'm going to need. 

I know where we are going to be staying. 

I even tried packing my suitcase a few days ago, and all the big stuff fits just fine. I haven't packed the carry-on backpack yet, but I'm not worried about it.

I just wish I could shake this overall feeling of anxiety.

Another kind of fear

Yesterday I wrote about my fear of having to make a lot of decisions, as one obstacle that stands in the way of my getting published. But there's another.

I am really afraid of putting myself out there.

Retirement planning through sortilege

I feel stupid writing this, but that's probably good for me, isn't it?

One of my big topics during this time is to figure out what the hell to do next. (See, e.g., the 6-word slogan I've out on my masthead: So what do I do now?) In line with this concern, I've started learning to cast simple tarot readings, using the instructions that John Michael Greer posts here. Do I believe that the tarot tells the future? Probably I have to answer with Niels Bohr and say, "Of course not …."

But I will add that Wife seemed to have a pretty good success rate reading Tarot back when we were together, or at any rate when she was still in her stride as a self-confident witch. I don't know if she still reads today, or with what level of success.

Anyway, one of the big questions I've been concerned with lately is whether to invest the money that I have collected in my 401(K) account from work with the financial advisors that I first mentioned here. And the answers I've gotten have been, … well, … not encouraging.

For these questions I've been using a variant method, not quite the one Greer explains in his post that I reference above. This is a method that Wife taught me years ago. 

1. Think of a yes/no question while you shuffle the cards.
2. Turn over the first three cards.
3. Count each upright card as a "Yes," and each reversed card as a "No." Majority wins.
4. If you want more commentary on what it's going to look like, read the cards themselves.

Over the last couple of days, I have asked these questions in several different ways.

• Can I trust XYZ with my money? Answer: No. (8 of Cups reversed, Sun reversed, King of Wands upright. But I flipped the cards as I turned them over, which normally I don't do. Does that matter? Should I count the reversed cards as upright and vice versa?) 
• Will XYZ treat my money dishonestly? Answer: No. (10 of Pentacles reversed, 8 of Swords reversed, 2 of Wands upright.)
• Will someone else handle my money better than XYZ? Answer: Yes. (Magician, Hermit, Page of Pentacles, all upright. I assume the Hermit there means "Keep looking," but how in the hell am I supposed to find a magician to invest my retirement account with?)

Finally this afternoon I tried a different way to word it: Are XYZ the right people to invest my money with? And the answer came up like this:

Strictly speaking, I suppose that's a Yes, isn't it, because two cards are upright and only one is reversed. But it doesn't look like encouraging commentary. The way I read this, it's telling me:

• Eight of Swords: I'm only choosing them because I feel like I don't have any other choice. And it's true that I haven't been interviewing anybody else, but that's because up till now all their answers to all my questions have sounded really reasonable. And when I look them up on the SEC website there are no outstanding complaints against them.
• Queen of Swords reversed: I'm at risk from some kind of deceit. Either that or an older woman will be badly disposed towards me. (But XYZ is a small firm and all the analysts are men. This couldn't mean Wife, could it?)
• Five of Wands: And there's a risk of family fights if I go ahead. Family fights? That's how Wife always read the 5 of Wands. But I can't really imagine why choosing this investment advisor over that one would cause family fights. How is that possible? On the other hand the little booklet packed in with the cards says, "Imitation, as, for example, sham fight, but also the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. In this sense it connects with the battle of life. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence." I suppose gain and opulence sound nice -- certainly a lot better than family fights. Hmm.

The thing is, I can see using the Tarot to focus your thinking about a subject, to help you frame a question, or to inspire you to look at aspects of a topic you had hitherto ignored. But when all the visible evidence says that XYZ firm look honest and competent, when the contract requires them to act as fiduciaries and has safeguards built in to prevent bad behavior, and when the cards still look ambiguous or depressing -- at that point isn't it just magical thinking to reject what's visible to your eyes because of invisible hints? People have been ruined by magical thinking. Knowing that hasn't stopped me from indulging in it throughout this transition (see, e.g., here and here) but I try to keep it reined in.

Oh well. I'll make a decision some day soon.

      

Another kind of magical thinking

I just thought of something.

When the boys were little, one commitment I always made to them was to support them up through the bachelor's degree. Not that I expected to boot them out of the house right after that, or at least not necessarily 😃, but that I recognized the bachelor's degree as somehow the threshold of adulthood. Before that, they could rely on me paying their bills. After that, I'd be glad to help out here and there but they should consider themselves to be basically on their own and make plans accordingly. And in fact Son 1 lived with me for a year or so after his graduation, and lately I've been paying Son 2's rent.

But when I look at the timing of the shutdown of my office, the timing of my losing my job with no necessary promise of finding another ... when I look at that, I realize that Son 2 graduated last May. There were other times in the last sixteen years when the business outlook has been grim, but somehow we always hung in there by our fingernails. Somehow I always continued to draw a paycheck. 

So if I wanted to look at the world this way, I could say that as soon as Son 2 graduated in May, I had fulfilled my commitment to them. Since I no longer own a house and I am formally separated from Wife, the last vestiges of my householder status are gone now and I can move on to something else. And so — if I chose to see it this way — I could imagine that the glass bowl over me that protected me from unemployment through all those years was no longer needed and came off. To be clear, that really is magical thinking, because it supposes that events in the world are affected by my own personal statements of will. Also it implies that the world really does revolve around me, which I don't actually believe. I'm aware that anyone can assemble random events into a narrative that looks coherent even when there is nothing to it, and this is plainly one of those narratives.

But yeah, it did occur to me.

OK, this part is magical thinking

I figured out why I continue to fret that I'm relying on magical thinking in my decision not to move to Sticksville. 

It's because the whole situation -- the whole set-up -- looks so much like one of my recurring fantasies, that some time soon Everything Will Change and I'll start doing an entirely different kind of work, or I'll run away and join the circus, or I'll have the time to be a freelance philosopher, or something else equally unlikely. See for example here or here or here or here, where I talk about exactly this. 

Is this why I don't worry about finding a job, even though I'm old enough that I should expect serious age discrimination? The question is based on a false premise: in fact I do worry about it. That's why I first decided to go. And I'm still worried about it: that's why I asked my mom if I could move back home with her in extremis. That won't do much good for Wife, to be fair, because if I stop earning income then I stop paying alimony. Anyway, yes I'm worried.

But some small corner of my brain -- the corner that is willing to believe in meaningful coincidences and magical timing -- does wonder if this is the time, finally? 

That's a terrible reason to make a decision, of course, and I think it's not why I'm making this one. Also it might never happen that I do anything wonderful or even interesting with the freedom of unemployment: see for example my thoughts here and here. Or see any of my posts (no time to hunt them up and link them right now) about how my father pissed away his decades of "retirement," leaving behind nothing to show for any of them. That could be me too, though I surely hope it won't be. 

But I have to recognize that this is one component of the conversation inside my head. For whatever that's worth.

  

Overthinking

Sunday night, I sent an email to HR and to New Boss saying that -- given how the job is shaping up -- I'm not the right guy for it.

Monday, HR called to talk to me. First, they weren't sure what I meant. Then when I explained, they said the job was still mine for the asking in case I should change my mind.

Tuesday (today), I talked to New Boss. First, he wasn't sure what I meant. (Am I that bad at writing a simple email?) Then when I explained, he said the job was still mine for the asking in case I should change my mind. More exactly, he said, "My intent was never to say I don't want you here." And yes, he did leave the door open in case I were to change my mind. I said I understand, and than you. (But no.)

But of course I can't help wondering if I'm making the right choice. I look at the table I made over the weekend, and I wonder if there are simple conceptual errors I'm falling into. Is it magical thinking to want to stay near my mom because she's old and something might happen to her even though she appears to be in good health? Or is it common sense that anyone over the age of eighty is likely to be fragile, and that in any event she might get lonely from time to time ... like she actually said she does? Is it awfulizing to fear that I'll die in a blizzard, or that the business unit will go broke and I'll be turned loose with no similar jobs anywhere in the area? Or is it normal prudence not to rush into a situation where there are serious potential risks unless there is also a powerful countervailing inducement? And how high do I have to rank the inducement of keeping my paycheck, compared with the likelihood of (a) things turning bad in Sticksville or conversely (b) finding another job nearer to home?

Then this afternoon I thought of another possible error, the one characterized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb when he wrote:

 “If you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don’t do it. It does not mean that one reason is better than two, just that by invoking more than one reason you are trying to convince yourself to do something. Obvious decisions (robust to error) require no more than a single reason.”

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder 

What about my table? Don't I have multiple reasons for both sides? Does this mean I'm screwed either way I turn?

Not really. In the first place, note that he talks about a reason "to do something," and remember that Taleb prioritizes inaction over action ("via negativa") as less likely to produce bad results. So if the question is, "Should I move?" then the time to worry is if I start telling myself "Sure, because I'll keep my job and also lose weight and also meet new people and also ...." In the second place, the multiple reasons are window dressing. All this time, the real decision has boiled down to a binary choice with one reason on each side:

• Move to Sticksville: Because that way you can keep your job.
• Don't move to Sticksville: Because I really don't want to.

As I say, all the rest is decoration, or else it is trying to predict the future -- to elicit some sense of what lies down each road in turn so that I can see if it changes how I feel. So far it really hasn't.

Maybe that's what a decision looks like.

  

I don't want to move, part 2

I visited my mother this weekend. She has had both her COVID-19 shots, so I took the risk and stayed overnight. And I talked to her about my situation.

On my side, I found that I could make a good argument for New Boss's point of view. The company's needs have, in fact, changed. There is, in fact, a whole department in another city that does the work I used to do. (For various reasons that wasn't exactly true before.) And the other tasks, the stuff he wants me to work on, really are urgently important to the business. From that perspective, I'm wrong for the job and the job is wrong for me. The only thing that either of us offers the other is immediate availability. But everyone will tell you that it's better to hire the right person than to settle for the person that just happens to be handy right now.

What if I can't find work again … ever? I flat out asked Mother how she would feel if I became a boomerang child at the age of 60, having to come back to live with her because I'm broke? To my surprise, she said that would be fine. She has lived all alone since my father died, and that was over five years ago. She's getting lonely. Also she's not as physically spry as she used to me, and she could probably use the help. She said she wouldn't want to hold me back if I really desperately wanted to move to Sticksville; but if I choose to stay in the area she'd be grateful. She even said it might be OK for me to move in with her even if I did find a job. This was all good to hear. It gives me a safety net.

So I made the table below, to try to collect my thoughts. It doesn't tell me anything I don't already know, but it organizes it all for me. Basically the move to Sticksville is good (green type) from the perspective of staying employed in the immediate future (with no guarantees about the long term) and bad (red type) in every other respect. Staying here -- rejecting the move -- is bad from the perspective of staying employed in the immediate future, and either good or unpredictable (black type) in every other respect. Rejecting the move has way more unknowns involved, but it also has more upside. Making the move is more predictable (at least in the short run) but I don't like what I see.

When people give advice about this sort of thing they always say, Take the risk! Don't settle for something you know you're going to hate just because it is a known quantity. And in fact even if I were to move to Sticksville, I can't guarantee that I'd still have a job 12 months from now. Or 24 months from now. (There are threats to the business that make it look pretty risky right now. Who knows what will happen?) And if I were unceremoniously dumped out of work, now I'd be on the other side of the country in a place I didn't like with no family nearby. Not an encouraging prospect.

I think I want to stay. Scratch that -- I know I want to stay. I think I'm going to choose to stay. I just wish I knew how to swing the income side of the equation.

Move to Sticksville	Don’t move to Sticksville
Income:
Employment guaranteed. No guarantee for how long.	Unemployed. Have to look for new work. No guarantee that I’ll find work, because of age.
Chance the whole business unit might fold in two years.	Not relevant.
Still able to pay Wife’s alimony and provide her medical insurance.	Unable to pay alimony unless/until new job. No guarantee I can afford COBRA for her.
Kind of work:
Work doesn’t match my strengths. Potentially set up to fail.	Who knows what I’ll find? Maybe something great, maybe something terrible, maybe nothing.
Don’t trust my boss.	If I don’t trust the person who offers me a job, I don’t have to take it. But I might not have much choice.
Location:
Don’t like the town.	Like my town. Like my mother’s town.
Don’t like the plant.	Who knows what I’ll find?
Far from family.	Near to family.
Mother is getting old.	Able to live with or near Mother if needed.

I don't want to move

I don't want to move to Sticksville.

And I don't want to work for this new guy that I now work for.

A week or two ago, a guy from HR called me. There's a new boss in my department since the end of last year. He relocated to Sticksville (where most of the department is) to take it over. And HR Guy called me to say that it sounded like New Boss has been changing my job description. Did I know anything about this?

Well, yes, kind of. New Boss has made a number of remarks about the things I am especially good at, indicating that he thinks they are luxuries and not really something the company can afford right now. He has asked me to do other things -- tasks I don't know and have to learn -- which are the things he says we really need right now. And he has said he doesn't understand why Old Boss rated me so highly on everything in my annual reviews when to New Boss's eyes it looks like my past performance has been barely scraping by. And he thinks I'm overpaid, though he didn't quite use that word. So yes, I had some inkling of this.

HR Guy said we should make it all really clear, before I move clear across the country. So he nudged another HR associate to call a meeting, inviting HR Guy, New Boss, and me. New Boss prepared some PowerPoint slides showing how my job description will change, and how the requirements will change with it. Sure enough, the tasks that I'm best at have been downgraded to "Also..." status, while some new things that I would have to learn from scratch now take pride of place. There are some of the new job requirements that I flat out fail to meet. None of it was a surprise … not exactly … but it certainly collected all the bad news in one place.

We talked. I said thank you, and carefully avoided saying anything either for or against the new job description. Half an hour later, HR Guy called me again to ask what I thought. I told him none of it was much of a surprise. He said my tone in the meeting made him think I was looking for a way out. Since I didn't explicitly tell him he was right, he added that he was glad to learn that he had been wrong, and signed off. 

Now I know that all my remarks during the call were very neutral, because I was speaking very carefully the whole time. I said the new job description "wasn't a surprise." Strictly speaking, that's not the same as saying that I liked it or accepted it. HR Guy jumped to the conclusion that it meant everything was fine, but only because he let himself be distracted by the careful irrelevance of my answer. So I think I know what HR Guy was reacting to; I also know that he doesn't know what triggered his foreboding, because if he had known he would have seen straight through my reply.

The reality, I'm pretty sure, is that he was not reacting to anything I said, but rather to one specific thing that I did not say. Never, in all these months from last August straight up to the present, have I said that I want to move to Sticksville. Not once.

Let me interrupt the story for a moment to point out that I can counter-argue every single thought here.

• It bothers me that New Boss is changing my job description and requirements to focus on things I'm not good at; it makes me feel like I'm being set up for failure. But you could also argue that I've gotten intellectually sedentary by doing the same damned things over and over again, and maybe it would do me good to have to learn some new skills.
• At an emotional level, I just don't trust New Boss. But you could also argue that I scarcely know him, and that I am overreacting to a bunch of little things instead of keeping my eye on the big picture and letting the little stuff slide.
• It makes me uncomfortable how seriously he reinterpreted my annual reviews to say that the goals which Old Boss agreed I'd achieved didn't count. In New Boss's eyes, only one of them rated "partly achieved" and the other two rated "nothing done." On the one hand, that indicates a pretty profound gap between how he sees the world and how I see it, and gaps like that can be problems for any working relationship. On the other hand, to fret over this feels a little bit like whining, "But Miss Jenkins always gave me an A, so why won't you?!"
• 
  
  It's true that I totally do not want to move to Sticksville. But early in my marriage to Wife we moved across the country to graduate school. We had each applied to two graduate schools, one in our home state and one across the country (the same two, to be clear). We agreed to go wherever we both got in, and in the end that meant the one on the other side of the country. Wife kicked and moaned and wept and stormed over "having" to move out-of-state. She had lived her whole life in the same state, and now it was like I had told her to enroll in the University of Hell. (To be clear, I got into both schools but she didn't. So going to this faraway school was the only way that she could a graduate program too, instead of -- say -- working to support me while I studied.) Once we got to the distant city -- which I loved -- she was chronically resentful. Every little bit of bad luck that we stumbled over was (in her mind) all the fault of our having moved to such a godforsaken town in a godforsaken state. And so when I recognize my own strong feelings against moving to Sticksville, I wonder if I am just being like Wife?

What do I do now? This meeting, and the new job description, are the opportunity if I want to change my mind: I can tell New Boss, "Sorry, dude, but now that you spell it out I really can't sign up for that." But I can't wait too long. So what do I say?

I discussed the situation with Marie on Wednesday. She was careful not to give advice, but she reflected back to me something about the tone of my voice. She said that when I talked about not moving, my voice sounded much more alive than when I talked about moving. And she suggested this might indicate something about what I really want. Sort of like John Eldredge's admonition, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." 

I discussed it with Debbie tonight. She, too, was careful not to give advice. But she did note a couple of things. 

• First, she said that she had confidence in my ability to figure it out. That's great to hear. I only wish I felt the same confidence. 😀
• Second, after I told her that I feel one way but also argue myself out of it, she said that it is important for me to recognize and pay attention to my feelings.
• Third, when I suggested that maybe my antipathy to New Boss was just whining about little shit, she pointed out that little things can grow into big things; also that when you see things right at the beginning of any interpersonal relationship that disturb you, you should take notice. I replied that I had been thinking the exact same thing, with explicit reference to my marriage to Wife.
• When we were done with the call and signing off, Debbie straight up said "I love you." No quiet voice, no shyness. Just the complete reassurance of her love and support. I love you too Debbie. Always will.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit my Mom, and discuss it with her too. Maybe I'll be ready with an answer by Monday. That's not too late, is it?

Unhappy hour

I've written before about feeling low-level anxiety and treating it with alcohol. (I don't remember quite where, and I don't feel like hunting just at the moment, so I won't provide a link. I trust you to find such posts pretty easily if you want to.) But I've been drinking a lot less the last month or so, and in the process I've noticed more about it.

Maybe I should explain what I mean by "drinking less." Basically I was finding that once I started drinking at night I couldn't stop until I'd had enough that I really didn't feel good. And I was sure feeling it the next day. So when I finished what was in the apartment, I just didn't replace it. I'm not fanatical about it -- once a week I'll go out for a beer with coworkers at the end of the week, or last week (when I didn't do that) I brought home one of those revolting little cardboard boxes with 500 ml of cheap wine in it. But I've kept it to once a week, and even if I am bringing a drink home I make sure not to bring more than I'm willing to consume all at once. I don't buy a bottle of anything with the idea of stretching it out, because that way I can't decide to drink most of it tonight. (Also I realize I'm a little superstitious that by saying something here I will bring the whole exercise to a crashing halt. I'll try to avoid that.)

I've noticed two things in particular.

One is that as I consume less alcohol, I consume more sweets: ice cream, honey in my tea, jam on my sandwiches … whatever it is. I'm pretty sure I've remarked on this regularity before.

The other is that I can tell the exact hour of the day when my desire for a drink is at its strongest. That is, I can feel like I'd enjoy a drink at this or that time during the day: mid-afternoon, late at night, while I'm blogging … whenever it is. But the time that I really feel like it's important, like I really have to have one now, is always the same. It's at the end of the workday, as I'm preparing to go home. (Or, if I'm working from home, as I'm starting to log out of my work computer.) In other words, Happy Hour.

Why then? There could be many reasons, I guess. I'm going to go with Pavlovian conditioning.

For thirty years, I was afraid to come home from work. This is the data point that first made me start to think there was something abusive about my marriage. That I was afraid to go home. And that was always because I never knew what I was going to be walking into. Was Wife going to be disappointed, critical, angry, depressed? Or was she going to be in a manic phase, gleefully making deranged plans for a future that would never come to pass? Would I have to defend myself against bitter attack, or steer her away from a lunatic enthusiasm, or nursemaid her through a migraine, or talk her slowly out of the suicidal depths of Hell? It might be any of those, or it might be a dozen other possibilities too -- each one wrenching and demanding and terrifying in its own way. And I never knew which it was going to be until I turned the knob and walked through the front door. 

But you know what helps with that kind of fear? Pouring a drink.

As I say, my explanation for why the urge is strongest at exactly that time of day -- and every day it's the same, that's the thing -- is Pavlovian conditioning. Not that I blame Wife for my ever drinking at all. That would be absurd. Clearly the decision whether to drink is on me. But why do I always want it so desperately right around 5:00 pm, as opposed to any other time in the whole day? That, I think, I can leave with her. 

Of course it doesn't really matter, but it interested me to see the connection.
     

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.
    

But anxiety is normal, dammit

Last fall I posted a gripe that my "default setting" was somehow "wanting-to-be-distracted". In the post I link to lots of others where I have whined about the same thing.

And then a few weeks ago, sitting in Sangha, I realized how natural that is.

After all, the Buddha's First Noble Truth is that all life is dukkha, where dukkha can be translated "suffering" or "stress" or "unsatisfactoriness." In fact I'm pretty sure we were reading an essay of dharma teaching at that point, and that the author made the point that this longing to be distracted is part of the fundamental nature of reality. So instead of whining about it, I should just be glad that I have perceived the fundamental nature of reality.

Just bloody wonderful.
  

Wanting to be distracted

I'm starting to think my default setting is wanting-to-be-distracted.

Thich Nhat Hanh's Fifth Mindfulness Training reads as follows:

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations. I will practice coming back to the present moment to be in touch with the refreshing, healing and nourishing elements in me and around me, not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past nor letting anxieties, fear, or craving pull me out of the present moment. I am determined not to try to cover up loneliness, anxiety, or other suffering by losing myself in consumption. I will contemplate interbeing and consume in a way that preserves peace, joy, and well-being in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth.

Of all the Mindfulness Trainings, this must be the one I have the hardest time with. As soon as I wake up in the morning I reach for my phone, to check my email and read the news. At work, if I'm not absorbed in something I'll check the Internet for stupid stuff or hit up the vending machines for snacks. By the time I come home I really want to eat (even if I'm not hungry) and I really want a drink (even if I'd rather not put on the excess weight or feel like I can't put it down). Passing up any of these distractions is really tough.

In the past I've said that I'm trying to avoid "anxiety" but it's not really that. It's just the state of wanting-to-be-distracted. And I've written about it before. (Try, for example, here, here, here, here, here, and here. There are probably others too.)

What causes it? Who knows? Of course I can always find superficial things to drape themselves in the feeling, so that I can say, "Look, I feel anxious about X." But I think actually it is just a feeling. And as long as I continue to allow myself distractions, I suppose I'll continue to feel it. I wonder what would happen if I went back to a regular daily meditation practice? I wonder if it would slowly ebb in intensity?

Maybe I'll try that later.
   

Frigidity

I've been having a more entertaining conversation with Marie over the concept of "frigidity". You may remember that once upon a time that was a concept Marie applied to herself. Anyway, it came up again when I saw the recent biopic of Dr. Ruth.

Hey love.

There's a movie theater right next to my office, so at 5:00 pm I walked over from work to see a new documentary that I recommend. It's about the life and work of Ruth Westheimer, and it's called "Ask Dr. Ruth." And really — if you get a chance to see it, do.

One scene I loved for what will be obvious polemical reasons when I describe it.

The documentary made a big deal about how Dr. Ruth went on radio and television saying things that nobody was saying back then — things that nobody thought they were allowed to say on the air. Nobody said "clitoris", almost nobody said "orgasm", and all the rest of it. Saying the unsayable.

So they showed one clip when she was on TV in the 1980’s, where a man starts by asking her, “Dr. Ruth, tell me, when you have a woman who is frigid ....”

And right away she interrupted him, “NO! Stop! You may NOT use that word on my show!” And then went on to explain what she meant, that sometimes a woman has to learn what works for her and there are different ways to do that etc etc etc. And I just wanted to cheer but it would have been disruptive to the rest of the audience.

There was a lot more. It explains how she got to be the personality she became, and traces her life back ... to the Kindertransport that took her and a lot of other Jewish children from Frankfurt to Switzerland in 1938 when she was 10, at the same time her parents were sent to labor camps. Oh. Right. That. And more like that too. So it’s a rounded picture.

Really it’s worth seeing, and the theater broke into applause when it was over.

Know that I love you, now and ever, my poet, my water sprite, my Sunlight on the Water,
Your Hosea

She answered back:

Hey sweetness!

It's showing at the indy/arts theatre [in such-and-such a neighborhood], so I can't exactly walk over after work myself.  It does sound worth seeing, however!

And yes, I can see why that one scene would particularly catch your notice.

BTW, I don't think I ever asked, when and how did you come to decide that the term frigid (applied to anything but Sticksville weather) was both, well, inapplicable and insulting? I remember that your feelings were quite decided against the word (and your analysis proved correct in my case) the first time it came up in conversation between us, but I don't think you described how you came to the conclusions you did....

Loving you always,
Your Marie

My reply:

“Conclusions”? Hell, I don’t know. It wasn’t the result of a process of ratiocination. It’s just a word that has always made me clench up inside. I know it used to be commonly used in the 50’s and 60’s, but it just felt like it belonged on the same list with all the racial, ethnic, and religious slurs people used so casually then too. And the fact that you used it against yourself didn’t inoculate it any. If Dean Martin had ever made scurrilous jokes about food with too much garlic, or if Mel Brooks had ever made a joke about lending money to his friends at interest ... would that have made those jokes OK? If they had used the nouns usually associated with those jokes, would it have been OK because they were talking about themselves? If Sammy Davis, Jr., had ... no, dear God, let’s not even go there, not even as an illustrative example.

And it felt like a word associated with that kind of a man — with the Frank Sinatras and Dean Martins and Sammy Davis Jrs of the world, arrogant, cocksure men who treat dames (never “women”) purely as little children to be alternately pampered and scolded, as ornaments for their tables and toys for their beds, but never, NEVER, as adult human beings.

So when I heard such a word out of your mouth, a word that would have shocked me a little bit even coming from Anita Bryant or Phyllis Schlaffley, ... it was like you were channeling some alien intelligence. It was like hearing Eldridge Cleaver deliver a speech written by David Duke. I wanted to shake you and ask, “Who are you and what have you done with Marie?” I wanted to object, “You’re a feminist, for God’s sake! How can you use language that is so demeaning and self-hating?”

Except of course, yeah. That’s exactly how.

So I didn’t shout at you (IIRC) but I did figure that had to change.

Time to leave for my volunteer work, even though I’ve gotten nothing more than the dishes done today.

Know that I love you ever,
Your Hosea

And finally hers again:

Hey sweetness.

Yes, of course, calling myself frigid was expressing self-hatred, or more precisely hatred of that aspect of myself.  And unlike words like slut or queer, I haven't heard of anyone trying to reclaim that word as a badge of honor:  Asexuals unite!  Frigid and proud!  (Though there is an asexual pride movement; one slang term I've seen used is "Ace.") 

(Though also, of course, I don't think I ever thought of myself as asexual, as not interested:  just as incompetent, and very profoundly discouraged.  It's very liberating to be shed of that baggage--as I may possibly have expressed before, but it bears repeating.  My love.)

And yeah, "frigid" belongs to the same group of concepts as "slut," and you're right, not just to judgments passed on women by men who felt entitled to have opinions, but also to various ethnic slurs that were considered funny when I was a kid.  (I can still remember some of the Polack jokes my parents' friends told....)  (Venn diagrams:  misogyny intersecting with racism/ethnocentrism with a particular set of odd views of sex....)

Now I'm curious about something else--did it strike you that way the first time I used it of myself to you, in 1983?  As Eldridge Cleaver channeling--well, couldn't have been David Duke then; Strom Thurmond, maybe?

By the way, I laughed in enjoyment, reading your email; and I am laughing again now, re-reading your conclusion, and thinking of a riposte.

I mean, seriously, love, if you were just worried about my using language that was demeaning and self-hating, denigratory to women and our sexuality, unworthy of a feminist, you COULD have just corrected my choice of words.

But no, Mr. Overachiever, you ensured I can never again use the term with any pretensions of accuracy (which, by the way, was my self-excuse for using the label:  it was simply descriptive), by blowing out of the water the underlying fallacy:  by establishing that I was, indeed, entirely capable of enjoying orgasms.  More than one.  In quick succession, even.

But you realize, love, having chosen initially to attack my use of that term for myself on factual rather than ideological grounds, there's nothing in principle to prevent me from using the term for other women who consider themselves anorgasmic....

(Except that, aside from the fact that you've persuaded me the term is offensive, you've also pretty much persuaded me it's guaranteed to be inaccurate, more or less logically inconceivable... I mean, if I could be brought to orgasm so easily* after YEARS of sincerely believing that to be impossible [*"easily"--not to underrate your achievement, but you may have devoted considerable attention to inducing my first orgasm since I was fourteen, but not that bloody much TIME], I'd have a hard time convincing myself that any other woman, possessed of any reasonable proportion of her sensual apparatus, could be less susceptible of registering ecstasy than you proved me to be....)

Okay, so maybe I won't use that term of anyone.  But really, love, you could have just ASKED me to find a different term, if that was your main concern!  Not brought me repeatedly to peaks of ecstasy.... those peaks were entirely redundant!  Egregious.  Unnecessary.

Now that we've got that established.

Mmm...  dwelling on certain entirely unnecessary sensations.  Damn I wish my tactile memory were as easy to control as my verbal! 

(Goodness.  It occurs to me: verbal memory is TRAINABLE.  Are the others, too?)

Loving you always,
Your Marie

Making myself crazy

The story from a couple nights ago continues. Friday, Son 1 drove Wife the three hours to where Mother lives, to do Wife's taxes. Apparently they spent the night. And in the middle of this afternoon Son 1 called me to say they hadn't left yet so he wouldn't be back to my apartment until tomorrow.

On the one hand, I'm enjoying the time alone. On the other hand, I started spinning all kinds of stories in my head.

See, I was really startled to hear that Wife would be spending the night at Mother's in the first place. Wife is so unpleasant that, well, why would Mother ever allow it? Of course the answer is that Wife probably asked ("You know, the drive is so far and with my illnesses I'm just not strong enough to make that long a drive both directions the same day.") and my mother is a gentle-enough soul that she hates telling anybody No. So she probably agreed just to keep the peace. And probably the real reason that they were still there by mid-afternoon is that Wife couldn't get her shit together to get out, and Mother was too sweet and gentle to throw her out. Or perhaps Brother and SIL decided to come over for a visit -- God knows that could stretch things out. Brother is always late. When I get together with the extended family for Thanksgiving, people make it a sport to guess how late he'll be, not whether.

But at the same time I know that Wife wants to be invited to spend Christmas with us. That's her end game. And if people don't stand up to tell her No, I start to worry that she will be able to get her way simply by pushing her way in. And this in turn led me to imagine all kinds of melodramatic fantasies where she becomes a permanent fixture in my family's Christmases, which in turn means that I never show up there at all and in fact become completely alienated from them. Melodramatic, overheated, and intensely self-centered. But yes, I guess that's my fantasy life when it slips its leash. Or maybe it's just that Wife still frightens me even after these years apart, so that I overreact to her as a threat.

Because I am still afraid of her in some ways. But this too figured into the fantasies. I pictured myself saying, "No, don't invite her over. I lived with her abuse for 30 years, don't make me endure more of it," ... and then Brother asking, "Did she hit you?" Well no. "Did she jail you or starve you?" Not that either. "Then what do you mean by 'abuse'?"

And I have trouble answering that. I feel some reassurance when I read victim advocates say that it's really not up to outsiders to decide if what the victim suffered was bad enough to "count" as abuse, with the implication that otherwise she [spousal abuse victims seem always to be iconically she] is just being hysterical and over-emotional ... or else that she's trying to trap her spouse with some kind of non-objective complaint for nefarious reasons of her own. [Sorry, where was I?] Oh right ... that it's not up to outsiders to decide if something "counts" as abuse -- in fact if it shows up for the victim as abuse then that's enough to count. So the fact that I was afraid every single day when I came home from work and opened the front door, that I always felt trepidation over what kind of shape she was going to be in that day, and over how bad it was going to be that night -- my living in a constant state of fear is enough to call it abuse. Even if it was emotional rather than physical ... even if so much of the time her weapon against me was just her own unhappiness and rage and refusal to be reconciled with things, all phenomena that made her suffer as much as they made me suffer ... it still wore me down. It still made me afraid to be around her. It still made me fantasize about escape or death (mine or hers but mostly mine) every goddamned day, even when I still believed that divorce was unthinkable. And then the crazy financial irresponsibility, the serial infidelity, the actual fighting, all those were icing on the cake.

Wow, how did I get here? You see what I mean, though? My mind wanders into terrible places when I start thinking about Wife more than superficially. And all this anxiety informed fantasies of failure, despair, isolation, and estrangement. What if Wife pushes her way back into my family and I have to cut all ties with them ever? What will that look like?

Overheated. Self-centered. Melodramatic.

Later this evening I got a text from Son 1 (by now they were back at Wife's place): "I'm not coming back here for a month minimum. I need to be anywhere else."

So Wife was being horrible, at least from Son 1's perspective. That makes it likely that she was being horrible from everybody else's perspective too. So maybe nobody's going to invite her for Christmas.

Maybe I can settle the fuck down now. Sheesh. Making myself crazy.
   

Late night

Son 1 drove to Wife’s place after dinner tonight. He was pretty clear about not looking forward to it, but it has been several years since she filed her taxes, and she has an appointment in the Big City three hours from here to get them done. Of course she probably owes nothing, but according to our separation agreement we are supposed to exchange tax returns every year. So every year I make an extra copy of mine, and I tell her “I’ll show you mine when you show me yours.”

She doesn’t think she can drive that far, so Son 1 is going to drive her. So far, so good. Only ... the tax preparer is my mother, and Son 1 says they are planning to stay with her overnight.

Now, Mother asked me years ago whether it’s OK for me if she does Wife’s taxes, and I said it’s fine. That’s just professional. But I admit I’m a little rattled at the idea that Wife is spending the night. I honestly didn’t think Mother liked her that well. Of course, I also know that Mother hates to say No. So if Wife asked, Mother is likely to have said Yes for the sake of being nice.

I really shouldn’t have wasted any time on this after Son 1 left. I should have gone to bed, whacked off vigorously (which I feel inhibited about when he’s in the next room), and fallen fast asleep.

Fine, I did the first two. But I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept thinking about Wife’s request months ago to come to our Christmas (because she has poisoned her relationship with all of her own family) ... and about my mother’s easygoing nature and my brother’s existing on a plane that seems to render the two of us mutually incomprehensible. I kept imagining these long arguments with my own family over whether to invite Wife to Christmas.

Also maybe it didn’t help that I was out of alcohol, and I didn’t buy any on the way home from work because I felt self-conscious about it. Son 1 has already remarked about how much we drink — although if it is in the house he drinks as much as I.

In the end I got out of bed at almost 10:00, walked down to the corner shop, and bought a handful of single-serving (tiny) bottles of vodka. I drank them over an hour while reading the paper, and now feel much better. Maybe I have a problem.

Maybe I can get some sleep.

Night-night.
 

Is it a panic attack?

Ever since graduating in December, Son 1 has been splitting his time between my apartment and Wife's duplex while he looked for a job. Now he's got a job, though I guess he won't start until mid-May. Anyway, some time late in the week before last Wife had some weird medical symptoms (including severe hypothermia) and went to the hospital. They think they found the trigger -- some new medication one of her doctors had prescribed -- and sent her home once she had stabilized. Son 1 went to stay with her for the first half of last week to make sure she was OK.

Now, "Wife had some weird medical symptoms" is one of those things that only happens on days ending in "Y". On any scale of the bizarre or unexpected, it sits only slightly to the left of "sun rose in the morning." But when he was back at my place this weekend, Son 1 said he's not convinced they found the real trigger for this particular attack. Because after she was home -- and they had taken her off the suspect medication -- it started to happen again. Wife was upset that Son 1 would be leaving her all alone to deal with it, and her temperature started to plummet. When he assured her, "Mom, I'm not going anywhere," ... she got better. So Son 1 thinks it's a panic attack, triggered in particular by his getting a job -- because she knows that once he is working, he won't be able to visit her nearly as often. He told her so and she said, "That's silly -- I have nothing to be afraid of." But self-knowledge has never been one of Wife's strong suits.

He's back there now, because she needs someone to drive her to a doctor's appointment three hours away tomorrow and his job hasn't started yet. But of course if Son 1 is right, what happens when he really does have to start work?