Category Archives: Humanities

Howl at the Moon

I took a walk tonight. The nearly full moon looked like a cool mint candy, tantalizingly close, seeming to follow me as I walked. (Do you remember believing as a child that the moon followed you when, for instance, you sat in the back seat of your parents’ car coming home from someplace?)

The moon is a muse for poetry and stories, and it plays a role in our natural cycles (e.g., the ocean tides). However, as much as we might wish, studies indicate that the full moon effect on people’s behavior is minimal. For every study that finds a correlation between the full moon and an increase in dog bites, for example, another study finds no correlation. And one tenet we were taught in graduate school is… say it all together now… “Correlation does not imply causation.”

Nonetheless, anecdotes do make more interesting conversations, which is probably why full moon tales abound despite no evidence to support them. The tequila maker Jose Cuervo sponsored a psychiatrist to study the relationship between the full moon and odd behavior in literature. The psychiatrist’s conclusion is one that most logically explains (to me at least) why such lore is popular:

The psychiatrist, Glenn Wilson, found that the full moon has been portrayed in folklore and legends for centuries as cause for celebration, particularly in the times before modern lighting.

“There is good reason to believe that people’s personalities do change around the time of the full moon, not because of any astronomical force, but because it creates the optimum lighting conditions for feeling carefree and mischievous,” Wilson told the paper.

Regardless of whether the moon really has the power to incite strange behavior, it is a joy to behold. Tomorrow it will be full; be sure to step outside and spend a little time looking heavenward. If you really look, you might just see the man in the moon. *wink*

Nothing So Wise

Nothing So Wise
There is nothing so wise as a circle. –Rilke

The arc of an egg
bends hands
to shape prayer,

the shell
unbroken,
the heavy yolk
floating.

Our fingers
curving always
inward, become a cup,
an open bowl.

Prayer is
circumference
we may not reach around,

space for all we cannot hold,
the rim of Love toward which we lean.

–Jeanne Lohmann

The Uses of Hopelessness

I’ve been mining my file cabinets, perusing papers I wrote and articles I read in graduate school, and I came across one that has always intrigued me: The uses of hopelessness (American Journal of Psychiatry — Abstracts: Bennett and Bennett 141 (4): 559).

It would seem that to consider the utility of hopelessness is antithetical to my profession. Indeed, much of what I do is nurture hope and connection in someone who is unable to summon or create it, and facilitate his growth and healing so he can nourish himself. So isn’t promoting hopelessness destructive?
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Words to Ponder #4

The essential man is not a doer. The accidental man is a doer. The accidental man is, of course, then in anxiety, tension, stress, anguish, continuously sitting on a volcano. It can erupt any moment, because he lives in a world of uncertainty and believes as if it is certain. This creates tension in his be-ing: he knows deep down that nothing is certain.
–Osho, A Sudden Clash of Thunder, Chapter 3

The Pursuit of Happiness

We think we know what would make us happy. If only I had… If only this changed… My life would be perfect if… And when tragedy occurs, we imagine ourselves to be permanently devastated. And we predict that life would be better if we had a small problem — such as a bum knee — rather than a big one, such as a heart attack and bypass surgery.

Research into the nature of happiness indicates both to be untrue. We humans try to make “affective predictions” about how we’ll feel about some future event. In reality, we acclimate more quickly to new situations than we realize, which is why we continue our pursuit of more. Our thinking and behavior is shaped by “impact bias,” the errors we make in speculating on the intensity and duration of an event’s impact. Mistakes in expectation can lead to mistakes in choosing, also known as “miswanting.”

We also experience something known as the “empathy gap,” in which we make decisions during the “heat of the moment” that we might not otherwise make if we were “calm, cool, and collected.” The interesting aspect to this is that humans seem unable to consider future consquences when in “hot” states, and that in general, we forget that we adapted to the last acquisition and think that the next choice will fulfill us. Or we forget that we survived the last tragedy in our lives and when another one befalls us, predict we will never recover.

The research into the pursuit of happiness is described more fully in The Futile Pursuit of Happiness. It is fascinating, and the findings have interesting implications regarding how they might apply to psychotherapy, philosophy, social policy development, and marketing.

Permission to Nap?

You have permission to rest. Yes, I mean you. You don’t need my permission, or anyone else’s, but if you need the nudge, I’m happy to help.

We usually don’t get enough sleep. According to a sleep study (PDF file):

In the past century, Americans have reduced their average time asleep by 20% and, in the past 25 years, added a month to their average annual work/commute time.

In its 1999 survey Sleep in America, the National Sleep Foundation found that 40% of American adults report feeling so sleepy during the day that it interferes with their daily activities.

Here are a few tips to Nap To Be More Productive:

  • Get a good night’s sleep–eight hours, on average.
  • Avoid napping longer than 45 minutes. Use an alarm or have someone call to awaken you. Artist Salvador Dali held a silver spoon in his hand above a silver tray on his lap. When the spoon fell from his hand and clattered atop the tray, that was all the sleep he needed to feel refreshed.
  • Don’t just lay your head on your desk. Get comfortable so you can get quality sleep.
  • Keep a diary to record each nap’s effects: Track the start time, total time spent napping and total hours slept the night before.

Besides operating on less sleep than we need, we live frenetically. October 24, 2003 will be the first official Take Back Your Time Day, which is described as “a nationwide initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment.” By the last week of October, the average American has worked as many hours as most Europeans do all year. The goal of this day is to raise awareness of the costs of overwork on our health, our mental and spiritual well-being, and overall functioning as a society. I’m glad the Cornell Center for Religions, Ethics, & Social Policy and The Simplicity Forum are promoting this; it’s about time. (No pun intended.)

It’s time to take care of ourselves. We’re the only ones who have the power to do so, and we’re the only ones preventing it. So if you feel sleepy, let your body and mind rest. You’ll be happier for it.

Compassion

Love

Love means to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills —
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.

-Czeslaw Milosz

The instruction, “Love yourself” sounds simple, but can be a challenge to learn. At some point I came to the realization that self-hatred is a form of vanity. To denigrate oneself and ruminate on one’s faults is, in a twisted way, promoting self-centeredness, although we often mask this by calling it modesty.
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Words to Ponder #1

I invented this rule for myself to be applied to every decision I might have to make in the future. I would sort out all the arguments and see which belonged to fear and which to creativeness, and other things being equal I would make the decision which had the larger number of creative reasons on its side. I think it must be a rule something like this that makes jonquils and crocuses come pushing through cold mud.

–Katharine Butler Hathaway, The Little Locksmith (1942)

Loner Cool Cachet

Anneli Rufus wrote a fascinating and timely book on the subculture of loners, debunking the long-standing cultural branding that loners are dangerous psychos. She persuasively makes her point that people who commit heinous crimes — and who are often described by media and the public as loners — are really people who have unwillingly become outcasts resulting from poor social skills. Loners are people who choose to have less human contact and are content, successful people. They just have a different set of abilities and needs. In a culture that is predominantly extroverted, we have pathologized introversion. As a psychotherapist, I agree with her perspective. A question I ask clients is, “Do you like being alone? Is it a problem for you not to have much social interaction?” If the answer is yes, then we work on the issue of building community and relationship. If the answer is no, then we focus on other pertinent issues.

Rufus also makes the point that much creativity springs from solitude, and that creative energy is diluted by too much interaction. Long stretches of time devoted to the intense process is necessary. This is not to say that extroverts and non-loners can’t be creative. However, there is something about the “different drum,” the “black sheep,” the maverick — wherever you see a person with that trait, look for creativity and genius.

This post was inspired from an article on Wired News (by way of Dave Haxton), which explores Apple Computers rising “coolness factor” among youth. While its reputation is widening and its posting a profit, however, Apple business is not booming. Why is that? Alex Wipperfürth, author of Brand Hijack (a forthcoming book on cult brands) explains, “There will always be a correlation between a product’s coolness and niche market share. By definition, being cool is the opposite of being mainstream, and as long as a brand has a cool cachet, it will remain small.”

Here’s to being small, cool, and solitary. Here’s to introspection, concentration, the feminine (germination), and cultivating an inner life.

To Sleep, Perchance

This excerpt from a meditation on sleeping is written by Verlyn Klinkenborg for the New York Times — Aboard the Sleeper:

A load of sleeping commuters is one of those scenes that make you stop short and marvel at the strangeness of humans. How is it that we plunge headlong into unconsciousness even with the lights staring down at us, the air-conditioning rushing, the wheels clattering, the conductor calling out the stations? Sleep is not only a blessing. It’s also a wonderful joke, a truly sportive adaptation. I look around, watching bold chins receding, the appearance of every intention giving way to the haplessness, the aimlessness of sleep. Composure becomes discomposure. The avowed sincerity of wakefulness becomes the far greater sincerity of slumber. And then I, too, drift away, caught in the undertow, forgetful of the rain-streaked windows and the dark world outside.

Sitting With Anxiety

Up until recently I actively avoided Anxiety whenever I saw her coming my way. Unfortunately, she would always see me trying to dodge her, and she would pursue me, shouting, “Hey, wait, I need to talk to you!” I’ve never liked her. The whole of her personality irritates me. She could be considered high strung. Anxiety is a chain-smoker. She looks like a concentration camp survivor from hardly eating, and her hands tremble. Her skin is blotchy from lack of sleep, and the worry lines around her face seem engraved into her skin, even though she is my age.

Moreover, an encounter with Anxiety always leaves me perturbed, restless, and edgy. Sometimes I feel extremely irritated with her. Anxiety has an ability to pop up in many places I don’t expect her. I’m amazed to see her at so many social functions, because I know her presence has a similar effect on other people. Anxiety is always bemoaning some imagined future catastrophe. She worries and reads danger into the slightest mishaps. She has a habit of showing up almost constantly when my life is chaotic. I’ve spent many years listening to her stories and reacting in alarm to them. I’ve tried to get rid of her politely, but when she won’t leave, I seethe with resentment. I’ve even ordered her out a few times, yet she always returns. And as long as I engage her, she feeds off this and won’t leave.

Well, I had an epiphany the other day. Anxiety caught up with me, and rather than dismiss her, or listen politely while swallowing my annoyance, I decided to withhold judgment a moment. I asked myself, “What is Anxiety trying to communicate? What does she want?” As I pondered life from her perspective, I realized that Anxiety sees herself as my friend. And, because she is naturally tense and worried, her perceptions of the world are tainted by this. As my friend, she is simply looking out for me, in the best way she knows how. Even if it means warning me of imagined dangers. I have the power to choose how I listen to her. I can believe her and react in alarm, allowing her tension to inflame me. Or I can receive her kind intent while detaching myself from the content of her words.

So now, when Anxiety finds me, I make myself available for a few moments. Often what she seeks is reassurance. I hold her trembling hands and acknowledge her worries. Once she knows I have heard her, she is satisfied for awhile and flits off to someone else. Anxiety does have her place in this world. I am learning, though, how to keep this relationship in perspective.