Lately, I've taken a strong interest in....

Lately I've taken a strong interest in meditation to escape stress and feel more relaxed.  From the medical sources I've read, I'm convinced it has a lot going for it. If you're depressed or anxiety prone, meditation may be more helpful than Zoloft or Valium and the like. In his book, When Panic Strikes, noted psychiatrist David Burns, argues that the new research isn't gung-ho anymore on the assumption of chemical imbalance in the brain, resulting in serotonin deficiency.  What success SSRI's seem to have may really be the placebo effect in action.  Control groups in which placebos have been given have shown virtually the same results. Of course, this is bad news for the pharmaceuticals, who keep pumping out their propaganda across the media and offering perks to physicians.  Alas, there are even those in the FDA who have had strong links with the drug companies. One thing we do know:  while meds can be necessary for many, they all have potential side-effects that can do great harm.

Burns eschews the psych meds, favoring the cognitive approach with its advocacy of getting rid of emotional distress by adopting alternative, more positive thoughts in handling stress. It takes work to reprogram your responses, but it can be done. Cognitive therapy now dominates counseling, replacing traditional talk therapy. I agree that it can be helpful.

In the hard scenarios, something more is needed.  (Here I'm writing about anxiety, not depression.)  That something may well be meditation. In the last several months I've been trying out what's called restorative yoga, which consists of simple breathing, visualization, and meditation exercises. I'm not a champ at this kind of endeavor. I can't even say I've got the breath thing down right. Books and videos can help, but ultimately, at least initially, you need a good teacher.

Clumsy as I may be, I know that when I retreat to my sunroom hideaway, unroll my mat, and lie down, beginning with breathing from the stomach up through the nose, four seconds in, six seconds out, I sense my body unwinding from its tightness. I follow with body visualization, letting each limb "fall through" into the mat. Then I transport myself mentally into bliss, a scene that brings pleasure. For me, it's usually my wife and I walking up the steep, narrow pathway of rugged Ben Nevis, the valley below a dense green, splattered by the white wooly sheep grazing contentedly in a rolling landscape fenced by stone walls. I am there again in Scotland, that dear country of green mountains, twisting by-ways, lakes and bubbling brooks, and friendly people. I am at peace.

I follow with actual meditation, or at least the attempt, with the aid of my mantra, the psalmist's "lead me by the still waters," emptying the mind, though it keeps insisting it's the boss.  Whatever my failed attempts, I feel relaxed.

Recently I was virtually mesmerized in reading Tim Park's Teach Us to Sit Still: A Skeptic's Search for Health and Healing.  He could have been writing about me. Both of us have been profs, working with language and literature. Both of us are into the mind thing, analytical and suspicious, reserved in our allegiances.  Both of us were raised in a religious context, which we've now abandoned. Both of us have suffered the same physical ailment with its ubiquitous fall out, always there, seemingly beyond remedy.

 Parks, in his desperation, suspends his cerebral dissonance, to try meditation.  It comes hard.  It's all about breathing.  Though the mind resists emptying, Parks knows there's something to it. He attends a five day retreat.  On the fourth day, it happens. He feels the breath flow across his upper lip.  Heat radiates through his body. And the pain? There is no pain.

Of course the conscious world will bring back the pain with its culminating anxiety. You're not there in a day. But Parks knows now, though he may not understand it fully, that mind isn't separate from the body. The mind and body are one.

The seed has been sown and Parks persists, each attempt in overcoming the chattering mind becoming easier.  

Parks finds his way ultimately to permanent relief from his physical pain.

Nonetheless, as a rationalist, he still finds it paradoxical,  He's a writer with twenty books published, and on one occasion, short-listed for the Booker Award, Britain's highest award for literary achievement.  Words, after all, not only give him employ, they are the essence of what make us human.

And yet there is that world beyond words, vast and ineffable, removed from the mind's ceaseless chatter, bringing us in to touch with our full selves.  Integrated, mind and body become amalgam, and reconciliation grants equanimity.  No longer two selves, in our found wholeness comes peace transcending time and space, circumstance and pain.

Teach us to be still.

rj

Finding a hobby: shaking yourself awake

Do you have a hobby? I suppose a hobby is anything you spend time doing with a passion, not because it's practical, but for its own sake- a kind of follow your bliss thing. Everybody should have a hobby, if nothing else, to break the 9 to 5 syndrome that, along with sleep, consumes two thirds of our lives, a precious commodity slipping like sand through our fingers daily till one day we find we're no longer that age when all our body parts did their thing and desire never slackened and courage came in abundance.

Now there are all kinds of hobbies. As a child in Philly, I once picked-up a boy scout handbook. It fascinated me to read of so many skill areas, from mastering rope knots to bee-keeping. Master 20 of them and you got to be an eagle scout, top- of-the line. Just one would have been plenty for me. Do you have a hobby? I'd be grateful if you'd share it with me in the commentary section that comes after a post.

My hobbies? I have many interests such as reading, gardening, and even blogging. But I'm all about specializing, or developing expertise to the point you become an authority like a connoisseur of fine wine. Sometimes a hobby can bloom into a career. How cool is that?

If we have to sit under the toad, work, as poet Philip Larkin once put it, then there's nothing surpassing that rarity when vocation and avocation prove bed fellows. Hobbies give joy, release us from a volatile world, help us get in touch with ourselves. God knows, in these uncertain times we need a hobby more than ever to wade through life's daily muck and capricious surprises.

I was just thinking: how intriguing it would be to find out what hobbies, if any, many of our icons--movie stars, athletes, political figures, etc, pursue. I know that Churchill and Eisenhower were into painting. Celebrity Dennis Weaver got into photography as a youngster and got quite good at it. Keanu Reeves indulges in his band, Dogstar.

Hobbies can do good for others. Besides collecting orphans, Brad Pitt has founded and is active in a project that builds affordable housing for the displaced in post-Katrina New Orleans. Geena Davis is one hell of an archer, finishing 24th among 300 would-be Olympic archers. Go, Geena! They're all busy people, but they all have hobbies.

Me, I've always had this hankering for travel. As a child, I studied flags, read about countries, pursued ships docked at the Philly pier, spent oodles of time working-up imaginary itineraries, a wanna-be Frank Buck bent on safari. Out of this came my love for languages. I guess I've studied about thirteen of them now, not all of them for long spells, but some, a great deal like German and French. These last years, I've chosen to specialize, more specifically, to learn Spanish well, and so, todos los dias (everyday), with rare exception, I spend time working at it. The trick is to gauge your interests, choose one, and master it well.

I think Dale Carnegie may have said it best: "Today is life--the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake, Develop a hobby, Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto."

Procrastination: taking the thief captive

Do you procrastinate a lot? Do you live in the moment, caving in to impulses? I know I do, even though people think I’m productive. If I do accomplish anything, it’s generally out of remorse for having wasted yet another day getting very little done. Next thing I know, the days become weeks; weeks, months; then years. Getting something done at last takes on the note of self-flagellation. I must be punished.

It shouldn’t be this way for me or you. I honestly don’t believe it’s in our genes, which should come as good news, since it means we can do something about it.

The why of it:

Its formula is very simple. We don’t find hard work pleasurable, especially when it prevents us from engaging in socializing with friends, indulging in TV, web-surfing, or the social networks. Besides, we work all day. When we get home, other duties await us. Hey, give me a break!

Now this isn’t all bad. If we practice a structured procrastination that allows us to reward ourselves along the way, we actually might feel up to doing the laborious, but meaningful. The problem ensues when diversion turns into all play and no work. Johnny doesn’t finish his broccoli by first eating dessert.

Coping strategies

Say no

This is very hard. Behaviorists, in my mind the most insightful in the psychological sciences, have empirically demonstrated our relationship with other animals in being conditioned by stimuli-response mechanism. Behavior gets reinforced by the pleasurable and discouraged, even extinguished, by the unpleasurable.

Procrastination is a matter of being unable to control our urges. We confuse our desires with our needs. Fortunately, we can do exercises that strengthen our will power and, in the long run, foster our happiness. Try saying no to that extra portion or that invite out. Work on saying no to that impulse urge to buy those Bose noise cancelling headphones.

You can help yourself say no to interruptions by setting up time-space parameters. Set up a scheduled time slot, preferably in the early morning while your energy level is still high and before you do anything else. Work in a specific setting, conducive to focus, i.e., away from family, friends, loud noise, etc.

Say no to interruptions of any kind apart from emergencies. This is your time. Your space. Your closet from the world. Be ruthless.

Related to achieving impulse control, or delay of gratification, is improving your ability to focus. It’s why I’m high on yoga, meditation, or games of skill such as chess, sudoku, or scrabble. Besides, they stretch our brains as well. (See my previous post.)

The great pioneer in self-control studies was Walter Mischel of Columbia University and, later, Stanford. Ultimately he came up with the marshmallow test in which school children were offered a choice between an immediate treat or two treats if they could just wait a while. Those able to delay gratification seldom cheated, were more intelligent, more socially responsible, and more ambitious and likely to succeed. Being able to say no says something about you. It isn't innate. It's acquired. (For a fascinating look at Mischel's work, see David Akst, We Have Met he enemy: Self Control in an age of Excess, Ch.8 (2011).

Set up daily tasks

I recommend shooting for one task per session, or daily. Take writing, for example. For longer pieces, I like to go for quantity, say five pages or a chapter. If learning a language, a minimum of 30 minutes or say 15 minutes for review, 15 minutes for new material, 15 minutes for listening practice. If it’s a household or outdoors project, spread it out, maybe into several days with specific goals established for each day. The idea is to take things in steps. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the aphorism has it. I’ve always liked the Chinese way of putting it even better: “The longest journey begins with the first step."

Be clutter free

You probably won’t see this mentioned very often when it comes to overcoming procrastination, but high on my list is a conducive work space. I just know I’m more motivated if I have a clean desk, organized shelves, good lighting, a comfortable chair. If nothing else, a clean space gives me a sense I’m in control. Hey, I can actually find things, whether in the office or shed. Your space should make you glad to be there.

Reward yourself

Try to make it fun. Take a break, maybe every 30 or 60 minutes. Pour another cup of coffee, or get into those freshly baked cookies. Don’t linger. 10 minutes and you should be back at it. Reward yourself for every step accomplished, not just at the end result. And when you do achieve the end result, hey, go for the Bose headphones!

Create time

How often have you said to yourself, fine and good, but I just don’t have the time? That’s nonsense. It’s been estimated that a commuter on a train or subway, just reading 15 minutes a day, could read several hundred books over a three year period or through a set of encyclopedias. I average a book nearly every 10 days simply by reading while waiting for a TV program or just to relax in bed before falling asleep. At the doctor’s office, I always have a book or smart phone along for e-books. You get the idea!

In college, I was an English major, specializing in Victorian literature. In the flow of things, I came across Anthony Trollope, one of the era’s most talented and prolific novelists. Trollope got some of his contemporaries mad. He was a postal inspector riding frequently on trains. He’d write for 20 minutes or so, then put the pen and paper away. Ultimately he wrote 47 novels, many of them still esteemed, and dozens of short stories.

Settle for imperfection

Chances are you won’t get it right the first time. Be easy on yourself. It isn’t where you begin, but how you end up.

Vary your routine

Doing things the same way day after day leads to staleness and diminished interest. Try shaking up your routine by substituting new tasks, new approaches, different rewards, etc.

Start right now

Resolutions are only as good as their implementation. Ben Franklin in his inimical wisdom, put it best: “You may delay, but time wiil not, and lost time is never found again.”

Brain-tickling: n- back tasking

I’ve just returned from North Carolina, visiting my wife’s father in a nursing home. He turns 92 this Christmas. Right now, he’s recovering from a series of falls, the last one resulting in a broken ankle and hence nursing facility. Daddy is lucky in some respects, for the facility strikes me as well run, with sensitive staff (blessed with a sense of humor), decent meals even if institutional, and clean premises.

Yet in all of this, I couldn’t help taking in the white-haired residents, all of them in wheelchairs. Some seemed fixed, no movement throughout the day, heads bent, silent. One dear lady, presumably a stroke victim, courageous, tried to greet strangers, but she might well have spoken another language. In place of words, cheerily pitched sounds, but murmurings for all of that. In nearly a day at the place, I saw few visitors. If “loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every person,” as writer Thomas Wolfe held, then its apex must be old age.

And yet there are things we can do to ease our journey into our senior years. For some time, I’ve been exercising daily, and rigorously, on our elliptical machine. Now I’ve added strength exercises three times a week, using weights to enhance muscle growth. After recently taking a bone scan test, I was delighted to learn I hadn’t lost any height, an occurrence as high as 80% in seniors.

I keep up with testing in general, whether annual blood checks or colonoscopies every three years, given my family’s cancer history. I get a flu shot every fall.

I haven’t touched meat in 15-years. I learned just the other day that only 15% of vegetarians suffer heart attacks. That’s good enough for me.

So much of preserving good health lies in adopting a preventative regimen, as Medicare and health insurers now increasingly recognize and encourage.

But there’s an aspect of maintaining good health that needs more attention. Consider that half of those past 85 suffer dementia. Now that’s huge! Think of the cost and the suffering, the diminishment in human dignity. We need to exercise our minds as well as our bodies.

I subscribe to Massachusetts General Hospital’s Mind, Mood & Memory. In its recent issue, the newsletter notes the success of those who exercise their brains, hence slowing down Alzheimer's, or even preventing it. Cross word puzzles, Sudoku games, learning a language, etc., all help--and a lot. This hits my palette, for I’ve generally favored games of mental skill like chess over games of chance.

New research indicates that the key to warding off dementia lies in boosting working memory. But how best to do this?

Turns out there’s a brain exercise called n-back that not only stimulates working memory (the kind used in reasoning and solving problems), but increases IQ. Hey, it actually makes you smarter!

Well, this got me going on my own research. I even bought the iPad application N-Back Suite. It’s as gorgeous as it’s friendly to users, allowing for stretching the mind through sensory stimuli (letters, images, sounds, colors, etc.).

With n-back tasking the idea is to remember items appearing in sequences. You can adjust your speed and there are ten levels of difficulty. Most of us will be lucky to get to level 3. It’s challenging.

It’s been tried with children and young adults, too. After 30 days of exercising for 20 minutes, results showed significant gains in fluid intelligence, i.e., the ability to recognize unfamiliar patterns and solve problems. IQ scores averaged 5 point gains. These results lasted 3 months, even though the participants were no longer doing the n-tasks. MGH neuropychologist Mimi Castelo calls the results “impressive.”

If all of this interests you, here are some web sites that offer sample n-back exercises. But don’t forget the iPad application I mentioned earlier.

http://dual-inback.com/nback.html

htpp://brainworkship.sourceforge.net

Good luck!

Harvesting awareness

Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again.

--Helen Keller

Are you a sleep walker? I’m not talking here of those who walk about rather than lie in bed when they sleep. I mean the way many of us live our lives, asleep to what goes on around us. Not surprisingly, we lose out on life’s conversation.

As sentient creatures, we’re able to respond to stimuli in the guise of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Think about it! Just take away any one of them and you get the picture. While losing your sight or hearing are surely impacting losses that severely limit, so is the loss of other sensory capacities. Imagine what it would be like being unable to relish mashed potatoes with gravy or the pleasure of your tongue indulging a chocolate ice cream cone.

My favorite poet has always been John Keats, poet extraordinaire in his sensory awareness. Reading a Keats poem is something like being locked up in a bakery. The one thing he feared was death, which he viewed as horrible in its annihilation of the senses, an end rendering us but sod. But we don’t need to die to forfeit awareness. Some of us are downright zombies in the here and now.

We live in a world now pervasively scientific and technological. They have their place in helping us live more ably and comfortably. And yet they often fail us when we live only for the quantitative or functional. We are not simply physical or material creatures. We are spirit, with the capacities to not only think, but to feel and choose. What would our world be like if we didn’t have music, or image (art/photo/film), smells of freshly cut hay, dinner on the stove, or garden roses? What if we couldn’t feel that soft velvet, the clasp of warm hand, the softness of the beloved’s cheek?

More than ever, we live in a world that can so busy us that we can become callous to what really matters. Each day simply repeats yesterday’s routine. Tomorrow promises more of the same.
Life is brief and tomorrow shouldn’t be assumed, for we live in a random universe. Our heaven lies in the Now.

Here are some tips that may help you increase your awareness and, consequently, your pleasure in life’s rich tapestry:

Keep a journal or blog

I can't think of a better way to improve my awareness of what happens around me, or within myself for that matter, than keeping a journal or maintaining a blog: who, what, when, where, how. Writing this blog is a prime example. I've been writing on myriad topics for almost a year. Thinking about a topic has kept me on my toes, forced me to think about what I hear, see, or do. Good journals and blogs can be on anything, but simply centering in doings is more like keeping a diary. It's not going to grow the senses. Select like you would at a gourmet restaurant, choose according to your palette, but choose wisely. Write not only about what matters, but why it matters.

Find space

We all need moments for ourselves. I find some of my best times are when I'm outside, working in the yard, the world very far away. My senses are kindled, and the birds, rustling leaves, and even the lowly worm, get noticed. Though I'm raking leaves, I'm alive, my mind a bubbling stream.

Meditate

I'm still working on this. Health authorities increasingly cite research, indicating a host of benefits in its alleviating stress and consequent anxiety, those salient features of modern life. Ironically, letting go or emptying ourselves leads to replenishment of awareness as we become absorbed in our breathing rhythms and are reduced to the sensory essentials. You can meditate anywhere with no equipment needed. Yoga, especially hatha yoga because of its slow pace and easy postures, affords a wonderful way to purge life's pollutants and yield not only relaxation, but a reduced heart rate, lower blood pressure, better sleep, and improved moods.

Read

Become an omnivorous devourer of books, quality magazines and journals. Reading stimulates and prompts new conversations. But choose wisely. Some books are meant to be read; others, to be chewed; some, to be spat out. Some magazines, pulp publications devoted to stardom and gossip, are better left in the rack.

React

Reacting is fundamental to achieving improved awareness. When you read, go to movies, converse with others, see or listen to the news, ask questions, make associations, think about the validity of underlying assumptions, reign in generalizations. Be wary of too much TV. It breeds passivity, dulls the senses, makes the mind lazy, steals time for better things. Socrates wisely tells us that the unexamined life isn't worth living. Don't be a sponge. Be a hose.

Change your routine

Waking or driving, do you take the same route to work or school? Try a different one.

Always eating at the same restaurants? Go for adventure. At home, why not try that new recipe?

Always watching the big three: football, basketball, baseball? Why not take a peek at soccer, lacrosse, or hockey?

I think you get my meaning. Routine dulls the senses. Hey, it happens in relationships, too. Take heed!

The truth about the Mediterranean diet

Diets come and go. Some are better than others. Some are downright dangerous. One such diet, still highly popular, and the basis for several others, is the Mediterranean diet, which draws upon French research (Lyon Diet Heart Study) centered in Cretan eating habits in the 1950s. Cretans were virtually free of heart attacks and obesity rare, despite more than 40% of their diet deriving from fat, or mostly olive oil. Otherwise, they consumed mostly fruits, veggies, beans and fish. They also worked very hard in the fields. Unfortunately, Americans got hung-up on the olive oil rather than the preponderancy of vegetables, concluding the oil was good for you.

French scientists experimented with the Cretan diet. Those on the Mediterranean diet suffered 50 to 70% fewer cardiac incidents. Now that’s pretty impressive, enough certainly to foster enthusiasm for the diet.

Today’s Mediterranean Diet, however, has little resemblance to the Cretan diet that formed the basis of the Lyon study. For many of us, it conjures up images of pasta and Italian bread, staples not friendly to your colon. There is more meat and poultry.

As for the experimental group in the study, four years after it began, 25% on the diet had died or experienced a cardiac event. As often happens, media coverage can be as shallow as it is volatile. So much for the success of the Mediterranean diet. The truth is that olive oil is one of the most calorically dense and fattening foods you can consume. On a pound for pounds basis, it’s worse than butter (3200 calories) vs olive oil (4,020). Moreover, 14 percent of olive oil is saturated fat. Since it can lead to weight increase, it can also increase LDL (the bad kind of cholesterol).

There is evidence that monounsaturated fat, found in olive oil, gives some protection from strokes. Nevertheless, because of its caloric density, only thin people should consume it, if at all. (See D. D. Blankenhorn, et al. ”The Influence of diet on the Appearance of New Lesions in Human Coronary Arteries.” Journal of the American Medical Association, Mar. 23, 1990.)

The brilliant Cornell epidemiologist who wrote the landmark, China Study, while acknowledging that the Mediterranean diets were virtually the same, commented, “I would say the absence of oil in the rural Chinese diet is the reason for their superior success“ (qtd. In Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, p. 84).

The upshot in all of this? If you want to eat healthy, minimize disease, control weight, and foster longevity, then a a plant-based diet is your best bet.

Oh, about the Cretans, they now eat like most of us and, like most of us, now suffer similar rates of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, colon and breast cancer.

Libraries: an endangered species?

“What is more important in a library than anything else is the fact that it exists."
--Archibald MacLeish

Growing up in waterfront Philly in the 1950s, I didn’t have many of the prerequisites of today’s youth: giant screen HD TVs, DVDs, video game consoles, laptops, cellular phone messaging, and Facebook. At best, there were two venues open to most of us boys: the local show or playing stickball against brick factory walls. Movies were just a dime then, and Pa would cough up the change so I could find relief from Philly’s steamy asphalt and blanket humidity invading our upstairs flat . Otherwise, I played stick ball by the hours, half a tennis ball and a broom stick more than ample other than when I relied on a third option not resorted to by most of my fellow urchins—the local library.

When I look back upon it now, the library option may well have been the most pivotal shaping element of my childhood. Later I would go on to university study, complete a Ph. D., and teach English in college for more than 30-years, but it all began here. Roaming the shelves, I’d make these fabulous finds, whether the Dr. Dolittle books (my version of Harry Potter), or inspired by Classic Comics, the unabridged works of Hugo, Dickens, Poe, Hawthorne and others. Now mind you, it was something that didn't come easily as the branch library was a good half hour walk each way.

These days, hard times have fallen upon our libraries, and I grieve for them as I would for a beleaguered friend. I am troubled for their future and the impoverishment their loss would bring. Libraries are either closing or becoming so short-changed by state and local budgets that they gasp for life.

In Lexington, KY, my beautiful urban neighbor, the library budget has undergone a substantial decrease in revenue over the last two years, resulting in an elimination of 30 full-time positions, a reduction in part-time positions, and frozen wages. The 2012 budget promises more of the same, with the loss of three more people and no pay raise yet again. Much of the crisis is fueled by the excessive demands for pension and health care outlays by local police and fire personnel to whom the city is now in hock for 200-million. Meanwhile, the mayor’s budget allocates new funding for a lacrosse field and minigolf course. Hey, let’s get our priorities straight.

The dark clouds over our libraries loom nation-wide, threatening their very existence:

1. In Massachusetts, local communities have cut their funding below state minimum funding levels.

2. In California, San Diego’s mayor recently proposed cutting back sharply on library hours, virtually shutting them down in calling for a 2-day work week and alternate Sundays.

3. In Texas, Dallas has cut library hours from 44 to 24 weekly.

A similar wasteland scenario extends to college campuses. Here are two examples:

1. The Univ. of California (San Diego) has reduced its library budget by 16% over the last two years. In an attempt to cope, it has made cuts in supplies and equipment, decreased class and instructor support, slashed its hours, reduced digitalization, even maintenance, and eliminated 52 positions.

2. The University of Virginia has undergone 23.6 million in cuts. To cope, it’s not renewing nearly 1200 journals, reducing hours, cutting back on its collection budgeting, and not filling staff vacancies.

Libraries go back to the genesis of our great country, with John Harvard bequeathing his 400-book library in 1636 to the young college that would ultimately bear his name.

Benjamin Franklin founded the Library Company of Philadelphia in 1731, now recognized as the first lending library and precursor of the free public library that has made America the envy of the world.

Andrew Carnegie valued libraries so highly that he donated 56 million for the construction of more than 2500 of them.

I think back gain to my Philly childhood and its material poverty; we lacked hot water, and sometimes we had little food or even heat in winter. But always there was the Montgomery Avenue Library, a long walk worth every step to a kingdom that hinted dreams could become palpable. To grow up poor isn’t the worst fate. To grow-up without a library, for government to impoverish a mind—that’s not easily forgivable.

As Barbara Kingsolver put it in Animal Dreams, “Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn’t ripoff.”

Truth, Beauty, Goodness

 

It’s been said more than once that human beings are governed by three key motivators:  money, power, and sex.   Certainly we don’t have far to look for confirmation, the media chock full of daily tidbits and then there is our own recall of people who have failed us and, more humbly, the strength of these tempters in our own lives.  I am reminded of the biblical injunction, “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

But fortunately, this isn’t the whole story.  The vast majority of us have a capacity for thinking and doing the right things.  The other day, I read of a man finding $40,000 and turning it in;  a few months earlier, of a man who donated his kidney to a complete stranger.  I’m sure you have your own stories to tell.  One thing I always marvel at is the abundance of altruism unveiling itself in every disaster such as the recent tornado in Joplin, with stories of individual heroism, sacrifice, and mutual caring.  When we listen to the news, we rarely glimpse this positive dimension, the news feeding on the aberration, ultimately distorting our perspective as to the norm.

If there does exist a diabolic trinity for wrongdoing and, yes, downright evil, I would counter there also exists a trinity of salient potential in human beings for truth, beauty, and goodness, those classical verities of what make for an ordered civilization and happy living.

By truth, I mean our quest for the meaningful life, or as Tolstoy would have it, “For what should I live?”  I write in Aristotelian mode, holding that truth is learned rather than innate, the aggregate of empirical witness via observation and correlated experiences.  Truth, however, is more elusive than ever in our contemporary era, given the shrinking of temporal and spatial boundaries in the Information Age,  digital driven, with a resulting conundrum of universals washed away by a tsunami of alternatives.  Abetting ambiguity, is the rise of Post Modernism with its relegation of certainty to the landfill of relativism, truth simply personal perspective.  Me, I think what matters is that we are engaged in trying to find truth, at least for ourselves, truth not subject to our personal whims, truth validated by thorough, unbiased research, truth ready to be shed should we find tomorrow we believed yesterday’s falsehood. As the poet Browning put it,  “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for.”

By beauty, I mean not simply what excites because it’s “pretty” or makes me happy.  That’s  Hollywood stuff.  I mean something in the classical sense possessing wholeness, proportion, and the insightful.  Beauty is related to truth.  A sad story, a tragedy if you will, can still transcend pathos when it depicts life wholly, or with verisimilitude, free of sentiment and need for closure.  If I leave off a book somehow made wiser, then I have found beauty.  Keats had it right when he wrote at the end of his “Ode on a Grecian Urn,”  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” 

By goodness,  I mean something akin to what the Greeks called ethos, which I equate with integrity--the giving of one’s highest measure, a workman never ashamed.  Of the trio of classical virtues, this is the most neighborly, the one  most consequential  for the social, or interpersonal, since it implies our responsibility to be mindful of others.  It’s the glue holding society together.  As the term suggests,  it’s the virtue embracing the ethical.  Whatever I do when no one’s looking, or in anonymity, I test my ethos, or caring and social responsibility.  I still stop at the stop sign, even though no one’s there.  I still pay my taxes and do so honestly. I do not cheat in the class or on the time clock at work.  I do not forego fidelity to my spouse or betray a friend.  I think of the chaos of a world where each of us played by our own rules.

The Greeks had a marvelous word for the coalescence of these virtues:  arete, or wholeness.  Together they provide balance, the secret to the elusive happy life.