Monthly Archives: October 2014

Dogs again

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I know a woman who continues to touch people’s lives despite being gone.

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Beijing air quality; smog as thick as the fog in a Sherlock Holmes’ story, crystal clear in the space of a day. I am sure there is a metaphor in here about how the smog of our personal histories affect our ability to see the world as it is….., but I have no idea what that would be.

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Etta
The day I left for China, Etta (my second dog diagnosed with cancer, the one laying down in this picture) was not looking well and then deteriorated rapidly. She went from fine to not fine to suffering in less than 48 hours, and was increasingly suffering. The vet confirmed rapid spread of the cancer. My friends Keith & Kay and my amazing daughter Haley made the tough and loving decision to put Etta down. She died quietly in her own backyard on a beautiful Fall day surrounded by 3 people who cared about her, while I was 10,000 miles away.

So much sorrow, so far from home, feeling so alone at a meeting where no one would understand my loss. And I was aware of how lucky I am. Lucky to have people in my life who can care, and make the hard decisions, about things that matter so much to me. Lucky that I have people to share my sadness with via text, email and Facebook from the other side of the planet, people who care about that sadness even though some of them don’t understand it. Lucky to have connections to people even as I struggle to try to strengthen and find meaningful grounding in those connections.
Pursuing random acts of kindness for the last couple months is a key piece of how I was able to recognize how lucky I am and also allow this grief to be what it is. Oh, Christ, Damn Hippie rising…..but still true.

There were wonderful people at this meeting in Beijing, several of whom I know fairly well, a couple of whom might even be considered friends or at least close colleagues. All of them extremely bright, caring people, passionate about the value of their work and it’s genuine potential to help people. These are compassionate, hard working professionals doing public health work that matters. And none of these good people were people who would have been able to understand my deep sense of loss at the death of “just a dog.” We could spend a chunk of time exploring a variety of reasons for this, but I think most of this exploration would lead us to the same place. The people at this meeting and I did not share the same world view regarding the value of pets as part of a family and the emotional response to a pet dying.

Some of these folks undoubtedly would have had empathy for my grief in a general human-I-know-hurting kind of way, but there would not have been a real connection, a genuine understanding and shared human experience. It does not say anything bad or good about them or me. That gap just is. Given that it is becoming increasingly clear that, amongst other things, a year of RAK is about finding ways to connect with other humans, this gap matters. Then how do we bridge it? As much as I have strong and meaningful connections to my pets, I didn’t think trying to drag these fellow humans out of their world and into mine was going to be particularly helpful. In fact that seemed ridiculous and like a great way to confuse my Asian colleagues (even more than I suspect I already do every time they interact with me). Instead I made a conscious decision that I would bridge this gap by crossing into their world as best I could. I tried to listen.

There are a number of students and junior professionals at this type of meeting. Although they are bright with many good ideas and enthusiasm, the structure of this kind of meeting does not generally allow their voices to be heard. Still, like of all of us, they want to be heard and I am often approached (remember I am a “nice” & approachable kind of guy) during breaks to answer a question or discuss an idea. Being that I am “nice” & approachable, I am consistently friendly and engaging, but in all honesty I am not necessarily giving this person my full attention. With all the context above, at this meeting I tried to listen as fully as I could. I tired to be as fully present as I could. I tried to give each of these bright, enthusiastic humans all of my attention when they approached me. I had many good discussions but the main thing I heard underneath the words was, “Please listen to me. Please see me. Please let me know that what I have to say is valuable, that I am valuable.” All of which I tried to do by being “there” when we interacted.

This was the RAK I repeatedly tried to do across these days. This was how I tried to bridge the gap between their strange foreign weird world and my strange foreign weird world. I think it mattered.

 

Fear of Random Acts of Kindness: Part Two

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Mr. Kitty on the stairs 2014 Lion Statue 10-2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know a young woman who, along with her husband, has inspired me to deepen the process of asking the question “Does it have to be this way?”

Continuing on my last post, thinking about how attempting to perform daily random acts of kindness over an extended period shines a light on those times when I hesitate, or in all honesty walk away even when it is clear someone needs kindness (least anyone starts thinking I am some kind of saint…although I believe we have clearly established that I am “nice,” right?) . This year will reveal many things, both the good and the challenging, which whirl around my brain and through my various guts and innards making it sometime easy and sometimes hard, even impossible, for me to perform RAK.  Some of this goop I know nothing about.  Some of this goop I know quite a bit about, although I will confess that it turns out that even the goop I firmly believe I am keenly aware of and have well under control, turns out to be more goopy than I thought.  Huh, perhaps I should have stated that up front several posts back, sort of a disclaimer: Let’s not make any kind of assumption that at the end of this year, everything is going to be wrapped up in a tidy package.  That would be most awesome though. I wonder if I would get some sort of prizes for being so wise and having used such good thinkology? I will look into that.  In the meantime, I am a gloriously complicated person and that’s all we got to work with.

Back to RAK:  Why is it that sometimes performing simple random acts of kindness can be difficult, make me feel uncomfortable and even require me to push past fear? An important part of the underlying goop, for me, is the fear associated with Ignorance and Want.

The second child that the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals to Scrooge is a girl named Want. Like ignorance, she is “wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable” and “yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.”    For me, Want pushes on two painful pressure points: The wants of others/Others and my own wants.

Our strengths and weakness are elements of who we are along the same continuum.  This has been said by like a 100 gazillion people, but I’ll give a nod to Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.”) because that seems fancy and intellectual.  I have a history which has shaped me into an empathetic, nurturing, giving, “nice” kind of guy (among my many wonderful qualities).  This “niceness” byproduct of my history oozes out across all areas of my life and is part of my best self, and is the source of a significant challenge for me when it comes to RAK.  Part of the history which hand-crafted this gloriously complicated human involved interacting over many years with some important people in my life who were struggling with their own histories such that they were Bottomless Pits of Want. Their very human and understandable drive to fill that empty wanting place creates an intensely lonely isolation and desperate hunger that interferes with the belonging and connection they fundamentally need. Now picture pouring pitchers of water into a sieve, trying to fill it, and, because you are an empathetic, nurturing, giving, “nice” kind of human, you do this for years, decades.

Too melodramatic? It is hard to find the right balance.  Your patience is appreciated, and your abandonment of this post would be understandable

Why does this matter for what we are talking about?  What does this have to do with RAK? Oh, my bad.  I thought the connection was obvious.  This has to do with RAK because there are some people whose wants and needs are massive, huge icebergs floating through the shipping lanes of our daily lives.  Some are easy to spot (the homeless), others more difficult (pretty much anyone we might encounter).  Of course RAK is not about rescuing people or in any way trying to fill Bottomless Pits, but being fully present often means becoming aware and acknowledging on some level that there are abandoned, neglected, hideous, wolfish children under the Ghost of Christmas Present’s robes.  So, for me, there is both the reminder of sadness of futile attempts to fill a sieve and of the pain that remained for that person with the Bottomless Pit, and the sting that comes from stepping into someone else’s day and sensing the depth of the iceberg below the water line.  I think I am mixing my metaphors, but hopefully you will kindly stack them into neat piles for me.

My own wants?  Yeah……. undoubtedly there are issues here that RAK will continue to raise (Oh, goody! Another valuable growth experience), but this is a start (Thanks, Mr. Dickens!).  Want- abject, frightful, hideous child.  Think about people in your life who are on the Bottomless Pit end of the spectrum.  What descriptors come to mind? Don’t worry, you don’t need to tell anyone what those descriptors are, so please be honest. How about this one; imagine a friend is telling you about someone they think might be a good person for you to date.  They are attractive, smart, funny, nice, have a great job, you share interests, oh, and they are needy (Insert noise of a loud buzzer). Right?  Nobody wants to be with someone needy and nobody wants to be needy, especially if you have had encounters with the child Want.  Being needy, being Want is a fast track to rejection and a one-way ticket to Dumpsville, population me. But 1) everyone has needs and wants, you can’t get around that, and 2) Our culture (notice I switched blame to our culture rather than my history?  Clever move on my part) doesn’t provide good role models for how to appropriately express needs and wants.  I double checked the Owner’s Manual for Being an Adult- nowhere does it define what constitutes being “needy.” How the fuck are we supposed to know if we are being needy or not?  A wise strategy then becomes to hide our wants (under the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present seems a good place), which, as you already know, doesn’t make the needs and wants go away and leads to all kinds of spectacular relationship and human interaction disasters.  Insert feedback loop of crazy and dysfunction.

Let’s not forget that Want has a brother.  Want and Ignorance are a package.  What are we supposed to do?  I don’t have clue of what we supposed to do. Here is an important piece for me to learn from RAK.  This adventure involves being willing to interact with others by being open to the moment, humble and without expectations about my role in their day (and vice versa), and without judgment of whatever comes up inside me pre-, during and post interaction.

Ugh, this really doesn’t capture the depth of what I am trying to convey.  Maybe you could flesh it out in your head and shape it into something that communicates something important?  I would appreciate it. In the meantime I will continue working on finding ways to understand and describe this whole process, this something that RAK is stirring.

 

Fear of Acts of Random Kindness: Part One

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Lion Statue Profile 10-2014

Random Acts of Kindness: A one year challenge

I know a young woman who, along with her husband, has inspired me to attempt something which is much more difficult than it might seem.

Today I gave a small amount of money to a woman who was begging, then I stopped and talked with her for a few minutes. Not about anything important; the weather, that there seemed to be a lot of people out today, then wished each other well.  This could just be the yoga talking (I was leaving a class) because you know how that kind of thing cranks up your inner Damn Hippie, but it seemed to me that the few moments of talking was more valuable to her than the money…..nah, probably not.

Sustaining random acts of kindness across an extended period of time, at least as I have defined the RAK Challenge (which is all that counts, right?), requires being open to the world around us, and, the longer we try to to maintain RAK, the more open we become which is increasingly scary. The is no better way to find your painful, frightened, sore-to-the-touch, fragile spots (sort of like where you are ticklish and did not know it….only not) than to attend, really attend, to what others in the world are evoking from you, because often what is being evoked does not represent the best parts of who you would like to be.

Why do you move toward some people and away from others? I mean literally physically drift toward some people and away from others, as well as psychologically.  If I pay attention to my day, I notice that I have dozens and dozens of micro-engagements that normally I am only vaguely aware of, if at all.  There is Something comforting just beneath the surface that pulls and pushes me as I move through my world. It is like my whole day is made up of a game of “getting warmer, getting colder.” This Something does a pretty good job of making my world feel safe. I am moved toward the attractive, familiar and predictable, and away from the ugly, strange and unpredictable.  Ah, nice….  A buffered space to keep my world cozy, like a favorite old sweatshirt.  It doesn’t matter what I might miss out on (There might have been balloons and pony rides and one of those big Moon Bounce things)  as long as this Something keeps me from dealing with the ugly, strange and unpredictable because that might be dangerous.

So how does this fit into RAK?  As I noted above, RAK requires us to be open to the world.  If I am going to be aware of those who might benefit from an act of random kindness, I have to be prepared to move toward people and situations I might not normally move toward.  The Something and RAK cannot exist in the same space at the same time (Maybe it is like matter and anti-matter?  That would be cool and sciencey).  I find that if I want to be available for RAK, the Something cannot be driving how I navigate the day.  It takes effort on my part, sometimes significant effort, to actively choose to take myself on a different course than the quiet waters the Something steers toward. I have to be willing to sail into stormy seas where there be monsters. Which sounds like a horrible idea, yes? (The answer is: Yes, that sounds like a horrible idea).

I am mocking myself, which is half the fun of writing this blog, for leading a life often characterized by avoidance, but I am keenly aware of how destructive this has been, especially to the people I love the most.  I suspect letting the Something helps us avoid is the root of many bad things that happen in the world around us: violence, depression, cruelty, prejudice, judging, isolation from other people, thinking your coworker is a complete idiot who deserves bad things,… I get it.  I have known this for years, and to my credit (and I want credit here) I have been working on being different in the world for quite some time…..with mixed success.  Not to point fingers here, but avoidance and automatically defaulting to letting the Something dictate the course of the day is how the vast majority of us live our lives, but I am not pointing fingers. I don’t know what pushes and pulls you as you move through your day, but I do know mine.  My Something has a name, and that name is “Fear.”   Almost never is it screaming and running down the halls fear (almost never), but fear nonetheless.

There is a powerful but rarely appreciated scene in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Present pulls back his robe and reveals two emaciated and horrifying children: Ignorance and Want.  I think my Fear can be summarized by these two unwanted and neglected children. Let’s start with Ignorance, which Dickens warns us to be most afraid of, although personally Want is scarier to me.  I suspect most of us encounter people everyday who we perceive as ugly, strange and unpredictable (i.e., Danger, Danger, Danger!!), and we avoid them, walk away, walk around, don’t make eye contact, do not in anyway acknowledge them, do not in anyway acknowledge that they are a person.   These dangerous characters are everywhere!  The homeless, the mentally ill, the drug addicts, the street corner preachers, people on the Metro, driving to work, on the street corners, some of them even work in my building.  It becomes so easy to see these people as The Other.  Not part of me, not a member of my group, not even really another person, just an obstacle to be navigated around.  Tara Brach does a much better job than I ever can in talking about this (TaraBrach.com), but we’re not on her website right now, are we?

I do not know these creatures.  I do not want to know these creatures.  I am ignorant of their status as humans and prefer to keep it that way.  But then there is this fucking RAK thing. Damn it!!  Remaining ignorant prevents me from being fully present with this person, from stepping, even if just for a moment, into their world which may be full of suffering, whether they be the homeless guy by the stoplight, the cleaning woman who empties the trash, the coworker you think is a dick wad although you have never actually spoken with him.  Note I am not saying throw caution to the wind and chase after drug addicts down darkened alleyways (Wait, I can help!) or be completely vulnerable to untrustworthy people (Your coworker may in fact be a dick wad) or empty your wallet when the homeless guy asks for money (I suspect you need that money yourself).  For me a fundamental element of doing random acts of kindness is to be a smidge less ignorant regarding this creature that theoretically might be human, to listen when an Other talks, to make eye contact and say “hi” even when I don’t give the homeless guy money.  This is part of why I put on my Big Boy pants and stopped to talk to an ugly, strange and unpredictable homeless woman, instead of just scurrying by.

All of this may be completely irrelevant to you or anyone other than me, but for me another piece of the puzzle is falling into place, there is an understanding, still quite vague, that is taking shape.  What of the other orphan?  What of Want?  I will talk about her when I blog again, or perhaps I should quit while I am ahead.

RAK Before 7:00 AM

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Woods 2014-10

Random Acts of Kindness: A one year challenge

I know a woman who just had an important article published in the scientific journal Translational Medicine that highlighted how easy it is for people to dismiss other people as people, especially within the social media space: 1) Link to Article http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13142-014-0256-1 2) Journal’s Press Release: http://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/springer-select/fat-chats-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-comments/35816 3) New York Times coverage: http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/shamed-flamed-harassed-what-its-like-to-be-called-fat-online/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&

I like to get up early in the morning.  I probably would have made a good farmer given that they are always up early milking the chickens and other farmer stuff.  When I wake up, I often feel like my brain is in a calm state of purring along in neutral.  If this lasts for more than a few minutes that is a special day that should be noted on the calendar.  Like an auditorium filling with students, thoughts about my day almost immediately begin to trickle in, as the seats fill so does the noise level.  Before long, the place is packed and noisy as thoughts about the day ahead come pouring in; tasks that must be addressed, crisis that need to be mediated, worries about the troubles of people I am close to, conflicts I need to step into and help resolve, responsibilities ahead and those I left un-dealt with from previous days, not to mention my own worries, sadness, anxiety and anger (who let those guys in?). When I have the wherewithal to attend to the process of this gathering, I am surprised and amused at how rapidly I can go from being calm and centered to completely engrossed in being projected into my day and far into my past.  If this were a marketable skill, you would be seeing me on the cover of Forbes, ooohh or perhaps winning an Olympic medal for sprinting away from being anything close to in the present moment, sort of an anti-Zen award.

I have been working on this “being present” shit for quite a while.  Incorporating RAK into my days has contributed to this Damn Hippie process as I must try to pay more attention (at least sporadically), to make an effort (and it is an effort for me) to be present.

A bit of context for the random act of kindness I am writing about today. I walk my dogs in the morning (they are complete wussies when it comes to heat).  For several years, before taking on this challenge, I have tried to pay attention while on these walks; I like walking in the woods, we often see cool things like deer (Yesterday a large owl sitting in a tree which, I cannot lie, was truly awesome!!).  But no matter how beautiful the woods, inspiring the sunrise, the day ahead barges in and demands attention. Sometimes these rude intrusions occur when my brain doesn’t even have anything to say and is just being obnoxious and flexing its distraction muscles.  For example, on this morning’s walk, the children’s song “As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with 7 wives….” was playing over and over again in my head. Seriously? Seriously?? Are you fucking kidding me? You couldn’t just enjoy the sunrise for a few moments?  St. Ives??

With this as backdrop, I want to point to a RAK from a few weeks back (Yes, remember I am so taking credit for RAKs I did in the weeks before I decided to tackle a whole year).  This was about a week after The Woman I Know had passed away. It was shortly after dawn and Etta and I were coming out of the woods and walking through part of our neighborhood.  We came upon a well-dressed woman who had just done a nice job of parking in her friend’s flowerbed. As she stood next to her car, assessing her handiwork, I said good morning to her.  She apologized for parking so poorly.  I said I hadn’t noticed (A lie) but I didn’t think it really mattered that much (A truth). We both (well actually the 3 of us because Etta stopped to smell the flowers or what was left of them) took a moment to look at the flower bed, and, in rapid disjointed sentences, her story gushed out.

Of all weird things, she was on her way to her best friend’s funeral in Philadelphia. Never a morning person, she was completely disorganized, kept losing her train of thought and just couldn’t get her shit together to actually leave town in order to be at the funeral on time.  She started crying and doing that hand-wavy-thing that some people do when they get really upset. Then she stopped crying, told herself to pull it together, then looked at me and told me she didn’t know what to do.

What did I do next?  Some heroic gesture like drive her to Philly?  Maybe go the other direction and steal her purse?  No, those things are outside the rules of RAK (not to mention just plain silly).  What I did do was tell her she was not alone in her pain.  I told her about the death of This Woman I know, her grieving husband and the large circle of friends who were struggling and hurting.  I told her that I understood how much this sucked, how awful this pain was.  I tried to squeeze as much being fully present with this person for this single moment as I possibly could. When Etta and I walked away, she called me her “angel” and said I saved her.  I laughed and told her to remember to breath.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I am an Evil Genius, and I waited to turn the corner before doing a happy dance for completing my RAK for the day before 7:00 in the morning.

Our whole interaction lasted less than 5 minutes.  Our interaction didn’t take away her pain, didn’t fix this fucked up situation- nothing could do that.  I think it did reduce her isolation and spinning in her broken heart, even if for a short time.  I hope she thought of that moment throughout her awful day.  I have no clue if she did. For me, it was a powerful moment that has stayed with me and I continue to try to understand.

Although I most certainly wouldn’t have been rude, I would have kept walking after smiling and providing my initial socially acceptable lie-truth comment.  But the inspiration from the Woman I Know and her husband put me in a different space that morning, a space where I stopped to really take notice of another person, found them to be suffering, and then to fully be with them, even if for only a few minutes.

Maybe part of it is about not being so alone in our saddest (or happiest) moments?  Offering our courage to others who have run out because it feeds us all? And desperately hoping they will offer their courage to us when we run out of our own? I did warn you I have a propensity for the Hallmark moment and sappiness. Although, even if my words are headed for the script of a bad made-for-TV movie, I think there is something in what I am saying, something important, something that might be “true.”  Maybe this year of random kindness will help root out that “that” that my words fail to capture.  Or not.