Tag Archives: In the moment

Odd Moments of RAK

Leave a reply

I know a woman and her husband who I am thinking of and sending wishes for a holiday of peace and hope.

There is an insightful and well-done YouTube video of a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace. He does a wonderful job of capturing elements of what I believe play a key role in being able to live a life that involves Random Acts of Kindness and sheds some light on my own RAK of today. It will be 9 minutes and 22 seconds of your life well invested. Trust me on this one.
This is Water https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKYJVV7HuZw

BUT, be sure to scurry right back to my blog. Such fun things to discuss today…..

This morning I went to the grocery store early. One of Haley’s sisters from her other family is visiting and I wanted to pick up a few things before they woke up so I could demonstrate what a good father and host I am.  I was feeling rushed and jittery, and not adequately caffeinated for doing something as complicated as grocery shopping and being generally friendly to the other mammals I would undoubtedly encounter at the store.

The store was of course almost empty as it was stupid early, but because the store was almost empty there were only 2 check out lanes open. In front of me there was a young woman who appeared to have suffered a stroke with marked paralysis on her right side.  She was struggling with the payment system, which is set up for right-handed people (one of those things that must affect Lefties everyday of which we Righties are blissfully unaware.  Sorry, Haley!).  The clerk was doing an admirably gentle job trying to help her, but as English was not her first language, the transaction was experiencing some bumps.  Behind me was a couple who were bickering. Bickering, bickering, bickering in that special way that only married couples have mastered which has the calming effect to those in earshot of aluminum on the fillings in our teeth.  They were bickering about whether they had sufficient security software on their home computer.  She obviously did not care.  He obviously did not know what he was talking about. Neither really seemed to have their heart in it, but apparently bickering in public was on the to-do list and they might as well get it out of the way (Bickering in Public: Check!). There was something about how the young man who was bagging groceries moved, interacted and looked that suggested there was a medical, possibly psychological, diagnosis in there, but what it might be was not readily apparent.  For the record, in addition to being friendly and courteous, he was a monster grocery packing machine.  To round out the cast of characters, there is me; under-coffee-ed, anxious to be the “good host/father” so doing that dance people do when they really need to pee but someone else is in the bathroom.

Here we are; Young Stroke Woman, Bickering Couple, Middle-Aged English-Not-Her-First Language Cashier, Monster Grocery Packing Kid, and Pee-Pee Dance me. Such a great star-studded cast to be really, really annoying and frustrating (Coffee, damn it! I need coffee and you people are preventing that from happening!).   And then it struck me.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know how. Perhaps I had briefly acquired magically powers?  Perhaps it is a nasty side effect of repeated random acts of kindness?  But it struck me: This is a “moment.”  For this short space of time, our motley crew was crammed together in this life boat that is Lane 6 at the front of an almost empty grocery store.  What a weird group of Annoying Others who were complicating a task I was anxious to complete so I could be in a different moment than this one (I am sure they thought the same about me), who were also a group of fellow humans, bobbing along, maybe even floundering, in the currents of their streams. Somehow in my own bobbing and floundering, my rigid self-expectations of what it meant to be a good father and good host, my burning desire to be out of this store, my not wanting to leave the safety of my personal hamster ball and interact with these freaks, I was able to step back and recognize what a unique, odd and charming moment this was.

Here is what I did with this moment.  Using all my inadequately caffeinated willpower, I tried to hold my inner pee-pee dance self as still as possible and pretend I was calm and in no hurry.  I gave the young woman in front of me extra space so she would be less likely to feel rushed.  Although inside I was quivering like a chihuahua who has stolen my much needed coffee, when she cast a worried eye in my direction, I smiled back and tried to look relaxed and calm.  My turn to check out: I chatted with the cashier. When the manager had to join us because one of my items wouldn’t scan and she asked if I knew how much it cost, I suggested $10,000.  We all had a nice laugh (I am hilarious!) and they seemed relieved (apparently some customers get really unpleasant when something doesn’t scan. Who knew?).  We negotiated for the same amount as a similar item in my groceries.  I genuinely thanked the Grocery Packing Guy for what truly was an impressive packing job.  We wished each other happy holidays and the moment was gone.

The Bickering Couple?  At some point they decided to jump lines.  Unless you are someone who is blessed with good Line Karma, this is always a bad idea.  The line they jumped to came to a screeching  halt  and they were still in line when I left. Suckers.

SO what is the point?  (You: Since when do your blogs have a point?  Me: Sigh.)  I am not really sure what the point is (You: There’s the Erik we have come to know and love. Me: Sigh) but I know what it is not.  It is not that this was somehow some sort of amazingly special RAK, not something I am expecting a prize for (Although, Santa, if the sleigh’s not completely packed yet…).  I think the whole point is that it is not a dramatic moment, it is common everyday, often annoying, who-are-these-gross-people-blocking-me-from-getting-what-I-want-and-preventing-me-getting-out-of-here-so-I-can-just-get-on-with-my-day-and-try-to-take-care-of-all-the-shit-I-have-to-take-care-of-because-it-is-hard-to-be-me moment. White bread moments, easily ignored and so forgettable.  Small, stupid moments constructed of annoying and petty frustrations. The moments we all encounter every damn day, and, if we can somehow catch the edge and pull back the wrapping paper a bit, it is an opportunity to be something different than trivial and touch the world with our open hand.  This is water.

Maybe it matters. I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.  I don’t know.  I am just a gloriously complicated person filled with a ridiculous amount of contradictions scampering around my skull who is stumbling through a year of trying to do random acts of kindness.  Oh, in case you are thinking I am some sort of amazing zen-like guy who is so centered, I got really pissed off at the idiots who were the other drivers I encountered driving home.

Dogs again

1 Reply

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

image image

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.

image

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.

 

RAK Before 7:00 AM

1 Reply

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.

 

Airports

2 Replies

Airplane Clouds #2 2014Airplane Clouds 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random Acts of Kindness: A one year challenge

I know a young woman whose husband is grieving.

In my experience, airports are places where a large number of the people are spinning in anxiety and trying to control it with whatever skills they have, which often amounts to being angry and “overly assertive.”  Of course, not everyone is anxious or airports would have melted under the emotional radioactive fallout many years ago, but there is certainly enough to be setting off the Geiger counters.

By its very nature, an airport is a particularly difficult place to be present.  The whole purpose of an airport is to be anywhere but here, to as quickly as possible be in some other moment than the one presented by the airport.  Add to this that much of our fellow travelers show up at the airport flustered, stressed , probably tired and, according to at least one member of the traveling team, running late (I told you we should have left 30 minutes earlier; Who takes the fucking beltway at this time of day??).  And now the coup de grace, at the airport we are laser focused on achieving what we feel into our very marrow to be a crucial, tightly defined objective (Must. Get. Out.) AND almost every aspect of this airport endeavor is completely out of our control.  You cannot control the security lines, flight delays, how far your gate is, connecting flights, who your new plane friends will be, ….. Hell, you don’t even get to drive the plane for part of the trip anymore (Ok, I made that one up).  You get to buy the ticket, which hopefully more or less matches your needs.  After that, you pretty much got nothing that is within your power to change.

Now I am sure that this says something weird about me, but for me, the most stressful part of this ritual?  Getting to the airport and finding parking.  After I find parking and walk into the terminal, I am pretty much good for whatever happens next.  Weird, right, but we all have our special pressure points.  At some point, I should probably explore why I am such a cool dude, after parking, but today is not that day.  Today: Airports and RAK

Given all this near desperate neediness and worry, air ports are a RAKing shopping mall.  You cannot swing your  “one personal item” with your iPhone, iPad and laptop in it, along with a stash of snacks in case you don’t want to pay  $12 for a can of Pringles on the plane, without hitting someone who would benefit from a random act of kindness.  Indeed, probably benefit greatly from the smallest of kindnesses. AND it is also a jungle filled with  fierce, angry, cornered beasts with sharp teeth and claws….also known as our fellow travelers.  “Not at their best” would be a delicate way to describe the fact that under these circumstances many people embrace their inner asshole.  Some of our fellow blobs of flesh are not in the mood to embrace kindness at this time.  This sucks for all who encounter them, even “nice” people.

Airplane Clouds #3 2014

And, once again, a legitimate question would be what is his point?  Can he please just get to his point?  Thank you for your patience, but we needed context .  This is the point, why do we offer Random Acts of Kindness?  Cui bono? Latin for “to whose benefit?”  (I wish I could say that I knew that because I am so fucking cultured, but I heard it in a talk a few weeks back and it really struck me).  Anyway, cui bono?    To whose benefit?  Are we doing this RAK shit because we expect that people will be grateful?  That everyone we meet will be so impressed by our kindness?  That people’s lives will be changed because of a brief interaction, albeit a unique and potential powerful one?  The bitter truth is that not everyone (fools that they are) will recognize the gift we are offering.  Some people will tell us to fuck off, or at best look at us with suspicion and mistrust, which is fair given the aversive world so many of us encounter every day.

Who thinks this suck and it hurts their feelings?  Me, me, pick me!!  Truth; it hurts my feelings and kind of wounds me when this happens.  I usually just slink away like a sad little puppy.  Of course later on I am like, “Hey, fuck you, Mr. Man, and your grumpy self.  I was being fucking kind.  I hope you get run over by a garbage truck!  Fucker….” (More sad self).  Cui bono?  Why am I doing this?

Hanging my head in shame here.  As much as I would love for this to be about me (and prizes), on some level I get that it can’t be about me .  If I am truly engaging in the RAK Challenge, I need to be open to however people respond including that not everyone is going to be in a place where what I have to offer matters or is accepted.  And when someone rejects my RAK, it still counts as a RAK (full credit!) and I have to keep doing this, because it is about being in the world in this way for a year, even when it would be a lot more fun to be home eating chips and watching bad TV.  Damn.  Maybe I will get extra credit for RAK in the face of adversity?

So, at the airport a couple days ago, returning from a few days of helping to care for a family member with Alzheimer’s Disease (A whole long story for another post down the road).  There was a young woman with a small child and a baby who were clearly Spawn of Satan, or maybe simply 2 small children up too early in the morning and in a strange place with a totally fried mother…either way.  It was not going well; crying infant, small child embracing the freedom that only the wide open plains that are the airport terminal halls can offer, mother struggling with carry on, coffee and smartphone.  Obviously an opportunity to offer a random act of kindness, right?  Yeah, not so much.  My offer to help her find her gate and arrive without dropping her baby on its pumpkin head was firmly rejected.  On the bright side, seeing a strange man talk to her mom did draw the carefree lass back closer to the protection of the herd.   So, I picked up my wounded self and went on my way.  Of course, turning the whole interaction over in my head in a Tasmanian Devil whirling tornado of thoughts that alternated between self-righteous anger and self-deprecating criticism.  Somehow in this maelstrom, I was able to step back and think about this women’s world and where she psychologically was, and how interacting with me fit into her day. Cui bono?   And, yes, ouch, that sucked, and it was not about me.

I did help an old lady get a massive suitcase off the baggage carousel later that day, so clearly a check mark in the win column for me.