Mother’s Day 2018

We judge our mothers by what we can remember, so I am struck by the wealth of love and attention I never committed to memory, just by the wealth of love and attention I see Val give to Nicholas every day. I think to myself, “did I come into the world that way? was my first caress like that? was I that helpless baby that cried in the night? was my only salvation in my mother’s arms? was I that toddler who needed constant company and supervision? was the totality of my experience so totally influenced by my mother?” The answer is yes, but it seems that appreciating it is a generational thing. My love and gratitude for Val grows each day, but even more so for the Mothers in my life, on Mother’s Day.

Childhood Radius

Since I was in the Scranton area, I decided to visit my childhood home. This is where I lived until I was 4. I barely remember the outside of the house (though I am sure it has changed considerably over the years), and I vaguely remember the inside of the house, but I remember the yard and the immediate neighborhood like it was yesterday. I had an almost ‘Skinnerian’ childhood in Scranton, minus a close friend. As I drove to the house, I was struck by how everything leading up to a 2 block radius of it was completely unfamiliar to me. But that is how it is. We live in the space we occupy. It imprints upon us. Anything beyond that boundary escapes us. I wonder what escapes me here and now?

Memorable Childhood Lessons

I recall having a childhood debate in 1981 with my good friend Robert. It was about Lindsey Buckingham's new song, 'Trouble'. My contention was that Lindsey's intro to the song consisted of him saying "doo a dee  a fow" or some phonetic equivalent, whereas Rob quite rationally and correctly contended that Lindesy was saying "two, three, four". I can remember walking with him from my house to his house, cutting through my neighbor's yard, and him being almost exasperated that I would not concede his point. It is one of those memories that resurfaces every time I feel myself clinging to an idea too dogmatically, or looking down my nose at someone who is doing the same. If only I could hold all such memorable childhood lessons in-memory simultaneously. As it stands, I can only fit the really sentimental ones.

Simple One

I’ve been following a one meal per day routine for the past three months, and I am astounded by the adjustment, in terms of mental clarity, energy level and, what I call, spiritual calmness. Our conscious minds sit atop a system of mental and physical processes that precede our self-awareness and our illusion of self and other control. I think that when we minimize our lives and strip away all of the noise, we can better grasp how our motion through this river of life has more to do the current than anything else. To me, any habit or routine that helps us pause long enough to stop swimming and start floating is a worthwhile endeavor.

Unfolding Origami

I had a great 'origami exchange' with a elderly woman on my flight today. I gave her a butterfly in a small envelop. She was so thankful, but, after a few moments, I had to advise her that the gift was not simply a pretty rectangle. She opened it up and marveled at the butterfly. From the corner of my eye, I could see her examining it closely. After about 5 minutes, she asked if I could make her another one. "Sure", I said, "do you want a different color or something?". "No", she said, "the same color would be nice", and then she showed me a rectangular piece of paper which had previously been the butterfly. "I tried to figure out how it was made", she admitted. "No problem!", I replied, and then I countered, "I just hope you did not have a puppy when you were little" ;-)

Religious versus Spiritual

Whenever I hear one person say "we are born with an innate sense of 'goodness'", and another person say "without religion, there would be no check against our 'evilness'", I think that the first person forgot that they were born into a world that is already rooted in religion, and therefore grew up in an environment that is inescapable from its influences, and I think that the second person forgot that religion came from us, not divine providence, so its influences likely stem from an innate understanding of 'goodness', as surely as its perversions likely stem from our inadequate understanding. And then I remember that categorization is yet another fault in our thinking, as both of the actors depicted above likely have views that are along a spectrum of infinite granularity, and therefore always gray. And even here, some would say 'grey' ;-)

The American Roots of Racism

A friend of mine posted a question on FB that asked "if schools stopped teaching [that] America is built on racism and racism exists where none actually does [...] would [...] racism completely disappear in a generation?"

If you leave aside the presupposition and focus on the supposition, it is a very good question.

Here was my answer:

A question within your question is: where do children learn racism, either being racist or suffering from it? I think that they learn it long before they encounter any lessons about it in school. Still, you ask a great question. What if, instead of fixating on our sordid past, we, collectively, focused on the complex present and open future? Would it be better to learn about the causes and effects of economic and social injustice, our shared and personal responsibility to fight it and our common humanity, without linking it back to our racists roots? My answer is yes, because the historical root causes of economic and social injustice have little to do with the present day root causes or solutions, and the fixation on these historical root causes only widens the cultural divide that feeds racism. But this only works if we all commit to the ideals of equality and justice for all. When an African American man is shot 6 times in his car during a routine traffic stop, for no apparent reason other than the officer 'fearing for his life', and said officer is later cleared of any crime, then you have to expect an outsized reaction from African Americans, and you have to expect the search for why such a thing would happen. At that point, finding the cause in our past might actually be more palatable than the truth of the matter: racism is alive and well in the present. So the caveat to my answer is that we would need to grapple with this present day fact.

Thoughts?