Reality Archives

Rose-colored glasses

I haven’t posted in a while. The world has been chaotic recently. I don’t really know what to say. Or how to say it.

Maybe saying nothing is what many of us need to do. When we don’t fully comprehend or understand something when we cant truly understand what other people feel, maybe its time to listen.

We cannot fully understand or comprehend something when we do not pay attention, when we do not listen. We need to hear what other people have to say, we need to try and expand our understanding outside of our comfort zone.

I’ll admit I am part of the problem, I am a successful white male. The system has been set up so that I can be successful. The list of things in my past that if the color of my skin was different or my ancestry was different, my situation today would be not what it is.

I come from a place of privilege, where the color of my skin and my gender both contribute to my current situation in life. I have been aware of this for a good portion of my adult life. But what have I done to change it? Not much.

I donate to causes I believe in, I try and not make decisions based on someone else’s race, gender, or religion. But I am sure I fail at times. That isn’t an excuse it is my reality.

Sometimes it is hard to see, where did I fail? Did I cross the street because of the “shady” looking character coming towards me? Did I discount someone’s opinion or thoughts because of their gender? Did I not listen openly to someone because I don’t agree with their religion or spiritual beliefs?

I have done all of these things.

This is where the term “Systemic” comes in. I am part of the system, the system was designed for me. The things I have trouble seeing are due to the systemic nature of the system.

We are blinded to things outside the system, that live on the margins of the system. The lens we view things through is designed this way, it protects us it makes us feel comfortable.

To get to the truth of a thing we have to abandon our views and beliefs about it. We have to discard our “Rose-colored glasses.” We have to pay attention, we have to start to listen.

My Experience of Me

It all started out with me posting this on social media

Between what I think, what I want to say, what I believe I am saying, what I say, what you want to hear, what you hear, what you believe you understand, what you want to understand and what you understood, there are at least nine possibilities for misunderstanding. – Francois Garagnon

This quote reminded me of a quote by Cooley

I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.
― Charles Horton Cooley

Then someone suggested that I read RD Laing’s “The politics of experience” which states

I see you, and you see me. I experience you, and you experience me. I see your behaviour. You see my behaviour. But I do not and never have and never will see your experience of me. Just as you cannot “see” my experience of you. My experience of you is not “inside” me. It is simply you, as I experience you. And I do not experience you as inside me. Similarly, I take it that you do not experience me as inside you.

This brings me to ponder a few things.

How do I experience me?

What is my understanding of me?

What is me?

If my beliefs about myself are viewed through my experience of myself which is based on my behaviors then what? Or are they based on your behavior?

What if my beliefs and experience of self are based on the flawed presumption of me seeing me through what I believe you think I am?

If my understanding of self is seated in the belief that I am what I think you think I am then what is my experience of me?

It would seem that my experience of myself is flawed because I am creating the experience of self, based on what I believe you think I am.

Is it that my experience of self is simply what you reflect back to me filtered by your experience of both me and you which is then filtered by my own experience which is then muddled with the myriad misunderstandings of what I think I am and what you think you are and vice versa?

Anyway, that’s enough rambling for today and I ended up with way more questions than answers. As it should be.

Following threads

As I sat in the coffee shop across from my partner and next to my son that Sunday afternoon something happened. As I sat there I looked over to the table next to us where 3 college students were chatting and goofing around. On the table in front of them sat a book, On the spine, it read “Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon”. It struck a note in me and I looked it up on Google. In reading the Wikipedia article about it I noticed the mention of Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce. Some time ago someone had mentioned Finnegans Wake to me, as I have a small collection of “difficult books”.

I jumped up and said I’ll be right back. My partner and son looked at me surprised at my announcement. I exited the coffee shop and went across the street to the book store. I went to the information desk and asked the employee there if they had a copy of Finnegan’s Wake. She looked up at me and smiled, a slight twinkle of knowing in her eye. She typed something into the computer and then said, “we do have a copy I think” We then walked through the store chatting about difficult books like House of Leaves and Ship of Theseus. We found the one copy of Finnegan’s Wake and I bought it.

Exiting the book store I was ecstatic at finding the book I didn’t know I needed. Full of glee and giddiness I walked back across the street to the coffee shop. Showing my new book to my table mates with a huge smile on my face. They looked at me like I had lost my mind. I may have.

I was so proud of my purchase. Opening it like it was a finely wrapped Christmas present I was struck by its seemingly nonsensical array of verbiage. What is this I thought, it must make some sense? What if it doesn’t, is that OK? Am I missing something? None of that mattered, what mattered was that in buying the book something in me was triggered.

The train back home wasn’t due to leave for several hours. As we waited I read snippets of Joyce’s magnum opus, I thought and pondered and daydreamed. Finally, later in the day, we wandered to the train station. As it was a holiday weekend the train was rather full, the 3 of us were separated and we found seats.

As the train left the station I started thinking about the “difficult books” in my collection. Proud of my new addition to that subsection of my library. House of Leaves has captivated me for a while, its story woven directly into the catawampus typography that its story is presented in. Next to it on the shelf is “Ship of Theseus”, I have not read this tome yet. I intend to but just haven’t.

As I sat there I typed in “Ship of Theseus” into Google. Expecting to find the book, I was surprised to find something else. I found that the Wikipedia article for “Ship of Theseus” actually refers to a thought experiment that centers around the metaphysics of identity. What is this I thought, is this experiment based on the book or is it the other way around the book being based on the thought experiment?

Well, Plato and Heraclitus were certainly around before JJ Abrams, and 500 BC was a long time ago. So let’s attribute it to them.

If it is supposed that the famous ship sailed by the hero Theseus in a great battle was kept in a harbour as a museum piece, and as the years went by some of the wooden parts began to rot and were replaced by new ones; then, after a century or so, every part had been replaced. The question then is if the “restored” ship is still the same object as the original.

If it is then supposed that each of the removed pieces were stored in a warehouse, and after the century, technology developed to cure their rotting and enabled them to be put back together to make a ship, then the question is if this “reconstructed” ship is still the original ship. And if so, then the question also regards the restored ship in the harbour still being the original ship as well – Wikipedia

Reading this I dove straight down into the whirlpool of my own thought experiment. As I have gone through life I have changed considerably, replacing parts of myself with other parts over time. Leaving the old rotted parts of myself somewhere. What happened to the old me, what happened to the rotted parts of me? Am I still me or is it something other? Who am I now, what was I then? Is the old me the same as the new me or am I something else altogether?

So many questions, and no answers.

As I emerged from my suicidal morass, I was certainly not the same anymore. But what am I? What happened to the drug addict me? What happened to the alcoholic me? The me who wanted to end my own life? Did all of those pieces still exist in this thing I call me? Or was it something different?

One thing I learned in my “therapy” was to start asking more questions and forget trying to find answers. I took this and ran with it.

One precept that I hold onto is, that I am me and I am also you, just as you are you but you are also me. This is a crazy-making thought at first, but once I tried it on it fit well, like a fine suit tailored just for me. In a way it had really changed me, I try and treat others as I would treat myself and to act in a much more loving and kind way. Would I ever want you to take your own life? Never! How then could I take my own?

OK, I know a lot of this may not make any sense at all and I may have introduced so many things that it may be confusing. Let’s slow it down.

Let’s assume a few things:

I am me
I am you
You are you
You are me
Time isn’t linear and instead, everything is happening all at once.

Suspend your disbelief for a while, Its gonna get crazier.

Taking the Ship of Theseus and examining it, I looked deeply into what it may mean. What if as I changed over time, as I replaced the rotted boards on my deck, I became something else? What then am I? Am I still me? Am I not me? Who is me?

Where did the old rotted boards go, and after replacing all of the rotted boards and stored them away, am I still me? And after replacing all the parts am I still what I was? And if you were to take all the old rotted pieces and reassemble them would there be another me?

What if as we change over time we leave imprints of us that still exist now? What if all those versions of me still exist and all that I encounter is actually me? This certainly fits into the idea that I am me and I am also you, just as you are you but you are also me.

If we overlay that with the idea that time isn’t linear and instead it is happening all at once. What do we end up with?

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

-William Stafford

What if time has always been unfolded?

Fool on the Hill

“Does this seem strange? it is like when, watching the sun going down gloriously at sunset, disappearing slowly behind distant clouds, we suddenly remember that it’s not the sun that’s moving but the Earth that’s spinning, and we see with the unhinged eye of the mind our entire planet – and ourselves with it – rotating backward, away from the sun. We are seeing with “mad” eyes, like Paul McCartney’s Fool on the Hill: the crazed vision that sometimes sees further than our bleary, customary eyesight. “ The Order of Time – Carlo Rovelli

By the time we reach 50 years of age we have seen the sunrise and the sunset over 35,000 times. Our sometimes bleary, sometimes binary vision, sees the sun rising or setting on the horizon. From where we stand the sun seems to magically rise and fall each day. Deep inside of us, we know this is not true, but our perception of the world shows us a different picture.

As we go about our journey we perceive many things some true, some untrue, clouded by our bleary, sometimes binary vision. Once we start to be curious and look around the edges on our journey and realize that the sun isn’t setting but we are actually spinning away from it, on a massive orb hurtling through space. Our perception of the experience changes dramatically. Each time from that point on we can see it differently, a new experience unfolds and weaves its way into our experience.

There are many things both seen and unseen that are just like the rising and setting of the sun each day, things that we know deep inside of us to be different but our bleary perception causes us to see it in a skewed fashion. Start looking for these things and become deeply interested in their nature, curious, and inquisitive, asking what am I really seeing, what is really happening? Is all I have always thought and assumed really different than I believed it to be? Is all I have been told and believed to be true up for grabs?

On Not Hitting Your Head

Sometimes things happen around us that are great views into what goes on inside of us.

This last weekend I had a friend over, she was playing around on my pull-up bar that is in the doorway to the kitchen. It seemed as if she were struggling a bit, and then she said something like “this is hard I might hit my head”

My pull-up bar is at the top of the doorway between the hallway and the kitchen. Above it on the hallway side is a climbing board. If you were to stand facing into the kitchen and do a pull-up you would smack your head into the bottom edge of the climbing board. Which is exactly what she was doing.

I stopped and thought for a brief moment and said “let go, turn around and try it again” by standing facing away from the kitchen into the hallway, you won’t hit your head on the climbing board. Once she realized this, we both had a good laugh.

So what is this about?

She was so focused on not hitting her head, she couldn’t see anything else. All that she could see was that as she did a pull-up she would hit her head. She couldn’t see that there were choices, the choice to not hit her head. That taking a step back would give a different perspective, other choices.

I think that a lot of times we are so focused on not getting hurt, or trying to avoid pain, that this focus keeps us from seeing clearly, from seeing the bigger picture. Like maybe not hitting your head.

So maybe try letting go and standing somewhere else.

Just a thought…

“In the psychical sphere there are no facts, but only interpretations of them.”
― Otto Rank

The 4 Minute Mile

Up until May 6th, 1954 no one had ever run a mile in faster than 4 minutes.

The conditions people believed were needed to break that barrier were – no wind, a dry hard track, and a multitude of cheering fans.

On May 6th, 1954 Roger Bannister arrived at the track it was cold, the track was wet, the wind was blowing 15 miles per hour, and there were only a few thousand spectators to cheer him on. For all intents and purposes, not a good recipe for what he was attempting to do.

Up until that day experts, doctors and “authorities” claimed that the 4-minute mile was impossible if not deadly. The general belief was that running a 4-minute mile was not possible and potentially lethal.

Roger decided to run that day anyway. His time was 3 minutes 59.4 seconds

He had achieved what was believed to not be possible. He had done so in conditions that were not conducive to making it possible.

How? Because he believed it was possible.

Prior to that day, the 4-minute mile was just slightly out of reach by 1.4 seconds, which had been the case for 9 years. 46 days later on June 21, 1954 Bannister’s record was broken at 3 minutes 57.9 seconds.

The prevailing belief system that it was impossible and deadly had been shattered.

A few things to ponder.

What is your metaphorical 4-minute mile?

What beliefs do you have that are keeping you stuck where you are?

What conditions do you believe are required to become unstuck?

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.”
― Henry Ford

The Best Christmas Eve

For the first time in many years, I was alone on Christmas Eve. It was difficult and made me feel sad, aren’t we supposed to be with others on the holiday? I spent some of the time pondering aloneness. Why do we feel it, what is it and is it OK to feel alone?

In a way, we are all alone, and that just is. When you get down to the root of it we are alone, but yet we aren’t alone. I say this because when it comes down to it, we are only responsible to ourselves, we can change nothing but ourselves. But yet this wonderful thing we call “life” wouldn’t be what it is without others.

Being with these thoughts and feelings all day left me in an interesting place. I was chatting with a friend later in the day and told him of my aloneness. He invited me over. I respectfully declined as I didn’t want to drive that far and had sort of become one with my aloneness. There was more to examine.

There were several things that contributed to my aloneness. My 2 sons were with their mother, my girlfriend was with her son, some of my closest friends don’t live nearby. This all left me feeling alone and distraught.

Around 7 pm I decided to go for a walk. I went along my usual walking route. The streets were silent, homes were filled with people, yards with twinkling lights, I walked alone in the cold evening.

As I walked along 6th Ave I saw a woman in an alcove, she was alone and eating food from a paper plate. As I passed, I smiled at her, she looked up and had tears in her eyes. I kept on going, thinking now about how she was alone, how she sat there on the cold cement trying to stay out of the rain.

I continued walking for a mile or 2 and was starting to get chilled, so I turned around and walked back the other way. As I approached the section of the street where the woman was huddled in the storefront I wondered, does she have a place to stay? Why is she alone? What is her story?

As I passed her I stopped and knelt down and asked: “Are you OK?”. She shook her head and looked up at me. I moved across from her and sat down on the cold concrete. And she started to talk, she told me of her trials and tribulations, she told me about her family and her life on the street. She told me how she hadn’t seen her kids in 7 years, about her health problems, and her rocky relationship status.

For the next hour, I sat and listened, listening to her unwind her story, I could clearly see in a way how she and I were experiencing the same Christmas Eve. But yet here we were neither of us were alone now. She told me about her struggles with depression, drug use, and suicide. How was her situation different from where I had sat so many years ago?

She wasn’t different from what I was. We each had trials and tribulations, though she was still stuck in hers.

I could see myself in her.

After listening to her for an hour, it was getting late, I started to get up and excuse myself. I asked her what her name was she said “Mary”, She asked me mine and I introduced myself. I remember thinking what can I do to help her? What does she need?

As I stood there I said, ” Mary, remember the most important thing you can do is care for you.” She looked up and smiled, she really smiled.

Sometimes our aloneness is a gift. A gift to share with others.

Reality is a Rainbow of Gray

Black & White
Right & Wrong
You & Me
Mine & Yours
The light and the dark

These are all ways we view the world around us. They exist at the ends of a spectrum. Dualistic, extreme, polarized. What about all the things in-between? All the shades of gray that exist between black and white, between right and wrong, between you and me?

Each of these opposites cannot exist without the polarizing opposite. How can you see the light unless you know what the dark is? How can you be right unless you can also be wrong?

But what about the middle, where things are less exact, less defined, and more nebulous, hazy and vague? That’s where it gets difficult. We like to see things like this or that, black and white. It’s easier, less gray, less nebulous. We like things to be clear and exact.

What if we look at all the things in-between the polarized ends of the spectrum. Is this what Rilke is talking about here?

“Take your well-disciplined strengths, stretch them between the two great opposing poles, because inside human beings is where God learns.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

Is it that he asking that we take our strengths, certainty and polarized views and stretch them out, separate them from each other? In doing so we may be able to see the spaces in-between them, the gray areas, the faint shadows of God.

But what does this all mean?

What are our well-disciplined strengths? Are these what cause us to see right and wrong, black and white, good and bad? What happens when we stretch them between the “two great opposing poles”?

When we start to see reality differently, as a Rainbow of Gray, our polarized views start to fracture and fall apart.

Reality versus perception of Reality

“We create the world that we perceive, not because there is no reality outside our heads, but because we select and edit the reality we see to conform to our beliefs about what sort of world we live in. The man who believes that the resources of the world are infinite, for example, or that if something is good for you then the more of it the better, will not be able to see his errors, because he will not look for evidence of them. For a man to change the basic beliefs that determine his perception – his epistemological premises – he must first become aware that reality is not necessarily as he believes it to be. Sometimes the dissonance between reality and false beliefs reaches a point when it becomes impossible to avoid the awareness that the world no longer makes sense. Only then is it possible for the mind to consider radically different ideas and perceptions.”
― Gregory Bateson

For me, this quote sums up the suicidal state better than any other. When I was stuck in the suicidal state the world no longer made sense. That was why I was going to check out. There wasn’t anything else, there was no place else.

What is reality? According to the dictionary:

re·al·i·ty
/rēˈalədē/
noun

the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.
“he refuses to face reality”
the state or quality of having existence or substance.
“youth, when death has no reality”

What “actually” exists? What is the state of things?

What actually exists? This is up for interpretation. What if everything and yet nothing exists? Do the things that exist for me also exist for you? I would propose that no, they don’t. When I was suicidal the reality I existed in was unique to me. No one shared it, otherwise, they would most likely have been suicidal as well. It was a dark, terror-filled, anxiety-ridden, reality. This was the reality I had created, that I had manifested, that I lived in.

What is the state of things? The state of things is just that, the state of things. It is nebulous and yet clear. It’s nebulous because we can’t fully grasp it, it’s clear because we believe it to be so. Take for instance if I wear glasses, sometimes they get dirty through use, smudges and scratches distort my vision, my view of the world around me. Until I remove them and clean them up I cannot see what is actually in front of me accurately. My view of the world around me when my glasses are dirty is altered, when they are clean I can see more clearly. When we are in a suicidal state our glasses are dirty, soiled by our beliefs, our traumas and struggles. What happens when I have worn my glasses for so long and yet never gone to the doctor for a new prescription when I have never taken them off to clean them. I start to just believe that the state of things is as I see them.

My mind was full of false beliefs, That life was miserable, that I was a bad person, that no matter how hard I tried nothing worked out. Everything I did was a struggle. In this place, I was confirming my own beliefs, It was a horrible feedback loop, a carousel of madness, that I couldn’t step off of. The world no longer made sense.

Therapy for me was a disaster. I would sit in the therapist’s office, talk about my troubles and strife, and the therapist would confirm my beliefs. Not intentionally of course, what else did they have to work with. I needed a new prescription, I needed to step off the carousel. But the carousel was all that existed for me.

I needed help. Who could challenge me and help me see the mad carousel ride was all my own doing? How could I step away and see things differently? How could I clean my own glasses?

To be continued in the next post…

Does the music ever stop?

“Listen to the Music”, my therapist said this to me the first day we met. He said, “the music never stops, we just stop listening”. What was he talking about? What music? And hey I am listening!

A week ago today I was talking with a friend about “My Story” and what had happened to me. This particular friendship began just as I began my therapy, my journey out of the darkness. He has seen what I was and what I have become. As we sat there talking we started discussing what had happened to me and some of the life-changing tools and concepts I had employed. As we talked I could see something in him, that he understood and wanted to know more. Something had clicked. He asked if I had written any of this down and if I could share it. I had.

Let me backtrack a bit here. Last May I was asked to speak to several groups of mental health professionals in Ireland. I was asked to talk about my journey, how I had gone from there to here. I spent a few days writing a piece I call “My Story”.

Here it is November now and new groups have formed in Ireland to discuss suicide therapy

Unknown to me that day as I sat talking with my friend, thousands of miles away 2 strangers stood in a room and read “My Story” to a room full of strangers.
When I got home after visiting my friend I sat down and opened “My Story” and read through it, tears in my eyes, my heart pushing up into my throat. I haven’t looked at this piece of writing since I wrote it and spoke it in Ireland months ago.

I think, how can I be here now when I wasn’t fully just 18 months ago?
As I sat there copying the story and about to send it to him, I received a text message from another friend asking if I had time to talk. I said “of course”
He called me a moment later and told me…. that his 12-year-old son is suicidal.

This is the music. It is always there, it is the connectedness of all things, things we see as separate but aren’t. How we believe that we are alone when we are in community. How we believe no one can understand what we are going through when they can. How we believe that our struggle is unique when it is shared by all of us. My story is your story and your story is my story.

How 2 strangers stood in a room in Ireland and read “My Story”, while I talked about “My Story” at the same time 5000 miles away and someone else was struggling with his suicidal son and reached out to me for help at that moment. This is the music.

This is the music. Its always there, it weaves it notes and binds us all together with its melodies, it never stops. But we have become deaf to it with our busy lives, our desire for more, our constant busying that drowns out the music.

So no, the music never stops, we just stop listening to it. And back to this thought, how can I be here now when I wasn’t 18 months ago. Because I now listen to the music, I can see how we are all connected, how we are all the same. So the next time you think something is a coincidence, maybe pause for a moment and listen more deeply.

Andrea Gibson beautifully says this in poetry. Please, listen.