Posted on by Fred

Shoshana Writes

A friend conducted what he called Market Research for me.  He took the time to learn what people liked about my podcast, and he suggested I should emphasize those elements when I promote my show.  He’s probably right.  As it turns out, however, I’m no sort of promoter.  I’m not sure I could sell tickets to The Second Coming of Christ.  It’s just not in me to promote effectively.

He also suggested I would be more successful if I did more interviews, even if they were with people who are not celebrities.  That’s also just not in me.  I recognize, however, that I’m not the only good writer I know.  This week, I’m going to introduce you to my friend, Shoshana Edwards.  I’m not going to interview her because I really don’t do interviews well.  Barbara Walters, may she rest in peace, I’m not.  Interviewing people is an entirely different skill set.  I respect people who do it well.  I’m simply not one of them.

Instead of interviewing Shoshana, I’m going to share her writing with you.  Yes, she gave me permission.  I don’t plagiarize, although I steal quotations ruthlessly.

I’m going to share with you three pieces of her prose and one of her poems.  She has much more than you will hear on this show.  I narrated her book, “Deathly Waters,” which is one of her three novels about Harper’s Landing.  It’s a little hole in the wall town with a supernatural element to it.  I’ll put the Amazon link to her books in the Show Notes.  She also has a Patreon page where she shares some of her best work.  I’ll put a link to that in the Show Notes, too, and I encourage you to join that page to see more of her work.

One of the things Shoshana does several times a week is introduce to a friend of hers.  I’m going to use my favorite of her introductions to introduce you to her:

***

In thinking about who I wanted to recognize today, I came to the realization that ALL of you matter, every single one of you.  You make a difference in my life, every single day.  Whether I call you or you call me; or I read something you wrote. If I see a picture you post, or read of your loss, your pain, your frustration.

You are unique, and yet we are all alike.  What a strange and magical dissonance that is.  You are tall, I am short.  She is large, he is skinny.  They are Black, he is brown.  You run races; I can’t walk.  So different, so unique.  Yet…

We all hurt when something pokes or burns us, or we trip and fall.  We all love for various reasons, and we all feel anger.  Psychologists can list emotions, and each and every one of us can remember, if we are willing, a time when we felt those emotions. Philosophers can speak of great ambitions and impeccable logic, and all of us will understand if the words are carefully chosen and the meaning is presented clearly and simply.

We all get cold, hot, sweaty, sick, aroused, hungry; and we all satisfy those longings and needs in unique and different ways.  Yet we all wear clothing (at least some of the time), sleep, eat, make love (to others or ourselves).

We are stardust.  We are unique.  And we are the commonality that makes up the human race.  And YOU, you are rare and beautiful and wonderful and amazing and gifted and lovely and worthy of everything magical and marvelous that comes your way.  You inspire me.  You make me want to climb up out of my hole of despair, out of my bed of pain, away from the mire of depression, and write to you of stories, of people who have overcome, people who have loved.  Because that is who you are.

Thank you.  My life would be empty and without hope if it were not for YOU.  YOU make me strive to be better.  YOU inspire me.  You are my hope and longing and mentor and audience.  I love you.  All of you.

Who inspires you?  Have you told them today?  Have you introduced them to the world?

***

Next, Shoshana writes of an emotion we have all felt, some of us more frequently than others.  Instead of explaining it, I’ll let her tell you.

***

I want to talk to you about grief.  So many of us are going through losses of various kinds.  Grief isn’t just about losing someone you love.  It is also about losing your physical strength, your livelihood, a cherished friendship, or a beloved pet.  And we (meaning Americans because we seem peculiarly trained for this) are taught to “control” our grief.  Some of us have even been taught to hide it.  And that is literally killing us.

I have buried four children, six grandchildren, three great grandchildren, and two husbands.  I lost my breasts to cancer.  My liver is damaged because of HepC (now cured, thank goodness).  Because of a serious accident in college that broke my back among other things, I now suffer severe and debilitating arthritis.  And I wish I could tell you I handled all this loss with grace.  I didn’t.

No, I told myself to be strong.  I braved it through.  I cried and still do sometimes, but did it privately. And when tears appeared either in public or with a family member or friend, I apologized and pulled myself together.  The energy I could have spent on healing myself was instead squandered on pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

So now I am falling apart.  And I’m letting myself fall apart.  Because I have to.  I need help in putting myself back together again, in a stronger version of me.  All that grief has been festering, causing anxiety and depression and failure and need and a raft of other things that have kept me from being the best me possible.

So I’m falling apart. It’s rather like taking a lovely, old dress and carefully taking out all the seams.  Then you can look for tears that need repairing, holes that can be patched, and you put the dress back together again.  And it’s lovely and beloved and stronger than before.  That’s what I’m doing.  And you, my dear dear friends, are helping, whether you know it or not.

Thank you for loving me.  Thank you for being there even when it is difficult.  Picking out those old, failing stitches is hard work, and sometimes it seems impossible.  Repairing the holes is tedious, painstaking work, and sometimes you just want to throw the whole damn thing in the basket and forget about it.  You keep me going.  Thank you.  I love you all.

If you are holding in grief, let it out.  Howl at the moon.  Call a friend; Join a support group.  Paint, write, carve — create something from those feelings.  Let them happen.  It’s rather like an emotional abcess, messy as hell to be drained and cleaned, but necessary because the damn things spread.

And just as you have been there for me, I will be there for you.

I love you.

***

Shoshana possesses a skill I lack, and I envy her for it.  She is a poet.  Those who know the least about writing claim poetry is the easiest kind of writing.  6th graders love it because it is short.  Those of us who actually know something about it recognize that real poetry (as opposed to what most 6th graders write, or anything you’re likely to read in a Hallmark card) is the most difficult and demanding writing one can do.  It’s not just that every word matters, it’s that the sound of every word is vital.  You have a very short space to create the most powerful catharsis you can.  T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost can do it.  Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning can do it.  And Shoshana Edwards can do it, too. 

***

SOMEWHERE

Somewhere a baby is crying its first cry, pulling in its first breath,

Unfamiliar feelings torture its soul, until someone wraps it tight,

Swaddled in blankets, warm; and held next to a beating heart,

A familiar sound and all seems well.

Somewhere a grandmother breathes her last breath,

Eyes fixed upon the man she has loved for countless hours and days and years.

Surrounded by children and grandchildren, hands comforting her

As she breathes goodbye to love and wonder and pain.

Somewhere a couple, joined together in love and trust

Has their first orgasm together, first one, crying out in joy and anguish and pleasure

As the other thrusts again and again, joining in that overwhelming burst

Of organic bliss and pain and taste of heaven.

Somewhere, everywhere

Life begins and ends and ebbs and swells

And all that ever was and ever will be

Is wrapped up in one eternal, glorious gift.

Awake, my people.  Lift your eyes to the heavens.

The sun has risen, the moon is full, the sky lightens, the stars shine bright.

This magic ball on which we walk and crawl and run and love and kill

Demands that we be grateful, else we lose it all.

Somewhere, new life begins.

A new earth is born, even as another dies.

We are not forever; we are only here for a while.

Be still, my children, and hear the pulse of creation.

We are the universe, born in a burst of stars

Whirling out into space, gathering planets as they fly

And when the circling starts, the gyre and gimble controlled,

The seas and land make known their presence.

And out of the sea comes life.

Somewhere.

Everywhere different.

Is there love wherever life begins?

Is this thing called love a human construct

Or an eternal truth found wherever life begins?

What joy that we have minds that ask such questions,

Contemplate such wonder.

Somewhere…

***

This is Fred’s Front Porch Podcast, where I like to leave you with hope, which, as someone tells me, is the thing with feathers.  This time, I’ll leave you with Joy, by Shoshana Edwards.

***

JOY

He told me to write about joy.  What is joy?  Is it dancing in the wet grass early in the morning, just before the sun comes up?  Is it the first crocus?  The jonquil between the cracks on the sidewalk?  Or perhaps the moon after weeks of clouds and rain and snow.

But those things, joyous as they are, do not reside in the depths of my soul.  They are happy memories to be pulled out on rainy days and displayed for the mind’s entertainment when nothing seems alive outside.  Everything is sleeping, waiting for spring to creep in and tickle them into bloom.

I do not go to my soul.  I let it lie, hidden under mental quilts, protected, and comforted and bundled against discovery.  My soul is a library of memories; stacks to wander when I am brave, confronting the rage leaping out of the journals and diaries and secret puzzle boxes stored away on dusty shelves.

Joy stays outside, leaning against the door jamb, beckoning me away from the dark corridors of pain, urging me back into the sunlight and promise of a better day.  But my venture into the soul repository brings back with it a small piece of bitter sorrow, a remembrance of a childhood party destroyed, an achievement belittled, and friendship that never existed.  And I spend my time tucking it back into a new volume, time when I could be romping with joy in a room full of chocolates and tea and friends.

Does joy allow for tears?  What are tears of joy to me, when tears are the only possible release from memories of a life shackled by mental illness and pain?  What is happiness to a mind rejected because of its monstrous difference from normal?  Where does joy fit in a life full of rejection and doubt and disability?

He told me to write about joy.  I weep for the child who knew no joy, for the mother who lost her children before joy could make them walk and talk and laugh and smile, for the wife who endured humiliation and pain, for the woman who offered friendship and received rejection.

I cannot write of joy.  Except I can when I look at a newborn kitten or a bursting bud filled with rosy promise of scent and color.  I can when the night is clear and the moon seems close enough to touch; when the rain patters on the patio roof outside my window; when the music is so painfully beautiful that you can swim on the rising swell of the violins, slide down the soft English horn descant, and dance to the trumpet staccato.  There is no joy within me, but I find joy outside and invite it into the parlor for tea cakes and conversation.  It leaves, but for those few moments, there is joy.

Order Shoshana’s books here:

https://www.amazon.com/Deathly-Waters-Harpers-Landing-America/dp/1952825202/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZR7T2P6NG94G&keywords=deathly+waters&qid=1674862811&sprefix=%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-1

Find her on Patreon here:

https://www.patreon.com/ShoshanaEdwards/posts

Posted on by Fred

A Dish Best Served Cold

In Star Trek II, Khan tells us that “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”  The line is certainly not original to him.  A Google search and Wikipedia suggest it goes back at least as far as a French diplomat named  Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) .  It’s hardly surprising to learn that the desire for revenge is deeply embedded in human beings.  If someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back.  Every civilization of which I’m aware has some form of punitive laws that decide what pain we will cause someone else who has inflicted pain on us.  When you feel the desire to exact vengeance, you’re hardly unique.  It makes you believe you feel better.  Perhaps it even really does.  I question the value of that feeling.  I would prefer you feel better showing love than hurting someone you believe deserves it. 

There are two examples of the need for revenge with which most of the world is at least somewhat familiar.  The first is Hamlet, one of the most famous fictional characters in all of literature.  The second is Indigo Montoya, who is beloved by the millions who are passionate about “The Princess Bride.”  Both are excellent examples of the fact that revenge doesn’t work out well. 

Khan tells us it’s a dish best served cold.  What does he mean by that?  Since it’s a part of a piece of Art, your opinion is certainly as valid as mine.  To me, it means that it’s been sitting around a while.  The heat has dissipated.  With the exception of sushi (which, for me, is a punishment all its own anyway) and ice cream (which is a sweet treat that seems hardly appropriate), nearly everything humans eat is preferable when it’s fresh out of the oven or off of the stove… or, if you’re me, from the microwave.  Waiting for it to get cold is to spoil it.  It has lost most of its flavor.  This is, according to Khan and the many who came before him, the best way to get revenge.  You don’t do it immediately.  You wait until the time is right because it will maximize the pain of its intended victim, even if it takes a long time to see it happen.  And the longer you wait, the longer the hate, if left unchecked, grows in your soul. Hamlet certainly took his time to get revenge.  Although it’s never clear in the text exactly how long, certainly several months have passed between the time of the death of Hamlet’s father, and Hamlet’s killing of the homicidal King.  And, while he certainly got his revenge, he was ready to end his own life before he got there because life had gotten so horrible. 

These are arguably the most famous words in all of literature: “To be or not to be…”  This is because Hamlet is confronting a question that so many of us have to answer at some point in our lives.  Do we want to continue living?

I was a teacher for 29 years.  There are those who resent that I have chosen to stop being one now.  I will step in front of a classroom one last time to discuss Hamlet’s soliloquy.  I’ll recite it for you first.  I promise to explain afterward.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d!

To be is simply to exist.  The first line asks whether he should or not. 

“Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?”

He’s asking if it’s better, more courageous, more moral to tolerate all of the injuries (the slings and arrows) that life, in its ridiculous and unpredictable ways, sends at you, or to fight back, and make life stop hurting you.  There is a long tradition, particularly in males, to find great honor in fighting.  Perhaps I’m not much of a male because I find nothing of value in violence.  I was recently referred to as a “little pussy boy.”  I’m perfectly content with that.  I don’t believe in hurting people.  But, we’ll come back to that later.  For the moment, Hamlet has to decide what is the more honorable and courageous thing to do. 

In this case, Hamlet seems to believe that the way to fight back against life is to end it.

To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.

There’s nothing to be feared from death.  It’s simply going to sleep, something most of us do for at least a few hours out of each 24.  And if we’re dead, we don’t have to deal with all of the pain into which we are eternally embedded.  To live, for Hamlet, is to suffer, and to stop suffering is something he wants desperately. 

He should be ready to die by now, but he thinks just a little further. 

To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:

His religion teaches of an afterlife, and the certainty that suicide is a one-way ticket to the worst possible part of it.  When we sleep, while we’re alive, we dream.  Sometimes the dreams are wonderful.  Some of the dreams I’ve had concerning Valerie Bertinelli have been fantastic.  Sometimes the dreams are horrible.  I’ve seen my father murdered by thugs in my dreams, too.  I feel certain you’ve had similar experiences.  We wake up from our dreams, though.  We return to life, which, again, for Hamlet, is mostly pain.  There is little doubt that life is, at least from time to time, painful for all of us.  And we are leashed to it by the coil of mortality.  We can’t escape it while we’re alive.  Shuffling off that pain is a tempting offer.  What is there to stop us?

… there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

Now he names some of the torments of existence.  Time ages us with whips that toughen our skin and scorns that crack our hearts.  People hold us back, they insult us, love goes awry, justice takes far too long to come if it comes at all.  Those in power are indifferent to the needs of those over whom they hold sway.  Who wants to live in such conditions?  They aren’t much different today than they were 400 years ago.  And all he needs is a bodkin (that’s a dagger) to end it all.  Everything is quiet after we expire. 

who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Why should we carry the weight of the bundles, both emotional and physical, that life asks us to bear until long after we’re exhausted?  The reason we put up with it is because we’re afraid of what death might be.  It’s a place about which we know nothing, except by faith.  No one ever returns from it.  (Okay… we’ve all heard about those who saw the white light and came back, and I’ve heard of that dude, Jesus, who evidently made it three whole days before he came back, but that’s not Hamlet, and it’s not most of us.)  So we put up with what we hate to avoid having to tolerate something even worse in the afterlife. 

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Conscience.  In this case, I don’t think that word means what you think it means.  It’s not a moral guide, but the idea of the fear that your conscience uses to stop you from doing what you know is wrong.  So, the vibrant colors of all of our plans fade to grey as we think about them more deeply.  Our resolve fails us, and our wishes never become our actions. 

The end of the soliloquy appears to be irrelevant to the rest.  It’s simply a greeting to his girlfriend, Ophelia.  But what does he say, exactly?

Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia!  Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d!

He’s asking her to pray for the redemption of his many sins.  He’s still worried about the afterlife.  And in the next scene he is going to hurt her as badly as he can, at least at that moment, by telling her she should go join a whorehouse.    Later, he will even kill her father, and her brother will die in his effort to get revenge against Hamlet.  He will drive Ophelia to suicide.

Why does Hamlet seem to hate the world so much?  It may have something to do with the fact that Hamlet’s Uncle murdered Hamlet’s Father and married Hamlet’s Mother, thereby robbing Hamlet of the crown that should have been his.  (If you were a 6th grader, I would probably mention that “The Lion King” is Disney’s version of Hamlet.)  He has a strong motive to want revenge.  He’s probably having a worse week than you are.  But, what are the consequences of the all consuming hatred that makes him want to kill Claudius? 

Bertrand Russell had some thoughts on this when he was asked what he would say to historians from a thousand years in our future.

I should say love is wise, hatred is foolish.  In this world, which is getting more and more interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way.  And if we are to live together and not die together, we should learn the kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.

Bertrand Russell: Love is Wise, Hatred is Foolish

Once we let hatred infect us, it grows deeper, stronger, and more irresistible every day.  I saw a sign once at a rehab center: “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping the other guy will die.”  This is what happened to Indigo Montoya.

Like Hamlet, Indigo was infected by hatred because a man murdered his father.  He spent a lifetime becoming the best swordsman in the land so that when he met the murderer Indigo could be sure to kill him.  “Hello.  My name is Indigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.”  He fought Count Rugen, and he killed him.  “I want my father back, you son of a bitch.”

Unlike Hamlet, though, Indigo’s hatred was his motivation to better himself.  Hamlet’s hatred made him suicidal.  They both got revenge.  Neither of them was better off.  Hamlet lost his life almost immediately afterward.  Indigo lost his motivation.  He had no idea what to do with his life. 

We all have cause to feel hatred from time to time.  What can we do? 

I’ll tell you what I did.  You can decide what you will do. 

A good friend felt hurt by me.  I certainly didn’t intend to hurt him, but he declined to believe that, and he took revenge.  He hurt me quite nearly as badly as he could.  He may continue to find more ways to hurt me.  I don’t know.  As a member of the human race, I felt the same impulse most of us do.  I considered ways to hurt him back.  I have the means to do that.  I have the motive.  I have the opportunity.  Those are the elements they always try to find in cop shows when they’re searching for the criminal.  And then I asked what good it would do. 

I don’t want to feel better by making someone else feel worse.  In my experience, I have never felt better because I hurt someone.  I have regretted it each time I have done it.  I’ve done it far more times than I wish I had.  It’s rarely been what I wanted, but it happened nevertheless, and I have to own that.  I’ve had 59 years, though, to understand myself.  I’ve had time to learn.  It was, I believe, Maya Angelou who said, “When we know better, we do better.”  I know myself better.  I know there’s nothing to be gained by drinking poison and hoping the other guy will die.  And hatred is among the most deadly poisons.  So, what did I do with those feelings?

The Great Sara Niemietz did several Christmas shows this week.  I saw as many as I could.  They made me smile, and I forgot my pain for a little while.  I filled up on holiday cheer.  And I listened to one of her original songs again, and I remembered:

Cracks and broken pieces
Inside us
Where the light comes in
Brightest
Breathe, bleed, see again

The pain opened a new space for Joy.

I talked to some friends who love me so I could let the feelings out.  And then, I got a dog.  He has far too much energy, but I got him something called “Calming Treats” that evidently are laced with hemp, and right now he’s sleeping quietly on the couch.  He needs me.  I’m the person who feeds him, gets him his water, his shots, and all the Love I can find.  And though we’ve been together only 22 hours, he’s already giving me more love than I’ve had in more than 2 years.  Yes, he can be a massive pain the ass.  So can my best friend, who drove me to the Shelter and PetSmart.  I can no more expect perfection from those I love than they can expect it from me.  The love I get far outweighs the times they annoy me.  Since I can’t tolerate the presence of other human beings, I will never live with anyone other than Speedy Shine again.  (Unless my landlord decides to move in… but I suspect he’ll mostly leave me alone, and I’m positive we won’t be cuddling at night, you know?)  As The Police tell us, “When the world is running down, you make the best of what’s still around.” 

Instead of giving in to the hatred, I found a way to turn up the volume of the love in my life.  I posted several pictures of Speedy Shine and me on Facebook.  You know what happened?  Hundreds of friends celebrated our union.  One friend is sending me toys for little Speedy Shine.  Another friend sent me a hundred dollars.  My Secret Favorite Person called Speedy Shine adorable, and that, alone, made me glow. 

I can’t control what others do, but I can, and I must, control myself and my reactions.  Instead of focusing on the hate, I redirected my focus to the extraordinary amounts of love I have received in my life.  I posted this:

I am learning that I lead an incredibly blessed life.  People who owe me absolutely nothing in any possible way keep helping me and making my life better day after day.  This has been happening, on and off, for a few years now. Is it karma?  Is it just that I’m nice to people when I can be?  Is it that the world is filled with beautiful people who do all they can to fill the Earth with Love?

I really don’t know.  But I know it happens.

I was having a bad week, for reasons that don’t need to be discussed in public.  My best friend, Stephanie, and her ex-boyfriend, Tim, helped me to bring a new dog into my life.  It took me more than 2 years to be ready for one after the death of my previous dog, Melanie.  Stephanie got her for me, too, so it was important to me that we would make this memory together.

Getting Speedy Shine everything he needed today took most of the rest of my money.  Then, a good friend, for no reason at all, sent me a message just now to check my Venmo.  I have the resources to make it a little longer.  It’s like the Universe has decided that, no matter what is going on, I’m going to be all right.

I continue to believe that Love is the most powerful force in the Universe.  I keep seeing its power over and over.

Thank you for being a part of my life.  I am beyond lucky to be the recipient of so much Love.

None of this repairs the damage that my friend did to me, but I will find ways to do that, myself.  What it did was serve as a treatment for the hatred that tried to seep in.  Hamlet taught us 400 years ago that nothing good can come from hatred. 

It wouldn’t have helped me to hurt someone who hurt me.  It would simply have hurt him, and I decline to derive pleasure from someone else’s pain.  For me, living a happy life, without hurting the one who hurt you, is the best revenge.  The longer I live, the colder the dish gets.

I don’t know what you do to turn up the Love and Joy in your life.  It might be spending more time with your kids.  It might be finding the courage to spread your own Love as far as you can before the Hate can pull it away.  Do you want to fight a battle?  Fight to rescue the Love in your heart.  Remember the words of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

When the skies are darkest, we can Shine most brightly.  Let’s all try to spark the Light of Love to Shine through the Darkness of Hate.

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

“It’s a Mental Health Problem.”

I’m mentally ill. 

Let that sink in for a moment.  Pay attention to your reaction to that sentence.  Did it scare you a little?  Did you flash on images of Norman Bates or perhaps a school shooter?  Did you find yourself wondering if you should be listening to this show?  Do you regret that we’re friends?  (Most of the 50 or so people who listen are friends of mine.  If we’ve never met, thank you for listening!  I hope you don’t stop because of what I’ve just told you.)

I’m copying and pasting something a Facebook Friend of mine had on her page:

Geisinger just canceled my Psych appointment in July and made it for August.  THIS IS EXACTLY WHATS WRONG WITH MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT!! you wonder why people go ballistic and shoot people?  THIS.  THIS.  THIS.  I’m in a happy mood and I’m not gonna shoot anyone ever, but Geisinger taking on new patients while neglecting the ones that have been with them for THIRTY YEARS is BULLSHIT!!!

Obtaining mental health care is not easy.  And much of it is simply a set of cliches intended to help us deal with a world that is, itself, somewhat diseased.  We are supposed to spend our lives working, most of the time for someone else, (it’s roughly 2/3 of us, but it depends on whose statistics you’re reading) and being mostly miserable.  We’ve been taught we need to “earn a living” and those who don’t are bad people who deserve nothing from us.  We are expected to live a life within certain carefully prescribed boundaries, and to the extent we don’t we are “bad,” and undeserving. This, by itself, sets up the beginning of mental illness for many people.  Being happy is, we are told, to be bad.  If we make choices of which others don’t approve, we are, as I was told rather frequently last year, “scum of the Earth.”  If we hear often enough that we are bad, we are likely to begin to believe it.  Once we believe we are bad, we are likely to behave accordingly. 

Much of mental health care is an effort to get us to adapt to a world that we never asked to join.  H.G. Wells wrote about this in “The Valley of The Blind.”

 “I can see,” he said.

“See?” said Correa.

“Yes; see,” said Nunez, turning towards him, and stumbled against Pedro’s pail.

“His senses are still imperfect,” said the third blind man.  “He stumbles, and talks unmeaning words. Lead him by the hand.”

“As you will,” said Nunez, and was led along laughing.

It seemed they knew nothing of sight.

Well, all in good time he would teach them…

He tried at first on several occasions to tell them of sight.  “Look you here, you people,” he said.  “There are things you do not understand in me.”

Once or twice one or two of them attended to him; they sat with faces downcast and ears turned intelligently towards him, and he did his best to tell them what it was to see.  Among his hearers was a girl, with eyelids less red and sunken than the others, so that one could almost fancy she was hiding eyes, whom especially he hoped to persuade.  He spoke of the beauties of sight, of watching the mountains, of the sky and the sunrise, and they heard him with amused incredulity that presently became condemnatory.  They told him there were indeed no mountains at all, but that the end of the rocks where the llamas grazed was indeed the end of the world; thence sprang a cavernous roof of the universe, from which the dew and the avalanches fell; and when he maintained stoutly the world had neither end nor roof such as they supposed, they said his thoughts were wicked.  So far as he could describe sky and clouds and stars to them it seemed to them a hideous void, a terrible blankness in the place of the smooth roof to things in which they believed–it was an article of faith with them that the cavern roof was exquisitely smooth to the touch.  He saw that in some manner he shocked them, and gave up that aspect of the matter altogether, and tried to show them the practical value of sight. 

He is, of course, unsuccessful.  He is, to The Valley of The Blind, mentally ill.  They truly want to help him, but he is unwilling to give up his sight, his vision of a better, more beautiful world.  He leaves to attempt to live on his own.

He tried also to find food among the pine trees, to be comfortable under pine boughs while the frost fell at night, and– with less confidence–to catch a llama by artifice in order to try to kill it–perhaps by hammering it with a stone–and so finally, perhaps, to eat some of it. But the llamas had a doubt of him and regarded him with distrustful brown eyes and spat when he drew near.  Fear came on him the second day and fits of shivering.  Finally he crawled down to the wall of the Country of the Blind and tried to make his terms.  He crawled along by the stream, shouting, until two blind men came out to the gate and talked to him.

“I was mad,” he said.  “But I was only newly made.”

They said that was better.

He told them he was wiser now, and repented of all he had done.

Then he wept without intention, for he was very weak and ill now, and they took that as a favourable sign.

They asked him if he still thought he could see.”

“No,” he said.  “That was folly.  The word means nothing.  Less than nothing!”

Click to access Wells.pdf

And so it is that we ensure the mental health of those who dream of a better and more beautiful world.  We force them to accept our vision of reality if they want our help.  You may be like the rest of us, or you may shiver unprotected in the cold and starve.

What if we tried something different?  What if we tried to reshape our world into one where sight, or the idea that life doesn’t have to be the endless misery of hard, unfulfilling work, is acceptable?  What if we said, “We can automate most of our labor now.  We have the resources to feed and house and care for everyone on the planet without the need for them to waste the few minutes they get to be alive in exhausting and pointless pursuits.”? 

What if we allowed people to be different from most of us?  What if we decided that a person’s value has less to do with how much money they have and more to do with what they can do for others?  What if being a parent was the most important job anyone could have? 

If we’re going to say, “It’s a Mental Health Problem,” perhaps we could start by trying to improve the mental health of the world.  Perhaps we could accept differences instead of deciding those who aren’t like the majority are bad, or sick, or undeserving, but are, instead, part of the beautiful diversity of the world? 

If it’s a Mental Health Problem, perhaps we could make Mental Healthcare more accessible.  Perhaps we could remove the stigma from the statement, “I’m mentally ill.”  Maybe we could recognize there is more than one view of the universe that is valid.  We could understand that the world, the culture, and our society continue to grow, to evolve, and to become something new all the time, and we could welcome anything that allows someone to find the lives they want. 

What do we do?  I have three recommendations:

  1.  Redefine Mental Health to mean that which allows a person the greatest freedom to be who they want to be without hurting anyone else.
  2. Ensure that everyone who needs mental health care can get it free of charge and free from stigma.
  3. Recognize the future is about recognizing the beauty of diversity, and stop longing for an imaginary past in which we (whomever we are) were in control and everyone was “normal” (whatever normal means to you.)

Heraclitus told us “Change is the only constant in life.”  Let’s accept that and embrace it, and try to make sure the changes add to our freedom to be who we want to be in the little time we have to experience the untold wonders of the Universe. 

Let’s lead with Love.  Let’s recognize there is no Them; we are all Us.  Those who are different are also part of Us.  And they make Us all the more beautiful. 

I’m mentally ill.  I’m doing my best to survive in a world that is, itself, somewhat mentally ill.  I’ll try to heal both myself and the world.  I hope you’ll join me in that effort.