Living like a Dare Devil

If we care to live our lives to the fullest, we have to take chances. Taking risks means failing at some point- a fact that doesn’t faze us in early life. A baby naturally takes risks and accepts his failures. He falls down many times before he learns to balance and walk upright.

As we mature and become self-conscious, we learn mistakes have a negative connotation. We have to work hard to re-learn the baby’s attitude: Mistakes are part of learning. We live a richer, more satisfying life when at certain times, we take a reasonable risk, like applying for a new, more demanding job.

We often assume risk-taking is easy for everyone else. I think of Felix Baumgartner,

an Austrian‘daredevil’ who experienced panic when he contemplated his goal. I find the paradox amusing: a daredevil with panic. But he didn’t cave in; he found a coach to help him with his anxiety. 

On October 14, Mr. Baumgartner risked his life while  jumping from a space capsule in a pressurized suit from a height of twenty-four miles, falling at 834 mph to break the sound barrier.

Few of us plan to take risks of this magnitude. But thinking of a panicked daredevil shrinks fear and normal daily risk-taking to manageable proportions.

Conclusion: A satisfying life involves experiences in which we extend ourselves beyond our comfort zone.

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Talking to Ourselves (to Voxalate or Not?)

Many jokes abound about talking to ourselves.  The tendency has been associated with mental aberrations and indulging in the habit may cause fear that we’re loosing touch with reality.

“As long as you don’t get an answer,” is a favorite retort. But when we don’t want to bother other people with our jabber, why not talk to ourselves? In fact, there may be some benefit to the practice: researchers have actually found that hearing our thoughts can help us locate a missing object.

  

The behavior could also indicate a kind of awareness, rather than an obliviousness of our own actions. Dividing ourselves into an experiencer and an observer may give us a more accurate picture of ourselves, thereby achieving a goal of psychotherapy: to teach a patient to become his own therapist by observing his thoughts and actions.

I propose to invent a new verb - voxalate- to mean the positive, reassuring and helpful phenomenon of talking to oneself out loud.

  

Conclusion:  Talking to oneself can boost the memory and help us become more self-aware. 

Dear Reader, Please add your opinions and experiences. Jsimon145@gmail.com

Taking Inventory

“Classical music elevates everything.” I hear these words booming over the radio station WQXR at 7am. How true about classical music for me and many others, some who fund the listener’s sponsored station. Joyous sounds of Bach's compositions raise the question in my mind:  If Bach could write these magnificent concerti, how can I wallow in misery?

 Other beautiful things and relationships nurture me too. Taking stock of positive attachments is a key to happiness: family, friends, patients, dog, reading,writing.

Dear Reader, This week, I offer these few words. Please share your thoughts. What lifts your spirits?  jsimon145@gmail.com

Some Thoughts on Insatiability

Insatiability, an appetite that can not be satisfied, can plague an individual or an entire nation. Accepting real and basic needs can seem like a hardship. In my mind I think I could do without the vast variety of products in the supermarket. But when I can’t find the precise cereal or tea because it’s out of stock, my childish nature rants and rales. Well where is it? When will you have it again?

But preference is not the same as an insatiable compulsion. I like to think I could learn to accept fewer choices if I had to (although the propensity to fool ourselves is part of human nature). But an insatiable person suffers. The hoarder, for example, is burdened by too much stuff  that takes up space, limits freedom to move, and threatens personal relationships.

Compared to the insatiability of greed, the principles of Stoicism set a stage more conducive to happiness. Stoicism, a systematic philosophy, dating from around 300 B.C., states that to live the good life, we must live in accord with our human nature, as rational, reflective, and thoughtful beings, and conform our actions to the conditions of the natural world. The stoic Epictetus said,“There is only one place the world can’t touch: our inner selves, our choice at every moment to be brave, to be reasonable, to be good…. Where is the good? In the will…If anyone is unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone.”

We envy wealth because we associate it with happiness. But this could be an illusion. Psychology recognizes underlying factors that lead an “average” person to become insatiable. He’s disconnected from his “real” or “true” self, the spontaneous, problem- solving, creative aspect of psyche described by psychiatrists Donald Winnicott and Karen Horney in the twentieth century.  The false, insatiable self isn’t grounded in reality because a person has received less than “good enough” parenting.

Charles Dickens, the author of the classic story The Christmas Carol, was not only a genius writer but also a natural psychologist. He intuited the dynamics underlying greed before the time of Winnicott and Horney. The character Scrooge learns the origin of his greed when he is visited in a nightmare by the Ghost of Christmas Past, who reveals that Scrooge was abandoned as a child on Christmas by his father. So began his lack of socialization and empathy. Scrooge’s insatiable hunger stems from the absence of caring family bonds.

Most politicians have been raised with the sense that they are “special” and privileged. They need to have an inflated sense of themselves and their purpose to hold a demanding and powerful position. Ideally they serve the people of their nation. World history reveals that too often, however, they serve their own drives for power and wealth.

In his October 4 New York Times editorial titled, “Why Let the Rich Hoard all the Toys? Nicolas D. Kristof writes that economic problems stem from the fact that most of the nation’s wealth is held in the hands of very few. He quotes Joseph Stiglitz the Nobel laureate who says that economic inequality is leading to  “an economic system that is less stable, less efficient, with less growth.”

Conclusion: We look unfavorably upon those who acquire their wealth illegally, rip off, harm or exploit others in a ruthless manner, hoard or condescend to those less fortunate. But wealth itself isn’t abhorrent. Rather, it’s the ungracious, greedy attitude of some wealthy people that we find distastful.

Dear Readers, Please add your comments. Jsimon145@gmail.com

Ubiquitous Addictions

An recent obituary in the New York Times reports the death, at age 83, of Dr. Griffith Edwards, an addiction specialist who “helped establish addiction medicine as a science.” In the 1960’s, habitual drunkenness was considered “a moral failing” and the only treatment was drying out.  He was the first to describe the discrete and measurable components of alcoholism craving, heightened tolerance, loss of control and physical withdrawal symptoms. In addition, he found that more intensive therapy and engaging patients in a collaborative relationship were most effective in achieving sobriety.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about addictions and, with surprise, discover their prevalence. Considered an aberration, addiction plays itself out in many lives, crossing social, economic and educational barriers. The tendency to turn to a substance or behavior to distract ourselves is very common. Often we sidestep, avoid and deny the problem to ourselves and others. Addiction is a kind of defense mechanism to guard against perceived threats from the environment and from our own thoughts, feelings and impulses.

Sometimes defenses get out of hand; instead of protecting us, they become the nexus of the problem--akin to the kind of thinking that if a little (ice cream, chocolate) is good, a lot must be better. 

The crux of the matter is that our mind consists of polarities.  One aspect opposes another. Psychological and spiritual pioneers write about this concept in what seems like infinite variations on the theme: for example, Freud had a theory of Libido (life force) and Thanatos (death impulse); Jung of animus (masculine) and anima (feminine). We find the polarities of good and bad in religion, fairy tales, cowboy stories, and politics.

Because our minds tend to think in dualities, each one of us is capable of addictive behavior at any time for any reason. Aberration is commonplace. To deal with denial and avoidance, we confront and become aware. The goal, of course, is to face a threat with courage, trying to understand and resolve it. For us fallible humans, this expectation is enormous, requiring time, honesty, courage, effort and discipline.

Let us recognize and embrace the duality of the human mind with an inherent propensity for addiction, not to condone, but to address and, when appropriate say, “There but for the Grace of God, go I.”  (John Bradford, an Englishman, uttered these words in 1553, witnessing a prisoner about to be executed at the Tower of London; a short while later, Bradford was burned at the stake for his Protestant beliefs. Learning about Bradford informs me that we as a species have made some progress in the realm of tolerance too.)

Conclusion: In spite of the horrors in today’s world, an understanding and acceptance of human nature is increasing. Witness Dr. Edwards’ elucidation of alcohol addiction in the 1960’s and the recognition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a bonefide entity in 1980.

Dear Reader, As always, your comments are appreciated. jsimon145@gmail.com.