Hopeful Thinking

Many of us, when struggling with finding a way to feel a bit more resilient and helpful to this conflicting world rather than be overwhelmed by it, we think about adopting a set of guidelines for ourselves. We might take up yoga, or tai chi, and learn some of the principles for optimal living that they offer. Maybe get some exercise and have our “church” at the gym. There’s an awful lot to be gained from it. Almost any intentional discipline will have wisdom within it meant to teach us how to be at greater ease and strength. It has a ripple effect on our lives. Choosing a life practice is somewhat like choosing an algorithm. An algorithm is a set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations. Usually on computers, but metaphorically, in the adoption of a life practice for ourselves, we are literally selecting an algorithm for our daily living.  Setting aside the conflict and corruption which damages our trust in religious institutions, as well as their...

Do humans demonstrate more hope than despair? It’s a worthwhile question. One for which I believe I have a concrete answer. Hopefully. I believe the answer is yes. And I believe the simplest evidence for that is the fact that we just keep getting up every day. When things are truly hopeless, meaning objectively and literally without hope, they generally begin to shut down on their own. This fractal of reality occurs in the natural extinction of a species, in a game of chess, the demise of a giant corporation, even by molecules in the melting of ice.  However, every day billions of us keep getting up. Even those in the midst of struggle and despondency. Even those who can’t imagine good coming. We keep trying. We keep aspiring to things. Why is this so? Where does it come from, this inner directive to not give up, even while feeling as though humanity has sometimes given the appearance of utterly abandoning all hope?  My sense is that if it were really true, if humanity had rea...

“Comparison is the thief of joy," Teddy Roosevelt once said. Mark Twain felt even more strongly about it, exchanging the word death for thief.  Before ever hearing of these quotes, I learned the general idea of this thought from my husband, quoting a family member who often said, “Don’t compare your insides with other people's outsides.” This one I felt to be far more user-friendly than those by Roosevelt or Twain. Sometimes poetry isn’t the most efficient educational tool. When comparing ourselves to others, we often do it with a mind to motivate ourselves to be better. People in a position of mentorship, like parents or teachers, often slip into the mistake of comparing us to others in order to get us to work harder. The system of education itself, with its standardized tests and tradition of grading, is one giant paradigm of comparison from which most all of us feel the pressures of having fallen short. Religion, too, often asks us to compare ourselves to the masters while ...

Am I a snowflake? I think I’m a snowflake. I know the term is meant to be pejorative, but I find I have a hard time taking offense at it. Of course, I’m bothered by the fact that someone would use it in my direction for the purpose of making me feel ashamed or foolish. I feel neither of those, but I am hurt by the intent to be hurtful. I do wish to clarify that those who might call me a snowflake are forgiven for it long before they do so. And maybe that makes me one even more. So be it.   Snowflake is a term that is used to describe someone, typically liberal in their political leanings, who easily takes offense. Its intention is to bully someone down whom they feel are being too sensitive, particularly with regard to social progress, environmental concerns, and the oft-accompanying hostility of politics. In other words, fragile. The term even includes a gleeful swipe of schadenfreude at a snowflake’s fleeting existence.  It’s a social coping skill, really. A tool used b...

Many years ago I was sick. Very sick. In fact, I nearly died. I lost the ability to walk or to speak. I was in the hospital for weeks. The whole time I just knew I would recover, though the doctors seemed to think otherwise for a while. I overheard them talking about it. I remember experiencing an inner belligerence that they weren’t going to tell me what to do. I felt, rightly or otherwise, that if I wanted to live, it wasn’t up to them, it was up to me. Once I had recovered, it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d experienced something approaching a near-death experience. Mainly because I hadn’t actually died. I was definitely threatened with death, I had to cope with the knowledge that medical professionals treated me with the deference of the dying and spoke in hushed voices of its likelihood within the feathered edges of my earshot. Yet to my face, they spoke in soothing tones and carefully curated their words. It was more annoying than comforting, really, but ultimately, I felt dared b...

I have done my share of experimentation with mind-altering substances in my life.  Beginning as a teenager moving toward young adulthood, I became highly curious about how these drugs affected people. I felt no compunction against trying them out. Essentially, I wanted to know first hand what the big deal was. For the most part, I enjoyed them. A few I liked enough to try again, repeatedly.  But I noticed my perspective on the reasoning behind my use was different from others. It was definitely not about partying, even though I did a fair bit of that. My perspective was always about a sense of deeply needing to know what the total experience was like, as well as the micro-cultures and rituals that formed around their recreational use. I can see now that many of these experiences were inadvertently ceremonial in nature. Does that point to something intrinsic about us? Not surprisingly, the spirituality of mind-altering substances is at the root of it all for me. For instance, t...

As a child, I was not known for taking no for an answer. I don’t have the impression that I was rude, just persistent. I have distinct memories of my mother repeatedly pleading, “Stop badgering me!” If I was to be told no, I wanted to understand why. I wanted to agree with the reasoning. I wanted an explanation.  Since the badgering was likely a result of frustration, I assume it’s because the reasoning I needed was not forthcoming. Apparently, mom wasn’t offering an adequate rationale for the denial of my request, and “because I said so” wasn’t cutting it. To be sure, her reasoning was probably sound, I just wasn’t agreeing with it, in all likelihood, barely post-toddler that I was.  I really had no standing to outwit or outsmart her. Also, my mother has always been a reasonable, kind person and her parenting skills were almost uniformly gentle. Only volume and length of word gave away her anger. (The angrier she got with us, the longer the words she used. I have an extensive...