There is No “You”

On March 17, 2021March 17, 2021 By Gluteus MaximusIn Philosophy

Much of life’s problems revolve around our belief in the self. The voice in our heads reinforces on a daily basis the feeling of being a unique and separate entity- a self. We live by stories that we’ve told ourselves. We attach to descriptions of ourselves and say, “this is me” and “I am this” as if we have a unchanging essence. This attachment to identity, ego, to self, compels us to protect our selves at all costs. We get offended, guarded, feel persecuted, feel attacked, feel like something is happening to us because of the ‘self’. But what are we really protecting? I’ll suggest that the self is simply an illusion that creates a façade that gives us the feeling of self-hood.

Imagine having a loved one with dementia so severe that they no longer recognize their own children or even know how to feed themselves. Perhaps you’ve had this experience. Here is the question: What happened to the self of your loved one – from un-demented to a demented state? When family members see their loved one in a demented state, it’s common for family members to express, “This is not my Papa anymore,” or “this is just a shell of my Papa, but it’s not him.” They will often run through a litany of attributes or qualities and say, “Papa was always a gregarious and outgoing guy who loved to fish and spend time with his grand-children, and now, I don’t know who he is?” Now think, when did Papa stop being “Papa”? Was it when he stopped fishing, or was it when he couldn’t recognize his own children? Moreover, who was “Papa” when he was 7-years old?

This is reminiscent of the ancient thought puzzle, “ship of Theseus” discussed in essays by the historian Plutarch. The dilemma proposed posits a ship that is left in Athens, and the youth of Athens slowly replace the old wooden boards of the ship with new ones. The question raised was this: is the ship the same, despite receiving new parts? Better yet, at which point did the old ship stop being the old ship? Was it when 1 wooden board is replaced, or 13 or 27? This puzzle can also be applied to a heap of sand. When does a heap of sand officially become a “heap”? The point of the puzzle is to illustrate that we cannot ever truly locate the “ship” or the “heap” of sand. Likewise, when we speak of the “self,” “me” and “I,” it is an illusion. Life experiences changes all of us, minute-to-minute in the most minuscule of ways; thus, the self is never located.

The crux of this essay concerns identity, and the self. We all feel as though we have a self. Every day, our senses seem to reinforce that each of us is “separate” from everything else. When I walk, I walk in my shoes, not yours. When I eat, I am eating and become full, but I cannot eat and have you become full, nor vice versa. It is I who notices the new moon at dusk and shares my wonder with my wife during our walks. It is our relationship with these experiences that compels us to see ourselves as the center of our own universe.

My contention is that we have no true self, no essence, no way to honestly say this is really me. The self is not physical, it’s symbolic. There is no “I”, rather we are constantly be-coming; our identity is in constant flux. Think of the list of adjectives that describe you and then ask yourself, “am I any of these descriptions all of the time?” Nope. Rather, you have different personas that you employ to help you navigate your immediate environment. Our metaphorical ship (a.k.a. self) constantly receives additional lumber with every experience we encounter. The self is not something fixed or static (e.g., teacher, father, son, car enthusiast). You were a different person at 5-years old, and vastly different every year after that. Heck, I am not the same person I was last week! Now, let’s dive deeper into the self.

Locating Your Self

Let’s start simple. Can you locate your ‘self’? Where is the exact location of your self? When asked, most people will point to their head to indicate inside the cranium. Others will gesture their entire body and say, “all of this is me.” But this tells us nothing. The problem with this is that both mind and physical body are in constant change. Given this constant flux, how are we to pinpoint your self?

Returning to one’s demented papa, one can never go back and hit the pause button in one’s life and locate the “self”; Papa’s entire lifespan was a constant unfolding (mind/body) from birth to grave. The self is thus, illusory. Like Papa, you don’t have a “self’ or real you that you can pinpoint. The self can never be pinned down and identified with any certainty.

What is the Self

“I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am.”

– Charles Horton Cooley

The “I” is a constructed entity, a collection of opinions, projections, and emotions, rather than something absolute. The “I” is like a persona that we reinforce throughout our lives that seems so real – as if we have been cast as a character in a play. The self is shaped by the reflected opinions of others around us. People shape themselves to fit other people’s perceptions, and these vary from one person to the next. Spouse, family, boss, colleagues, lover, adoring fans, and beggar in the street each hold a looking glass up to us every time we interact, and we present a different self. You don’t unfold into the world; rather, the world unfolds into you.

Think of the self as a Potemkin village. A Potemkin village is any construction (literal or figurative) whose sole purpose is to provide an external façade to a country which is faring poorly, making people believe that the country is faring better. The term has its roots from stories of fake villages built to impress Catherine II during her journeys through Russia in the late 18^th century. Likewise, the self functions in the same way as a Potemkin: a façade created to show a respectable image to the world. Simply look at anyone’s Facebook feed or Twitter feed and you will see the ubiquitous attempt to show the good stuff. A constructed façade.

Ponder this: who are you when you are with your closet friends? Now, who are you when you are in a meeting at work amongst professionals and your boss? Finally, who are you when you are by yourself? Often, I notice the drastic difference in personas between my business focused “work-self” and my “dad-self” when playing with my 3-year-old. We take on personas (e.g., work-self, social-self, alone-self) to help us navigate the world. The personas, however, are a façade. Thus, we modulate our personas, demeanor, facial expression, non-verbal cues, to best match the appropriate tenor of the situation. So, which is the real you? Well, none of these personas are “you”, they are façades that help you relate better to the world around you.

Think of the great actor, Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks knows he is not truly Captain John Miller in Saving Private Ryan or Forrest Gump. Yet, he is considered a great actor because he plays these roles, or identities, so well; his commitment and skill create convincing portraits of wildly diverse people that can genuinely move and inspire us. Further, playing these roles serves a useful purpose (in this case, communication and entertainment). Our multiple identities are much like the multiple roles that Hanks has played.

However, unlike Tom Hanks, who knows he is acting, we typically do not grasp the idea that we are constantly and continually playing roles. These roles, or identities, are relative and temporary and serve a purpose, but they are not who we are in an absolute sense. However, they are who we think we are, absolutely. Sometimes we are more self-aware of “performing” for an audience than at other times, and some roles we play are more comfortable and perhaps are more convincing and successful than others. But being a “good” actor doesn’t change the fact that we are “acting” within every interaction and every relationship, even our relationship with ourselves. In our ignorance, we don’t see and understand this; we are not in control of our actions. We are not in control of our life. It is as if our roles are playing us. We react to circumstances or our disturbed emotions without awareness and are unable to control, change, adjust, or stand up to whatever role we are compelled to play. If we are simply playing roles in life, how can we understand better the idea of the self?

Self as a Concept

The notion of self is simply a concept that we employ to help us navigate the world better. Think of “the self” as a heuristic (problem-solving technique) that helps us function and relate to the world in practical terms. The self in this context is not rational or a perfect concept, rather, it helps provide immediate and “good enough” approximations for helping one navigate in the world. The concept of love functions in the same way. Love is not rational or something that can easily investigated through empirical means, rather, it’s a concept people use in practical ways to communicate deep and profound feelings and emotions. Both self and love are illusory terms that lack a solid and fixed essence, yet they convey practical sentiments that help humans flourish.

You (your name here) are a concept, just like the constellation Big Dipper. There is no big dipper up in the sky. “Big Dipper” is a concept. Humans looked, saw a certain pattern, and then created a concept in our collective mind to describe it: That concept is useful because it helps us recognize the constellation. But it also has another, less useful effect. By creating the concept “Big Dipper,” we separate out those stars from all the rest, and then, if we become attached to the idea of that separation, we lose the sense of the night sky’s wholeness, its oneness. Does the separation actually exist in the sky? No. We created it through the use of a concept.

Does anything change in the sky when we understand that there is no Big Dipper? No. The stars in the sky remain just the same, and the pattern of the stars remains the same. We simply see that the concept that names the pattern of stars, and that separates those particular ones from all the others, does not have any independent existence.

Likewise, realizing that “self” is a concept revolutionizes our understanding by revealing how things have always been. Each one of us is a constellation of mental-physical processes. We recognize the familiar pattern, name it, and then become so identified with the concept that we fall into the great illusion of believing that some being is ultimately there. (Your name here) is just the same as “Big Dipper.” (Your name here) is a concept, a name given to a certain pattern of elements, just as Big Dipper is a name given to a pattern of stars.

The Self is like an Oasis

To be clear, saying the self is an illusion doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist at all, but rather that it’s akin to a mirage in the middle of the desert. The vision of the oasis is real, but the oasis itself isn’t. In this same way, the image of the self is real, but when we look at the image, we find it is simply that, an image and nothing more. The image of both, the oasis and the self, is really just another idea or thought and only the moment it is being thought of.

Now ask yourself: Who is feeling the feelings? Who is thinking the thoughts? Once again, when I refer to the “self,” I am referring to the idea or concept we hold of an unchanging essence to who experience is happening. Thus, when you feel or think, your experience does not refer back to anyone. There is no “self” or “I,” feeling the feelings and thinking the thoughts. The “self” or “I” in this context is the oasis in the middle of the dessert.

The Dissolving of Self During Meditation

Here is another thought experiment: who are you when there are zero thoughts in your mind? Think about it. During meditation, especially the Buddhist practice of Vipassana (clear insight) meditation, meditators will experience gaps between thoughts. These gaps are an experience of absolutely (and literally) nothing, devoid of thoughts and emotion. Again, the question I raise is this: who are you within these gaps?

It is precisely thoughts, thinking, and feelings that build the façade of ‘you’. Each thought reinforces a sense of ownership of your body and actions, giving you a sense of control and responsibility. However, without thoughts, thinking and feelings, who are “you”? These gaps remove the façade, the ego, and the protective shell to reveal what we may call bare consciousness. I’m speaking of a mental space where you are simply be-ing, with no judgment, and a steady calm. In these gaps, you possess no adjectives, no descriptions and no roles to perform because all of the personas you regularly employ have dissolved.

I experience the gaps of no-self routinely, via meditation. I describe it as an absolute form of freedom because within those gaps I am not attached to anything or anyone. The ego and all of my defenses have vanished because there is no self to protect. However, as soon as a thought arises, I am back to performing in life: What am I going to eat for lunch? I need to call Mike. Do I have any meetings tomorrow? Desires have arisen and now I am compelled to feed my ego, my self.

Conclusion

The benefit of realizing that your idea of self-hood is an illusion is that you can end the bottomless pit of self-mortification. You know, the voice in your head that negatively critiques everything you do and reminds you of all your imperfections. The inner critic loses its power with a dissolved self. Let’s take an example whereby we may all relate. Imagine eating dinner with a small group of people and telling a joke that falls completely flat. Within seconds, humiliation and regret set in. The voice in your head begins, “what the Hell is wrong with me?”… “you’re so stupid!” Now let’s put things into perspective.

You just experienced what everyone experiences at some point in life: a well-intentioned joke that garnered an unexpected reaction. Any negative mental ruminations that follow are as ridiculous and unhelpful as tripping over oneself in public or spilling your drink in front of everyone. At no point is such a momentary lapse in judgement or glitch in motor skills a valid indictment to your self. This illustration extends to every kind of life event, really. Rather than allowing your self to be flooded with shame or self-denigration, imagine if you simply shrugged your shoulders and smile. Perhaps you reign in your thoughts by reminding yourself, hey, it happens to all of us. No suffering is needed. No need to attach your self to a facade you have created. Life moments are like clouds passing by; they roll in and then dissipate into thin air. The world is truly born anew in the very next moment, if you will just let it be. Realizing the self as illusory helps us to observe the clouds rolling by, rather than identifying with them, which is always the beginning of suffering.

Psychological Flexibility: Self-as-Process

On December 14, 2020December 14, 2020 By Gluteus MaximusIn Philosophy, Spirituality

Written over the span of 4-days with 21 Pilots playing in my head and hot coffee with tons of half-and-half. Two books that I recently finished that inspired this essay are The Art and Science of Valuing in Psychotherapy by Joanne Dahl, and Feeling Great by David Burns.

Possessing the ability to understand your self-as-process will give you the psychological flexibility to adapt to adverse experiences and emotions. – Me

Psychological flexibility refers to one’s capacity to contact the present moment in order to act in healthy ways. Simply put, this means holding our own thoughts and emotions a bit more lightly and acting on longer term values and goals rather than short term impulses, thoughts and feelings. Psychological flexibility is a state of being in which you are able to take a step back and observe the thoughts and feelings in your mind in a non-judgmental way, without becoming fused or entangled with the thoughts themselves. Between the stimulus and our response, is a sliver of space. The liminal space occurs, for example, between the car cutting you off (stimulus) and your rage that follows (response). Yes, it’s a very small space. Within that space, however, lies the freedom to choose how you can best relate and respond to what just occurred. The issue isn’t whether we’ll have thoughts or feelings about things going awry, but how we relate to those thoughts and feelings.

Just last week I found myself fused to resentment and frustration. I had received an email from a co-worker about a project I had been working on. I interpreted his email horribly wrong and turned his offer to help me as a threat to my work ethic. Anyone objective person reading his email would have thought, “wow, that’s great that he’s trying to help and collaborate with you.” But not me. I found myself ruminating in negative thoughts and emotions- How dare he! He thinks I can’t handle the task! I had fused to particular assumptions (contents) and failed to step back and notice the context.

I had been recently writing and reading on psychological flexibility, so I decided it was time to put it to the test. I went into my room, closed my eyes and began the process of diffusion. I started with a mindful meditation practice whereby I simply focus on my breathing. Now mentally calmer, I began acknowledging how I was feeling and the tension I felt in my body. Next, I re-stated the problem in my head (I feel angry at the injustice of having my work ethic being threatened) and immediately challenged the veracity of that claim. Was that really an injustice? Was there clear evidence that he thought I was being lazy or incompetent? Okay, so my “problem” may not have been an actual problem. So, I wondered what cognitive distortion had me under its spell? I identified the distortion of jumping to conclusions through fortune-telling. In other words, I jumped to a negative conclusion after assuming malicious intentions. Now I thought, okay, I don’t have a crystal ball, so what’s the reality of this situation? And here it is. A co-worker sent me a nice email to offer help – that’s it. Diffusion accomplished. Of course, this matter revealed an issue of insecurity that I need to explore a bit more, and actively address (note to self).

This process of diffusion helps me get out of my head and become more psychologically flexible. It’s incredibly easy to fuse to contents such as labels, emotions, and experiences. In a matter of seconds, we can spin out of cognitive control. We all do it. The hard part is cultivating a practice of self-awareness whereby you rein in your mental chaos and bring yourself back to reality.

One important facet with regards to psychological flexibility is recognizing when you are fused to the contents in your life and understanding yourself as a process. The two phrases I will use is self-as-content and self-as-process. Possessing the ability to understand your self-as-a-process will give you the psychological flexibility to adapt to adverse experiences and emotions. Self-as content and self-as-process sound a bit abstract, so let’s unpack their meaning.

Self-as-Content vs. Self-as-Process

Practicing psychological flexibility involves the training your such that see yourself as part of a larger whole of experiences and roles. You are not a static, fixed or concrete label. You are a process of experiences that ebb and flow. When adverse experiences occur, we have a tendency to isolate a feeling, emotion, or identity, and then we make it fixed and concrete. How many times have you thought to yourself, “I’m a failure,” “I’m stupid” or “I’ll never get over this.” These examples are cognitive distortions. The distortion is a kind of “binocular trick” whereby we exaggerate the negative and minimize the positive. We all fall victim to cognitive distortions of this sort. We fuse with a label, role, or experience and it becomes our only reality. We can gain clarity by understanding ourselves by looking closely at the idea of self-as-process and self-as-content.

Self-as-process helps us take a step back see that we need not be defined, threatened, or controlled by the stories we tell ourselves. After all, we are more than the contents and concepts that we live by. The encouragement here is to be aware of the flow of experiences without attachment to them and without investing in which particular experiences occur. Our roles in life will shift, our status within social groups will change, and there is an ebb and flow to life that is extremely unpredictable. It’s not as if the contents of our lives are irrelevant; it just means that we are not fused to the labels, roles and experiences that shape us. Moreover, self-as-process hold the contents of one’s life loosely, knowing that a cancer diagnosis, divorce, job promotion, or moving to another city change the contents of life drastically. The question is: do you have the psychological flexibility to adapt to the changing contents of your life?

Before answering that question, let’s address self-as-content. Self-as-content refers to the labels, roles, and experiences that help you make sense of who you are. The contents are short-cut descriptors such shy, introvert, fearful, optimistic, husband, employee, student, victim of abuse, survivor of military combat. We all live by contents from our lives that form a story of who we are. I am a male in his 40s who is addicted to athletic competition, who strives to be present for my family, who avoids risk due to a daily visceral fear of dying and is sometimes very insecure. These concepts and descriptors are the content of my self (self-as-content), but they are also part of a larger context (self-as-process). The descriptors I noted are relevant to me now as I write them, but these contents will change as time persists, perhaps even drastically.

So, what’s the problem? The problem occurs when we fuse with the contents of our lives, making them concrete realities. When we live by rigid and literal descriptions (contents), we lose the opportunity to step back and see ourselves as part of a greater narrative. This is why men and women experience a mid-life crisis, because they are fused with the idea of being young. The thought of their life being half over is unacceptable. For the majority, death is unacceptable, as it leaves the bereaved in a deep denial because the relationship is forever different. Even more common are those that fuse with negative self-descriptions and make concrete such contents as: laziness, over-weight, ugly, stupid, etc. Or worse, is those who fuse to labels they put on other people (e.g. “Republicans are ignorant” or “Democrats are evil”). Fusion and rigid attachments we form are a way of self-sabotage, whereby we create a narrow space to act, live, and behave. Such austere rigidity will leave very little room for one to make room for both self-compassion and compassion for others.

Alright, so by now you hopefully understand what self-as-content and self-as-process means and perhaps you are probably reminded of times where you fused to the contents of your mind. The question now is, how do you move from fusion with the ideals, thoughts, and experiences and embrace your self-as-a-process. Here are some tools to consider:

Create space between the stimulus and your response

You can do this making contact with the present moment. When we are swept away through identification with labels, ideals, your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is ramped up with a flash flood of stress hormones that elevate your breathing and heart rate. Your SNS is responsible for your fight or flight responses. You can calm your SNS by focusing on your breath through a short mindful meditation. Usually, I’ll prescribe 10 deep breathes whereby each exhalation is counted to a slow beat of 4-6 seconds. All we’re going for here is a clearer and calmer mental space for diffusion.

Acknowledge and observe with non-judgment

Now calmly acknowledge the problem and observe what emotions and feelings arises without any judgment. This is yet another step in creating space between the stimulus and response. The encouragement here is to observe the thoughts and emotions that arise with non-judgmental observation. After re-stating the problem, you may notice emotions of anger, shame, or sadness arise. Without judgment or critique, simply acknowledge and observe the emotion. Welcome in whatever arises. A helpful analogy is to invite whatever arises, as if you are inviting guests into your house for a get-to-gather. Moreover, take notice and observe your physiological responses to the stimulus, for example, tightness in stomach and tension is our shoulders and neck. Once again, welcome in whatever tension or stress your body is feeling. No judgment.

Challenge the content by identifying the cognitive distortion

In this step, you can challenge the veracity of the content or problem. We all fall victim to the toxic spell of cognitive distortions that take our mind (or thoughts) hostage. Being aware of the common distortions can help you identify unhealthy thought patterns. Here is a list to familiarize yourself with. You can use this to challenge the content in your mind by assessing what distortion you are engaging with.

All-or-Nothing Thinking: look at things in absolute black-and-white categories, as if shades of gray do not exist.

Overgeneralization: You generalize from a specific flaw, failure or mistake to your entire self. This involves global labels (like bad mom) or words like always or never (I will never find someone to love me).

Mental filtering: You filter out or ignore the positives and focus entirely on the negatives.

Jumping to Conclusions: You jump to painful and upsetting conclusions that aren’t really supported by facts.

Magnification and Minimization: You exaggerate the negativity in a situation and minimize the positives.

Emotional Reasoning: This involves reasoning from the way you feel, such as: “I feel like an idiot, so I must be one.”

Should Statements: You criticize yourself or other people with shoulds, shouldn’ts, musts, ought tos, and have tos. Self-directed should statements can lead to guilt and inferiority and other-directed should statements can lead to unrealistic expectations.

Labeling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization in which you try to capture the “essence” or yourself or another person with a one-word label.

Re-Frame with facts

By this point, you are hopefully calm and are no longer fused to the content that entangled you before. Now you can re-frame your thoughts and beliefs with fact-based reality. Going back to my opening illustration with the email from a co-worker, I re-framed the situation with a fact: a co-worker sent me a nice email, offering help. Even if your “problem” is more serious like a death or loss of some sort, you can re-frame as such: I lost someone I love dearly, and it’s okay for me NOT to be okay right now as I grieve. A fact-based response can help position yourself to act with what is in your control and with a compassionate response that helps your overall well-being.

Remind yourself of the values that direct your life

A final step you can take is to remind yourself of the core values that give your life meaning and value. Why values? Because grounding ourselves in our core values helps extricate our-selves from fusion with the contents of our life. Think of your core values as a compass that directs you to your true north. If you haven’t done so already, it’s helpful to identify your personal core values with regard to family, relationships, health, career, education and particular virtues that help you live with more vitality. This is a good final step because we so easily get lulled away by the contents of our lives and forget who we are, so to speak. Our personal core values can ground us in meaningful directions so that we can adapt to adverse life experiences.

Remember, we are a process. There is an ebb and flow to life, and the process of your life encompasses the good, the bad, and the ugly. The encouragement here is one of psychological flexibility. I have tried to give some helpful tools so that you can rein in your mind so you understand your self-as-process. Suffering and pain are a part of life. However, possessing the ability to understand your self-as-a-process will give you the psychological flexibility to adapt better to adverse experiences and emotions.

Post Traumatic Growth

On July 9, 2020 By Gluteus MaximusIn Spirituality

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On May 8, 2020 a fire swept through our townhome destroying everything, except our lives. A car speeding at around 70 mph crashed into our house hitting a gas line and instantly setting our house ablaze. The crash and fire occurred adjacent to the bedroom of our two-year old son as he slept. When the crash occurred, my wife heard a benign noise, and then house shook for a solid two-seconds. I thought it was a small earthquake, so I casually laid my head back on the pillow to go back to sleep. My wife felt compelled to go downstairs where upon she opened the door and was met with 15-foot flames. She rushed upstairs to get our son whose room was directly in the line of the flames. His room would be engulfed with smoke in the next 60-seconds. Realizing we could not escape through the front; we had only our small patio area in back to flee. Our small patio area hugged up close to the house and was simply too close to danger. With the fire encroaching closer we also feared an explosion. Our horror was magnified by my futile efforts to find a way to get my family across our nine-foot fence. Feeling trapped, there was a sixty-second period of blood curdling terror where all I could do was scream for help. After a last-ditch effort, I was finally able to get my family over the fence to safety.

Life is interesting. One minute we are resting comfortably just after tucking our toddler into bed, and the next minute is filled with terror as I try to get my family out of a burning house. One moment I feel completely in control of my life, and the next I am standing barefoot in the middle of the street helplessly watching our home burn to the ground. Finding myself surrounded by a fleet of firetrucks and a large crowd of on-lookers, I slowly began to allow reality to sink in.

In the weeks following the fire, I began to obsess over one simple question: how can I remain optimistic and hopeful? Having spent a career of counseling people dealing with grief, anxiety and death, I knew that it was now my turn to practice what I so often teach. But why optimism? Honestly, the post-traumatic stress of almost losing our son linked with losing the safe and secure sanctuary we had created was sending me into a psychological abyss of despair. But it was even deeper than that.

For a solid two weeks after, I battled a barrage of rage, despair, shock, and sadness. More pointedly, rage at the careless drivers who turned our lives upside down. You see, the drivers fled the scene after the crash and their only punishment was a ticket for reckless driving. That was it: a ticket. I found myself ruminating of the absolute worst outcomes for the two drivers. Despair also reared its head daily as I struggled with the loss of our possessions and sentimental items. Sadness and shock bowled me over often as I realized just how close we were to losing our son. Hours would just fly by with me all the while ruminating with dark thoughts and brooding emotions. Feeling paralyzed by the multitude of debilitating emotions, I knew I was on the precipice of spiraling deep into my own personal Hell. For the sake of my mental health and my family, I needed to make a change- immediately.

I sat down one day in my living room and decided that I was going to review the psychological literature as well as my notes specifically on the idea of learned optimism. Led by psychologist Martin Seligman, learned optimism[1] is a path of psychological rescue that contends that you can choose the way you think. Based on cognitive behavioral psychology – which is what I practice with my clients – learned optimism has been demonstrated that our thoughts are not merely reactions to events; they change what ensues.

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When we encounter adversity, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into beliefs. These beliefs may become so habitual we don’t even realize we have them unless we stop and focus on them. And they don’t just sit there idly; they have consequences. The beliefs are the direct causes of what we feel and what we do next. They can spell the difference between dejection and giving up, on the one hand, and well-being and constructive action on the other.

Realizing that my thoughts were congealing into destructive maladaptive beliefs, I decided to act. Every day I committed to reading sixty-minutes on learned optimism as well as writing down the values and needs in my life that give me a firm foundation and coherence. The acknowledgment of values and needs in one’s life is crucial because tragedy often shatters our closely held beliefs or even calls them into question. Tragedy throws our homeostasis into a chaotic whirlwind, so reviewing one’s values and needs- the things, people, and experiences that make life worth living- can serve as a compass to navigate the tumultuous waters of suffering, grief, and angst.

Determined not to be dominated by a pessimistic haze of despair, I employed empirically tested methods to help change my thought patterns. To liberate myself from the bondage of pessimism, I began the journey of doing the diligent work of daily cultivating a practice of changing my thought patterns. Here are the four insights that helped me through the suffering.

I am responsible for my response to suffering

I can choose my response. No matter what evil or tragedy befalls us, we our in control of our response. In my situation, I realized that I could continue to spiral into an abyss of despair, or I could choose to pursue hope and optimism. Trust me, dwelling in despair did not require any “work”; it was natural and even justified given what we had been through. Cultivating an optimistic hope-filled outlook, however, seemed like climbing Mount Everest. Daily, sometimes hourly, every time an agonizing thought entered my mind, I had to be diligent to respond and re-frame the thought to a healthier perspective. For instance, when anger would take over, I would quickly re-frame the thought to gratitude that I have family with me right here and now.

I am reminded of Viktor Frankl’s story of being imprisoned in a concentration camp during the holocaust. Surrounded by death and misery, he realized that “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”[2]

I control the story

We all live by the stories we tell ourselves. The way you explain events (in your head) determines how helpless you can become, or how impowered, when you encounter the everyday setbacks as well as momentous defeats. For me, wisdom and growth became pivotal themes in my story. I could easily create a story in my head with themes of victimhood and helplessness. Instead, I took control of the story by re-framing my tragedy as a freak event that gifted me with an opportunity to gain wisdom and insight. Your explanatory style that views suffering through the lens of personal growth is the hallmark of a hope-filled optimist.

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The dark place is temporary

Anytime we experience tragedy or trauma, the natural inclination is that it will last forever. Moreover, we feel like we are the only one on the planet feeling deep emotional pain. But the reality is that the emotional turmoil is temporary. In my situation, I went from thinking “I will never get over this” (permanent and pessimistic) to trusting that “I have begun the process of healing” (temporary and optimistic).

It is what it is (and that’s okay)

I remember the weeks after the fire thinking: this isn’t fair! I mean, my wife and I work hard, we are responsible citizens, we are good people. It isn’t fair that the careless driver only got a ticket and we have to endure the suffering. Within all of us is the tacit belief that we deserve fairness. I see this often when young people get a terminal diagnosis, when babies die prematurely, when hard-working employees are unexpectedly laid off. We have ingrained patterns of beliefs and expectations that bring coherence to our view of the world; sometimes when those expectations are disrupted, we simply cannot accept it. We quietly believe that there is some cosmic justice that ought to work in our favor if we play the game of life right. Bad stuff is supposed to happen bad people, right? However, when we adopt that idea of fairness, we are setting ourselves up for a rude awakening. Life, mother nature, and cancer does not care about fairness. Rather, it is what it is.

I remember listening to the Dali Lama give a speech right after the attacks of 9/11, and his opening words were, “It happened.” He then paused for a long thirty-seconds to allow those two words to sink in. In the midst of anger, fear, and sadness those two words provided the necessary starting point for everyone struggling to make since of the tragedy. Before any judgment of bad/evil or right/wrong takes us emotionally hostage, we should train ourselves to first acknowledge that it happened; it is what it is. This is the path to acceptance. The mental pivot toward accepting that it is what it is, is crucial for an optimistic mindset and for hope to flourish.

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Life is too short to live with mental unrest. Knowing that I have the autonomy to do something about the thoughts in my head gives me hope. Knowing that tragedy can be an opportunity for growth and wisdom rather than spiraling into depression is reassuring. It doesn’t mean, however, that if I just believe good things, I will be happy. I still battle anger and resentment, it’s just that I now have a healthy practice to address distressing thoughts. I take responsibility and I stop, focus on my breaths through mindfulness meditation, and remind myself that grief and suffering is a process towards growth and wisdom. The goal isn’t happiness, it’s acceptance. And through acceptance (it is what it is) we can experience post-traumatic growth.

[1] Seligman, Martin E.P. Learned Optimism

[2] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 73.

Arguments Against Minimum Wage Hikes

On December 13, 2019December 13, 2019 By Gluteus MaximusIn Philosophy, Politics

I recently went into my local poke restaurant for lunch, and I noticed a framed letter on the wall as I waited in line. The letter was to the faithful customers, and it stated that all of the prices were increased by $1 due to the impact of the recent minimum wage law legislation. I knew the manager of the restaurant, so I asked a little more about how the new wage hike was affecting business. He stated that not only are prices increased for customers, but since the restaurant is a small business, they had to cut back on benefits given to employees in order to keep the business and cover costs. Lastly, I noticed how his employees were all young ambitious Generation Z’ers. He stated that with the increased wages, applicants who are truly poor or have no education don’t apply because of the surplus of 17 to 19-year-olds willing to work in order to pay for high tuition college fees. Most of the people working for him were not poverty-stricken or single mothers, rather most could write code or help you develop a website. This was interesting: a law that is proposed from an ideology proclaiming to care for the poor and oppressed, is actually having an inverse effect.

Currently in America, there are many who fervently advocate for legislation to “help” the poor and oppressed. Many of these policies, however, only virtue signal without doing anything at all for the oppressed. Moreover, many policies that sound compassionate actually do more harm to the people it’s meant to help. This particular essay gives arguments against minimum wage hikes. Despite the compassionate appeal to raise the minimum wage in order to help minorities and low-skilled workers in America, the economics and data tells us a different story.

#1: Minimum wage hikes hurt small businesses

Minimum wage laws increase costs for businesses, making it more difficult for small businesses to pay their employees accordingly. When Seattle recently increased its minimum wage, several restaurants that couldn’t afford the higher labor costs had to shut down immediately. Kelly Ulmer, owner of Almost Perfect Books in Roseville, California, had a business model that was employee-friendly, offering shares of all profits to the employees each week. “As the minimum wage increased, the profits decreased,” she says. “All of my employees actually made more money at $8 an hour than they do at $10 an hour because I had actual money to give them.”[1] Anytime minimum wage laws are enacted, the biggest initial outcry comes from small businesses who don’t have the cash flow to take the economic impact of the wage hike.

Many people found it eerie that Walmart CEO Doug McMillon called on Congress to raise the minimum wage in 2019. Here you have a CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company looking like a generous saint. Before we anoint Mr. McMillon, keep in mind that Walmart benefits greatly from minimum wage hike because it increases their revenue after the collateral damage done to small businesses around the country. You see, big businesses have more cash flow to pay the extra costs from the minimum wage hike. Thus, small businesses take the biggest financial hit.

#2 Minimum wage hikes increase unemployment

Low-skilled workers who would be employable at a low wage become unemployable at an artificially higher wage. And that explains the perverse cruelty of minimum wage laws: it inflicts the greatest harm on the very workers it is allegedly designed to help.

Similar to my first point, a minimum wage hike reduces the quantity by labor because employers can’t afford to pay everyone the increased wages. Therefore, companies have to lay-off people in order stay afloat. Also, if we begin to think about the future with the increase of artificial intelligence, minimum wage laws incentivize companies to use AI rather than people to save on costs.

As an aside, for those who love to point to the Scandinavian countries as the paragon of “the ideal society,” keep in mind that Switzerland is one of the few modern nations without a minimum wage law. As of December 2019, Switzerland’s unemployment sits at a meager 2.1%. The last time Americans saw unemployment rates that low was in the Coolidge administration when unemployment was 1.8%. By the way, there was no federal minimum law implemented during the Coolidge era.

#3 Minimum wage hikes harm low-skilled workers

If the government raises the minimum wage, the higher wages can lure more skilled workers to compete for jobs they may have once avoided. A college student who wouldn’t have taken a McDonald’s job for $9 an hour may find it worthwhile at $15 an hour, leaving fewer opportunities for, say, an uneducated immigrant from South America. Going back to the aforementioned impact of the Seattle minimum wage ordinance, researchers at the University of Washington reported:

“Our preferred estimates suggest that the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance caused hours worked by low-skilled workers (i.e., those earning under $19 per hour) to fall by 9.4% during the three quarters when the minimum wage was $13 per hour, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million hours worked per calendar quarter. Alternative estimates show the number of low-wage jobs declined by 6.8%, which represents a loss of more than 5,000 jobs. The work of least-paid workers might be performed more efficiently by more skilled and experienced workers commanding a substantially higher wage.”[1]

And this highlights the essence of the economic logic that explains why the most vulnerable workers (low-skilled, uneducated, teenagers, etc.) are the group that is most harmed by minimum wage laws — those laws artificially raise the wages of low-skilled workers without increasing their productivity, and therefore significantly reduce their employability relative to higher-skilled workers.

#4 Minimum wage hikes hurt the oppressed

Many people don’t realize that in 1930, the unemployment rate for blacks was lower than the white unemployment. It’s unbelievable because people assume that racism was so persistent in 1930, it ought to have left most if not all blacks without any opportunity for employment. Despite rampant racism, however, there were more black workers than white workers.

Back in 1948, the unemployment rate for 17-year-old black males was just under 10%, and no higher than the unemployment rate among white male 17-year-olds. How could that be, when we have for decades gotten used to seeing unemployment rates for teenage males that have been some multiple of what it was then — and with black teenage unemployment often twice as high, or higher, than white teenage unemployment?[3]

The disparity in unemployment between black and white workers occurred when the minimum wage regulation went into effect during the 1950’s, and the racial gap in unemployment expanded.[4] With the artificial increase in wage, blacks were priced out of jobs.

Many people automatically assume that racism explains the large difference in unemployment rates between black and white teenagers today. Was there no racism in 1930’s and 1940’s? No sane person who was alive in 1948 could believe that. Racism was worse — and of course there was no Civil Rights Act of 1964 then.

It’s important to note, however, that the economics of supply and demand often carries more weight than racist policies. To use another historical example, during Apartheid in South Africa where it was illegal to hire blacks in most occupations, blacks nevertheless outnumbered white workers. During this time, there was no minimum wage law in South Africa, so many blacks were able to do the work that whites refused to do. Thus, economics carried weight even in South Africa apartheid.

Final Thought

Why is this important? Because ideas have consequences. And if we perpetuate ideas without looking at facts, history, and the collateral impact on society, then you get the kind of country that devalues liberties and freedoms needed to thrive. Perhaps it’s better to think about ideas, like minimum wage hikes, using facts and reason without depending on emotional “compassionate” arguments that end up causing more harm than good. Just a thought.

[1] Esha Chhabra, Forbes (May, 2017)

[2] “Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence from Seattle” by Ekaterina Jardim, Mark C. Long, Robert Plotnick, Emma van Inwegen, Jacob Vigdor and Hilary Wething.

[3] Thomas Sowell, “Intellectuals and Race,” 2013.

[4] Actually, the federal government established a minimum wage in a 1938 law called the Fair Labor Standards Act. However, this law was never in effect because a decade of high inflation had raised money wages, for even low-level jobs, above that minimum wage.

Emptiness

On August 19, 2019August 20, 2019 By Gluteus MaximusIn Philosophy, Spirituality

The essay was written after several counseling sessions with clients dealing with a deep sense of despair. After contemplating the foundation of suffering, and immersing myself in several books on the idea of emptiness, I sat down and put my thoughts into words. I completed this essay after 3 days at Starbucks, and copious amounts of triple espressos. I completed this essay with the song “Goose Bumps” by Wicked and Wild (EDM music) playing on Pandora.

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“It’s not supposed to happen like this; this just isn’t fair,” is what she said as she exposed her wounds of deep despair. Her immaculate dream of traveling the world with her husband of 48 years, now shattered by a debilitating form of dementia that has left her bright engineering husband unable to even converse. Babbling and wondering aimlessly around the facility that cares for him, she watches him from across the room as her idyllic picture loses all the vibrant color and begins the process of fading away. She is unrelenting and refuses to accept. Fueled by a strong need for control and order, she fights to revive her ideal picture. Even though the house of cards she has constructed is falling, she will not let go of the brilliant engineer that was her rock throughout these years. She clings to the incomplete dreams that deserve to be fulfilled. Then she vocalizes a sentiment that we all have said aloud or within: “It’s not supposed to happen like this; this just isn’t fair.” The suffering in the quiver of her voice is deep and heavy.

Suffering is due to the attachments we have. While suffering is inescapable, the extent of your suffering will coincide with the magnitude of attachments you have with the world you have created. We attach ourselves to expectations, ideals, and identities all the while thinking: this is how life supposed to be. We infuse everything around us with an essence that further deepens our feelings, judgments, and perceptions about the world around us. Even worse is that we live with a voice in our heads, and a conscience that takes all of our experiences and predilections and forms an illusory “self”, an “I”. This is the disease that has stricken us all: the ego, the “I”. The ego is made up of the ideas and beliefs that define you. The ego drives the narrative you live by. All of us live by a narrative that we’ve been constructing since we were children. The narrative fills in the gaps of our deepest existential question: who am I? Through adolescence and into adulthood, our feelings, thoughts, impulses and perceptions are filtered through the story that we live by. These are the factors that come together to create each individual: A value-driven human that seeks self-preservation through attachments to meaning. Once we are attachments are gone, compromised or given a terminal diagnosis – then suffering ensues.

My contention is that suffering can be mitigated if we release our attachments (or greatly loosen our grip) and stop infusing everything – even ourselves – with an essence. How so? By embracing emptiness. To put more concisely, living with the mindset of emptiness is to avoid infusing things and people with solid, fixed, and permanent descriptions. All of the wondrous adjectives that we fill our world with, will one day turn to dust or fade altogether. Embracing emptiness is a way to make peace with that reality.

Let’s go back to my opening illustration of the soon-to-be widow who said, “It’s not supposed to happen like this; this just isn’t fair.” She created a life that was replete with solid and predictable essences: solid conception of her brilliant engineering husband who is her emotional “rock”; fixed dreams that they would travel the world; predictable stable life that gave her the comfortable illusion of normalcy and homeostasis. Once those descriptions are solidified, they pave the way towards expectations and ideals that are just as predictable and fixed, whereby she expects the world and her life to produce the results that she anticipates. When reality is made clear – nothing is solid and predictable – she is now left exposed and raw; she now sees the illusions that guided her life and the deep chasm of emptiness is revealed. If only she would have made peace with the deep chasm of emptiness prior, her suffering would not have spiraled into inconsolable despair.

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What is Emptiness

Emptiness is a state of being in which you embody the realization that everything is without an essence. Essence has to do with the qualities we imbue on something/someone that, in turn, affect our perceptions and feelings. To imbue someone/something with essence is to fill them with adjectives, or descriptions that we believe to be inherent in them. For example, you come to view your Starbucks barista as a happy and out-going, yet when overwhelmed with a rush of customers, she is an angry barista. In short, you fill your barista with an essence, qualities that impact your feelings and judgments about this particular barista. Essence is a matter of interpretation; it’s something you are choosing to construct from a host of subjective qualities. Essences don’t exist independent of human perception. To perceive emptiness is to perceive raw experience without doing what we’re inclined to do: build a theory about what is at the heart of the experience and then encapsulate that theory in a sense of essence.

Emptiness, then, is to avoid the imposition of instilling an essence in the people and things around you. Moreover, emptiness is to be empty of the affect that impacts our desires, feelings and attachments to things and people. Why is this important? Because suffering is due to the attachments we form; when we imbue the object of our desire with special qualities and an essence – and then the object of our desire is gone, giving birth to suffering. Suffering is mitigated or dampened when we release our grip, unattached to the essence of things/people, and realize the emptiness of the qualities that feed our ego. Thus, to be in a state of peace to is be in a state of emptiness.

Emptiness is a phenomenon in which we are completely free from any obstructions. Emptiness is an opportunity to step back and view the world clearly. Unencumbered by our prejudices, judgments, and biasness – emptiness quiets our anxious mind, and liberates us to the experience of a still mind. Emptiness is the canvas and background to your very being – blank. In the West, the feeling of emptiness is often seen in a negative light that connotes nothingness or meaninglessness. When someone bemoans of feeling hollow inside, they are quickly encouraged to take up a hobby, go on vacation, or see a doctor for depression. This kind of emptiness is common in those who feel lost when it comes to meaning and purpose in life. Contrary to a nihilistic hollowness, emptiness is starting point for calmness and peace. Emptiness is our true nature, utterly free from expectations, ideals, status, reputation, and obligations. With no agenda or need to continually protect our fragile ego, emptiness gives us fresh lenses to view and experience the world.

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Impermanence and Emptiness

The two threads that weave the tapestry of emptiness are impermanence and non-self. Impermanence is the acknowledgement that everyone/everything is in a state of ceasing to be. Simply put, nothing is solid, nothing is predictable. Even a new-born baby has begun his/her journey towards death. To Westerners, this is dark and morbid thinking, but it’s reality. Impermanence is almost impossible for human beings to embrace because it goes against every ounce of our fiber: at all cost, we fight for self-preservation. So strong is our fight, that even though we know intellectually that we will one day die, we do whatever we can to push those thoughts away.

Not just people, but even the impermanence of things escapes us. I remember watching my dilapidated 1996 Toyota Camry being hauled to a junkyard, and then reminiscing about the day I purchased it and thought it was the most amazing thing ever, possessing a kind of infinite beauty. I ponder the same thoughts about my dad, who, as a little kid, was my invincible superhero – the strongest man in the world (in my eyes). Now in his eighties, he can barely feed himself. The full force of decay and entropy never hits us until the object of our desire is facing complete extinction – but even then, we often continue to deny impermanence. We desperately cling to people, things, and ideas, imbuing them with an everlasting life force to feed our purpose, meaning, and identity. And then when we experience death, loss, or a faith crisis, we find ourselves shocked, utterly bewildered and barely able to get out of bed and face the world –shell-shocked to find our world not as stable, predictable, and in control as assumed.

Emptiness and impermanence go hand-in-hand because the tranquil state of emptiness can only be experienced when you grasp for nothing. Emptiness is experienced when you fully embody the reality that nothing is solid, and nothing is predictable. This is what it means to just be; palms open clutching nothing, and a mind unshackled by the chains of constant thinking. This conception of emptiness doesn’t mean that we avoid enjoying people and things, rather, it means we don’t cling with parasitic tenacity to the concepts, ideals, and expectations of people and things. It means that we are able to take a step back, and simply embrace the now – the present moment. We’re not living in the past and we’re not placing demands on what the future should look like.

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Empty of Your Own Identity

The second thread that weaves the idea of emptiness is non-self. If I asked you to tell me where self is located, where would you point? Most people point to their head or heart. If you lose and arm, are you still you? Are you still you if you have a heart transplant? What about if you experience a brain injury? Where exactly is your self located?

At some point in time, we’ve done or said something that we later regretted, and thought, “that wasn’t me.” Or you’ve felt like you weren’t being yourself. You have many “self’s”, for instance, when you are mad, excited, nervous, in front of an audience, alone in your house, at work, or with your friends. So which ‘you’ is ‘you’?

We all live with the illusion that we have a self. We speak with the upmost confidence when we speak in first-person, “I”. If pressed to describe yourself, you will begin listing the attributes that make you … you. In essence, the “self” is the story that we create and live by which is the accumulation of our history and experiences. But the “I” is just that: a story that we’ve created and live by. The story you create evolves every day; morphing based on your perception of life events.

The mistake we make is in seeing our self as a fixed identity. We live by fixed descriptions that we lump together to form the concept of self. These fixed identities are as simple as man/woman, parent/child, smart/dumb, responsible/undependable, optimistic/pessimistic, introvert/extravert, etc. The problem is that we live with the illusion that these descriptions make our “self” solid and fixed. To the contrary, we are a vast array of feelings, perceptions, and responses that ebb and flow and cannot be pinned down to something fixed and solid. The “you” of last year, is different than the “you” of today. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus long ago said, “you can never step into the same river twice.” We are constantly changing, and who you were last week is not the same as today. In the past week, you have experienced many feelings, perceptions, and reactions that – even in the most minuscule of ways – have shifted the way you interface with the world.

What does all this have to do with emptiness? Well, emptiness is the realization that nothing is fixed and solid, just like our concept of self. In other words, in a state of emptiness, you’re not attached to the descriptions and identities that make up ‘you’. Instead, you see yourself as an experiencing consciousness that accepts life as it happens. ‘Accept’ doesn’t mean condone; rather, it means that you face the world with courage, knowing that all events in life – like the ocean – ebb and flow. Moreover, it means that when conflict (psychological or physical) comes your way, you possess the wisdom and insight to know that your identity and “self” is not really being threatened. Rather, like a cloud moving through the sky before dissipating, so too will the conflict that appears to threaten the “self”.

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Final Words

Emptiness means holding onto nothing. The intersection of impermanence and non-self is in the realization that nothing is fixed – even though we live like all is fixed and under our control. As long as we live under the illusion of control and that people/things are predictable and fixed in our lives, pain and suffering will be waiting at the threshold. Like I have already said, while suffering is inescapable, the extent of your suffering will coincide with the magnitude of attachment you have with the world you have created. Making peace with the reality of emptiness is the antidote to deep despair. Emptiness is a state of being that helps accept that everything comes and goes and ebbs and flows. Again, everyone knows this intellectually, but few truly embody this in their daily living. For when we embody emptiness, we approach ourselves and the world with a humble, open and accepting disposition that acknowledges that even though suffering is part of life, it need not overtake us. Negative emotional states will arise and fade. We need not get swept away by the torrid currents of anger, bitterness, and despair. They too shall pass.

Image of A Good Life

On July 15, 2019 By Gluteus MaximusIn Philosophy, Short Essays, Spirituality

Written and finished at Starbucks in San Jose with a triple espresso at my side and an EDM band called Tobu blasting in my ears. This is an essay inspired in my continued quest to think deeply and introspectively about the clients that I provide counseling to as they deal with terminal illness.

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I’d like to propose an illustration that, perhaps, captures the image of a good life. For millennia, philosophers and religions alike, have tried to explain what the good life entails. For some, the good life is simply happiness or happiness found in an external agent, like God. Others have pointed out that the good life has to do with love, personal flourishing, or self-realization while doing meaningful activities. With so many theories, it’s easy to feel helpless when confronted with the deeply personal question: what does the good life look like? Rather than succumb to a one-size-fits all answer, I’ll put forth an illustration.

The good life is like a jazz group jamming together.

Allow me to clarify this illustration. The good life is like a jazz group jamming together; whereby people create a melodic harmony through engaging in meaningful experiences through free-flowing unencumbered expressions of living out their full potential. The result is a kind unbroken rhythm of joy and contentment.

You see, with jazz, you get this informal and improvised session whereby the musicians work off one another’s joyful creative expression to form a harmonious whole. Unlike a symphonic orchestra where the group follows a pre-defined musical score, jazz creates space for complex harmony to take place from the free expression of individuals playing together. In order to create harmony, each member must have a receptive sensitivity to the self-expressive performances of the other musicians. As each player grows more musically eloquent, the others draw inspiration from this and are spurred to greater heights. As each player grows more musically eloquent, the others draw inspiration from this and are spurred to greater heights. There is no conflict here between freedom and ‘good of the whole.’ Though each performer contributes to ‘the greater good of the whole’, he does so not by some grim-lipped self-sacrifice but simply by expressing himself. There is a self-realization, but only through a loss of self in the music as a whole. There is achievement, but it is not a question of self-aggrandizing success. Instead, achievement – the music itself – acts as a medium or relationship among the performers. There is pleasure to be reaped from this artistry, and – since there is free fulfillment or realization of powers – there is also happiness in the sense of flourishing. Because this flourishing is reciprocal, we can speak, remotely and analogically, of a kind of love.

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Like jazz, the good life is your creative meaningful expression that’s played alongside other people. In order to have harmony in our lives, we align our meaningful expression with the good of the people around us (good of the whole). Our direction and aim is to realize our potential and true capacity to be better and wiser; and we do this through the lessons learned, and inspiration we receive from others. In doing so, we reap the pleasure, joy and wisdom through the reciprocal melodic love that we give and is given to us.

Does this sound utopian? Absolutely. If only it were that easy. However, we need an aim. We need a compass pointing north. The aim is the good life. Nevertheless, the good life is vague and can be interpreted in innumerable ways that get us nowhere. Going deeper, the good life is a meaningful life, whereby people are able to flourish and reach toward their full potential as human beings. Put more simply, the aim is personal flourishment that is good for the whole. It’s a life in which individuals create values and virtues for the good of the whole. This is the difference between totalitarian and true democracy. The jazz band illustration is representative of the cooperative effort of people to allow space for the discovery of rhythm and harmony through the freedom of meaningful expressions. However, if we reduce the conversation of the good life to an unachievable pipe dream then how would you even know when your life has any value or worth? To the contrary, each jazz band member is challenged to new heights as they play their part for the good of the whole, while realizing that they are not alone in their quest, for they are playing with others who are seeking their own meaningful pinnacle. I readily admit that my answer is vague and anyone can poke holes in it – “meaningful”, “flourishing” and “harmonious whole” are packed full of nuances and contexts that require a proper context. However, they are worthy starting points, albeit a target and aim, that do us well until someone can point to something better.

Lastly, my jazz illustration leaves out is the bass player who goes rogue and messes it up for everyone. And sometimes, we are the rogue bass player. We know what it’s like to experience environments that are rhythmically chaotic, where all seems out of tune. Narcissism, bitterness, resentment, victimhood, poor decisions, etc., all lead to the digression and disharmony of any quest for musical beauty. This is where responsibility comes into play. Just as each jazz musician is responsible for their performance in the band, so to in life each of us must bear our individual responsibility to keep harmony with ourselves and others. While the entire world will never function like a jazz band playing rhythmically off each other in a harmonious whole, we can still take responsibility for our part in the band and play (i.e. live) to our fullest potential. The people around us may be playing off key, however, when it’s our time to engage with life, we can respond and take action in the most meaningful of ways.

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A Shallow Dive into Meaning

On July 11, 2019March 17, 2020 By Gluteus MaximusIn Philosophy, Short Essays

Written at Starbucks in Willow Glen with my usual blonde roast coffee and Avicii on Pandora. This essay is inspired by my counseling sessions with people on hospice, with months to live. More to come.

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Life is intrinsically meaningless. By intrinsic, I simply mean in-and-of-itself. For life is in fact deeply meaningful once we infuse it with meaning through shared experiences and values between conscious minds. A jug of water that sits on the surface of Mars, unbeknownst to any person in the universe is meaningless. However, a jug of water that is found by a dehydrated traveler in the Sahara is profoundly meaningful; for it can nourish his body or even save his life. It takes a conscious mind (an experiencer) to experience meaning. A letter received in the mail is rather meaningless. But everything changes if the letter inside the envelope reveals whether the recipient is accepted or denied entrance into medical school. For then, it’s not just a letter; it’s a portal into another dimension of life. Given these nuances, what then can we say about a meaningful life?

Meaning is an abstract representation of value and significance. When engaged with meaningful activities, we’re induced with visceral feelings that overtake and move us to acknowledge that some-thing or some-one is valuable and significant. Meaning is abstract like love, in that you can’t point directly to it or put it under a microscope to view it- yet we dare not deny its existence. A meaningful life obtains breadth and depth through engagement in relationships and connecting with the world through the expression of values and passions. Meaning is the elixir to life itself, in that, we need it to get through life. Without meaning, why or how would anyone go on? In contrast, our life takes on more purpose and significance when we allow ourselves to be bowled over by such experiences like beauty, love, and generosity, etc.

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The responsibility of experiencing meaning falls upon you – the individual. We affect the quality and significance of meaning through our outlook and openness to life. Monday mornings, for example, are intrinsically meaningless. In-and-of-itself, Monday morning serves as a designation of time- that’s it. However, Monday morning gains contours and a complexion through its representation as, for example, the ending of your restful weekend and back to the office for another week of grinding it out. When you get out of bed on a Monday, you can either imbue the beginning of your week with a negative and nihilistic outlook or positive and opportunistic outlook. However, the somber and dismal perspective we put on Monday morning is a subjective expression that we imbue. The same goes with the breadth and depth of meaning in your life: the people, experiences, and perspective you take on life is shaped by the value and worth you imbue upon them.

Meaning gets its force and vitality through the value. My bi-annual trip to Hawaii with my family has a lot of value for me; while my business trip last January to Houston had little value. Laying with my 20-month old son as he goes to sleep is deeply valuable; but if my son is replaced with my cat Muffins, then it loses its meaningful force. Value, in the context that I am using it, is a symbolic representation of the worth and significance of some-thing or some-one. The beauty of our neural circuitry and evolutionary trajectory is that we possess the capacity to feel empathic, connect deeply, and express passionately. We have been blessed with the proclivities and predispositions to be turned inside-out by awe and wonder. Thus, we engage in meaningful projects, political movements, hobbies, and relationships that grip our attention while enriching our lives.

Any cursory discussion around meaning most always ends up with someone asking, “Well then, what is the meaning of life?” Well to start, there is a vast and crucial difference between “meaning of life” and “meaning in life.” It’s amazing how one little preposition can have such an impact! The search for the meaning of life is like the search for the fountain of youth – it’s something outside of you that you need to find in order to make you whole. While the search for meaning in life is your personal quest to figure out what keeps you motivated to get out of bed every morning – day after day. Albert Camus begins his essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus”, by stating, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question…” The worth and value of life is found in meaningful experiences, pursuits, and relationships – in life. Meaning is not out there waiting for you to find it, for example, at a yoga retreat in Costa Rica. Rather, our day-to-day being itself, is a mosaic of meaningful opportunities and pursuits that should open our eyes to the panoply of beauty and value that surrounds us – in life.

.kjn;

What is Good Mental Health?

On June 27, 2019June 28, 2019 By Gluteus MaximusIn Short Essays

Last week I attended to a family who’s terminally ill matriarch, Jane[1], was hours away from her last breath. Only 55 years old, the sudden and rapid decline of her body and mind was too unbearable for the family. Just as worse than the cancer that was destroying Jane, was the dysfunctionality of her family as the battled each other throughout the house. Having counseled the family in the months leading up to this moment, I was already well-aware of the decades of unresolved conflict and pathology that permeated this family. A tiny spark was all it took to set this family ablaze, fueled by decades of unresolved bitterness, regret and anger. This day, the two sisters were warring with each other as to whether or not to give her mother more morphine to ease the pain. Mind you, the feud was taking place in front of Jane. Then there was Jane’s youngest son who stormed out of the house slamming the door in rage and yelling at the top of his lungs in the front yard because the grief was too immense. He had an estranged relationship with his mother and was now realizing that reconciliation was too late. Finally, you had Jane’s sister yelling at the adult children for their greediness and selfishness. There was not just a cancer inside Jane, but a cancer within the family that appeared to have the same dire prognosis. I stood off to the side, leaning against the wall while observing everyone’s house of cards tumbling into an oblivion. I thought to myself, it doesn’t get much worse than this.

Every day I counsel people who find themselves in the midst of deep despair, anger, and sadness. One of my chief concerns is how to help individuals gain insight into managing their own mental health. My concern for this essay is to provide a definition for what good mental health is. To be fair, mental health is a vague term that is dependent on innumerable nuances, subtleties, and context. But just as we have a general consensus of what good physical health is, it’s a worthy task to explore what good mental health is.

Let’s begin. A mentally healthy person has a positive and strong view of the self; self-awareness to know what they are feeling and why they are feeling it; the ability to turn their inner struggles and fears into strength; the ability to gravitate to contentment and courage after being swept away with negative emotions; the ability to discover nuggets of wisdom through failure and tribulation; the ability to grow, develop, and move towards goals; the ability to re-frame negative events into insights of wisdom; the ability to accept criticism and view it has an opportunity to learn and understand; a strong sense of values that are inner directed, rather than outer directed; ability to modulate desires, expectations, and perspectives towards healthy ends.

A mentally healthy person is one who has the self-awareness to stay present in emotionally charged moments in life. Rather than being swept away by fear and insecurity of the past or future, the mentally healthy person is able to face adversity with courage. The analogy of a hurricane may help to clarify. Despite the gale force winds swirling around, it’s in the eye of the hurricane where there is an eerie calmness. The mentally healthy person is able to recognize when the environment is changing and the winds are picking up; so too are they are able to position themselves in the peaceful eye of the storm with their feet firmly on the ground, staying resolute and mindful.

This doesn’t mean that the mentally healthy person will never get sad, angry, or feel angst. Far from it. Some situations warrant anger or righteous indignation. Even deep sadness is a natural part of experiencing loss. It does, however, mean that they possess the awareness to re-calibrate, re-position, and re-orient themselves towards perspectives that are good for their mental well-being. I’m reminded of holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl who, while surrounded by death and despair in a concentration camp, was able to mentally cling on to hope while finding scant scintilla of meaning within his dire circumstances. Thus, the mentally healthy person is able to guide and even manipulate the mental self-talk in the head in a way that makes moving forward possible.

What life event and experience pops into your mind when you consider a time where you were overcome with a deep amount of stress, anxiety, or fear? Try and make that experience vivid and lucid in your mind. Recall your dynamic and charged thoughts as well as your raw emotions in that moment. Bring to mind how this experience affected your worldview and perspective of your own life and future. Perhaps the experience that you are pondering brought disillusionment, despair, or anger. Here is the question: How did you cope and persevere through the mental pain? This question ought to prompt you to consider your own emotional resiliency. Emotional resiliency is nestled with good mental health because it provides a portal into how you manage your own mental well-being. How you navigate your own mental health will reveal how emotional resilient you are when chaos ensues. As you look at your history, how did you persevere through mental anguish? What did the painful experience teach you about yourself? Have you repressed the pain, or have you integrated and adapted the pain into the story of who you are?

The pathology of an angst and tortured mind lies in wait within every individual. Yes, even the most pious of Buddhist monks has to contend with a mind that can spiral into chaos. The psychological detonator that is so easily triggered resides is utterly ubiquitous. When our minds ignite, it’s as if the apocalypse is at hand. A bad week at work or a betrayal by a friend can lead to one’s mind spiraling out of control and thinking the worse. Whether it’s death, trauma, or someone cuts you off while driving, our fragile ego shatters into a thousand tiny pieces. Ask yourself, do you have the psychological resiliency to cling to virtue and hope? Do you have a reservoir within you that provides purpose and meaning in life?

In order to possess mental health, psychological homeostasis, or mental balance, one ought to explore the question: what is good mental health? I encourage you to think through the definition I provided and add or subtract from it in order to enhance your own understanding.

[1] “Jane” is a pseudonym and some of the following events have been changed to protect the privacy of the individual and family.

Mental Self-Sabotage

On June 20, 2019 By Gluteus MaximusIn Philosophy

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Okay, let’s start by trying to recall a specific date in your past. Close your eyes, and think back to your experiences from Tuesday, January 20, 1998 to Sunday, February 8, 1998. For those 20 days in 1998, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume you would have experienced a range of thoughts, leading to emotions such as joy, frustration, anxiousness, happiness, etc.

What I want you to do now is, recall specifically some of the thoughts you thought during those 20 days in 1998. I pose this thought experiment to many of the people that I counsel, and most will remember absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, it’s fair to say you would have most definitely experienced, even if for only for a few minutes – thoughts leading to emotional states such as anxiety, sadness, anger, etc. My question is this: what happened to those thoughts? Well, for starters, those thoughts have dissipated into an oblivion. Like morning fog rolling through the terrain, so too those thoughts have dissipated into space.

The importance of my thought experiment is to highlight how fleeting thoughts are. The problem, however, is that despite our transient thoughts, we often get tangled up in our thoughts and spiral into emotional anguish. Mental suffering occurs when a thought arises, then we attach harmful judgments to those thoughts, thus allowing a strong emotional charge to take over our mind.

If thoughts just simply arise in consciousness only to eventually fade away, then why are so many people tormented by their thoughts? I’m sure that I spent at least three minutes in psychological distress during those 20 days in 1998, only to have those thoughts fade away. But why sabotage myself, even for three minutes of mental anguish, when the initial thought will soon evaporate into the ether?

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A healthy way to deal with thoughts is to observe the thought rather than judging or analyzing. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe your reaction. For example, your boss criticizes you for a mistake you made on a project. Rather than identifying with the thought (thought: I can’t do anything right, emotion: self-loathing or sadness), you simply observe the thoughts arise, without critique. Then you choose the appropriate response that is within your control. You may respond my saying, “Okay, now I know better for next time,” or “I need to shift some things around in my life so I can be more effective at work.” But even if emotions of anger or sadness (naturally) creep in, simply observe them.

Why should you avoid judging and analyzing thoughts? Because that’s how emotions get charged. When we attach labels to our thoughts, we pour gasoline on the fire. Before you know it, a thought has turned into ruminating dark thoughts leading to charged emotions.. At this point, you have completely identified with your thoughts. Rather than watching the thought, you have become the thought. Self-sabotage as begun.

Thoughts are just thoughts. They come and go. Like large waves that crash and run up onto shore, then recede back into sea. Why fight the waves? Let them come and go. Watch them. You had over a million thoughts fly through your head in the aforementioned 20 days in 1998, and they floated away. You will have a million more thoughts float in your head in the next 20 days, let them come and go.

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The Need For Ancient Stories, Even When They Are Barbaric

On May 6, 2019May 6, 2019 By Gluteus MaximusIn Philosophy, Short Essays, Spirituality

Written over two days and finished up while vacationing in Palm Desert. This essay was inspired after meeting with my monthly philosophy group which broached this topic. I finished this essay with a Venti blonde roast coffee at my side, and Antonio Vivaldi playing on Pandora.

Let’s begin with some rhetorical questions. Is democracy bad because we can isolate some really bad historical offenses? Is science evil because it produced the hydrogen bomb and eugenics? I can say that I have pursued nobility and virtue in my life, but should I be deemed a vile human because I went through two years of narcissistic rebellion from 16-17 years of age? There is a tendency in our culture to isolate grievances within history, and then focus solely on the injustices born from those evils to the exclusion of anything good or lessons learned. This is the current tenor, especially when it comes tearing down statues of southern Civil War generals, demonizing Western Civilization, or dismissing and lambasting religion due to its abhorrent bronze-aged ethics. My point is that just because transgressions occur in history, even horrendous evils, doesn’t mean we should broad-brush with equal opprobrium.

Along these lines, it’s common for secularists to criticize and reject religion because it leans heavily on stories with histories in which “barbaric ethics” were accepted, as opposed to our more enlightened value system of today. I readily admit that I would much rather live in our current era, as opposed to ancient or even medieval times. Our current morality has progressed in such a way that societies have more freedoms, liberties, and rights – all of which contribute to a flourishing society. The mistake, however, is the wholesale repudiation of religious stories due to the ignoble period from which the stories are derived. Secularists are mistaken because these ancient stories address timeless existential concerns that speak to the human condition. Moreover, we interpret them in light of our current ethical framework in such a way that the useful and meaningful elements are distilled and put to virtuous action.

In this essay, I will focus on the secularist’s error in broad-brushing religion as insubstantial due to the savagery “endorsed” in holy writ. For the sake of brevity, I will highlight one of the most widely used stories secularist use to expose the ignobility of the Old Testament God: Abraham’s call to sacrifice his son. How can an ancient story that seemingly endorses human sacrifice be beneficial in our current era?

Here is short synopsis of the story. When Isaac grew to be a young boy, God tested Abraham by telling him to take his son (Isaac) and offer him as a burnt sacrifice. Though filled with sadness and grief, Abraham obeyed God’s words without hesitation and took Isaac to the mountain. Abraham had complete faith that God would provide a way out and that he would not lose his son. At the moment that Abraham tied up Isaac, the angel of the Lord stopped him and said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”[1]

This is a wonderful story that has been interpreted a thousand different ways to personify such virtues as faith, love, sacrifice and loyalty. One can see Abraham’s radical faith in his “ultimate” love (i.e. God). One can distill from this notion the idea that we all have an Ultimate in life that reflects a deep foundational purpose for each of us – and making sacrifices to fulfill that purpose is what brings out the richness of life. The story can also reflect the relationship of love God has for Abraham in that God doesn’t want Abraham’s blood, God wants his heart. Moreover, the sacrifice aspect of the story is a motif that the church has adopted through lent, in an effort to deepen one’s dedication to God through sacrificing something meaningful to the believer. We can think of the story as taking us away from our narcissistic self so that we can re-focus on connecting with ideals and worthwhile pursuits that are truly more meaningful.

Unfortunately, secularists have sought to use pseudo-rationalism to dilute any valuable meaning from the story. The secular person will often note the savage ethics “endorsed” in the story which include, a call for child-sacrifice, a supposed loving God ordering Abraham to commit homicide, and the irrational blind faith of Abraham. But is this a fair assessment? I mean, this is a story preached every Sunday in some church or synagogue in America each week, and the rate of child-sacrifices due to divine command is, nevertheless, a non-issue.

The secularist’s curtailment of the virtues within the story is nothing more than the classic fallacy of reductio ad absurdum. In other words, the secularist presumes absurd and ridiculous conclusions. I can think of no church in history that regularly killed babies due to this divine fiat in the Old Testament. The reason for this is because ancient stories like this have been recognized for their deeper meaning and virtues. This story has not been used to justify any horrendous evils because humanity has been smart and practical enough to realize that more significant lessons for life may be gleaned.

It’s important to acknowledge that there have been one-off examples of child homicide due to divine commands, but those are cases in which psychological disorders were diagnosed and swift punishment was carried out. In 2004, Deanna Laney killed her two young sons because God told her to do it. She stated in an interview, “I felt like I obeyed God and I believe there will be good out of this.”[2] This is similar to Andrea Yates of Texas who, in 2001, drowned her 5 children in the bathtub because the voice of God in her head ordered it. These cases are ones in which both Christians and Jews alike firmly believe are egregious and amoral. Moreover, psychological illness is the culprit, not a well thought out interpretation of the text. Never do we see faithful adherents of the Old Testament defending the actions of these one-off cases.

Another retort from secularists is to suggest that we set aside stories like this and conjure up a different story or select a real-life story that conveys Enlightenment virtues? This is a much more charitable rebuttal to the Abrahamic story. However, I would still argue that this suggestion fails to take into consideration the pragmatic elements of these ancient stories which speak directly to our human condition. Ancient stories abound and resonate througout milennia because they address fundamental existential concerns. Ancient narratives such as the Gilgamesh Epic (Sumeria), the Enuma Elish (Babylonia) and Egyptian Book of the Dead all provide motifs that include a fall into chaos, a struggle with evil or suffering, and then redemption – which is the relevant reality that impacts the 21-century person. Thus, whether you are in 3000 BCE Sumeria or 2019 Idaho, the quest to make meaning from suffering still permeates the soul.

Ancient stories are timeless treasures that expose the vulnerability and inclinations of the human mind. Stories from the past, even tall tales, fables or legends, unveil the psychological architecture which propel man to navigate the world – and from which we can look back and learn. Shall we set aside Plato because of the orgies and sexism found within his text? Shall we do away with the lessons and ideals of the Reformation because Martin Luther was anti-Semitic? It is simply intellectual pride to apply the pseudo-rational strategy of the secularist whereby modern moral superiority is exalted at all cost.

My argument holds true for other so-called abhorrent ethics of ancient writ. We interpret them in light of our current ethical framework in such a way that the useful and meaningful elements are distilled and put to virtuous action. Progressive Muslims are currently doing this with the difficult texts in the Quran. While a very small interpret the ancient commands as literal – which I admit is scary – a vast majority are able to employ Enlightenment values onto the Quran and glean life lessons that embolden virtue for today. And this is how culture works. Truth is found in what is useful, practical, and works within a given community. The reason why societies have progressed throughout the centuries is that we are able to view moral conundrums through the question: what does better look like? Thus, the complexion of freedom, liberty, and justice evolve throughout past centuries to reflect to norms and values as we pursue what ‘better’ looks like. Communities have proven that we are pretty good at improving on our mistakes, especially when you compare, for example, the Medieval period with today, or even 1900 ACE with 2000 ACE.

For these reasons, we ought to give these ancient stories their due. We glean what is useful and beneficial. We use them as road maps to live with more vitality and meaning. We recognize that even though they were written within a different context along with different values than we may have today, they nevertheless address the fundamental elements of the angst of being a human being in a world filled with chaos.

[1] Genesis 22:12 (NIV)

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/god-told-me-to-kill-boys-says-mother-54427.html