Basic Goodness

Some forms of Christianity teach that our basic selves are flawed and sinful. We need divine intervention to avoid becoming evil. Adam and Eve ate that apple, and we’re their descendants. I find this unhelpful. Believing that I am potentially evil, that I need to be saved by the grace of God, makes me wonder whether I’m actually blessed. Am I saved, or am I kidding myself out of fear of eternal damnation? Or if I feel like I’ve been saved, will I continue to remain one of the elect? If I chewed out a salesperson for screwing up my order, did I lose membership in the holiness society?

Pema Chodron, a Tibetan Buddhist, teaches that our fundamental natures are free, clear, and good. Misbehavior comes from bad habits. We build up kneejerk responses. We speak and act without considering the aftereffects. For instance, I question the parentage and intelligence of drivers when they suddenly swerve into my lane and cause me to slam on the brakes. A surge of fear triggers anger. Then I express it by cursing and leaning on my horn.

Chodron believes that even when I act and speak badly, when I send ripples of negative energy out into the world, I’m still basically good. I’ve acted out of delusion, so to speak, not out of my deepest nature. And she states that everyone belongs to the basic goodness club. Even the worst people hold a nonrevocable membership. They just have the most obstructions blocking access to their good natures. If we begin to observe our mental habits and refrain from blindly obeying their dictates, then we start to clear away clutter. Then our goodness starts to shine through the gaps.

So, why do our minds build up mental plaques that coat gleaming purity with gunk? Robert Wright asserts that our neural networks evolved to ensure survival. Our brains don’t care whether we understand the core realities of existence. Our minds aren’t wired to produce clarity and happiness. They’re programmed, instead, to help us avoid a lion attack. To please powerful people within our families and work environments. To find a mate willing to help us perpetuate our genes. Other considerations get shoved to the bottom of the list.

Chodron asserts that our minds are not ourselves. We are part of a deeper consciousness that pervades existence. We are bigger, freer and more aware than our minds typically allow us to be. As St. Paul wrote, “For now we see through a glass darkly…”

Barn Burners

Barn burner: (noun) an event…that is very exciting or intense.

Told my son that the last two therapy sessions had been barn burners. He drew a blank, so I explained that barns, built from wood and loaded with hay, burn hot and fast. I went further: “We’ve talked about some of my worst childhood moments.” He’s heard a few stories, so I spared him a recap.

I’ve noticed several aftereffects from barn burners. They exhaust me during a session and for the rest of the day. Residual anxiety and darkness fade quickly over the next day or two. I’m good to go for the rest of the week and feel like I’m getting better.

I’ve also noticed that regular sessions keep negative emotions from building up. A gap of two weeks allows mental residue to accumulate like bags of garbage piled high at the curb. After a while, the stink builds. So, while I don’t look forward to therapy, I know it helps clear away debris.

My therapist is good at stepping in to clarify issues and to assert that my reactions were normal given the situations I faced. I need to hear this as part of my problem comes from gaslighting. During the first twenty plus years of my life, certain individuals told me that I was odd, that I overreacted, and that I caused problems when difficulties arose. My therapist marches in, identifies the misbehavior perpetrated against me, and remarks that I endured serious trauma.

She’s told me several times that she’s surprised that I’m able to function as well as I do. People who’ve taken a lot of hits have difficulty holding jobs and maintaining long term relationships. I’m not sure how to process that message. Am I one of the lucky ones who can “take a licking and keep on ticking”? Should I take pride in being a survivor? Or am I a buried bomb waiting for some poor schmuck to step on the detonator? No matter how I frame her statement, it doesn’t feel like I’ve won a prize.

I’m not sure how long therapy will last. The process reminds me of a hike my wife and I took on our honeymoon in Maine. As we climbed a fog-shrouded mountain, we often mistook the ridge above us as the top. We’d struggle up an incline only to discover that another ridge loomed farther above. We eventually made it to the summit but only after giving up expectations. We stopped looking forward to each new turn in the path as the last turn in the path. And when we finally stood looking out into open space, we felt the moment keenly as a pleasant and sudden revelation.

Winners

A young television reporter interviewed a little girl dying of brain cancer. The twelve-year-old knew that she didn’t have a chance and accepted her fate. She sensed that her interviewer felt uncomfortable talking about her condition. She looked at him with pity and patiently answered stumbling questions. The reporter, thrown by her kindness, didn’t know how to sum up the end of the piece. How could he put a positive spin on the suffering of an innocent? He finally prattled, “Mary is a fighter and doesn’t give up. She’s a real winner.”

In high school, I once played a pick-up basketball game. A bruiser and I went up for a rebound. We both came down with the ball and hit the floor. He ripped the ball out of my hands and whipped his elbows to threaten me with a bloody nose if I tried to grab the ball. He gave me a savage grin. He won.

A local curator showed my narrative drawings in a three-person show at an art school in Winter Park. I’d already met many of the opening’s attendees but noticed that some didn’t wish me well. I knew that the exhibition wouldn’t lead to any upward leaps in my career. But my colleagues, the ones giving me sour glances as they whispered amongst themselves, thought that I’d stolen a precious, limited commodity. I had won.

The after-show dinner, a ritual hosted by the school director and attended by the artists, provided more unpleasantries. The other two exhibitors talked to each other and ignored me. I wondered why I had bothered to come. When we rose to leave the restaurant, the older of the two artists smiled and shook my hand warmly. We exchanged a few words of mutual admiration. The other fellow, a professor from UCF, gave me a cold appraisal. He acted as if he’d just noticed my presence. He grudged, “I never heard of you before, but now I know who you are.” His words sounded like an insult wrapped in a threat. He was the top dog. I’d never win.

I watched a Tom Snyder/James Garner interview this morning. A caller asked the actor whether he still had goals to achieve. Garner replied that he lived day to day, that happiness meant work and providing for his family. At 68, he didn’t want honors and wasn’t concerned about his career trajectory. He accepted other people’s opinions and praise graciously but didn’t give them much weight. Garner sounded calm and dead certain as he said this. He no longer had to win.

James Garner

Bulldog

Bulldog, oil on panel, 8×8″

I’ve drifted back to painting still lives. I haven’t abandoned the abstracts, but improvising brushwork in response to actual subjects engrosses me.

I had two paintings going in my studio. I worked on them while standing at an easel. Since my injury and subsequent DVT, I can’t stand still for long sessions (swelling and muscle cramps bother me). I retreated to my bedroom and arranged two still life set-ups.

Bedroom studio.

I finished the first still life today, an oil on panel painting of a bulldog statue posed before the back cover of a fine art book of nudes. The bulldog appears to feel uncomfortable with his surroundings…

The two images below show the first and last layers of the painting. The bulldog developed quickly, but the figure took a lot more time to refine. The rough surface and small size of the panel made finesse moves (subtle transitions and detail development) difficult. Near the end, I had to find a way to keep the woman’s face from dominating the composition. I softened a few edges and cut contrasts on her face and body to allow the dog to shine.

I arranged a second still life set-up on my dresser by sitting an old carburetor on the corner. The other objects on the dresser are everyday things left in place. Below are the initial stages of “Carburetor” (oil on canvas, 18×24″).

I’m working on top of a discarded self-portrait given to me by my daughter-in-law. I covered up the hand, hair, and trompe l’oeil stretcher bars in the second layer, but ghosts of the previous painting still show through. I’m thinking about incorporating some of the interference shapes and marks into the final painting.

If you’re trying to figure out the objects, there’s an alarm clock on the far left with photos and a DVD case in front of it, a pinecone to the left of the carburetor, a plastic bag to the right along with a red box and the backside of a piggy bank. The black vertical behind the carburetor is a lamppost. The left side of the still life is much more defined than the right, so I’ll target the rough spots when I get a chance.

You can see that painting is like keeping a guttering candle lit. I have to hope that the initial flounders will lead to something better. It means accepting that, for a time, ugly colors, half-formed, and misshapen objects make the painting suck. It means getting comfortable with open-ended questions about the best path forward.

I’ve recently discovered that obeying instinct works best. If drawn to an area, I work there until I lose interest. I develop another section when it attracts attention. I try to avoid working across the canvas like a general systematically conquering enemy territory. A scattershot approach keeps spontaneity and a sense of adventure present till the end.

Cutting Back on Chainsaw Juggling

A recent phone conversation with Nurse Kelly at my GP’s office:

Me: The CentraCare doctor has me on prednisone and cyclobenzaprine. The ultrasound showed that I have a DVT in my calf. I got the new prescription for Eliquis. Should I stay on the prednisone and cyclobenzaprine?

Kelly: Why are you taking the cyclobenzaprine?

Me: For cramps.

Kelly: Cramps?

Me: Cramps in my LEG…I’m post-menopausal.

My recent diagnosis has meant spending long stretches listening to canned music on doctors’ phone systems. Advent Health uses a recording of a Mozart chamber piece on all their “please hold” torture devices. “Da DEE, da Dee, da dee dee dee dee dee…Da DEE, da dee, da dee dum dee dee dee…dum dum, da dee dee dum dum, da dee dee dee dum dum, da dee dee, twitter twitter dum, twitter twitter, dum, etc.” After 5 or 10 minutes, I long for ACDC’s lead singer to interrupt with, “I’m back in black, back in black!”

I’ve also learned that a slightly chippy tone in my text messages draws a quicker response. 48 hours went by without an answer to some pertinent questions. So yesterday, I asked the questions again, pointed out the time lapse since my first text, and inquired whether it would be better to call them directly. I got a call back forty minutes later.

I got another call this morning. The nurse told me that the doctor had changed my blood thinner prescription as requested. The standard treatment for DVTs is an anticoagulant prescription lasting 6 months. My insurance requires me to pay $400/month for Eliquis. The replacement drug will cost half.

The nurse carefully told me at the end of the call that I should avoid taking the new drug along with the old. I said, “I’m going to finish the Eliquis before I start the Xarelto.” She said, “Good, just make sure you don’t start the Xarelto on the same day you take Eliquis.” I said, “I believe I could have figured that out.” She said in a tone I’d reserve for my three-year-old granddaughter, “Well, we just want to make sure.” I guess they’re worried that I might scratch myself and bleed to death after downing a double dose of blood thinners.

Which leads me back to a joke I’ve been itching to tell them. The next time I visit, I’m going to say that I’ve religiously been taking my medicine, and that Judy’s made me cut back on my hobby: juggling chainsaws. I’ll thoughtfully add that when I do juggle, I spread plastic sheets over the furniture and carpets. No use messing up the decor.

The Shrinking Target

I sometimes fall prey to the notion that, when writing an essay, more editing makes better prose. The same thing happens in painting. The brushstrokes start out loose, free, even chaotic. Then I notice errors and discordances that beg for correction. I sometimes assume that when I reach the end of a to-do list, a shiny new painting will emerge. But then a new set of corrections rises up. It’s like taking aim at a target that shrinks with each attempt.

Of course, the perfection path leads to sterility if I erase and fuss too much. The desperate effort reveals fear of failure more than a desire for excellence. And when I read an overworked essay or look at a highly polished painting, it’s like having a stilted conversation with someone who stays meticulously within the constraints of proper etiquette. I can feel the strain.

Free spirits who avoid the purification trap delight everyone for a short while. Their energy and spontaneity enchant. Some follow the practice of writing or painting without revisions. These sorts of writers and painters hold a deep faith in the worth of their creativity even after their improvisations settle into repetitive signature gestures.

I like painters who allow a few rough edges to stick out. They have the technical ability to clean up awkward spots but leave some anyway. The mistakes make the refined passages look even better. Rembrandt mastered this approach. He hit the spots that mattered and left the minor areas largely undeveloped.

Rembrandt, Portrait of Jan Siix

If you look at the cloak and left gloved hand in Jan Six’s portrait, you can see that Rembrandt took hardly any pains. The right hand, the cuff behind it, the white collar, and the face are painted with exquisite care. The brutality of the rough passages makes the quality of the refined sections stand out even more.

Walter Tandy Murch took another route. He worked on stained, scuffed, and roughed up surfaces. He stepped on canvases in progress to introduce novel textures and marks. The final state of his still lives shows objects struggling to separate themselves from an assertive background. Some emerge from their environment; some partially dissolve; some are barely recognizable as three-dimensional objects.

Still Life by Walter Tandy Murch

Murch’s allows himself freedom to control, polish, disrupt, and even destroy. He escapes the perfection trap. His engagement with real objects prevents him from getting stuck in dead ends. Each new subject and painting surface demand fresh approaches.

(Non) Accidents of Birth

Most teenagers wonder, at some point, how they ended up born into their families. They feel like a fateful god shrugged its shoulders and made a random selection. Bob Jr. might have inherited a few traits from mom and dad, and he might resemble a sibling, but everything else feels wrong.

I’m a recovering NDE video addict. The predominant message given by Near Death Experience survivors is that God is a being of infinite love and wisdom. The second recurring message is that we choose the broad outlines of our lives before birth. We come into this world with things to do and lessons to learn. We select hard times and tough circumstances. We pick our relatives. Like masochistic tourists, we plan the most challenging routes.

I have one question when I consider the proposition that I volunteered for everything: what the hell was I thinking? Other questions: did folks living in abject poverty, suffering starvation, and ricocheting from one moment of abject terror to another really choose the courses of their lives? What induced them to pick those travel plans? Were all the cabins on the luxury yachts already taken?

I’ve heard that we need hard times and tragedies to appreciate the best things in our lives. Moments of happiness seem sweeter when contrasted to times of grief and pain. I sometimes tell painting students that compositions need to have patches of dull colors to make the shining passages shine a little brighter.

But don’t we all wish that our lives resembled extended beach vacations?

Near the end of earning my master’s degree, an acutely stressful time, an acquaintance commented that I had grown a lot during the preceding two years. She wished me continued growth postgraduation. I groused, “If that’s what it takes to grow, I’d like to spend the next two years quietly rotting.”

But I’ve recently come across some teachings that assert that radical acceptance reduces suffering. Regardless of our situations, the best we can do is to embrace each moment and live it fully. The Roman Stoics had a slogan: amor fati. Love your fate.

We may never fully understand the reasons for tragedies and heart wrenching struggles in our lives. But bitching about them makes everything worse. Yearning for different circumstances or wishing that we could go back and make different choices wastes time and energy. If we turn and face our experience, then we are freed from struggling against things that can’t be changed. And we truly live our allotted time.

If the only sure gift we have is this life, then why not make use of it to the furthest extent? Questions about a life plan’s worth can be saved for the exit interview.

DVT = Dark Violet Twisters

One week ago, I woke up with a heavy, swollen ankle. The calf muscles tensed into protracted Charley Horses. I began spending extended periods stretching and massaging my lower leg. Standing at an easel and washing dishes made the aggravated muscles feel like they would explode.

After several days passed with little or no improvement, I researched my symptoms. I came across a video that discussed 7 reasons for leg cramps. One alarming diagnosis was a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot that could disengage, travel to the lungs, and possibly kill.

I went to a CentraCare on Saturday morning. The doctor seemed reluctant to discuss the possibility that I had a life-threatening condition. He gingerly proposed that I might have soft tissue damage from an accidental blow to the side of my ankle. (I dinged it on metal tool one week earlier.) He told me to get the ankle scanned at an ER come Monday if the swelling hadn’t gone down. He added that shortness of breath and chest pains warranted a 911 call.

The swelling went down a bit, but the pain remained. I called my GP on Monday. He did a more thorough examination and said in a series of hesitations that I might have a fracture, a bone bruise, or a DVT. He set up an ultrasound and an x-ray stat.

The hospital staff seemed eager not to discuss the results with me, but Reuben, the ultrasound tech, spent extra time grinding away at the middle of my calf. He sent me home with a message to call the GP’s office for the diagnosis.

I couldn’t get directly through to the office. After listening to a sprightly Mozart quartet play four or five times, I left a message. I went to the hospital website, accessed my notes, and got the results. I had a thrombosis in my right popliteal vein.

The GP’s receptionist called back to confirm my diagnosis, but I couldn’t speak to the nurse or the doctor. They were otherwise occupied. 2 hours later, the nurse called to tell me that I could go about my daily routine, that I should avoid strenuous activity, and that I should call 911 if I became faint or short of breath. I was also given a prescription for an anticoagulant.

I woke up this morning thinking about how many times the doctors and techs slid away from naming my condition. They seemed afraid to deliver bad news. I began to consider other possible meanings for the DVT acronym. I want to be ready in case I develop an avoidance syndrome when speaking about my problem.

Here are a few DVT variations: Dueling Snake Tangles; Dallying Vampire Teasers; Drippy Victor’s Tango; Dewy Vicuna Trampolines. So, if anyone asks why I’m limping and in a grumpy mood, I can say that I suffer from Dark Violet Twisters.

Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise

Psychological investigators asked individuals in a test group to make a choice: would they rather spend twenty minutes in an isolation room using no electronic devices, or would they opt to break the tedium by giving themselves short but painful electrical shocks. Many chose to press the shock button. The thought of being quietly alone with their thoughts terrified them.

Addiction to media stimulation isn’t new. When I was a kid, my mother turned the television or radio on shortly after breakfast. They remained on for the rest of the day and into the night. (We listened to Walter Cronkite reporting Vietnam War body counts during supper.) She fell asleep many nights on the living room sofa accompanied by late night talk show hosts. At the height of her enthrallment, she would simultaneously watch a baseball game on TV, listen to the same game on a transistor radio, and would also have another radio playing an AM station. If you rotated focus from one to the other, you could hear TV commentators murmuring, the radio sportscasters making similar remarks about a play at second base, and the AM radio crooning its slogan (“It’s Beeeyoootiful in Dayton.”) And if the game lacked drama, Mom would engage in a conversation over the top of the noise.

I don’t remember many moments of calm and silence inside the house. I sometimes took refuge by climbing an apple tree in the back yard. I’d watch birds flying by as the sun set behind a stand of trees.

When I first started meditating, stillness troubled me. My mind churned out random thoughts, and a headache would pop up behind my forehead. I gradually grew accustomed to silence by meditating with my wife. Her steadying presence drew me deeper.

We joined the Quakers shortly after our wedding. Quakers practice a form of silent worship in which a group “centers on the Inner Light” and waits for guidance. Speakers deliver short messages when inspiration strikes. But in a “gathered meeting”, a whole hour passes by undisturbed. A feeling of kinship arises amongst the congregants, and sometimes a loving presence descends upon them.

Buddhists teach that a deeper sense of reality awaits anyone who loses their identification with mental noise. We delude ourselves when we become attached to the voices in our heads, and when we base our self-images on the ruckus. We mistakenly believe that surface waves are the whole ocean.

When I am stressed, I want noise and distraction to shield me from my situation. I escape mental pain by watching a bad movie or a long succession of YouTube videos. I can feel an addiction to noise gaining strength.

I’m slowly learning to turn toward the pain and anxiety, to meet them. I don’t want to end up wandering in an echo chamber of pointless noise.

“Why?” is the Most Useless Question.

“Why?” is the most useless question. It’s unanswerable. The questioner hopes to find reasons for outcomes and events in order to avoid a repetition of disasters. But the quest for understanding, for finding a logical sequence of causes and effects, is futile.

We can’t go back far enough to find the germ moments of catastrophes. Even if we figure out that a mad dictator’s campaign for domination derived from an abusive relationship with a bad father, why did that father act in that way toward his son? And why did that particular son react in an extreme manner while his fellow-suffering siblings maintained their sanity? Even if we blame a fatal character flaw on genetic inheritance, why did the worst elements of that inheritance get expressed at a particularly consequential moment in history? Abusive fathers and scarred sons abound. Why did a few traumatic duos cause so much carnage? In other words, Hitler, the victim of a brutal father, arrived at just the right time to do the most damage. Why?

Asking “Why” leads to the assignment of blame, but blame doesn’t fix anything. And if that question has no obvious answer, then abuse victims often assume that they caused their own suffering. (I must have disappointed Daddy. That’s why he hit me.) It feels better to take on blame rather than accept the existence of random suffering. If bad things happen to innocent people for no reason, then bad things can keep on happening whenever Fate finds new targets.

Better questions might be “What?” and “How?” What happened during a disaster? How did the various elements and agents of a situation interact to produce mayhem? What were the warning signals? What steps eased suffering effectively? How can we fix the damage?

We could look at suffering and trouble the way that weather forecasters look at storms. They describe the atmospheric situation without making judgments. They don’t get angry at hurricanes. They merely predict strengths and pathways.

Problem-solving and purposeful action begin with “What?” and “How?” Despair and self-pity coil themselves around “Why?”