STIRRING YOUR ICED TEA

July 14th, 2018

From a young age I have enjoyed stirring iced tea after pouring a little sugar into it and watching the tiny blizzard whip into a whirlpool. 

Then.  Stir the other way. 

The whole glass would go from an orderly circular rhythm to chaos.  And from that chaos a new whirlpool would form in the opposite direction.  Often times, I would try to see how fast I could get the direction to change, pressing that chaos into a smaller and smaller length of time.

Whirlpools are the way that I visualize vicious and virtuous cycles.  As you move down in a whirlpool you get a tighter faster version of what’s going on.  It’s somewhat like a fractal.

Depression often fits the pattern of a vicious cycle.  At the top, things can be slow. Maybe even so slow that we do not notice, like the circumstances from many years ago when the trends of depression may have begun, and it all seemed invisible then.

And with time, things can intensify.  

Things go down and down, and the very process seems to reinforce itself.  Depression can feel like a tightening that is happening all the time.  And thinking about it often seems to only hasten this process. . .towards some kind of endless bottom.

After my child eyes had studied that chaotic blizzard of sugar in so many glasses of iced tea, and I had become strong enough to really push quickly and exactly in the opposite direction, I noticed something.

Tiny whirlpools formed immediately when I reversed direction. 

All together it looked like chaos.  But it was just more complicated.  As I stirred counter, lots of little whirlpools formed and joined, until everything in the glass was going in a new direction.

It’s not recommended that you stick a spoon in your ear and try to stir your thoughts in a different direction.  And while the analogy is still apt and some people can achieve wholesale reorganization of their person in a way that might be likened to a religious transformation, not everyone has that switch conveniently available.

Perhaps just get one thing rolling in the other direction.  Let it ride against whatever whirlpool or vicious cycle consumes your thoughts now.  And it will gain momentum.  Like two gears.  One spinning the other - spinning it an the opposite direction.

Maybe it can be a simple habit.  Like going to the gym just for the punching bag.  Because every time you look at that punching bag, you picture your depression personified.  Caged up like some horcrux in that bag, and you beat the shit out of it bitterly every time.  The more you concentrate on how much depression has taken from you, held you back, the harder and longer you punch. And before you know it?

You’ve had a hell of a workout. 

You probably feel great.  (It’s worthwhile to do some casual research on the links between physical activity and decreased symptoms of depression.  Thank you Acetylcholine. And all you other ridiculously named neurotransmitters.)

Just get one thing rolling in the other direction.  Let it gain momentum from what’s going wrong. 

Then add something else to whirl in the opposite direction.

And then another.

And another.

Before you know it the vicious cycle of depression has given way to many small virtuous cycles.  And they join, now feeding into each other and everything quickens.  Till suddenly.  Everything is moving in the right direction.

It doesn’t have to be all at once.

In fact, it’s probably best to keep in mind it can’t be all at once.

Just start with one little thing.

And stir.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: WHIMS OF FATE

July 13th, 2018

When Lucilius was a young man, he worked as a scribe for a very learned scholar in a vast library.  There was a pervasive military presence in the city at the time and the attacks and vying for position with enemies was a daily constant.  But, being such a young man of noble and lofty conceptions, Lucilius never imagined that his beloved work at the library would ever have anything to do with the outside world.

But that day the market was deserted and the sky was black to the north.  Lucilius quickened his pace so that he could have time to see what was happening before he had to be at the library.  As he hastened, the low buildings slowly shifted apart, the street widening and opened to reveal the docks, where ships were burning.  Rising above the people watching, the smoke filling the sky.  A commander had tactically set fire to his own ships to thwart an enemy.  But the tactic was a risky one, and all moves in war, even the most restrained, hunger for casualties.

As Lucilius neared the end of the street where people thronged at a safe distance to gawk at the spectacle, Lucilius’ gaze followed the path of the raging fire, his heart rising to choke him.  The great library was ablaze with all the ships, engulfed and fed by new winds, carrying the fire into the city.

Lucilius felt the pall of death creeping round him, though nothing was dying.  He ran towards the library, a hysterical terror rising in him.  Most of the building was alight and the flames were spreading.  Lucilius could see, knowing the inside, what sections were being eaten, devoured by the flame, the endless scrolls twisting to black crackle before dissolving into grey powders, authors turning to embers and the only recorded memory of mankind dissipating like a small puddle before the hottest summer suns.

Drawing close enough to feel the magnificent heat of the inferno, Lucilius collapsed at a gap in a line of men staring at the bright tragedy.  Lucilius wept for the lost words, his mind wrenched into a hopelessness for the future.  The many souls that would come will have none of the wisdom that he and so many before him had toiled to preserve.

The library was gone and Lucilius, still on his knees, looked up at the smoking carcass of the building.  Beside him remained, an old man, the scholar he worked for, whom he had not noticed during the magnificent destruction of the library.  The old scholar was smiling while looking upon the lost treasure of words.

“How can you smile at this tragedy?” Lucilius snapped at the old man in sadness.

“Dear boy, we have a new start.  So many old moldy words.  They keep us from discovering what else we need to find.”

“How can you say this?  How many times have you regaled to me the endless wisdom that we had in our hands.”

The old scholar shrugged.  “What is true will be true forever.  What is true does not need any fragile dark mark made on some scroll.  What is true will be found again, it will fly through the whims of fate like a divine arrow, straight and true.” 

TIGHTROPE

July 12th, 2018

This episode references Episode 77: The Proper Way to Fail.  If you'd like to fully understand the reference, please check out that episode first.

For a moment, imagine being a tightrope walker.  High up, with no net.

How would we manage our concentration in this situation?

FAILURE is simple and obvious.  There are two major directions that we need to be concerned about.  Too far in either direction and it spells disaster.  Balance derives literally from ‘having two scalepans”.

For things to remain stable we pit one against the other.  Too much left is rebalanced by leaning a little to the right. 

And for this to be achieved continuously, we have to remain attentive and in the moment.

All of this about tightrope walking is obvious, but tightrope walking offers an even richer analogy beyond the literal need to stay attentive and faithful to the present moment.

For a moment, imagine that on one side of this tightrope is the past and the other is the future.  During the day, our mind is a sea of thoughts.  Troublingly few are actually about the present.  Most often we are dreaming or dreading the future or regretting and reliving the past.  Every moment our mind is walking a tightrope between these two endlessly large concepts.  We fail to remain present and we fall into thinking about the past or the future.  Life passes us by in these moments.

But neither can or should be vilified.  Like the pull to fall on either side of the tightrope walker, the present requires the future and the past, balanced against one another in harmony, and our ability to exist in the moment requires balancing all that we have been and all that we have experienced against all that might happen and all that we might be.  By this balance can we nullify the past with the possibility of the future, build the future with the lessons of the past and achieve a virtuous cancelling with one leaning against the other, leaving us squarely in the present.

We’ve all learned how to balance enough for daily activities, but anyone can admit that it would take more learning and practice to reliably walk an actual tightrope.  The case is the same when it comes to staying in the present moment. We all have the tools and some experience, but doing it reliably on command and consistently requires more learning and focused practice.

Are we going to look at the tightrope and just say we can’t do it?

Are we going to make an excuse of having too many thoughts.  Too much chaos, too many emotions?

Or are we going to do something, take action and try a strategy in order to keep balanced? 

WHEN TO REMEMBER

July 11th, 2018

This episode references Episode 76: Unlikely Mentors. If you'd like to fully understand the reference, please check out that episode.

Everything changes.  Is this a good thing to remember while having a really good time?  That everything changes, and that the good time will not last?  Probably not.  It can instantly become a self-fulfilling prophecy and spoil a good time.

When is a better time to remember that nothing stays the same and that everything changes?  How about during a bad time?  When things are looking bleak, when things feel desolate and hopeless.  Does that linguistic pair unzip it’s chameleon suit and step out as a single bright ray of hopeful sunshine?

Interesting how two words can seem like the most unwanted party guest in one instance and like a savior in another. 

If we had to categorize the concept that “Everything Changes” into one of the categories of Good & Bad, where would we place it?

The fascinating part of this exercise and asking ourselves this question is that we realize the answer is dependent on our own current perspective.  And yet it’s probably fair to say that “everything Changes” is one of the few iron clad laws of living.  As a fact of life, it does not change.

Given different circumstances: having a good time and being down in the dumps, it seems at first glance that remembering this rule of life is more useful in one circumstance rather than the other.  When things are not going well, remembering that it’ll change, as all things do, can be a comforting start and may even spur actions to help change the situation.

But is it so bad to remember that things change while having a good time?  At first glance it seems pessimistic, however this shifty little fact might be a coin with two shiny sides.

To illustrate, it’s fun to think of flowers.

Compare: would you rather receive a bouquet of freshly cut flowers?  Or a bunch of plastic ones that will last forever?

Given the nature of all the language that surrounds romance, it makes a lot more sense to give plastic ones.  Hallmark cards use the word ‘forever’ ad nauseum.  Plastic flowers make a lot more sense given this indication in the way we like to speak about those times, people, experiences we treasure.

The contradiction shows that things are a little more nuanced.

We prefer fresh cut flowers because they only last a short while.  The word ‘fresh’ means that it will soon decay.  And it’s this juxtaposition that helps us appreciate what is happening here and now.  Like a firework lighting up the night sky for just a few moments.

The utility of these things is not to remind us that things will change, and potentially end. 

Fresh cut roses and fireworks work well with us because they jolt us, and bring us back to the present. 

They are mere reminders of what is going on all the time: that we are alive.

One of the gifts of this little fact, is that we can develop the ability to choose the perspective we wish to have.  By selecting what influences our thoughts, whether it be a facebook feed or a meditation app.  By training thoughts, whether that be through prayer or affirmations or by putting in no effort at all.  or by using the body to influence the mind with exercise, dance, or some martial art, or by doing nothing at all and staying on couch.  Everything has an influence on the perspective, even if it seems like it’s nothing at all.   

When to remember?  That everything changes?

It’s particularly good at those moments when we are not being proactive, when we are catering to the lazier parts of ourselves.   Perhaps this is why we like fresh cut roses and fireworks.  Indeed it may be at the heart of all entertainment.

Entertainment has a shallow pall about it, but it’s draw has a useful and undeniable fact.  Some of us need to be shaken up to remember that we are living and alive.  The trap is that we can become somewhat addicted to the shaking up, and forget to actually do anything as a result of it.

so when is it a good time to remember that everything changes?

All the time.

during bad times to help change course,

and certainly during

good times, if not to prepare mentally and stoically for the future, then to remember that the present moment is a gift, a dynamic gift.  One that can and will change instantly as it dances with changes in our perspective.

FIGHTING FIRE

July 10th, 2018

Is it wise to fight fire with fire?

In order to successfully battle fire, what is needed?

Edgar Allen Poe once wrote a deliciously ripe story called “A Descent into the Maelstrom” 

In this story a man is on a boat and gets sucked into a vast whirlpool in the sea.  The situation is one that would cause many people to panic, and as we all know, panic can make us do some dumb things.  As his fate appears to become more certain in the chaos and he sinks ever closer down to a central eye of deep crushing oblivion, he does something that seems really strange to an outside observer, perhaps even dumb.  He lashes himself to a barrel and abandons the safety of the ship he’s on and jumps off.  This action seems ludicrous.

Unless you know what he knows.  As he descended, a calmness overcame him.  He became serene.  And in that serenity he looked around and he was able to observe.  It is this awareness that allowed him to notice something important: Objects of a certain shape seemed to escape the whirlpool, like a barrel.  But ships and boats ended up at the bottom where they were crushed. 

At face value, if you don’t know the precious observation, his action seems insane. 

In the chaos of the whirlpool there was an order, that he was able to discern by becoming the opposite of the whirlpool, the opposite of chaos: being serenely observant.

In order to successfully battle fire, it’s ‘opposite’ is needed: water.

Chaos wins by spreading it’s emotional state: panic.  More panic breeds more panic.

The antidote to chaos and panic is not more panic.

The opposite is required.

To feel better.  Does not necessarily mean feeling different. 

The antidote to a dark emotion is not an equally bright emotion. 

This is like battling a grease fire with an electrical fire.

The antidote is to throttle back on emotion all together. 

To gain a state of calmness. 

To reside in the space between dark and bright emotions.