Observations

Things rattle around in my head sometimes. (I'm hoping I am not unique in this). Absurdities and oddities from the human experience that refuse to go away. Here's a few:

? Isn't the moral of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that it's OK to revile and exclude someone who is different until you have a use for them, when it becomes acceptable to love them? Is Rudolph, then, the archetype of the undocumented worker? You know, as in the bigots who say, "Can't stand those wetbacks...except Juan, who takes such good care of my roses. Oh, and Maria, who cares for our children. I LOVE them." A further question: shouldn't Rudolph have told Santa where to put his fogbound sleigh? Founded Occupy North Pole? The Rights of the Red? For that matter, Santa's been doing this for a couple of centuries and he still hasn't figured out how to fly in fog, for Christmas' sake?

? I drive rental cars quite often and wonder why in the world they always give us two keys on a ring that can't be opened. Isn't the whole point of having two keys to put one in your pocket in case you lock the other key in the trunk or something? What could possibly be the point of conjoined keys?

? While we're on the subject of rental cars: why do the buttons and switches have to be so different from one car to the other? I have to spend an inordinate amount of time finding out how to operate cruise control, stereo, turn signals, heating and cooling. And the different places they put the plug-in jack for connecting my mp3 player to the car stereo is just intentionally cruel, sadistic, even. Can't we just decide and all do it the same way? While they're at it, could they just put the freaking fuel door on the same side of all cars and make them all open the same way? And, hey, what's up with some cars keeping the radio on after I take the key out of the ignition (until I open the car door)? When I say OFF, car, I mean OFF.

? One more on this theme: when I get into a rental car, it is almost always evident that the side-view mirrors have been adjusted to look behind the car. Folks, side-view mirrors (stay with me here) are for looking at the side of the car in order to see things in your blind spots. If you adjust them to be supplemental rear-view mirrors, it defeats their entire purpose.

? Is tetherball the dumbest of all possible games?

? Doesn't it seem that there are far too many talented engineers with too much time on their hands? I give you as Exhibit One those cheap wind-up toys that do fairly amazing things. I had one little car that went forward a foot or so, then a lever emerged from the bottom of the car, turned it all the way over, at which point the car continued on its way. And the engineering implied by those wind-ups that do a backflip, land on their feet, then do it again is mind-boggling  Another example: someone figured out that plastic drinking glasses, when stacked, have a tendency to stick together, so they put a little flange inside the glass about 4/5 of the way down, to keep them apart but still stacked. One more: in a little lunch box thingy I got a folding plastic fork. I know it doesn't sound like much, but a close look at this thing (which had to be cheap enough to mass produce) reveals astounding miniature engineering.

? Since we're basically made of seawater (our blood has the same salinity as the ocean), why can't salt water quench our thirst? For that matter, why hasn't a species intelligent enough to put a powerful computer in every phone figured out a cheap, efficient way to desalinate sea water?

? Nothing drives me as crazy as things that are designed to do only one thing and do them badly. The most glaring example is coffee carafes. They are for pouring coffee into cups but invariably pour a substantial portion on the counter and/or floor. Here's another one: return slips that don't fit return envelopes, like the slip you are supposed to return with your check to pay a bill. Now, this may seem petty, but consider that the company that made these made and sold them as a compatible set, meaning they must have either known they didn't fit one another or were too stupid to come to that conclusion.

? Around here I quite often see signs that say, "Illegal Trespass Prohibited". This drives me nuts. Trespass is by definition both illegal and prohibited. All illegal acts are prohibited. Does anyone really think that saying it three times will deter anyone?

? What is it with people who won't take their right-of-way at four way stops and other places? Do they really think this is considerate or kind? Folks, the most considerate, kind, intelligent thing you can do is to take the right-of-way the situation offers you and do so briskly. When you foil expectation in these situations, you only make the whole exchange more frustrating and dangerous.

? It bugs me that machines like microwaves, stereos, computers and cars display messages like "Hello!" and "Bye" and "Your Meal Is Ready". It's not so much that it creeps me out (which it does, a little), but do the designers really think this makes the whole experience more evocative? I don't require a warm personal relationship with my toaster oven. I require toast.

? Why do some people use motion detector car alarms on busy urban streets? Hello! Yes, every bus and truck that goes by will set off your alarm. Get a clue.

? I have stopped watching some popular comedy shows (eg, The Simpsons, Seinfeld) because I thought their humor had become mean-spirited. Yet I have no problem watching programs (eg, The Wire, Breaking Bad) in which murder and mayhem are common plot devices. I guess I don't mind if you shoot each other in the head as long as you aren't mean about it. Nice.

? As I get older, the term "absent-minded" takes on a more sinister and literal meaning. I mean, sometimes the sucker is just...gone!

OK, I know, not exactly Earth-shattering, but don't you sometimes just stop in your tracks and say, "What were they thinking?!" or, perhaps, "What was I thinking?!" I do.

Empathy for the shooters

On Thursday I was angry, disappointed, fearful and frustrated. My bosses were talking about taking away some of my Fridays off, a schedule I have had for 12 years and around which I have organized my life. Still, weighing some days off against the death of a room full of six-year-olds makes what I was experiencing infinitesimal. But to me it was a very real and present pain and caused me deep suffering, if only briefly.

I bring this up only in order to open my heart to those who suffer mightily every day and for years upon years. Take my pain and multiply it by ten and fill an entire life with it; only then would I have any clue to what could drive a young man to take up an assault rifle and shoot little children. This act is so far in violation of everything we as human beings stand for that we must believe that only an entire disconnection from one's humanness could make it possible. What suffering, what inner and outer torture, what pain, confusion and rage must have been present in Adam Lanza's mind for him to contemplate the deed, nonetheless act on it. Not only is the mass killing of others unthinkable to most of us, but the pure innocence of children this age brings the meaninglessness of it into even sharper focus.

But here we must pull ourselves up sharply. It is far too easy to disassociate ourselves from Adam Lanza, to make of him a monster with no relation to us. This is the very impulse, the creation of Us versus Them, that keeps certain people and even whole swaths of people out of our hearts. I find myself vilifying "gun nuts" and the NRA, thinking of them as monolithic entities rather than as convocations of like-minded human beings. I find it far too easy to assign blame; to Lanza, his mother, those who missed his mental illness, a society which didn't treat it, those who use the Second Amendment as an excuse to own the means to kill hundreds of their fellow humans. I, too, have the knee-jerk impulse to lock down every school, arm every teacher, put sharpshooters on the roofs. I have the desire to take away from every person in the world their guns and other weapons. I want, in other words, to do anything but feel that Adam Lanza was me. He was and is each of us. To think otherwise is to let ourselves off the hook. We are responsible. For one thing, to deny this association is to claim that we never feel a murderous rage, even rarely and briefly. Where we fail to empathize we cannot help but fail to understand.

I know there are those who will excoriate me for suggesting that we should in any way feel badly for someone who would murder children, that I am somehow condoning the act or aligning myself with who he is. This is an odd perspective which would seem to argue that hatred is the only moral response to a hateful act, that finding someone to blame or placing Those People beyond the reach of being full members of the human race is an effective response to our confusion and pain. Part of the punishment for a heinous act is to be utterly reviled and to fill my heart with contempt and venom.

The Buddha was unambiguous in his renunciation of the impulse to divide ourselves. We are one. We are so thoroughly interdependent that not one of us could exist without the efforts of us all. The post-apocalyptic stories of the lone man or woman making a go of it on this Earth are simply silly fantasies, not to mention the fact that without bacteria, bugs, rodents and other creatures we wouldn't be here. With every breath we take, oxygen molecules that have been in and out of billions of other beings and forms enter our lungs. The stuff which makes our bodies has been stars, Rottweilers and bacon. The border between us is artificial, porous, a chimera, without substance or form in the real world.

It is only useful to see into the hearts of those who suffer and cause suffering. Or, more precisely, it is only useful to see into the Heart that is the center of us all. The more I inveigh against the NRA or those who sell assault weapons without recognizing their connection to me, the more I encourage the very divisiveness that drives someone like Adam to abandon his humanity to rage and revenge, encourage the deep-seated fear at the center of the impulse to stockpile weapons to defend against unknown terrors. I am these people. They are me. Only beginning there can we even begin to understand.

Don't get me wrong. I oppose the private ownership of most weapons. As I am devoted to the Dharma, I am philosophically opposed even to the use of guns for hunting. (In response to those who say that deer and other animals must be thinned to avoid their becoming a nuisance, I recall the Gary Larson cartoon with two deer speaking, one saying to the other, "Why don't they thin their own damn herd?"). At a minimum, if suddenly in charge of the world, I would ban assault weapons and handguns (the latter designed for the sole purpose of killing other people), except for the military and police. If we must have them, how about gun clubs, where guns for hunting and target practice are kept in a central location and locked up, only to be accessed for licensed, planned activities, then locked up again? (And, if the end times come, where the militias would know where to find them, just to reassure that faction).

I would ban first-person shooter video games. Yes, yes, I too have seen the studies denying a link from these games to gun violence in the real world. But should we really be breaking down the moral horror that (one would hope) comes over us at the prospect of pointing a gun at another human being and pulling the trigger? Would we condone a video game in which we practiced the fine points of rape? When I visited them a few years ago, I was horrified to see my sweet greatnieces and -nephews calmly mowing down bad guys with assault rifles. This sort of game also reinforces the divide between Us and Them. When we depersonalize those we view as Other, it becomes much simpler to take them out without qualm. Think of the degrading epithets used to describe our opponents in war: gooks, krauts, japs, towel-heads, filth, Charlie. If we downgrade them from fully human to something less, we need not feel quite the same dismay when we end their lives. We may, in fact, feel that we are doing our holy duty by killing the Other, much as the Nazis did the Jews and others they demeaned. I read of the recent shootings in Pennsylvania on Yahoo and was more devastated by the comments on the article than the article itself. These mostly centered in "now the state will come for your guns, be ready to kill them" and, most chilling of all, "You are next". We have hammered out ideological bulwarks and are hunkering down behind them for the long fight. This can only lead to more and worse violence.

The Buddha's message was clear: it is the creation of suffering to leave any person or any creature whatsoever out of your heart. It is the source of personal suffering, societal suffering, the suffering of the whole world. In fact, there is no other source; this is the wellspring of all suffering. We can choose, instead, to turn to the wellspring of all that is good, the understanding that we are all one--the deer and the hunter, the NRA vice president and the pacifist, the shooter and the shot. Adam Lanza is that cute six-year-old girl he killed and she is he. It cannot be otherwise because it is the core truth of our existence. There is no other place to begin to heal and transform our world into one of love, harmony and understanding. This is possible. It is never too late to begin. 

Anxiety

Let me reassure you right away that I am not about to launch into some autoanalytical diatribe like last week's. But anxiety does have me curious.

Right now it is Thursday morning, December 13. This evening I will fly to Sacramento to visit my family. I do this every month, mostly because my parents are aging and I want to be a vital part of their last years, but also because I don't want to become an afterthought to the rest of my family, most of whom live in that area. (You would have to ask my siblings if "not being an afterthought" equates to being a pain in the ass). And this morning I am anxious. In fact, I have been low-level cranky all week. But here's the thing: I love flying. I love being with my family. I've developed a cautious affection for Auburn, where I spend most of my time. My brother and his wife, son and dogs graciously welcome me into their home. Things generally go smoothly. And so on. So...whence the anxiety?

I don't wish to equate this kind of anxiety with the crippling condition from which some unfortunate folks suffer; this is nothing like that. But my anxious feelings do seem to transform me into a different person. My resolves and disciplines (food, behavior, attitude, demeanor, meditation, kindness above all) seem to fade into the background as this ravenous desire to be comforted takes hold.

What makes me curious is not the anxiety per se; that's actually pretty mundane. What I marvel at is how malleable is this thing we call personality. How can something so routine cause me not only to feel these symptoms but to feel that I have been, no matter how temporarily and, in the end, insignificantly yet nonetheless truly transformed?

By Thursday evening, on the train on the way to the airport, a calm, warm, benign feeling overcomes me. All is well.

Throughout this trip (I'm writing this having now returned) I noted my feeling states and couldn't help but be aware that I go through a similar cascade on every trip: I seem to become annoyed at pretty close to the same time, get the feeling that everything is just as it should be right on cue, and so on. Because my monthly trips are so much the same (fly in Thursday evening, stay Friday and Saturday, home Sunday morning), and the things I do on those days are almost as predictable, it makes for an interesting Petri dish, a replicable pattern in which to see who I am, who I become at each stop. As I mentioned above, it really does feel as if this is not just a shift of mood but an entire transformation.

Which is just what the Buddha would have predicted, actually. The delusion is that we are ever some sort of constant and invariable being. We shift and change and respond to events. The risk of thinking of ourselves as permanent manifestations is that we will exacerbate suffering (ours and that of others) by trying to make it so, attempt to nail down the person we are and keep it that way. When I thought of myself this weekend as a creature in flux and that there was nothing in particular I needed to do in response, I suffered less. I also felt much less of a need to act out my discomfort with food or other actions. Just in the simple noticing of the fact of my anxiety, I also found its antidote, just as the Buddha said I would. Smart guy, that Buddha, eh?

ADHD? OCD? OK? LOL! TMI? tl;dr

I read a fascinating article in the New York Times last week about autism and how useful the specific characteristics of the autistic person can be to some businesses. It is a mind-bending speculation to think that the recent uptick in incidence of autism might not just be an increase in identification of those who are autistic and others on the same continuum (Asperger's and such) or an insidious development at all, but might actually be a step in the evolution of the species in response to our predilection for technological advancement. This thought is certainly not original; google "autism as human evolution" and you will see a plethora of articles on this subject. (In passing, I should note that due to the somewhat antisocial nature of this disorder, it is difficult to see how those on this spectrum have a reproductive advantage, which would be necessary for this development to truly be an evolutionary change. It has been demonstrated to be hereditary, however, at least to a certain extent).

Now, I know it's de rigueur to consider oneself somewhere on this spectrum, just as a decade or so ago to declare one's affiliation to ADHD was popular and even now OCD remains a somewhat attractive label. One wonders why we should be so quick to embrace these labels, and to do so fairly inaccurately. My brother was diagnosed with ADHD (then simply called hyperactivity) when he was quite young (he was taking Ritalin when it was still experimental) and his life has been made much more difficult by it. Why would we choose to co-opt suffering to ourselves? Why, for that matter, would we want to diminish the adversity faced by those who actually have a disorder by appropriating it in a (more or less) lighthearted fashion? I suspect the explanation is that having a label on which to blame our more antisocial or obnoxious characteristics is comforting and supplies us with a built-in justification for unwonted behavior. ("Oh, honey, I threw out your cockroach collection in a fit of OCD; I'm so sorry. But you know how it goes!")

Which is all by way of me doing precisely what I have just described! Here's the thing: I felt a frisson of identification when I read the Times article. I have quite often in my adult life felt one step removed from the social interchange that seems to come so easily to others. Of course, I know how dangerous it is to "compare my insides to other peoples' outsides," as the saying goes. It could just be that I am introverted (another label, eh?), which I certainly am. But the spectrum characteristic of being contented with repetitive tasks also feels mighty familiar. There is a particular list I maintain at work that I know would be enormously tedious for most people but for me is a true pleasure, and I become faintly irritated when interrupted while working on it. (Maybe I'm OCD? Heh). Just yesterday I spent several hours connecting a new television and all of the wires and cables that go along with having associated electronic components. Loved it. Perhaps I'm just patient.

Another thing: I marvel when witnessing my fellow humans engaging in lighthearted conversation that then, by all appearances, leads to association, which yields, in some cases, real friendship, wherein they voluntarily spend time together. Just being together. Strange. I don't mean to make light of this; I truly do marvel at these behaviors. They seem as odd to me as spontaneous human flight. I would be about as astonished if you stepped off a cliff and just kept walking on air. I scratch my head in perplexity when I witness unforced bonhomie. My interpersonal relationships tend toward banter, which serves the purpose of distancing me from any lasting connection to my fellow humans.

From an article describing Asperger's syndrome:

They are not content to be alone all the time and they long to form friendships with others. Since they cannot read social or emotional cues well, they come off as insensitive, pushy or strange, yet have very little insight into how they are perceived. They have very little idea how to make a friendship work. [Emphasis mine].

Hmmm.

Don't get me wrong; I really do like being around people and can hold my own in social discourse. I am even well-liked in my small social circles; I know this. I have a close, loving, intimate relationship with my wife and with many of my family members. Yet I am also aware of a certain arm's-length orbit around me that keeps most of those I know comfortably unknown unless I make a vigorous effort to bridge that chasm. I also don't want to give the impression that I have no true friends or intimacy. I have both, though these are select and few. Perhaps this is just as it should be, I don't know. But sometimes I envy the (seemingly?) easy affinity I see around me, the crowd of loved ones some people seem to effortlessly gather around them, to attract as adroitly as politics attracts fools. I have even tried to make myself more like a person to whom this might happen, without much success. Oddly enough, I have quite warm relations with a handful of relative strangers I encounter on my round of errands every Friday—the lady at the dry cleaners, the produce manager at my favorite store and others. I love to listen to their stories and even, sometimes, their troubles. Yet, of course, this makes its own kind of internal sense—they are not likely to become my actual intimates and our discourse is limited by time and circumstance to a narrow band of my attention.

I belong to an organization that emphasizes "fellowship". People go around talking about how much this means to them and how they couldn't survive without it. It is something they seem to have gained purely as a perquisite of being a member and take entirely for granted. I once again shake my head in wonder. I have even out-and-out asked what the hell this is all about and how one goes about getting some of this fellowship stuff. I get queer looks. But in this same organization I had the experience just recently, when all this fellowship blather (so it seemed to me) was going on and I was feeling on the outside once again, of wanting to raise my hand and ask, "Is it O.K. if I'm happy anyway?"

That's the thing. Overall I'm pretty happy. I know what your next question will likely be: then why worry about it? I don't know, it just looks like fun to have that warmth and intimacy all around me. Maybe that's only for a certain type of person. I was never destined to be a great basketball player, either; that doesn't make me less-than, just a person with specific abilities, talents and characteristics, none of which are particularly well-suited to a career in basketball. Or to widespread familiarity. I think of it as "the Brussels sprouts phenomenon". I like Brussels sprouts. Some people (OK, most people) can't stand them. I am convinced that I actually taste something different than they do. I don't like walnuts at all, but most people love them. My brother can't stand the taste of any citrus fruit. My wife dislikes anise or black licorice flavors and there are few tastes I like better. For all that we humans are very, very similar to each other in many ways, we also have these quirks of difference that make us interesting. Perhaps my way of relating is like this.


I love deeply where I love. I bestow my affection not easily but thoroughly. I am kind much of the time. I care deeply about the suffering of others. My heart soars in the presence of compassion, openheartedness, altruism and generosity. I am passionately devoted to the Dharma and other philosophies that emphasize kindness and love. I give of myself where I can. I am loved. This is enough; it is enough.