"When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." Twain / "I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of these contradictions out for myself." Montaigne / "I write because I have found no other means of getting rid of my thoughts." Nietzsche / "Writing is an integral part of the process of understanding." Arendt / "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers." Asimov.
In reading about attachment theory, David Wallin's description of Peter Fonagy's work was intriguing, so I went down that rabbit hole.
Fonagy developed Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT) to improve emotional regulation, as distinct from Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Fonagy sees our mental development as relational, but in order to have empathy for others, we need awareness of our own feelings, which can be helped with mindfulness work. However, in looking at the evidence of efficacy of these separate modalities, I question the attempt, since Freud, to make psychology into a natural science. Each of the various ways to help are useful, but there's an element of the unknowable in the way when we treat them scientifically.
According to Wallin, Fonagy's focus was on developing the understanding of the mental states of others, which he calls mentalizing, to let us understand the depths of ourselves and others. For instance, it can help heal old wounds if we understand that dad's rejection of us might be due to his depression and not our behaviour as a child. Other people's reactions to us aren't just caused by us, but there are always multiple factors at play affecting how people behave. It seems very similar to Theory of Mind. He met Bowby in the 1980s, and studied adults' behaviour relative to their own descriptions of childhood attachment, and found, when comparing severely deprived to well-connected adults, that a weak attachment was correlated with a weak "reflective functioning" (the ability to understand behaviours in terms of their thoughts, feelings, and mental states). From this, he says psychotherapy should be the "effort to restore or kindle patients' capacity to mentalize," to simultaneously feel our feelings and reflect on their meaning. To help people develop mentalizing requires a relationship that mirrors and guides emotional responses.
Until we redefine prosperity, consumption will continue to drive us down a destructive path (from Joe Tegerdine).
People are going to fly to vacation spots to sit in the sun to get a tan, a bit annoyed when all the smoke blocks the sun and they have to move hotels again because of encroaching fires. This is our current level of obliviousness. And there are some who might read that and think, "That's not me because I hate sitting in the sun," as if it's somehow better to fly somewhere to go to museums or to get drunk next to Dylan Thomas's bar stool or visit Graceland or Jim Morrison's grave,
We'll kill our children's future to take a selfie with a tombstone.
Now that the hangover from New Year's Eve is abating for many, and we might be freshly open to some self-improvement, consider a Buddhist view of using meditation to tackle addictions. I don't just mean for substance abuse, but also for that incessant drive to check social media just once more before starting our day or before we finally lull ourselves to sleep by the light of our devices, or the drive to buy the store out of chocolates at boxing day sales. Not that there's anything wrong with that on its own; it's a sale after all, but when actions are compulsive instead of intentional, then this can be a different way of approaching the problem from the typical route. I'm not a mental health professional, but this is something I've finally tried with earnest and found helpful, but it took a very different understanding of it all to get just this far (which is still pretty far from where I'd like to be).
Meditation is not about escaping the world but sharpening our awareness of it. Addiction comes from the Latin dicere, related to the root of the word dictator. It's like having an internal dictator usurping our agency. And Buddhist mindfulness meditation can help to notice that voice and then turn the volume down on it so we can get our lives back.
In many ways the Buddhist perception is closer to Stoicism than to Freudian tactics, but don't toss the baby out with the bathwater. Many people benefit from the psychoanalytical method of finding themselves before they can work on losing themselves. This is particularly true with traumatic experiences that might need to be worked through enough before allowing the mind to wander into dark recesses unrestrained.
Some research has found Buddhism to be as effective at treating addiction as typical methods, which is never anywhere near 100% because addiction is brutally difficult to overcome. One study of 500 opioid addicts had half use a detox program with counselling and the other half study in a Buddhist monastery with a focus on meditation and virtuous living. The abstinence rates were the same. The monastery used meditation to help clients (clients?) recognize the path they're on, then contemplating virtuous living to find their way back to a preferred path that's less frazzled and chaotic. Before researching the role of Buddhism in addiction treatment, it hadn't occurred to me that mindfulness meditation had anything to do with the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path of virtuous living. All these years of dipping into meditation here and there, I had just been arguing with myself to stop my thoughts from racing, craving the perfection of enlightenment, and missing the most important aspects in the process. Like Stoicism, Buddhism has us check our thoughts and actions to intentionally get on the right path.
Since falling into a pandemic funk, I've tried a variety of books and videos to try to get a little inner stillness in order to continue to function. Omicron and our region's rising numbers aren't helping matters! I'm crap at meditating, but Healthy Gamer's course (my notes) came the closest to getting me on board. The modules walk you through the background of breathing exercises, and how they work in the body, and I stayed with the lessons largely because the work to do is all thinking and learning instead of doing. When the course came to a close, and I tried the doing part, it quickly fell apart. I keep trying again from time to time, but I'm still looking for something that will help it all stick for me. A colleague loaned me Hear Yourself by Prem Rawat, which is all about calming that inner dialogue.
Dr. Alok Kanojia is a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction treatment. His videos are fantastic for some everyday issues as well, like this one on burnout. The most impactful line from this video is that burnout tends to happen when, "people who want to do a good job are placed in situations in which doing a good job is very, very difficult." It's not because you're lazy or a bad fit with your career, but that your workplace isn't acknowledging their part in making a job unnecessarily difficult. And it tends to happen more to people who actually care about what they're doing, not people who are just putting in hours. He says,
"One of the biggest scams that's currently being perpetrated against people about burnout and mental wellness . . . that's subtle and society wide . . . people are placing the responsibility for burnout on the individual. . . . . Burnout affects the individual . . . so there's a subtle scam going on that once you label it as an individual problem . . . then you work on it as an individuals. It's a catastrophic shift of responsibility from the workplace to the individual."
Martin Seligman is famous for a learned helplessness study I wrote about a few years back:
In a famous experiment, dogs were put in a compartment and trained to jump a barrier when given an electric shock. After one or two tries, the dogs jumped the barrier immediately after being put in the compartment even when no shock was given. BUT some dogs were restrained the first time and not able to jump the barrier. They had to tolerate the shock without being able to escape. When they were unharnessed, they still didn't jump the barrier, but just stayed there, tolerating the pain.
Jonathan Pie argues that the left is responsible for this result because they've given up putting up any argument at all: "Clinton...a candidate who's been dry-humping corporations for years....They didn't vote for her because she offered no palpable change whatsoever....She represented very little."
But more importantly, he argues for arguing:
"Our argument isn't won by hurling labels and insults...the key is discussion. If you're unwilling to discuss, then you're creating the conditions where Donald Trump and people like him can thrive.....The left is responsible for this result because the left have now decided that any other opinion, any other way of looking at the world is unacceptable. We don't debate anymore because the left won the cultural war. So, if you're on the right, you're a freak....When has anyone ever been persuaded by being insulted? If you're against the pervading view, you're attacked for expressing your opinion. That's why people wait until they're in the voting booth. No-one's watching anymore, and you can finally say what you really think."
And then something I've always told people who disagree with me: "Being offended doesn't work anymore... Engage and debate me and tell me what I'm getting wrong!" (ETA but check out this analysis of the clip as well.)
Then Jeff Goldblum reminds us the best way to react to it all:
He's got a Jungian or Taoist element to his talk:
"When you engage in this othering business - there's a lot of that going on - where you're separate from me and it's your fault instead of 'we're stronger together' business, you look to the person who's the focus of your disgust and outrage, and you know what? Sometimes you go, "The reason I'm so outraged at that person is because I need to look at those elements of personality in myself."
And his words for moving forward:
"Being inspired, encouraged, brave, and active into the progress of your own future depends on YOU; that's within your circle of influence. I'm not going to be uninspired by this. That's stupid."
This is a post about cycling further than ever before, but first, a bit about boredom:
"Boredom may lead you to anything. After all, boredom even sets one to sticking gold pins into people...one may choose what is contrary to one's own interest...one's own fancy, however wild it may be...desire what is injurious to himself, what is stupid, very stupid - simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even what is very stupid and not to be bound by an obligation to desire only what is rational...this caprice of ours....preserves for us what is most precious and most important - that is, our personality...the whole work of man seems really to consist in nothing but proving to himself continually that he is a man and not an organ stop." - Dostoevsky
"We are less bored than our ancestors were, but we are more afraid of boredom...A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature, of men in whom every vial impulse slowly withers, as though they were cut flowers in a vase." - Bertrand Russell
Some people assert their own will by choosing naturopathy over doctors to treat their cancer, or by quitting their satisfactory marriages and careers to seek out a new mid-life adventure. I hope to make slightly more reasonable choices or certainly less self-destructive ones. According to Dostoevsky, I'm sucked into the western ideals of individuality over community, of standing out, which can make us foolish. Melting into the crowd isn't an easy option. Being one with the universe is a task for later when I've figured out how to sit still. And for Russell, who hit puberty in Wales as the Russian was drawing his lasts breaths, being able to endure boredom is essential for happiness. Seeking out excitement to avoid boredom just makes our pleasures less easily felt. He warns,
"pleasures which are exciting and at the same time involve no physical exertion, such, for example, as the theatre, should occur very rarely...certain good things are not possible except where there is a certain degree of monotony."
In art, we'd call that degree of monotony an area of restraint necessary for the eye to relax. It's why some beautiful gardens have an expanse of grass. But mine doesn't. I lean towards chaos.
I get antsy when I don't have a project. The house can be a mess while I deliberate what new task to take on next. My backyard took over for a couple years, and I have ideas of an off-grid home a few years off, but then what now? For better or worse, I'm obsessed with doing, finishing, accomplishing.
So I set as a project to find the limits of my cycling abilities - or, more specifically, the limits of my lungs and heart and other organs and muscles in a body as old and untrained as mine. I'll tell you from the get-go that I failed. But I'll get to that.
Before an annual camping trip with neighbours, I considered having my packed rental car, complete with youngest child, driven by a fellow camper so I could cycle the 137 km to the site. The longest I had ever biked before was 60 km, and I wanted to see how far I could actually go in one trip. I didn't train or prepare in any useful way - that would take the challenge out of it. But having a driver coming up my rear helped because I could bail at any time. It was about seeing how far I could get, not about getting to the end. That was key to the entire adventure. That, and a cell phone to call for help if needed.
This was a decision fraught with a ridiculous amount of anxiety. I tried to keep Epicurus in mind as I was deluged with worries: If pain is not occurring right now, then it’s not bringing pain except for tumults created by imagination, right? I am bringing myself pain, which is ridiculous! So stop worrying about flat tires, swerving trucks, strong wind gusts tossing me into traffic, some crazy guy attacking a lone female, heat stroke, complete organ failure, random loss of appendages, the list goes on. And there's always the old standby concern that, if I leave the house for any significant duration it will burst into flames. From time to time I was struck with absolute terror at the though of being killed in traffic and picturing my children coping with my death. I'd have to actively "X" out the thought and replace it with a vision of biking without incident. Thanks CBT. The fact that many worries are unfounded doesn't seem to lessen their intensity. At all. I actively ignored the looming date, and second-guessed my choice of directions - later to be intensified by many geographical advisors after-the-fact "Why didn't you go this obviously better way?" serving to prove my instincts for direction weak.
So I said nothing to anyone about my hopes to attempt the journey until the last minute; I knew I would be easily swayed to give up before I started. I waited until two days before to ask a neighbour to drive and was almost deterred by her husband's concern about wind, and the night before, I told my kids and then immediately become openly worrisome and neurotic. It's like talking about it tapped the keg of concerns. And it was going to be a windy ride: 20 km/h headwinds until the final 30 k.
It's curious, in areas of insecurity, how much other people's attitudes can affect us. The support of that one comrade, and my son's insistence that, "of course you can do it" were paramount to my leaving the house that morning. I have lots of people in my life - I'm sure we all do - who tell me why I can't possibly do this or that. I ignore the lot of them most of the time, but physical exertion is a weak spot for me, so their voices loomed louder than usual and took some effort to drown out. Some told me I couldn't join a women's ride group because I'm too slow, and others refused admittance to a guy's casual riding group because I don't have the necessary equipment provided by mother nature. I'm not recognized as a cyclist. Even the physiotherapist helping with my aging knees questioned me about my regular trips to Bamburg, a local marker of a hilly 40 k loop from our city:
"Oh so you drive there and then bike around."
"No, I don't have a car."
"Oh, so you live near there."
"No, I live a block from here."
Awkward silence. I just don't look like someone who moves quickly.
So I bike alone.
Armed with a banana, some nuts and raisons, water, my phone and wallet, brand new lights on my bike, and quality bike shorts, I kissed my kids good-bye and set off before dawn hoping to beat the heat of the day. I played music in my head to keep me pumped - possibly a skill developed in only those raised in the pre-walkman era. This one kept my cadence up:
Some think it's nutty not to train formally before a big ride - as if we'll fall to pieces if we don't work towards our goals gradually, but there are too many times the fear of being unprepared stops us from action. We think we can't do this or that because we're not quite ready. Then we dilly dally about doing prep work forever and never actually getting to the thing we actually want to do. I channelled Laura Secord who didn't train for her marathon bushwacking experience. She just got out there and started running through fields and forests.
I didn't wear any fancy duds or pimp out my ride either. I did get a pair of good bike shorts because, since about 40, my butt fat has all gravitated around the corner to my belly - and, just my luck, just in time for a big booty to be in style too. Extra padding was necessary there, but then I just threw on a t-shirt and sandals and my stand-by helmet. And I thought of Marathon Man, and Dustin Hoffman copying Abebe Bikila's run without shoes. But Secord and Hoffman's character were running for their lives. I was creating a situation as if it were a necessity knowing full well it was a luxury. I had to convince myself of an importance for it in order to develop any motivation to go.
For me, the point of cycling is to go places. It's not to work out and live longer because we could die any minute. And it's not to work out to match the current beauty standard because we could be hated anyway regardless our quest for physical perfection. For me, it's all about getting off our fossil fuel addiction. If a middle age woman without any know-how can do over 130 k in a t-shirt and sandals, with a crappy bike, then maybe you can bike to work. Amiright?!
I was once told by a colleague that I could never be a department head because I don’t have a car, but people don't understand that we can get almost anywhere without a car. And we can bike dressed in our everyday clothes. Granted I still used a car to transport my camping gear and daughter, but with more of us cycling, we could definitely use fewer cars. We need to move under our own steam whenever we can.
The trip was also about finding my boundaries, but part of it was about getting over my fear of biking further from home alone – the fear of having an accident, but more a fear of boogie men out to attack me. People are mainly nice and helpful. There are some odd ducks, but the odds are in my favour. And, with the exception of a brief trek on a major highway, everyone moved over a lane to give me space. I was completely safe.
Part of the journey was because I turned 50. I'm in a hurry to do stuff because it gets a little clearer that any day could be my last. I'm still stuck on having a leave-behind, a legacy, even though I'm pretty convinced there won't be generations to come to remember any of this. With climate change, there’ll be no leave-behinds. Having kids or writing a book or erecting a statue will have no impact on future generations if there ARE no future generations because the planet has become largely uninhabitable by our species. This death is a final death.
But some thing can still make me feel like a kids again. When I listen to certain songs, I'm 17 again. And when I’m on my bike, I’m 10, riding to the corner store in my bathing suit with a nickel in my hand for a freezie.
Just beyond the half-way point, at 70 k in, my legs and lungs were fine, but my eyes started getting weirdly blurry, so I took that as a sign to re-fuel. I stopped briefly to stretch, eat, and drink. I just had 23 k to get to the next city where I could sit in a Tim's to wait for the car if I needed to.
I was surprised that it wasn't the hills that got me but the long flat parts where there wasn't anything to mark the passage of time. I watched this in my head as I pedalled:
The music and videos come to me of their own accord, but cycling distances alone takes me to that wonderful zoned-out place where I often come up with entire concepts I couldn't possibly find in my hectic kitchen. Like if it's a coincidence that Rex Harrison played mentor to Eliza Doolittle then later played Dr. Doolittle. Weird. It's a state that can't be as easily achieved with another cyclist there - if they try to have a conversation or if I feel pressure to keep up or have to wait at every turn. That modicum of attention somehow destroys access to the internal world.
And then there's the beauty of the scenery with light filtering through the trees, and the cows cheering me on up the hills. Montaigne said,
When I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts have been dwelling on extraneous incidents for some part of the time, for some other part I bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, and to me.
Prolonged activity allows time to get sufficiently bored to actually start paying attention to the details of the world. Those magnificent details!
But the trip was also about reaching a goal even if I didn't want it to be. My mom died in her 60s of cancer, and my sister got cancer in her 40s. I always expected to die young, and I've been ever impatient to finish things because I might be dead tomorrow. I update my will regularly and leave behind instructions in case I die whenever I leave for a trip. It's not the case that I'm living fearful of death, but that I'm living authentically recognizing that it’s right around the corner for all of us. My son sometimes asks me if I’m afraid to die, and I worry mainly, as a single mom, if they’ll all be okay without me – it’s been my primary worry for the past 21 years. Not just financially, but will they have someone to go to when they feel misunderstood by the world. But other than their future, I think I'm okay with it.
And the trip was also about sheer endurance. We need to suffer in order to grow. We need a bit of adversity in our lives - challenges, and since we've had it easy for so long in this time and place, we sometimes need to create personal challenges. Nietzsche wrote about wishing difficulty on others so they can find the strength to fight. It's not about training to cycle, but about training to get in there. Staying in there for that hill creates the means to stay in there to keep on about climate change and injustices and politics even when most people seem completely apathetic.
And then I saw the sign for the campsite and started singing:
And suddenly I was Rocky at the top of the steps, and Sarah Conner bein' badass in T2.
I felt completely fine at the end. I wasn't sore at all, but I was tired of doing the same thing for so long - almost 7 hours of riding plus a lunch break on top: that's a full work day!
I made it the whole way without being rescued, so I still haven't found my limit.
There will be time....
A hawk hanging out at our campsite.
***
It's curious... actually it's not at all curious... but I posted my bike trip from Runkeeper on Facebook, and I also updated my profile picture that was ten years old. The profile change got 12 times the likes as my journey. Being able to keep my casing reasonably smooth trumps actually being capable or useful. So if you want to impress others, stay skinny, smooth, and symmetrical. Doing stuff carries a more personal reward.
Toby, at A Piece of Coffee, wrote an interesting post on Woody Allen and the meaning of life. In particular, he discusses Manhattan to talk about Allen's need for art and music to give his life meaning rather than Hannah and Her Sisters or Midnight in Paris which I recently gushed over. But, as he says, this is a common theme with many of Allen's films: the purpose of life is to enjoy the richness of it, the beauty of art, music, architecture, and people, "to be part of the experience" (HaHS).
Toby says of art, "We distract ourselves constantly, we refuse to think about the meaning of our existence, we skirt around the inevitable." I think art can be a huge distraction, both in the viewing and in the creating. But it can also be a means towards reflecting on and delving into the depths of the ultimate meaninglessness of our lives, particularly if we include writing as an art form. We can be both pragmatically distracted from death and immersed in it as we ponder the very subject enough to make the words that fit together to communicate our ideas. Eh?
It might sound flaky or religious or new-agey, but cultivating ritual ceremonies isn't necessarily any of those. It can be a dramatic way to cut through to the core of an issue affecting us and help us through significant transitions. We already do graduations, funerals and weddings (which we don't always do very well, often focusing more on the dress and cake than the union), but there are other transitions that we could use some help getting through. Jung wrote about it, as did James Hillman,
Years ago, an old boyfriend and I, our relationship on shaky ground, went to a therapist. She took us through a ritual to help us end our dying relationship, and I was fascinated by how powerfully the ritual affected me. So in grad school I sought out courses in Ritual Studies to learn more. Then as a teacher, when I got to the anthropology unit of my Challenge of Change in Society class, I started including a section on ritual work.
By chance, one of my ritual studies professors had two children who ended up in my class. I was a little nervous teaching them about ritual work since they were sired by an expert in the field. But he assured me that, at the time, they had no interest in reading any of his books, so they got all their introductory knowledge from me. Yikes!
On yet another urging recommendation, I finally read The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. But I didn't read it well. I'm a picky reader. I can immerse myself in difficult philosophy readings, but this was a struggle. I happily read all about Montaigne's thoughts on mindfulness, but I was trying to read this mindfully instead of expediently. I found it repetitive, and ended up doing much of the reading in front of a movie just to get through it.
He cautions against following philosophical doctrine:
"If one clings merely to a system of concepts, one only becomes stuck. [Instead we must] penetrate reality in order to be one with it, not to become caught up in philosophical opinion or meditation methods....The finger which points to the moon isn't the moon itself."
Uh oh. That's totally me, stuck following doctrines instead of... doing that other stuff.
Okay, I'm still not there. I really appreciate contemplating on Taoist and Buddhist thought, but I can't bring myself to set aside the time and attention necessary to live it as thoroughly as this book suggests. Even trying to do breath-work for a minute a day is a struggle for me. And I hate yoga. Part of the reluctance might be that I was really into it all as a teenager, so doing it now feels like I'm trying to be a kid again. I feel like I should be past all that now. But I still got something out of my superficial reading of the book:
The whole book and theory is about maintaining awareness of the present. If you're not present right now, then you're not really alive right now. There was a Tolstoy story that I loved. The moral is that the most important time is now, and the most important people are whomever you're with, and the most important thing to do is to bring joy to the people you're with - even if it's your enemy. In the story, the person learning the lesson ends up saved by unwittingly helping an enemy. It's similar to other Tolstoy stories. Don't bother with revenge, just don't add any more evil to the world.
Thich Nhat Hanh suggests we don't look at life divided into parts that you give to others, at work, with kids, etc. Each moment you spend with others is your own time that you get to spend with others. You have unlimited time for yourself. It's all for you. That's a useful perspective to keep in mind when I feel like people are draining me because I have something else I'd rather be doing. I'm impatient whenever I'm not really here right now.
It's all a matter of perspective. When my kids were babies and up all night sick, as I'd walk the halls jiggling and patting the little one, I'd tell myself that this is a great opportunity to hug my kids. When they're older, they probably won't let me hold them for hours and hours (and hours). It really helped me to appreciate the time instead of becoming bitter or complaining.
Once I took my then 3-year-old to the dentist. She wanted to walk, so we left the stroller at home. On the way back home after a stressful afternoon of waiting and all the excitement of a new experience, she wanted to be carried and promptly fell asleep in my arms. While I carried her the many blocks home, I imagined I was running a marathon with fans cheering me on at the edges of the sidewalk. That fantasy helped me carry on, to feel strong, proud and grateful for the exercise I got instead of miserable from the burden of a heavy child. It was a useful delusion.
There was a good little parable about lettuce. If the lettuce doesn't grow well, we don't blame the lettuce. We blame the sun or rain or soil or rocks or bugs or rabbits. We should be as compassionate with people when they "are still imprisoned by false views, hatred, and ignorance and continue to create hatred, and ignorance and continue to create suffering for themselves and for others." And we should have compassion for ourselves too, of course. Take "care for one's self, not being preoccupied about the way others look after themselves, a habit of mind which gives rise to resentment and anxiety."
Montaigne suggests we maintain mindfulness by writing about what's happening right now, and just by really paying attention to what we see and hear. That's doable for me. It's a start. But I'm still going to mentally multitask from time to time, still going to think about life and ideas while I do dishes instead of just doing dishes. And that's okay. I can try to really be with people when I'm with people, but the dishes are less affected by my attitude. And I like to think.
I've never liked Eckhart Tolle. My primary arguments have been that he stole from other places without giving credit, and that the people he stole from were better writers and thinkers in the first place.
On the first concern: Maybe it's because I'm a teacher, but I'm all about primary sources. Yet don't we all steal from one another, re-work it a bit, then call it our own? I'm not sure it's really that big a deal that the ideas he espouses aren't at all new. Maybe it bothers me just because I've done the work of reading the original sources, and I feel like people are cheating by relying on Tolle. But maybe that's a bad argument.
On the second concern: This one has more merit. Years ago I found a site comparing Tolle quotations to a philosophers - but I can't remember the philosopher (Aristotle? Plato? Lao Tzu?), and I can't find that site. But suffice it to say that in a quote-to-quote comparison, Tolle falls short by a mile. His axioms are pithy and often of little substantial meaning. And he falls into a few serious fallacy traps. Essentially, he presents information not in a way that we can contemplate and deliberate, but in a way that makes it impossible to disagree. One blogger called this the "three cards 'mindfuck' trick." I can't find the originally author (anon), but I found the following here:
"(1) The Higher Level Card (i.e. Sorry, it's just over your head). Sorry, but you're just not smart enough to realize I am smarter than you, because you're on a lower (less divine) level.
(2) The Projection Card (i.e., I know you are, but what am I). By criticizing me, you are really just criticizing yourself, because any problem you see in me is just a projection of a problem in yourself.
(3) The Skillful Means Card (i.e., it's all your own fault, dickhead). The most potent card of all! It's not abuse; it's not pathetic or ridiculous or wrong; it's a crazy-wise teaching. You know, like Zen stuff. So when I call you a dickhead, it's not because I'm a dickhead, it's because you have a dickhead-complex that you need to evolve past, and I'm here to help you see that.
They are designed to end all discussion, and they are used only when folks know the actual substance of their beliefs has run, or is running, dry.... In other words, these 'cards' are used to create a situation where actual problem solving, critical thinking and good philsophizing... cannot be done."
From comments on many Tolle-philic sites, it appears he suggests we all work towards enlightenment, but doesn't say how. If you can't do it, you're doing it wrong, but he won't say what's wrong. Maybe it's just not in you right now to do it.
The thing is, in other writings written hundreds of years earlier, there are specific techniques you can use to have a happier, more peaceful life, the type of like Tolle suggests you could have by reading his books. Check out what Montaigne has to say:
* Try to stay in the present (cultivate mindfulness) by maintaining an amazement at each instant of experience both outside and inside yourself. He did this by writing, in detail, about everything around him and contemplating his thoughts. Writing forced him to pay attention, but anything that keeps you involved in what's happening right now will work. Some people need to be hit with a stick from time to time. Whatever works. He says,
"When I walk alone in the beautiful orchard, if my thoughts have been dwelling on extraneous incidents for some part of the time, for some other part I bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, and to me."
* Don't let the world bring you down. If you're upset, keep in mind how much worse it could be. If your kids are irritating, imagine you just got a call that they all died in a tragic accident in order to shift your perspective so that you're suddenly grateful for their annoying little lives. If you're tired of your stuff, imagine having nothing, and how happy you'd be to have it all after contemplating losing it all in a fire. If the kids complain about dinner, remind them of how bad it would be if they lived in an impoverished country. They should be overjoyed to be eating spaghetti yet again. These are old tricks my parents taught me, but Montaigne suggests them too. You can talk this further to imagine that this is the last hour of your life. What really matters, and what can you brush off now?
* Keep in mind how insignificant you and your problems are compared to the grand scheme of things. Seneca said,
"Place before your mind's eye the vast spread of time's abyss, and consider the universe; and then contrast our so-called human life with infinity."
Another advocate of this view in the Monty Python organ donor skit (starting at 3:45 in particular):
* A lot of Montaigne (and Tolle) is reminiscent of the Tao Te Ching, particularly when he suggests we would be better off contemplating ideas than memorizing facts. This one is a real relief in an age where there just seems too much to know. Montaigne says, "Forget much of what you learn." And Lao Tzu says, "The more you know, the less you understand." Facts aren't as firm as we give them credit for being. Suspend judgment on all these facts thrown at us. Who knows what's real.
* To keep me in mind of morality, my mom always said, "Don't do anything you wouldn't want published on the front of the newspaper." Seneca and Epicurus and Montaigne all suggest finding someone admirable and acting always as if that person is watching us.
* Distract yourself from what bothers you, particularly what you're unable to control. If that jerk at work makes you nuts, don't carry the annoyance home, but leave work with a mind to do something entertaining that will help you forget your troubles. This is a welcome break from the idea that if someone bothers us, we should delve deep into why it's such a problem for us, often going back into family of origin crap to determine if we're projecting our stuff on him, until the jerkiness is no longer so bothersome to us. Whew! I like that distraction idea much better.
Montaigne, and several older philosophers, say that generally, the secret to happiness is not to let your emotions get the better of you. These are ways to help you do that: Pay attention to right now, compare yourself to those worse off to feel better, keep the big picture in mind, don't obsess over details, act as if your idol was watching you, and distract yourself if you start losing it. The trick is, these are things to think about not just one or twice, but all the time. But, it is inevitable we will be sucked back into the drama of human desire and suffering surrounding us. That's okay. Just get back into it next time you remember and you'll feel much better.
You can't do the pure-being-ball-thing all day (from I (Heart) Huckabees):
