The children of Israel wanted bread
And the Lord sent them manna,
Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil sent him Anna.
—In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery
One of the assignments in my daughter’s latest MBA class will be to write her obituary. It’s a standard values clarification exercise. I pretty much know my own values by now and the idea of an obituary sounds a bit too wordy for me. But I have been playing with epitaphs, brief summaries of my values. I’ve come up with three.
That comes from a segment of poetry by James Russell Lowell:
Every clod feels a stir of might,
And instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.
It reminds me of John Campbell in The Power of Myth
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality….
Yep, that’s me, just a little clod with a stir of might. There’s a little life in the old gal yet, and I treasure it.
What about you? How would you sum up your values, your life?
As I mentioned in Their New Car last September, this is a picture of Banshee (on the left) and Sammy in the Honda Element that was bought for them. Kaitlin and Torben often make the long drive to Torben’s family in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Banshee had just had major surgery. The back seat of the Honda Civic was too small for both dogs given Banshee’s wounds.
The surgery had been extensive… Banshee lost part of her pancreas, stomach and intestines and the vet thought she was going to die. Clearly from the picture she was making a remarkable recovery. For months she had more energy than she had had for a long time. This is a picture of her and Sammy up on our land last Thanksgiving.
The vet had said he couldn’t remove all the diseased tissue, so they expected more trouble eventually. Banshee started acting more lethargic the past couple of weeks, so Kaitlin expected the vet to take an ultrasound during her annual physical this past Friday. Instead Banshee suddenly became deathly ill Thursday afternoon. The vet said it was massive internal bleeding with little hope of recovery. So Kaitlin and Torben had to make the agonizing decision to euthanize her. The two of them plus Sammy were there when Banshee passed away.
It was a shock to have it happen so abruptly…she was only seven years old…and she will be sorely missed. But at least she didn’t suffer for very long.
Advance Health Care Directives
My husband and I have just made new wills, including Advance Health Care Directives. They basically say if we’re ever in the same position as Banshee let us go as quickly and painlessly as possible. It’s more complicated for humans than for animals, of course, and not all hospitals respect the patient’s wishes. We will talk to our doctor about it this summer when we go for our annual physicals. I helped nurse my mother when she was dying and had to be assertive with her doctor to get her the pain medication she needed. It’s not something we can take for granted.
I’ve named Andy as my spokesman if I become incapacitated, and Kaitlin is the contingent spokesperson. I am also a member of Compassion and Choices, which advocates for patients’ rights to make end-of-life decisions.
What about you? Is this something you ever think about? Have you ever had to help a loved one get the relief she/he needed?
I love my computer dearly, but I wouldn’t trust it with my life unless I had no choice. Unfortunately that’s not an option in modern cars. The manufacturers are replacing the old-fashioned brakes and accelerators with electronically controlled versions, which made us very nervous when we first heard of it. Apparently the technology was first developed by airplane engineers to improve reliability and lessen the weight of the vehicle, thus improving fuel efficiency.
My husband and I aren’t surprised that these electronic controls may be causing some of the recent Toyota fatalities. Given our experience with computers and electronic devices like DVD recorders, we’re more surprised there haven’t been more life-threatening glitches.
The above cartoon was inspired by a cartoon in Science Magazine a few years ago. I was tickled that the magazine actually included a cartoon and that the above idea was used in an article on the origins of speech. I don’t remember what the article said, but presumably it did mention gender differences in communication styles.
I also like the following cartoon. Differences in communication styles don’t have to be a big deal.
People always ask how cartoonists come up with ideas… When something interests us, we play around with it.
My goal is to feel enthusiastic about some aspect of the work. I think one can always tell when an artist is engaged and having a good time: the energy and life comes through the work.
—Bill Watterson
Any Calvin and Hobbes fan can tell you Bill Watterson’s energy and life did indeed come through his work. That’s why the cartoons are still loved 14 years after the last one was published, and why the U S. Postal Service is going to issue a Calvin and Hobbes stamp this coming July.
Hobbes is one of my role models so I have all of the comics and revisit them from time to time. They’re guaranteed to get me out of mental ruts…they stir my imagination and make me see the world with fresh eyes. You can view the comics in order here.
One reason the cartoons still seem fresh after all these years is because Bill took two sabbaticals when he needed to, from May 1991 to February 1992, and from April through December 1994. (The strips ran from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995.) And he ended the strips in 1995 because he had said all he had to say. It was time to move on.
What about you? Have you ever taken sabbaticals to renew yourself? Have you ever stopped doing something you loved and/or were successful at because it was time to move on?
This past week Rummuser suggested I comment on a New York Times article with the catchy title Seeking a Cure for Optimism. The article argues against extreme positive thinking, the idea that if we just work hard and look on the bright side everything will go the way we want. That conclusion is like the one we came to last week, that having a positive attitude doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep our eyes open and our brains plugged in. Hopefully people who weren’t doing that before have learned from the recent financial crisis.
Let’s face it, it’s not an either-or thing. A positive attitude promotes creativity, flexibility and cooperation, and it motivates us to take action. On the other hand being more negative can cause us to gather more data, look for pitfalls and think more critically. We need both. Brainstorming is a good example. To come up with new ideas that are sound we need both the generative and critical phases.
The article points out too much negative thinking is “just as delusional as unquestioned positive thinking.” We need to encourage realism, to try to see the world “not colored by our wishes or fears, but by reality.”
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from one of my favorite teachers in high school. I still remember where we were standing when he said kids often rebel against their parents and authority figures, but if we simply criticize and attack we’re just as trapped as if we blindly believe everything we’re told. We have to figure out what our own values are and learn to live them.
Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) says it more simply:
Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.
In fact NLP in a nutshell is
Figure out what you want,
Notice if what you’re doing is getting you closer to what you want, and
To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism- it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.
Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.
One of my favorite stories is the Zen one of a man being chased by a tiger.
He came to a cliff and thought he would be killed until he saw a vine. He grabbed hold of it and swung himself over the edge of the cliff, safe from the tiger’s jaws.
But looking down he saw more hungry tigers on the ground below him. And even worse, a mouse above was gnawing through the base of the vine. At any moment he would fall to certain death. Then he noticed a wild strawberry growing on the cliff wall. Clutching the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other and put it in his mouth.
His very last taste of food was delicious.
When I first heard this story I thought it clearly wasn’t an American one. We like happy endings. But since then I’ve read that the original story was modified for American audiences. In the original ending the strawberry was poisonous.
That’s a bit grim for even for those of us with a tragic view of life.
On the other hand, I find the above version inspiring. Unlike a true positive thinker I believe there are circumstances that we’re powerless to change. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of the life we still have left. What do you think?
We have long telephone chats with my daughter every Sunday evening, and last Sunday my daughter was telling me about the winter displays at the Chicago Botanic Garden. We both wished my husband and I had a magic carpet to come and see it with her and Torben.
They get a season pass each year and go there often. The four of us always go when Andy and I visit, and she and Torben were married there.
My husband loves model trains so when we visit we see the Model Railroad Garden. It has 17 trains (1/29th the size of full scale trains) on 1,600 feet of track. The tracks go over trestles and through tunnels and miniature gardens and around representations of some of America’s landmarks. It’s a fun place to visit for the little kids in us.
So the part of the garden that my daughter was most enthusiastic about was the Wonderland Express. They had moved the miniature trains inside, into the very room where Kaitlin and Torben were married. I wanted to share the experience with her and even though modern technology hasn’t come up with a magic carpet for Andy and me, it has provided a substitute. I went online while Kaitlin was talking and found this video:
It was a great way of sharing, reinforcing old memories and creating new ones.
What about you? What new memories are you creating?
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you
cry alone.
I don’t believe it. I know plenty of caring people who are quick to help people who are feeling down. I also know people who dismiss people who laugh a lot as being completely brainless.
And even when people do laugh that doesn’t mean they will laugh with you. As gaelikaa points out in her recent post on humor, people don’t always laugh at the same things. I’ve been lucky that way. I can still remember silly incidents from when I was a kid that my mother and I laughed about for years.
I also remember an incident that happened when my husband and I were first married. We were on a trip to England and the highlight was being able to see Hamlet played at Stratford-upon-Avon. I had loved Hamlet when I studied it in high school and couldn’t believe my luck…until I saw the performance. The acting was so poor it was funny, especially the gal who played Ophelia. A robot could have delivered her lines more convincingly.
Then when Ophelia was saying “Oh woe is me” a loud snicker rang through the room. I was thrilled…there was a kindred spirit who felt the way I did. Yeah, sure. Everyone in the room started staring at me… I had done the snickering. That made it even funnier. It was all I could do to wait until intermission to laugh. Andy shared it with me, then I went back to the hotel while he stayed for the rest of the performance. It was a family joke for years that I had to leave in disgrace. Even now if I start to feel sorry for myself it lifts my spirits to think of that wooden voice saying, “Oh woe is me.”
Many of the things that tickle our funny bone don’t make good stories. We often say, “You have to have been there.” I think it’s more than that. You also have to have seen the incident with the same quirky sense of humor. Humor is tricky because it’s so personal.
What about you? What makes you laugh? Do you still remember funny incidents years later?
