Month: June 2020

The Deafening Silence

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In this moment of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have, for the most part, voluntarily detached from the sources of our connection to life. These relationships provide the glue that makes us social beings and involve family, friends, and those in the larger community. Circumstances have mandated social isolation for a few weeks. But if such a period is prolonged, the downsides begin to appear.  Three months into the pandemic, the deafening silence of social isolation is creating a rising tide of loneliness. Like a slow-motion wave, it is gaining speed and momentum.

Loneliness, according to many psychologists, is not necessarily about being alone. Rather, it is about feeling alone and isolated. Because loneliness is a state of mind, it has straightforward solutions. The question is when and where to apply them. The easiest way to decrease and even end loneliness is to focus on activities that distract. They distract us from the missing social bonds that we ache to experience. Such distractions are effective temporary measures. Inevitably, their therapeutic effect wears off and the loneliness returns. But this gives a glimpse into what can be a more permanent solution. That is, loneliness depends on memories to feed the feeling. We recall the friends and family we miss, the conversations we had that are now nonexistent. And we pine for what those memories conjure up.

The more enduring solution, therefore, is similar to the temporary one but involves returning to a more permanent state of mind. A state where memories are no longer the salient thing. This argument does not suggest eliminating memories; It suggests eliminating their saliency and importance. Notice too that the implication is that this is a more natural state of being. How is this possible? The best way is to make focusing on the present moment a way of life. Practicing this leads to making current experiences more salient compared to past events.

I know this because this practice has an extensive history in the psychological and metaphysical literatures. And we can gauge the practice’s efficacy and effectiveness by studying such literature. For me, the experience is also personal. Reducing the saliency of memories, reduces the loneliness created by longing for the past.  To make this a reality, we must persist in the practice. Like other changes in behavior, we need to train the mind until it becomes an automatic response.

What happens when the practice is successful? Most of the time, dwelling on the present means a rising curiosity regarding the world, nature, our bodies. It further means a lessening interest in our inner and deprecating self-talk. This outward curiosity of a child recalls a more natural state that we once experienced. It is a state of mind that wants to know the ‘why’- ness of things. We become absorbed and interested in the smallest and most irrelevant of things. It produces a rise in creative thinking for we recognize that nothing is irrelevant; Everything seems fitting and beautiful. The deafening silence of loneliness becomes the resonant joy of life. It does not mean that loneliness won’t occur and take you by surprise. Instead of dwelling on it, however, the curious, present-focused mind knows what to do and can nip the rising feeling in the bud.

Image by soumen82hazra from Pixabay

Injecting Rationality Into Our Discourse

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The covid-19 pandemic has brought to light many deficiencies in our democracy, institutions, leaders, and ourselves. The exposure of such fissures in what make up the fundamental pillars of our lives has been crushing and humbling. It has left our minds aimless and searching for answers.  One of the foundational cornerstones exposed as more virtual than actual is our dependence on science and medicine. With no means to combat the coronavirus, no vaccine to inoculate us from its destructive actions, no medicines to withstand the multiple assaults on our body, we have lost confidence. Compounding that is a U.S. leader who rejects or confuses faith in science with faith in magical thinking. To lessen the risk, he advocates using drugs with no efficacy and considered highly dangerous.  His lodestar is not science but misplaced hope in superstition and instinct. But gut feelings untested by rational thinking are worse than ineffective, they can be deadly.

What this lack of trust in education and in the scientific method teaches our children undermines the very basis of contemporary living. How are we to fight these changes to our body politic, the environment, and psychological well-being? There are many answers, but for now I concentrate on what academia can do. As part of that community, I would like to know where the wisdom experts are when we need them the most? Where are the clinicians, investigators, educators, schoolteachers who can make the case for why we need to look to science? Where are the cognitive scientists, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers to steer us through these bleak and uncertain times? The world needs them now more than ever.

My call is for them to leave their ivory towers, commune with common folk, and share their insights. It is time to banish the fiction that science cannot mingle with politics. Science, intellectual thinking, and analytic reasoning must undergird policy. Policy should be receptive to alternative ways of discerning, including faith-based approaches. But science has won the right to take a principal role and help us assimilate what we learn. We must encourage citizen-scientists to present the argument to the public, not just to colleagues and not just in specialized periodicals. Further, we cannot support leaders who disdainfully minimize the hard-won fight over illiteracy and magical thinking without a response to reconfirm what we know. We are better off because we pay attention to, assess, and then conclude rather than acting only from instinct.

This response to the anxiety and ambiguity of the moment can only take place one way. When academics shed their cloak of protection from reality and immerse in the free exchange of information using all channels of communication. There is a striking ignorance of what science is and the benefits it provides. We encounter such ignorance in schools, and more so in the dark corners of the internet. It is time to flash the light of awareness and intelligence into this darkness. Everyone trained in science must step up before it’s too late. It is an invitation to arms. The world needs saving and a massive influx of rationality into our discourse would go a long way towards doing that.

The Root of the Root of the Problem

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We are momentarily paralyzed deciding how to respond to this moment. Our hearts ache to support the righteousness of the protests and Black Lives Matter.  We march alongside the protestors and utter words of support. Yet, we are at a loss as to how to make that support real, substantive, caring, and long-lasting. From lay folks and language experts to professional academics, there is a sense of disconnection and free-floating uncertainty as to what to say, how to explain, and how to respond.

Part of the problem is that we recognize the enormity of what needs to change. That those changes must occur at different levels, from personal to social, from kindergarden to corporate. And this enormity is paralyzing for we recognize that such changes take time, yet we need an immediate response. One solution out of this dilemma is to start with fundamental causes. That is, we must get to the root of the root of the problem. We need to understand what the fundamental motivating force is behind the problem. In this case, knowing the root of systemic racism may help us consider more long-term solutions.

Most of us live creatively and function well in the world. E.E. Cummings expressed this beautifully in the poem I Carry Your Heart with Me. In it he conveys that when we carry the heart of the other, of the world, or of God within our own heart, it becomes “the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart.”  But who has not experienced the opposite, the worrying, anxiety, overwhelmed feelings, and seeing no way out of dire circumstances? When the effects of these normal human experiences persist because of events, like the ones we are facing, and they alter our mood, rational deliberation, and behavior, it disrupts the normal flow and joy of living.  It disrupts the wonder of life. When this judgment persists and turns unmanageable, it becomes the basis for disorders such autoimmune and emotional disorders, heart problems, addictive behaviors, and suicidal ideation. If the deliberation gets out of control, then psychopathology is the inevitable consequence.

While the pressures of life, such as a medical pandemic and protests against systemic racism, can exacerbate such difficulties, the root of the problem is our anxious, fearful, and uncontrollable mind. Once we understand this root problem, one centered on ego-based thinking, then we must be open to escaping the conundrum and stepping into joyful, creative living.  The solutions are easy to understand and available to everyone. Yet, these answers can be the hardest thing for anyone to do, for they call for a genuine change in perception and awareness. These changes start by holding the heart of the other within our own, even if the other is a sadistic policeman who should protect and not hurt us. Gaining knowledge and understanding the problem this way provides insight into our common humanity. It also provides the motivation for the required changes.

The Nature of Creativity

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Nature is the subtle,
Still, softness in our being.
That we relegate to the periphery of life,
While a harder self takes center stage.
This moment calls for integration,
Of divergent aspects of ourselves.


When we do,
Conscious and non conscious minds
Unite and synchronize.
Creating a magical moment,
A moment in which the world feels right,
Justified and beautiful.
We might call this a creative moment,
For it brings a profound sense of joy.

Unbundling Our Social Contract

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As members of society, we have all implicitly agreed to an unwritten contract with the specific community in which we live. This social contract states that we exchange living a semi-secure, semi-livable, semi-carefree existence for turning the other way to how society makes this happen. We turn a blind eye to the gray boundaries in this contract. And it terrifies us that shining a light on these border areas may collapse the entire enterprise. If awareness and sensitivity were to occur, we dread being overwhelmed by the negative forces we imagine surrounding us. One of the very purposes of our social contract is to keep “true” reality hidden from view.

Crime, marriage, food production, and economic development are but four sectors of society. In each, the price we pay for maintaining our safety and happiness is being exposed and challenged. We realize, perhaps for the first time, just how much we have been willing to give up in terms of liberty, safety, and honesty. This unwitting unbundling of our old social contract will prove either too scary or motivate us to undo and revise it.

The advance of technology and video cameras in the hands of everyone in the 21st century makes hiding from the truth an impossible task. And what we are experiencing at the moment, which is having a light shone on it, is the injustice toward minorities by law enforcement.  The compact with those who maintain order in society is we will give them power as long as we feel safe. When we don’t feel safe, we challenge the contract. The same could be said for women and the power structure; corporations and the general welfare, etc.

Who doesn’t understand or recognize that George Floyd is not an infrequent occurrence? Cruelty, whether made worse because of race, is the outcome of the power we have handed over to authorities. We expect them to keep us safe from those who interrupt our peaceful existence. The recipients of this heavy-handed method live and remain in those gray borders, so we have ignored them. These George Floyds, we repeat to ourselves, are expendable consequences of maintaining the world safe. Until now. For now, we realize George Floyd is us, and that we are abusing the authority handed over to police. It is not what we expect or yearn for.

This moment feels different. It is another unbundling moment and exposure of a social contract we do not like. But how do we respond? What will resolve the problems? Asking to defund the police is a first step in renegotiating the contract. But before we get there, let’s take a minute to fan the spark bringing us to this unique moment. And that is the awareness of what life is, not what we wish it to be. Videos capture reality, won’t let go, and won’t allow us to avert our eyes. Imagine what is not being captured by video. Many of us, for example, clamor there is a climate crisis, but the rest avert their eyes because it’s too painful to contemplate. Until we all become victims of it. But why wait until these crises are at our doorstep?

Become aware and recognize what is real in contrast to what is imaginary or wished for. Awareness is the light we shine on the gray areas of our lives and leads to unbundling the old, inadequate things, like social contracts. It will also bring with it the needed solutions. It is a matter of trusting ourselves and the intelligence guiding it all. If we become aware and sensitive to our own nature we will discover, to our surprise, that what surrounds us is not a negative, evil thing but a positive, loving force.

Trusting Stillness

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Life is a string of moments. And every moment contains within it its own death, in an unbroken chain of arisings and disappearances. Wise individuals have called this the play of consciousness.  Human beings are expressions of this consciousness and entangled in its dance. Life cannot happen without death, as endings are the inevitable consequence of beginnings. And yet, beneath these arisings and disappearances lies what many seers have perceived as the unchanging, unconditioned, and eternal stillness. This is the realm in which most of us would place our God, Source, or Creator.

As we follow the turbulence of this moment, the increasing protests amid a deadly coronavirus pandemic, the play of consciousness is in full display. We perceive the same recurring dance; the same passion and frustration expressed before; the same sentiments of hopelessness which have occurred previously. And it disheartens us that the cycle seems interminable. If the expectation is a spontaneous resolution of this cycle, this is unlikely to happen as long as we remain trapped in the dance itself. The sole permanent and effective solution is to step outside of it and place ourselves in the hands of the grace encompassing the dance itself-the eternal stillness.

Mystics are not the only ones capable of relating to this unfamiliar and metaphysical experience. Receiving this grace is our birthright. It’s a matter of how sincere and willing we are to receive it. We call it a miracle when an individual hits bottom, be it a drug addict, alcoholic, or any other lost soul. At that moment, they encounter no more excuses for their behavior and accept as the solution the stillness that was always accessible. Touching stillness involves admitting that something greater than ourselves has control, and turning our life and trust over to it. Hitting bottom to recognize this truth is only necessary if we are stubborn. Indeed, we can accept it now, in this moment.

How do we achieve this?  There is one indispensable thing. It is to recognize how we construct what we are, the personality we take ourselves to be, the ego, the self-centered reasoning. And to know that it is this incessant activity creating our problems. Let go of self-centered thinking, ego-self, that “little you,” and realize you are in fact already part and parcel of the eternal stillness. Let go of the conceptual mind animating and giving birth to the endless arisings and disappearances of self-centered thought and allow truth to shine through. Life is a choice and we are at an inflection point where we must choose, go beyond ego, and trust the stillness we are.

Love Is the Only Answer

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Wise individuals argue that circumstances push people to the brink of despair. By implication, that expecting the uncontrolled behavior culminating in looting and destruction of property is normal. Yes, riots stemming from the death of a black man by police have once again pushed people of color, namely African Americans, to the edge. But does this mean that loss of property is the inevitable consequence? Should the rest of the nation just stand aside and see these young avengers vent their anger onto the most obvious symbols of prosperity? Or, should we support what we know is the sensible response: condemn what led to the behavior but likewise denounce the destructive impulses. At what point do we say: we failed the young! Failed not only in having not bent the curve of racism but in not teaching them how to act as enlightened human beings. Should we place greater expectations on our progeny then that they will explode in rage and tear up the community?

My contemporaries, despite the progress, didn’t undo the hundreds of years of institutionalized and innate racism that rebirths each generation. We tried every conventional mean to dampen the history and impulses that give rise to racist behavior. From changes in education, laws, moral teachings, awareness, punishment and other typical efforts. None has worked as expected. The progress has been slow, inadequate, and infuriating. Yet, we know the true and lasting answer to this human condition—and conveniently ignore it! The question is whether we are at the actual edge where radical change is inevitable. Are we courageous enough and ready to take this understanding to heart?

Transformation

The solution to the human condition,

The way to cure the ills,

Is to be and act from love.

To love your neighbor as yourself

Is infinitely difficult

But ultimately the only answer.

To see yourself in the other,

Mitigates violent behavior

And produces empathy.

This love is genuine because it allows.

It is an allowing

Unencumbered by expectations.

The result is transformation and renewal,

The resulting empathy creates cohesion.

It is the only lasting solution.

The Need For Literate Leaders

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We are experiencing a tumultuous moment: A pandemic of coronavirus that threatens our lives and our livelihood; An isolationist president that cuts off our connection to the rest of the world, weakens our faith in science, and stirs our worst impulses; A fraying social fabric inadequate to ward off the forces of anarchy as the demons of racism, xenophobia, unfettered individualism, and nationalism grow unchecked.

In this diverse, globalized, threatening and disconnected life, we clamor for countervailing influences: strong family mores; exemplary role models; our own solid center; an understanding that united we are stronger; and robust institutions in the fields of religion and education.

The need for an effective schooling grounded in 21st century values is needed more than ever. Because many viewpoints exist on what is amiss with our educational system, what I wish to focus on is literacy.  Literacy is more than having an education. It is how we relate this training to the life we lead and the obstacles we confront.  Many “educated” individuals are illiterate, and we need not look further than our present crop of political leaders.

The notion of literacy has been transformed in this new century. Under the contemporary set of expectations, I find most of us wanting.  Therefore, this is a moment for all of us to face the mirror and reflect – what can I do? How do I stack up when measured in terms of these new values? What does it say about the leaders I ought to demand for the future?

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has noted that literacy in the 21st century involves many higher-order skills. We build these more complex skills on top of what most of us consider traditional literacy: the competence to read, write, and do basic mathematics.  A literate person in this century needs to be a critical thinker, someone trained in spotting everything from blatant pseudo-facts to questionable content. They become problem solvers, effective communicators, have basic knowledge regarding science and technology, display scientific reasoning and show multi-cultural awareness.

Literacy does not begin nor end with school. A literate individual is someone willing to learn through personalized, self-directed actions throughout a lifetime, while showing flexibility and adaptability in many areas of life. In today’s world, such a person can handle, test, and synthesize multiple currents of information; They can create, critique, analyze, and test multimedia texts. Such an individual shows digital literacy, the ability to use the tools of technology. This means being able to maneuver and know how to use technology for their advantage but also for the general welfare.

From an individual’s perspective, literacy is showing situational awareness of one’s intellectual mindscape. This implies being conscious of the situation you are in, what you are reacting to, the task you are undertaking, your thought processes and the consequences of those thoughts. It suggests being present-moment centered.  But beyond this individual awareness, a literate person develops relationships with others, at the local and global level. They work collaboratively and cross-culturally to confront and solve problems with different groups. They attend to the ethical responsibilities required by complex environments. They perceive that their own interest must consider the interest of the larger group. All this develops into an unfamiliar empathy: the awareness of human connections and a greater concern for the welfare of others than for one’s own.

Given these new values: Are you a literate person? Are your actions leading you in that direction?