Category: coronavirus

The Oscillation Between Mediocrity and Uniqueness

Posted on by japineda

Cal Ag/EyeEm/EyeEm Premium / Getty
I wish to be relevant.
I do not want my ashes
In the dustbin of history.
It is a terrifying thought!

To be invisible,
To be irrelevant,
Unable to add
To the human enterprise.

Amid a pandemic,
This consuming hunger
And accompanying fear,
Rears its head.

As I shelter at home
And avoid the world,
I feel less able to add
To the human existence.

The existential crisis grows.
My insignificance is clear.
I have no ground to stand on
And I disappear.

Then, out of the ashes,
Something new is reborn.
With a new relevancy,
The relevancy of being.

Nothing to do,
Nothing to be,
No more,
No less.

This poem captures two worlds colliding in my mind at the moment. One is the world of my ego in which I am feeling distressed at being ordinary, not standing out from the crowd, being ignored by my peers and others as uninteresting or unimportant, and not having done enough to make the world a better place. I compare myself to others and find myself inadequate, as if something is missing in my personality and competence. I feel a void in the pit of my stomach, and the state of “mediocrity” becomes a frightening possibility. Like the sword of Damocles, my ego obsesses with the sense that this state of being is about to drop into my soul any minute. And I dread the thought and the feelings it engenders, namely that I will recognize this as my true nature. I recognize I rooted such fear in my development, with high expectations and a lifelong effort to excel academically and in other spheres of life. In contrast, I occasionally oscillate to another sense – that of contentment, of being special, when thinking disappears, and the world seems absolutely perfect.

This oscillation between mediocrity and uniqueness, being special and not reminds me of what Harold Ramis, a well-known American actor, comedian, director, and writer, said about carrying two notes to remind you of who you are. The first note should read, “The universe was created for my delight.” The second note should say, “I am a meaningless speck of dust in the vastness of the universe.” His point was that life occurs in the rhythmic oscillation between these two opposite poles. Living happens between meaningfulness and meaninglessness, between creative and mundane living. The rhythmic oscillation of this dance occurs both outside and within conscious awareness, but in either case, we are participants. Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian guru, offered something similar. He said, “Between looking inside and recognizing that I am nothing and seeing outside and recognizing that I am everything–my life turns.” You, me, and everyone else are both nothing and everything; both special and not.

So, why do I yearn for uniqueness? To be special? And for whom is all this mental anguish and activity for? Psychologically, it is my ego’s soulful cry, created by an illusion of separateness, born out of my evolutionary drive for individuality. Spiritually, however, it is the aching sense to be united with my Source.

What Shall I Do?

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Like many of you, I condemn racism and other inappropriate behaviors. I wish to change society to make such practices fading memories. We are at a unique point in history that is asking all of us to look at things we normally ignore. More specifically, the light of awareness is being trained on our conduct toward others. Whether as individuals or organizations, what we see in our anger and unjust actions is ugly. And our impulse is to want to change. This may be the right time for all of us to carry out the substantive transformations that are needed.
 
In this year of Black Lives Matter protests, I would be out with the activists, carrying a sign. Such an action would help me be involved in the movement and supportive of the needed transformation to the system. But this is a unique moment. There is an ongoing medical pandemic with COVID-19. I do not feel safe joining the protestors because of coronavirus fears and because I am part of a vulnerable population.  This has made me guilty, creating uncertainty about what to do and yet live an authentic life.
 
Tapping the wisdom of wiser minds at these moments is helpful. Walt Whitman, America’s poet, in his preface to his love poem to earth and humanity, Leaves of Grass, outlines what an authentic person shall do. After reading Whitman and careful consideration, I recognize that it’s more important to open one’s heart than the physical actions we might take. Therefore, the first thing I am trying to do as I practice social distancing and sheltering at home is to understand what others are sensing and thinking about the problems facing our society. I do that by practicing empathy, by imagining and holding others’ feelings as my own. This exercise has made me understand that even while I am part of a minority, education has given me social privileges I was not conscious of before. I am not, for example, fearful about calling police—a simple yet telling act if you are poor black or brown. That has opened my eyes to the systemic racism and pain being exposed and expressed by our fellow humans It shows why the entire system must adjust.
 
I know also that I must take this understanding and use it to take part in the one revolutionary practice sanctioned by the state—the right to vote. Very little will change until most of the population links the energy of protests with voting. It would be radical if all the people in the streets turn their action into a vote. Our impulse to change dysfunctional systems is a genuine reflection of what is beneficial to humanity. I hope we can find the proper path in which to express those impulses. We must learn to wield such power and appreciate that with it we can alter the world. This is that moment! We march if we can and vote when we must.

Faulty Thinking and the Trump Administration

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We are in an extraordinary historical juncture. There is a current world-wide pandemic causing 150,000 deaths in in the U.S. alone in the last six months. How to act during this scary and turbulent period is self-evident for some but not so obvious to others. How, I ask, can anyone not promote wearing masks and social distancing when these are the strongest defenses we have against the deadly virus? Why does a rational individual, conscious of what a poor decision is, make it anyhow? How can we interpret this degree of ignorance? Or to say it another way: How can we understand faulty thinking?

Consider the efforts of President Trump and the Governor of South Dakota recently. The President refuses to wear a mask in public, and does not promote wearing one, because it makes him appear weak, unmanly, and not in control. He seems to care more about his self-perception rather than the health of the society at large. The evidence is incontrovertible that his selfishness and paucity of empathy explains his faulty judgment. But what explains the actions of the Governor?  A Republican, Gov. Kristi Noem is following the lead of the President. While inviting thousands of people to attend the Mt Rushmore celebrations for the 4th of July, she won’t make masks mandatory, nor will she promote social distancing.

As a thoughtful cognitive scientist, I am dismayed and yet fascinated by such wrong-headed and dangerous rationale. Mass gatherings with no social distancing and optional masks inevitably will increase the number of infections and undoubtedly the deaths of some of the attendees. The logic of these leaders may result from a paucity in considering all alternatives, erroneous judgment, or absence of compassion in the face of objective evidence to the contrary.

Psychologists describe a specific cognitive tendency that occurs in individuals called confirmation bias that may explain features of their attitude. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, cherry-pick and recall material that confirms or supports one’s personal opinions or values. Confirmation bias distorts evidence-based decision-making.

Anti-maskers and anti-social distancing folks argue that their essential rights are being abridged during the pandemic: the freedom to associate and to do as they want. In their minds, such basic rights “trump” medical considerations. For me, it’s tantamount to declaring that having a gratifying time is more important than protecting life against a destructive virus. It is hard logic to understand. Since confirmation bias tunes people toward confirming their preexisting convictions, it may explain why it is mainly Republicans that react skeptically to health directives.

Psychologists note that explanations for confirmation bias include wishful thinking and the lessened readiness to process information. Another explanation is that people may consider the cost of being incorrect, rather than responding in an evenhanded, objective manner. These are attributes of President Trump’s and Gov. Noem’s responses.

Confirmation bias leads to “attitude polarization” (when a conflict becomes more severe, even when the parties receive the same evidence), and other such erroneous reasoning. It suggests that faulty thinking promotes more faulty thinking.

In the essay Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds published in the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert points out the limitations of reason. She shows why sensible folks are often foolish. Kolbert bases her conclusions on the work of cognitive scientists, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. Their argument is an unexpected and fascinating explanation for stupidity. They state that reason is an evolved character, like bipedalism or three-color vision; We developed this trait because of our skill at cooperating; And to work out the dilemmas posed by living in collaborative groups. That is, being stupid is sometimes advantageous. The problem is that often we apply this behavior in the wrong situation.

Mercier and Sperber suggest that a mouse with confirmation bias “bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around,” would quickly become supper. The human equivalent of this confirmation bias, leading individuals to dismiss evidence of recent or underappreciated threats, is a quality that should have disappeared through evolution. But because it has survived, they explain, it must have some adaptive function. They relate this to our “hyper sociability.” We developed reason, they say, to prevent us from getting screwed by the diverse members of our group.

Sociability is the key to how the human mind functions or malfunctions. We depend on others more than we realize. For most things we need not understand the world to live in it because someone else has understood it and we entrust them to have done it right. Think of how we use devices like our computers, smartphones, etc. without substantial awareness of how they work. We trust those who built these gadgets. Thus, partial, flawed, or “stupid” thinking is irrelevant in such circumstances.  It may actually be empowering. But we carry that attitude into other areas of life where it is not a smart thing to do. Politics being one.

As Kolbert says, “If we all now dismiss as unconvincing any information that contradicts our opinion, you get, well, the Trump Administration.”

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

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.

The Pause

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Nature has given humans a reprieve. The Covid-19 pandemic, as ravaging as it has been, is a warning shot across the bow. It declares, “You cannot maintain the unthinking, callous, insensitivity to your ecology or there will be serious repercussions.” To drive the point, Nature has released the puniest of creatures, a coronavirus. And in the blink of an eye, this slightest of avenging angels has crippled the world, brought economic powerhouses to their knees, and forced us to pause.

For the preceding thousands of years our relationship nature, to other creatures, and to the natural environment developed from a collaborative to a dominant relationship. As we became more successful in establishing a way of life beneficial solely to ourselves, we built up a sense of ownership over this ecology. Today, our efforts give less and less thought to the greater ecosystem in which we live. We live in ignorant bliss, assuming a separation from the environment that is delusional. Instead of engaging in synchrony with it, what we have done is to pollute, spoil, and eradicate other species. We have run roughshod over the sole home we have. The coronavirus is an admonition that we are part of this ecosystem and our activities can boomerang to dismantle the castles-in-the-air we have formed.

Nature, in its wisdom, has offered a gift, a moment to pause, to reflect, to reassess, to turn around before it is too late. If we reconsider, we understand that our old ways lead to destruction. Nature has presented us with a prescient vision. We have seen the toxic pollution in large sectors of India and China withdrawn. It has allowed those with eyes to see that the radiant sky is blue and not gray. Is this warning too late? How do we reverse the protracted periods of unthinking, callous apathy to our ecology? What is the alternative pathway? At what cost?

The pessimism is that we don’t learn the lesson. I deduce this from the actions of a minority who contend that this pause must end and we must return to our normal life. This is a reflective instinct, the same blissfully ignorant drive to maintain what is beneficial only to us and which has contributed to all the troubles. There is no recognition what an aberration such a “normal” life has been.  The optimism is that another group of people will take the warning to heart, change behavior, and live more in synchrony with nature. Perhaps that will be enough to spare us. As Robert Frost wrote in The Road Not Taken, it is a turning point for everyone-to take the road less traveled. If we succeed, we will all sing along with the poet:

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

The Need for Heroes

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First responders are indeed heroes. But so are second- and third responders. We are all potential heroes. Comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell (1988) concluded that we go through a hero-like journey throughout our ordinary lifespan. Whether it is better and healthier to invest hero-like qualities on others rather than ourselves is the key question?

The yearning to discover someone whom to count on, to speak with integrity, to project our emotions and fears onto, and to guide us out of our troubles is an innate human desire. It is a wish that emerges from a natural response to the ambiguities of existence. This projection of our unpredictability produces a bounded manifestation which we can readily handle. That process is not unlike, and perhaps the same as, when in illness we encounter a constellation of symptoms. But the cluster of symptoms is puzzling and we cannot determine how to address them until the physician gives it a name. The phantom-like quality of what has been plaguing us now bears a name and we feel greater control and capable of handling it.  Thus, part of naming the unknown and creating an identifiable entity is to achieve control of life’s unpredictability. When we extend this expression of our dreads onto someone else, and then that person calms our worries by their efforts, we set up the essential elements of a hero.

A hero, however, does more than mitigate our fears. We attribute virtue and moral goodness to their acts, and they gain iconic status and become inspiring symbols. Something shifts in the shared unconscious that lends authority to the hero’s image. At that stage, even myths about our heroes have a soothing function. Story-telling involving such iconic heroes then turns into an attractive replacement for the original thing. Heroic stories become the social glue that contribute to a group’s cohesiveness. As we meet around the metaphorical hearth, we hear the stories, have a shared experience, enhance the community bonds, and reconfirm our communal identification. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and the confusion it has produced, the regular updates by Dr. Anthony Fauci of the coronavirus task force or New York Governor Cuomo become a requisite television moment. For these are contemporary iconic heroes.

Joseph Campbell maintained that heroes go through a personal transformation during their hero journeys. I would assert that the metamorphosis is more in the beholder’s mind; In those who crave a hero with self-confidence, humility, and a sense of their place in the universe. When that self-fulfillment happens, the hero changes. The investment of this goodwill into another individual being makes them a savior-like figure, which may or may not be an appropriate thing. Note that the change is in ourselves and there is no need to project. As some psychologists contend, “heroes turn us into heroes ourselves.”

When internalized, the hero process moves us toward emotional, behavioral and spiritual health. All we require doing is to funnel that energy inwards and turn the mirror onto ourselves.

Eco-Friendly Walking

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In this moment of covid-19, coronaviruses, social distancing, masks, and gloves, it seems appropriate to consider a walking exercise that is also good for the habitat. Since we are adjusting to stay at home orders and sheltering in place, the need for exercise has become critical. What many of my neighbors have turned to is strolling around the area. Walking is a fantastic way to exercise and enjoy the pleasant weather. As I started my walking routine around the neighborhood, it surprised me how often I came across garbage on the roadway. A diversity of objects that belonged in a trash can and not on the street confronted me. I saw disposed Kleenex tissues, gloves, soda cans, gum wrappings, plastic bags, cigarette butts, etc. It didn’t take me long to realize that I could get my needed walking exercise but also contribute a bit to cleaning up the environment. All I had to do was bring along a grocery sack and collect some of this rubbish. It seemed like a worthy goal. Eco-friendly walking in the time of coronavirus seemed like a healthy, satisfying behavior, or so I told myself.

But I faced three obstacles:

The first obstacle involved the small to medium-sized sacks I brought along, which proved too small for the amount of rubble I encountered. My middle- to upper-middle class neighborhood had seemed clean prior to this. My blindness to the street garbage took me by surprise. It’s true that I have cleaned up other areas where I fill up a regular trash bag much more rapidly. But this territory is where I lived and it surprised me. I now carry larger and multiple medium-sized bags.

The second obstacle involved the repeated bending over required to pick up the items. My 60+ year old back began complaining almost as soon as I started. I fixed this easily by purchasing a hardy hand-held trash picker or grabber for less than $10. This eliminated the demand to bend and the need to wear gloves to handle the item, making it a more efficient and hygienic process.

The third obstacle I faced were emotional feelings about doing something that is done only as part of an environment clean-up event. To overcome the discomfort, embarrassment, and fear, I convinced myself my actions were the “right thing to do” for the ecosystem. Fortunately, the more I do it, the less the anxiety it raises.

Now I go out for my morning walk while sheltering in place and the neighborhood looks cleaner.

A Study in Humility?

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We use myths, legends, fables, folktales, fairy tales, and parables as ways to understand momentous and frightening events. Parables speak of ordinary mortals performing sometimes extraordinary actions. In trying to find meaning in the covid-19 pandemic, I searched for an appropriate parable. The closest that springs to mind is the biblical story of David and Goliath. But in this case, the evil character is the small one. So if the moral roles are reversed with covid-19, perhaps the teaching this time is more about humility.

A virus is about 120 nanometers in size, where a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. There are 25,400,000 nanometers in one inch. If you do the math, it means over 200,000 viruses could crowd into one inch of space.  What this suggests is that this pathogen is a very tiny entity. And yet, covid-19, a coronavirus, has brought humankind to its knees. Democracies, dictatorships, and everything in between yielded to the power of this microorganism.

Viruses attach to droplets of saliva when a human coughs or sneezes. Scientists estimate that about 3,000 such beads form a single cough and ten times as many in a sneeze. And the speed at which they race out of the mouth approaches between 50-200 miles per hour. When someone is sick, the droplets in a single cough may contain two hundred million individual virus particles. This number will vary dramatically as the immune system clears out the pathogen. 

Covid-19 is infectious and causes respiratory tract problems ranging from mild to lethal. For those already suffering from a respiratory illness, such as asthma, or a compromised immune system, it puts them in a vulnerable category. To date, over 3 million humans throughout the earth experienced coronavirus and close to a quarter million people succumbed to it.

Regardless of how much our ego distorts the accurate image of our character, covid-19 shows us how vulnerable we are to the tiniest of organisms. Despite every society implementing the only tool at their disposal for fighting this invisible enemy, social distancing, it has been an upsetting experience. Social or physical distancing is something contrary to our social nature, yet we followed the recommendations and are seeing the end of the storm. At least for now. But the virus has made crystal clear that although humbling, the one thing we can count on as a species is our inimitable spirit!

Walking Is a Miracle

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It was a warm sunny spring day. The type that justifies living in California. I was meandering and enjoying a hiking trail around our housing complex when I lost my footing and fell. The injury was sufficient so I cannot partake in this exercise, at least for a while. The sudden pause gave me a chance to reconsider an activity I enjoy while sheltering in place during the covid-19 pandemic. In doing so, it made me appreciate walking more than ever.

Our hominid ancestors, Homo erectus, began ambulating upright over two million years ago. But it is only in the last few decades that researchers have gained insights into how we do it. The action is a complex mechanical engineering accomplishment. Complicated and mysterious enough that some have characterized it as a daily miracle we should not take for granted.

The term walking originates in the Old English word wealcan meaning “to roll.” A 2013 article in the Journal of Experimental Biology by Lipfert and colleagues outlines the unique interaction between ankle, knee, muscles and tendons that summarizes how we go about this roll. Wikipedia describes walking from a physics perspective as the kinetic energy of forward motion being traded dynamically for a rise in potential energy. At another level of definition, the movement results from the body “vaulting” (or rolling) over the leg on the ground. One leg moves forward in a way that maximizes motion while using minimal amounts of energy. This raises the center of mass to its highest point as the leg passes the vertical and dropping it to the lowest as the limbs spread apart.

The 2D inverted pendulum model of walking provides an even more explicit description. During forward motion, the leg that leaves the ground swings forward from the hip. This sweep is the first pendulum. Then the leg strikes the ground with the heel and rolls through to the toe in a motion described as an inverted pendulum. The motion of the two legs synchronize so that one foot is always in contact with the ground.

There are two stages necessary for starting this wealcan, the powerful “push-off” phase. The first stage is an “alleviation” in which the action relieves the trailing leg of the burden of supporting the body mass. Then in a “launching” stage, the knee buckles, allowing the rapid release of stored elastic energy in the ankle tendons, like the triggering of a catapult. The catapult energy from the ankle is used to swing the leg, not add sizeable amounts of energy to the forward motion. This makes it energy-efficient and agile, making the human action different from how robots walk. As the hip rotates 40 degrees in the sagittal plane during a normal stride it becomes a smooth, beautiful movement.

Is walking a simple act?  No. It is a complicated mechanical engineering organization of movements and forces that only recently has shed its mysteries. It is a daily miracle. We perform it so easily and overlook it from among the other physiological miracles, like seeing and hearing. The covid-19 pandemic has been a brutal war on humanity but also an opportunity to pause and recognize the many things we take for granted.