Transition, But First, Going Away

I am pretty sure that I am finished being a hands-on, face to face psychotherapist.  I cleaned out my desk.  The office is being rented to someone else.  I have kissed all of my patients good-bye. 

It was difficult, kind of earth-shattering in a very personal way, but now it’s done.

I did this gradually, over a two year period, so I think it went as well as possible.  It also gave me time to transition to the next phase.  I have worked with so many people who needed to navigate through difficult transitions,  They had many different reasons: job loss, death of loved ones, illness, accidents, divorce, recovery, new job, new move, new partner. I tried to help them develop new skills. Now it’s my turn.

What I seem to be doing, just by having the time now to do so, is to step back and look around. I had been focused on so many individuals who each had to deal with unique situations. Now I want to look up at the sky.  I want to try to put everything in some kind of perspective, to see how everything ties together. The world is changing very rapidly.  It is creating a great deal of excitement and hope, but also disruption and fear.  You can se e that in the politics that are in such turmoil.

I also see so many educated, dedicated, creative, caring people who are doing exciting, transformative, world changing things in so many areas, such as genetics, brains science, communications, space exploration, immunology, business management, sustainable energy, product development, medicine, food science ….. on and on in almost every field, even psychology.

I guess what I’d like to do is help everyone take a moment to step back and see how all of these changes interact with each other, and what kind of a new world we are creating. How do electric cars relate to genetic editing, to transgender marriages, to sustainable energy, to drone warfare, to on-line education, to a mars landing, to guided meditation?

Is all of this taking us where we want to go or is it just keeping everyone busy and making some people very rich?

I have become very aware that everyone’s lives will be very different in just twenty five years.  I have also become very aware that, if I’m here, I will be 96 in twenty five years.(WTF?)

Therefore, before I ask the two hundred basic questions I have been thinking about, and try to generate a discussion about how we should all participate in designing our future, I will be going away.  Far away, to the other side of the world.  Got to do this while we can, ya know.

When I return we will begin the next phase, unless I decide that it’s enough to just play Shoots and Ladders, Pony, trains and ball.

See you in month or so.

Enjoy the summer.

Connect the dots: piles of snow and the ISIS killings.

            Today the sun came out for a few hours and the temperature rose to thirty-six degrees.  The snow around my house began to melt for the first time in weeks.  The seven-foot high piles are now only five feet high, the twenty-foot piles seem about the same.  The dripping off the icicles of mass destruction was constant.  Of course, now that the sun is setting, and the temperature is dropped, everything with freeze solid.

            As anyone who has paid any attention to any media knows, this has been an historic winter here in New England.  And it shows no sign of getting easier.  It will be very cold tomorrow, and more snow will come on Wednesday.

            Last winter did not have as much snow, but the cold came very early, before Thanksgiving and it stayed very cold until the middle of March.  This year seemed as if it was going to be an easy winter until the middle of January, but then everything changed.

            During this time there has been a group of religious zealots who say they are trying to bring about the end of the world.  Their stated goal is to incite a holy war between Muslim extremists, and the rest of the world, a war that will result in total destruction.  This kind of disruptive, oppositional thinking has attracted a following of people who seem to be either fed-up or frightened about things that are happening in the world today, including globalization, exploitation, multiculturalism, allowing women to think and mostly, worshiping the wrong God.

            For a while these were just two different things that upset me, and then I read the article in the February issue of Scientific American by Michael E. Webber that explains the interactive dependence of the availability of water, food and energy.  He shows clearly how the abundance of one of those can help create an abundance of all of them, and how a scarcity of any one of them can lead to the scarcity of the others.

            I also remember reading a few years ago (sorry, but I can’t cite the source right now) about how climate change has lead to the drought in Sudan and how that was large contributing factor in the civil war that broke out in that country.  It is also true that there has been a drought for the last few years in Syria, and that drought lead, as Dr. Webber ‘s thinking would predict, to a rise in food prices, which was a large part of why, after many years of being able to tolerate a repressive government in Syria, there was a revolt among the hungry and dissatisfied people. 

            That civil war has been going on for three years now, and has ruined the country.  Hundreds of thousands of people have died, and millions have been injured, displaced and traumatized.  That kind of chaos and instability easily spread to the neighboring counties that were already full of conflict and turmoil, and that allowed ISIS to rise and attract followers.

I believe that it is the same forces that has changed the climate and lead to a drought in Sudan and Syria that has lead to the long period of cold and heavy snows here in New England. There will not be a drought in New England this year; we will have too much water for a while, including some flooding.  But the states in the Western part of the U.S. are still in a continuing drought and there will be many struggles for water; water for crops, water for drinking, water for the fountains at the hotels in Las Vegas.

            This will lead to uncertainty, discontentment and anger.  I don’t think it will lead to a revolution.  But people will blame the government, the immigrants, and the corporations.

            How many people will realize that the world is now linked and interdependent in many complex ways?  Probably more than just me.

            But how many people are ready to make the significant changes?  Probably more than before, and hopefully enough to make a difference, but that remains to be seen. 

            When there is scarcity there is fear, and when there is fear most people worry most about themselves and their own families.  It’s hard to put it all in context when your livelihood is threatened.