Sanity?wh

It's still summer I've been blissed out down here, chasing the grandkids across the beach   They do funny, startling and often "crazy" things.

What's "crazy"?  That's a good question.  But let's take the opposite approach: what's "sane?"

Here's a brief thought experiment: what would it be like if everyone  the world was sane?

Think about it.

It can't happen can it?

Is there any way we could all agree?  Or, if we disagree to act respectively, be accepting, make reasonable adjustments and accommodations?

If we are all sane, would we have similar standards of what is fair, of what is reasonable?

I guess it goes back to Aristotle, who was looking for "ideals", and the perfect forms and pure ideas to guide us.

We haven quite found them yet.

That leads to disagreement, to tension, to conflict, to stress, to anger or depression, and there you go, You end up with ISIS, mass shootings and 16 Republican crazy people wanting to be President.

Epigenetics - 1

So much information comes pouring in, even when I’ve just been chasing the grandkids across the beach at low tide. I don’t turn on this computer as much any more, because, like most people these days, it seems to be too big and slow compared with all of the mobil devices that I take with me in a plastic bag. Still, so man new, exciting things are happening -- as well as the constant flow of repetitive atrocities and financial manipulations. 

Some of the new information came over the weekend in the very low-tech way, through newspapers.  Because of the glitch in the analogue delivery system we received three papers, one from New York, one from Boston and an extra from Cape Cod.  The Cape Cod gave us local facts and weather, and also a story and picture of a woman who had gone to high school with my son.  She was doing well here on The Cape, except she still had loads of student debt.  Too bad; student loans were another good attempt to put a band-aid on a severed leg. The unintended consequences  soon were mixed with a bit of good old American fraud and deception, and now it’s a crisis.

The NYT Magazine had a lead article by Susan Dominus about two pairs of identical twins who were somehow mix-up 26 years ago and raised as fraternal twins by the two different families.  The four men found each other through a series of connections and are being studied by geneticists and also epigeneticists.

The article focuses mainly on the reactions of the young men, and how they responded differently to the very confusing situation.  It raises the questions of who we are, and what it is that shapes us.  All that nature/nurture stuff.

Although this happened due to a drastic error in a rural medical system, it is relevant  now due to the increasing amount of ways in which families can be formed.  These days, with different kinds of marriages, and so many step-families, and people changing sexes, or just having difficulties having children, the laboratory is an increasingly major factor in the creation of people.

Repeatedly, over my long years of doing psychotherapy I have often  been frustrated by  feeling that I am working with someone whose emotional reactions to certain situations are way beyond what should be expected, even given some difficult situations.  I spent hours working with Lady R, who was very anxious, and saw possible danger in everything.  She did well in therapy, as she was thoughtful and very open to reassurances.  Long after we stopped our visits she would call me after a bad night of fears.  I would spend about fifteen minutes on the phone with her and she would be fine for six months. But i always had the impression that she was being knocked over by the waves of her life, even though they never came up as high as her knees.

By contrast, I have seen people who had awful family histories of physical and emotional abuse, as well as living in poverty, and yet these people were workers and survivors.  It was not as if their lives were without struggles or limitations, but they had developed coping mechanisms that held them steady when the waves of their lives where twelve feet high and threw them against the rocks.

Obviously, we all have genetic differences that shape our personality.  Since the turn of this millennium there has been an amazing amount of work sorting out the kinds of genes that play a part in predisposing each of us toward various emotional sensitivities, or lack of them.  The results of the Human Genome Project, and all the technology that has been developed to explore those areas has opened up vast new ways of adding dimensions to what influences how we all think feel and act.

However it has, somewhat surprisingly,  been discovered that this connection of genes to behavior is much more complex, and much less cause and effect than what was anticipated at first. It has become very clear that even if genes are identical in two people, their behavior has not been determined to be the same.  That is what this articles finally illustrates.  This is what the newer field of Epigenetics is all about. We are learning that Epigenetics is as important as our DNA.

I am now reading Nessa Carey’s book called “Epigenetic Revolution” which begins to explain how changes occur between the time that our DNA, which designs the formation of proteins, and the actual formation of those proteins.  It turns out that, contrary to what was expected ten years ago, a lot happens.  Slight changes occur which affect exactly how and when these proteins are formed. This leads to changes in or bodies, which leads to changes in our thoughts, feeling and behaviors. 

The result of all this is that what happens in your life influences how your genetic script gets played out.  But, it is also still true that what your genetic script is has a major influences on what happens in your life. One cannot overplay the other ( except in extreme cases).

The study of Epigenetics is to determine what affects the expression of our genes. this includes considerations of prenatal development, nutrition, toxins, air quality.  Also, physical and emotional factors play a strong roll, nurturing, family dynamics, structure, safety, stress, and all the other psycho-social elements that psychologists have focused on for years.

The point of this extra long explosion of a post is just to express my enthusiasm about how new science is revealing the complexity of human life.  Our millions of years of evolution have not produced a simple creature that responds to simple solutions.  Our mind, however you define it, comes to us as the result of the flow of many forces all interacting with each other all of the time. 

That is why perfect parents often have problem children.  That is why moral people can be corrupted and great leaders are awful individuals.  That is why happiness comes and goes, and difficulties can be rewarding. As the atmosphere changes, or our food intake changes, or relationships change, or the temperature gets hotter, or we get an infection, we can become different people.

We should, and we will, develop better ways of sorting out what forces help us express our better natures, and what and how to apply them.

Still, as Newton himself found baffling, when there are more than two, or maybe three moving parts interacting at the same time, the possible results increase exponentially and predictions become almost impossible.  With humans, the number of important influences are still being counted.

As I chase the two and four year-old across the beach, I hope that their obvious glee will help them feel that the world is a fun and exciting place to live. One wave may knock them over scare them, and it all could change.  Or they could learn that they can bounce back up and that their family can provide support and safety.  We are all working and hoping for the best.

I said to Them (last time)

Intro:
Below is a bit I recently posted on a list for practicing Psychologists.  In my last post I mentioned that I was worried about the future of my profession and this describes my concern.
As usual I was mostly ignored or else told to shut-up.  At present, most psychologists in private practice are much more concerned about how they really don't fit into the changing health care system, and how their compensation is being reduced.
What I wrote is consistent with what I've been writing about for the last few years: that change is difficult, especially if it means a reduction in pay and learning new skills. Of course it is easier for me to say this all now because I no longer count on the money I make seeing patients.
It is also very possible that I am not just an outlier, or a perceptive critic who makes people uncomfortable, but just a cantankerous old man.
So be it!

Here is what I wrote:

When I was in grad school I drove a cab.  I had to make change quickly, and give people their money in denominations so that they could give some back to me.  Now no one makes change any more. Also, the taxi business is being destroyed by Uber.  Uber drivers don't give change.  Uber riders don't give tips. Yes, there are big problems with Uber, and taxis may, or may not give better service.  Pretty much the market decides. Taxis, just another profession that's disrupted.

I don't think there is, or should be a free market for mental health services.  The people who need it the most often can't afford it, don't know how to get it, don't know they need it, or don't want it. I also think that almost everyone on this list does an excellent job of doing what they can to improve the lives of their patients.  I think that many of will successfully develop a way to support yourselves, using the skills that they have.  If you do that, one of those skills needs to be in marketing.  The APA will give you some help in doing that, but 88% is up to you. (not a scientific %)

I have been in Independent Practice for about 35 years, doing mostly psychotherapy. Due to my age, a bit of financial stability, the changes in health care, and the sudden appearance of four grandchildren I have dramatically limited the number of clinical hours I do, and how I do them.

But, during the last ten years I have become aware of how much I felt the limitations of what my skills were, while also feeling ( of course ) that my skills were equal or better than anyone out there.  I did a lot of reading, exploring, talking and even taking courses in other fields. I now feel even more strongly that the advances in fields such as cognitive psychology, brain science, neurology, epidemiology, genetics, and now, epigenetics, and even criminology, architecture and paleontology offer insights into the determinants of behavior that most psychologists don't pay attention to.  Most of these fields have used new technologies and Big Data to peer into brains and bodies, to find patterns and relationships that were not even conceived of before the turn of the new millennium. 

Also, people's lives are very different.  People work differently, communicate differently, and form different types of relationships. Yes, I still think that having a safe, trusting, confidential therapeutic relationship  can be very comforting, and also produce many positive results. But really, it is not going to meet the needs of our fast-paced, stressful society. Also, several studies show, you don't necessarily need Ph.D. to be good at it.

I feel very strongly that if Clinical Psychology as a health profession is going to be relevant in ten years, we had all learn to combine our knowledge with other fields of study, to find ways of intervening on different levels, such as families, communities and health. We need to lean about mind-brain-body-genetic-environmental interactions.  Human behavior turns out to be very complex.  That's not a big surprise to anyone on this list. But there are tools and knowledge out there that did not exist when I was in grad school, and which hardly get even a passing mention in most of the current psychological literature.

Amazon, Facebook, Walmart and American political parties have become more skilled at influencing and shaping human behavior than both academic and clinical psychologist. That worries me.

Every time someone takes out a gun and kills a bunch of people in a movie theater, an elementary school, a high school, a college, a mall, a parking lot, a military base, a post office,  at his office, at a temple, a beauty parlor, a church, on his friends, on his family, or at a mental health clinic, just to name some of the recent ones, everyone says, "He had mental problem."

Well, what are we going to do about that? Isn't that our job?

I'm sure we can do a lot, and that's a lot of what we should be doing.

*    *     *     *     *     * 

That's what i said to them.The ones who replied mostly defended psychodynamic psychotherapy. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is fascinating for both the clinician and the patient.  It can also be very comforting.  But it often goes on for years and is not effective for people who are being smashed by life.

But I won't bother them again.  I will seek a more persuasive outlet.  Until then, I'll just occasionally spew it out here.

Thanks for enduring this one more time.

It Must Be Me

It's still summer.  Beautiful down here, as I said last time.  Friends, family, people, food, drinks, sun, sea, surf, stars.  Lots of stuff to do.

My wife and I played golf yesterday. We are not good golfers.  I have almost gotten to be mediocre, but I don't play enough.  I began to play because it is one of the few sports my wife will do.  She gets bored after nine holes.

We played on a hot afternoon at one of the local courses.  Since it's summer and busy we were paired up with a couple of guys who are about my age who were golfers.  The were buddies, and they said  they play about three or four times a week. They were were nice people and friendly to us.  They were very good at golf. At least a stroke a hole better than me, more on harder holes. But they didn't seem bothered by us whacking the ball around.  They were mildly competitive with each other. A lot of kidding back and forth.  They seemed to repeat things they had said to each other for years.

Often, when we are paired up with another couple, we get to know a bit about them: where they live down here, where they lived before, what they did, how many kids, grandkids, where they like to eat. just general stuff.  When we get paired up with men, they are polite but no information gets exchanged. These guys talked to each other about fishing, about grilling, and about watching golf on TV.  I don't know if they had wives and families.  They could even have been married to each other, although that seemed unlikely.  Although, really, they were. They seemed like guys who had worked at a job for many years, and now they were happy to be finsihed with it.  They were free now to do what they wanted.  They had earned that.

Today, I went out by myself in my kayak.  Paddled down the river and out into the Sound.  I paddled through the little waves out to the mound of rocks.  Looked at the land, sea and sky, and wondered again who I was and what I was thinking about.  I think about thinking too much.

My wife was busy all day so I stopped for some clams and a beer. I was going to sit at the outdoor bar and chat with the folks who were enjoying themselves, but as I passed I heard they were talking about drinking, and drinks.  The talk was a bit loud and a bit sloppy.  They obviously knew what they were talking about and had been at it for a while.

I just  moved on to a table.

I'm a  fun guy, but not in the ways that most people have fun.  I like to drink, but not that much.  I like to play golf, but the score doesn't matter. The only movies I like are strange and have been seen by about three dozen people.  I get bored by most novels.  I don't believe in happy endings. I love to talk to people, especially now that I don't have to help solve their problems, but I make jokes they don't understand, and references to things they never heard of. I think a lot of things are funny. Many of them are the things other people take seriously.  I think I'm funny.  I'm really good at entertaining myself.  I get all my jokes.

But I can't just relax and enjoy everything day after day.  I can't just take care of myself and let the rest of the world go off and do it's thing.  I know when it does things often turn out badly.  I worry about my kids and my grandkids.  I worry a lot about my profession.  Psychology, and the treatment of mental health issues are not evolving fast enough.  They are not keeping up with the rest of the sciences and with the way the world operates. Not effecient or effective.

But I've been at this for almost fifty years now.  It's time to put it down and let someone else pick it up.  I'm very fortunate to be as healthy and happy as I am.  Let it be.

But I can't.  Things should be better. It bothers me.  Some things have improved, but not enough.  People should care.  Most don't.  They are better than I am at just having a good time.  I'm almost jealous.
But I'd be bored.

I see it with my patients all the time.  Long-term habits are hard to break.

Summa Time, Summa Time

Yes, it's summer.  We have been on The Cape for over a week now. The last few days in June were quiet, warm and lazy.  I rode my bike the mile into town and two cars passed me.  I walked in and ordered a sandwich, chatted with the deli-man, bought a bag of chips and rode home.  We took the grandkids to the beach and I chased them all over the hard sand of low tide. The sun set very late and quietly over the Bay.

I thought I could hear the rumble coming.  Still, I wasn't prepared.

Twenty-four hours later I rode my bike to town to buy sandwiches for everyone.  The road was packed.  I had to wait in order to make the left turn into the parking lot.  It was good I was on my bike as there were no places left to park.  The line to get a sandwich snaked around like the line to ride Thunder Mountain.  The deli-man, his brother, his cousin and the two guys they brought in from the Sandwich Maker's Union didn't have time to look up.  They just read the pieces of paper with orders written down on them and kept chopping and spreading mustard.

The beach parking lots were full. There was hardly any room to put the strollers for the grand-boys.  The tide was rolling in and almost all the soft sand was covered with people. People were chatting, sleeping, digging and flirting. Summer arrived!

It was the Fourth of July Weekend.

America was enjoying it's freedom.  Our family was together.  Other families surrounded us.  My nieces was in a house about a mile away with her husband.  His family was there.  Eighteen people and six dogs in a four bedroom house.  The family next door to us always brings everyone in for this holiday.  They have that house and another one near the beach.  They have lots of people, brothers, and a sister, husbands, wives and kids, ex-wives and step-kids, boyfriends and girlfriends, babies and dogs.  I never remember who is attached to whom. The smile and wave.  They all run a race against each other every years to see if the new wives are faster than the ex-wives.  Whatever.

A few hundred people turn out at night for the fireworks on the beach. Fireworks are not legal in Massachusetts. But for an hour there were almost as many fireworks going off as there were over Boston Harbor.  Lots of little puffs of color in the air, but also many, many big boomers lighting up the sky and filling the night with colors, lights and sounds, falling down on my head from two hundred feet above me. People sitting around bonfires, cheering each booming display. I sat down in the dark and a shadowy form next to me handed me a beer.

Thanks, I said. Enjoy your freedom.

Our kids and their kids all left in the morning to beat the traffic.  Other friends drove in from New York and brought their friends with them. No more changing diapers, just eating and drinking on the porch. They will leave Tuesday morning and other people are due to show up Tuesday night and more on Wednesday.

Somewhere in my mind I am aware of how fortunate I am, and as the real people realize, it is really about Family and Friends.  Yes, I know that somewhere out there some people really take Donald Trump seriously.  But that's their problem  I guess that's what freedom is all about.

I leave you with today's musical tribute:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeNAgBFmJpM

At The MOMA when the Flag came Down

For reasons that I can hardly understand myself, I was sitting smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, NYC. It is a beautiful night and it has been a stimulating and fascinating day. Of course, it could not be anything else here in the Big Apple. Even thought we were in Brooklyn last December, checking in on a friend's new venture, it seems as if I have been away too long.

I have lived up in New England for the large majority of my years, and I must say my personality blends much better up there.  The quiet reserve and the self depreciation, even if it hides a smug sense of slight superiority, fits me well.  But I was born here, in Brooklyn, and NYC, is and will always be, the center of the universe. It is the place where things really begin, where it all happens, where everyone is.  There are enough people here who care about anything and everything. They make it happen, whatever it is. They come here from all over the world to make it happen. It is brash, noisy, nosey, loud, dirty and crowded. It is diverse, accepting, stimulating, provocative, and inspiring.It is expensive!

We only stayed a couple of days and we have did lots. We went to the MOMA, we went to,the Whitney.  We walked the Highline, we drank at the Carlyle for $20 a pop. We walked up Madison Ave past Gucci, Armani, Loren, Buccelatti, Coach, DKNY, and dozens of others. Rows of places selling watches for $1500, $15,000, $150,000. Handbags,handbags, handbags, I guess everyone needs a dozen, almost,as expensive as the watches. Keep your stuff in them. Your Botox, your Xanex, your iPhone, your make-up and your works.

We were there less than a week after some crazy kid went into a church and murdered Black people.  He acted alone, they say.  But at the MOMA we saw the paintings by  Jacob Lawrence, the Migration Series, that he did  about 80 years ago. In series of 60 pictures he explored how Black People were beaten, exploited, burned out and lynched. Mr. Roof did not act alone, he was part of a long tradition.

At the Whitney there are four floors of over a hundred years so American art.  For a hundred years ( I know it's much more) American artists have shown in many ways, how racism in America is pervasive, how bad times are worse for for poor people. Yet, there are so many rich people who sponsor these artists, and who endow the big new museums that are full of all kind of art that depicts how the rich exploit the poor.

We were there when Obama gave yet another speech about how our country seems to tolerate the senseless killing of innocents on almost a monthly basis.  But it also seemed as if the sun began to peek through the clouds. We were there two days before the Gay Pride parade.  We were there when the Supreme Court handed down the two decisions that seemed to move the world slightly in a different direction. We were in New York when the people in South Carolina began to take down the flag that had been flying for a hundred and fifty years after the war ended.

Does that mean the war is over?  Does that mean that artists can begin to paint more colorful pictures? Maybe not yet. But as all the gay couples stood up straighter, smiled and waved, and felt a bit more a part of our country, and some Balck people see that at least more people are realzing that somethings may have to change, it may mean that Dr. King might be right, and that the long arc of history is pointing a bit more toward freedom.

The sun was shining, people were smiling, and it seemed like everyone, from all over the world, was just hangin' out, enjoying the day.

We Will Do Better!

Last time I deviated from my new policy of being positive and upbeat.  I went back to being realistic, which is never a big seller. I believe everything I wrote, but my marketing department was upset.

By now, it should be obvious to me, if anyone, that blurting out ideas and strong opinions, and then trying to support those ideas with any kind of objective information is never going to convince anyone to change their mind.

If I could have started with the heartbreaking story of one of the victims, or showed a video of the families who have stated that they can forgive the killer, the piece may have been more effective. But I didn't do that. I just listed a bunch of negative historical trends.

So today, I will just say that I will try to go back to finding silver linings. I will try to remember that about 66% of Americans are living pretty decent lives, although at least half of them are pretty stressed out about it. Also, suffering and racism are not uniquely American.  They have been a major trend in the history of the world since before any humanoid creature walked on two legs, or since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, which ever story you want to use as a point of reference.

Please accept my apology for going off on such a rant.  It's not that i am not sincere, or don't believe in anything I said, it's just that I hope I didn't upset anyone.  If I am going to be persuasive I have to be trustworthy and likable. More the later than the former. So please push the "Like" button on my Facebook page (which you won't find because I don't have one).

To end on a note that will make you smile I would have attached a video of my almost two year-old grandson doing his best dance moves in front of a street band last week.  Unfortunately, I don't have a signed release, but you can just imagine a really cute, round,  smiling kid shakin' and groovin'.

Have fun and expect the best!

Bang, Bang, (9x) and Sorrow for Our National Memes

Tonight was a beautiful early summer evening.  I sat at the neighborhood park

and listened to a band of old men playing rock tunes from 1960.  The parents of young children danced with their kids.  The older children ran around, playing mixtures of baseball and soccer.  They wore jerseys that read Messi, James, Perdroia, and “Free Brady”. The older people sat on lawn chairs and nodded in time to the music. There were about two hundred people, of almost every race and age out together as a community.

It was the kind of evening I would have loved, but I was distracted by a pervasive feeling of sorrow. I was again, worried about what continually happens in my country. Land of the Free.  Home of the Brave.

I never have met or evaluated Dylann Roof, the adolescent who murdered nine people during their bible study, so it is unethical for me to diagnose him.  But i have known people like him, angry, lost, misguided, racist, violent, paranoid.  Also, given my age, of three score and ten, I can put him in the context of the America I have lived in and see how his actions, like so many before him, are so much a part of the contradictions and conflicts built into our culture.

This is not just a simple act of racism. Yes, it was racist, but he wasn’t a lone, deranged racist, he was part of the culture. Also, he was another in a long line of mass shooters, many of whom, as we have seen lately, are White people shooting Black people.  But it takes many other factors to even allow a disturbed person to have the idea that it is possible to walk into a church and start shooting. 

The most obvious, of course, is racism, which was written in to the Constitution. Black people were the basis of the energy and economic policy of several of the original colonies.  For this to be permitted by our ethical Founding Fathers, Black people could not be considered people. Even the Civil War did not erase this view. Clearly, it still haunts America.

But a confounding, and more complex factor, is the importance of individualism and individual freedom in America.  It is this idea that has exaggerated both America’s strengths and weaknesses.  Individualism has lead to some great new ideas, freedoms, creativity and entrepreneurship.  It is really what attracts people from all over the world to come here and make their own way. Part of the real attraction of America is that people can succeed based upon their own efforts.   In that way, there is no other country comes close.

However, now that the world has become more complex, individualism shows it’s frightening underbelly.  It easily promotes narcissism, which leads to greed and paranoia. Our society has become so complex, with all of us so intertwined that asserting one’s own individualism often invades the space of others. Usually, the rich and powerful invade the space of the poorer and weaker. Those who feel trampled, confused and left behind either become depressed or violent.

It is this distortion of individualism that is woven in with the longstanding American tradition of guns and violence.  The tradition holds that a person has a right to defend himself (him is the defining pronoun), and that he has the right to a gun to do it. That tradition began when the early Europeans drove the Native Americans away.  It has been revised and intensified with anti-government sentiments, since the election of a Black President.

Also, for the last hundred and fifty years America has almost always been at  war. This was viewed as a great strength when the U.S. was the saving force for Europe and Asia when tyrants threatened the world. But now has turned into a never ending, never winnable struggle with a undefined objectives.  The cost of this has been huge, in lives, money, and our views of morality.  We appear to the world, and ourselves also, as killing to make the world safe for big corporations, especially energy companies.  We easily justify killing by declaring we are always right.

Underlying all of this, and really the original and basic cause, is money.  Half of the country feels that the basic American freedom is to be able to make as much money as possible, and any means is acceptable.  That was the original basis of slavery. It is the reason we go to war.  It is what keeps the NRA going.  It is why corporations don’t like government regulation. Money is the way narcissists prove themselves. 

All of these factors have become tightly woven together and have created a society that becomes horrified but does nothing about the killing of dozens of elementary school children, of high school students, of college students, of Black people by White police, of families by their fathers, of wives and girlfriends by the hundreds, of people who may have parked in the wrong place, of kids riding their bicycles in their neighborhoods, or playing basketball, of shoppers in malls, of people sitting at a movie, of people sitting in beauty parlor, of people worshiping at a temple, and now at a church. Add to that the many veterans of those wars who come home and kill themselves. Also the unnoticed but huge amount of white men, usually in their fifties, who blow their own brains out with the guns they have had for years.

Dylann Roof was not one lone deranged person, acting on his own. The was a member of our conflicted society.

This leads to the last point, which is something I am very aware of after forty years as a Psychologist. This type of tragedy is usually labelled the act of someone who is mentally disturbed.Somehow, that seems to end the discussion.  But we know that the mental health treatments available in America range from inadequate to nonexistent. During the forty years that I have been practicing their have been very few innovations in treatment that could have prevented these awful events, and even those are rarely funded or implemented. 

Part of this is because, even more than other complex diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and even ALS or cancer, the causes of emotional and psychological disturbances are complex.  Mental health issues are the result not only of biological factors, which include genetics and brain disorders, but are also affected by family dynamics, cultures and subcultures. Also there are other physical causes such as toxins in the body, physical pain, and traumas both mental and physical. I would guess all of those factors played a role in shaping that Dylann Roof’s ability to kill.  Real treatments need to be more comprehensive and to include input from many professions. 

That would cost money. Money that many individuals are not yet willing to part with for the good of the whole society, a very diverse society.

Can three hundred and fifty years of the shaping of a culture be changed? Yes, it will finally happen when enough people feel that we have all suffered enough.  But tonight, in the friendly park in a prosperous New England suburb, not enough people were suffering. We have learned to let life roll on unless the bullet ripped through our own family. The people we see crying on the news will fade away until next time, which is usually only a week or two away.

Let's Get Happy

I’ve been reading the Sunday papers, and mostly that upsets me, especially when I see that so much really is about issues relating to mental health.  I was going to write, again, about how these issues are handled badly, inefficiently, or mishandled, if they are handled at all.  For many mental health issues the police are the first responders., Some police are very skilled and sensitive, while there are others, who we see of the news, who beat people, humiliate them, or shoot them.

I also question both the motives and the sanity of many of the people who have managed to push themselves into a position of power, either economically or politically. These days, with money being such a factor in how our country is run, it seems as if business owners, the heads of big corporations and just your regular very, very rich people, have all become intertwined.  They then anoint themselves as the “ruling elite,” and set out to inflict their values and views upon the rest of us. Meanwhile most of “the rest of us” is too busy scratching out a living and struggling to find a few moments of peace and relaxation to pay too much attention to how many of the decisions made by those “ruling elites” is making it much more difficult for “the rest of us” to scratch out a living and find a few moments of peace and relaxation.

Then I read a article about the secrets of success and going viral on the Internet.  It turns out that complaining about how things are bad is not one of them.  Everyone knows things are bad; everyone is complaining. What most people are looking for is a brief respite from all of the complaints that I listed above. It's enough already.

But, if I can come up with an enticing heading, with the emotional promise of a short-cut to happiness, and include a cute, heartwarming picture, that will make them happy, everyone will flock to my site.

How misguided I've been to complain, to talk about the deficiencies of mental heath treatment, or how difficult it may be to make big changes in your life, even if it may be helpful to know that.

So, let's skip that and have a good time.

Here's some good advice to make you happy:

Sing, dance and fall in love!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ

Crazy? or part of the culture?

It summer and time for dancin' in the street.

But, as we can already see, the summer not only rots my brain but it begins to bring out the best and worst in people. Lots of people are out in the streets and lots of things happen. Some of the heat seems to get into the brains of some folks and drives them over the line.

Here is a list of some people who have made the news for shooting people.  You task is determine who among these folks are crazy, who are just part of the culture, and who is just bad guys:

James Holmes, who killed 12 and shot 70 in Aurora CO movie theater.

Michale Slager, who shot a man who was running away from him after a traffic stop in South Carolina

Whoever it was who shot and killed a 16 year-old boy who was riding his bike on a Boston Street yesterday.

Jihad John, the ISIL guy who is in the video executing people.

George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Travon Martin while "standing his ground," but who was NOT arrested in Ferguson,Mo.

Are they crazy? Some and not others?
Are we all crazy?
or is it only me?

Anyway, summer is here.  Use sunscreen. Have fun.

We were relaxing on the deck, talking to some friends this weekend, now that it's Summer.  We don't get Spring any more; it goes from sixteen feet of snow to 87 degrees in a week. But all this climate change stuff is just a Liberal plot to ruin business and make coal and oil companies look bad.

Relating to that, one of my friends has just returned from one of his many trips to China where he, like many American businesses, has employees.  He told me that he has a factory in a city I had never heard of that has nine million people.  I looked it up and saw that there are about twenty cities in China with more than five million people. Half of those have over ten million. By contrast, the U.S. has one city with a population of over five million,NYC. One.

I have worked as a mental health professional in a city that has a population of 110,000. There are lots of mental health problems to be dealt with. So, I wondered, what goes on on China?  What do those people think about?  What is it like to be in a swarming city of new high rise apartments that go on and on.

I have never been to China. I think I'd like to go, but I don't think I would really get to answer my questions since I don't know the language and I probably wouldn't get to do interviews with any of the people who live in those high rise apartments.

But I'm sure that their outlook on life, and the things that run through their brains and minds are in many ways very different, and in other ways very similar to mine.

I imagine they worry about their families and hope for the best for their children.
Do they worry about climate change?
I'm sure they have personal relationships, and relationship problems.
Would they talk to a therapist?  Is that something that is done?
Do they relate to a tight little community that surronds them, or are left feeling overwhelmed by having millions of people close by.

Culture, and subculture has so much to do with how our brains are programed and how we view ourselves and how we fit into the world.  We are all human, and that gives us some basics, but it can be molded and shaped so differently.

So many of the differences are clearly learned and shaped by culture. We know several Chinese-American families that are very American, but still have Chinese customs.  We know several Chinese born women who were adopted by American families as infants, and they are totally American.

The world shrinks, but it doesn't
People get to know each other, but they don't

This will continue to change.  I believe that we will all become more homogenized over time.
But not in the same ways.  Sadly, I am beginning to believe that the rich all over the world will become more like each other.  The poor all over the world will have similar difficult lives.  Those two groups will be very different.

I hope that the future proves me wrong.

Mental Health and Weather

The more that I continue to reflect on the psychotherapy treatment I am still doing, and that I have done over the last forty years, as well as what I read about in books, journals and in discussions with my colleagues, the more I see similarities between the treatment of mental health issues and the weather.

Psychology and psychiatry have both become very skilled at describing what is happening.  Weather people do that too.  We can describe the kind of storm that people are going through in their lives and in their minds.  It could be a panic attack storm, or a depressive storm, or perhaps a more destructive bipolar storm.

All of the mental illness diagnoses are descriptive.  They do not really give any idea of the cause of the problem.  But they usually are very good descriptions of what is going on.  However, if the cause is not known, finding a solution becomes more difficult.

Mental health professions are very good, although not quite as good as weather people, at making predictions.  We have a good idea of when someone will fall apart or pull themselves together. We can look at history and try to predict the future, often with surprising accuracy.

Weather people are better at that.  They have a lot of computer models to follow, all with little swirling diagrams of high and low pressure systems, wind currents, water temperatures, and cloud formations.

Psychologists don't have too many computer models that are used to predict human behavior.  Marketers have very good ones, and they use them more than Psychologists.  Google, Amazon, Walmart and Target are especially good at knowing what you will buy, even before you do, and then selling it to you. But I expect that computer models of your behavior will be coming soon.

Too often however, helping people to change is too much to trying to change the weather.  We can talk about it , be supportive, undeerstanding, and make suggestions.  But often, too often, the best we can do is give people an umbrella to help them weather the storm.

NOTE:
Now this post seems pretty negative.  I don't mean it to be.  I really just want to give people the idea that change is difficult, especially significant behavioral change.  I want people to realize that it's not surprising or their fault that it takes a long time.  They should hang in there and keep at it.

But I know that what catches on on the Internet, and it the world in general, is promising, hopeful messages, with an upbeat spirit and a happy ending, even when the odds of that are not very good.

Our brains like to be happy, even if it isn't realistic --- almost especially if it's not realistic.

So next time I will be more Inspirational, and not be such a grumpy old man.

I will be upbeat and show you how you Can Be anything you wish to be.
I'll try.
i mean I WILL!
(Happier now?)

Baltimore: Solutions

Really, what’s the problem in Baltimore?  And more important: what’s are some solutions?

There is plenty of blame to be put on everyone.  It is easy to get angry.  It is easy to take a stand of righteous indignation, no matter what your point of view. It’s easy to show where the other side is wrong, because in some ways they are. But, sadly, as always, the answer is more complex.

Who’s wrong?  Everybody and nobody.

The underlying problem is fear and misunderstanding.  That has been going on for three hundred years, and three thousand years.  It was written into the hallowed United States Constitution.  Slavery was allowed.  That meant some people could legally own and rule over the lives of others. 

From today’s point of view that was awful.  Back then it was common practice.  A few people opposed it, but certainly not a majority.  Really, it was an energy policy.

However, the enslaved Africans were not happy with it, not even then.  They feared the people who owned them, and the owners knew it.  So the fear and resentment began then. Fear and resentment is circular.  It breeds on itself and expands. 

The police in Baltimore were doing their job.  They had to deal with a population that didn’t trust them.  They had to be on guard.  They were afraid.  That fear, magnified by both stereotypes and experience, shaped their reactions. 

Those reactions created more resentment in the community. They feel mistreated because of prejudice, and they are.

Both parties were correct in their assumptions.  The cycle of fear, resentment and misunderstanding continued.

This is not new. Nor is it unique to America.  Last month I was in Israel and saw how the cycle of fear and misunderstanding in that part of the world goes back 3000 years.  It continues there today.  There are big fears over very small differences.  But there is no communication.  The different communities are isolated.  The fear increases because no one really knows the “other” as people.  Prejudice and stereotypes and misinformation take over.  The political system reinforces that. Politicians are good at splitting people into “interest groups.” And that is certainly true in Baltimore.

This has been so true for so long that it seems as if there is a genetic basis for it. It probably was adaptive a thousand, or even five hundred years ago to be fearful of people and tribes who were unknown.  Those strange young men swooping into your valley were not coming to teach meditation and yoga.  They wanted your gold, your crops, your women and your water.  They also were eager to cut off your head or make you a slave.

But fear and prejudice are not adaptive any more.  The people of the world overlap too much.  Our lives are too intertwined.  Our enemies have become our suppliers and our customers. Yet, fear, prejudice, hatred and vengeance still seem to be very widespread. It’s an easy sell, and our brains like easy.

What can be done?

We have to get to know each other as people, as individuals.  We have to see we are really all the same.  We have to care about each other instead of blaming each other. We have to build empathy based on our similarities, instead of fear based on our differences.

Sure? Easy to say, hard to do.

For example:

 Brown vs. Board of Education, 1951. A huge landmark case for racial equality.  Integrated schools.  A big step forward.  For a while, maybe, but that didn’t last.

The backlash drove white families into private schools and out of the cities.  Most cities now have badly funded, poorly run schools, filled with poor, almost all minority children.  Their skills are limited. Their networks are limited, and so is their future. The parents who pay for private schools don’t vote to pay taxes for the public schools. People who go to public schools don't pay taxes because they don't have the money.

The idea was to get people to know each other as people.  Instead now, whites and non-whites, rich and poor, religious and secular are now further apart.  We don’t know each other, but we have developed distorted ideas about how the “others” think. People get separated.  Fear and resentment develop.

Solution:  Close all private schools.  Integrate schools with an equal mixture of all levels of wealth.  Give the same education and same resources to all. All families would participate in developing, delivering and monitoring the same education. But mostly get children to feel safe and familiar with those who they now see as different. Fear declines, prejudice declines. America flourishes with contributions from everybody.

Likelihood of happening:  nil. 

Or

Mandatory two years of national service between high school and college.  Everyone

would be sent away from homes and put into small, diverse groups that work on community building and nation building projects together: building a school, building a day care, building a wireless network. Asking not what their country can do for them but……

This is really possible, but likelihood of happening : .00003%

Or

A family dinner exchange program.  Twice a month everyone would have dinner with some folks they didn’t know, who were different in some ways from themselves: racially, economically, professionally, culturally. Six families in six months, with dinner at each person’s place twice.  The costs would be shared unequally, or from the government.  Get to know new people, eat different food, open new pathways in your brain.

Another fun possibility that could be implemented in any city, county or state.

            Likelihood of happening: .00004%

            Why? Because it’s new and therefore feels risky. Because it’s so much easier to stick with the old way of thinking, to blame someone else, and to be frightened.

            If you don’t agree with me, come up with your own idea.  I like new ideas.  I’m an old dog that can learn new tricks.

“Look at me, Look at me, Look at me now.  It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how”

            --- The Cat in the Hat.

inspiration, with mixed feelings (of course)

This weekend was the once a year conference of the writer’s group that has helped me put together a proposal for a book I am writing.

Everyone there is writing a book, hopes to write a book, would like to write a book.  Some have written books, some are published, some are published and read.

I admired everyone who was there for their devotion, creativity, perceptiveness and most of all to their persistence.   So many people these days feel they have something to say; and in truth, all of us do.

It can be infuriating to see that some folks  get so much attention for writing and saying foolish and misleading things, but it happens.

The writing, reading and publishing business is in flux these days, much like so many other businesses and professions.  That would music, medicine, law, organic farming, credit cards, nursing homes and taxi driving, along with just about everything else we spend money and time doing.  About the only thing that hasn’t changed is the duckpin bowling alley in Billerica, where I’m sorry to say I lost to my son in a rematch of a game that took place nine years ago.

Yet, of course, being who I am, I have mixed feelings.  The people were admirable: smart, witty, earnest and most of them trying to make sense out of the chaos of the world we live in.

The market is mean and merciless; as bad as dealing with health insurance companies who don’t understand or care about mental health.

The market, especially now, with so much competition from other media, wants redemptive stories, happy endings, and simple solutions. Especially from someone they have heard of and trust.  That’s understandable.

Except I don’t believe there are too many redemptive stories.  There are some happy endings, but there are very few, if any, simple solutions.

Also, I am less well known than Chris Christie, to pick on someone who deserves to be picked on. I'm even less well known than his cousin, and I don't even know who that would be.

That’s two strikes against me.

But, we are allowed three strikes, and as many foul balls as we can manage, so I will persevere.

Me and him, Ferguson and Baltimore

He sits and talks to me about the stress and anxiety he feels trying to keep his business running during these changing times.  He feels it was much easier when his father ran the business, and I have to agree with him. His father had it easier sending him to college than it is for him to send his daughter.  Finding employees who are reliable and sophisticated is difficult he says. I don't quite agree with him on that because I don't pull away from everyone who speaks with an accent.

Soon we are talking about Ferguson and Baltimore the Black Deaths, the protests, and the riots.He agrees that many police people misuse their power.  Sometimes enforcement seems almost arbitrary.  And the court system is a mess.  He knows; he's been sued a few times on matters even he and the judge couldn't understand. But it still cost a lot of time, money and aggravation.

But what about those kids in the streets. That's a mess too, he says.  It drives people away, he says, even those who feel sympathetic to the cause.

Would anything change if they stayed quiet? I asked.

He gave me a look that said "Oh my God, you're one of those!"

Maybe it's really a good strategy. It certainly gets attention." I said, feeling that I had overstated my case and gave the kids too much credit for actually having a strategy.

Then I didn't ask what he thought about so many Black men being in jail, most of whom for things white men don't go to jail for.  And while you're in jail you can't be with your family and be a role model for your son.  And when you get out of jail you can't get a job because you've been in jail.

So then you stay mad at the white cop who arrested you for smoking a joint, or for giving him attitude, or for just being big and Black on a dark night in the city. And you son gets angry too.

While I wasn't saying all of those things my friend asked me why these kids didn't just take advantage of all of the new educational opportunities being offered to them.  Why didn't they stay in school and get good jobs.

I asked him how many would somehow get $70,000 to go to NYU with is daughter. I didn't bring up my concern about new studies which show that if kids are undernourished, impoverished, abused or neglected their brains don't grow as fast or develop as completely.  And how Black children face the same problems in school that they do on the streets: they get suspended and expelled for things that white kids are made to stay after school.  I did say that in those elite, often privately funded special city school that have small classes. long days and a lot of structure, many of those inner city kids do very well.  But most inner city public  school are underfunded and poorly equipped. They have large classes. That's because the wealthier white kids are down the block in private schools and their parents don't vote to expand the school budget.

It's all complicated.  It all goes in circles. It's difficult to sort out cause or effect.

Then he asked me why these kids end up in gangs and sell drugs to their neighbors and ruin their own neighborhood.

They like to be in groups, I said.  Most of us do.

Those are the wrong groups, he said.  And he left to join his friends for dinner at the country club where he paid $100,000 to join.  It's good for business to be a member.

I told him to hire someone with an accent.  Isn't that what "job creators" do?

We Build Machines

            Part of what makes humans special is that we build machines.  There are a few other creatures that make tools, but only humans make machines.  We’ve gotten better and better at it over the last two hundred years; and really super at it in the last thirty.

            These machines have helped us build even better machines.  They have helped us explore all the fields of science in ways that could not even be imagined forty years ago.  Think about all we’ve learned about genetics, or how the brain works.  The Super- Collider; that’s kind of special.  I’m impressed that this post will be read by people all over the world.  I even get a map of where they live as Google tracks us all.

            It’s amazing stuff to a guy like me who once had to climb up three stories on a fire escape and sit outside a window to watch a new device called television, and be able to see a little puppet sing that it was “Dootie Time.”

            Is there a downside?

            Of course there is.  We all have learned that there are always trade offs in life. Even the best medication has side effects.  Every change brings unanticipated consequences.

            I’ll take two examples that I read about in yesterday’s paper.  The first was a review of the new movie, Ex Machina.  I haven’t seen it yet, and it may not be the kind of thing I want to take my wife to, but it is a highly over-dramatized version of what people are becoming afraid of: that machines will begin to be smarter than we are, psych us out, replicate themselves and being running our lives.

            That movie seems to get all involved with the sex thing, which is kind of creepy but will certainly attract a crowd.  I am also not really as worried about  “Ava” or HAL becoming President as I would be about Ted Cruz, but there are other real fears.

            One fear is the one I got when I read Nicholas Kristof’s column that described how badly American kids do at math.  Mr. Kristof didn’t talk about machines; he just said that most Americans can barely make change, and that we are terrible when dealing with more complex numerical situations (Boastful Disclaimer:  I solved all of his problems, even his last one, and I’m proud of being good at 8^th grade math).

            Bit I relate America’s lack of numerical skills to its accessibility to machines for a few reasons.  First, doing math requires people to think slowly.  You have to add this, divide by that, watch out of the signs, think about the ratios, and check to see if the answer makes sense. Yes, many people can do it really quickly, but those are people who do it a lot and have developed all the good habits.

            Most people, partly because of machines, are expecting everything to come with one flash and one click and don’t have the patience to think slowly.  Also, we all have access to those kinds of machines.  I just asked “Siri” for the square root of 6789. It took literally two seconds for it to tell me 82.39538822.  I could have done it the long way and actually gone to the calculator app, but why go through all that trouble.

            Also, the same phone (hand held computer) has a GPS system.  That gives me pretty exact directions to almost anywhere that has a road to it.  I use it often.  But I try not to use it if I go back again.  I want to know where the place really is and have that in my mind.  I want to know how it is attached to the rest of the world.

            I know, from recent developments in brain science, that if we don’t learn and use these skills, then certain areas of our brains just won’t develop and the skills not only won’t be there when we need them, we will limit the way we think about almost every thing we do and almost every situation that confronts us.  If we don’t know ratios, and connections and locations, and relative strengths, and causes and effects we won’t be very successful at feeding ourselves, finding a safe place to live and getting along with a mate.

            If we can’t do that very well then machines will do it for us. Then we may reach a state in which we won’t even be able to tell if the machines are doing a good job.

            That may still be better than following Ted Cruz, but not much.

Changing History?

I am still thinking about my trip to Israel and still trying to figure out what upset me so much.  What is slowing becoming clear to me is that I have been deeply affected by learning how often the land upon which Israel now sits has been invaded and overtaken.  All of these conquerors came, raped, pillaged, and slaughtered the inhabitants, often enslaving those they didn’t kill, or else ruling them strictly and taking away a lot in taxes and restricting freedoms.

When the inhabitants rose up against whoever was the ruling power, sometimes, for a brief period, they drove them away.  But most times, and always eventually, the power came back stronger and raped, pillaged and murdered even more savagely. The Romans were especially good at that.  

Yes, this was history, but what is most troubling is that it is the present, and it seems to be the future.  It makes me wonder if there is really too much of a genetic basis that makes humans easily vulnerable to fear which leads to hate which leads to violence.

It seems to be so much easier to destroy than to build, or to stir up fear than to create understanding.  It is happening in Israel; it is happening in the U.S.  In many states, recent examples of which are Maine and Missouri,  the war on poverty seems to have turned into a war on the poor.  People who are broke and hungry are being demeaned, humiliated and even prosecuted.

The sense that someone who is different, or someone who makes us uncomfortable is evil and must be feared, has taken over our politics, or economics, and our worldview.    This should not be surprising because, in truth, as we can see from Israel, it has always been that way. 

What makes me sad, is that with all of our new technology, and all of the new knowledge that it has brought us, these more basic, primitive behaviors,  still so easily and quickly, become dominant. 

Yes, in some ways, there have been real improvements. While we have all these local, horrendous civil and religious wars going on, but the world seems to have learned to avoid the huge wars of the 20th century that killed millions of people.  Technology has given us a much greater awareness, and a much stronger reaction to some of the injustices that are happening. Abuses of power are being called out, and that will, eventually, lead to change.

So perhaps the tide is turning, and much of what is happening is the frightened reaction to those who are feeling left out or left behind.  Yet, as the tide moves out very, very slowly, it leaves so much wreckage behind.

Holy Land, Holy Sh....Moley

We went, we saw, we certainly didn't conquer, although it seems that almost everyone else did, and many are still trying.

I have been back for over a week now, but my travels still reverberate through my mind and body.  I had a dream about being in Jerusalem again last night, so I can see how emotional the trip was.  It was not only emotional, it was confusing and my ideas are still not resolved.

It was fascinating, yet depressing.  The country of Israel is thriving.  It's people are friendly, for the most part, industrious, proud and scared.  Yet, it seems to me, that they are confronted with a huge problem and their solution, so far, has been to ignore it.  What makes it worse, is that the problem is not really of their own making, and they cannot solve it by themselves, yet they are making it worse.

We travelled all over the country.  We saw many, too many, ancient sites.  That piece of land has had 4,000 years of invasions.  The ones I can remember include the Canaanites, the Hittites, Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans,the Byzantines,  the Muslims, the Crusaders, the Muslims again, the Crusaders again, the Muslims again, The Ottomans, the British and the Israelis. I am sure I am leaving some out and probably got some of the order wrong.

Jerusalem is an amazing city, but to me it seemed to be taken over by salesman selling schlock to the millions of touring pilgrims who come from all over the world.  Three major religions fight over the square mile of the Holy City, and there are many soldiers with automatic weapons who have to keep the peace.

I will write more in a couple of days as I have more time to think about all I saw and felt, but I am left feeling a bit sad.  We were able to talk to many different people, mostly because of the tour guide, who was marvelous.  We spoke to a Christian Arab, who is an Israeli citizen. We spoke to some Orthodox Jews.  We spoke to a Druze family.  We spoke to Palestinian who had no passport and no country.  We spoke to a Bedouin, who is an Israeli citizen.  We spoke to other Israelis on the street.  I was left with the feeling that the Jews have about seven different sects and positions and they have a great deal of trouble agreeing.  The Arabs have about eleven different sects and opinions and they often resort to killing each other.  There are huge differences between the Arabs and the Israelis and they hardly talk to each other at all.

Everyone is dug in.  Everyone feels they have been wronged.  Everyone feels they have history and God on their side.  Everyone is right to some degree

But my feeling is; "So What?"  What are you going to do now.
No one knows.
So things go on.  There has been tension in the region since the British took over at the end of the first world war, a hundred hears ago.  It feels like it can continue for another hundred years.

Very old, but New to me

Tonight we get on a plane and fly away.  It's part of the changes in my life as I morph into being one of the travelling "young-old". There are flocks of us, from almost every country, going almost everywhere.  We are even going on a tour, which is something I've never done.Aside from basketball and baseball, I never meshed well with group things.

I always preferred to feel my way along in the dark.

But we are headed to a hot spot, and it's better to be with a group.
Israel.
The election is going on there.  Just like here, we will see if a huge amount of American money from very few sources ( many of the same sources actually) can decide who runs  a country.

As many of you know by now, my religious commitments are vague at best.  Still, we will see most of the historical sites, places that date back hundred and thousand of years.  These places have a long history of people claiming important reasons for being there, and getting quite upset if others want to be there too.  All that ruckus continues to this day, and it would be fascinating to see it all if all of this had not resulted in so many fatalities.

My view on all of this is that I am totally skeptical of anyone who is certain that they have the truth, the ONLY truth.

I know I'm right about that....but I could be wrong.

Making Changes --Me

It's been about six months since I have taken on this new lifestyle.  It was on the Summer Solstice that I officially cut down on seeing patients by about 90%.  Then I had the summer to play and frolic. That doesn't count as a real test of change as I easily did more of the things I did every summer, paddle and putt, bike and chase children across the sand and into the waves.  I can’t say that I suffered.

But as the leaves began to change, the daylight hours became fewer and the air took on a bit of a chill, I began to notice that I was waking up here, and I didn’t have to go there.  It was certainly easier, but it certainly felt strange.

I had gradually been working my way towards this time.  I had always wondered how I would do.  I had worked with  thousands of people, trying to help them make changes in their lives.  I talked to others about how they would feel weird and out of place, even when the changes were the ones they had wanted to make.  Many of my patients were about my age and I had gone through their retirement transition with them.  For many different reasons, they had a much rougher road to travel than I did.  I had worked with several men who had been in powerful positions in corporations or in government, and now they weren’t.  And endings like that don’t usually happen gracefully.

Mine was of my own choosing, at my own time, and with a plan of what I wanted to do next. 

Now, six, or nine months later, depending on when I start to count, I am just beginning to feel comfortable.  I am doing what I set out to do, which is trying to explain to others about how difficult change really is.  The future of that endeavor is not yet clear, but I feel I have made a good start, and hope to get some traction soon.

Still, it’s more difficult psychologically, being on the edges than being in the action.  My new pattern of living is certainly less stressful physically, but I have never really felt the free-floating anxiety that goes with such a lack of structure before. 

Thankfully, that is lifting, and I am feeling hopeful and invigorated.  You never feel as good as you do after you feel bad. Being able to see over the snowdrifts and believe that spring is coming has also given me an emotional boost. 

From this vantage point I can only encourage all of you to keep going through your own periods of transition, which I know, for many people is constant.  Change always brings with it a realigning of emotions, an adjustment, a new perspective.   Like our species, we are all evolving and adapting in our own lives.   If we can’t change we risk extinction. 

That doesn’t sound like fun.