WillSpirit!

Writing two blogs has pluses and minuses. It’s nice to have the added exposure, especially since GuidePosts to Happiness is part of PsychCentral, and so garners an immediate large audience. On the other hand, running two sites breaks up my thinking. I’m covering similar topics on each (and there have been times I’ve run almost identical posts on the two blogs), though WillSpirit is meant to be more about my philosophy and experience, and GuidePosts about tools for living. There is so much overlap and interplay that I often feel it necessary to refer readers to both sites to get a full picture of what I’m trying to say. That’s assuming, of course, that anyone out there cares what about I’m saying.

My last GuidePosts entry adds an essential leg to the journey I embarked on three WillSpirit essays ago. I’ve been spelling out aspects of my spiritual views here, but over there I wrote about why defining views is vital. What I didn’t say, but might have, is that whether one defines views or not, one lives by them. As humans, we automatically build mental models of the world, and these models color both attitudes and behavior. Best to be deliberate about it, and build a model that improves both.

A predictable comment followed the GuidePosts essay. Any time one admits to mystical leanings, one is likely to get a dismissive comment from a skeptic. That someone should disagree is fine, but these comments usually imply that those who believe in mystery are dumb, weak, gullible, or childish. The comment in question settled on accusing me (in its own way) of being weak and childish.

I don’t deny a certain childishness, and anyone who admits as freely as I do to struggling in life is bound to be considered weak. But I don’t believe my decision to embrace an inclusive view of reality is a sign of either. It is a deliberate and reasoned choice based on the undeniable fact that we don’t know the ultimate Truth of things.

The skeptical, materialist view is considered, by its proponents, as eminently sensible and based on intelligent reasoning. In actual fact, it’s a supportable view that nevertheless is more philosophical opinion than reasoned analysis. The conventional, materialist view holds that life and beauty only evolved by virtue of an uncountable number of lucky breaks. At every step between the universe’s origin and human blog writing, if events had unfolded even slightly differently, nothing like our current world would ever have arisen. Because this view implies such an incredible series of fortunate rolls of dice, humanity only exists because the universe is so large (and lately the thinking has gone further, to postulate a near infinite number of effectively infinite universes). With so many possible locations and enormous stretches of time, sooner or later complex life was bound to pop up. But (this mindset insists) it’s almost certainly a one-time affair, unlikely to be repeated in all the vast number of vast universes.

The fundamental assumption in this view is that history unfolds with no direction, without gravitating toward complexity, intelligence, or beauty. Because this is assumed (not proven, but assumed), skeptics are left postulating an endless series of lifeless and purposeless universes arising and decaying through infinite time until, as luck would have it, life finally managed to scrape by long enough to reach our rarefied human state. According to the materialist view, this Rube-Goldberg picture is preferable to postulating a creative energy that gently coaxes matter toward complexity. (I’m not expressing opposition to the multiverse idea, which actually seems probable. I’m opposed only to extraordinary philosophical machinations aimed at denying the possibility of creative potency in the cosmos.)

In this regard, the writings of Stuart Kauffman that I referenced in the last post provide a scientifically grounded alternate perspective. Empirical evidence suggests that complexity and structure are favored in the evolution of events on earth. Maybe life didn’t need an infinite number of universes.

Even if we did take the view that the cosmos required numberless trials to accidentally produce life, we are still left with questions. Why did this uber-universe arise with any potential for life? Wouldn’t it have been much more likely for intelligent life to have simply been impossible right from the start, for all universes, for all time? Why have anything existing at all? These profound questions have been asked for ages, and skeptics can’t begin to answer them. Instead, they usually declare such pondering pointless. Even contemplating these puzzles raises mystical concerns, and skeptics are viscerally opposed to mysticism.

Why is that? As Shakespeare might ask, do they object too much? What does the hostility toward metaphysical openness imply about the human psyche? I’ll return to this question after I cover a bit more quantum mechanics in the next post.

Yes, yes. The last post turned out kinda boring. Because I spend so much of my mental energy contemplating spirituality and its relationship to established science, I assume the subject can be part of my WillSpirit project. But after writing a very long post about quantum mechanics, and covering very little ground in the process, I realize it’s a stretch to put this material in a blog. The relationships are too complicated and too equivocal.

It would be so much more exciting if I could offer solid proof of metaphysical effects, and demonstrate once and for all that Jung was right in trying to bring synchronicity into the mainstream of psychology. Wouldn’t it be great to know, without doubt, that the Universe facilitates our lives? Sadly, such certainty is not available to us, and may never be.

That doesn’t mean that strict materialists are right, however. Stuart Kauffman has written eloquently, coherently, and knowledgeably about the weakness of the reductionist argument. His 2008 book, Reinventing the Sacred, identifies many logical flaws in viewing the universe as a random cloud of colliding particles. He exposes fallacies in the conventional belief that the universe would be completely explained if we knew everything about atoms. Kauffman demonstrates that many natural phenomena are emergent, and not predictable even in rough form from the behavior of particles. He postulates great creative energy in the universe, such that we live in a cosmos that inexorably builds structured beauty out of bland chaos.

I referred to emergence at the end of the last post, but I won’t repeat the mistake of trying to explain a complicated scientific principle. Suffice it to say that surprising and intricate order develops spontaneously in many initially messy systems. For reasons that remain unclear, but may have to do with the efficient dispersal of energy, an ongoing input of power applied to disorganized systems often causes an evolution toward structured, organic-appearing forms. This is not at all predicted by the cynical view that randomness rules, and that events could much more likely have gone to hell than to have built a beautiful Earth.

If there is creative potency at play, as Kauffman’s arguments persuasively suggest, then it might be that meaningful coincidences somehow reflect the natural tendency of things to work toward organization and beauty. Kauffman himself does not go that far, even in speculation. I’m not saying that he has any beliefs along these lines, but if he did he would be unlikely to state them publicly. The strident dominance of the reductionist view forces scientists to be extremely cautious about postulating mystery. If they display anything less than fervent commitment to hidebound visions of reality, they risk having all their work dismissed by the establishment.

Luckily, I do not work as a researcher, so there is no reason for me to be overly cautious. I am willing to suggest that emergence is what we might predict if human events tended to follow propitious (i.e., synchronous) courses. I do not postulate a designing deity, and none is required to explain this behavior. But a Universe that favors spontaneous beauty and order should help us feel just a little less adrift. If creativity is a force of nature, then our nagging fear that life is meaningless, random, and essentially doomed may be wrong, and more than a little arrogant.

It seems my synchronicity post piqued interest among readers. The possibility that what we experience as serendipity reflects profound and essentially mystical interconnections between events is one of the pillars of my spirituality, so I am happy to take a cue from the comments and pursue the subject further. Obviously, I can’t answer the metaphysical question that matters most: Is synchronicity anything more than standard coincidence?

What I can do, however, is elaborate why I believe quantum principles might permit events to interweave on a hidden level. I’ve only read a little of the New Age literature, much of which talks about quantum mechanics in similar terms. Unfortunately, many of these authors are so vague in their physics and so sweeping in their conclusions that I can hardly stand to parse their arguments. I read a book by Deepak Chopra that frankly appalled me, he took such liberties with quantum mechanics. I was especially disappointed because some of Chopra’s writings are truly valuable, but ever since I’ve had a hard time reading him without wondering if I can trust his facts and conclusions.

I believe in truth. The universe is running on certain principles, and science is able to elucidate many of them. There may be shadowy influences that can’t easily be pinned down with empirical techniques, but even if that is so I expect them to remain consistent with sound scientific principles. Either synchronicity sometimes reflects deeper interconnection between events, or it does not. At this point I don’t believe science can say, though many with materialist viewpoints, nearly as loose as Chopra with known facts, argue that we live in a universe filled with nothing more mysterious than randomly interacting packets of matter and energy. However, there are no scientific findings to prove this fatalistic conclusion. I’m not saying it’s impossible, only that it’s unproven.

From the standpoint of providing possible mechanisms for meaningful synchronicity, two especially relevant principles from quantum mechanics are entanglement and the central role of the observer. I don’t claim sophisticated understanding of these topics. I studied them briefly in graduate school, and have read a little since. I am well aware that the phenomena in question can be variously interpreted, and that only some of the possible explanations for them would support synchronicity in the universe. The point is that there are some quite respectable interpretations of quantum phenomena that do provide potential mechanisms for intimate interrelationships between events.

Crudely put, entanglement refers to the fact that any two particles that were created simultaneously from the same source must maintain certain symmetries even when they are separated by great distances. Consider two entities which are known to require a balance of rotational spin such that if one is pointed in one direction, the other must point 180 degrees away (i.e., in the opposite direction). Depending on how you subject one particle to electrical forces upon measuring its spin, you can find it pointing in any direction you choose. Entanglement means that the other particle, no matter how distant, will when measured be found to point in the exact opposite direction, as required by symmetry. This doesn’t sound too momentous, but it is a profound fact. The measurement can be taken arbitrarily, setting the first particle pointing in any direction, and the second will always be found to obey the symmetry. This is true even if the entities are so far apart that light couldn’t span the distance in the time required. According to relativity theory, no information-containing signal can travel faster than light. Yet the two particles remain behaviorally yoked.

There is an inherent and unbreakable connectedness that persists without any known physical signal transmitting the orientation of the first particle to the second. The particles remain mysteriously interwoven.

Take this experimentally verified finding, and combine it with the fact that all matter in the universe once occupied an infinitesimally small volume at the start of the Big Bang. We are led to the conclusion that all matter must in fact be entangled by virtue of its origin from the same source. A deep and mysterious, but factually verified connectedness underpins the entire physical universe.

No doubt my description of these quantum principles is overly simplistic, but the underlying argument is not mine. It was outlined, among other places, in a very solidly written book called The Conscious Universe: Parts and Wholes in Physical Reality by physicists Menos Kafatos and Robert Nadeau.

Entanglement is exactly the sort of behavior we would expect to find in a universe where events sometimes correlate in ways defying superficial explanation. It may seem hard to believe that matter that has been separated for billions of years might remain responsive to such effects, or that this could explain an eerily appropriate quotation read on a significant morning like I described in my last past. Certainly, it boggles the mind to see how such complicated interactions could work. But the door to such a reality remains ajar. There is a possibility, even if remote, that events appear interlinked partly because matter is entangled.

It is true that meaningful synchronicity would defy hard-boiled sensibility and much daily experience, but the same contradiction of expectation is in the nature of modern physical theory. Quantum theory (and relativity too, for that matter) tells us nothing if not that the universe is stranger than it seems. It opens the door to all kinds of possibilities that are disquieting to fervent materialists. Again, I must emphasize that nothing as elaborate as synchronicity has ever been scientifically verified. Simply demonstrating entanglement between two subatomic particles was an epic experimental achievement, so we may be waiting a long time for science to show us verifiably synchronous macroscopic events. My point is only that there is room to believe in a deeper interconnection, a more mysterious reality, than the one proposed by the cynical view that we are living in a heartless and purely random universe of independent particles.

Observer dependence is equally strange and suggestive. Complexity and the behavior of self-organizing systems are other scientific principles that can be seen as possibly facilitating synchronicity. However, this post is too long already, so I’ll put off further discussion until another time.

Synchronicity, according to Wikipedia, was a term coined by Carl Jung to describe events that have no apparent causal relationship but occur together in a meaningful manner. Two people talk about a mutual friend neither has seen for years, and as they discuss her one of their cellphones rings with a call from that very woman. The day after you lose a job, an acquaintance calls you about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you realize you are only free to take it because you are unemployed.

These sorts of coincidences happen commonly, at least to me and to many people I know. They do not constitute proof of hidden organizing principles in the universe, but they are suggestive. Wikipedia mentions Littlewood’s Law in the article about synchronicity. Littlewood used statistical reasoning to demonstrate that apparently miraculous events (defined as those with one in a million probability of happening by chance) will occur spontaneously about once a month in any person’s life. This explains unusual events, but not necessarily meaningful ones. What strikes me about occurrences that seem serendipitous is not so much their unlikelihood, but their timing.

A week or so ago I spent a night in deep despair about my new career direction. I had returned from the second of three acupuncture training intensives, and felt pessimistic about my chances for success. It firghtens me to contemplate returning to clinical practice after such a long absence. Being a doctor did not come naturally to me when I was first learning, and the role always felt stressful. I was extremely hard on myself every time I made a mistake. It should be widely known from all that’s been written about errors in medicine that mistakes do occur in clinical settings. I certainly made some decisions I later questioned, and there were times I outright screwed up. Heading back into a clinical environment reawakens that old anxiety in a big way.

True, acupuncture is very safe. If performed with reasonable care, the likelihood of injury is exceedingly small, and far lower than the complication rate of Western medical procedures. Further, the technique is forgiving and flexible. There is no single right way to perform acupuncture. Every choice of point to use, stimulation to provide, and timing to follow can be argued from different perspectives to yield different answers. So the chance of harming someone, or even making an unequivocal mistake, is tiny enough that I should relax. But I don’t.

Or I didn’t until a couple of strange events occurred. Ever since I started working toward acupuncture, serendipitous occurrences have been popping up with surprising frequency. The morning after that despairing night I went to a 12-step meeting. The topics at this meeting are chosen by selecting quotes from a compilation of writings by Bill Wilson (AA’s founder). The vignette someone selected this particular morning talked about Bill’s decision to return to Wall Street after a ten-year absence, and all the fear that preceded his going back. He felt afraid of the hard-driving environment, and worried he would drink again. Instead, it turns out, he flourished and remained sober.

The timing of that reading, which I’d never heard before, seemed too coincidental to ignore. Bill Wilson worrying about returning to Wall Street after ten years mirrored my fretting about going back to medicine after the same amount of time. The parallel hit me powerfully, and went a long way toward easing my anxiety. Another event of almost equal apparent significance happened the same day. Like I said above, there have been many such alignments as I’ve worked toward my new career. They make it easier to have faith in my path.

It would be logical enough to take the cynical view, as no doubt many readers will, and say that hearing that quote on that day really was not very unusual, or that it only seemed significant because I wanted it to, or that I somehow influenced the choice of reading (though it was made before I entered the room). It would be easy to do that, but not comforting.

Far more satisfying to believe that this is a sign I am on the right path. I’m not saying this guarantees my success; far from it. But it does encourage me to have faith; to go forward; to not quit.

Synchronicity seems real to enough to the population at large that the 1992 novel The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield, became a huge best-seller. I recently read the book and enjoyed its confident assertion that the events in our lives have meaning that we can use. Aside from that hopeful outlook, however, it is light on plot and not particularly well crafted. It is a testament to how often people encounter serendipity that the book sold so well.

Again, this is not proof. But it shows that synchronicity is something many experience. This fact could be explained cynically, but there is also room for deeper significance. The possibility is allowable (though by no means demonstrable) within the confines of known science. Quantum mechanics states that matter and events are deeply interconnected. Back when I learned the subject in preparation for my biophysics graduate work, it struck me as highly suggestive from a spiritual standpoint. Indeed, it strikes all people in this way if they are even slightly open to metaphysical views. Although those with strong materialist opinions argue the point, quantum principles provide potential mechanisms for meaningful synchronicity.

I therefore choose to interpret my apparently synchronistic experiences as signs of directed movement in the universe. I see them as validating my path. Such thinking is without solid proof, but it is supportable. For me, thinking this way makes life just a bit more tolerable.

Planning to treat people with acupuncture forces me to weigh my philosophical views. My ideas about reality evolve month by month, and new information leads to frequent adjustments in outlook. For years I’ve worked to combine my science education, my medical background, and my transcendent experiences into a consistent framework. In taking up a healing modality that straddles the line between medicine and spirituality, I feel renewed motivation to reconcile my mundane and transcendent attitudes.

People have strong views about these subjects, whether they hold traditional religious beliefs or modern secular convictions. Whatever I write should be seen as provisional and personal to me. Aside from arguing for tolerance, I have no desire to change anyone’s views. Some people feel emphatic about the correctness of their own perspective, and see little reason to take seriously the views of those who disagree. The only thing I know for sure about spiritual questions is that nobody has unassailable answers. It is surprising that many hold so tightly to their opinions, when it is impossible to be sure about the ultimate nature of reality.

I grant that there are statements that can be made with some certainty. Although I respect literalist interpretations of biblical stories, I cannot see how they could be strictly true. Every religion with concrete views of its scriptural tales feels equally passionate, but the various detailed accounts of creation and deity contradict each other. How could one body of humanity be completely right, and all the others wrong? The fact that biblical stories are so similar in general outline but so different in detail also gives cause to be cautious about taking them too literally. Too many different cultures tell of virgin birth, resurrection, and raising the dead, and yet attribute these miracles to very different historical figures. Either such supernatural events were once surprisingly common, or the deeper metaphor is what matters, and not the details of the stories. This is Jung’s view, of course, and I see much value in it.

On the other side, some who claim to stand on science would deny all mystical happenings. They might accept metaphor, but they would never go so far as Jung and believe in serendipity or a collective unconscious. This is certainly a supportable view, but not so supportable as to categorically and for evermore rule out strange happenings. For people like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett, it is decidedly inconvenient that at the smallest and largest scales the universe behaves quite oddly. Scientists rightly balk at the way New Age spokespeople stretch the findings of quantum mechanics to fit their spiritualism, but it cannot be denied that the uncertainty principle, quantum entanglement, and observer dependence open the door to strange possibilities.

My starting point is therefore that both literalist interpretations of scripture and unremittingly materialist interpretations of science are misguided. The true nature of reality must lie somewhere between the two extremes. As usual, I take a cautious middle position, which usually means alienating all sides. But with my tiny blog audience I don’t imagine much uproar will result. I may lose a subscriber or two, but hopefully those who remain and remain interested will find something of value in what I write.

This is more than an intellectual exercise. For those who suffer from depression and other forms of despair, spiritual beliefs can be lifesaving. To picture the universe as a cold, random machine with no larger order, which was the view I long held, can be quite grim. On the other hand, the human heart can be uplifted by belief in a more meaningful and directed cosmos.

Granted, if the universe had been proven to be without soul and made up only of particles randomly interacting, it would have to be accepted. But that conclusion, though widespread, is premature and biased. It comes out of a metaphysical presupposition, and is not scientific fact. There is room, thankfully, for a more expansive view. Not that richer perspectives are provable, either, but within limits they remain consistent with reality as so far observed. Personally, I prefer to take the more generous view. Provided I find the energy to continue, I will explore these possibilities in posts to come.

Is human nature good or bad? If some God-like consciousness balanced all human behavior in a giant cosmic scale, would it look angelic or demonic? Closer to home, what if we as individuals were so measured?

A related question, and the one that got me thinking about this, came out of my last post and a comment sent by someone I respect. Are humans basically loving, so that if neurosis and insecurity were stripped away everyone would work toward global well being?

These are ancient questions that have been pondered by brilliant and learned philosophers. My contribution cannot count for much in the larger dialogue. But the questions are important, not just from an intellectual perspective but also a personal one. We each have our beliefs about human nature, and we shape our behavior around this worldview.

The person who believes everyone is selfish reacts in protective, self-promoting ways. It’s only natural with such a framework to strike first, before the other gets a chance. If in a position to accumulate treasure, then such people will grab for it, even if it means depriving someone else (which of course it always does.) Why not rape the landscape if someone is bound to?

On the other hand, a person who believes others are basically soft-hearted, and that they only need to be shown consistent kindness to find release from their demons, will act differently. They will sacrifice their own desires to help neighbors meet pressing needs. They will be charitable and fair, believing that such behavior will spread if given the chance.

It was my fate to be raised by a woman most would consider a monster. What else do you call someone capable of strangling a seven-year-old in his bed? Or routinely tormenting and humiliating the youngster until abject terror and subjugation became the norm of childhood? And yet my stepmother had good qualities. They were rarely on view, but I saw them. Yes, she was capable of feigning kindness to deepen her control over me. But she also had tender feelings; not toward me, but toward others, and I saw them. There is a bit of sunlight even in the hearts of the cruelest among us.

There are some truly fine people in my family also. And yet I have not always agreed with them, or considered every one of their actions laudable. There is a cloud within even the best of us.

A lot rides on one’s experiences in life. Those raised with consistent kindness are more likely (but not guaranteed) to be consistently kind later on. Those raised under cruelty, oppression, and chaos more often become mean, exploitative and confused. Alternatively, they may grow into self-denying victims who routinely allow evil to go unchecked.

My own inner demons are one proof of this. I am not in the least bit proud of much of my past behavior. I never consciously chose to be selfish, and I might have objected if someone described me that way, but my actions spoke of a deeply paranoid and self-centered being. Many people were hurt, and my own soul suffered. I was a troubled person, flooded by overpowering emotions, who acted erratically and with little true regard for the feelings of others. What else could have emerged from the nursery that produced me?

But even in my worst moments, a voice inside saw that I was on the wrong track. I would try to be kind, but anger would erupt and ruin all my good intentions. Or I would reach out to another, and then feel an awful paranoia churning inside until I had little choice but to act self-protectively and often hurtfully. I suffered too much cruelty and too many attacks growing up to escape the surging currents of fury and fright later on.

With age and setbacks, and the consistent kindness of my wife, I am slowly swimming free of those vortices of darkness. Happily, I can now behave more freely and more kindly. Note I say can, and not that I always do. But at least I feel there is some awareness and some choice; with that opening, I do in actuality behave more selflessly more of the time.

Why do I tell this personal story? Why open up about my process? Aside from the fact that it’s my nature to do so, I think my case represents the larger human situation. When young, we are driven by forces we don’t understand. If those forces were shaped in healthy ways by those who raised us, we grow up kind and outgoing, loving and friendly. If the forces were twisted by abuse, we may well be self-centered and chaotic.
Later in life, we begin to understand ourselves, and we begin to have more choices. Granted, our options around careers and relationships become narrowed, but we begin to have more influence over our personalities and behaviors. The result can be a maturing and broadening of spirit, so we gradually become better people.

Alternatively, we can close ourselves off to the better parts of ourselves, and remain fixed in the patterns of youth. If youthful years were filled with aggressive self-aggrandizement, and if people become fixed in that mode while holding positions of power, we end up with the world we see today.

But many people, and I have seen this play out almost as often as its opposite, become warmer and gentler beings with age. Such people could potentially teach the young, and produce a generation that would catch on to  truth sooner in life. The world could be transformed.

So here’s my answer to the questions I posed starting out: I don’t believe people are either inherently good or inherently bad. But I do believe almost everyone knows the difference, deep down, between truly humane and responsible behavior versus its opposite. That’s all. With age, we become better able to act according to this barometer of right and wrong. Young people can be trained to follow their inner voice, but it takes wise adults to teach this skill.

People are too malleable and diverse to be characterized as angelic or demonic, but they do all carry a mental instrument that measures good and evil with great accuracy. Granted, many people delude themselves and ignore this inner voice. They justify selfish behavior until they convince themselves they are in the right even when performing acts of appalling destructiveness. But deep within their hearts know the truth. This is what I believe.

Is there hope? Can humanity be saved? With such a gauge of moral rectitude, it is possible. But given the gentleness of this inner voice, it is also quite possible that the great body of humanity, and especially those intoxicated with power, will continue to ignore this inner calling.

It may very well require a global calamity to awaken humanity. Catastrophe has a way of teaching people what truly matters. As a species we may remain stubbornly attached to the old mode until something awful happens to make us limit how much evil we allow into our hearts and our world. It would be wonderful if we could avert the inevitable crisis by changing now. But will we?

Having pointed out the problems with over-reliance on both emotion and thinking, I believe balance requires that the third major pillar of mental life be considered here. One popular word for this third foundation is spirituality.

The spiritual dimension of human consciousness seems, at first glance, like something unassailable. Isn’t spirituality the highest principle?

Of course, anyone with strong atheistic beliefs will immediately disagree. Strict materialists often view any mental state or idea with ‘spiritual’ attached to it as profoundly suspect, childish, and superstitious. We have all known people who seem so connected with mystical mental currents that they become sharply disconnected from reality. Schizophrenia, or at least psychosis, often results from too little material consciousness and too much transcendence.

Regardless of whether you believe mystical experiences reflect larger spiritual forces or deranged mental states (or both,) there is no question that an alternate form of consciousness is available to people, and that some humans get lost in it. The question is, does spirituality have value for those who remain firmly connected with day-to-day reality? It’s a personal question that atheists will answer one way and religious folks another. But there is a less controversial way of looking at the problem.

Neuroscientists often divide mental life into thought, emotion, and motivation. Using this formula, spirituality is most closely aligned with motivation. Why do we behave as we do? If we help others, are we acting in self-interest, hoping for future favors? Or do we work from the more laudable place of truly caring about the welfare of others? If we pursue a sexual partner, are we simply interested in carnal pleasure, or do we yearn for lasting connection with a life-partner? These motivational questions can be pursued pragmatically.

When we search within for our best motives, they often have a spiritual flavor, and hover near the transcendent experience. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use either spiritual or motivational terminology, according to our preference.

In the modern world of commerce, spiritual value (or motivational purity) is quite often neglected if not outright derided. Not only are we suspicious of it, we also recognize that it places demands on our lifestyle. If we were truly spiritually/motivationally fit, if we obeyed our most heartfelt tendencies, we might consume less, give away treasure, and live more austere lives. This might be inconvenient not only for us as individuals, but also for family members who share our lifestyles. It is easier to push away the nagging conscience, and offer it tidbits via small acts of charity.

But only when we are true to our deepest spiritual, motivational voice will we feel truly serene. As long as we are living lives that conflict with our values, we will experience that conflict as unease in the heart. Whether we are working a job that doesn’t fit, or living in a relationship that’s not based on love, or consuming far beyond necessity, the heart knows and exacts its price in subtle discontent. We may think we have our lives all worked out, but we feel vaguely disturbed all the same.

In the case of thought and emotion, the usual danger is to lean to far in either direction and live unbalanced mental lives as a result. In the case of spirituality, unless we are bordering on psychosis or fantasy, we are more likely to be underemphasizing the deep motivating forces that most authentically drive us. We are trained in this culture to follow shallow goals, and avoid looking too deeply at why we live as we do. We are trained to want the new car, the nice house, the beautiful mate, without looking at what might be best for the planet and our souls.

The answer? I hesitate to suggest prayer, with all it implies. Meditation is a less controversial word in today’s world. But the language is less important than the act. There is grave necessity to examine what directs us at our very center. If everyone on the planet opened themselves to these deepest motivations, the one’s closest to the heart, greed and cruelty would diminish, wars would gradually cease, ecological destruction would abate.

Or at least that’s what my own spiritual core tells me. Perhaps it is simply fantasy, and perhaps I am losing touch with that hard-edged cynicism I used to prize. Or perhaps I am finally balancing my mind, giving equal voice to thought, emotion, and deep motivation.

In a way, today marks the first day of my new career as a physician acupuncturist. An exact start date could be defined variously. At some point I’ll officially launch my practice, and perhaps that day would be the better choice. But as of this morning I am officially insured as a physician performing acupuncture, and this afternoon I will be seeing a patient. I’ve spoken with this person before while shadowing my office partner, but it feels different today since I am now official. My new career begins…

Getting the malpractice insurance meant overcoming a major obstacle. After a ten-year absence from medical practice, with a psychiatric hospitalization on my record, plus a few other complications, it did not appear certain that I would easily get a policy. But after reviewing my history, a well-respected company insured me; I didn’t need to reapply or hunt around for a high-risk carrier. This was a great relief, but I experienced a frisson fear after the insurance was granted. It frightened me to realize I had taken a big step toward once again shouldering the burdens of a clinician.

One assumes great responsibility in practicing medicine. Acupuncture is less risky, certainly, than my old line of work in oculoplastic surgery, but it still involves helping people with major issues. Since I hope to focus on emotional health, some who see me will be vulnerable and desperate. There will be a lot riding on their consultation with me, and I already feel the pressure. If I were to let my apprehension run rampant, it could be begin to overwhelm me.

Furthermore, I am not naturally sociable or outgoing. I spend little time with others besides my wife, and I am comfortable with that. Not long ago I often forced myself into social situations out of the belief that it was abnormal to be reclusive. But these days I accept myself and my desire for solitude. Going to work means giving up much of my time alone. Although I suspect the increased social contact will be rewarding, it stirs up anxiety.

My days of regular therapy are over, but I see my Acceptance and Commitment Therapist every few months as issues arise, and I went in last week. Anyone who has followed my writing over the past sixteen months knows that ACT has been a big help to me. Much of what I write about acceptance comes from this work, augmented by my Buddhist meditation practice. My ACT therapist reminded me that since I am committed to trying my hand as a physician acupuncturist, my feelings about the project are more or less irrelevant: I will go forward despite my fears and my love of solitude.

So while it makes sense to briefly embrace the feelings and honor them as part of my experience, it is not necessary to dwell on my discomfort. It is natural to feel apprehensive when starting something new, and my distress doesn’t imply I’m making a mistake. It is a predictable reaction given my plans, my history, and my personality.

Tremendous liberation accompanies this view. When I was discharged from the hospital ten years ago I was referred to a respected local psychiatrist. She was an elder stateswoman in her field, so for a long time I accepted her views without question. She saw me at my lowest point, and had no picture of me as the vital and capable physician that I had been a few months earlier. Instead, she considered me a fragile being, who could not tolerate stress, or sadness, or indeed any strong emotions. At one point she encouraged me to abandon a challenging and rewarding job because I was feeling depressed in the evenings after hard days working.

It is refreshing to be told the opposite: don’t make major decisions based on predictable emotional responses. The emotional brain doesn’t understand the big picture, after all. It lives in immediacy, and its reactions are stirred up by obscure memories and bodily impressions. It can’t understand delayed gratification, or appreciate that I’ll be helping others, or predict that my financial situation will be improved. It just knows there will be discomfort, and it is warning me my new path might entail pain.

Yes, it might. In fact, it certainly will from time to time. But the endeavor will also reward me as I help others heal and grow. It is important work and I want to do it. So I thank my emotions for their concern. I acknowledge their warnings. I choose to go forth, even as it hurts.

Panic is easy. Calm, not so much.

That’s my personal experience, which may or may not hold for others. My recent belief that my email account had been hacked is a minor but definite example of my tendency to over-react. A message touting a pharmaceutical product came into my mailbox, with one of my own return addresses on it. It happens that I currently have a number of email accounts, and I didn’t see right away that the account receiving the message was the same that apparently sent it. I dove into action. Sent out my apology to my subscribers, contacted the web hosting company, changed all my passwords, etc. I almost closed down my FeedBurner subscription service, thinking that my subscriber list and address were being used to pump out spam.

It would have been so easy to slow down, and wait to act until I was sure about the situation. There was no need to take drastic steps right away. Change the passwords, see what happened. Instead, I acted immediately.

No doubt this reactivity relates to the chaos in my household of origin. But I also think it comes from our culture, with its endemic anxiety and demands for speed. Instant results are expected in every sphere. Long term and collateral effects are seldom seriously considered in either government or business circles. Corporations choose policy based on quarterly income reports, with little regard for the far future. People get fired and policies radically altered in response to financial fluctuations that may or may not have been preventable.

It’s a cauldron of stress, and those of us with reactive natures must take extra care to avoid getting sucked into the rolling boil of chaos. There is seldom a need for instant action. Short of an impending car crash or like catastrophe, it is almost always better to wait before making big decisions. Or even small ones. Have you ever sent an email that you later wished you had delayed and pondered?

Calm is an essential nutrient in human life. It is an ingredient in very short supply in this modern world. We have an obligation to ourselves and those who will follow us on this earth to slow down and make decisions that aren’t rushed or expedient. Slow, deep breaths. Relaxed, supple muscles. Smiles. Peace. Calm.