Within the next day or two, WillSpirit shall be moving to a new hosting service. Once effected, the change will be in the background, but there will be a period of downtime as I set up the file structure on the new server. If I planned it properly the transition could be done seamlessly, of course, but for reasons I won’t go into it makes sense for me to accept a brief interruption. Shortly after the move you will also see a change in appearance.

My initial three-year hosting contract is about to expire, which affords me the opportunity to move to a more reliable service. The more important point being, of course, that we are approaching the anniversary of this blog’s launch on 29 May 2009. The landmark date has me reassessing my blogging goals.

You may have noticed that the last two posts presented poetry. Verse permits me to approach my usual ideas aslant rather than head-on. In essays I often feel forced to make a decision between heartfelt revelation and airy philosophizing. Sometimes I combine the two, but such coupling feels strained. Poetry, on the other hand, gets right to the source and energy that most drives my writing: the integration of mind and heart. Or left and right brain hemispheres. Or Will and Spirit, you might say. Perhaps this blog was always meant to be a home for my poetry, and it’s taken me this long to understand.

I’m not saying that poems are all that will ever be posted here. Look at what I’m writing now, for instance. But rather than avoiding verse out of fear of lost readership, as I’ve done in the past, I’m going to write as my muse moves me. I hope whatever shows up will appeal to some small number of visitors. Maybe there will be a shift of demographics over time. Or maybe there will just be a decline in popularity. What matters is fidelity to my own needs as they evolve.

Perhaps it’s time to pass the torch. In that spirit, I’ll mention a few sites that have come to my attention recently. All three cover topics that have long fascinated me.

A new blogger has been in touch with me from Canada. She is getting started with a site called Sensitive Soul. She hasn’t yet posted much content , but she appears to be headed in a direction similar to my own.

A reader sent me a blog post from a writer for The Times of India. The author of this journal is related to the reader who refers me, but that doesn’t negate the essay’s quality. The young blogger explains that value in life comes from the journey of living itself, whereas the details of what happens along the way are less important. With the right attitude, we can be happy no matter what fate brings. In her youthful enthusiasm, the author glosses over the difficulty of hewing to such Grace in the face of harrowing bereavement and trauma, but youth must ever remind us that life once looked easier, right? By the way, The Times of India website is loaded with great essays by a wide variety of bloggers.

Finally, I met recently with Larry Berkelhammer, PhD, a retired psychologist with much experience in the area of helping clients cope with chronic conditions. He writes with exceptional clarity about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Positive Psychology, and Mind-Body Medicine. In particular, his site contains a number of essays and videos that describe ACT concepts quite nicely. I suspect the self-help public will be hearing much more about Larry’s work before long.

What’s next for WillSpirit? Time will tell. Fortunately, there is no shortage of great and heartfelt blogging going on, so I feel free to write as the Spirit moves me. And so I Will.

Why make apologies
For stepping off all calculated paths
In an off-kilter world?

The social contract may appear
Reasonable but to act
Sensible all the
Time makes no sense
At all.

After all,
Love is but a dance
Of fools,
Oblivious to grief,
Courting affection
All the time
Dogged by death.

As life closes its heavy lids,
What saint or lover regrets
At all
Her betrayal of sanity?

In this crucible of confusion
And conformity,
The only sane response is mad
Happiness: foolish fixation
Of all attention
On this day
And no other.

I am a vine that breaks
But lives.
I need repair.

Every day or two:
A new attitude blossoms,
Purpose sprouts anew,
And proud flesh closes
Its recent wounds
And climbs
Back up the trellis
Where it holds out my handful of petals:
That intrepid heart, that foolish hope,
That doubtful prayer, that belated smile.

All my life is
Reawakening
To the silent light of the broken dawn.

In a meeting last week with my Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) practitioner, I remarked that worries about the distant future and regrets about the remote past no longer trouble me. For instance, I don’t lie awake nights fearing old age and isolation. I don’t visualize myself slumped in a wheelchair in some nursing home, alone and forgotten. Nor do the choices that led to my lack of children and career haunt me like they once did. It feels wonderful to be freed from mental content that used to terrify and demoralize me.

On the other hand, prior to the past few days, more immediate events remained profoundly disrupting. For some reason, the window seemed to be about six months in either direction. For instance, I felt intensely frustrated by a doctor who has been treating me since January, because he views me through the lens of stereotypes bequeathed by my psychiatric record. I regret placing my orthopedic care in his hands. And part of the reason for my recent psychiatric collapse was my fear of aimlessness in the aftermath of my closing the acupuncture practice. I have no idea what to work on next, but rather than giving myself time to reorganize, I recoiled against my current lack of direction.

But why, I’ve been wondering ever since my ACT session last week, should a six-month envelope keep me captive? If I can release fears about what might happen in two decades and regrets about choices I made a dozen years ago, why not let go of next summer and last winter?

It should be easy to further narrow the window of relevance. If images of loneliness and isolation in old age no longer trouble me, when they once sparked panic attacks, why should I worry about a few months of extra free time? If the decision to move away from San Francisco and take up suburban life no longer seems disastrous, why complain about my poor choice for a new doctor?

The future and the past don’t reside in the brain. There is only the present moment, colored by traces of years past and imaginings of coming events. Both the traces and the imaginings can be consciously reshaped to serve our better purposes. For that matter, they can be left in the hidden matrix of latent neural patterns rather than pulled into current awareness.

I’ve enjoyed a new feeling of spaciousness over the past couple of days as a result of this realization. It seems to me that the difficult work of letting go of deep past and distant future makes this shift in attitude toward more immediate events rather easy. It only requires that I exercise my ability to determine what gets pulled into awareness and how my thoughts frame reality.

As often happens, a serious (though brief) psychiatric crisis forced me to reassess my mental life and update my strategies. This is the value of pain, I believe: it stimulates growth. Our task is to quit fighting and start learning.

One day in kindergarten, the teacher taught us how to cut a circle out of construction paper. We were making cards, or posters, or something, and we each needed a red round. She started with a square piece of paper and cut off the corners. This led to an octagon, and she cut the corners off that. She continued cutting the increasingly obtuse angles until she held a pretty circle in her hand. It was obviously an efficient method, perfect for five-year-olds.

But I wasn’t buying any of it. The method looked too mechanical, too slow. Why not just cut the shape freehand? Which is just what I did. Or tried to do. Instead of a four-inch diameter circle, I ended up with a two-inch ragged pear. It proved impossible for me to cut a circle by eye; no matter how many times I went around it with scissors, my creation looked anything but circular. The teacher, rather smugly I thought, used me as an example for what happens when you don’t follow directions.

I have always had a hard time doing things the way everyone else does. I’d like to blame my father’s ranting against “the establishment,” but it seems unlikely that his politics were to blame for my contrariness in kindergarten. My refusal to follow normal patterns probably contributed to later career misadventures, relationship difficulties, and health problems. It would have been so much easier to choose the field of study I enjoyed rather than one that seemed more impressive. My life would now be richer if I’d focused on raising a family rather than neurotic fears. My health would be better if I’d never wasted time with marijuana, alcohol, and so on.

Some people seem blessed from an early age with knowledge of what’s important in life. A good friend of mine in college happily pointed out pregnant women, because he was so interested in starting a family. Nothing could have been further from my mind at that time. He now has three delightful offspring, and I have none. Other friends chose careers they felt passionate about, and some have achieved significant success as a result of their healthy decisions and years of perseverance. I, of course, find myself in retirement at age fifty-three.

So there has been a price to pay for nonconformity. Many prices, in fact. But today, it makes more sense to focus on what was gained instead of what was lost. By operating outside the mainstream, I’ve learned that life can be valuable even if it doesn’t follow the healthiest path. I’ve found that although a family and satisfying career no doubt help one find satisfaction, they aren’t essential. Even in the midst of pain and disability, life remains fascinating and often beautiful.

So although I’m prone to break down and often feel discouraged by my fate (which I admit to having shaped by my own choices), I spring back soon enough. And each time I rise up from despair I feel less tainted by it. Learning that the mere process of living is enough, no matter what goes wrong or how much it hurts, is of inestimable value. It leaves me ever more certain that I will weather whatever destiny may hold in store for me.

You have a right to be skeptical after my last essay. How can someone who entertains suicidal fantasies claim resilience in the face of hardship? My only defense is to say that resilience doesn’t imply that one is upright and rigid like an obelisk. Instead, it suggests the suppleness of a sapling, which can be flattened nearly to the ground by blasts of wind, but then springs upright once the storm clears. Having been knocked down countless times by circumstance, I now feel confident of my ability to bounce back.

And let me emphasize that this has been a learned skill as much or more than an ingrained trait. In younger years a single perceived rejection could lead to weeks of self-contempt and withdrawal. Nowadays I can ride out debilitating pain, humiliating treatment by a new doctor, utter cluelessness about my purpose in life, and still feel fairly happy to be alive once I get the initial tantrum out of my system.

Whence this ability to find satisfaction in the face of discomfort? It came from meditation, introspection, writing, and practice, practice, practice. Luckily, life has provided me many opportunities to develop a talent for rising up again after pain, disappointment, and despair knock me down.

Readers of this blog have demonstrated their preference for intimate sharing over intellectual musing. Abstract, reasoned posts garner few comments and occasionally prompt people to unsubscribe from WillSpirit. Reader involvement has waned of late, and I suspect that’s because many of my recent essays have been more philosophical than emotional.

But I need to write about metaphysics, the nature of knowing (technically, epistemology), and consiousness. Although its primary motive is helping others, my blogging nurses the wounds inflicted by past traumas and setbacks. Grounded spirituality supports my health, and philosophical essays situate my mystical aspirations on solid footings.

Several years ago I switched from a private practice psychiatrist to Kaiser’s mental health clinic. My new doctor offered two observations early in our relationship. First, she remarked that I was taking a lot of ‘garbage,’ by which she meant my half-dozen psychiatric medications. Second, she opined that my only hope for lasting peace of mind was to find a spiritual solution to the problems caused by my traumatic upbringing and devastating career loss.

Her contempt for my medication regimen shocked and alarmed me. I had trusted my prior psychiatrist and obediently taken all the pills she prescribed. It had never occurred to me that a different doctor would view the cocktail of potent drugs as excessive and dangerous. My new psychiatrist’s perspective forced me to realize that the dreadful side effects I’d incurred might have been avoided had I started out with more competent care.

Even more perplexing was the advice about spirituality. I’d attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for twenty years and had been trying to find a ‘Higher Power’ the entire time. After my transcendent experiences in 2000 (which doctors diagnosed as manic psychosis), I’d managed to sustain religious fervor for a few years. But the mystical resonance had worn off (indeed, the earlier psychiatrist had discouraged my exploration of mystical states). How was I going to find spirituality with a materialist worldview predetermined by my atheist upbringing?

Around the same time, I became friends with someone who had been active in AA for a long time but struggled with the Twelve Steps’ emphasis on God. Despite some moderating language in its Big Book, AA usually makes God sound like an all-powerful parent (i.e., Yahweh). Both for my friend’s sake and my own, I began writing blog posts to ferret out a transcendent path free of mythic and irrational beliefs.

I dovetailed this work with attendance at local Buddhist sanghas and retreats for over a year, and then a like amount of time training at a nearby Hindu center. Prior to this, my meditation practice had been developed in either Quaker or secular contexts (i.e., mindfulness classes at my local medical center). The former provided little instruction, and the latter ignored mystical implications. In contrast, Buddhist programs offered specific guidance toward deep currents of consciousness, and the Hindu tradition connected meditative states to cosmic love. As I progressed along these paths, WillSpirit essays helped me reconcile my spiritual insights with my understanding of biology and physics. The search was on.

My Buddhist and Hindu explorations overlapped with my study of Chinese Medicine as I prepared to practice acupuncture. Readers already know the outcome of that professional venture, but the schooling exposed me to Taoism, Confucianism, and other Chinese philosophies. These studies complemented my growing understanding of Buddhist and Hindu metaphysics. For the first time, I began to feel comfortable with Eastern mysticism. Blogging organized my thinking as I incorporated an entirely new set of philosophies into my worldview.

As many experts have asserted, it is easy to find parallels between Eastern philosophy and the counterintuitive reality revealed by modern physics (especially quantum mechanics). Similarly, although divergent in emphasis, both holistic healing and conventional medicine restore vitality to weakened organisms. WillSpirit became the platform on which I integrated newfound holism with the reductionism I’d absorbed as an undergraduate, graduate, and medical student.

You can see how blogging about philosophy has helped me mature. Since gaining insight remains central to my mental health, metaphysical writing will remain a key feature of WillSpirit.

Even so, I respect the needs of my readers. When I visit other blogs, I’m most touched when the writers reveal inner conflicts or neuroses that resonate with my own difficulties. I want WillSpirit to serve as a locus for kindred souls to gather and heal as one. Besides, just as philosophizing helps me grow, sharing my life experience helps me heal.

With that in mind, let me end by revealing how devastated I’ve felt during the past two days. After weeks of slow improvement, the neck pain that had so worsened around the time of my hospitalization returned full-force. I may have overstretched doing yoga, or maybe the intense pain and spasm happened for no reason. But until I broke down and started taking muscle relaxants and narcotics, I could barely move because of intense, stabbing pain in my neck, shoulder, and upper back.

This was bad enough, but the awful discomfort also had its predictable effect on my mood. I spiraled quickly into an angry depression, complete with specific plans for suicide. My thinking bordered on the delusional, as evidenced by my suggesting that my wife prepare for my death. On what planet would that be the right thing to say? I didn’t announce a definite decision, but I told her that my reserves were running dry and it felt like I’d lived long enough. I wanted the suffering to end, once and for all. Naturally, this greatly alarmed her and left us both shell-shocked for the next 24 hours.

As an alternative to suicide, I gave in and took pills. Narcotic pain relievers alarm me because of my past addiction problems, but they seemed preferable to sliding further toward suicide.

Where was my vaunted spiritual perspective during all this uproar? I must admit it failed me. I felt only sucking despair and lost my ability to mentally detach from pain. The agony worsened as I looked at my professional failures and troubled friendships through the lens of discouragement and self-contempt. I felt unable or perhaps unwilling to step back and adopt ‘The Watcher’ stance that usually saves me.

Today I’m feeling better. After a day of lessened pain and tension, I can now discern a spiritual light shining dimly in my heart. I can see the bigger picture, though the narrow view still tugs at me.

Maybe the philosophical posts are my way of sidestepping true emotion. If they serve avoidance, it’s no surprise they don’t engage readers. But I still think such writings help me. They don’t vaccinate me against despair, but they elaborate a spiritual philosophy that is independent of specific beliefs and resistant to doubt. Such a foundation makes it easier for me to accept my hardships with an open heart. Obviously, it sometimes takes time and even medication to unlock the gate, but I know where to find relief.

Hopefully, my readership will understand and forgive my putting personal needs first. Although the philosophical posts are often boring, they serve my psyche. I also realize that successful blogs usually stick to a single subject area; I appreciate my readers for indulging the obvious variability of theme (e.g., mental health, metaphysics, neuroscience). Long ago I promised to write the Whole Story. For me, that includes dispassionate contemplation as well as heartfelt intimacy. But the ultimate goal is to help us all discover paths to Peace of Mind.

In my own clumsy way, I seek to reconcile rationality with intuition, mind with heart, Will with Spirit. As boring as it often sounds, this is my best formula for Grace.

How do we know what we know?

There are two separate lines of inquiry: outer and inner. Observing and testing the external world leads to knowledge about material phenomena. Looking inward offers mystical insights.

The scientific-materialist bias of our age has emphasized the former and undermined the latter, but this is misguided at best and oppressive at worst. Both avenues toward knowledge yield fruit, but they each also have limits. If we neglect or suppress outer data, as we’ve seen religions attempt, we end up restricted to mythic world views that blind us to real phenomena. On the other hand, if we dismiss inner inquiry as idiosyncratic and imaginary, we close off progress toward the wordless wisdom that offers genuine salvation to the suffering mass of humanity.

The scientific revolution, which began in the Renaissance, has taught us the value of the empirical method. Sensory input from the environment, often enhanced by instrumentation, informs investigators as they develop hypotheses. Conceptual models of reality then guide further observation and/or experimentation. The results of these tests either support the evolving theory or require changes in it. Over time, models that succeed in predicting results survive while those that don’t get revised or scrapped. As explained in the last essay, scientific concepts are judged on their ability to predict outcomes; they should not be mistaken for ultimate truth.

Science needs no justification from me. It’s power is obvious. The value of nonstop technological advancement might be disputed, but not the intellectual triumphs of physics, chemistry, biology, and so on. Never before have humans known so much about the fine details of space, time, matter, and life.

Valid science must separate observation from theory. For instance, the fossil record exists and documents that life has changed through time. To deny this implication requires painfully contorted reasoning, such as the idea that God placed fossils in the earth to test our fidelity to biblical truth. Petrified organic remains are objectively real entities. Natural selection, on the other hand, is an explanatory concept proposed by Darwin. It posits that successfully reproducing life forms pass their traits onto future generations, while the traits of those that fail to reproduce die out, leading to changes in species over time. This is a powerful notion that can be used to understand not only biology but also cultural evolution, brain processes, and many other phenomena. It appears to be an actual mechanism of change, but the concept remains debatable, at least in principle. Possibly some more comprehensive explanation will emerge in the future, though if a better theory does arise, it will likely include natural selection as a limiting case. (Much like relativity theory reduces to Newtonian dynamics when velocities are in the range of everyday experience.) In any event, the verified fact that life forms evolve over geological time is separable from theories that explain how this happens. External observations and the concepts they fuel can be recognized as distinct from one another.

Inner exploration operates very differently. Deep states of meditative consciousness and sudden mystical intrusions occur commonly and stereotypically, but they neither support nor require elaborate conceptual theories. The consistent and recurring themes of such states guide generalizations but not specifics. As I’ve said in many previous posts, the main features include recognition of the profound unity of the cosmos, realization of its inherent rightness, and awareness of pervasive love emanating throughout. Secondary elements may also arise, such as insights about transience, insubstantiality, and causality. Words are inadequate to the explanatory task at hand; verbal descriptions are mere shadows of the actual experience. Because language is so inappropriate, conceptual formulation quickly obscures the heart of realization.

In essence, inner inquiry leads to knowledge that is simultaneously observation and explanation, both comprehended on a level that transcends words. This doesn’t prevent people from writing volumes about mystical insights, but such efforts are only pointers to an experience that provides immediate understanding.

Note how different this is from scientific work, where observations generally seem confusing until a theory is developed to show their coherence. Mystical realization obviates the need for theory, because it comes fully packaged as both observation and insight. When conceptual frameworks are constructed, they become susceptible to debate. They leave the spacious meadow of directly realized truth and enter a forest of controversy.

There is an area of overlap between science and mysticism. We see it most clearly when creative theorists ponder nature until an insight abruptly emerges in consciousness. The greatest thinkers, like Einstein, recognize the source of such inspiration to be mysterious and beyond deliberate control. In an echo of the mystical experience, deep contemplation leads to sudden recognition of an elegant order in the world.

Similarly, mathematicians work with purely mental objects, yet time and again their internally referent constructions have proven applicable to natural, external processes. Thus, mathematical formulations developed by Bernhard Reimann were crucial to Einstein’s development of general relativity theory. Pure, abstract reasoning (i.e., inner exploration) led to a framework that predicted astronomical observations never previously encountered by humans.

Inner inquiry and outer empiricism work differently but show areas of overlap. Both enrich human knowledge and understanding. For a blogger obsessed with mental wellness, what most distinguishes the two is that successful meditative and contemplative explorations lead directly to peace of mind. External observations are seldom so healing, except when they prompt inspiration that emerges from the depths of consciousness. When that happens, we feel warm satisfaction similar to what arises when we open to the beauty of pristine nature. The inner heart of awareness can be summoned from outside, but it germinates within. Looking inward is thus the surest path to fulfillment.

An essay in David Bohm’s Wholeness and the Implicate Order, has me rethinking my attitude toward thought. The piece is entitled “Reality and Knowledge Considered as Process.” As with much of Bohm’s work, the concepts challenge the mind. But although he sometimes loses me, I trust his interpretation, as he was a highly regarded physicist who pondered the philosophical implications of quantum theory. Since an earlier essay looked at one quantum principle in spiritual terms, it makes sense to explore Bohm’s discussion; it pursues similar goals through more sophisticated means.

Bohm insists that thought and the world at large are not two separate realms. There is no thinking that doesn’t arise from prior contact with reality, and our experience of reality is never completely divorced from thought. Furthermore, thought is just as much a product of the cosmos as anything else. It emerges in a flowing stream along with Creation itself. Thought is no different, in this sense, from mountains, clouds, sunlight, electricity, or anything else we might think about.

Bohm compares thought to poetry. There will never be an ultimate poem that will make all future poetry unnecessary. Similarly, there will never be a final theory about reality that will obviate the need for more theorizing. Each view of the Cosmos is a work of art, not an objective truth. Some models of the world work better in a predictive sense, but all are susceptible to ongoing change and refinement. All are subjective and conditioned by prior prejudice. Bohm considers it a mistake to equate concepts with reality-as-it-actually-exists.

Consider gravity. According to Newton, matter exerts an invisible force on other matter. A planet has a large mass and through action-at-a-distance pulls strongly on objects nearby. Hence, we don’t float off into space. Newton’s laws permit one to calculate orbits and trajectories. They work in a predictive sense, but that doesn’t mean gravitation acts through force fields like Newton thought. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity describes the same reality in terms of distortion to the fabric of space-time. Planets orbit stars because stars warp the matrix through which planets travel. There is no force that extends from the sun to the earth; there is merely a kind of well that traps the earth in orbit around the sun. Relativity theory is also predictive of orbits and trajectories. Yet although its scope is more comprehensive than Newtonian mechanics, it cannot be said to be more ‘correct;’ it is merely more broadly applicable.

Newton and Einstein devised very different descriptions of gravity and reality. Each created a highly sophisticated line of thought. But neither can be said to have described ultimate Truth. Theories work in a utilitarian fashion but never pin down reality in any literal sense.

Physicists have long sought a ‘Theory of Everything’ that would succinctly describe the universe in mathematical terms. All manifestation would then be clarified as unfolding according to fundamental equations. Stephen Hawking appears to have abandoned this quest, as he now talks of ‘Model-Dependent Realism,’ wherein there would not be a single theory but rather a system of overlapping models. Each formulation would work within a defined domain, but none could be said to capture the totality. Einstein’s equations work when calculating the dynamics of light and matter on cosmic scales. Quantum mechanics works for subatomic particles. The hope (not yet realized) would be to find a way to make the two descriptions fit together when conditions overlap, as during the formation of the universe. But Hawking appears to have abandoned the search for a single set of equations that could be applied in all situations.

Bohm would probably welcome this concession by Hawking. He would insist that thought is not capable of describing totality, mainly because thought is part of totality itself. There is no separate reality, outside the mind, that the mind can figure out. There is only a single cosmos that includes the mind and everything the mind comprehends. We do not view reality from outside, we watch it from within. We can describe what we see, but we cannot describe the totality because we do not exist outside of it. We can’t get a view on the cosmos similar to the Apollo photographs of planet Earth. Just as we cannot see the whole earth from its surface, and so our view of it remains limited, we cannot see the whole universe. Our concepts are necessarily restricted and incomplete.

Furthermore, thought and cosmos are ever changing, so there can be no final description of anything. What fits today’s world may not fit tomorrow’s. Tribal societies on the North American plains had no need of a theory of digital computation, anymore than we have need of one guiding nomadic encampment in pursuit of herds of bison. You could argue that both theories are latent in the cosmos, but what does a theory of logic gates describe if there are no computers? How consequential is knowledge of migratory patterns if the few remaining buffalo live in fenced enclosures? Each formulation is relevant to a particular time and place, and useless outside of it.

For a hunter-gatherer society, a view of the environment that depended on vital spirits would be competent to the situation. It would help the hunter follow his prey; it would help the gatherer predict where her favored plants could be found. It would be a valid model under the circumstances. For some people, a religion built around a single, caring deity works well. It provides meaning, guidance, and feelings of safety. For others, life is better served by insisting that no such God exists. To them, the universe feels more comfortable if it is believed rational and predictable, without any quirky intrusion by non-material influences. Each person lives by a model that works for his or her given temperament. But none can claim ultimate truth, because there is no such thing.

This is a very difficult position to adhere to, precisely because it lacks solidity. To quit conflating thought with truth means to recognize every insight as provisional, including this one. Any claim to objective understanding, permanent and free of contamination by prior prejudice, is false. But the mind resists admitting its own limits, and clings to beliefs even when it knows better.

Bohm provides an alternate (and more challenging) path to the conclusion that ended my earlier post: we should hold our views lightly. I’m not sure this essay does his argument justice, but I think he would have agreed with the advice.

Work and productivity. Who needs them?

This is a question much on my mind now that I’ve dropped back into retirement. The last post detailed my angst around this topic. Today I offer one line of thinking that helps me maintain sanity in the face of abundant free time.

Freud considered work one of the pillars of successful living. The vaunted Protestant work ethic remains a standard in this country, and it isn’t limited to Protestants or the United States. National economies are judged on the basis of Gross Domestic Product. Corporations celebrate increased productivity in their communications to stockholders.

Each of the sentences in the previous paragraph offers a different perspective on the value of working and production, but they all reach the same conclusion. Psychologists who disagree with Freud about almost everything else would still concur that work (along with love) leads to satisfaction. Religions of all stripes value community involvement, and many embrace concepts similar to the Buddhist one of Right Livelihood. Countries are deemed in ascension or decline depending on whether their economic output is growing or stagnating. And companies push their workforces ever harder in attempts to squeeze out more product per employee.

You can see these perspectives vary in their humanism. Psychologists value individual wellbeing. Spiritual leaders promote communal advancement and personal involvement. Nations insist on expansion. And corporations demand maximal profits. Most readers attracted to a blog like this will recognize the value of individual and collective health but question nationalism and blind profiteering. At least in principle, they would agree with the pursuit of Right Livelihood.

In principle, so do I. But what happens when repeated attempts at productive work fail? How does a person feel worthy when physical and mental difficulties limit employment?

Let me begin by saying that I continue to help out when possible. I try to support my friends. I do a little volunteering. I offer love and attention to my wife and dogs. Judging by the comments and emails, this blog seems to assist others in their growth. These are all contributions that should not be discounted. But my number of hours spent performing anything resembling work is embarrassingly small. I do a little, but not enough to count for much in this culture.

Does that matter? Can we be sure our conditioning to work, work, work makes sense?

Let’s investigate the above realms in reverse order, starting with the corporate. What percentage of manufacturing actually benefits the collective good? My guess is no more than half. The rapacious exploitation of resources and promiscuous marketing of gadgetry only hastens the collapse of our ecosystem. The heavy burdens placed on workers, who toil for subsistence while those higher on the socioeconomic scale reap vast profits, can hardly be viewed as beneficial.

It’s difficult to consider the community of nations healthy when each member strives to dominate as large a sphere as possible. The US struggles to maintain its influence as China rapidly aggrandizes power. Smaller countries fight neighbors with weaponry and trade laws. Granted, nations are gradually losing ground to corporations that defy geographical boundaries, but this only reduces local control over the environment and workplace laws. The decline of national power does nothing to slow the trend toward ever more production and consumption.

Perhaps we can dismiss the ethic of productivity as touted by corporations and nation-states. But can we feel morally justified in the pursuit of leisure? What of the spiritual and psychological motives for work?

Spiritually, we are called to help those in need. But this doesn’t necessarily imply long or difficult labor. Certainly, those with abundant energy and resources do well using their bounty for good works. But we who are more limited can feel fine doing less. Why not pick up a little litter while walking the dogs, and call it a day? Smiling at a friend, or even an enemy, offers a bit of support without burning up reserves. Helping out can be done on a small scale. I doubt there are divine forces condemning those who spend more time relaxing, and less time striving. After all, Jesus asked us to “consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin…” (Luke 12:27).

Psychologically, work helps because it gives meaning. The trick, then, is to find meaning with less work. This can be a challenge when we’ve been conditioned to measure the value of employment in terms of hours expended, dollars earned, or projects completed. But what if part of the value of a job comes from the freedom one enjoys by not spending all day working? There’s a hint of this in the way people plan for retirement. Why not combine work and retirement rather than doing first one and then the other? A society that builds labor-saving appliances would normally be expected to encourage leisure rather than labor. Maybe we can find more meaning with less effort.

No doubt these sound like shallow justifications for my lifestyle, now that I’ve given up on striving. But although I’m riffing on this topic out of personal necessity, I do think we have been seduced by a work ethic that might once have made sense but now makes us miserable. After all, the world doesn’t need more product; our ecosystem is screaming for relief. Unemployment would end if each employee worked a third fewer hours. People might feel joyous if they could spend more time with friends and family and less time toiling.

I’m not suggesting laziness, just studied leisure. I wouldn’t advocate hours in front of a television set, but why not spend some afternoons at the local park? How about daily meditations under a tree or weekly reading groups at the library? If there are any imperatives in life, one must be to enjoy the beauty of this miraculous cosmos. We can’t do that if we spend the bulk of our time working.

The essay I’d written for today will be delayed. It was another piece about the unreliability of belief, based on the work of the late physicist David Bohm. I wrote it two days ago but postponed publishing because I’ve decided that sending out entries more often than every three days imposes on readers’ inboxes. Apparently this policy risks what happened today: a topic that sounded interesting before now seems less vital.

So what is ‘live’ for me today? Self doubt.

Thankfully, I’ve gotten pretty adept at accepting the big hardships. Physical pain, failure, and grief feel quite acceptable to me. They even seem to instruct me in wisdom. I can embrace them. On the other hand, right now nothing momentous is bothering me, yet I’m feeling bad about myself.

My life strikes me as eminently comfortable. I live in a lovely area with many nearby trails. The wetlands restoration outside the neighborhood gate is nearing completion so there are more waterways, marshes, and birds in view. I have time to enjoy the natural beauty and also to exercise and meditate for long periods every day. My life right now is nearly without stress: no business to fret about, no medical problems in need of attention, no family issues.

So what’s to complain about? The same thing that has come up for me over and over since my surgical career ended twelve years ago: aimlessness.

What is the point of my life if I have no gainful occupation? Can I find satisfaction merely from blogging? Why have I proven myself capable of working in so many fields while also demonstrating my inability to stick with any of them? How am I going to justify my existence now that professional endeavors no longer seem feasible?

In high school my mediocre performance and chronic delinquency pointed to an unpromising future. But as my senior year approached I found a passion: biology. It grew out of a lifetime interest that dated back to time with my grandfather, who showed me the insides of fish and chickens he prepared for meals, taught me how to cultivate mushrooms, and enlisted me to work in his vegetable gardens. My father had encouraged the curiosity by buying me the Visible Woman and Visible Man models. I’d tried to incubate quail eggs and had loved the nature classes offered at the camp where I spent six weeks every summer. First in Boy Scouts and later with friends, I’d gone on many camping and scuba diving trips around the Los Angeles area, which is rich with natural beauty once you get beyond the freeways.

As high school drew to a close, I found biology so fascinating that buckling down and doing homework suddenly seemed like a great idea. Before long I was at UC Berkeley earning nearly straight A’s. Ecology was the subject that most fascinated me, and I planned to become a marine biologist or some other species of naturalist. But all subjects piqued my interest, and I took a tremendous variety of classes. Soon, I was singled out as possessing strong analytical skills and was shunted into an honors physics sequence tailored to a select few of the most promising students. My father only seemed impressed by this latter turn of events, since he considered biology a ‘soft’ science. Overly influenced by his opinion, I abandoned ecology and decided to pursue neuroscience through graduate studies in biophysics.

Thus began a long, meandering career search in which I seldom felt myself on the right path. Faced with a future spent poking microelectrodes into nervous systems, I became bored and discouraged. I’d also broken up with my high school sweetheart, and my grandfather had recently died. My first major depression hit. A therapist convinced me to go to medical school, largely by telling me how much he wished he’d had the grades for it himself.

Learning about the human body did, in fact, fascinate me, but the practice of medicine terrified me. I did not have the proper attention to detail, and I continually worried about forgetting important steps in clinical care. At the same time, I found the eye remarkably beautiful and decided to specialize in ophthalmology largely on aesthetic grounds. Little did I understand that my choice would place me in one of the most detail-oriented subspecialties. After learning to perform cataract surgery and many other procedures, I decided to pursue further training in ocular oncology and then in reconstructive surgery. These fields offered slightly larger margins for error, and so seemed better suited to my personality. Plus, I liked the artistry of facial surgery.

I got a great job after my training, working at Kaiser. There were no administrative duties and lots of autonomy in patient care. I thrived. But my neck was not up to the strain, and as the pain increased my old fears resurfaced. During a manic episode I made a hasty decision to simply abandon my hard-earned career, rather than doing something smarter like reducing to half-time.

This led to an immediate collapse of my psychiatric health. After a couple of years spent recuperating, I began graduate study of biomedical computing; that lasted about two years before blowing up when the professor I’d planned to train under moved to another state. Then I taught high school biology for a term. After deciding that the life of a high school teacher wasn’t for me, I found a job with the California Department of Public Health teaching physicians about childhood lead poisoning. The work was fun and took me all over the State, but when it started to stress me out a bit my psychiatrist persuaded me to quit (which I think did me a disservice). For a time I looked into studying entomology and took some college classes in preparation, but that direction seemed too far afield after so much training in medicine. I next spent a couple of years preparing for graduate school in psychology, working as a volunteer counselor, but when the few institutions I applied to rejected me, I gave up. Through an informal internship, I then learned to work as a patient rights advocate in mental hospitals, but the pay seemed far too low. Finally came the acupuncture venture, which longterm WillSpirit readers already know about.

Do you get the sense that I’ve pursued a lot of different disciplines but abandoned all of them? I do. Ecology, neuroscience, biophysics, ophthalmology, ocular oncology, reconstructive surgery, bioinformatics, high school teaching, public health, entomology, counseling, advocacy, acupuncture, etc., etc., etc.

My hobbies have been similarly sporadic. Just as I was getting some recognition from local sculpture teachers as a figurative sculptor, I gave it up due to neck problems. Poetry periodically grabs me, but I usually get tired of it before too long. I’ve written some memoir pieces that instructors really liked, but I never follow through to create a sustained text. For some reason I keep the blog going, but probably only because it’s so easy.

Whew. That’s my long catalogue of aborted vocations and avocations. In the last few days I’ve spent time with a number of friends, each of whom seems really committed to his or her career path. Why have I never found a road worthy of ongoing effort? Why do I always seem to find reasons to change directions?

I have no good answer. It appears my personality permits me to be a Jack of all trades, but a master of none. This is intellectually fascinating but professionally suicidal. Back in college the professors seemed unanimous in their belief that I was headed toward a stellar future. What went wrong?

Clearly, part of the problem is that I’ve been too easily swayed by the opinions of others. And I’ve often chosen directions that made logical sense but had little appeal to my heart. Other times, I’ve ignored obvious limitations and pushed myself to tackle fields that were too stressful. I’ve acted impulsively and in the face of challenges have quit projects entirely rather than effect more nuanced changes. So I suppose there are lots of reasons, but most of all, there’s been a lack of staying power.

Given that I’m blessed with reasonable financial security, fairly good health, and endless free time, you’d think I’d feel happy even without employment. Instead, I’m working hard to prevent my psyche from beating up on itself about my inability to sustain a career. The only remedy seems to be meditation, which allows me to stop thinking about what’s happened and imagining what might have been. So I’m practicing intense mindfulness as much as possible, including while driving, walking the dogs, and swimming.

Just a week or two ago I felt beyond all this; I was ready to commit myself to spiritual growth and abandon the pursuit of worldly success. Circumstances seem to be forcing me to look at my situation despite my resolve to turn my back on career obsessions. Perhaps I need to better understand what went wrong before I’ll be able to accept it. Or maybe this productivity-oriented culture simply makes it difficult to find relief from this angst. In the end, of course, I must simply embrace my life and myself. But apparently I’m not quite there yet.