Category Archives: mental health

Thoughts from a Recovering Ideologue

Leave a reply

Following my post of yesterday, I learned that Senator Tom Cotton illustrated a point I made by declaring that he did not regret anything he had said in his letter to Iran. Well, f course not. Any ideologue cannot back down, cannot admit that he is “wrong” because to admit that any of his ideas are less than “Right” is to understand that his perspective on the world is limited. That is much related to something uncovered recently in his college newspaper editorials in which he declared, “Spare me the diversity seminars.”   “Diversity seminars” are of as much value to him as they are to ISIS. If the notion…and experience of diversity…sunk into his heart it would totally melt down. The house of cards that is his reality would come tumbling down.

Of course, I am talking from experience and am guilty of the “projection” that I speak of so often. For, just as an alcoholic in recovery announces that “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic” and ideologue in recovery like myself has to make a similar announcement, “Once an ideologue, always an ideologue.” But with alcoholism and with ideologue-ism, “confessing the sin” is a step in the direction of addressing the underlying issue. As poet Conrad Aiken noted, “To name the abyss is to avoid it,” though in this case I would say “to begin to get some distance from it.”

Yes, ideas are still very important to me. And, furthermore, without ideas we could not function as human beings. But, seeing that ideas are not the “thing-in-itself” I am now less obnoxious than I used to be and can even handle the realization that some who stumble upon this palaver are briefly stunned before flashing a sign of the cross at the computer screen and running from the room screaming. And that is the right thing for them to do for I offer here only a finite perspective on the world and for those who respond with disapproval are doing the right thing…for them! And I will never want to kill them, or shame and humiliate them. Heck, I won’t even try to stop them from voting! Diversity is good! As the French say, “Vive le difference!”

But sharing this notion with Tom Cotton and his minions would be…borrowing rural Arkansas wisdom from my dear momma…”like pouring water on a duck’s back.” And for you “city folks,” the water just runs off a duck’s back without ever penetrating the surface and getting to the skin. So with his intransigence he is safe. And that allows him to feel really good about himself and makes him politically tenable with like-minded souls. But in his position, there are many more important issues on the table than his own safe, smug little worldview. And that is something we must all remember each day.

 

 

Out Smarting our Brains!!!

2 Replies

Wray Herbert is a journalist who has written about science and psychology for the past 25 years. He recently wrote in Salon a report about neurophysiology and the ability to “out smart our own brains.” (See the following link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/temptation-in-the-neurons_b_6861836.html) Of course he does not believe that we can actually “out-smart” our own brain but with willingness to learn from modern neurophysiology we can learn that our thought patterns are often driven by something other than we are conscious. With this gift of meta-cognition we can self-monitor on occasion and identify maladaptive patterns of thinking and behaving. In my clinical practice I would often use cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies, one of which was to help clients identify these “mal-adaptive thought patterns” which CBT calls, “stinkin’ thinkin’”

Recently Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas raised my ire with his letter to Iran that signed also by 47 other senators. This action reveals a rigid certainty in their heart which allowed him them to jeopardize complex negotiations between President Obama and other world leaders with Iran over nuclear disarmament. If Cotton and his colleagues could have employed the Shakespearean “pauser reason” they could have been more judicious in pursuing their goals. Having spent most of my life in Arkansas and being a “good ole boy” myself, Mr. Cotton is really “grinding my gears.” or, as I like to put it, has my “panties in a wad.”

My emotional reaction has reminded me that I’ve spent most of my life as an ideologue myself and that the first half of this self-imposed prison sentence found me very rigid. Though now I have changed, there is always a residual presence of the ideologue, which I call, “literallew,” that I have never exorcised and never will completely. For example, I often find myself taking my own “pet thoughts” too seriously and at times find myself using them as a hammer. Eckhart Tolle’s teachings tell us that “thought” is what confines us to the space-time continuum, living our life in the past or in the future but not in the Present moment. And, there is only the Present moment. The past and future are only fancies many of which are not realistic and sometimes delusional. And Tolle certainly realizes that we cannot do without “thinking” but insists that if we acknowledge other dimensions of our reality then our “thinking” can be less rigid and less self-centered.

“Pet ideas” are so easy to take so seriously because they often embody and perpetuate a view of the world with which we are comfortable. If we are too fond of these “pets” we will be unable to compromise with diverse points of view; for, allowing these “pets” to be questioned will tap a fear our ego has of losing control. But slavery to these “pet ideas” is always just slavery to our ego and the ego never likes to consider the possibility that it is not in control. To a person in such bondage, the consideration of neurophysiology (and the unconscious) on his thinking is just not permitted.

Decades ago I read a relevant observation somewhere, “Our thinking is the belated rationalization of conclusions to which we’ve already been led by our desires.”

 

Ideologues are Scary!

3 Replies

Another young man has been arrested for allowing Muslim extremism to enthrall his grasp on reality. conspiring to bomb the White House because of the government’s attacks on Islamist extremists. Christopher Lee Cornell looks like another typical American young man who for has stymied his personal angst and alienation by affiliating with Muslim extremism. News reports are often reporting similar stories of young men…and women even…who are trying to join Isis or other Muslim extremist groups. Alienation and anger appears to describe most of them.

But just because of anger and alienation, why would anyone have to glom onto any idea as “crazy” as violent extremism and bring upon themselves and others so much pain? It is as if they sell their soul to gain something they believe in fully, with all of their heart and life, even to the point they are willing to die and to kill others. Their desperation takes “belief” or “faith” to a level that is beyond the pale. This development in ours and other cultures illustrates the appeal and the danger of ideas. Investing inordinately in any idea, or set of ideas, often brings the temptation of taking these ideas too seriously, very much related to taking oneself too seriously.  When one does this, he/she has become an “ideologue” which Eric Hoffer described decades ago, “The True Believer.”

But this illustrates the specious nature of all ideas. Yes, we look at this young man and other extremists and shake our head and call them “nuts.” But even our middle-class, educated, and “christian” ideas merit scrutiny occasionally.  For an “idea” is not the “thing-in-itself” ,but is so often taken to be.   When this happens, we have failed to follow the Buddhist wisdom, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”

Of course, I am not exempt from risking this peril. In this venue I trot our “ideas” myself, ideas reflecting a belief system and personal identity which I take very seriously. I myself am full of ideas and certainly have made an investment in them. But now I am old enough that I see very clearly these are only “ideas” and therefore merit caution lest I take them “too” seriously. And if I should do so, it will because my ego is influencing to overestimate by wisdom. You will know that I have done this when you discover that there is a Pay Pal button on this page with a request for donations! Or, when you discover that I have somehow found out your mailing address and are suddenly harassing you with this “stuff” in your mailbox. Or when you somehow hear that I’ve been arrested for “seet preaching” this stuff on my neighborhood streets, perhaps with the additional charge of “public indecency!”

One has become an ideologue when he/she takes “pet ideas” and puts so much energy in them that perspective is lost, failing to realize that these ideas are important to him/her but will not necessarily be important to other people. When that happens, these ideas….many of which might even contain “noble truths”…can become a hammer that is used to bludgeon other people and convert them to our way of viewing the world. The root issue of an ideologue is profound alienation, so profound that there is an inordinate need to proselytize and get others to believe the same way so to alleviate our existential loneliness  Ideas, though an intrinsic part of what makes us human, often become a weapon with which we brutalize other people, often under the guise of some “ultimate truth.” The classic ideologue has in mind making others join his “tribe,” with the ultimate goal of conquering the whole world. This mind-set in my youth was often expressed with the call to “win the world to Jesus” which I now realize was merely a heart-felt desire to make the world “just like me.” And that desperation cannot be blamed on Jesus, or even the Christian tradition. It must be laid at the foot of our “human-ness” as the human need for affiliation, if unchecked, can lead to extremism.

Loneliness is painful. And subscribing to the prevailing ideas of our culture is important in our youth and helps us achieve an identity and take comfort in belonging to our tribe. But at some point we have to grow up and be willing to look at our ideas…even the one’s we deem beyond question…and begin to seek affiliation with some “thing” which if followed can lead us in the direction of being more inclusive in our approach to life.

(An afterthought: Just moments ago, I came across this wisdom from Stephen Hawking in a post on Face Book: the greatest danger to knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.)

 

 

 

Shakespeare & Binary Thinking

Leave a reply

“There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” This might be one of the richest bits of Shakespearean wisdom that I have gleaned from the treasure of his work. He is pointing out that it is our ability to assign labels that creates our world and in so doing carves this world up into categories. This notion is intriguing for on a superficial level it seems to mean that even something like murder is “murder” only because of thinking. And, well, in a sense that is so but that doesn’t mean our labeling it “bad” is a problem.

With this observation Shakespeare again takes us into the depths of our collective heart where distinctions were made even before we are rational human beings. He realized that somewhere in our ancient past we determined that labels (i.e. words) are necessary even before we were capable of formal thought. It is there, in our collective unconscious that we decided, “Hey, some of this stuff going on here is a problem” and from that subconscious realization we began to evolve a capacity to assign labels. But also, at that some point in development we started the preliminary process of assigning labels to the whole of God’s creation, illustrated so beautifully with Adam’s “naming the beasts of the field.”

Without this ability to assign labels and to categorize our world we would still be beasts of the field. But with this skill we were beginning to acquire the ability to create human culture, making it possible for life as we know it to unfold. But unfortunately, this spiritual phenomena of becoming verbal also had a price tag—it separated us from the splendor of the natural world and left us with a feeling of loss and an unconscious want to return to that Edenic bliss. It also created the capacity to take these labels too seriously and to forget they were only “pointers” and not the thing- in-itself. These made it possible for ideologues to climb out of the primordial slime with the rest of us and these ideologues take this verbal world to be the only world, not realizing that words have meaning only when their ancient, primordial, (i.e. pre-verbal) roots are engaged. When we reach this point of spiritual development, we understand that a simple word like “god,” for example, can cease to be a mere “idea” and the “experience” of God in the depths of our heart can begin to surface. When we reach this point of our life we then begin to “wrestle with the Lord” and can come to realize that in some sense we are also wrestling with the very core of our being, our very self. We are, as W. H. Auden puts it, “waging the war we are.”

It is such a challenge to recognize and to experience the limits of binary thinking. In a sense, “binary thinking” is the only thinking there is but only in a sense. With this marvelous neo-cortex, we have the God-given capacity to learn how deeply we are embedded in our own thought. When we reach this point of maturity and have the courage to enter the struggle that follows, we recognize that yes, there is “good” and “bad” in our world but we understand that the distinction between the two is more nebulous than we used to think. This understanding makes us less sure when assigning those particular labels though we can,, at the same time, have the courage to judiciously utilize them. Yes, there is “good” and a “bad” in this world and even more so, in the very depths of my own heart. This neo-cortical phenomena of meta-cognition allows us to hold in our mind and heart “contradictory” notions at one and the same time and we can begin to cavort about in the Unity of all Things.

Lunacy in Religion Surfaces Again!!!

Christiandom has given Bill Maher and other stand-up comedians more fodder for there routines as a 53 year old former fundamentalist pastor has been arrested in Brazil to face 53 charges of sexual abuse. I will offer a link to the story as it is really creepy, primarily many of the parents willingly “followed God’s leadership” and entrusted their teen daughters into the care of this man’s reclusive and isolated ministry with a promise that he would make these girls God’s women! (http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/01/us/victor-barnard-brazil-caught/index.h)

I see so much lunacy in contemporary religion. And, history has many other stories of additional religious lunacy enough to bring anyone to the point of consideration, “Is all of this just nuts?” And I look at contemporary Christianity and am amazed at how intelligent, educated people can believe some of the things they believe in the name of Christ; and, yes, on the fringe I see many “nut-jobs.”  However, the social context that produced me some six decades ago would label me “nuts” also, or some variation of that term And, in a sense, they would be right for it is the context that gets to define the terms and in reference to the context from which I hailed I certainly merit some disapproving label.

Spirituality deals with the issue of meaning or our quest for meaning. And meaning is always found in a search into the depths of the heart. Unfortunately, the “depths of the heart” are chaotic to say the least and contain good and bad, a veritable Pandora’s box of mischief and worse. Sometimes one’s spiritual quest will take one right into the “Heart of Darkness” and there are times that temptations leads to catastrophic decisions, often “in the name of God.” An equally sordid route is when someone is so fear-bound, so fearful of that dark realm in his heart, they will not allow the Spirit of God that he professes to believe in to lead him in the depths of the heart in the first place. This person will keep it all in the head and become an ideologue, one picture of which we have today is Isis but in Christianity in my country there is Westboro Baptist Church.

But, this issue is ultimately a human issue and not the fault of the religious/spiritual impulse though certainly that impulse goes awry and we see catastrophe. We are complicated little critters because in those hoary depths of our heart monsters do lurk and sometimes our adaptations to them are inadequate, even in our faith. And this realization keeps me a little less rigid than I used to be though often I will find myself relapsing into an arrogance even with my “liberal” and “open-minded” and “all-inclusive” notions of Christianity. And this realization always brings me back to the basic emphasis of spirituality—chopping wood, carrying water. For all of our lofty and noble thoughts, what are we doing to make this world a better place for our kiddies?

 

 

 

Wendell Berry & “The Peace of Wild Things”

Leave a reply

One of my readers responded recently with a note about the value of his “dogs, garden, and wild life” in his spiritual life. His response really spoke to me and reminded me of my own affinity with the natural world and helped to ground me on that occasion, bringing me down from the lofty heights of the aether that I often get intoxicated with when I trot this “stuff” out. I have two dachshunds who just thrill my soul each day, a desert garden that I hope to see bloom again real soon, and birds, bunny rabbits, skunks, and coyotes that live in the neighborhood. This earth, and this “dust of the earth” of which each of us is a particle, is the only thing that is in a very real sense. And all this “stuff” that I discourse about…though important…is only about a context that gives meaning to all of this beautiful world.

Here is a link to Wendell Berry reading one of my favorite poems in which he recognizes the “Peace of Wild Things” and notes the comfort he finds there. And he speaks of the “wild heron” which adorned the lovely Beaver Lake on which I lived for 21 years in Northwest Arkansas before I moved here to New Mexico. And he noted how that these beautiful birds and other “wild things” do not “tax their thoughts with forethought of grief.” Berry was telling us of the importance of living in “The Now” which is the term that Eckhart Tolle coined to speak of the Presence which is the only thing that ever is. Our culture teaches us to live in the past and in the future and rewards us for doing so; thus it is a real challenge to ever-live in the present. I’m sure having trouble doing it!

https://vimeo.com/74755473

A Caveat re this Awakening “Stuff”

6 Replies

There is a note of irony re this “awakening” business that I’m discoursing about. When you have awakened, all you get is the knowledge that, technically, you never have been awake and never will be! All you get is the knowledge…and experience…of the darkness in which you live. You will never be able to say anything but that you “see through a glass darkly” and if you have any honesty you will come to realize that your glass is a lot “darklier” than you could ever imagine!

Oh yes, I believe that “Light has come into the world” but we can only catch a faint glimmer of this Light before it is immediately beset by our ego needs which the Apostle Paul called “the flesh.” This merely means that there is always that tendency to interpret things…and certainly spiritual things…in a self-serving manner and a great resistance to acknowledging this. Of course, we see this so readily with that vast population known as “them” but it rarely dawns on us that we are guilty of the same. Since I found the temerity to acknowledge this, I have frequent “Rick Perry moments” when I have to say “Oops!” as I realize that once again I am just full of myself with some of my blather and that I am using my “enlightened” discourse to merely avoid reality.

Now, when this happens I try to not castigate myself and I certainly am not trying to say that I am a bad human being. I am not. I’m just a “human being” and it is human nature to take ourselves too seriously and not accept our shallowness and ego-centricity. And it is just so very “ok” to be “guilty” of being a human but it is important to acknowledge it! This helps me to snicker less when others are caught being guilty of the same.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

There is a note of irony re this “awakening” business that I’m discoursing about. When you have awakened, all you get is the knowledge that, technically, you never have been awake and never will be! All you get is the knowledge…and experience…of the darkness in which you live. You will never be able to say anything but that you “see through a glass darkly” and if you have any honesty you will come to realize that your glass is a lot “darklier” than you could ever imagine!

Oh yes, I believe that “Light has come into the world” but we can only catch a faint glimmer of this Light before it is immediately beset by our ego needs which the Apostle Paul called “the flesh.” This merely means that there is always that tendency to interpret things…and certainly spiritual things…in a self-serving manner and a great resistance to acknowledging this. Of course, we see this so readily with that vast population known as “them” but it rarely dawns on us that we are guilty of the same. Since I found the temerity to acknowledge this, I have frequent “Rick Perry moments” when I have to say “Oops!” as I realize that once again I am just full of myself with some of my blather and that I am using my “enlightened” discourse to merely avoid reality.

Now, when this happens I try to not castigate myself and I certainly am not trying to say that I am a bad human being. I am not. I’m just a “human being” and it is human nature to take ourselves too seriously and not accept our shallowness and ego-centricity. And it is just so very “ok” to be “guilty” of being a human but it is important to acknowledge it! This helps me to snicker less when others are caught being guilty of the same.

Sleep Walking in the Spiritual World

2 Replies

An “awakening” is an interesting notion as it implies having been asleep before.  And it brings to mind the notion someone posited that we are a “nation of sleep walkers” in reference to not apparently having any idea what we are doing.  And the notion that one is not “awake” is disconcerting to say the least.  It can threaten one to the core and technically should do so as the “core” is where the “stuff” of life is found.  There we find the heart.

Spiritual traditions usually have awakening as a primary concern for spiritual teachers who help formulate these traditions always “see through” the falsities of life and want to bring them to the attention of others.  And this was certainly so with my spiritual tradition, Christianity.  But the spiritual truth that Jesus offered to the world was wisdom from the depths of the heart and this wisdom cannot be put into words.  Jesus, of course, used words but knew these words would only rattle around in many heads and never make it into the depths of the heart where meaning could be experienced.  This is what he meant by “having ears to hear, but hear not” and “eyes to see, but seeing not.”  For He knew that the real “stuff” of life takes place deep in the bowels of the heart and words can furrow there but only when great resistance is overcome.

This issue is very relevant to my spiritual history.  I was “Christianized” from early on.  I imbibed the “stuff” from even before I was conscious and one might say that since then everyday was summarized by, “Wind me up and watch me be Christian.”  And, yes, I grew up and got an education and dared to become a “damn liberal” and then it became, “Wind me up and watch me be a liberal Christian.”  Same song, different verse.  Only in the past decade or so have I realized just how I was embedded in my own thought, including in my own Christian teachings, and was largely just an indoctrinated automaton.

So, what is the solution?  Atheism?  Agnosticism?  Self-indulgence?  All of the above?  Well, I don’t know if I have a “solution” but I do know that I have been granted awareness of my self-serving faith, I have been made aware that ego-gratification was one of its primary intents.  And with this awareness, or “awakening,” I have suffered the disillusionment that I think is necessary at some point in life.  But this descent into the darkness has taught me that there is some inner resource I have other than the ego and its trappings.  I am finding a Center that is solid which words and spiritual traditions can only point to.  Yes, I still think of that “Center” as God, or even the “Christ child” that is within us all but I’m aware that these are only words.  I only know that in the depths of my heart I am a mystery, and that the whole of my life is a mystery, and that I’m living for a while longer in a beautiful world that is full of mystery, part of which are you!

So often I conclude with the observation, “But I have no need to convince anyone or to convert anyone.”  In my spiritual tradition, the spiritual passion has always led to an urgent need to evangelize and hope that others will “join the team.”  Not so in the least now, and that is one indicator that I’m growing up.  Changing others is no longer my job.  Changing my own life is the issue and gawd is there work to do there!  And I firmly believe that as I focus on “working on my own salvation with fear and trembling” any impact on others that needs to take place will occur.

Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening

4 Replies

I’m going to share a list of 12 symptoms of spiritual awakening that I found on Face Book, formulated by David Avocado Wolfe in “recoverytradepublications.com.” But I’d like to focus briefly on three of them which pertain to the subject of judgment: 9) A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others; 10)A loss of interest in judging others; 11)A loss of interest in judging self.

Philosophy posits the notion of “the faculty of judgment.” My take on this notion is the necessary function of interpretation of our environment and even of our own subjective world. With this “function” we carve our world up into “categories” which is much related to the task of assigning words or “names” to things. And in so doing, we are accomplishing what my background in clinical work describes as “object separateness.”

But this very important and necessary function of our psyche sometimes can run amok and we use it to isolate ourselves from life, hiding behind these “categories” even to the extent that we even know our “self” only in terms of “categories.” We have subscribed to the cultural demand to become “objectified” and in some sense lose our very soul. We become an “idea” and cease to be a fluid, dynamic, subjectively alive spirit.

My life has been a fine example of this problem. I will soon wrap up a 20 year career as a licensed mental health professional in which I utilized my “diagnostic knife” to help the “mentally ill.” And this role in our culture was, and is, a valuable and necessary role. But I realize now even more than then that this clinical detachment was present in my life from my earliest years and that I’ve used to “stand up there” and make detached observations about people, my world, and even my self. I sometimes call it my “god complex.”

W. H. Auden once noted, “We drive through life in the closed cab of occupation.” I still have that “closed cab” of detachment but, having gained this insight, it is much less “closed.” I have gained insight to what I’ve been doing and am much better at just turning it off, recognizing that whatever I am observing “just is” and does not always need my labels or interpretation.

Here are Mr. Wolfe’s list of “Symptoms…”

  1. Frequent attacks of smiling.
  2. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.
  3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature.
  4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
  5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.
  6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
  7. A loss of ability to worry.
  8. A loss of interest in conflict.
  9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.
  10. A loss of interest in judging others.
  11. A loss of interest in judging self.
  12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything.

“Christians are the Salt of the Earth…

4 Replies

“…everything is dead where they’ve been.”  I read this in a novel by a local novelist decades ago and could not help but laugh. And I still find it very funny, even though then and now I consider myself a Christian. That novelist might have been a complete cynic or perhaps like me he could appreciate the fact that, for all of its great contributions to human culture, the Christian faith has sure introduced some nonsense from time to time, some of which is tragic and some of which is just amusing. And this brings to mind the comedian Bill Maher who regular jabs Christians for their “imaginary friend” and points out ludicrous things about contemporary Christianity. Though he is an avowed atheist, I give him an hearty “amen” as he points out absurd dimensions of the Christian faith that Christians are not capable of, or not willing to, see.

BUT, back then and even now, I don’t find myself having any thoughts about violent responses to those who would ridicule my faith. Yes, decades ago I would have been less likely to find amusement in those who would offer ridicule but now in hind sight I realize that the problem even then was that I took my faith too seriously because I took my self too seriously. To be more precise, back in my youth the “god” that I worshipped was only a projection of my own ego and thus when that “god” was criticized or ridiculed, I took it personally and reacted defensively. But now I see that God is the Wholly Other, not just a “being among other beings but the Ground of Being” (Richard Rohr) and He is not so insecure that he needs us to defend Him. Those who attempt to defend him, especially to the point of violence, are merely demonstrating personal insecurity and alienation and have projected their soul “out there” and called it “god.” There is a sense in which that leaves them without a soul and people without a soul can do heinous things without any capacity to self-reflect. “They call it Reason, using light celestial, just to outdo the beasts in being bestial.” (Shakespeare)