Three Good Things and Letting Go

As I discovered a couple of weeks ago, the Roman god Janus was depicted as having two opposite faces. One face looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future. Likewise, on January 1, we look back at the year that just ended and forward to the new year ahead.

Janus 2023-2024

Three Good Things

Every morning after I feed Kedi, brew coffee, and unload the dishwasher, I try to make sense of who I am, what I am, what’s going on, and if there’s any way of stopping it by piecing together what happened since yesterday morning. I can’t remember anything until after I’ve finished my coffee, but I have a whiteboard I use for a cheat sheet.

Once I recap the day’s bullet points, I follow prompts to create my Three Good Things journal entry.

Name a good thing: (Something I did, learned, experienced, or noticed. Or something someone else did or shared.)

Name another thing. (Maybe something that I usually take for granted.)

One more thing…(How about an act of kindness toward someone else or my future self or someone else’s act of kindness toward me?)

To honor Janus, here’s my stab at three good things for 2023.

Non-Duality Equals Enlightenment

(Something I did, learned, experienced, or noticed. Or something someone else did or shared.)

I completed my first non-duality solo retreat in February. I prepped with some stuff from the Sam Harris Waking Up app, added a Vipassana retreat schedule, and sprinkled it with tips from the “Hopkins Griffiths/Richards Protocol for Psilocybin with Meditation for Enduring Benefits.”

Sam (not Harris) helped me with the psilocybin part. I could still experience things, but subject and object collapsed.

In May, I learned an Advaita Vedanta technique to access non-duality through “self-inquiry.” After that 5-day mini-retreat with non-duality teacher Rupert Spira, I got an email informing me that the non-dual insight (which I’d achieved through psilocybin and investigation) was all there was to enlightenment.

Who knew?

Life Story Crafting

(Maybe something that I usually take for granted.)

I made substantial progress in posting my NaNoWriMo story Understood Backwards this year. The twelve stages of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey are so embedded in the culture that they can’t help but provide guidance and meaning. I’m learning a lot.

Thanks to you guys for following along.

Showing Up   

(How about an act of kindness toward someone else or my future self or someone else’s act of kindness toward me?)

During early 2023 I let go of organizing and hosting Zoom events, deciding that I could best contribute by showing up for others.

Showing up for a Secular Buddhism Zoom call in May, the day after I tested positive for COVID, I stepped in to facilitate the meeting because the host had Internet problems. The deep vulnerability of my croaky voice inspired others to pick up the slack and say more than they usually would. A man shared a story of how his PTSD had been triggered, how his emotions ran rampant, all of his coping mechanisms went out the window, and the only thing he could hold onto was the deep experiential knowledge that he was not his emotions. It left us speechless.

When Garvin had trouble joining a Nerd Break because of an endless stream of Zoom updates, we all showed up by changing our names to some form of Garvin and improvised a quest to rescue him from Zoom prison in the Tower of London.

I was still in pretty heavy non-dual mode when I attended one of Jo’s Gratitude, ITP, Kylego sessions. Maureen and I decided to switch identities and remember each other’s futures. Her memory of my next six months was uncanny.

A Braver Angels Workshop I showed up for at the Kennedy School Community Room broke through the stereotype that all Reds and Blues thought alike. On issue after issue, the Red State Coordinator held up one extreme position (All the Guns) and the Blue State Coordinator held up the other extreme (No Guns Allowed). People from both sides moved around the room to approximate where they stood on each issue. We do NOT all think alike.

At Intentionally Sam Game Night, I showed up to shout “7 O’Clock” at the exact moment chit-chat was to come to an end. Many people tried to distract me during the final minute, but I succeeded over fifty percent of the time.

After over a year of showing up to Monday Cluster without being able to explain what it was about to newcomers, Aaron showed up with an AI assist to come up with the definitive description: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the grand arena of intellectual discourse! It’s that time again, where minds collide and ideas converge. Gather ’round for a Monday afternoon extravaganza of thought-provoking discussions that will leave you astounded and inspired! But before we begin, let us not forget the words that echo through the annals of history. With a voice that ignites anticipation like no other, let us join together and exclaim: ‘Let’s get ready to cluster!'”

Letting Go

As far as the forward-facing Janus goes, Nancy from Secular Buddhism suggested we think about what we’d like to let go of.

I’m up for letting go of goals in favor of responding skillfully to what the new year may bring.

Your Turn

What are three good things from your 2023?

What would you like to let go of in 2024?

B.S. (as opposed to P.S.) Sam called B.S. on my hypothesis in “Love Lost in Translation” that we can learn about other people’s love languages by what they try to give us. I have updated the post with a B.S. alert.

Love Lost in Translation

Sometimes the way other people show their affection isn’t the way we want them to show it. They invite us to dinner and we think they are making demands of us. They point out our good qualities and we believe they are making fun of us.

These kinds of distorted thoughts are the result of a self-centered attitude, and we need to call it for what it is.–Thubten Chodron, “Accept the Love of Others,” Awaken Every Day: 365 Buddhist Reflections to Invite Mindfulness and Joy

The Art of Giving

Giving is the low-hanging fruit of “the holiday season” so I’ve already covered what to give co-workers in Gift of Thank You! and what to give everyone else in Thoughtful Giving. But a recent conversation with a longtime friend and a newsletter from a longtime Buddhist teacher got me thinking about the less straightforward challenge of receiving.

Catching Up

I don’t celebrate birthdays but sometimes use these arbitrary dates as a reminder to check in with others who do. When a longtime friend completed her annual solar circuit, I sent her an email and suggested we get together for a Zoom call. We’d heard from her brother that since last we talked she broke up with a longtime boyfriend, moved from New York to Seattle, was living with her aging mother who’d moved up from Monterey, and left her high-powered corporate job.

Updating Associations

In her reply email, she mentioned that she thought of me when seeing the musical Hadestown. She couldn’t get over how a show so bad had won so many Tony Awards. Out of curiosity, I listened to the show on YouTube at 2X speed to get the suffering over quickly. Though I haven’t paid attention to musicals for over a decade, I could still pinpoint what had made it so bad AND why it had won so many Tony Awards. I didn’t fault her for not knowing my change of heart on musicals. It was all part of catching up.

Lost in Translation

When it came to sharing how her relationship with her long-time boyfriend went south, during the Zoom call, The Five Love Languages was invoked.

Both of them were highly paid executives and her boyfriend’s love language was giving expensive gifts. This didn’t register with her at all.

He tried to get her to read the book. She did but concluded it wasn’t based on science.

The two had fundamentally different ideas about how to show affection. He apparently felt misunderstood, found someone who understood his language, packed up, and moved out. She was left asking, “How could someone do that?

Love Language Translator

Though the five love languages are made up, they can help me interpret ways people were trying to show me love, care, or concern.*

A co-worker tells me I did a great job on a project that I thought was just average.

Translation: Giver appreciates Words of Affirmation.

Someone in my meditation group sees I broke my foot and offers to come over and mow the lawn. I decline because we have a lawn service.

Translation: Giver appreciates Acts of Service.

Elizabeth’s old college roommate keeps sending a box full of presents on her birthday and Christmas.

Translation: Giver enjoys Receiving Gifts.

I send an email with a suggestion that it’s well past time we get caught up with a Zoom call.

Translation: I value Quality Time.

Can’t figure out for the life of me why someone gave me a gift certificate for a massage?

Translation: Giver appreciates Physical Touch.

Feeling Alone or Unloved

I attended a weekly Authentic Portland Zoom call during much of the COVID epidemic and observed that most people on the call felt no one understood them. They felt isolated, unloved, and alone. It was so common that many people could only bear to join the call once. Seeing so many people nod in agreement with what they thought to be their unique sorrows gave them the cognitive dissonance of feeling understood.

One of the memorable quotes I copied from Byron Katie’s Loving What Is, is this:

If I had a prayer, it would be this: “God spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen.”

When I’m feeling isolated or unloved, I can think of all the misguided ways people tried to reach out to me.

Or, since I once followed musicals, I can listen to this song.

PS: Writing this post reminded me of O. Henry’s story of holiday gift-giving gone awry, “The Gift of the Magi.” Read by Julie Harris. Read by you. Spoiler alert: this one has a happy ending, but could just as easily have led to divorce.

*B.S. (as opposed to P.S.) Sam called B.S. on my hypothesis that we can learn about other people’s love languages by what they try to give us. Oops.

 

What and How Should I Celebrate?

“Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way…”–Frank Costanza (George’s Dad on Seinfeld)

‘Tis the Season

One of Elizabeth’s friends was born on December 25. As a fellow Decembrist, I commiserate. Before I stopped celebrating my birthday altogether, I lived in the long winter shadow of THAT day.

The 8mm home move of my arrival home from the hospital was labeled “Bruce comes home/Dad’s new car.” It might seem petty of me to notice, but Dad (grandpa’s) new car, a Chevy Bel-Air he bought for Christmas, got more screen time.

So, in the spirit of the season, I decided to take an inventory of why, what, and how I should celebrate.

Why We Celebrate

Birthdays

The first mentions of a birthday came from Ancient Egypt, where large celebrations were put on for the Pharaoh. These celebrations were coronation dates, symbolic of the Pharaoh’s birth as a ‘god. ‘ The first of these is said to have taken place somewhere around the year 3,000 B.C.E.

Pending the unlikely event that I will be coronated as a god, I feel safe in skipping this one.

Thanksgiving

On October 18, 1864, Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation.

It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

I’m on board for gratitude. Offering up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events? Uh. Meditation is good. Celebrating by trying to replicate the meal Abraham Lincoln ate on that day? Hard pass.

Festivus – For the Rest of Us – December 23

Festivus was made popular by the Seinfeld episode “The Strike”, written by Seinfeld writer Dan O’Keefe. However, Dan based the Seinfeld story on a “Festivus” holiday his own father invented back in the 1960s/1970s.

Like the alternate holiday idea. Celebrating by offering grievances and feats of strength? Maybe not so much. December 23 seems too close to Christmas. Nice try. I’ll pass.

Christmas – December 25

Nobody knows the origin for sure.

Constantine

Under Emperor Constantine, the Church in Rome began celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25 in 336. Some say the date was chosen to outshine the Sol Invictus and pagan celebrations. But there’s much doubt around whether Christians had been trying to steal Sol Invictus’ thunder.

I think Constantinople is a cooler city name than Istanbul, but worthy of celebration? Pass.

New Year’s Day – January 1

Janus

It stems from an ancient Roman custom, the feast of the Roman god Janus. He was the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. This is also where the name for the month of January comes from, since Janus was depicted as having two opposite faces. One face looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.

Likewise, on January 1, we look back at the year that just ended and forward to the new year ahead.

To celebrate the new year, the Romans also made promises to Janus. The tradition of New Year’s resolutions stems from this ancient custom. On January 1, as the year began, it was customary to exchange cheerful words of good wishes. Shortly afterwards, on January 9, the rex sacrorum – a priesthood associated with the Roman Senate – offered the sacrifice of a ram to Janus.

This one seems mostly harmless. I’m comfortable with saying “Happy New Year.” I prefer to celebrate by using this day to listen to my entire text-to-speech gratitude journal for the previous 365 (or 366) days.

If I Were Asked to Create a Holiday…

I don’t have much experience creating a holiday, but here, for inspiration, is the story of Festivus.

What would you celebrate? How would you celebrate?

What: Community Day (The day that this posts).  How: Over the past week, I shared these two questions in my Secular Buddhism, Nurtured Nerds, Monday Cluster, Remembering Our Possibilities, and Intentionally Sam communities.

Faulty Vision

This is the thirty-fourth post from my NaNoWriMo Life Story Crafting project (find first post here). In the “12 Questions to Help Us Realize Our Potential”, it continues question six: “Tests, Allies, Enemies”. Name some tests you faced. Who were your (internal or external) allies? Who were your (internal or external) enemies? The “transformation” I chose to write about was how I came up with the Well-Being Toolbox.

“I’m enough of a showman to have learned at least this: If people don’t want to come, nothing will stop them.”–Sol Hurok, American Impresario

Head in the Clouds
Photo by Jack Moreh from Freerange Stock

Valerie asked, “Did you tell Sheila you were quitting?”

“I cc’d her,” I said, setting down the buyer’s proof I’d been working on so I could concentrate.

“Don’t you think she deserves better than that?”

What does anyone deserve? Did those playwrights who sent us their scripts deserve to have them read? Did Wendell, David, Sharon and I deserve to have our plays produced? Did Valerie, Sheila, and I deserve to have at least one producer or deep-pocket donor show up at our showcase?

“I’m out of time,” I said.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is there a better time to talk?”

I sighed. “No, there is no other time.”

“I’m not following you,” she said.

What was she not getting?

“I mean every second of every day has been accounted for by work, processing scripts, laundry, groceries, and trying to wake up from this nightmare. I’m sorry if I didn’t resign properly. I wish you and Sheila all the best with this thing.”

“Nightmare?”

I didn’t answer.

“We all have to work.”

“You know what we don’t have to do? Produce plays.”

“Look, Bruce. I haven’t been doing this for my health. A big part of why I signed on to this job was your vision. If you’re not going to be a part of this…”

Her sentence was interrupted by call waiting. It was Sheila. I tried to put Valerie on hold but accidentally hung up. I tried to tell Sheila that I had been talking to Valerie but accidentally hung up on her too. Sheila called back first.

“You really should learn to use a phone,” Sheila teased.

The call waiting interfered again.

“Okay,” I said. “Someone’s on the other line. If it’s Valerie I’m going to attempt to tell her that I’m talking to you. If I accidentally hang up, I’ll call you back. How’s that?”

She sighed. “Sure.”

This time I was successful. “Valerie?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Sheila. How about I talk to her then have her call you?”

“Fine,” she said, hanging up. Kind of a loud hang up as hang ups went.

I pushed the button again. “Sheila?”

“Yes.”

I did a fist pump. “I managed not to hang up,” I said.

“So what’s going on?”

“Oh, I just wanted you guys to know that you need a different literary manager.”

“You need help reading the scripts?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want out.”

“Well, that’s a little inconvenient in the middle of our first season.”

“I don’t think we’re in the middle.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t think there’s a season.”

“Excuse me?” She was pissed. “Did you have a problem with the showcase on Sunday? Because I’ve got news for you, my friend. If you did, you’re in the minority.”

Now I was getting pissed. “Not if you count the people who didn’t come.”

“How many times did I ask you to make more phone calls?”

“That’s what they do.”

“What?”

Now she wasn’t getting me.

“That’s what producers do,” I said. “They see something that works. They make the phone calls.”

“Duh,” Sheila said. “That’s why we worked so hard choosing plays that will work.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the plays. Our vision is the problem.”

“What’s wrong with our vision?”

“Nobody came.”

“What do you mean? Plenty of people came.”

“Zero producers,” I said. “Zero people who could make the season happen.”

“Well, maybe if you had picked up the phone.”

“They all know how to pick up the phone, but they’re not calling  playwrights.”

I pulled the current Variety out of my briefcase. My copy supervisor Maggie walked by with a proof. She looked anxious. I would no doubt be getting a lecture from her about taking personal calls at work, but I was already getting lectured, so she had to wait.

I did a quick appraisal of shows currently running on Broadway. Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Neil Simon, George Bernard Shaw. “Producers don’t need new playwrights. They don’t even need new plays.”

“I disagree,” she said.

“All the more reason to replace me with someone more in line with your vision.”

Her sigh seemed to acknowledge our standoff. She’d seen the theater on Sunday as half full. I’d seen it as half empty. And I knew from reading Variety that too many weeks of half-empty houses often prompted a closing notice. We agreed I should drop the remaining scripts with her and that we could work together again if the right project arose.

Though theatrical producers didn’t need new scripts, producers with screens to fill, large and small, did. They might not have known anything, but a number of them, and Variety, believed one woman did.

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