The question was posed to me, earlier this evening: “Why do some people not acknowledge texts for a week and a half, or a month?” I can’t speak for any of those who do this as, if I can’t respond to someone’s messages in a timely manner, I’ll let them know at least that much- “Will get back to you by (thus and such day or time).” If the person’s messages become offensive, I will say so, and free myself of her/his company, as I’ve done exactly twice, permanently, and once, temporarily.
I did a bit of thinking, though, about the phenomenon known as ghosting. People seem to remove themselves from someone’s life, without notifying the individual, because:
They’ve lost interest in the person.
They are going through difficulties/trauma, which they feel is all-encompassing and that the other person’s tests and difficulties would only add to their distress. I’ve been there, on both sides of the struggle. I can only thank God that I was taught the tools, such as deferred attention, which obviate ghosting on my part.
. They just don’t know what to say to the person anymore; perhaps because s(he) always has a counter answer for their suggestions or just plugs her/his ears to whatever they say. There are also those who don’t know how to address chronic, seemingly intractable, matters-especially if they involve the person’s family.
Ghosting, as a means to restoring one’s sense of inner harmony, is a falsehood. The person, whom one is avoiding, has not disappeared from the Universe, and unless one summons the fortitude to let her/him know that ties are being cut, for whatever reason, then there is no closure-and the same challenge, from which one is running, will present itself, in the form of another troubled person, at some point either shortly thereafter, or a few years down the road.
I read, a few days ago, about a homeless man in the Phoenix area, who had committed a heinous crime, whilst suffering psychiatric illness. The story stated that this man had been passed through the Arizona mental health system, for over a decade. He had enough of an understanding of his own condition to ask for a shower and a follow-up appointment with one of the original counselors who had first met with him, when he was brought into a facility, by the police. These requests were denied, according to the newspaper account, and he was back on the street, largely against his wishes.
In Maricopa County, there are at least a dozen agencies, which purport to address mental health issues. I once worked, briefly, for the agency that, also briefly, worked with the man in question. I was not successful in my endeavours with that agency, partly because of my also serving as Penny’s caretaker and partly because the ego feathers of the agency branch’s leadership were ruffled by my personality and manner of talking with my clients. The agency, in the case cited above, was one of several which dealt with that man, and somehow they all dropped the ball, not knowing of each others’ presence in his life. He remains a person whose only security comes when he is incarcerated.
I mention this, because in dealing with the mentally ill, each of us finds self in a bind, of sorts. When someone dear to me faced a severe mental illness, many years ago, I chose to address the matter head-on, but not address it alone. There was a team of professionals, who helped solve many of the problems and it was left to me and others close to this person, to resolve the rest. We were, however, not left alone and the person has gone on to lead a masterful life.
I have had a few people present their issues to me, over the years, both in Phoenix and here in Prescott. Two of these people stayed with my family and me, during the last two years of Penny’s life. We were able to help one of them orient his life, but the other was a work in progress, when I moved to Prescott. At that time, my own grief was still raw and I was the one who needed compassion.
Time passed, I was able to help one homeless man get situated and centered, albeit with some difficulty. Once he trusted in the agencies with whom I put him in contact, things went better. The second person I tried to help, at the behest of a mutual friend, turned out to be someone who had already tried all the resources I recommended, and was irritated by my personality and foibles, to the point where we are no longer in contact.
The beat goes on, and I am open to those who have difficulties, who don’t know to whom else to turn. I will maintain, to anyone who is suffering mental or emotional health difficulties, to not rely on social media for resolution, nor to rely on any one person for same. I am a loving soul, but I am also far from perfect and the last thing I want is for my own lifestyle, activity level or personal mental state (mild Asperger’s/autism) to waylay the progress of a person whose viewpoint, regarding that progress, is at variance with how I see things. I had a brief online conversation, this evening, with such a person. Besides, each of us is marvelous complex.
That individual is right about something, though. Mental illness is anything but a laughing matter. You will not find me including someone else’s affliction as a punchline, in my repertoire of jokes. He’s also right about people paying attention to his problems. That attention, first and foremost, needs to start with family and one, committed team of professionals, of the individual’s choosing, in consultation with family. Random people, no matter how compassionate they are, can’t direct a suffering soul towards the light, in the way that family can.
The voices of the suffering will not be silenced and they will not “go quietly into that good night.”
Many years ago, I was present in a colleague’s classroom, when a distraught boy kicked and slammed a chair. This was in the days when corporal punishment was still the norm, so it happened that my co-worker grabbed the boy’s arm and shook him, very hard. She told those of us who witnessed this, that he would remember this moment and be unlikely to repeat such a destructive behaviour.
I had my doubts about that, then, and still am doubtful. The teacher has since passed on and the boy is now a 50-year-old man. I have not seen him since I left the community where this took place. He’s still up there, in that rural community, and I wonder if he remembers that incident. I wonder how it affected his world view, and more directly, how it affected his raising of his own children.
I chose to physically punish my own child, prior to his adolescence, on a relatively few occasions. None of those occasions saw me lose my self-control, yet I have often thought since, that there had to be better ways to correct his behaviour, than presenting myself as somehow more powerful, more dominant.
There was a song, in the late 1970’s, entitled “Cruel to Be Kind”. While the songwriter included the phrase, “in the right measure”, I found myself disagreeing with the sentiment. Nonetheless, there are occasions when, in order to save one’s own sanity and overall usefulness as a human being, it’s necessary to deny another person’s request. None of us are perfect, after all, and there are times when a soul is unreasonable, in her/his expectations of others. I dealt with such a person, four years ago; with another, last year and with yet a third, over the past weekend. In each case, I was taking on a situation which would have been best handled by a team of people. In the first instance, I was able to assemble such a group and the man lived his last years among us, in a fairly comfortable environment. The other two- I was, and am, unable to help very much, as an individual. Sometime, the issues are just too complex.
That said, there was also a time, six years ago, when I was the problematic one. The person on whom I was fixated, handled the whole thing masterfully. We reached a very quiet understanding, and I made a promise that I have kept and will uphold for all eternity. That person’s kindness has been a model for me, ever since.
Kindness, then, can assume many forms, though I daresay cruelty, in its true state, is never one of those forms.
I made it an enjoyable day, by setting a few rules for myself, a few days in advance of turning sixty-nine. The more one takes care of self, the less likely it is that others can slip into the vacuum and divert attention from what matters.
I found myself trying to help another person, yesterday afternoon, and only ended up feeling like I was about to tear out what’s left of my hair. That’s not a direction in which I plan on heading again.
The first rule I have set for myself, therefore, is to limit my time on any one online discourse to twenty minutes, per day, maximum. I will make exceptions for my immediate family. Time is far better spent, at least in my view, by doing things like walking, tending to my home, cooking and reading.
The second rule is to read at least an hour each day. I got away from that practice, a few years back and found it most rewarding to return to the printed page today.
The third rule is to not procrastinate about doing a task, just because it is novel to me. Specifically, I have a new water system, involving a complicated piece of equipment. Fortunately, there is a DVD that is likely to guide me through the process, certainly more than the confusing paper diagram. I am one of those who doesn’t easily comprehend the tie between a piece of equipment and a wordless diagram. It’ll get done, though.
It’s been a fine day, though. I received my new driver’s license, good for another five years, and a document needed by a family member also arrived. Thanksgiving plans appear set, and the last few days of being 68 look to be spent in fine weather, albeit rather windy weather.
For the longest time, I went through life being purposeful, and regarding taking time with non-essentials as a waste of time. Even time in nature had to be for the purpose of reaching a goal.
Penny got me to slow down, just a bit, and to not look at life as just a thing to be accomplished. Since I wasn’t really all that ambitious, in the conventional sense, learning to relax and not be time-driven was actually refreshing.
Jordan Peterson’s twelfth rule for life is “If You See A Cat on The Road, Pet It.”. Although many of the cats I’ve encountered in life are hardly willing to be petted, the sentiment is a charming one.
Being semi-retired, I now take more time for the gentle pleasures of life. Most of the people in my life understand this, and many say it’s high time. I have encountered a few who take umbrage at my pastimes, and their words sometimes trigger memories of my past. This leads me to lash out, as I did in the earlier version of this post. Time away, reading “Abby Wize”, brought me back down to the level at which I am in a better frame of mind. Nobody likes being triggered, yet I need to keep above it.
That is the thing. I have worked hard, at a number of endeavours, both professionally and socially. I have earned a measure of taking time to smell the roses. Lest anyone think I was playing the victim card earlier- think again. Lest anyone think I am dodging social responsibility, think twice. I continue to be very much involved in community activities. That, to me, is part of taking time for what is beautiful in life. Towards that end, I enjoy walking in our lovely town, spending much time in leisurely walks through nature. I will continue to enjoy time with non-judgmental people. I will pet animals, especially dogs, which enjoy that kind of attention. As you may have guessed, I will also continue to travel widely, especially towards the late spring and summer months of next year. As Dr. Peterson says, taking time for what is meaningful is what keeps us in good health, and even helps the sick to recover.
This concludes my first set of commentaries on the Twelve Rules for Life.
The practice of chivalry has long taken a bad rap. For this, I blame the degeneration of the once noble art into infantilization, then misogyny. What was a system for honouring all that women did for the good of the world, became a means to dominance.
As the old saw goes, “When the worm turns, we all turn.” It’s been masculinity’s time to take some hits, in the name of a level playing field. The point of overkill appears to have been reached, about ten years ago.
Both genders can claim a plethora of contributions to the well-being and advancement of society, and of civilization. There are men and women of distinction, in just about every field of endeavour that comes to mind. Due to a long-standing system of such things as the disparity in salary between men and women, for the same work and the false equivalence, “whataboutism”, that gets raised, every time lingering issues of misogyny are raised, the temptation to take even more away from men is understandable.
Gender, itself, owing to both the frequent imbalance of gender-determining hormones, in all too many people, has been under a degree of attack. This is not the fault of anyone who has a greater degree of testosterone compared to estrogen, or vice versa. There are likely a good many causes of the imbalance, from genetic modification of food and drink to pollutants in the air and water.
However, I digress. The fact that I was born male, am very happy to remain male and am physically attracted only to women does not need to be renegotiated. I can be, and am, friends with a fair number of gay men and transgender people. That, and the fact that I once cried easily, has never had anything to do with my gender identity.
Jordan Peterson’s eleventh rule for life is, essentially, “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” The legitimate achievements of men, those on which a man did NOT piggy-back on the work of a woman, need not be minimized. (There are certainly plenty of the piggy-backed cases.)
Indeed, there is often a tendency for people to not know where to stop, when correcting a past wrong. The misunderstood term, microaggression,, has been offered as a reason for excess revisionism in history and for an overage of caution in determining a proper course of action. Microaggression is essentially between individuals, and is best sorted out, at that level.
Dr. Peterson carries this to the achievements of Western European/North American society. Certainly, there is much about the “Western civilization” to admire, which is a large part of why it has been so universally emulated. There is also much that needs correction, and some of the answers to our issues may be found in examining other societies.
In essence, then, no community can long exist, successfully, without equal contributions by BOTH women and men. In addition, no society can thrive on one set of social practices alone.
So, it now happens that, if I want to truly understand what Jordan Peterson is trying to say, in his Twelve Rules for Life, I will have to actually read his book. The reason is the depth of Rule 9. A simple synopsis is: Understand Your Dark Side. Know exactly that of which you are capable, and resolve not to do it.
Each of us has a dual nature, which is exactly why Christ endured 40 days of temptation and His Crucifixion. He wanted us to know that the path away from self-destruction lay totally in following the Teachings of the Divine, which derive, essentially, from the Golden Rule. Not only acts of goodness, but consciousness and dismissal of, the darkness within. Baha’u’llah endured the indignity of His tormentors, who included many within His own family, that we may see the two paths down which we might each go, and that we may choose the Path of Light.
I have had struggles, all throughout this life, and only after enduring Penny’s disease, vicariously- and as her caretaker; only after wrestling with left-over baggage, following her passing, and making a conscious decision to turn aside from the darkness, have I ended up in a place of Light. So, I get the gist of what Dr. Peterson speaks here. Seeing the dark, and teetering on the edge of it, is debilitating. Seeing the goodness, and nurturing it, sends the spirit soaring.
In examining Jordan Peterson’s remarks on what he sees as the Eighth Rule for Life, essentially “avoid vengeance”, it occurs to me that the basic issue stems from being other-focused, with regard to the quality of one’s life.
This is a recipe for disempowerment, in the sense that giving people, even those we love most, responsibility for what is good and bad in our lives. Christ used the construct He called “Satan”, or “the devil”, to illuminate the lower nature which leads people to act in ways that are of a disservice to self and others. People have taken that construct and used it as a scapegoat, as an actual being outside themselves, on whom to blame when they make bad choices. God, Himself, also gets blamed, when there is misfortune in the lives of many people.
The choice, that those who give others control over their affairs often make, following a misfortune that is laid at the feet of another, is taking revenge. This, of course, prolongs and most often deepens the agony. I can think of no problem that I ever faced, which was solved by blamecasting or looking outside myself for resolution. Indeed, when Jesus was tempted by His own human lower nature at Gethsemane, He gave us a road map for overcoming such weakness, with the words, “Get thou behind me, Satan!”
It is, simply put, up to each person to put the lower nature behind them-not often an easy task, but one which must be done.
One of the greatest gifts imparted to me, by my parents, is knowing not to make the same mistake twice. In his sixth Rule for Life, Jordan Peterson alludes to a yard full of rakes, with a slapstick comic going about, stepping on one rake after another, and whacking himself about the head repeatedly.
My difficulty with repetition of mistakes has come more from failure to generalize, to apply lessons learned from one set of mistakes to similar, but anomalous, situations.
Dr. Peterson speaks quite a bit, in this segment, about resentment. He goes through the points many of us know, as to how resentment eats away at the person who harbours it, unless he/she works through the feeling, and draws a self-improving lesson from the incident that led to the ill will.
I have learned, over the years, to work through the matter that caused me to resent a person or group. Without exception, my path has always led to determining, through the type of soul-searching recommended by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, what I may have done that led to the incident, and how I might not open the door to similar mishaps in the future.
Proactivity can eliminate a good many misfortunes. Avoiding self-aggrandizement can minimize resentment of those that do come our way. I learned this, the hard way, by being Penny’s caretaker, and not, once, thinking that the whole thing was brought on by me. Things I would better have done differently, came to mind and were fully processed. This has only made me a better person. Resentment of my lot, would not have done so.
There is no inherent tie, between being in touch with femininity and emasculation.
On a visit to one of my best friends, here in Home Base, I enjoyed another of her unfailingly fine meals, followed by plenty of food for thought. The fare, this evening, included a thorough look at the effects of excessive social policing on the male psyche.
I am a fairly sensitive soul, who notices people’s feelings and reactions to their surroundings. As such. weighing my words and actions has been a much higher priority, in my life, especially these past ten years. Yes, I have had relapses, during the low water marks of grieving and recovery, not so many years ago. Said friend has had much to do with the movement away from that low state, as has my personal faith.
I thoroughly enjoy the company of peaceful people, especially of women who have arrived at a state of personal peace. The higher goals of one’s existence are far more achievable, when one is not pre-occupied with a set of self-conscious, other-imposed expectations.
All this underscores that emasculation, depriving boys and men of their pursuit of meaning, in the name of gender equivalence, is the source of much of the violence and aimless behaviour, which we see increasing in some quarters of the populace. It cuts across all sectors of society, and its fingers may be found in the areas of drug abuse, domestic violence, unemployability, and general listlessness.
Emasculation does NOT proceed from giving women and girls the wherewithal to process their goals and pursue their dreams. It does derive, though, from making gender equity a societal seesaw. When Penny was alive, there was no time when her pursuits meant that mine did not matter, and vice versa. My son’s dreams and goals matter no less than do those of my daughter-in-law, and vice versa.
Equity of opportunity and encouragement under the law does not mean equivalence of function, any more than any group of men or women must all do the same things.
Jordan Peterson calls for less political correctness, in the overall course of civic life. To the extent that one group does not actively work to diminish another, I see his point. I don’t really believe that there are all that many women who wish to emasculate the men and boys in their lives. There is, though, an urgency that people attend to those who feel cut off from their hopes and dreams- regardless of the social inequality that led society to turn aside from their needs. Again, gender equity is NOT a social seesaw.
A Sagittarian Seeker 