finding allies for greater good; what would Alzheimer's reveal about your inner truth
Dave
Food for thought?
Last night at the last session of the course Constructing Your World View, many things came up.
Among others, we read the “Entropy and Original Sin” essay from Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. Even though “the road less traveled” has been my default setting for the last couple decades, the essay initially didn’t seem/read fulfilling. My norm whenever with anyone having difficulty with any point/progress/change is to try to come at it from another angle. When I took a second look at the two page essay from the POV of poetry and social justice, the essay somehow just read better.
[Quick tangent: maybe we should ponder and invite discussions and fun events? Groups discuss and hope to “win friends and influence people,” but often don’t prioritize soulful or more fun ways of finding good peeps for the various causes/projects/issues that the groups seek to serve.]
Excerpts from Scott Peck:
-Like Adam and Eve, and every one of our ancestors before us, we are all lazy.
-No matter how energetic, ambitious or even wise we may be, if we truly look into ourselves we will find laziness lurking at some level.
-For laziness takes forms other than that related to the bare number of hours spent on the job or devoted to one’s responsibilities to others.
-A major form that laziness takes is fear.
-Much of our fear is fear of a change in the status quo, a fear that we might lose what we have if we venture forth from where we are now. In the section on discipline I spoke of the fact that people find new information distinctly threatening, because if they incorporate it they will have to do a good deal of work to revise their maps of reality, and they instinctively seek to avoid that work. Consequently, more often than not they will fight against the new information rather than for its assimilation. Their resistance is motivated by fear, yes, but the basis of their fear is laziness; it is the fear of the work they will have to do.
-Similarly, in the section on love I spoke of the risks of extending ourselves into new territory, new commitments and responsibilities, new relationships and levels of existence. Here again the risk is the loss of the status quo, and the fear is of the work involved in arriving at a new status quo. So it is quite probable that Adam and Eve were afraid of what might happen to them if they were to openly question God; instead they attempted to take the easy way out, the illegitimate shortcut of sneakiness, to achieve knowledge not worked for, and hope they could get away with it. But they did not. To question God may let us in for a lot of work. But a moral of the story is that it must be done.
[Maybe we should schedule a fun, insightful evening to ponder and learn from such points?]
Other topics that came up last night:
loyalty, authority, stages of growth, identity, learning, absolutes, ethics vs. virtue, moral development, “plain moral facts,” spiritual maturity, embeddedness (from youth to death, what/how/why are you embedded in groups/ideas/cultures/processes), what shapes you, does getting what you want make you happy, awareness of the ‘otherness’ of people, projections…
[Whew, and all within two hours!
Class will come up again in the fall for those that will gift themselves prioritizing it.
-I walked into this class following a Yulebock holiday event. At the start of the first session, we were asked why we were there. I responded, “I guess I’m here because of a happy happenstance. I thought I was coming to the World Religions series.”
-Even though I had already taken the Building Your Own Theology series, I remembered (from the first session taken a decade ago) that it was shared that you could retake that series regularly and be surprised at what new things would come up as well as the lessons to be deeper looked at/learned/re-learned. I took a look at the binder of readings and realized that though it’d take effort, it’d be valuable to discuss those kinds of readings (and always continue learning from others).]
Something else that came up last night was Alzheimer’s, filters, identity, who are we really…
I shared (from volunteer experiences) that it seemed to me that people are their truer selves if they get Alzheimer’s. Some are nice. Some (once Alzheimer’s removes the filters) are shall we say “not nice.”
I shared the story of a love triangle I witnessed at a retirement community my wife ran. C and M met at the memory care community and became a couple for about two years. They were just plain cute together, until a new resident moved in. She (can’t and don’t want to remember her name), though physically wheelchair bound, was higher functioning and decided she wanted C. She fairly easily manipulated C and stole him from M. At dances (where they always need more men to dance), it was sad for me to see C sitting with that other lady (who’d grab and watch him like a hawk), when C used to smile more and dance/stand-shuffle with M (and the other ladies and nurses). M was less mobile and couldn’t really dance, but she clearly liked watching C and people dance. M shared (all this was harmless, of course), never seemed to be jealous, and was always peaceful (and a privilege for me to have any time with her). [Can you hear the song/lyric “Let it be a dance we do”?]
C was jovial and effortlessly flirted. When the estate was being eaten away at thousands per month for the “good,” experimental, not-covered meds, C’s family ordered pulling those meds. C went from active and affable to just sitting in a chair. Fortunately, moral code/guilt/a bit of guidance from the community Exec Director/whatever it was intervened (after all, it was C’s money), and the family reauthorized purchasing those meds. C went back to his playful self.
Several things to tease out from this. We are all (as one professor said in a documentary) “walking sacks of mostly water.” Within that “water” and the three pound universe (the brain) is a balance of neurochemicals, history of experiences, filters, and psychological make-up. Just like anyone wrestling with memory care, a little more or less of the balance that makes us who we are can make the difference between sullen or lively, selfish or kind, ambivalent or difference-making...
Besides C’s story, this morning I thought of another resident who was a mean lady. She was openly, “no filters” racist. Was stressful for the staff to be eagle-eye watched, suspected, berated, racial-slurs… It got bad enough that the Executive Director had to additionally game plan with staff, resident’s family, and trainings. Not surprisingly, race/status/service/treatment/civility… are commonplace issues in retirement communities (regardless if the residents lost or still have their memories).
I can’t help but wonder what that staff thought about race relations (and people’s true identities). Sure, many in the course of a day could/would be appropriate or polite, but did that staff ever entertain the notion of what if Alzheimer’s (or some hypothetical magical mist in the air) or a version of it removed people’s filters/pc/reserved behaviors. Who would people be really?
Maybe it’d foster dialog, open doors, or otherwise help with your activism work if we invite people to consider what kind of person would you/we/they be if something like Alzheimer’s removed the filters. It’s not enough to think you’re a good person, but what really resides deeper? Would you snicker/judge/comment from afar, or would you be in it for the long haul and show up to resist a tyrant?
How would/do they vote (when they have the anonymity of the voting booth, or anonymity of not showing up to vote --like some of the post-election day protesters that were found to not have voted and some not even registered to vote)?
How would they show up or not show up for racial justice, social justice, or any activism work (when that work/duty might conflict with the thousands of other things that can occupy a day or lifetime)?
Could Trump be a wake-up gift to the world?
Consider rescanning above the loaded, thought provoking topics/discussion from last night (especially Peck’s ideas about laziness, entropy, road less traveled).
Which (daily/yearly) forks in the road will we take?
Miles (and votes) to go before we sleep,
Dave
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Though the post-election reactions would naturally provide a surge, in such movements, I often wonder about but always welcome both fair-weather supporters and the people who’ll still be there months or years later (everyone is needed). Day after the Inauguration, at KC’s March on Washington Park, I noticed faces I’d seen 14 years prior, younger people I’d seen in the last few years (in the never-ending circle of life challenging the “old guard” –but some bumps in the road, difficulties with diverse interests, Board squabbles… in last couple years could make or break whether or not generations and groups can collaborate to achieve societal wins), and lots of energized new faces.
Upcoming events for you to consider:
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Women’s Political Caucus has 4th Thursdays monthly meetings.
Women’s Equality Day coming up August 26.
Not surprisingly, last night’s monthly Women’s Political Caucus meeting (still respectably about 200 --can’t begin to guess at the male/female numbers) had fewer than the standing room only hundreds of the prior month. http://gkcwpc.org/ is one of your best sources for finding, screening, and supporting local candidates.
Give this group your hours and dollars and numbers (with your presence), and they will do good things with it.
https://www.facebook.com/events/105331626657679
Campaign School for Candidates in Local Elections
Saturday, February 25 at 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Roofers Local #20 Union Hall 6321 Blue Ridge Blvd Raytown, MO 64133
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https://www.letamericavote.org/
Google “let America vote” for articles.
Who is disenfranchised makes such a big diff in who votes and what policies and realities you’ll subsequently be living with.
Following his loss to Sen. Blunt, former MO Sec. of State Jason Kander earned this compliment from Obama: He’s not done. Watch this one.
The Tao offers this lesson: sometimes when you win, you may lose more than you know. Sometimes when you lose, you may win more than you know.
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Protect the Affordable Care Act Town Hall
https://www.facebook.com/events/133989387118108/
Saturday, February 25 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Teamsters' Union Hall (4501 Emanuel Cleaver II Blvd, KCMO, 64130)
Sponsors:
KC’s local organizers of Missouri Jobs With Justice http://www.mojwj.org/
https://heartlandallianceforprogress.wordpress.com/ has neat links (for officials, lobbyists, events…).
http://www.indivisiblekc.com/calls-to-action