Mini-Enlightenment
The British Library
I had decided to participate in our fifty-fifth high school class reunion. Participate, because I served on the committee to organize the event, which involved lots of emailing and a few internet telephone conferences. A big deal for me as my life is solitary and I not only don’t meet with others, I don’t email or telephone. This is who I am and have been for a lifetime.
I live in Seattle and the reunion was held in Morristown NJ. Just before the trip I stopped taking one medication and started taking Prozac. To begin, my emotional state was precarious and an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) involves major changes at the very synapse level in the brain. Any little thing could set me off. A cross-country trip involving all kinds of arrangements and meeting classmates I had not seen for more than a half-century came at the very worst time.
Overempathy
During the evening of the reunion dinner, the photographer asked us to gather for a group portrait. Being a photographer, I know the stress of getting a large group’s attention and cooperation. We were gathered together, but everyone was talking and the photographer’s command to the group from the balcony above could not be heard in the din. I empathized with the photographer, taking on his stress in his unsuccessful attempts at getting our attention and quieting us down. Without forethought, I screamed, “Shut up!” People continued to talk together in small groups and I screamed again at the top of my lungs, “Shuuuuut Uuuuuuup!” Suddenly complete silence.
The night before, a classmate had taken my wife and me out to a plush, intimate restaurant. He was a successful businessman. He wanted to reunite our childhood friendship. The day after the reunion dinner he told me he would not be coming through Seattle to get together as promised. I said, “Was it because of my outburst?” No reply.
At the reunion dinner another classmate, a highly successful criminal lawyer, gave me a warm greeting and smile sometime in the evening after my outburst. He is successful because he does not place himself above his criminal clients. He keeps in mind “If not for fortune . . . .”
Radical Acceptance
I recalled this event now as I was reading “Become What You Are” by Alan Watts.Watts discusses true spiritual illumination or enlightenment where you are free to think of anything and nothing, to love and to fear, to be joyful or sad . . . to be both a sage and a fool, to feel both compassion and anger, to experience both bliss and agony. Basically to become who you are, the good, bad, and ugly. I admire those of us who know who they are and allow others to be as they are. Watts calls this “spiritual illumination,” I think mini-enlightenment works as well.
My wife and I attended Thanksgiving dinner at our in-laws. Two of the brothers had been outstanding football players in high school and college. They come from a loving and supporting family. They are both big, burly, and rough around the edges. Opposite ends of the spectrum from me. Not anyone I might usually approach. But they are who they are and friendly and seemed accepting of me.
I am fortunate I am “forced” to get out and meet people so different from me. Most of us are attracted to those most like ourselves. But if we associate only with others like ourselves, we live in a dichotomous world of I and thou. We not only don’t know “thou,” but we don’t really get to know who we are. When I meet others so different and get to know them a bit, at eighty, I get a chance to grow.
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
