What is Personal Strength? One Way to Demonstrate Who We Are

What is strength? Weakness? It’s not just aerobic capacity. It’s not just physical. It’s not how much weight we can physically lift but maybe how much reality we can allow ourselves to feel, consider, and act upon.

 

How would any of us like it if we were mistreated? If our children didn’t respect us and quarreled even with each other? If the schools our children attended were filled with people perpetually angry, constantly looking for revenge, and ready to attack before being attacked? Who held grievances they wouldn’t let go of and wouldn’t listen to anyone that expressed an opinion different from their own?

 

Or imagine a workplace like that, where no fellow worker would compromise or work on solving any problems or disagreements, and then spent their time and energy blaming someone else for the failure to get anything accomplished or a workplace filled with mistrust. And then they used fear and intimidation to get what they wanted⎼ their agenda or no agenda. These are not places filled with people I’d consider strong.

 

This is the US GOP led House of Representatives. They quarrel not only with Democrats but each other. Who could forget that, in a historic situation, it took them four days and 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy as Speaker? The Hard-Right GOP later removed McCarthy for the sin of working with Democrats to keep the government functioning⎼ and took 22 days to replace him. Too many threaten opponents with violence instead of trying to talk or negotiate.

 

Too many don’t care about governing as much as seizing power, attacking President Biden, and saying no to legislation proposed by Democrats, even if the proposed legislation will help the nation. What have they done besides holding up funding the government? Or starting an impeachment investigation into President Biden with an accusation of fraud, despite the fact that there was no evidence of fraud? Even their own witnesses in their investigation proved nothing except the corruption of the GOP accusers. Or they threaten to remove President Biden from the ballot in GOP states in order to stop or make meaningless Colorado and Maine removing DJT from the ballot for his involvement in the January 6th violent insurrection.

 

Too many accuse others of fraud to distract from the prosecutions of their own leader(s) for fraud and to make the reality of corruption and its destructiveness meaningless⎼ or to make it seem that all leaders, all of us, do it. I don’t know about anyone else, and I’m not always successful, but I do my best to be sincere and honest, not corrupt.

 

Too many use hate and violence as tools of manipulation. But hate is a way we distance ourselves from others, blinding us, or anyone, from what we’re doing to ourselves and others. It is moral weakness and pain masquerading as strength. It deprives these GOP of the character, patience, or ethical system required to work on the substantive issues we face as a nation, or to care about the pain and difficulties our fellow Americans face. Such work requires the strength to listen to and respect other people as being important. The ability to self-reflect, be patient, and feel empathy illustrate what I think is true strength.

 

The world is suffering deeply right now. Many of us in the US have so much compared to others in this country, and world. There is a great concentration of wealth causing immense poverty. Too many people worldwide are suffering from disasters caused by the climate emergency. Too many are suffering in Palestine and Israel, Ukraine, etc. The GOP just try to deny the threat the climate emergency and wars are to us; yet the threats continue. As an article in the Atlantic Monthly put it, we (our environment) can’t afford another DJT Presidency. We, all the people on the earth, can’t afford another DJT presidency. During the DJT administration, they scrubbed data on global warming, undermined the EPA and environmental laws, pulled out of international agreements, etc. etc.

 

We might cry out in anguish, “What can I do? What effect can I, alone, have?” As if, in a democracy of millions one person should have such an effect. As if each of us was an isolated being, uninfluenced by or incapable of affecting others, and independent of the earth….

 

*To read the whole piece, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

When I Was Blessed by A Crow: We Soar on Wings We Never Knew We Had, into A Sky We Never Knew Existed

Were you ever blessed by a crow?

 

When I was around 13 or 14, I started playing tackle football on a sandlot team. We played in a park less than a mile from my home. For three years, a crow used to come to the practices and for almost every game. We sometimes fed it. But mostly, it was just there, hopping around, watching, and we began to think of him, her, them as a friend. I never had the superstition that crows meant misfortune, but rather I associated them with good fortune. A blessing from nature.

 

If, when walking, sitting, or standing somewhere, ruminating⎼ lost in thought amidst the noises or silence around us⎼ and a crow flies above us, its harsh call can save us. We can listen, and then silence arrives as if summoned. Other times, the call comes so intermittently we can barely stay with it. But if we can accept its offer, however brief, and listen closely, our attention is re-awakened. We open to whatever is there in that moment.

 

It’s like hearing a friend call to us, or a voice from a dream, or from deep inside our bones. It comes to us, and we can fly into it. We can fly into a sound so full it makes room for everything. And then we soar on wings we never knew we had into a sky we never knew existed⎼ a sky so empty it welcomes us home.

 

Or if we allow ourselves to feel the life of a crow, or maybe anything, to feel that it feels life, feels wind and rain as we do⎼ or maybe differently, but just as crucially, and then we become more alive. It’s so tricky to let go of ourselves and our concerns, our schedules, our anything, or the theatre of our lives. Crows can be a blessing to us all.

 

But it’s not the only call we can focus on. When we meditate, natural sounds like the speech of crows, or chickadees, the rain, wind, or ocean⎼ or the sight of a waterfall or smell of a honeysuckle, or an artwork, anything we find beautiful⎼ can give us something to disappear into. If we welcome it, listening to the calls of whatever we find beautiful can be a wonderful way to let worry and anxiety fly away, leaving a clear sky, or mind, behind.

 

I’ve read meditation teachers advising us to find the emptiness before a thought. That’s so difficult. And I don’t know how much crows think or hold thoughts, or whether they’re adept at finding the emptiness before thought. I do know they are incredibly smart. I once wrote a blog about 3 crows who often visited my yard. I’ve tried to take their picture. But even though I’m inside the house, if I pass a window, they follow me with their eyes. If I just look, they look back. Or they simply eat. But if I pick up a camera, they know. They fly. And when I allow it, the crows fly me to silence. They reflect to me different shapes of myself, exposing who or what is watching, or doing the watching….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

The Power of the Reading Brain: Reading or Speaking a Word Can Connect Us to the Entire Universe

I’ve begun reading a book called Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, by Maryanne Wolf. Right from the beginning, the book confirmed suppositions I’ve had since I started reading and startled me into wonderful new realizations and connections.

 

Proust, the novelist named in the title, thought of reading as a sanctuary where humans could access realities they could never experience otherwise. The author uses him as a metaphor for ⎼ metaphor, literature, communication, art, creation. The squid is used in the title as an analogy for the squid-like appearance of neurons, as well as the study of neuroscience. The complexity of neurons enables our brains to learn, repair themselves, make and change billions of connections, and change ourselves. The book explains how the brain makes reading possible. Knowing how we’re able to read enhances the sense of wonder that we can read.

 

Wolf describes a discovery by cognitive scientist David Swinney, that when we read a word, even a simple one like bug, we activate in our brain not just one simple meaning but a whole host of associations. It utilizes a vast network of neurons, not just the language areas of the brain and the visual cortex, but areas for emotion, reasoning, memory, etc.

 

When we read the word bug, we can think of a crawling insect, as being bugged by a spy or an intrusive neighbor, a glitch in software, maybe even imagining ourselves in a Volkswagen Beetle. And since our minds can stray when we read, and we empathize with characters and situations we read about, those associations can connect us to incalculable other meanings and locations. It can lead to new ideas. It can, for example, connect to the vegetation or location where we’ve seen a bug, been bitten or graced by them. We bring the story of our lives into each word we read.

 

This richness of associations depends on the richness of what we’ve previously stored away. This informs us of the need for children to have a rich upbringing, to meet a variety of people, stimuli, and experiences. For them to be read to, and for them to begin reading a wide variety of literature once they’re able to read. When I was 4 or so my father read literature to me, like the romantic play Cyrano de Bergerac. This instilled in me a love for the possible intimacy of words and storytelling that has lasted throughout my life.

 

All children, and parents, need to have the economic resources to make this richness of upbringing possible⎼ to have good health care, good schools, and a society that appreciates and supports children, parents, literature, and education. As the word bug is connected to our whole lives, the child is interconnected with all of society. We all benefit from a well-cared for and educated younger generation.

 

Also, the more indirect and complex the semantical structure of the written sentence, the more vivid the experience of the reader. Wolf quotes the poet Emily Dickinson as saying, “Tell the truth, but tell it slant.” Tell it with echoes. When told indirectly, more risk is involved, and we take in more of the unexpected. Our imagination and empathy are stimulated, and we have more opportunity to encounter and make connections with ourselves and others….

 

 

*To read the whole article, please click on the following link to The Good Men Project.

An Illusion None of Us Can Afford: An Opportunity All of Us Can Embrace

We humans have many biases, but one that often asserts itself is the negativity bias, or a propensity to select, or attend to negative instead of positive information. We often expect the worst. We do this so the worst won’t happen, or so we can take steps to avoid it.

 

But often, the bias can do the opposite, and lead us to inaction. It can cause depression, or a sense of powerlessness. We can tell ourselves we can’t do anything to avoid whatever we fear will happen or to stop the dismal future we fear is inevitable⎼ even when the only thing making it inevitable is our inaction. We might hide from feeling the reality of the danger because we fear that even the thought is too much to bear; but the reality would be so much worse to face.

 

This is happening to our nation, and maybe our species, right now⎼ in the US, with the dangers of a DJT administration. We might know intellectually how awful he is but ignore what he’s telling us he will do if he wins, because we can’t believe it. Somewhere inside us, it feels impossible that such a destructive result could occur. We can’t, I can’t, believe that our world could change so drastically and get so much worse⎼ and not just the human world in the US but everywhere. But, of course, it can. If DJT somehow becomes president again, NATO would be undermined, and dictators would have even freer rein than they do now to undermine democratic nations.

 

DJT said he would invoke the Insurrection Act on day one of his imagined new administration, and use the military to make him a dictator. He’d suspend the constitution, suspend the rule of law, round up thousands, and initiate rule by him alone. It’s illegal, unconstitutional, but that has never stopped him before. We must stop him.

 

I’m not making this up. We know this. Read the 2025 Project. Listen to his speeches if you can stand it. He copies Hitler, Mussolini, etc. in his language and emotion, promises to “root out” all the “vermin,” imprison those who oppose him. He might end social freedoms, freedom of speech, voting rights, legal rights, abortion rights, workers’ rights, end legal concepts of gender, racial, and religious equality. He’d give ever more preference economically and otherwise to the rich and diminish or end government programs that serve and help most of us ⎼ he’d end Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, end protections in health care, end the Biden reductions in drug costs, end the EPA, privatize the US Post Office, possibly end public schools, etc. ⎼ and make the poorer 90% of us pay the costs of running his dictatorship.

 

Corruption would flourish. Incompetency. I remember when I was younger and traveling in other nations ruled by dictators. In such nations it was common for people to pay not only fees but bribes to officials to get anything done, to get a license to drive a car, to fish, to build a house, whatever. DJT has already shown a propensity for fraud and corruption. He promises to replace civil service workers, who must show competency for the position in order to get the job, with those whose only noteworthy attribute is being a blind follower of his campaign. Imagine the inefficiency of a whole government bureaucracy controlled and populated by people who’ve shown no competency in their jobs. If DJT somehow gets in office again, whatever restraints on him that were in place before would cease.

 

On Christmas, Rachel Maddow spoke with Chris Hayes about the threat posed by DJT Fascism ⎼ and the need for all of us to act, to vote, and help get out the vote ⎼ and speak to our neighbors. To speak not just to share information, but to get to know them. Create a connection, a community. Because this is our time. Not all generations are called upon to act so significantly….

 

*To read the whole post, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.