What Makes a Relationship Work? Allowing Another’s Well-Being to Be as Important as Our Own

This might be one of the most challenging blogs, stories, poems I ever tried to write. It tries to get to the heart of my life without getting too personal, which is clearly a delicate balance. It was written or is being written both at night, in my dreams, and in the daytime. We might all know or think we know what a relationship is. But maybe it’s also something more than we realize, constantly changing as we live.

 

Blogs often arise when I see a hint of what is usually not seen and then follow it, try to open it up, or open me up. Last night, for example, I had this feeling that there was nothing more to write about, nothing more hidden away. Then, in a dream, the hidden side of that feeling was exposed, and there certainly was something there. Something that is almost always with me.

 

In the dream, a young boy and a woman were sitting at a table with me. I didn’t know the boy. My dream self knew the woman, but I don’t think my daytime self does. We were talking about human relationships, particularly intimate ones, and the boy kept asking, what do you mean?

 

For me, like most teenagers and people in their early twenties, relationships of any type, family, friends and certainly lovers, were one of the most important aspects of life. It was not just about fun and pleasure. It was an attempt, a yearning, to get to know how another person experienced life, experienced pains and joys, challenges, and insights ⎼ and to get to know how other people saw me. Such an experience was too fascinating, too powerful to ignore. At its base was the desire to love and be loved. I thought of each person that attracted me as a mystery waiting to be revealed. But unfortunately, I only found glimpses of what I sought. I didn’t know how to go deeper. It felt like I might lose myself if I did.

 

Then it, like everything, changed. I met someone and realized I could truly love this person.

 

The psychologist Carl Jung theorized that when we’re first attracted to someone, we’re perceiving in the other elements of ourselves we’ve denied, lost, or neglected. Our attraction is an attempt to recover what was lost. We project an emotionally charged image of the other person, creating a fascination for them. And likewise, we can think this other person is responsible for our own emotions, our love.

 

But to maintain a relationship, we must let go of what first attracted us, let go of this image and fascination, to find the reality, find the truly breathing person. And if we think of the other as the source of our loving, we never see, never truly feel, who we are. We give up our power over our own emotions and look for ourselves in the wrong places. We get habituated to looking outside ourselves to satisfy what lives inside us. Instead, we must make a decision of sorts, to be honest about who these two beings standing here, now, are.

 

In the dream, I said to the young boy that a loving relationship isn’t really a relationship at all, and it’s not just between two people. But I’m not sure what the dream me meant. It sounds deep, but maybe it’s got a dream logic that makes no sense in the daylight.  Relationship– the roots and etymology of the word takes us to re, meaning back or again, and the Latin relatio, or refero (I relate, refer), fero meaning to bear or carry. It can mean a type of association, kinship, where we carry inside us another being. Another being comes alive in us. Maybe, we bear the weight of feeling vulnerable, and allowing another’s well-being to be as important as our own.

 

Maybe the dream me was referring to the fact that we all exist in a larger setting, a community, a world. Or maybe he was talking about something else……

 

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

 

**The photo is of my parents.

 

 

To Enjoy Life When Young, Honor What It Means to Get Older: To Value Aging Is to Value Life, To Value Ourselves, and Human Life In All Its Stages

Yesterday, I was going to a local movie theatre and a younger person held the door for me. I was surprised. I had the same questioning response when someone gave up a seat for me on a bus or called me “Sir.” I am in my mid-seventies and in apparently good physical shape. Were these gestures just politeness? Or was it an assumption or a stereotype of the physical capabilities of those with gray hair and wrinkles?

 

Or was it respect? How do people see me? Do younger people see me in any way like I see myself? Does my age make me seem dignified? Knowledgeable? Or fragile?

 

It’s difficult to believe, to really feel and acknowledge, we’re getting old or older. In my mind, like almost everyone I know who’s near my age, I’m 30 or 40 years younger than I am. Our psyche hasn’t caught up with our body. To ourselves, on the inside, we might feel young. Vibrant. But others see us from the outside.

 

We’re always aging, and we’re always aging together. So, if we don’t value all phases of life, even being old, even being sick, we cut ourselves off from ourselves and others.

 

In the 1960s, I remember the talk about not trusting anyone over thirty. As a sixteen to twenty-year-old, I couldn’t imagine being thirty, let alone sixty. Sixty was a time of frailty. I’m constantly astonished that I’m now not anything like I once imagined a person of seventy-plus years to be.

 

And it’s not because we’re boring that older people talk so frequently about their medical conditions, pains, and doctor visits. It’s partly a way of us saying, “Can you believe I’m going through this? Me?” We might suddenly feel we’re becoming the parents we’ve lost.

 

And we don’t want to waste time faking the reality of our lives. We want to speak of meaningful things. We want to share and feel in sync with others. And one thing most of us share is pain and wanting to know how to deal with it. How to deal with life and face change and dying.

 

As we get older, we realize the deep meaning of change and impermanence, but it’s a difficult lesson and can be hard to accept. After a heart procedure, I was told I had to temporarily stop intense or long periods of exercise. So, I did. I cut back drastically, taking only moderate walks on flatter ground. That lasted one day. Then I started counting steps again, or imagining long walks up steep hills and the views I could get. Or imagining exercises I could do.

 

Imagining I could die from exercise (or at all) was just too difficult. I mean, I could feel all this life around me⎼ the crickets, birds, wind, friends⎼ things, and places I enjoy. I mean, consciousness, except for when sleep (and somewhat even then), has always been there; luckily, no pain or illness has dimmed it for me. Slowed, maybe. But how do we imagine it ceasing, permanently?

 

We all need to learn, and schools to teach, the psychology of human development and aging. Larger public schools especially are islands of youth and as such are highly artificial and developmentally problematical. Children need to be around people of various ages, who can serve as models and provide care and support. It’s so easy for them, or anyone, when so isolated from other age groups to over-value youth, the example of their peers, and of what’s new and popular. And we can carry this isolation over to our later years….

 

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

 

The Well of Ancients: We Live in a Universe, Not A Room

Have images of someplace you have never been, or of a time or situation you have never lived, ever appeared in your mind masquerading as a memory?

 

Years ago, my parents lived in Atlantic City, New Jersey. One night we were driving on Atlantic Avenue, the main street of the city that runs parallel to and often just a block or so away from the ocean. It was raining and the yellow lights reflected off the wet street. The houses on a long section of the avenue are large, expensive dwellings, some old and going back to the 1930s or before. And suddenly I felt we were back in the 1930s during prohibition when some of the homes were owned by mobsters. The whole mood had changed into a feeling different from any other I have ever felt. This happened two or three times.

 

My great aunt Fanny, sister of my maternal grandmother, died when I was in my thirties. When I think of her apartment, I get something closer to a dream than a memory, and just pieces, not the whole. And those pieces are not from the second half of the twentieth century. They are from sometime earlier⎼ with dark hallways, a bedroom with a wall of ornate glass doors which she didn’t have, a window that looked out not onto modern streets but gray mists, people in dark clothes in a village of wood homes, in the “old country” of Eastern Europe from where my relatives emigrated.

 

And from where do our interests come? Why do some subjects, seemingly from before we were born, excite or shake us up, turn us off or get no response at all? I love the art of Japan, Tibet, Indigenous North America, Central Africa, Ancient Greece, and the Middle East, but other places less so or not at all.

 

Twenty years ago, I was on sabbatical from teaching, and my wife and I went to Greece. I taught philosophy to high school students and looked forward to visiting the birthplace of Western European philosophy.

 

We were on the island of Crete, not far from the city of Chania, driving through the mountains after visiting the ancient City of Aptera. The city had come to an end possibly in 1400 CE due to an earthquake. We stopped at the ruins of a Minoan palace, and Roman and Byzantine structures. My wife saw a herd of sheep grazing on the side of the road and asked me to stop. The sheep were not fenced in but moving freely about.

 

We stopped, got out of the car, and walked over to the sheep. I happened to look down, and there, partly exposed, were ancient bricks, Roman, maybe 2000 years old. An archaeological site was close by unearthing a Roman villa from that time, with sculptures, lintels and other artifacts just lying on the ground. We continued our walk and found ruins of a Roman cistern. Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, we saw a German bunker from World War II, and later, an Ottoman fortress.

 

What is it like to live in a place where we literally step on thousands of years of human history? …

 

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

 

**The photo is of what might be the oldest road in Europe, from Knossos, Crete.

How to Stay Sane Together: When You Can’t Leave Home, Make Home A Place You Want to Be

When you see a spouse, friend, sibling, or child every day, how do you maintain and even deepen the relationship? When many of the usual distractions and schedule are interrupted and you are isolated together due to a crisis, how do you stay sane together? It is easy to think each day is the same or you feel cooped up ⎼ or all you think about is what you can’t do and not what you can.

 

In such a situation, it is even more important than usual to increase your moment by moment awareness and realize what you often miss out on, due to your schedule or way of thinking about the world. Do you usually rush through life, from one place to another? Do you often get lost in thoughts or worries? How regularly do you check in on your thoughts, feelings, level of focus or object of awareness? How do you feel right now?

 

Right now you can strengthen your ability to look more clearly and listen more deeply. Look around at the room you are in now. What is something right here that you don’t usually notice or didn’t notice until now? Look at the ceiling, bookshelves, feel the surface of the seat you are sitting on, your belly as you breathe in. Or go outside your house, look up and down the street. What is there that you never noticed before? Or imagine someone who never visited you before was walking towards you. What would she or he see, hear, smell?

 

Notice the quality of light outside. Is it dim or sharp? Is it different from yesterday? How? Or different now than a few minutes ago? How is the light different at 8:00 am versus 4:00 or 5 pm?

 

Look up at the sky. We usually look around us but not up. It is so vast up there, isn’t it? Are there clouds? How fast are they moving or are they so thick they don’t seem to move at all? Just take it in….

 

To read the whole post, go to the Good Men Project.

Thank You.

Thursday is Thanksgiving. It’s been a very full week already. We buried my Dad on Monday, in New Jersey. This afternoon, we will drive three and a half hours to my friend’s house near Woodstock, New York, to celebrate the holiday.

 

I am lucky. For the last forty-two years or so, my wife and I have joined with my friends from College, the University of Michigan, to share the holiday together. When we were younger, we all stayed in one house, like a small community. Now, we need to rent an additional place to sleep. This was always one of the most important events of the year for me, the time I could let go of demands and just be with people without the need for any pretense. They were part of my family.

 

My Mom and Dad had a similar relationship with some friends. I had an Aunt Matilda and Uncle Murray, and Beatrice and Jack. They weren’t blood relatives but our families would celebrate holidays and go on trips together, along with my actual aunt and uncle, Sylvia and Jonas. They would all support each other. Jack, who owned a gas station, would help with the car. Murray and Mat, who sold blinds, would help with covering windows. My real uncle, Jonas, would help if there were electrical problems. My Dad, the accountant, would help with financial and tax matters. My Mom, the historian, would fill in the historical context. Etc.

 

And on this past Monday, representatives of all these families and more came or called. After a death, it is truly helpful to realize all that you are grateful for. Mostly, I am grateful for the love, support, companionship, advice—the central presence of my Dad in my life. I am grateful for all the people who were touched by my Dad’s life and who helped us say goodbye to him. I am grateful to my brother and sister-in-law who were so reliable and caring, who had to deal with so many of the arrangements, for the funeral, for my Dad’s hospice care, and all the times they had to rush to his side when I was too far away. I am thankful for my wife, Linda, for her steady wisdom and love and that look she gives me to remind me to focus on what’s most important in life. Thank you to the Rabbi and others who helped with the funeral and the hotel staff who helped with our Celebration of Life afterwards.

 

I could go on and on. I could thank other relatives, friends and neighbors from New York, Virginia, Atlantic City and other parts of New Jersey, California, and Colorado.

 

And for people I know and don’t know, who take the time to care for other people and our world. Who, despite fear of retribution, speak out, take action to oppose the abuse of powerful men, or the greediness and stupidity of this political administration. Without thousands, millions of people speaking up, the economic and other resources of this country will be ripped off by the powerful and the lives of most of us made more difficult, if not oppressive. My Dad opposed such rip offs and so all those who join together to speak out are, in some way, also family.

 

So, thank you. Enjoy the holidays.