Practicing Non-Attachment and Compassion

The End

2011-01-01T18:25:00.000-08:00

I dedicate my life to achieving self-actualization;
I dedicate my life to helping others achieve self-actualization;
I dedicate my life to peaceful acts;
I dedicate my life to peaceful thoughts;

I meditate on compassion;
I meditate on cause and effect;

I forgive;

I release all attachments.
I release my self;

I let go.

Week 52

2010-12-25T12:58:00.000-08:00

The Spike

(an op-ed)

My great great grandfather was named Col. Thomas Wentworth Peirce. My name is Tom Jr., although technically I'm Tom IV.

Col. Tom has an interesting background. At one point he was one of the richest men in the country, having financed the construction of a railroad down in Texas. You can google him and read about it on-line, if you're interested.

While Col. Tom was away, he made arrangements to have his house built in Topsfield, Mass. It was to be a large three story manor overlooking fields and a lake. He chose the location because it took only one change of horses to ride into Boston.

He returned from Texas to find the house completed with a small problem: it was constructed facing the wrong direction. The Salon was supposed to overlook the view, but the entire house was reversed so that the beautiful library looked onto the horse fields behind the house.

I'm not sure what Col. Tom thought about all that, but perhaps it was an omen of sorts, indicating that great success can have unexpected consequences.

I've heard that Col. Tom died fairly young of a heart attack, perhaps also an alcoholic. One item I treasure, however, is a collection of humorous verses with his name hand signed inside, dated 1855. It makes me feel happy to believe that he had a sense of humor.

His son was also named Tom Peirce. Despite a market crash that wiped out a considerable amount of the family fortune, Tom still inherited a comfortable life. He became a gentleman farmer. Col. Tom had made a gamble with some of his wealth by buying up land in Mexico.

He bought up enough land equal to the size of Rhode Island and was gambling that the United States would be bold enough to annex Mexico, or a good portion of it, into the Texas territories. His son, Tom Jr., spent much of his life trying to get back claims to this land. It was a fruitless endeavor as Mexico took most of it back. I'm not sure of all the details but have a stack of his letters and land journals to sift through to figure it out at some point.

Tom Jr.'s wife was a bon vivant of the 1920s who apparently thought Tom to be a pretty boring guy. She married him and then went onto a fast lane life of parties and horse races, making the scandal papers of the day. They had one son, also named Tom, then divorced.

Tom remarried a sweet young thing and had four kids, one of whom was my grandfather. Since the name Tom had already been taken, my grandfather was called John Peirce. He had three brothers. Their father, my great grandfather, died fairly young of a heart attack, so the mother was left to raise four boys. Eventually, they inherited what remained of the family fortune...greatly diminished by vulturous lawyers but still relatively bountiful by the standards of the day.

My grandfather's brothers were neer-do-wells who threw their fortunes away, marrying multiple times, leaving broken homes and lives behind them. My grandfather, however, felt a great burden of family history. He also married well, into a family arguably more wealthy than his own, the Minots. They were descended from French petite aristocracy and re-made their fortune through shipping on the China seas. There was only one problem with my grandfather: although extremely smart, he lacked the capacity for empathy and was, from everything I saw and heard, a rather mean alcoholic.

My father was named Tom Peirce out of my grandfather's effort to reestablish the family heritage. Sadly, he was sent away to boarding school very young, I think about in third grade. He wrote letters home each week which I have. They are heartbreaking. Clearly he was an exceptionally intelligent and sensitive child starving for affection. My grandparents, though lacked the capacity to give affection, most probably due to their own sad childhoods.

After my grandfather came back from World War II, he apparently took over the household in a belligerent way. My memory of my grandfather is of him yelling at me every summer vacation because I didn't remember how to sail from my week there visiting a year earlier. I dreaded contact with him where every comment would only serve to reinforce how stupid and worthless he perceived me to be. I can only imagine what my poor father had to experience.

My father was a smart guy. He went to Stanford and Harvard Business School and was a vice president of international marketing in Geneva. I'll jump ahead a bit and let you know that he died when I was in college in a car crash. I went to a college counsellor at Tufts after it happened at the suggestion of a friend. The counsellor, a very nice guy, asked me to describe my father. I forget what I said, but it was something I felt was rather innocuous. "What happened to your father to warp him so profoundly?" the counsellor asked me.

That was the beginning of confronting my father's legacy, but it took another twenty odd years to fully come to terms with the past.

I don't have a lot of memories of my father. My earliest one was when I was about three. We lived in Canada (where I was born) and I got a train set for Christmas. I was so excited I kept pestering my father to help me set it up. This made him furious. Finally, later in the evening, he stormed up to the playroom to put the train set together.

As he was angrily setting it up I took two trains that were wired together and bent them. "Now you've broken it!" my father yelled. He stormed away. It was the first time I experienced such anger so it made a deep emotional impact on me. I never understood what I had broken or why it couldn't be fixed. The train set was thrown out.

We moved to Switzerland and, based on letters I found after my grandfather died, my father almost immediately began an affair with his much younger secretary. Her name was Ilse (later they married, thus, she is Ilse Peirce). I have few memories of my father in Switzerland except for him taking me to her apartment.

He would drop me off with her and leave, I suppose in some truly distorted way trying to get me to form a bond with her. There was nothing for me to do there. Ilse sat on the couch smoking, probably as uncomfortable as I was. Eventually I'd panic and want to see my father.

After much pleading Ilse would reveal to me my father's location, typically downstairs at the bar. i remember her laughing as I tried to figure out the locks on the door and then telling me that she would only let me out if I kissed her. Out of desperation I complied. I see now that this was the defining moment where I began to hate myself because I could not comprehend such manipulative evil. As soon as my father returned she would transform into a sweet innocent person. Truly Hans Christian Anderson and others who have written about evil stepmothers are among the most perceptive of the world's psychologists.

I rarely saw my father except when he came home to drink and beat up my mother. He tried to kill her multiple times in front of me. He told his family that my mother was crazy and a gold digger. Meanwhile, my father had some sort of bad opium trip while on business in the Mideast. He got into parapsychology and thought he could talk to ghosts and manipulate people with his mind. It's hard to know exactly what his problem was - clearly drinking two bottles of scotch a day and a bad drug trip didn't help. My father divorced my mother, who always loved him, and married his mistress.

While I rarely saw my father after that, he did have some lucid moments on vacation. What he told me repeatedly was that he wanted me to be happy and to inherit the spike which he kept on his desk. The spike is a silver spike that my great great grandfather, Col. Tom, had symbolically hammered into the ground at the completion of the railroad. "This will go to you," my father told me.

Due to my father's emotional and substance abuse issues, he lost his job and hit rock bottom. His new wife had her green card and had no more use for my father. My father called my sister and told her that his wife was leaving him. My father was killed a couple of days later in a car crash. He died without a will.

Ilse was the grieving widow to be consoled by family. Of course she received all my father's possessions and would not give anything, even a photo, to his children. My grandfather, who always struck me as in lust with her (turning into a beat red school boy in her presence) made sure she inherited a significant portion of my grandfather's assets and changed my grandmother's trust documents to have monies go to Ilse.

And the spike? I asked Ilse if could have it as the one memory of my father, as he told me he wanted me to have it. "No! you'll never get it!!" she shrieked. I see her once a year at an annual summer family gathering. All my father's family hugs her and calls her darling.

In college my grandfather took me to dinner for the purpose of telling me that I should grow up and accept her as my "real" mother. I considered throwing my wine into my grandfather's face, but decided to simply walk out instead. I'm still chastised by my relatives for my "childish" behavior in not welcoming her into my heart.

I let go of the spike.

Week 51

2010-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

Illusions
I release the illusions that I may carry, especially related to love.

I was accepted into a creative writing program, focusing on poetry, at The Johns Hopkins University. This is an excerpt of a fictional prose piece about attachment to illusions and the pain of change:
--

the witches danced as harry departed, a geddes baby breathes only stars, rosaries in the choir fell forgotted, saint leslie ann, wanderjahr; leslie parrish wore many faces, harry's muse he loved them all, each one had many graces, gracing his heart with their siren call;

only one of them is real, the rest celluloid desires past, and alone with his last meal, its that face that keeps harry steadfast; he saw flora and loved true, with no other purpose at all, but cursed he couldn't reach through, her mirage in that marbled hall;

life, pain and hurt, release desire to move beyond, unless living in denial is less work and sings a softer song; i know which face i love (he said), 1978 eyes shined 1776 in truth, misty eyelashes glistening above (he said), lips below touched with vermouth;

her as her because then he became fully human, receiving hope from above, receiving sacred communion; but defeated at trentonious, truth and compassion disengaged, "what might have been between us," harry asked, contemplating the waves;

Week 50

2010-12-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

Happiness.

I had a muse who brought me happiness. I let go.

Week 49

2010-12-04T09:27:00.000-08:00

Relationships

I am thankful for having had a meaningful relationship with a woman I am very deeply in love with and who told me, at the time, that she loved me. All things must pass; I let go of this relationship...I release it.
--
to distract my mind….
from my lost love….
i went to Idle Time Books….
to have some looks….

poetry is relaxing….
let’s see, looking….
browsing….
soothing….

oh, Richard Wilbur….
Things of This World….
my sweetie’s favorite….
she could quote it and ….

hmmm...Louise Erdrich….
Baptism of Desire….
until, Michael Dorris, a bag over his head….
she crushed his heart until he was dead.... no pass...

Marianne Moore….
Tell Me, Tell Me….
Poems of New York….
oh, my Sweetie loved (loves?) New York too…. well, maybe, then...

Barbra Guest….
Moscow Mansions….
isn't she of the New York School?….
New York times two (pass)….

i’ll switch to art….
let’s see, Picasso, Cocteau, Marsh….
my Sweetie was (is?) an art scholar….
renaissance maps, she was too smart...pass….

er, ah, psychology?...
there’s the ticket… i might learn a thing or two….
Freud on Eros…. Adler on love and power...hmmm...our peace was so sweet…
(no, pass on them all, damn it! excuse me, let me through...)

head for the exit…. give a pass on Blink….
pass Homer (classics, her favorite) and his Iliad, I think....
pass Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo) 'cause she loved (loves?) Hugo too....
pass them all and run though the thicket of memories and glue....

and, forget….
forget….forget….I wonder what she’s reading now?
pour another double…. blur the vision….
blur the past….blur the pain….and write, to remember not to forget.

Week 48

2010-11-27T17:19:00.000-08:00

Week 47

2010-11-20T04:53:00.000-08:00

Week 46

2010-11-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

REGRET
The deepest pain I feel is the regret at having hurt a woman I deeply loved by having acted in a thoughtless and self-absorbed way. There is nothing I can do to change the past and the regret has eaten away at me. I meditate on cause-and-effect, let go of the past regret, and dedicate myself to a life of self-actualization and positive, supportive energy towards those around me.

Week 45

2010-11-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

TRAUMA

I recently saw the movie The Killer Inside Me starring Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson. Affleck plays a sociopath and I had to keep my eyes closed through much of it, the violence was so intense. I have never hit or yelled at another person and try to avoid aggressive confrontation; violence to me seems the lowest level of ignorance. What resonated with me was the fear and incomprehension that was reflected in Alba's and Hudson's eyes when Affleck first started hitting them, after having told each that he was deeply in love with them and having seduced them. Even as he was killing them, they told Affleck "I love you." The reason their eyes resonated with me is that it reflected the same incomprehension I felt when my I was experiencing abuse as a child. The mind isn't meant to comprehend such betrayal; emotions of love and trust are so profound that they last even when the abuser is hitting. I meditate on cause-and-effect and let go of the trauma of my past.

Week 44

2010-10-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

NEEDINESS

I've written elsewhere about the difficulty of coming to terms with an abusive past. Since then, I've certainly come a long way. For instance, I am now a volunteer counsellor with the DC Rape Crisis Center. When I was in my lowest point in life I reached out to the three people I felt I could trust and open up to. My neighbor slammed her door in my face. My ex-girlfriend hung up on me. Another simply stood mute. As I was crying in front of them asking for their help, I could not understand why these people who had told me they cared about me were so filled with scorn and disdain. I can come up with endless theories but, far more importantly, what I see now is that I need to feel compassion for myself. I am working on getting over the need to be loved; that awful, destructive neediness which leads to a blubbering expression of insecurities. No one can fulfill that but myself. I meditate on cause-and-effect and on compassion for myself and for others. I let go of neediness.

Week 43

2010-10-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

If I Were To Die Today
(a poem in progress by Wentworth)

If I were to die today

Three days from today my receptionist at work
would ask: "where's Tom, today?"

The police would arrive and say,
"Another lonely corpse today."

The EMS would say, "It stinks his having been
rotting away."

The morgue intake-clerk would ask,
"Who is his next of kin, anyway?"

My Mom would say,
"I'd hoped to sleep in today."

My Dad would say,
"I'll greet him at the Pearly Gates today."

His second wife would say,
"Sweet revenge came my way."

My Grandad would say,
"I never much liked him, okay?"

My GrandPops would say,
"Let's do an accounting before we pray."

My sister would say,
"This really isn't convenient today."

My other one would say,
"He was a nice guy, anyway."

My ex would say,
"Break out the Champagne, today."

Her girlfriend would say,
"It's like Mardi Gras today!"

Her childhood friend would say,
"This calls for a party today!"

My neighbor would say,
"i'm gonna grab some swag today!"

My boss would say,
"Who is next for a window office, today?"

My colleague would say,
"Not me, but I'd like his chair, anyway."

My broker would say,
"Someone's got a nice payday."

My personnel officer would say,
"He's saved Uncle Sam money today."

My Dalai Lama would say,
"Life's all emptiness, anyway."

My God would say,
"I'm not too pleased with how you
used your way."

--
But I haven't died yet.

So, I've got another day, today

Week 42

2010-10-16T03:46:00.000-07:00

CHILDHOOD

I read somewhere that all of us, no matter what our age, are who we were at age 7. The rest of our lives are living in reaction to the narrative we created for ourselves during those formative years.

My father neglected his children as we were growing up, spending most of his time with his much younger Austrian mistress, occasionally returning "home" to drink, yell, beat up my mother and then to disappear. After he divorced I'd see him two weeks a year (he lived overseas). His new wife was, from my perspective, insanely jealous of his kids receiving any attention and throughout the visit she would moan on and on about her tragic childhood of deprivation. My father would listen transfixed, completely ignoring his kids during their yearly visit.

What is interesting to me as an adult is that most of my memories of my father's interaction are of him telling me that I was stupid, "retarded" or spoiled. I understand now that he was projecting unresolved childhood issues onto me and onto his mistress in a counter-intuitive manner.

The absorption with his mistress reflected attention he craved. He was unconsciously projecting himself onto the mistress and giving her the attention he lacked as a child (he too was severely emotionally neglected and abused as a child). As his child I was part of him and because he loathed himself, he loathed me.

I tried at many points to broach these insights with him but he would always respond that I was naive or just didn't get it (a defensive mechanism on his part). His starkest trait was that he completely lacked the capacity for empathy.
--
It is fascinating to me that years later the woman who I fell deeply in love with is one who has difficulty expressing empathy. My experience with her reflected the emotional experience of my childhood; her telling me that she loved me (even moving in with me) but keeping me off balance emotionally in a number of ways. Whenever I tried to create emotional intimacy with her she simply responded by giving me the silent treatment, eventually cutting off all contact and telling her friends to never talk to me either. My persistence in trying to communicate with her reflected the pattern I had become accustomed to as a child. In other words, I was reacting to my narrative developed as a seven year old boy.
--
A college friend got divorced after his wife accused him of emotional abuse. I suggested to him that we both had areas where we could improve and that we could give each other advice on our weak areas. His response was to yell at me and accuse me of thinking I'm better than him. He then sent me a list of bible verses such as "he who throws the first stone should look at himself," and such. I told him to forget it and dropped contact.
--
The most painful episode of my life dealt with that former girlfriend I mentioned above. Three years after she cut off contact I wrote her an email taking responsibility for my shortcomings, explaining how I had grown as a person and reaching out to her to offer her support and friendship and love (typical of abuse survivors constantly blaming themselves for the abuse of others). She responded with anger.

--
All of the above responses are reflections of those damaged seven year-old children still within each of the adults. They haven't confronted their wounds and so are acting out in the best way children know how: temper and anger. It is tragic.
--
My goal is to not focus on others or to blame them but to heal wounds I carry so that I can be a source of support for others. There are those who teach a way forward, like the Dalai Lama. And I shall try to live as one who is a trustworthy, reliable, supportive and compassionate person, to reach a life of value to others.

Week 41

2010-10-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form.

Week 40

2010-10-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

FEAR

I meditate on freeing myself from the fear generated by the anger and hostility of others and living for self-actualization.

Week 39

2010-09-25T04:27:00.000-07:00

DEPRESSION

I meditate on cause-and-effect, let go of the past, let go of the future and embrace the present. I live for self-actualization and the freedom from my ignorance. I believe in happiness.

Week 38

2010-09-18T00:26:00.000-07:00

DESPAIR

It is easy for me to feel despair and often I do. I am essentially living in a prison created by myself. And this realization is the path out: to let go of the past and future, to live in the present, to meditate on cause-and-effect, to study the sutra's, to strive for self-actualization, to free myself from ignorance, and to live for the purpose of helping other's in emotional pain. At my lowest point, when I reached out to my ex-girlfriend for support only to have her viciously reject me, I wondered how could I go on?

There are two people I've known who committed suicide. My close friend Francie in the Peace Corps was a stunningly beautiful woman who was very friendly to me. I appreciated this since I am generally not outgoing but do want friends. She ended up marrying a fellow volunteer and I went to her wedding. Her father was so proud and her husband deeply in love.

I lived in Takoma Park near where she lived so ran into her from time-to-time. The last time I saw her she was parking her car in Takoma Park. I considered going up to say "hello" but she looked extremely frazzled and upset so I thought maybe I better not intrude. A week later I learned that she killed herself. I am left always wondering: what if I had gone to her that day and reached out as a friend? Could it have made a difference? I'll never know.

The other person was my grandmother's brother (my great uncle?). His name was Bill Lewis and he lived in Fort Worth, Texas. he was one of the original cartoonists for Walt Disney. When I was about 15 I was visiting my grandmother when she received a call from Texas. She was at first thrilled to hear from a relative but then sunk as she learned the purpose of the call: to inform her that her brother had shot himself. Later that summer I went on a family trip. We went through Fort Worth and I met the niece of Bill Lewis. She told me how she had found his body. He had shot himself in the kitchen. It was awful and traumatic for her. She gave me a pile of his drawings which she didn't know what to do with. I have many of them framed in my apartment.

I am sure that my "Uncle Bill" never considered how much it would have meant to me to meet him, since I too love cartooning. I doubt he considered the traumatic effect his suicide would have on his niece.

Of course, the person who commits suicide is in such emotional pain that thinking of others is the last thing on their mind. In fact, suicide is really an attempt to gain some sort of emotional control by people who feel emotionally alienated. Still, suicide is a selfish act with unintentional consequences on the emotional lives of others.

If I committed suicide out of despair it would on most levels go either unnoticed or be celebrated by some, like my ex-girlfriend (I imagine). But, I wonder, what would the unintentional consequences be that I don't see? There is a chance I can have a positive effect on the life of another in the future....and giving up that chance seems selfish no matter what pain I am facing.

Also, I like to believe in the idea of reincarnation. It is a useful idea because it is centered on the idea of creating merit to achieve a higher rebirth. We only come around as humans once, for the purpose of achieving self-actualization. To commit suicide would halt the path towards self-actualization, this opportunity I've been given.

I understand the roots of my despair, the childhood I experienced created certain patterns of behavior that were counterproductive, like distrusting relationships, so that now I am alone. That is a cause for despair. But knowing that, through self-awareness I can create bonds with people and find happiness. I thus visualize a positive future where I can be an empathetic, supportive friend to others. I meditate on freeing myself from despair and finding happiness.

Week 37

2010-09-11T00:24:00.000-07:00

DESIRE

I learned how to love too late. By then she was gone into the sands of time.

There is no question that through her I believed in love at first sight. I loved her the moment I saw her. It was an odd twist of fate that brought us together.

I had decided to learn about art and so started a subscription to ArtNews. She had placed an ad for a painting in the first issue I received. I went to the gallery to look - and there she was.

I still love her and always will. I haven't dated since her. I realize that most people won't understand, but let me share a secret with you: most people don't love beyond their ego.

With her I was set free. For one shining moment, with her I truly lived.

When my relationship ended I was in deep pain; I didn't want it to end but to evolve to a higher level of intimacy and understanding.

The hardest thing was to believe in another person and yet to not be able to effectively communicate and to convince them to share the same vision. I misguidedly pounded my head against the wall trying to communicate, communicate, communicate.

What has helped me finally, was coming to an understanding of the Buddhist saying: "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." The core meaning here is that all is transitory. She was the person I knew; she was never the person I knew....she is who I knew, she is someone different.

In other words, the concept of any person's "self" is simply an illusion. I clung to that "self" of her that I knew and profoundly loved, not understanding that, in fact, it no longer exists and really only existed as an illusion.

And from this I learned, always appreciate the moment.

Here is a link explaining the concept of emptiness in Buddhism:

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html

"Marvelously, Love squeezes me tight and holds me all the time, as a painter locks his gaze on a model to make a painted likeness, so fair lady do I, who within my heart carry your face." (from a Renaissance poet)

I still physically feel the pain of love and loss for her. I see why I loved her: she's one in a million. Of course there's a part of her I'll never know.

I am not an angry person and am scared of her relentless anger towards me. I feel compassion for her, for whatever root cause of her pain she carries, the basis for the anger which is projected onto me.

But, sometimes, for no reason at all, I'll involuntarily say her name.... A plea or a prayer? It goes unanswered, either way. I meditate on releasing desire.

Week 36

2010-09-04T00:22:00.000-07:00

EXPECTATIONS

An insightful author wrote that the cause of anger is misplaced expectations. Years ago, I told an ex-girlfriend that I wanted to be "friends." What I meant by this, but didn't know how to express, was that I wanted emotional intimacy. She reacted with fury, cutting off all contact. I tried to repair the damage by writing to her thoughtful letters which only served to fuel her anger. Anger has always scared me and I struggled to understand hers. I now see that she must have had expectations of me that went beyond seeing me in the context of my environment and as a person. When these expectations weren't met, her natural reaction was anger. This has taught me that letting go of expectations is critical. As our knowledge is limited, one can never fully have realistic expectations. What is more productive is to communicate feelings and goals and the means to achieve such goals. How little I knew many years ago. It is very hard to be the focus of her relentless fury. I meditate on the release of expectations.

Week 35

2010-08-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

A recurring theme in Buddhism is t let go of the "self". I've always struggled with this because I've grown up with such low self-esteem that I didn't feel I had much of a "self" to let go of. Yet, I've come to understand that my small ego can be compensated for by speaking in a way that comes across as judgmental or "self-righteous". This is the "self" I feel I need to let go of. Self-righteousness is dangerous because it blocks self-actualization. It does this by relinquishing insight into cause and effect to the illusion of the superior sense of "I". I meditate on cause-and-effect to relinquish self-righteousness.

Week 34

2010-08-21T04:04:00.000-07:00

IGNORANCE

In The Connected Discourses on Causation, (a section of The Connected Discourse of the Buddha -copyright Wisdom Publications, 2000) the Buddha said:

"...I will teach you dependent origination. With ignorance as condition, volitional formations come to be; with volitional formations as condition, consciousness; with consciousness as condition, name-and-form; with name and form as condition, the six sense bases; with the six sense bases as condition, contact; with contact as condition, feeling; with feeling as condition, craving; with craving as condition clinging; with clinging as condition, existence; with existence as condition, birth; with birth as condition, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure and despair. Such is the origin of suffering. This is called dependent origination."

The great revelation by the Buddha is that ignorance is the basis of suffering. It would be easy for me to complain about the ignorance of others, but as I have awoken I've found that my ignorance is so great as to be the only ignorance worthy of my focus. Years ago, a former girlfriend ended a relationship by sending me a one sentence email at work which read: "I don't know why but our relationship is over, don't contact me again." Emotionally, this was like experiencing the suicide of another. What remained was overwhelming guilt and the unanswered question: "why?". I wrote to ask what happened which resulted in a torment of anger. This weekend I came to the realization that I had burdened her too much with my own needs and was insensitive to hers. These many years later I sent her an email saying that I could be a positive and supportive person for her, should she wish.

And now I live in total terror and fear. I don't know what possessed me to write her. I had a dream that she called the militia to arrest me and to burn me at the stake for that transgression. Such is her anger towards me that that may only be a minor exaggeration. I must have unconsciously known that would be her reaction. Thus, I can only fathom that I wrote out of a deep sense of self-loathing. Why would I continue to reach out to a person who hates me? What is it about myself that looks for contact with people who don't want me? I think the answer is ignorance. I have taken forms of my past - the actions and words of others who in my childhood told me that I am worthless - and incorporated these into my own identity. The Buddha's words that, "form is emptiness and emptiness is form" help me here. I see the form I have manufactured of my own image as one created in ignorance, causing my current suffering (fear and terror). If I can see that this form I've created is mere emptiness (not real but an image of the mind), I can release my ignorance in this regard. I believe it is a life-long process but have made this a current focus of my meditation practice. Today I wait for the call of the militia; her "J'accuse!" (as Zola wrote). I take refuge in the Buddha.

Week 33

2010-08-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

ANXIETY

Unfortunately, I had anxiety instilled in me at an early age.

I attended the International School of Geneva. Teachers would routinely hit or mock the students, based on what I experienced anyways, especially the ones who were neglected at home and the most vulnerable. The worst, in my experience, was Mr. Peter Barnett in Fourth Grade, a teacher who hit me repeatedly in the head and knocked my head against the heads of other children (this was his favorite technique) and who frequently mocked and belittled me. In my opinion, he derived great pleasure from inflicting this abuse on me; from what I saw, he only did this to children who lacked parental involvement, insulating him, presumably, from complaints. Typically, I had no home discipline and so would only rarely shower or bathe. My choice of clothes was torn jeans and a t-shirt...my parents never noticed. Of course, I never did homework or brought a lunch. The teachers, especially in fourth and fifth grades, continually hit me, telling me that it was the only way to knock sense into me. They would line up all the class students from best dressed and best looking to worst dressed and worst looking. Inevitably, I would be place at the end of the line and mocked by the teachers. I generally had to walk home a few miles (I'm not sure how long the distance was, but it took about two hours) because no one picked me up from school. Eventually, my parents would return home. If my father was around he would begin to drink until about four in the morning and would beat up my mother and yell at her. Multiple times he almost killed her but for my intervention, pulling him off her, for instance. Then back to school to be hit by teachers and beat up by my "friends", and the cycle continued. By eighth grade I was sent to boarding school where I was violently assaulted and suffered sexual and emotional abuse by the first teacher who had acted kindly to me. I reported it but the head of the institution threatened me to remain silent. For high school I became rather quiet, where other students at The Peddie School either beat me up or ignored me as "weird."

As I look back on the end of the relationship that meant the most to me, I place the blame ultimately and squarely on myself. I was my own worst enemy. I was consumed with anxiety that I couldn't be loved or safe. When I finally confided in the woman I loved and who told me she loved me, her response was to laugh, hang-up on me and cut off all contact, telling her friends to do likewise. I've told the story elsewhere and won't rehash it all. The point is to explain that I did ultimately let go of anxiety and learn to manage it.

The critical method I found was meditation as taught by the Dalai Lama. There are many different types of meditation and his methods are what worked for me, so I've adopted them. The power of meditation is that it can actually rewire the brain. What I didn't understand at the time when I was asking my ex-girlfriend for support is that adults who have suffered emotional trauma as children carry an emotional loop in their hypothalamus. The proper processing of emotions is to store the memories in the amygdala, but until the experience is normalized this can't happen. Talk therapy is one very important means of doing this as is cognitive therapy (I recommend reading Albert Ellis to learn more about this). Meditation is the other critical component which works the frontal lobe (when undertaken properly); this ultimately increases the higher cognitive functions to overtake the emotional residue of the hypothalamus. A useful meditative practice to reduce anxiety is to meditate on the needs of others, taking the focus off of oneself.

Three years after my ex-girlfriend hung up on me, I wrote her what I hoped was a thoughtful email explaining what I had gone through, my road to recovery, and my wish to be supportive of her happiness. I felt that I could be a positive and supportive person for her, as I can see that I had been rather self-absorbed as I dealt with my own baggage. Her response was difficult for me. This isn't the person I knew who told me she loved me. That person has gone into hibernation. But I am no longer the person she knew either. I was a mass of anxiety and perhaps it was too much for her to take, certainly her right and not mine to question. I meditate on compassion and on positive thoughts towards her. I suppose she carries deep suppressed pain too. I meditate on her healing from her pain and do not personalize it. And, I will strive to reach out constructively to others where I can. I have released anxiety from my life, or am working daily to do so.

Week 32

2010-08-07T00:57:00.000-07:00

LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE

As an adult I've heard two things consistently enough that I know they must be true: I have beautiful eyes and I lack confidence. It took me a long time to figure out what confidence is. Throughout my childhood I was told in words and actions that I was worthless and stupid. This never quite rang true because I had enough insight and sensitivity to discern that the adults who conveyed this message were profoundly disturbed. But, inevitably, the power structure was so imbalanced, and the barrage of negativity so relentless, that I began to hate myself and believe that I didn't deserve to be happy. A consequence was that I kept breaking off relationships and became increasingly isolated. Finally, though I met an amazing woman who told me she loved me.

The cycle repeated itself where I began to pull away, thinking I didn't deserve to be happy. But, midstream I stopped. I called her up to explain it all, to reveal my dark childhood and to ask her support in my moving forward. I was sure she believed in me since for nearly two years we had had a completely peaceful relationship where she had repeatedly told me that she loved me. Her response, however, was devastating.

She laughed and hung up. I thought there must be a misunderstanding so I determined to persist in trying to communicate in a positive and constructive way. She told her friends to cut off all contact with me. Talk about a spiral of despair! For the first time in my life I allowed myself to believe that I could in fact be loved and the rug was pulled right out from me! It was a painful road to move ahead in the face of her reaction. Her friends, one of whom is unfortunately my neighbor, virtually spit at me when I walk by.

The DC Rape Crisis Center, Meditation and Tibetan Buddhism saved me. Her actions have some cause - I don't know what. I have compassion for her because she can't see her own pain and thus doesn't know herself. I have let go of dysfunctional relationships which were reflections of my own self-loathing But I've learned there is hope to heal, and for me to love - and to forgive - in the face of adversity.

Week 31

2010-07-31T00:53:00.000-07:00

LOW SELF-ESTEEM

As I entered my building today I ran into my neighbor who is the best friend of my ex-girlfriend. She was with two other of my ex-girlfriend's close friends. As usual, my neighbor gave me a viciously angry stare, as did the two other women. I theorize that once my ex took it upon herself to take her anger towards me to the level of a religious crusade, her girlfriends were then only too happy to jump aboard to project whatever unresolved issues they carry onto me.

Right before I arrived, I had been listening to a show on NPR interviewing a couple about their divorce. The woman said that all of her girlfriends encouraged her to destroy her husband emotionally and financially once he expressed a desire for divorce. I can believe it...I don't even know why my ex has such rage towards me, she never told me (I've written about the relationship in earlier posts). I feel that deep down many women simply hate men and are dying to get the chance to twist the knife with relish. (The phenomena of female insensitivity and hatred for men has been extensively written about by psychotherapists. In general, women are insensitive to men in areas where they have unresolved issues).

As much as I've been practicing non-attachment, it is a different animal when confronted with people in the flesh who have a deep seated hatred. I can come up with all sorts of theories about their emotional maladjustment or cognitive problems but how to respond in real life when faced with their anger is another matter. I found it just very upsetting; but it still hurts as I have done everything possible to reach out and be friendly and kind and then, when confronted with their anger to just go about my life, but I can't escape the emotional punch from their seething every time I run into them.

This week I'm reading a good book called Tibetan Yoga. It goes into great detail on the techniques of the yogis to maintain equilibrium in the face of hostility. As my neighbor and her friends projected their anger I did feel upset but I practiced the breathing techniques from the book. I later went for a long walk and practiced mindful meditation. How much pain they must have suffered to be so unhappy. I had always hoped for a mature connection and resolution at some point, still. For I loved my girlfriend, even in her anger, even if I never truly knew her.

Week 30

2010-07-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

FAITH

Faith leads to expectations. Expectations lead to disappointment. I've given up faith in anything outside of myself. For who can I truly know but myself? I am thankful for the friendship with them I believed in, however.

Week 29

2010-07-17T04:17:00.000-07:00

LOVE

Love is an interesting concept. I decided to trust her and open my heart to her, to share my feelings, my insecurities, my desires. "Never contact me again," she e-mailed. And I never heard from her again. The actions of my ex-girlfriend were so painful that I struggle to make sense of them. I've come to accept that I'll never know why. For a long time I devoured literature to come up with different theories to explain her behavior and to make some sense of it all. I certainly couldn't have been perfect in the relationship; perhaps my emotional reserve came across as controlling and she genuinely doesn't like me... I was slow and dense to accept this.

In the end, I reject all the theories. I'll just never know. And perhaps this is the crucial lesson, to accept experiences and suffering as ultimately unknowable and based on subjective contact with the senses. Whatever the explanation, I've learned that the only purpose of a relationship is to support another person to reach their highest potential, not to project unresolved emotional baggage onto another, which translates into forms of manipulation and emotional abuse based in desire. Desire for what? Desire for what we lacked as children. At the time I didn't understand that because I had low self-esteem and wanted to believe that when my girlfriend told me that she loved me it meant love in the substantive sense of nonjudgmental compassion. I accept that all experince is subjective. I extend compassion. I release the illusion of love.

Week 28

2010-07-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

DELUSION

I made this animation about breaking free from delusion:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6166509/#

Week 27

2010-07-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

FRIENDSHIP

I let go of their friendship.

Week 26

2010-06-26T03:09:00.000-07:00

Fiction: Petals

She was the love of his life. When he finally opened his heart to her (after much suffering and confusion), the response of her and her friends was to treat him with disdain and as if he was crazy. He still had compassion for her because he felt that her anger must cover pain and fear from her childhood from unresolved feelings related to abuse she suffered (which she had partially told him about). His therapist read every letter he wrote and said "they are the most beautiful and courageous letters I've ever read" but she added that Flora and her friends were among the worst possible people he could have confided in. "They're clearly people of staggering and unfathomable emotional immaturity," she said, "who appear to lack the most basic capacity for empathy, compassion and emotional intimacy while being controlling, abusive and manipulative." Every night he prayed that God would touch their hearts. He died 40 years later. He never stopped loving her. He never heard from them. They had forgotten his name decades earlier. A petal fell to the earth.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rugby_union/article6973717.ece

Week 25

2010-06-19T03:34:00.000-07:00

Fiction: Redcoats

When I saw Flora walking down the marble hall what first struck me was that underneath her red blazer she was wearing a belly shirt to court. Her friends wore their thighs like over-stuffed combat boots and hovered around Flora like she was a lost child. It suddenly dawned on me that she had regressed into that abandoned six-year old I knew had been always inside of her. Her attorney marched next to her sporting a butch haircut like a hessian helmet and strutting like a throbbing, red cock in heat. Flora looked at me for an instant and the air crackled with the hatred reflected in her eyes. "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form," I repeated as mantra. She and her entourage headed into a side room. "Into the Bat Cave!" I heard Flora laugh. "What a freak!" a friend of hers pronounced. "Are you happy, sweetheart?" Butch asked. As I turned I saw Butch brushing her cheek. A significant revolutionary battle had taken place in Trenton. Perhaps it was at the very spot of this courthouse, I thought. I was alone.

Week 24

2010-06-12T02:54:00.000-07:00

(fiction)
Last night I dreamed that I saw the woman I love in church. Although I hadn't seen her in years, and knew she didn't want to talk to me, when I noticed she was wearing a wedding ring I felt compelled to ask: "You're married?" "Yes," she reluctantly answered. "Congratulations," I said. I overheard her tell someone that she lived in Denver but worked in Washington D.C. "It must be a long-distance relationship," I thought, suddenly realizing that she would have stuck it out with me if I had had confidence in us, in her, in me. I looked at her face. It seemed sad. "She still loves me," I thought, but I also knew she'd never admit it. I never saw her again.

Week 23

2010-06-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

More books. Books have come to dominate my life. I love coming home and having a wonderful book to read. But having them as possessions is a burden to move, to store. Thus, I've been savagely culling them down. I still have lots more.

Week 22

2010-05-29T06:05:00.000-07:00

Week 21

2010-05-22T00:54:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite travel book. I gave it to my inspiring friends Elizabeth Nelson and Aaron Lasher, who plan to sail the world.

Week 20

2010-05-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, West Africa, I worked with a weaving co-op of 12 women. They wove "pagnes" which are cloth they'd wrap around themselves to carry their babies on their backs. I helped them market their pagnes to tourists. This is a sample which I gave away this week to someone I thought would enjoy it.

Week 19

2010-05-08T06:38:00.001-07:00

This is my favorite book on Tibetan Buddhist art. I gave it to my good friend Elizabeth Bourne who shares my interest.

Week 18

2010-05-01T00:55:00.000-07:00

Today I gave away my 1985 Gibson Studio Electric Guitar.

Week 17

2010-04-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

More books that I gave away.
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The small brown one in the middle is interesting; it is a very scarce poetry book called Sonnets To A Red-Haired Lady by Don Marquis, dated 1922. Inside are inscriptions from a man to a woman as to mark their love affair: "To Patricia Elaine from Lyman Nehekey" (sp?).
Then a second inscription, from her back to him reading: "Lyman, dear, is this to be the end of my pet love affair? It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all," as if to mark her returning it after he broke off the romance.
The inscriptions are in elegant penmanship, apparently from around the time the book was published. I bought it because I thought it interesting, but now find it simply depressing.
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The book by Lamont was signed by her in San Francisco. She gave a reading and had her adorable, infant daughter with her. These years later, I think she recently wrote a book about her daughter who became, sadly, a teenage drug addict.
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The Albert Ellis book is useful for cognitive therapy. I recommend him for anyone suffering stress or anxiety.
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Oh well, off they go to others who might, or might not, like them.

Week 16

2010-04-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

This is a stack of about 600 pages of emails sent to me by a former girlfriend. It's interesting that these contain the essence of our entire relationship: the first emails she asked me out; the next the burgeoning relationship where she told me repeatedly how much she loved me; the next her moving away and my insecurities; the last, her one sentence directive: "I don't know why but our relationship is over so don't call me again." I never heard from her after that with the exception of some viciously cruel communications through an intermediary. Well, all this time later I still have her emails. I kept them for a number of reasons but the most important was that I've always loved that unique and beautiful part of her essence, and thus I was always hopeful she'd come back. Well, I've given up. Still, what to do with these emails? I've decided to now go through them and take a second look. Maybe I'll gain new insights into myself and into her. I know it will be an emotional process, but letting go of them will also be for the best. The way I plan to approach them is to use them as sketch paper, to draw where my emotions lead me based on what I feel as I read them, and then toss them out, giving up the past.

Week 15

2010-04-10T03:03:00.000-07:00

After seeing the movie "Food, Inc." I've given up eating meat. I never realized the brutality in our food production system and want no part of it.

Week 14

2010-04-03T00:04:00.000-07:00

I've been collecting pins since I was a kid; this week I went through my collection and chose a few to give to my good friend Mahri Irvine. Mahri and I met in our training class as volunteers with the DC Rape Crisis Center last summer. She's an amazing person, socially aware and deeply compassionate, all attributes I aspire towards. My new goal is to collect friends like her.

This is an animated PSA I made with information on the DC Rape Crisis Center:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6150875

Week 13

2010-03-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

This week I gave away a number of items, some rather expensive. But, interestingly, the most difficult items to part with were among the most innocuous: a book called Air Guitar by Dave Hickey and McSweeney's Volume 13, which profiled some of the top graphic novelists around.

These were given to me by a former girlfriend and were perfect and thoughtful gifts, exactly reflective of my passions of art and drawing. I had thought we were in love: we moved in together and, at least in my mind, were planning a future together. She had given me gifts reflecting that she knew me. But then, an odd,confusing twist.

We went to a party where one of her closest girlfriends approached her saying that she wanted to set her up with "the perfect guy, someone smart, funny and rich." I was sitting behind my girlfriend when she was asked: "would you like to be set up with him?" and stunned when she answered, "yes!" I felt confused and shocked by the betrayal; her answer killed me inside. Trust is always difficult in a relationship, and I had given her my heart.

Later, when I tried to ask her about it, her response was simply, "my friends are weird." Because I dread confrontation, I was thereafter always walking on eggshells, unsure of what to believe: the declarations of deep love or whether I was simply being played.

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Where I've come out on the matter, at this point years later, is that love does not truly exist. I lived in a fantasy believing that because she had told me over and over in hundreds of letters and emails, and every day we lived together, that she "loved me" that this meant that she cared about me as a person. In reality, I was an object to her, and no more.

The most influential book which helped me understand this is The Shadow of The Object by Christopher Bollas. Bollas is a psychiatrist of the Freudian school who cogently explains relationships in terms of object relations.

Here is a quote to give the gist of it (from page 48, 1987 paperback edition): "If Mary marries Jim and projects her need for self-idolization into Jim, whom she insists is ideal, and who in turn idolizes her, he is projectively identified with a role which he must either fulfill or incur Mary's extreme displeasure. In this relationship it is questionable whether Mary is really relating to Jim or to Jim as a split-off fragment of her own self; in this way the relationship simply lives out her unconscious relation to herself as object." (I suggest reading the entire book to fully understand his thesis).

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After I thought about this and applied to it my own experience, I began to think of the primary directive of Jesus Christ, "to love your neighbor as yourself."
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I now understand what Jesus meant when he said this, a subtlety which I believe most Christians miss: Jesus is giving a directive which is impossible to follow. People are not capable of loving others (thus the wisdom of the Old Testament, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.")
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Understanding this, that another person can never love anyone but him or herself, at first I felt depressed; after all, what does everyone want but to receive love from another? But, then I realized that my understanding that receiving genuine love from another is impossible, is liberating on two levels:
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First, I no longer crave it and so have been released from desire.
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Second, realizing its impossibility creates a goal for me to base my life on, which is to transcend object relations in order to relate to others with love, empathy and compassion.
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An impossible ideal to genuinely realize, but giving me plenty to try for. I want to come as close as possible.

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On a practical level, which is more important to me than theory, I have begun to ask myself how I can do this?

I have let go of relationships on a romantic level and have dedicated myself to being a monk in the Buddhist Mahayana tradition, devoting my free time to studying the suttas and meditation.

And occasionally drawing too.

---

Here is an animated story I made as a reflection on the delusional craving for love:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6225113

Week 12

2010-03-20T00:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6194333

Experience is what makes theory make sense. In college I read about the "collective ego" (as opposed to Freud's theory of the individual ego) but never understood it. Now I think I do. I've been trying to process interactions I've had with the best friends of an ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately, they live nearby so I've run into them from time-to-time. Two of them give me looks of vicious hatred when they pass. A third, who happens to share my building, has been more vocal in her dislike for me.

When I saw her last, she had an adorable little dog. I love dogs, but as a member of the co-op board I thought I should inform her that other members would complain, since the building doesn't allow dogs. Her response was to lunge towards me, her eyes bulging, and shout that she "hates" living in the same building as me and that she "hates" that I am on the board, "where I have power over her". I am not remotely confrontational, in fact I actively avoid it, so I rapidly withdrew.

But, in my naive way, I thought I could do better explaining myself in writing. So, I wrote her a note telling her that my one goal was to support her happiness and that if she wanted to meet with the board to ask for them to make an exception for her, she should know that she would have my full support. I added that I wouldn't snitch on her.

I also left her a DVD on Buddhist meditation that I thought she'd enjoy. Her response was to knock on my door and, when I answered, she proceeded to tell me that she viewed my letter as "a threat", that she fears for her safety around me and that she fears I might attack her. Then she said that since she's my ex-girlfriend's friend she can't be my friend. This whole exchange threw me into yet another deep depression.

I've always been peaceful and try to be considerate, so the relentless hostility is hard to take. I became so depressed that I resigned from the co-op board. It is very disorienting to be the object of ceaseless anger. However, I think I've figured it out now and have begun to recover, and the key was the last part of her statement which I believe relates to the "collective ego".

The collective ego (in my view, not Freud's) is that sense of identity that comes from belonging to a collective, a team or a group to supplement and reinforce the individual ego. My theory is that the lower a person's sense of individual ego, the greater their need for a collective ego as a form of compensation.

My neighbor, my ex, and her other friends form a sort of collective, and as long as my ex carries a self-narrative based in part on her hatred for me, then her friends feel a sense of strengthened identity by joining in (their collective ego), no matter what rational, objective sense would dictate.

Understanding this I now have an understanding for larger social movements - racism, team allegiances, social cliques - that on their surface make no sense. I've always been a sort of outsider, having grown up as an American in Canada and Switzerland, having been neglected during my formative years, being a survivor of extreme abuse (and having been isolated by being threatened to maintain silence), among other things, and this has made me very comfortable as an adult with not being part of a collective.

But it creates great vulnerabilities, because when a group decides to become confrontational, I lack a strong social network to count on for support. Furthermore, without a strong collective ego of my own, my overall confidence is lower and I am thus more sensitive to their aggression.

The interactions with my ex and her friend had a strangely sick emotional memory. I was eventually able to place it: they remind me of grade-school interactions.

This week I've decided to practice non-attachment to the effects of the collective egos around me (tea partiers, religions, ideologies, prejudices, etc.) and to have compassion for those who live blindly attached to theirs. Of course, there are other possible explanations for her behavior, but I'm not a clinical psychologist. And, then, maybe she just really doesn't like me.

And not to put the diagnosis all on her: perhaps I am unlikable. We all have our blind spots and I am working on mine. I feel I need to develop people skills to be less intrusive and to say things that make people feel good rather than offering up my direct, unfiltered thoughts.

I also have trust issues and so perhaps to me when someone like her goes off it makes more of an impact, while others would blow it off. I am trying to develop humor in my life and to not personalize as well.

And so it goes.

Week 11

2010-03-13T04:21:00.000-08:00

(all characters are fictional)

The link below is an animated poem I made about Jeremy Blake, a famous New York artist, coming to terms with the schizophrenia and suicide of his girlfriend Theresa, his soulmate and the love of his life. Below I write of a fictional girlfriend whose actions appear reflective of a schizophrenic, and thus I relate to the loss of, and abandonment by, a soulmate; one whom I deeply love but with whom I lost the ability to connect with emotionally as she became, from my perspective, lost in paranoia. Still, I think of her everyday and meditate on her happiness.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6126565

A few years ago was the the most upsetting and confusing day of my life. I was asleep in my apartment when, at about 6:30 a.m., I received a call from the police in a state hundreds of miles away. An ex-girlfriend who I had not seen for two years prior, reported to the police that she had seen me following her and lurking around her house. The police wanted to know where I was and told me that I would be arrested if I was indeed in the area. This was the latest in a string of bizarre episodes with this woman, so at some level the call didn't surprise me. But, it was also completely unreal as it was so at odds with the person I loved in my mind and whom I had had a loving relationship with. The police told me that I needed to provide them with an alibi to prove I was not in the area. I have a friend in my apartment who, to my good fortune, was not only home but is a practicing Buddhist and massage therapist. I called her and asked to come by. When I arrived I could hardly breath; I was so upset I was having an anxiety attack. She massaged my back and extended compassion as I explained to her the phone call I had just received.

Two years earlier, the woman who called the police had ended our relationship by sending me a one-sentence e-mail at work. Our relationship had become long-distance and we were experiencing the normal strains inherent in a long-distance relationship; I was also much less self-aware at that time than I am now, adding to the communication difficulties. Still, our relationship had been completely peaceful and loving, and I had a banker's box of letters from her. So, I felt that I had every reason to believe we were in a long-term relationship with a lasting future. Her e-mail devastated me. I wrote to her asking what happened, trying to be positive and constructive. She responded with a second impersonal email stating that I was to never contact her again. She followed this up by calling me. I clearly remember her robotic, monotone voice, "don't call me." She then hung up. She sounded to me like someone who joined a cult. I misguidedly decided to occasionally send the most beautiful and thoughtful letter or e-mail that I could write every few weeks. Most were just a couple of sentences wishing her well, adding that if in any way they were intrusive, for her to tell me and I would stop writing. I thought I'd try to communicate, grow, reach out. I believed in her. Fast forward two years and I get the call from the police.

For years this episode destroyed me. I fell into a great depression of self-blame: what had I done wrong, what could I have done differently? Three years after the police call I naively sent her another email, again trying to be as kind and gentle as possible. I thought maybe with time that whatever had made her so angry had dissipated. In response, I received a UPS letter under my door. It was the angriest and most cruel letter I've ever received. I promptly tore it up and threw it away. I did, however, sink into another depression.

It is still very difficult for me to understand: why did this woman who told me she loved me lie to the police and why does she carry such relentless and scary anger? It devastated and destroyed me emotionally. While there are many possibilities as to what happened to her, one theory that makes sense to me is that the behavior of paranoia is reflective paranoid schizophrenia. Prior to this, I had no knowledge of what paranoid schizophrenia is. I thought that most paranoid schizophrenics were either crazy people like the Pentagon conspiracy shooter or homeless persons. But, in fact, it is a disease with a wide range of manifestations among people who otherwise seem to function in society (although they might be considered "eccentric").
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Once I learned that her actions are possible the reflection of paranoid schizophrenia, I began to ask, how is this different from any disease? I would not take it personally if someone had cancer, for instance, but would extend compassion to them even if they were irrational or angry as a result of their suffering. For a paranoid schizophrenic, I imagine that their suffering is intense because what is not real seems real to them and they cannot explain the difference. It must be very confusing and painful for them.

This week I am practicing non-attachment to personalization; I am no longer personalizing the anger and paranoia that I've experienced of my ex-girlfriend but extending compassion, and I pray that someone finds the wisdom and resources to help her, or that somehow she finds the insight to help herself.
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Having learned what schizophrenia is, I realize now that if indeed this was the issue my efforts to connect with my ex-girlfriend not only were futile but were doomed to backfire. I have many female friends who I shared copies with of the emails I had sent to my ex-girlfriend. In every instance, these female friends said that I was writing the kindest and most courageous letters they have ever read, exactly what they would want to hear. Yet, the schizophrenic mind is one of paranoia, unable to handle empathy, self-analysis, introspection or emotional subtleties.
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A description I've read characterized the schizophrenic as a person with a fractured sense of self. I theorize that once I became a separate person by expressing insecurities and introspection this became a threat to her sense of self and I transformed from part of her to, in her unconscious, the enemy. This explains her relentless and scary anger and hostility towards me. For me, knowing what I know now, I still carry guilt, regret and remorse for having not interacted with her appropriately to help her integrate herself. The best response I could have given would have been to find an appropriate therapist for her and to be unrelentingly positive, supportive and loving.
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Unfortunately, I was at a stage of my life of great introspection, neediness and insecurity which undoubtedly came across as critical and self-absorbed, fueling her paranoia, despite the reality that I very deeply loved her. Below is a website which has additional useful information if you too are involved with a person who sufferers from schizophrenia.
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http://www.schizophrenia.com/family/60tip.html

*side note: I recently finished reading the book Traumatic Stress. When a person is under sever stress they may exhibit symptoms similar to schizophrenia, such as hallucinations and paranoia. Thus, a professional diagnosis would always be necessary to determine the context of the behavior and the person's background circumstances. There appears to me to be a rush to label people with psychological symptoms while the reality may be more complex. It is important to remember that all psychological labels are simply terms of convenience to start a discussion and not absolutes.

Week 10

2010-03-06T05:23:00.000-08:00

My grandfather died in his nineties, a mean, angry person. During his life I had tried to connect with him but he was a controlling person who had no ability for empathy. My father always talked a very idealistic talk but beat-up my Mom and destroyed his life with alcohol and drugs. Last weekend I had a bit of a revelation: that most actions are reactions to emotional memories and that these memories are so strong that most people live their lives as blind hostages to them. The ultimate sign of mental health, I've determined, is the ability to love others, meaning the ability to feel empathy. We are a society with so much pain that this is a surprisingly rare trait. But, this week, I am practicing non-attachment to feelings of depression and practicing empathy to those who I feel carry profoundly suppressed emotional lives. I am meditating on extending empathy to those who live blindly in their disturbed states and of course, to myself.

Week 9

2010-02-27T01:51:00.000-08:00

Yet more French comic books from my youth I've given away. I always dreamed I'd have a kid I could teach french to and teach how to draw and read comics with, but I see now that it is very unlikely. In this regard, this week I've given up, at least partly, a more metaphysical thing; old ways of thinking. I'm studying the sutras (or sermons) from The Middle Discourses of The Buddha. These sutras are from the Pali canon (Buddhism in Southeast Asia, mostly) as opposed to the Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet and the Dali Lama. The second sutra, which I read this week, is on ways of thinking that cause suffering and approaches to changing these negative "taints". The first part of the sutra contrasts wise attention against unwise attention and gives examples of healthy and unhealthy things onto which to direct one's attention. This resonated with me because earlier this month I had received a threatening letter from a woman I had once dated. At this point I am terrified of her as she seems to hold so much irrational anger towards me. It is very hard not to feel sick in the stomach every time my phone rings or there is a knock on my door, wondering if it will be her leveling yet more threats and accusations against me. I am not one for confrontation or anger, so it has been very distressing, especially since I do care about her. This week I am meditating on the first sutra from The Middle Discourses; whenever my mind wanders into a state of panic and anxiety related to this person's anger and visceral hatred for me, I let go, to recognize that is "unwise attention" and bring my mind back to wise attention on what matters: nonattachment to a state of anxiety and focus on compassion for those in a state of pain and ignorance. Namaste.

Week 8

2010-02-20T08:53:00.000-08:00

Lucky Luke was one of my favorite comic books growing up in Switzerland. This week I gave away my Lucky Luke collection to Goodwill.

Week 7

2010-02-13T11:07:00.000-08:00

This is a watercolor by Richard Hahn. Hahn has done some work for The New Yorker and published an independent comicbook. Watercolor is a difficult medium to get "right" and I just love the balance he achieved here of two cats circling a comic book. I gave away this original, signed watercolor to someone who I know likes both cats and comicbooks.

Week 6

2010-02-06T03:48:00.000-08:00

This is a painting by Phillip Knoll. I bought this painting from the best gallery in Washington DC, Irvine Contemporary Art. There was a brilliant and knowledgable art historian who worked there who made it a pleasure to visit simply to discuss and to learn about art. The painter of the above piece, Phillip Knoll, is a friend and contemporary of Chris Ware, a cartoonist who has revolutionized the graphic novel. Knoll's art is reminiscent of Ware's and Robert Crumb's cartoon's, the difference being that Knoll markets his cartoons as "fine art". I've always been intrigued by the question of "what is art" and in particular the distinction critics have often made between "high art" (or fine art) and "low art" (cartoons, illustrations, etc.). Picasso, undoubtedly the great artistic genius of the last century, broke this distinction down by creating collage work that incorporated low art into his fine art. Warhol brought the experiment to it's logical conclusion by copying cartoons as art. I think Knoll has taken the concept an inch further and probably as far as it can go by making an original cartoon as fine art, absent any irony. I am greatly attached to this painting and so, as an act of non-attachment, decided to give it as a gift to two patrons of the arts whom I highly respect and admire.

Week 5

2010-01-30T05:19:00.000-08:00

This is a small print (about 4 x 7) by Adam Greely. A person I care about gave it to me years ago as a birthday gift. Although the relationship ended, I always maintained fond memories of our time together, and in particular of a day we spent exploring Chinatown in New York City. Because this print reminded me of that day, I kept it framed by my front door. Whenever I felt sad or down about anything, looking at this print was a form of cognitive therapy: I immediately felt happy again. Sadly, I recently received a letter from this person filled with accusations and threats. It is incredible these many years later this person has so much anger against me over some misunderstanding I've long since forgotten. (Persistent, long-term anger is obviously abnormal; I have compassion since I believe it may be attributable to manic depression or some other issue of which I am not aware. I meditate on her happiness). However, I've learned that another's hostility presents an opportunity for me to emotionally grow as a person, to look into myself, to work to understand the roots of that person's pain, and to focus my attitude towards compassion. As for the letter, I tore up the whole thing and threw it away - if someone asks for my help I would never turn my back, but I have learned to develop enough of a sense of self-worth to turn away from hostility. I only want positive and happy energy in my environment. And I've taken this print off the wall to give away, with my hope that it shall transform itself into future positive karma. And yet, I love still.

Week 4

2010-01-23T03:10:00.000-08:00

This is a painting by N. Amedokpo, a Nigerian artist who lives in Togo. I bought it while I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo a number of years ago. This artist was discovered by a Peace Corps Volunteer and he became quite popular among the ex-pat community. I bought a couple of his paintings right before I left Togo. There was another volunteer who wanted a painting but didn't have the chance to buy one. These many years later I looked her up and then mailed this to her.

Week 3

2010-01-16T23:00:00.000-08:00

Above is a lithograph by Teo Gonzalez titled: Lithograph3 #8/12. The photo doesn't do it justice. Gonzalez, an artist in Brooklyn who has gained a wide following, is the master of obsessive minimalism. His work captures the essence of Zen. This little work on paper is the object to which I had placed some of my strongest attachments, and this week I let it go.

I bought the work in a period of great emotional upheaval, which no doubt accounts for this attachment. It was to be a gift for a woman I had been certain I was to spend my life with. We had been deeply in love for a couple of years but the relationship had become long-distance and abruptly broke down over my lack of communication skills and personal insight. It was during this time of suspended animation that I bought the Teo print as a gift for her. We had shared a love of art and she had opened my eyes to appreciating nonfigurative works. Teo Gonzalez was one of her favorite artists. Based on what I believed was a substantive emotional relationship, I was certain that she would return. I held the framed print as manifestation of that certainty. There was another emotional twist to my ownership of the print. I had purchased it one day from Irvine Contemporary Art, a fantastic gallery in Washington D.C.; when I got home the day of the purchase, I received a frantic call from them. The gallery told me that they sold me the print by mistake, having promised it to another patron. They requested that I return it. I refused. In my mind (unconsciously, at the time) to give up the print would be to give up on the relationship; so I hung it in my apartment to await the day I'd get that fateful knock on my door from my Love and be able to give it to her. Of course, that day never came. I never heard from her again. In retrospect I was very thoughtless and attached to a material possession at the expense of having compassion for another's feelings. So, I'm returning the print as a gift to the gallery, probably too late to satisfy it's intended purchaser but perhaps making things right with the gallery - and signifying my personal growth.

Week 2

2010-01-09T05:24:00.000-08:00

This week I gave away a bunch of eyeglasses to New Eyes For The Needy, an organization in Short Hills, New Jersey that collects used eyeglasses and distributes them world-wide to those who can't afford them. I put a collection box outside my office door and got about twenty pair. I also had some of my own old glasses to throw in. I did go out and buy a new pair of eyeglasses, though, and I have to admit that I am attached to them. When it came out that Sarah Palin wears $700 Japanese frames, I couldn't hold that against her (a lot of pundits were saying that the high price tag of her frames shows she's a hypocrite, i.e. no "Hockey Mom"). I think that when you find a pair of glasses that fit right and look good you have to get them because more than any other accessory they will make or break your day. My new frames are Bevel from Japan and cost (gulp) $400. I went to Blink in DC to get them, a fantastic eye-wear store with nice, knowledgeable staff.

Week 1

2010-01-02T07:22:00.000-08:00

Today I gave away these books. A few years ago a woman I was completely in love with who was in grad school asked to take a couple of my books that she could use in school. I didn't quite say "no" but I guess I showed enough distress that she never brought it up again. I feel badly about that now. My priorities were backwards: the relationship should have come first. I've changed my perspective and am culling through my thousands of books, keeping those which I'm sure I'll go back to or which have sentimental value, and giving away the rest. And now I'll always lend a book to a friend or to a person I love (even if that means realistically never getting it returned). I started giving away books that are in new condition to people who I think might like them. More often than not this has seemed to baffle people. They seem confused about getting something with no strings attached and for no reason. I dropped off a couple of books and a DVD to a neighbor of mine, the best friend of a woman I dated four years ago, and she knocked on my door to return them, telling me that to accept them would be disloyal to her friend. Other people I never hear back from. I remember a couple of years ago thinking: "Books are my friends." Good grief! These experiences made me see that it is all to easy to project onto books a deeper meaning than what they simply are: information that may, or may not, be useful.

The Theory

2009-12-30T04:35:00.000-08:00

A brilliant short story that is also timely given today's housing melt-down is Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych". Ilych became a slave to his possessions, in particular to his house. Everyone around him was consumed with his material possessions and how they could benefit from them. The story starts at his death and asks: what is a life worth tied to possessions and what is lost?
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Starting in 2010, each week I will give away something of value which I will document here, with occasional commentary, as a practice of non-attachment and compassion.