Rachel’s Musings

I had trouble getting out of bed this morning. Only having a full agenda got me out of bed rather than staying there nurturing my self-pity or anxiety, whatever it is. None of the excuses for avoiding my morning walk were convincing even to the me that didn’t want to walk. So, my morning routine kicked in still mentally struggling with wondering if I am smart enough to be back in school. I only have evidence against that doubt from one class so far. Still waiting to hear on the other exams. And even with that class, the little dragon in my head keeps whispering that this was just a fluke the real me will soon be discovered – and she’s a failure. What’s really tugging at my soul – and that’s not meant in a religious sense but rather as a short way of referring to that which at least seems to be there beyond the material of our neurons firing, maybe consciousness would be a better term but that doesn’t sound as good during an existential struggle – what is really tugging at my soul is the realization that I’ve taken too many wrong turns in my life, that I am really not where I would like to be and the fear, sometimes overwhelming, that it’s too late to get back on my path now that I have somewhat of a sense what that path might be. And I am hitting all the social no-nos. Here I am a 40-something single woman going back to school – I am not supposed to do that! I am supposed to be happily married with 2.5 kids, established in my fulfilling career, owning a beautiful home. I don’t have any of that! I am happily single, changing careers, and renting. I have a child but he’s an adult now, so even that I’ve done backwards by having him way earlier than social norm. But, again, what’s tugging at my soul is the fear that it’s too late to change course. Maybe it’s true that we don’t learn as well when we’re older and what am I doing pursuing a philosophy degree – that’s irresponsible! I can’t make money with that! And then, I am choosing to be single. How dare I! That’s too uppity even for a feminist (I might explain that in an upcoming post – why do I think choosing to be single is uppity?).

All that, or some less articulated version of it, went through my head as I was putting on my exercise clothes. I headed out the door. And then I saw the writing on the sidewalk: Jesus loves you! “Well, at least someone loves me,” went through my head, almost immediately followed by a realization. In our hypercompetitive world where a person is only good enough if she achieves by the social standards set by who knows whom, self-love is a rarity. The only way we can get unconditional love is through an imaginary being (God) or through a dead and decomposed guy (Jesus). And this acceptable form of self-love – for if God and Jesus cannot really love you because they don’t exist, this is a form of self-love – has subverted a possibly healthier way of taking care of the self practiced in ancient philosophy. Michel Foucault put the shift this way (284):

In the Greco-Roman world, the care of the self was the mode in which individual freedom – or civic liberty, up to a point – was reflected as an ethics. [...] the theme of the care of the self thoroughly permeated moral reflection. [...] in our societies on the other hand, at a time that is very difficult to pinpoint, the care of the self became somewhat suspect. Starting at a certain point, being concerned with oneself was readily denounced as a form of self-love, a form of selfishness or self-interest in contradiction with the interest to be shown in others or the self-sacrifice required.

Jesus loves you instead of know thyself. Self-sacrifice instead of self-love. And we’re not talking about the narcissistic self-love here, we are talking about a healthy amount of self-love that counteracts the doubts of inadequacy I was struggling with and suspect many others who are venturing off the beaten path are struggling with (heck, even people who are on the beaten path). Rather than loving ourselves, we’re supposed to love God or Jesus or both and then sacrifice ourselves in their name. Only that way do we get back a self-love substitute, God’s or Jesus’ love. No wonder that so many people flock to religions! Existential angst is part of our world – we no longer learn to counter-act it by becoming a virtuous person grounded in a deep love for and knowledge of ourselves.

Maybe if we listen to the ancients some more, we can relearn how to find our way to happiness. Maybe if we cultivate healthy self-love again, we’ll see less of the unhealthy kind, which leads to destruction both of the economy and the environment. Maybe if we reconnect with ourselves, our dreams and start knowing ourselves again, we might have to buy less stuff to fill the existential hole. The planet could sure use that kind of a value-shift. So could we.

I am reading two books right now that are touching on the ideas of machines in modern society. The first book is by Erich Kästner: Als ich ein kleiner Junge war (when I was a little boy). In this autobiography, Kästner describes how in his father’s lifetime craftsmen, like his father, lost their livelihood and ended up working in factories with machines to create more, cheaper goods. Or maybe they worked like machines. That is where the second book picks up. Bruno Bettelheim suggests in his book The Informed Heart that the existential struggle of our time is the balancing act between technology/science and autonomy. One of the dangers of the modern age is that we turn into machines. Kästner’s father turned from a craftsman who was more similar to an artist to a piece in the factory machinery who no longer produced a piece of art he was so proud of that he didn’t want to sell it.

I thought about all this as I was trying to convince myself to get out of bed this morning for my walk, which has become part of my early morning routine. Routine. I get up at almost the same time each morning. Get out of my bed on the same side. Put on my clothes for the walk in the same order. Warm up the same way. Is this routine turning me into a machine? But aren’t routines a necessary part of modern life? I decided to ponder this during my walk – with a slight twist: I would walk a new route and see how I’d react to that.

As I was leaving, I already noticed that putting my cell phone into my pouch the other way was creating some anxiety. This was going to be interesting! My new route would have to be about 30 minutes long. Why? Well, if I’d take longer, I would get home later, I would get ready later, and miss my bus and would be at work 10 minutes later. And what would be bad about that? Nothing really since I don’t have to punch in. I had been early a few days this week, so it would probably a wash anyway. Yet, it was clear that here was one reason for my routine: It would allow me to fit in; to not rattle the work boat by showing up slightly late because there was something on my walk that needed exploring. So, routines are part of modern life because they enable us to fit in, to abide by the status quo.

The thing I noticed on my non-routine walk: It was more fun! I felt more alive. I felt excited to see streets I’ve been on before from a different angle, a different side. And I decided not to worry about taking a few minutes longer, realizing that I’d either make up the time or just take a later bus.

The other thing I realized on my non-routine walk: Bettelheim argues to avoid becoming human machines, we cannot go back in time (become the craftsmen again) instead we need to find ways to utilize technology/science to our advantage while at the same time preserving our autonomy. And what exactly is this autonomy?

[Autonomy] has to do with man’s inner ability to govern himself, and with a conscientious search for meaning despite the realization that, as far as we know, there is no purpose to one’s life. It is a concept that does not imply a revolt against authority qua authority, but rather a quiet acting out of inner conviction, not out of convenience or resentment, or because of external persuasion or controls.” (75)

It means that we’re true to ourselves, that we don’t date just because everybody else is doing it but embrace being single if that is what makes us happiest. That we don’t marry because everybody else does it or because it’s more convenient to get the 1,300+ benefits in one package but rather refuse to marry in order to get this package because we’d be giving up our conviction that marriage is an outmoded, patriarchal institution we’d rather shun. It means that we go back to school if we’re tired of being an automaton at work even if that creates much anxiety around real and imagined issues. Essentially, it means being authentic to ourselves. The challenge is to do that despite all the societal pressures to conform (including those 1,300+ benefits or the subtle and not so subtle suggestions that there’s something wrong with us if we’re single). And at the same time finding ways of living autonomous while enabling the existence of a society because living in a social network does provide us with many benefits (including police and fire protection).

I wonder what our society would look like if we’d stop being human machines and would break out of our routines more often. Clearly, there is some use for routines – they do give us a sense of security but what price do we pay for this security? And could we have routines that also allow us to remain alive rather than turn into machines?

Richard Eckersley presents in his book Well & Good “two scientific descriptions of the world, which represent the extremes of the modern scientific worldview” (220). At least that is his claim. He first presents a description by Richard Dawkins from his article God’s Utility Function in Scientific American:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

     Continue reading this post » » »

In the United States, we almost seem obsessed with finding happiness, which is rather ironic because “it is not something to be sought or pursued, but a result of how we live” (Richard Eckersley. Well & Good. 104). From early on, we are taught that we will find happiness once we’ve found our soul mate. We’ll “live happily ever after.” What gets lost in this matrimania myth is teaching on how we can create a life that invites happiness without demanding that someone else be responsible for it.

Eckersley gives us some hints based on his review of what the “wise and famous” said (104):

• Focus on others, not ourselves.
• Balance wants and means.
• Be content with what we have.

     Continue reading this post » » »

I am reading an interesting book about happiness, Well & Good, written by an Australian researcher, Richard Eckersley. It is a great book that is reflecting some of the questions that I’ve been grappling with: there is something that is tying many of the issues we’re facing together. Eckersley also attributes a lot of our current malaise to misplaced answers to the questions of meaning and belonging. I am a little leery about his references to spirituality but I haven’t read the book far enough yet to know exactly where he’s going with that. I look forward to sharing a book summary in the not too distant future.

I cannot resist, though, to comment on Eckersley’s bold false statement in reply to his questions what makes a person happy      Continue reading this post » » »

As I was waking up this morning, in that state of not-quite-awakeness, the name Sisyphus bubbled up. Somehow the idea of dragging myself out of bed to do almost exactly the same thing I had done the day before, felt like a Sisyphean task. Noticing the beginnings of a meaning crisis (an existential depression), I forced the thought away and got up. As I woke up more fully, Sisyphus returned. This time I became intrigued: There certainly is something to our days that is very much like the myth of Sisyphus. Just like Sisyphus rolls a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down and start all over again, we do the same things day in day out. That’s called routine. And while there can be something rather comforting about it, routines contain the kernels of a meaning crisis since they have removed us from the effort of making meaning. Then I remembered something else: According to Camus’ telling of the story, Sisyphus was happy. According to Eric Maisel’s take on the story, this mythical character is happy because he “reckoned with the facts of existence” (The Van Gogh Blues, p. 99). He accepted reality, even though that reality involved that he’d be doing the same seemingly meaningless task over and over and over again. In Maisel’s words, Sisyphus forced meaning onto his existence and thus created happiness (or at least, avoided a meaning crisis). Sisyphus could roll the boulder up the hill while complaining that the boulder is too heavy, that he shouldn’t have to do this, that this is ridiculous work, that it is utterly meaningless – fighting reality. This would create unhappiness because it steals meaning from life. I know because I’ve done that way too frequently at my job. But we can do the same as Sisyphus has obviously done: defiantly deciding to be happy no matter what reality brings.

There is another message in the myth of Sisyphus, though: It takes effort. Not only is rolling a boulder up a hill difficult but maintaining a sense of contentment, let alone happiness, takes work as well. Back to my morning: I had to mentally kick myself out of bed. I had to exert an effort to refuse to be drawn down into a meaning crisis by the idea of my Sisyphean day. It took me a while. It took a lot of mental effort, a conscious choice to make meaning, to refuse to be drawn in by my negative self-talk. One thing that I find helpful in cases like this is to connect with others, including strangers, sometimes willfully faking a cheerful attitude until it takes over. As I was walking to the bus stop, still teetering close to the edge of a meaning crisis, I saw the father and son walking down the street I see on many mornings. I don’t know their names. I suspect that the father drops his toddler son off at day care. This morning, I forced myself to smile at them, to say good morning. Making an effort to smile at the first stranger I passed seemed like pushing a boulder up a mountain. The smile was answered, my effort rewarded, making the boulder just a little bit lighter to roll up the hill. Human connections are very important to me, even the small gestures toward strangers seem to help bring more joy into my life. Deep connections with friends are longer lasting and build a stronger foundation. Yet, even the small gestures help and are essential when friends are busy with other things. We cannot rely on one basket to fill our life with happiness.

Jennifer Michael Hecht writes in her book The Happiness Myth: “Happiness maintenance work is creating things to look forward to on a daily basis; arranging some peak experience for yourself occasionally; and making sure the overall story of your life has some feelings of progress and growth” (135-6). I realized this morning that the things to create daily need to be outside of our routine. The routine numbs our minds and hearts, it closes us to the opportunities to make meaning, to find happiness. We need to do something out of that routine to feel alive, the foundation of happiness. To me that out of the ordinary was a simple “good morning” to someone I had never acknowledge before. A stranger, yet not a stranger, since I see the father-son pair almost every morning. Noticing that I was wearing the same sweater that I wore yesterday because I had forgotten that I worn it just the day before, thus breaking the thou-shalt-not-wear-the-same-thing rule, helped, too. It created another opportunity to go beyond the routine and laugh at myself. Not taking life so serious is another way to get out of my routine. Slowly, the danger of a meaning crisis seems to be fading, though I am still making an effort to notice the small things that can add to my joy, just to make sure I don’t slip and fall into the hole of a crisis.