Category Archives: Psychology

Behavior, Government, Justice, Law, Opinion, Personal, Politics, Psychology, Racism and Prejudice, Religion, Social Media, Social Rules

Folly

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They said the secret part out loud.

Regardless of how we feel about the words, in a way, it’s a good thing.

We don’t have enough authenticity in the world.

I grew up inundated with prejudice, alcoholism, and violence, but also love and respect. The traumatic parts become the focus because they’re our biggest challenges. It’s hard to admire the sunset when your face is bruised by someone who is supposed to protect you. You can’t love reading if you’re hungry or afraid.

It’s the same now. Our society is safer and smarter, and our arc is generally that of betterment.

You wouldn’t think so – and that’s because the outliers draw our attention. Despite statistics that clearly show that we’re safer and smarter, that’s not the consensus you get when you ask a large group of people whether life is better now than it was. The effect of people thinking in large groups is that we increasingly find it easier to lose sight of doing the right thing.

Tribalism and echo chambers dominate us. It isn’t worse now than it once was. It’s just that we have tools to make information instantaneous.

It should be obvious who among us is motivated by the things that represent what our ideals demand of us. It’s not a question of intelligence, no more than your argument about loading the dishwasher is really about something else. Smart people do dumb things so it is no surprise that when we band together, we behave even more stupidly.

To justify, we vilify. We do this even as we recognize that we’re mostly doing and saying the same things. Names and geography changes – but we largely do not.

“Why can’t we all get along?” The answer is simple. Because we are not logical creatures.

We’re supposed to love our neighbor, but easily justify all manner of destruction. We’re supposed to honor and cherish those we’re with, but all of us see friends and family choose infidelity. Humanity is supposed to drive us forward and yet most of us participate in a capitalist system that takes advantage of the disadvantaged and favors the rich. We choose leaders who openly lie, cheat, and work for special interests and themselves. We claim to collectively despise entertainment that denigrates; yet, statistics demonstrate that we are consuming such content behind closed doors and locked phones. We know that our friends, family, and coworkers are drinking excessively, using mind-altering substances, or choosing the wrong things on a large scale.

Regarding politics, people are nuts. Studies show that we draw our conclusions and then find the evidence to support it. It’s what we do in our personal lives, so it’s no shock that it follows us in our ideologies. The religions we choose often propel us into certainty and dogma. The good ones preach universal love and respect, yet too many of their followers splinter the message and focus on controlling others.

If you’re a good person, you live without harming others. You choose what helps others. You’re going to fail often.

Saying the quiet part aloud helps us. For better or worse, at least you’re letting the rest of us know what percolates in your secret heart and life, the one you don’t want to be exposed. I grew up with a couple of people who were, in my opinion, monstrous. Not because they acted, but because they kept their secrets locked inside a box of righteousness and self-certainty.

Words, words, and more words, a flood of them.

Meanwhile, your life is your sermon.

As for alleged leaders, I want people who have mostly lived their lives with efficiency and honor. If they haven’t managed to control their own lives in agreement with the ideals they quote, it is dissonance and folly to expect them to lead us anywhere other than the wrong place.

Whatever your ideology is, if you’re focused on control or the certainty that you’re right, you will be blinded to other options.

I’m old enough to have become fascinated by people and their lack of self-understanding. I see it in myself so I can say it without sounding like a hypocrite.

Love, X
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Behavior, Lemon Moment, Personal, Psychology

Madman’s Gyroscopic Kaleidoscope

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Things you’re not supposed to acknowledge…

Yesterday, a compliment and acknowledgment echoed back to me from decades ago. One part of the experience resulted from me sharing a piece of myself years ago. It lay dormant until the universe collided after waiting for the right moment to be awakened. One of the outcomes of which is that I experienced what can only be characterized as deep regret. When you are young and naive and trying to flourish in the middle of trauma, everything is a danger signal. Even when you don’t have the knowledge or insight to recognize it. From the contemplation of those almost forgotten memories and regret came a flash of rare insight. Pieces of the me that I am today were obviously right on the surface. My prolific nature. My love of words and converse loathing of their alleged structure and use. Valuing rare moments wherein people take risks and open themselves up to harm through vulnerability. As the universe invariably does, I was dealt another direct hit early this morning. A reminder that treachery can nestle behind both smile or anger. There’s a perverse duality to this set of seemingly disparate and distinct experiences; one of whispered memories and the other a demonstration that everyone has something to learn. The letter part is doubly true when the person does not want to see themselves clearly in their mirror’s reflection. Arcane or factual knowledge has its place but dims and dissipates, contrasted against the type of realization that you feel when it cuts you from the inside. Earlier today, a song came on that overwhelmed me. Instead of shirking away, I gave it my attention. And then the next song blasted me out of the reverie. Life is like that. It demands both kneeling and dancing, often like a madman’s gyroscopic kaleidoscope. Love, X

Behavior, Lemon Moment, Opinion, Personal, Psychology, Social Rules

Surrender

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A part of me is still flying in the May afternoon, the sun declining and making me a human prism. No cape required.

What I wanted most from the experience of jumping was to know what it would feel like leaning out knowing I had to surrender and spiral out.

But what it has done over time is paradoxically make things more colorful while simultaneously making other things banal.

I’m trying to decide between bull riding and telling my manager he’s got a bad haircut. Both seem equally dangerous.

Someone quipped to me that once you see the Grand Canyon you can’t look at a simple yet elegant river without comparing it.

Many of our comparisons are subconscious. If you’ve ever experienced acceptance at its most basic level, it’s hard to deal with quibblers. If you’ve experienced unconditional love, anything less than surrendering to it feels like a violation. If you’ve learned something that challenges your core beliefs, it’s hard to believe that you aren’t wrong about a lot of other things, too.

I’m still flying and I’m not certain it’s to my benefit.

It incrementally brought back that feeling of detachment that was such a joy almost 20 years ago. Detachment allows you to have deep singular experiences, but it also paradoxically separates you from the turmoil.

It’s ego that tells me that it’s wrong to say, “People who jump out of airplanes don’t quibble over trivial.” Equally true is that once you lose a piece of your identity because of loss or recognition of how alone you can be when you don’t take care to dive into to mess of life, it’s hard to dial back in.

Someone also told me it’s not wrong to lean in and feel like I did something special, even if thousands do it each year. It’s on people’s bucket lists for a reason. Even if all I did was lean out and let go, allowing gravity to do the rest.

How many of us live life on autopilot anyway? Waiting for whatever happens to happen.

“Not changing is choosing.”

Love, X
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Behavior, Opinion, Personal, Psychology

Perspective

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Unpack all your baggage and throw it in the attic or the basement. It will still be there to greet you later but at least you will stop transporting it around as if it defines you. Take a moment and look out your window. It’s a portal to several billion people and unimaginable fascinations. So why do we choose to spiral into an ever-narrowing cocoon? We complain about traffic and yet we can only visit new places by becoming traffic. As for work, it’s almost universal that we love some aspects of it while simultaneously despising the grind and the dehumanizing part of it. The people around us become familiar and we think we’ve learned what we can from them. Maybe it’s time to put on the clown shoes or the bowtie and risk looking ridiculous. One of the secrets of life is that while people are giving us the sideeye they are also largely ignoring us, consumed by the constant barrage of obligations and appearances that keep them caged.
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Behavior, Opinion, Personal, Psychology

Fire Or Ice

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If you are a nighttide peripheral observer like me, you’re going to see things that make you do a double take. This morning I drove by the infamous Bottoms Up at an hour when even the local vampires are getting droopy-eyed. A woman stood between her open car door and the car and a man leaned against her. His work truck was parked on the other side of her car.  I’m certain he was examining her tonsils. My initial reaction was “geez.” But my ensuing reaction was “good for them.” When we are young, it’s our opportunity to abandon good sense and let our biological fires not only lead us down the path of temptation, but also take a dubious detour. It is a certainty that we should be rational creatures. Careful attention to our behaviors and patterns clearly demonstrates that we are not. Routine grips us and we build layers of distraction on top of our clandestine wish to feel alive. Maybe I’m an outlier. Perhaps the rest of you don’t struggle with the duality of knowing we’re here to experience the world, but also wonder why we choose or are pushed into obligations and routines that quite simply deaden us at times. Whoever those tongue-locked people were will wake up at some point during the day and regret burning the midnight oil. Maybe you will think I’m crazy for saying I had a similar regret when I pulled in to work. I probably should be driving to Central Arkansas this morning. But I’m not. It is all an accumulation of choices. Some serve us, and some do not. It’s only in retrospect after we’ve made the choices that we tell ourselves we understand why we made them.

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Behavior, Death, Opinion, Personal, Psychology

Fleeting

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“Tomorrow is the bastard child of our imagination. It presumes certainty wherein none can be found, even by the most expert and capable amongst us. This is no exhortation to whisper to yourself, ‘Carpe diem.’ All the things that worry you are illusions. The time you have is not even borrowed. It’s yours. If you cannot find it in yourself to detach from the self-imposed blueprint of identity and ambition long enough to comprehend this, there is no question that you’re probably wasting the only resource that matters: time. In the time it took to read this, 105 souls have moved on to whatever awaits them. That  nebulous visitor in your thoughts? The one that tickles your discomfort. It is a primeval instinct of awareness and reminder. Distractions only dampen it. Don’t seize the day. Seize the moments that are in front of you. Although you probably won’t practice it until you’re older, don’t let the words ‘later’ or ‘tommorow’ pass casually from your lips. These words are vanity in a nutshell.”

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Behavior, Death, Opinion, Personal, Psychology

It Is

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Earlier in the week, someone complained that we don’t actually own anything. Their focus was on taxes. I didn’t say it out loud, but I wanted to point out that ownership is an illusion. I wanted to point out that their frustration couldn’t possibly change how things are. Even the core of identity, our body and brain, is governed by expiration. It’s not the type of comment that most people enjoy during a conversation. Certainly, we hold things for a few decades if we are lucky. There’s no doubt that everything is borrowed while we’re walking around on this planet.

Almost all of us, no matter what we do or strive for, might end up as a footnote on a Wikipedia page. Once the people we affect are gone, all we can hope for is an echo effect; moments, pieces of our love, wit, or presence that infected others for the right reasons. While I am not a religious person, this sort of thinking always makes me think of Ecclesiastes. 

We spend our lives chasing security and possession. Strictly speaking, obtaining either is an illusion. Security is momentary and based on temporary variables that we don’t control. If it can be owned, it can also be taken or lost.

I was told to relearn the lesson of all this. Jumping out of a plane helped. Watching people chase things that give them the feeling of control also reminds me that learned detachment is about the only means to let go of all the musts, shoulds, and nonsense we’ve accumulated. 

I’ve been practicing more to remind myself that worry and anxiety are largely based on the desire for control or certainty. Both steal your allotted energy to take in what happens for what it is. 

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Behavior, Lemon Moment, Mental Health, Personal, Psychology

Let Go

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“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” Captain Picard. I come back to this quote often. Lord knows I am not guilty of doing everything right. 

When I went skydiving recently, I signed many waivers, ones that consistently reminded me that I was giving away all control. The back of my parachute harness made this clear; almost anything can happen when you jump out of an airplane. Not just human error but a million mechanical or environmental things. The universe is not a safe place. The truth is that almost anything can happen when you’re on the ground, too. Your organs can spontaneously fail, an invisible aneurysm can surrender, or a vehicle can come from nowhere and turn out the lights without warning. You can wake up to find someone you love has departed, whether through the door or into the unknown place that waits for each of us. A plane can fall from the sky, even if it is piloted by the most expert of those who chose the job or avocation. You can trip on the sidewalk and break your neck, even on a beautiful sunlight-filled day. 

I knew in real time when I leaned out of the open plane into the sky that THIS was the moment I’d waited for. Not the 30 seconds of freefall, nor the minutes of floating down with the parachute, watching how everything looks different from such a height. Don’t get me wrong. When the instructor asked me how it was to jump out once we were floating, I enthusiastically shouted, “Holy f@ck!” It was already over by the time I struggled to hold the harness on my chest and keep my arms and head tucked safely. The unspoken thing about skydiving is that you’re going to get back to the ground – one way or another. Likewise, you’re going to end up somewhere in life, even if you don’t make conscious choices. 

The next part is tough to admit. I jumped out of selfishness. The day I was in the tree, watching a plane go over, I just knew I had to jump. I waited to be nervous or afraid, even on the long ride up into the beautiful afternoon sky. The only moment that I really wanted was to experience leaning out the door and knowing I had to let go. The moments during and after were window dressing and distractions from wanting to KNOW what would go through my head. It wasn’t fear because it didn’t feel real in the way that we think about reality. It was surrender. 

Even if fear had overwhelmed me, I still would have fallen out. Oversimplifying it, the result is the same. There is a lesson in there. The result for each of us is the same, ultimately. It’s the in-between and how we either enjoy the moments or are dismayed by them. Overthinkers and anxious people spend too much time concerned with appearances, control, and things beyond our control. Your face, mind, and body are the ones you have; work with what you have, change what you can, and release the rest of the nonsense into the void. I can preach it because although I understand it, I don’t consistently practice what I preach. That pisses me off. 

When you are prone to anxiety or worry, you’re really not seeing that you are trying to be in control of things that aren’t in your domain to do so. Both anxiety and worry take energy and focus away from what it is. Cognitively, I get it. But if you can accept the idea that although you live your life perfectly, the results are not going to be perfect. So why do we expect things to go moderately well when we know we aren’t doing things correctly?  There’s nothing you can do about it. This sort of visceral understanding can either mobilize you to action or it can freeze you in your tracks, maybe forever. 

I say I jumped out of selfishness because it’s true. I’m hoping that the moment of looking out into the sky clogs my head with the absurdity of worrying about the infinite list of things that cannot be controlled. I’ve been in the headspace before where I was completely detached. It’s liberating, but it is also dangerous.

Love, X

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Ancestry, Behavior, Biographical, DNA, Justice, Law, Opinion, Personal, Psychology, Racism and Prejudice, Social Rules

Truth

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A local doctor stole babies from birth mothers, telling them that their children had died. And one case in particular… It took decades for DNA to reveal the story. That happened here in Northwest Arkansas. One of my ideas for a Netflix documentary would be to contact the families of every mother, especially single mothers, who gave birth during a specific time period to perform DNA tests and compare them nationally.

Handsome, charismatic men who portray themselves as humble Christian husbands. Yet engage in a cycle of highly sexual affairs. (A story so common it is literally copy and paste.) Another one with a conservative political career who used his position at his work to take advantage of women. There’s a reason so many sexual harassment complaints arise in the workplace. It has built-in inequality that largely negates people speaking up and setting things right.

More than one doctor who openly had mistresses but yet were considered pillars of the community. Who had children with those mistresses.

People I knew who experienced a wild array of trauma. Everything you can imagine. Even though I had my own mostly unknown traumas, some of these people went through much, much worse than I did.

A dentist who preyed on women. Money can lighten any stain or accusation. Rarely do people choose victims whom they consider their equals.

Cops took advantage of people monetarily or sexually. Some used their positions to ruin their victims instead of admitting what they had done.

Coaches who bullied young kids. Or worse.

Teachers who are inappropriate with their students.

Church leaders behaving inappropriately.

A multitude of lawyer stories. Except they are armed and knowledgeable regarding the process of eluding accountability. Mostly. I’ve told the story many times, but one of them went to prison for fixing cases. My parents were among those who benefited from the arrangement.

Last year I had a bad feeling about someone who owned a plumbing company. I used my skills and uncovered a trail of female victims. One leading me across the country.

I had a similar feeling about a neighbor. He turned out to be a previously convicted sexual predator, along with a nice jacket full of criminal offenses.

All of these things have shadows around them.

Most people are good people.

But one thing you have to understand is that your experience with a particular person does not mean they didn’t have a dark side.

Especially upon their passing, if you lionize them, you have to be willing to listen to anyone who has a contrary opinion or experience with them.

It is in darkness and secrecy that people can be duplicitous and lead secret lives out of sight from observers. At least observers who will speak up.

The above examples are stories I know from here in Northwest Arkansas.

When I got involved in learning about the doctor who was stealing babies, I was expecting a reasonable explanation. Instead, I had to sit in the knowledge that someone was capable of ruining a mother’s life in that way. There was no doubt that he had done it to multiple women.

It’s human nature to avoid accountability, just as it’s also our nature to get mad when someone tries to tarnish a family member or someone we admire. Even a cursory look at Mother Theresa and her charity reveals many detestable secrets.

People have different faces for each aspect of their life.

I don’t have a nice bow with which to tie this post up.

There are certainly false accusers.

But there are also victims or people who know the truth about someone.

Each of these people has the right to tell their truth and story.

History and familiarity with people have repeatedly and demonstrably proven that truth is stranger than fiction.

I have several examples from my life in which the truth didn’t come to light for decades. In one, I found the gift of a beautiful and intelligent sister concealed from me. In another, I found proof of the final crime that sent my dad to prison in Indiana in the 60s.

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