Detecting Crap in Postman.

Today we are studying, or perhaps vigorously over-reacting to, Postman's _Teaching as a Subversive Activity_. From Chapter One, "Crap Detecting":

As Alan Watts has noted: “Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness-- an act of trust in the unknown.

Oh, really, Mr.Postman? And who is the next worthy authority you trouble to quote? Why, halfway down on the same page, you draw on the wisdom of Father John Culkin of Fordham University in summing up the communications revolution. How generous of you, Mr.Postman, to allow a professional "intellectual suicide" to contribute to your work.

Now, where shall we go from the words of Father John Culkin? Ah, you wish me to imagine "unplugging" my home in reverse order of technological development starting... with the tv? Ah, I see, you are writing in 1971. So I am supposed to unplug my home and then I am supposed to see that...

In short, you would have to be a totally different
person from what you are in order to survive for more than a day.

Mr.Postman, I am living forty years of technological gluttony forward of when you are writing, and you are still missing me by a mile. For one small thing, I am an observant Jew. I do this every week, and its the best day of the week-- even though I'm simultaneously refraining from knitting, decorative art, playing music, attending community performances and workshops, and half a dozen of the other totally electric free highlights of my life. Never mind the tech; you could take away standardized currency and I would still be the same person-- actually, with my skill-set, I might be better off.

I would like to cut you a little slack, to acknowledge the "you" you really mean-- but, Mr.Postman, we are talking about teaching here, with a hookline of subversive activity; if my life demonstrates that it's perfectly possible to be a hands-on capable individual in a technological rich environment, you should be talking about using education to make sure people like me become the norm, and so far that is not the direction I am seeing you take this.

...while there has been a tremendous increase in media, there has been, at the same time, a decrease in available and viable “democratic” channels of communication because the mass media are entirely one way
communication.

Ah. Perhaps we have been assigned to read you as an example of how much has changed?

Have you ever heard a man being interviewed say, “I don’t have the faintest idea,” or “I don’t know enough even to guess, ” or “I
have been asked that question before, but all my answers to
it seem to be wrong?”

Iran-Contra- ah, again, before your time. Yes, I think we must be reading you for historical context. Perhaps our instructor, or your next essay, will reveal how the world I am living in today where all these things are commonplace is a result of the tremendous influence of your work. Unfortunately, I am not certain that position would be an improvement on innocuously being a mile off the mark.


Have you ever heard of a student taking notes on the remarks of another student?

Yes. Me.
I have also had my remarks as a student taken down, photocopied, and passed out by the teacher.
If that was your influence, Mr. Peterson, then thank you.

Have yon ever heard of a student indicating an interest in how a textbook writer arrived at his conclusions?

Me again.

Have you ever heard of a student suggesting a more useful definition of something that the teacher has already defined?

Guess who? Mr.Peterson, was that your influence, too?

Asking questions is behavior. If you don’t
do it, you don’t learn it.

Congratulations, Mr.Peterson, with an attitude like this you just might keep up in a the type of study class traditional to those of us "intellectual suicides" known as Jews.

"He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." - George Bernard Shaw, 1903

"They who can, do. They who understand, teach." - Leo Shulman, 1986

"The weakest and oldest among us can become some sort of athlete, but only the strongest can survive as spectators. Only the hardiest can withstand the perils of inertia, inactivity, and immobility."

J.H. Bland and S.M.Cooper
_Semin Arthritis Rheum_ (1984)

Feeling Good Handbook's Twisted Thinking

Yesterday a friend shared with me his work through The Feeling Good Handbook
by Dr. David Burns. First chapter starts with a list of "twisted thoughts" to watch out for (italicized examples are from my understanding.):

Ten types of Twisted Thinking

1 - All or Nothing
"If I didn't get ALL I wanted, I've got nothing." "If it isn't perfect, it's worthless."
2 - Overgeneralization
"This ALWAYS happens to me." "You NEVER do things right." "I just can't keep nice things."
3 - Mental Filter
Why listen to what people are actually saying when you can just put your own thoughts into their mouths?
4 - Discounting the Positive
The good part was a fluke, or easy, or unimportant-- like getting back a score of 99 out of a 100 and spending all day wondering, what did I miss?
5 - Jumping to Conclusions
You didn't smile when I came home-- you've fallen out of love with and are going to leave me.
6 - Magnification
My ice cream has hit the sidewalk and my life is ruined.
7 - Emotional Reasoning
"I wouldn't hit you if you didn't make me mad." "I feel hurt-- you are abusing me."
8 - Should Statements
Coulda, woulda, shoulda, must, ought, have to-- anything but what can be done now. (Also known as "musterbation".
9 - Labeling
"She's a Total Loser." When past mistakes define present identity and eliminate future potential.
10 - Personalization/Blame
"He wouldn't hit me if I didn't make him mad." "It's all my fault."

This list had such an impact that I did it up as a restaurant take-out menu-- I can be heard murmuring, "and that's a number ten" as I catch myself or someone in my household twisting.

Through the creative process of making the menu, I spotted the commonality-- that these are all different ways of re-playing favorite patterns instead of being present in reality and dealing with the discomfort of real-life, real-time constant reassessment.

The Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership," by Kent Keith

The Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership," by Kent Keith

From: http://www.ParadoxicalCommandments.com/origin.html

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.

2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

6. The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

7. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.

-- Clementine Paddleford

Intro to Haftorah, Rosh Hashanah 2, 5771

On the 9th of Av, just after dawn, I took a bullet-proof bus over the Green Line, through Beit Lechem, to the Tomb of Rachel.
The room where we pray is like a cave that comes to a wall of velvet veined in gold.
The sepulchre itself is draped in darkest blue velvet, embroidered in gold, and covered in thin vinyl.
For four hours I sat and swayed as that small space filled and half-emptied with tides of teary women, pressing against the tomb and receding.
We'd come to mourn the loss of the Temple, but most of us there suffering more ancient sorrows:
the loss of health, hurt in the family,
the grief of missing children who may never be born.
In my turn, I pressed up to the Tomb, and I-- a Jew who prays only to the One G'd-- laid my hands against the vinyl and my head against my hands and said,
"Imma, Imma."
All around me were women-- who were there because they were Jewish-- reading complicated special prayers that all boil down to saying,
"Rachel, I am your child too; Imma, weep for me and get me mercy."
Is this Jewish?
How do we come to this from the words of Yermiyahu, idol-stomper?

These questions did not occur to me there. There, I was seeing these words everywhere.
From the gates of Yad Vashem to the bazaars of the Old City,
"Rachel is weeping...
...your children will return to their country."
Jerusalem has been rebuilt on these words.
To be there, is to live them.

It is only here, half a world away, that these question occur as I try to explain--
without using phrases like "modern recurrence of pre-Enlightenment ancestral intercessory supplication".

Yet I find I have brought my answers back with me, too, from half a world away,
from a place that in Hebrew they call a "Beit Avot", in English we say, a... "convalescent" home.
There was a tiny woman with dancing eyes who was determined that we could connect on important issues despite the poverty of my Hebrew.
"Yesh lakh ba'al? (Do you have a husband?) Yofee! (Lovely!) V'yeladim? (And children?) Ohhhh."
Then she called over the activities director to translate and began telling her story as fast as she could speak.
She was sixteen, in Greece. Her mother woke her, told her to dress in her best clothes, and took her to the wealthiest family in town.
She sold her-- four years of service, and they passed her as their daughter and brought her to future Israel.
Of her whole family-- a Greek Jewish clan of over a hundred cousins, second-cousins, uncles, aunts, brothers, mother--
she was the remnant who lived.
And then she laid her hands on me and blessed me for a large family, b'ezrat Hashem.

How was this blessing transmitted?
Was the power of blessing in her hands? Then those in that room, in that Beit Avot, who had lost the use of their hands had lost the ability to give blessings.
Was the power of blessing in her voice? Then those who have lost their voices have lost the power to give blessings.
Was the power of blessing in her presence? Then how have I brought it back with me?
Was the power of blessing, kanehora, dependent upon her being alive? Then what would be the point?

A blessing has to come soul to soul.

Who is Rachel to me? A story to study, a symbol to evoke, or, dare I say, a disembodied soul with whom I have a relationship?
Then she is not the only soul with whom I have a relationship.
The metaphysical element of this relationship is all on my side, because I have become the Dream.
I have become the Dream of the old woman, that there shall again grow sprawling Jewish families.
We are the Dream of Rachel, who died praying and dreaming that her children should live in safety and peace and home.
We are the Dream of Yermiyahu, who dreamed of Jews praying to One G'd, and treating one another ethically.
This is Jewish: to bring memories to life, to carry a dream l'dor v'dor,
and on this Sunday, to lay our hands against the tombstones of the souls with whom we have relationships, and pray,
because people are holy.

Into the Fire

Take the metaphors of tempered steel,
the many words written about Divine hammering,
and trials by fire that temper the soul
into a blade finally ready for its perfect stroke--
Take them away.
I am pot metal.
I am seasoning.

I am salted in tears and spiced in life's blessings.
I am constantly in use.
The good that comes through me comes through with the flavor
of each experience seared into me,
and the good that comes through me becomes part of me,
as does the pain.
I am seasoning.

Do not be too quick to clean me, claim me,
polish me bright. Do not be so quick to shine me up
in my own eyes, or the eyes of my Maker.
Do not imagine that scraping away what I have done
is the way to make me beautiful.
I am pot metal. I will end
Blackened, battered, and beloved, but now
I am seasoning.

Limbo on Earth

Limbo is living in a clearing in Hell.
The blaze and the crackle stupefy you.
Every time you are afraid, the flames creep a millimeter forward.
It takes a long time to put the progression together,
to realize that once you lose yourself to fear,
you will be in Hell.
After you realize that, you do your best to feel nothing.
You have to get out. You know you cannot keep this up forever--
But knowing that draws the flames a millimeter closer--
so you try not to know it.
You have seen the moments when the flames seem to part,
when there seems to be a path between them.
If you were ready you could run forward
But that would be so frightening!
And how could you stay alert without being afraid?
So you stand, stupefied,
Or you act as best you can as though nothing is happening,
and seal your fate.

The Color that is All Colors and No Color at All

The Color that is All Colors and No Color at All

My mother gives me pearls,
I give my mother pills.

We unwrap them from the white cotton
that has kept them whole--
the pills, over space;
the pearls, over time--
and slip sideways into an unguarded moment to offer them one to another.

"Take these." My mother tries to hang on me
the symbols of a woman's Self-Possession.
Dignity. Prosperity.
The Subtle Gleam that glows greater through the years.

"Take these." I try to foist on my mother
newfangled hopes of unearned ease,
a soft night's sleep, a morning without pain,
a magic trick to fix those things her generation was taught
can only be endured.

We who were one flesh now must scrape the belly
of the ultimate mother, earth,
as we strive to speak in minerals,
words having run short of the depth of our need
to still feed the goodness and leach out poisons,
and maintain the transubstantiation
of Love itself
into Life itself.

Pearl S. Buck on the Creative Mind

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…

They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.

~ Pearl S. Buck

From today's Mussar Kallah

Rabbi Ira Stone taught,
"The definition of love is to be obligated."
"When you resist obligation, you are turning away from love."

There must have been a time.

There must have been a time when everyone had seen a great tree taken down.

There must have been a time when everyone knew, they'd be cutting down the big tree on Main Street. And everyone would know the reasons why, and think on their memories, and when the time came a little crowd would gather-- the children, especially-- to wait and watch it fall.

A time when everyone had done their time at the side of a dying man or woman or child. When death and desctruction were personal. When there was time to make time.

Now I sit in my apartment and frantically try to hide from the deaths of trees I've known for years, try to think of how to pack up what work and where to go, too much to do to spend the day weeping and letting go.

It's the same denial I've seen turned toward human death. The same helplessness. The same turning away.

I am older than Penelope waiting for Ulysses

At 9:13am this Monday, I passed my 37th solar return and began my 38th trip around the center of our solar system. Kirk Douglas was there to celebrate with me in the form of the Ulysses of my childhood. Once I was a child sitting on the carpet in front of the living room television tuning in to Tom Hatten and his Family Film Festival just to see if Ulysses was on. Now I watch the figure of Penelope, still beautiful but irrevocably mature, the child bride of sixteen who has waited through twenty years of lost youth to have her life again, and I realize, I am older than she is.

I am carrying Julia Child's My Life in France about with me. Julia, like me, just beginning to "be" in middle age. When Julia was 37, she had only begun to seriously learn how to cook. She was only coming in to a sense of knowing herself, knowing her "fearlessness". How much of that fearlessness was inborn, and how much distilled from the years of being unloved and unknown, and how much from the power of being loved and known so well by one devoted soul at last? Who is to say if Julia herself knew? I want to "daven fearlessly". I need more heroes like Julia, in this youth-worshipping culture, more heroes whose greatness came from what they became in middle age.