The Close of Another Chapter

Posted on November 13, 2024 by admin

This is going to be another emotionally heavy post. My grandmother died last month. Now that there’s been a fair amount of time since her death, I feel more comfortable talking about it and some related things that are currently happening. This post will focus mostly on what has happened since the funeral.

The funeral itself went about as well as it could have. I stayed at my grandparents’ house the night before with some other family members to save myself from a long drive the morning of the funeral. Several other family members met there the next morning before we all headed over to the funeral home. Some of us got to view my grandmother’s body quite a while before the service started. Unlike at my grandfather’s funeral back in 2017, I shed only a few tears during the service; I must have cried out enough before her funeral to feel ok that day. We then drove over to the cemetery for another brief graveside service and visited more with each other before parting ways.

Since the funeral is over, the biggest focus at this point is my grandparents’ house. They lived in that house for almost my whole life. Since they now have no more use for it, it’s being put up for sale soon. That house has been part of my life since the year after I was born and will soon be inaccessible to me. I feel deeply upset about that.

It’s the most peaceful house I’ve ever been in. The house sits on two acres of land in a rural area, so I pass by several other large plots of land with horses and cows whenever I drive there and back. There’s plenty of space between all the houses in the neighborhood, and it’s far enough away from a main road to get pretty quiet on most occasions. I love hanging out on the back porch swing, soaking up the silence, and watching the birds going about their day. Few other experiences are so relaxing to me. I will dearly miss that tradition, along with the house, all the wonderful memories it holds, and the family members who lived there for most of my life.

There have already been some big changes to that house. In addition to my grandparents no longer living there, some things have been given away, and lots of things have been rearranged. I’ve helped a bit with that, and I hope to do more of it in the near future. Still, this situation is upsetting for me for a few reasons. One of them is that it signifies that my time at that house is drawing to a close. The bigger reason has to do with external memories. Sometimes I’ll come across an item I haven’t seen or even thought about in ages. Whenever that happens, a flood of memories always follows, and I get transported back to experiences that had long ago stopped crossing my mind. That’s why I have a hard time parting with things from my past and my room is overrun with stuff. I fear that if I lose access to the objects that unlock precious memories, I’ll also lose access to the memories themselves. I hope that doesn’t happen with the loss of that house. I’m glad I’ve gotten to see the house a few times while it was mostly the same as I remember, in addition to getting some mementos over the last few visits.

This is similar to what I dealt with after my dog Sawyer’s death. Aside from the pain of his death, there is the lingering pain of knowing that for the rest of my Earthly life, Sawyer and I will get no more walks, naps together, cuddling, playing, saying good night and good morning, excited greetings after returning home, etc. Sometimes it still occurs to me that I’ll never get to make new memories with Sawyer or make up for lost time, and that’s always a painful punch in the gut. That’s after eleven years together. I have no idea how painful it will be when the house that has been in my life for over thirty years goes away. It already hurts to know that there’ll soon be no more holiday gatherings, birthday celebrations, or visits with my grandparents or anybody else out there.

I don’t yet who will become the new owner of that house. I hope whoever it is will love and cherish it, keep the general layout similar to how it is now, preserve the beautiful wood floors and other lovely features, and make many wonderful memories during their time living there. I’d hate for it to get torn down, radically changed, or converted into a commercial building (though since it’s in a small, rural neighborhood with lots of elderly people living nearby, I think it’s safe from at least two of those possibilities). I’ve stayed overnight there twice recently, once this month and once last month. Both times, I cried when I was alone late at night. Going there makes the situation more real brings up the painful emotions more easily than when I’m just thinking about it elsewhere. I thought that last month’s visit would be my last time getting to spend the night there or even see the place while it’s still in the family. Since I got to do both of those again this month, I now have no idea how many more such opportunities I’ll get. As long as I’m able, I’ll continue soaking up experiences, taking pictures and videos, getting mementos, and making new memories at that house while I still can. Soon enough, I’ll not be able to make any new memories there and will be left with only the memories I’ve already made. The close of every precious chapter of my life always hurts. It’s so hard to keep going while missing people, places, and things that go away. I hope that the close of this chapter will be as gentle on me as it can be.

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How To Disagree

Posted on November 6, 2024 by admin

Will all the disagreements and fights in the world, you’d think more folks would know how to disagree. Since they don’t, I thought I’d offer some guidance. This post isn’t meant to encourage disagreement. I believe that most disagreements are unnecessary, and certainly the way most humans go about them are unnecessary. This post is essentially my way of saying that if you still feel like disagreeing with somebody, do it this way for best results. Without further ado, here are my recommendations.

  1. Know what you’re disagreeing with. Few things will make you look sillier than rushing in to disagree about something only to find out you actually had no idea what someone else was actually saying. Even worse is if you start out disagreeing strongly with something before realizing that the thing you thought you disagreed with is actually something you believe. To avoid this embarrassment, make sure you understand what is being said well enough that you can explain it in your own words back to the person who said it and get verification that you described it accurately. This requires you to be more interested in hearing out the other person than you are in saying whatever you’re thinking. Since you already know what you think and may not know what someone else is going to say, why not quiet down and listen?
  2. Determine whether or not it’s worth it. For any given subject, is it critically important to have agreement between yourself and at least one other human or can you agree to disagree and move on? In most cases, it’s the latter. Sometimes resolving a disagreement is crucial, such as making sure that the right kind of fuel goes into a vehicle or verifying that this particular patient is the one who is getting a certain lifesaving procedure. However, most fights I’ve seen and been part of have been over trivial matters that don’t result in anyone getting hurt, dying, or living an incredibly low quality of life if agreement is not reached. Even when the issues being discussed are major, they’re normally discussed by humans who have no control over the direction those issues go; because the outcome of those exchanges doesn’t impact those issues at all, it is pointless to have strong, heated disagreements and fights over them.
  3. Converse in person. Online fights are so easy because it’s just text on a screen. It’s hard to remember that behind those words is another living, breathing human who is just as complex and unique as you are. Remembering that is much easier in person, and that makes difficult conversations more likely to be civil. It also prevents you from having to deal with those who spend all day fighting and disagreeing online over any and all subjects of any size, as if they were getting paid to do that (it’s hard to play to an audience if it’s just two of you talking with each other and neither of you get any “points” for making big, outlandish accusations or personal attacks). Additionally, talking in person limits the discussion. Online fights can drag on endlessly with any number of pauses before being resumed. If you’re only talking about a particular subject with someone in person, then both of your schedules, locations in the world, and abilities to come together determine how long you can talk about it, or if you can talk about it at all. The conversation can be made even easier if you’re having it over a meal, athletic activity, or other kind of fun event that helps you both relax and brings you closer together.
  4. Learn what’s going on under the surface. It’s easy to focus solely on the words and intellect, and it’s even easier to fight on those levels. However, much like how an iceberg has much more going on under the surface, so, too, does any exchange between two or more humans. Upbringing, traumatic experiences, nature, nurture, nearby humans (close friends, family members, coworkers, neighbors, etc.), emotions, and much more that is often ignored all play a huge role in shaping what any given individual values and believes. Even if delving into all of that doesn’t bring agreement, it will at least bring understanding, and likely a much greater degree of civility than if all of that were ignored and focus kept only on the surface level issues.
  5. Find common ground. More often than not, humans are far more alike than they are different. This may seem hard to believe, given how much attention is paid toward differences and how much violence surrounds those differences. However, if you’ve completed the previous step, then you have a good idea of just how much you and nearly anyone else has in common. Everyone needs food, water, clothes, shelter, sleep, love, compassion, help, and safety for themselves and their loved ones. Since everyone needs those things and almost everyone wants them, most humans undertake activities and support ideas that they believe will get more of the good and less of the bad. Keeping that in mind can help smooth over conversations between individuals who both agree on where they want to go yet disagree on what they think is the best way to get there.
  6. Move on in peace. Whether or not disagreement is reached, that exchange is one small area of your life. There are way more areas that are far more deserving of your time, energy, and focus. You could have meaningful visits with your friends and family, hang out with any animal friends you have (as I used to do with my dog Sawyer whenever possible), have fun with your hobbies, volunteer for a good cause, or do any number of other things that are good for you and those around you. All of those will make a much bigger and better difference in the world than repeatedly trying to change someone’s mind and letting them know how much you disagree with them.
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What Do You Need?

Posted on October 30, 2024 by admin

“What do you need?” This simple statement can do a world of good for both the one hearing it and the one saying it. When used genuinely, the person who hears it can feel heard, appreciated, and valued; the person who says it can tune in to and focus on the feelings, concerns, and needs of another human. This can put both of them at ease, turn a potential fight into a civil conversation, and pave the way for solutions.

That would be such a breath of fresh air. Instead, unfortunately, there is so much instant disagreement, dismissal, and fighting over seemingly opposing ideas. It’s incredibly common for most people to show far more interest in voicing their own opinions than in hearing out someone else’s feelings and needs. They want to speak and be heard and understood but don’t want to sit quietly and listen and understand. They don’t even take a moment to reflect on what was just said and ask questions to verify that they heard correctly before criticizing and condemning the other person. All of their focus is on the intellectual side of things instead of the emotions of themselves or anyone else involved (although emotions are clearly running the show under the surface and come out through various personal attacks).

This doesn’t apply solely to the most controversial issues of the day. At this point, every disagreement, no matter how small or insignificant, is presented as an epic life-or-death battle between good and evil. Gone is the idea that two intelligent people with good intentions can simply disagree about how to get somewhere they both want to go. As Marshall Rosenberg put it, that just takes them further away from being able to connect empathically to solve problems together and instead keeps them stuck in playing “Who’s Right,” which is a losing game for everyone.

I feel disappointed to see this in those close to me for whom it is a far cry from how they once conducted themselves. These folks used to be much more willing to hear others out, talk in a civil way over disagreements, and keep conversations mostly focused on pleasant subjects. They’re now much less willing to listen, are quick to hostility, and force conversations to take a negative turn by needlessly interjecting controversial subjects. There is no attempt to resolve differences or find solutions, just an endless back and forth over them. And they don’t even talk about what feelings they have over those issues (anger, shock, sadness, etc.), which makes it sound as if they’re just describing facts about the world with no clear reason for doing so.

Beyond my frustration at being around this sort of behavior, I simply don’t understand it. What is the point of this? It never seems as if anyone who does this is looking to solve a problem, and most of the problems that they discuss are ones that can’t be solved without massive changes to systems that encompass millions of individuals. Other than egoic pride over defending ideas that they’ve worked into their identity (and thus act as if they are defending their lives where no threat exists in a perfect illustration of the saying “People don’t have ideas, ideas have people”), why bring up issues that can’t be solved even in the course of one civil conversation, let alone a hostile fight? I doubt they’d want others to do any of that to them, so why do they do any of it to others?

My late dog Sawyer was much better at listening and understanding than most humans I’ve come across. Even in the middle of a big barking fit, he’d still pause and look at me when I said his name and then listen to what I had to say. I didn’t even have to train him to do that; he just did it once he’d gotten comfortable with me. What does that say when a dog automatically picks up the ability to listen with the intent to understand while most humans never get it?

I’m seldom on the receiving end of the above behavior as I rarely challenge what anyone says anymore. That said, I feel extremely comfortable around it (largely because it was forced on me growing up, but also because it’s how I used to act at the slightest disagreement), and it’s still common enough for me to get exposed to it on a fairly regular basis in real life. I long for the day in which the default response to a sharing of concerns is, “What do you need?” In response to that question, here are some of the things I need. I need peace, both alone and around other humans. I need to be valued for who I am, not what I have done, am doing, or may someday do. I need my close relationships to be safe enough that anything can be brought up and worked through together peacefully. I need those around me to sit with their emotions instead of compulsively venting them to me, almost always without checking to see if I’m in a good place to receive said venting. I need enough space to put my words together and speak them fully without being interrupted, talked over, or otherwise shut down. And I need to be taken seriously, especially by those who alternate between praising me and flat-out ignoring my ideas the moment they hear something they dislike. Now, what do you need?

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Healing the Hard Stuff

Posted on October 23, 2024 by admin

There is an idea from The Million Dollar Goal by Dan Gutman that has stuck with me ever since I read that book as a little kid. The idea is that just as you can like someone without loving them, you can also love someone without liking them. Without going too much into spoilers, this is relevant for the main characters after they lose a loved one whom they found it difficult to like. Despite their often-strained relationship, they all felt sad, and perhaps a bit guilty, after their loved one died.

This is something that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough: the complex and even contradictory emotions that often come up after a loved one’s death. It’s expected that there will be lots of sadness, depression, regret, and fear. What many are surprised to find, if they pay close enough attention, is that there may also be feelings of anger, relief, or joy. Anger is commonly felt toward the situation that brought about the loved one’s death (disease, injury, etc.), but it can also be felt toward the loved one for dying, even when it’s obvious on an intellectual level that the loved one didn’t choose to die. Emotions are irrational like that, and that’s perfectly fine. Relief might come to someone who has been taking care of the loved one for a long time, and now they know they’ll never have to do that again. That relief and possibly joy may be felt once the loved one is no longer in pain, struggling with a terrible disease, having to live in this bizarre world, and the like. There may also be joy in believing that the loved one is now living peacefully in paradise after death.

This also includes things they did that annoyed you, stress you felt around wondering when and how they would die, possible resentments over having to take care of them more toward the end of their lives, and any guilt or shame you feel for feeling or thinking those things. Doing this may take quite a while as such feelings toward the deceased are often considered to be taboo and unacceptable (except for when the deceased in question is nearly universally despised).

I believe that the failure to reveal uncomfortable things after the death of a loved one is why so many people feel deeply upset for the rest of their lives. They don’t want to think or feel negatively toward this person who is now gone, so they bury the negative feelings and thus never get to release them. That, along with avoiding feeling the usual emotions of sadness and regret, may very well be the origin of “The pain never goes away” and other similarly destructive ideas. As I’ve written about many times before on this blog, going deeply into the painful emotions around my dog Sawyer’s death is how I’ve been able to heal as much as I have. This involved acknowledging the anger I felt toward Sawyer for living such a short life and having health problems, welcoming the relief that arose after his death after many fearful years spent wondering if he might die in a brutal way, and the small bits of sadness I felt when he only wanted to visit with me for a short while.

This has helped me tremendously in healing the pain from my loved ones who have died, including Sawyer (as mentioned above) and another loved one who died recently. There weren’t many negative feelings in the latter case, so this has been a much easier process. All the sadness I’ve released over the past few years with Sawyer’s death must be a large part of why this recent death hasn’t been nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I feel extremely grateful for that as I’m not in a position to handle the level of devastation I experienced after Sawyer died in 2022.

If any of this resonates with you, then there is good news. You don’t have to tell these hidden feelings to anyone else. Just being real about them with yourself will bring relief. As painful as it may be to acknowledge some of these emotions, doing so is better than constantly suppressing those feelings and, thus, constantly feeling bad. Also, in case you feel fear or guilt at the idea of what others may think of you for doing this, doing this won’t hurt your loved one at all, whether during their life or after their death. As mentioned above, you also don’t have to tell anyone else you’re doing this, let alone reveal any particular feelings or thoughts that come up. If you’re hurting from the death of one or more loved ones, then I hope this post allows you to heal that pain while still treasuring the wonderful love and memories you shared.

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The Most Painful Recurrence

Posted on October 16, 2024 by admin

Life is strange as of late. Some things are going well. Others are still difficult and confusing. I feel a lot of sadness over the impending death of a loved one. This is the first such death I’ve faced since my dog Sawyer died about two and a half years ago. Loved ones dying is always painful, although the pain is always worse after it happens. That’s when it becomes the most real to me, both the death and the knowledge that I won’t see that person again for the rest of my Earthly life.

Despite this, I’m somehow feeling ok. Not great, just ok. Lots of time alone lately is helping a lot with that. Getting both good quality and quantity of sleep recently also helps. Even further, I’ve been doing a lot of stuff I enjoy and getting plenty of self-care. While none of that takes away the pain, it does make it much easier to handle.

This experience is reminding me how important it is to allow my emotions to come up as they’re ready. This is nothing new to me. I’ve had almost two and a half years of practice at sitting with painful emotions since Sawyer’s death. I’m certain that is most of why I’m doing as well as I am right now.

It’s also reminding me how much I hate the phrase, “You can always choose your emotions.” Not unless you were either never traumatized or have healed all your trauma. There may be a small handful of people who can always feel exactly how they want to feel and never have to feel any way they don’t want to feel, but that doesn’t accurately describe most people. A phrase I much prefer is “You can always choose to feel your emotions.” This is much more accurate and useful than the previous phrase. Rather than trying to forcibly stop negative emotions in their tracks, I can allow them to come up and watch them gradually weaken until they’re gone. Whether the emotions are big or small, simple or complex, pleasant or unpleasant, feeling them is the path to healing.

Sawyer’s death knocked me down for over a year. I have no idea how long I’ll be knocked down when my next loved one dies. Given how much experience I now have with healing deep pain, I hope that the recovery will not take nearly as long as it did with Sawyer. Time will tell. For now, I’m grateful to have as much time to myself as I do, and to have gotten more time with caring humans and less time with emotionally unintelligent folks. I sometimes feel frustrated just imagining the responses I’ll likely receive when those close to me find out: unwanted advice, tales of pain they have gone through with losses they think are comparable, endless pontifications about life and death, and silence from those who have no idea what to do and so do or say nothing. It remains to be seen how anyone actually will or won’t respond. Until then, I’ll continue using my alone time to release as many heavy emotions as I can and take good care of myself in preparation for yet another painful loss.

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The Perils of Judging

Posted on October 9, 2024 by admin

So much of life is spent trying to avoid negative judgments. Even if one refrains from judging, it’s still nearly impossible to be free from its influence. There are judgments connected to everything humans do, whether it’s related to schooling, movies, TV shows, books, paintings, live performance, day jobs, etc. A few moments of thought will quickly bring to mind the many other areas that are rife with judgment.

It’s incredibly hard to refrain from judging oneself by what others think when that’s how all of society is set up. Although this is easiest to see when it comes to negative judgments, it also applies to positive judgments. So many people are doing whatever they can in the hope of getting compliments, good grades, and other forms of praise from those around them. This attempt to change someone else’s behavior by praising them in some cases and condemning them in others is often called “carrot and stick.” As with most other behavioral change philosophies, it makes no effort to understand the emotions that are driving the behavior. Instead, it focuses solely on the behavior and uses reward and punishment in an effort to control others.

All this judging makes it easy to fall into reactive behavior, whether by falling in line to avoid judgment or going against the norm to intentionally upset someone else. It’s much better for everyone to be proactive by doing what is best in a timely manner, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. To that end, I’d like to see the elimination of everything based on judging other humans, including things mentioned in previous paragraphs. It’s caused far too much harm to warrant continuing it. Even if it takes time to figure out a suitable replacement, it’s always better to stop doing something harmful than to continue doing it. Suppose, however, that some judgment of other humans is necessary. If that is the case, then it will become crystal clear once it has completely ceased; it can then be added back in the areas in which it appears crucial while being kept out of all other areas.

If judging continues, I would at the very least love to see everyone stop judging the humans themselves and focus instead on judging their behavior. Don’t ruin someone’s sense of self by saying they’re awful, especially when that someone is a kid whose sense of self is still developing. Identifying someone as their behavior instead of separating their sense of self from their behavior is the cause of all the self-esteem issues that manifest everywhere in the modern world. Those issues always begin early in life when someone close to a kid, especially an adult authority figure, forces a negative identity onto them and makes the kid continually judge themselves that way from then on (often for the rest of their life).

The most comfortable relationships I’ve ever had have been with those who refrain from judging me personally and also do little to no judging of what I did or how I felt. It’s hard to describe the peace I feel and the ease of interactions with those who do this. A handful of humans have been able to do this for me, and most animals do it automatically. My dog Sawyer always showed me love rather than judging me or making me feel bad about myself. Unfortunately, it seems that humans judging other humans is becoming increasingly more common. As long as the tendency is to react on negative emotions (anger, jealousy, envy, bitterness, etc.) and take out those emotions on someone else rather than noticing and releasing the emotions as they arise, judging will continue. If I can’t stop this from happening, I hope I can at least reduce its frequency by releasing the emotions that incline me to judge so that I can finally find peace with myself and others.

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Realizations From Recent Solitude

Posted on October 2, 2024 by admin

I often forget how comfortable I feel alone. So much of my weeks feature such frequent human interactions that I get used to feeling slightly run down almost constantly. Whenever I get lots of time to myself, as I’ve experienced a lot lately, it’s always a pleasant surprise how much better I feel.

For most of my life, I’ve felt so concerned with what others might think of me that I’ve severely restrained almost everything I say and do. Those tendencies have waned and waxed as I’ve gone through good and bad seasons in life. When I’m alone, however, there’s no need for such restraint. I feel perfectly comfortable in my own company and have no reservations at all about being as weird as I like or doing something that another might find odd. That’s incredibly freeing and wonderful.

Lots of alone time allows me to go out and feel good around other humans for prolonged periods of time. It also makes it take less time for me to feel good again if the interactions tire me out. Even if I have one or more busy days in a week, if I have enough time to rest in solitude on each day, I can handle the whole week well enough. That’s exactly how the last few weeks have been for me, and I love it.

The more turbulent my life situation, the more I crave peace, and the more upset I feel at even small disturbances that wouldn’t bother me in calmer seasons. For example, someone might say a perfectly harmless phrase in a particular way that will upset me if I’m feeling excessively stressed. In contrast, during the times in which my inner peace has been unshakeable, nothing that anyone did could bother me for more than a few minutes at most, and most things wouldn’t bother me at all. I hope to get back to that place.

More than ever, I now understand why some humans act increasingly reclusive as they age. It’s so hard to duplicate around others the peace I feel by myself. Animals make me feel at ease, especially my late dog Sawyer. With humans, though, it almost always seems as if they’re trying to mold me or make me act in ways they like instead of taking my interests into consideration or finding ways to interact that are good for both of us. As I’ve written about before, I find this a more satisfying explanation than the introvert/extrovert explanation for either feeling drained or energized when interacting with other humans. While I feel extremely grateful for all the solitude and home time I’ve gotten recently, I do still enjoy going out for fun and meaningful activities with a handful of humans I appreciate. I hope that continuing to heal will allow me to do increasingly more things while still feeling good.

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Missing Myself

Posted on September 25, 2024 by admin

I’ve written many times before how much I miss the way so much in my life used to be. Whether swing dancing two to three times a week, visiting friends in different parts of the US, having meaningful connections with lots of people, enjoying greater financial stability, spending time with my dog Sawyer, or just feeling like things are ok and would get even better later on, life was pretty good for a while. I’d gladly take any wonderful year or even just a great season from my past over the existential nightmare that’s grown and festered over the last eight years and yet somehow still gets called “society.”

Above all of that, I miss who I used to be. Although I’ve long struggled with anxiety and depression, those have both been especially bad over the last year or two. Add some various flavors of anger to the mix this year and that’s a recipe for misery. It’s also a far cry from how I used to feel. I miss my innocence from early in life. My current frustration and cynicism with much of humanity is in stark contrast to the hope and optimism I had as a little kid. Back then, I thought most humans I’d encounter would be nice, and that the worst interactions I’d have would be limited to fights with a few close family members. Many decades of interaction with all kinds of humans in various jobs, social circles, and elsewhere has shown me how wrong that sentiment was. Learning how awful humans can be (especially when they know how to navigate a situation with civility yet choose hostility) across countless negative experiences with other humans has been one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had. I constantly hope that humans will rise to the occasion, and I constantly feel disappointed when they instead sink even lower. There seems to be no depth to which this awfulness cannot go.

Regardless of how anyone else behaves, I’d still feel much more comfortable moving forward in life if I could recover who I used to be. The person I was for most of September 2021 could handle challenges of all sorts much more easily than who I am now. Despite some big setbacks leading up to and around that time, enough was still going well in and around me to put me in a great life situation; my life would have only gotten better had things continued along that path. Now, even when things are going well for me, I seem unable to make them continue as such or take advantage of them in a way that will take me to the next level. I’ve gone down many levels since this time three years ago, and I fear I’ll never get back to the place I once was, much less go beyond it.

I sometimes have a wonderful waking dream. In this dream, I’m a little kid again, my mom has come to give me a piggyback ride to the family room, Sawyer is there (and will live just as long and healthy as I do), there’s been peace the whole time within my family, and all is well in the world. For all I know, given how many times I’ve been sound asleep yet had an incredibly realistic dream in which I was convinced I was awake, that could still happen. I could be having an extended dream that feels like decades have gone by while I’m still less than ten years old, or I could still be in my first sensory deprivation float in early 2019. If anything along those lines is actually happening, then it gives me hope that my dream will someday come true. However, I’d hate to someday wake up and find that life is far worse than it is now, or that my current existence will keep getting worse almost every year. That’s bad enough as a nightmare, and even more dreadful as reality.

Hearing Weird Al’s song “Skipper Dan” for the first time back in 2017 and resonating with it even more now than I did then shows me how little progress I’ve made in the years since. There are still great opportunities on the horizon, some closer than others. How many of those will blossom into the life I’d like while there’s still time, I have no idea. If I’m actually still healing old emotional pain (it’s often hard to tell, especially with so many turbulent years in a row), then it stands to reason that there’ll be more progress in more areas as the pain decreases. It often seems as if I’m stuck and either making no progress or regressing in many areas. I frequently wonder if this will be the pattern the rest of my life follows. One way or another, we’ll find out together.

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How to Be a Good Audience Member

Posted on September 18, 2024 by admin

Since 2011, I’ve been performing professionally off and on. That experience, combined with the many times I’ve been in the audience watching other performers, has taught me a lot about how to be a good audience member. There are many dos and don’ts to keep in mind during a performance that can mean the difference between everyone having a good time and one or more individuals feeling upset.

Unfortunately, being a performer doesn’t automatically guarantee one will also be a good audience member. Some of the worst audience members I’ve had have been fellow performers. My biggest frustrations have come from those who seem to be constantly stuck in performance mode, even when someone else is performing. That’s why it’s so incredibly refreshing when most or all audience members know how to act during a performance.

Interestingly, being a good audience member is extremely similar to being a good conversation partner. As such, these tips will work well in either scenario; mass adoption of them would result in much better conversations everywhere. While I don’t know if anyone will get to the level of listening that my dog Sawyer achieved, I still have hope that at least some humans can become better listeners than they currently are. Without further ado, here are my recommendations.

  1. Let the performer run the show. George Carlin once said that some audience members in his shows seem to think their name is on the ticket. Since it’s not your show, step back and don’t try to steal the spotlight from the performer. Only speak up if the performer requests it.
  2. Enjoy the mystery. While it may be tempting to speculate as to where you think the performance is going, don’t speak such speculations out loud, either to another audience member or to the performer. You’ll find out where the performance is going by simply watching it. Even if you’re right in your guesses, it’s better to respect everyone there by quietly sitting back and enjoying the ride.
  3. Keep criticisms and instructions to yourself. Few things frustrate me more than when someone tells me how to do something or how they think it could be done better in the middle of my performance. Sometimes this happens one-on-one, and other times it happens in front of one or more audience members. Whatever the intentions of the person who does this, I wish they’d refrain from doing this altogether, or at least wait until after the performance to talk with me about this in private.
  4. Make the performer’s job as easy as possible. Performing is hard enough in ideal conditions and even harder in hostile conditions. That’s why it’s important to not mess up the performer, whether by heckling, intentionally mishandling any equipment the performer gives you, lying, or anything else along those lines. You wouldn’t appreciate someone trying to mess you up at your job, so don’t mess up the performer at his job.
  5. Applaud only successes. For some reason, the following happens a lot in juggling performances: the show is going well, then the juggler suddenly drops, and the audience applauds. I don’t get it. Why applaud mistakes? Instead, sit tight and wait until the performer succeeds before applauding.
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An Unforgettable High School Experience

Posted on September 11, 2024 by admin

I recently started reminiscing about an experience in high school that I’ll never forget. The event I’m about to describe brought everyone closer together through genuineness and love. While I don’t remember all the details because of how long ago it was, here’s what I do remember.

Everyone who participated (most of the high school students and faculty members) met in the gymnasium each day for the whole school week. Early on, we all split up into small groups with one faculty member to lead each group. That’s where we spent some time sharing some painful past experiences in the following form: “If you really knew me, you’d know ______.” The most powerful activity came next. Everyone in the room stood in one long line, side-by-side. The mediator asked anyone who had experienced a particular hardship in life to walk over to the wall and face everyone who didn’t walk over. Those who stayed put then made gestures of love and support toward those who did walk over. This was repeated many times, with lots of people walking more than once. Toward the end, there were opportunities for anyone to stand up and share their stories in front of everyone else. Just as in the previous activity, those who did share were met with lots of support and comfort.

It was incredible to experience all of that. I felt shocked after learning the painful experiences that many of my schoolmates had lived through, especially from those who were casual acquaintances. The entire event was free of judgment, condemnation, mockery, scorn, shaming, and everything else along those lines. Instead, there was an abundance of love, support, connection, acceptance, and peace. Lots of tears fell during that week, both from those who shared their pain and those who heard about it. Everyone who participated in that event became closer and kinder to each other during that week and for a while after. I wish something like it had continued regularly afterward, whether at school or outside of school, so that those closer bonds would have lasted.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found anything like this since high school. The closest I’ve gotten to it have been a few one-on-one conversations with a small handful of humans whose willingness to be vulnerable exceeded any embarrassment they felt over what they shared. Even with those rare individuals, however, as soon as they got back into a group situation, they fell right back into the common practices of gossip, shallow exchanges, forcing jokes into almost every sentence, laughing at things that aren’t funny, and keeping their attention anywhere other than in the present moment. Since almost nobody is willing to consistently go deep into their upbringing and life before we met and how that shaped who they are today, it often seems as if I’m surrounded by strangers, even when they’re people I’ve known for many years.

While humans almost always fall short in this kind of genuineness, animals excel at it. My dog Sawyer was the only friend I’ve had who was consistently genuine, sweet, gentle, patient, loving, and lacking in all of the negative traits that plague human interactions. He also did this without saying every mean thing that popped into his head, which is what some humans think they have to do in the name of “honesty.” The more cruel and shallow human interactions I observe, the more I miss hanging out with Sawyer.

What a world we’d have if every place humans interact had something like this on a regular basis. It’d be much harder to act in hatred and much easier to act in love. Longstanding problems could be resolved quickly and permanently. New challenges could be effectively handled together. Although I’ve long given up trying to make the whole world like this and also largely given up trying to make every interaction I have turn into this, I do believe there are still such interactions out there. I look forward to finding them and benefitting from them at least as much as I did in high school, if not more.

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