Shared Reality

Shared reality happens when two or more beings begin an exchange, whether verbally or by any other means, that serves to further a deeper understanding of existing phenomena.  Because our individual experiences with the universe are entirely subjective, reality can only be truly shared to a certain extent.  It is the intention of multiple parties to connect with each other in the interpretation of a particular concept that is vital to our lives.  Even members of the same religion can have very different perceptions of the symbols and tenets of their organized institution.  While, on the surface, all Christians appear to share the exact same experience of Jesus, it is impossible for anyone to perceive an entirely objective view of even the simplest of ideas, let alone one that is so complex and emotionally powerful.  That said, there are so many separations and divisions among all sentient beings that it may seem impossible for the world to experience true harmony and oneness.  However, it is these very differences that provide the greatest opportunities for personal and interpersonal growth and transformation.  Attempting to understand one another’s views, uniquely filtered through the lens of all of our accumulated conditioning, is what brings us closer to our true purpose in life.  We are all here for each other, as if there could be any more important and noble reason for our existence.

What has been the most intimate, personal experience you have had with shared reality?

What is passion??

What is your passion?  Do you even know what that means?  It is such an overused word (and concept) that its meaning can easily be lost.  Passion doesn’t mean that you merely get excited or enthusiastic about something.  Passion is defined as “the state or capacity of being acted on by external agents or forces” and “intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.”  This is very strong language, but let me relay my experience.

Rock and roll is something about which I have been passionate since I can remember.  I was 16 when, seemingly “driven by an overmastering feeling or conviction,” I went to the music store and bought an electric guitar.  AC/DC’s diminutive guitarist Angus Young had long captivated me with his shredding blues licks, Australian schoolboy stage outfit, and red Gibson SG guitar.  He was the embodiment of the primordial culmination of thunderous chords and squealing solos--the ultimate “fuck you” to authority.  I left the store that day with an electric guitar.  Mind you--I did not own an amplifier and could neither tune the guitar, change the strings, nor play a single chord.  I was, however, absolutely hellbent on learning how to play.

From this humble beginning I began to seek out other kids that played and would beg them to show me anything they could.  I was an absolute sponge--looking back nearly 22 years later, this was the first time in my life I was truly a student of anything.  This was not school or religion, the things that had been forced upon me.  This was everything I had sought out myself, and NOTHING would dissuade me.  There was no way that I was not going to learn how to play, no matter what I had to do.  I steadily progressed and, within 6-8 months, was becoming more proficient than kids that had been teaching me.  From that day to this I have enjoyed all facets of guitar-playing and have definitely developed a level of mastery with which I am thrilled.  I still play most days and have finally purchased what was for me the Holy Grail of rock and roll--a 2011 cherry-burst Gibson SG guitar--just like Angus.

In short, I know I am passionate about something when I am seeking out and following through on something strictly under my own direction.  My musical ability is one of the things of which I am most proud in my life because no one else did any of it for me and my incredible enthusiasm has never waned.  

Later I will discuss living your passion (hint--you don’t just have one passion!!!).

De-conditioning: A beginning.

From the time we are born our minds are conditioned by everything we experience.  The process of conditioning is so prevalent in our society--is such an all-pervasive and powerful mechanism--that we are in a constant state of conditioning during most moments of our lives.  For example, I have been conditioned to associate some religion with hypocrisy and self-righteousness--others may view it as a vehicle for love and social change.  All of our beliefs about everything in our world have been influenced (or conditioned) by something outside of ourselves, even when introspection has been involved.  In fact, it would be very odd if most of our views weren't influenced by some mixture of both.

Most people know the story of Pavlov's dog, one that is famously used in psychology classes to illustrate the concept of "classical conditioning."  To summarize, Pavlov noticed that dogs in his lab would salivate not just when they were presented with food, but when the lab workers that fed them were present.  Using this knowledge, he trained them to salivate at the ringing of a bell, thus conditioning them to this sound.  They now associated the sound of a bell with food whereas they likely had no such link beforehand.  Though there are many intricacies and complex processes involved and I have only very briefly described the process, people are constantly being unconsciously conditioned throughout our lives.

Conditioning is very powerful and is our "Matrix", if you will.  Another example is money.  If you handed me a small piece of paper you had colored green and covered with some words, I would likely throw it away.  If, however, you handed me a twenty dollar-bill, I would make sure I placed it somewhere safe.  I have been conditioned to see the money as valuable even though, as far as physical objects go, it is not much different from the first piece of paper.

So what is the significance of the red pill?  Are we secretly plugged into a computer program designed to placate us?  My answer to that is "no, not exactly."  The idea is that we are held captive by the way that we have been conditioned by our families, teachers, friends, bosses, coworkers, celebrities, movies, musicians, media, and all generators of pop culture in general.  Karl Marx described religion as the "opiate of the masses."  Karl didn't anticipate TMZ, "Jersey Shore", "Honey Boo-Boo", Gawker, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Scientology, or many of the thousands of other outlets for what is happening in our world and, more importantly, how we "should" view these things.

This blog, as a companion piece to the website ourgrowthproject.com, will work to help provide some tools to decondition yourself enough to examine things from an alternative perspective, hopefully one of your own creation.  Click here to go further down the rabbit hole.

A Room Outside of Time

Today started out like most others. I got into my office/car, flipped on Howard Stern, popped an energy drink, and headed toward St. Louis to see some patients. First on the roster were two patients at a nursing home in Dogtown, one that I barely know and one that has changed my whole perception of the world. As I entered Muriel's room, it was obvious that things had taken a sharp decline since I last saw her two weeks ago. I am still choked up as I type as it was exceedingly difficult to accept the inevitable--my friend has slipped into the foggy, grey area where life and death mingle and court one another, slyly negotiating until the baton is passed and the next leg of the relay begins.

Here are the facts--the room was much hotter than I'd expected and the shades were pulled shut, signs that she had neither the will nor the need to complain about such trivial, earthly matters. Her right eye (the "good" one) managed to open just briefly, but long enough for her to register that it was me and to prompt a heartbreaking smile to her tired face. There is something incomprehensibly endearing and awe-inspiring to have someone that is in such an utterly profound place of introspection tinged with unimaginable mental and physical weariness actually expend a measure of their precious energy to let you know they are glad to see you. Muriel is more than one of my patients--she is a fellow traveler and a true friend.

Born an underprivileged black woman in an era when it was even more difficult to be, Muriel decided early on that she would not participate in many of the foolish and unnecessary insecurities and fears that plague most of the rest of us. She would tell me upon our first few visits that she had read one book that had freed her, had taught her how to understand people, how to deal with them, and how to maintain her own dignity and self-confidence. That book was "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I promised her I would purchase it and read it. I am almost finished with it and strongly recommend it to anyone that knows how to read and wants to participate more successfully in society. For this reason alone I am greatly indebted to her, but her easy persuasion in this matter was insignificant compared to the peace and joy she has brought to my life. When I first met her she was living on the 26th floor of a subsidized senior-living apartment building that I had driven past hundreds of times and had never even known was filled with residents. She was nearly bed-bound and only got up to use the restroom, to shower, and to change her clothes. Because of this she would leave the door to her apartment unlocked for visitors, and it was also because of this that I walked in on her fully naked in the process of changing her clothes one day. Far from being horrified, she just cackled hysterically and apologized profusely that I "had to see that old body". That is just the way she is, always thinking about the other person. When the time came that her cancer had maliciously rendered her completely unable to care for herself, she refused to allow her son to bring a television or radio to the nursing home lest he have to return and pick it up after she had passed. Several years ago she required a routine eye operation that was botched by an inexperienced surgeon. After several more surgeries failed to correct the damage incurred during the first attempt, Muriel not only decided to accept the fact that her eye would never be the same, but she insisted that the surgeon receive no reprimand severe enough to permanently affect his career. Her capacity for forgiveness is astonishing.

I usually scheduled our appointments for late afternoon on Fridays as our visits were much-needed and welcome unwinding sessions after long weeks. Sitting next to her bedside, discussing the absurdities of being human on this planet, I reveled in my good fortune to have become a part of this woman's life. Even after she moved to the nursing home her needs were few and her wants were nearly non-existent. The one thing she requested was a bird feeder to place outside her window so she could observe the behavior of the various birds she would often hear, but would usually not venture low enough to be visible from the bed of her first-floor room. About a week after installing the feeder, she excitedly told me about all of the drama unfolding around it. Furious territorial disputes were being waged. An errant woodpecker had taken to the feeder, which prompted her to laugh and state that he must have forgotten that he should have been pecking on trees. Love was in the Spring air and a pair of mating cardinals were her favorites. Muriel noticed the things that completely escaped the other residents that flocked out onto the patio next to her feeder every two hours, like clockwork, to smoke cigarettes and complain about the weather. Her outlook on life was full of compassion, empathy, enthusiasm, and curiosity, and not even her cancer could rob her of her grace and dignity. Today I saw the most beautiful smile on her face as she awoke from a comfortable slumber and mumbled something unintelligible to me. I believe she was surprised to see that I had sat next her bed the whole time she was asleep (approximately 45 minutes). Truthfully, I was in the midst of a deep, existential meditation brought on by pondering her condition. It occurred to me that there are moments in life when not even a force as powerful and all-pervasive as time itself can creep in and disturb something magical. We existed together in that room apart from the laws of physics and logic. It was a place that could only be described as sacred if it must be described by something as woefully inadequate as a word. I saw myself in her and her in myself, no separation except that thin, deceptive veil created by illusion born of ignorance and spiritual-blindness. It struck me that what was created there by circumstance was actually a refuge, a sanctuary that made far more sense than the madness and randomness going on outside in the world. An innately natural process was unfolding, albeit one that has been heart-wrenching and that will ultimately rob me of the companionship of my friend. As I squeezed her hand and said goodbye, I told her that we would see each other again. We both knew that it was not true. I might see her, but by that time (within the next day or two) she will have lost all consciousness and one of the true earthly treasures I have ever encountered will be passing on into the Great Unknown. It sounds odd to say that I love her--after all, she's a patient. But that's the beautiful thing about hospice. When I worked in mental health, there were very strict boundaries you did not cross, and for a good reason. There you were dealing with clients from an inherent position of power, helping them face problems brought on by mental illness. With Muriel, there has been no reason to keep up my defenses. She is the most kind, non-pathological being that I have had the pleasure to have encountered. If anything, I would hope to have not negatively affected her in any way. But I know that's not possible, she wouldn't stand for it. And so my eyes are a little watery tonight (I'm not a crier) as I think about the unlikeliest duo that ever shared some wonderful and interesting late Friday afternoons helping one another to figure out how to deal with whatever comes down the pike. Here's to Muriel, my true friend.