sowingseedsandshootinghoops

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

The Importance of Solitude in a Complicated and Chaotic World

Note on the text: I used Henri Nouwen’s Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation as published in 2000 by Doubleday

The world is a complicated place and any theology that does not recognize that, much less any theology that attempts to dumb it down into overly simplistic categories isn’t doing us any favors. Which is why I love the way Nouwen talks about the need for solitude in a beautiful, yet complicated and chaotic world. Because he doesn’t mean that we need to run from that crazy world, but that living in that beautifully chaotic world to the best of our abilities means creating a space in our lives for solitude.

Nouwen lived in Rome for many years, and the reflections in this book sprang from the observations he had while living there:

When we look out over the city of Rome, walk in its streets or ride its buses, we quickly realize that it is a crowded city full of [people]. . . . We see men and women moving quickly in all directions, we hear [both] joyful and angry voices mixed with a great variety of street sounds. . . . It is a busy, congested city in which life manifests itself with all its boisterous intensity (35-36).

So he knows how beautifully chaotic life can be and it’s from this vantage point that he writes about solitude

“Solitude is the place where we find our identity” (19). Solitude is something that we all desperately need and not in a way that deliberately separates us from other people. We need each other, we need community. We need to have fulfilling and powerful relationships of all types with each other. And it’s because of that need for enriching and truly authentic relationships that we need solitude.

For Nouwen solitude is simply the space where an individual can discover who he or she is without any outside pressure. This is important because the more that a person is able to really understand and embrace who they are, the more that they will be able to engage in those fulfilling, soul enriching relationships that they are yearning for.

When a person doesn’t have a strong sense of self, it’s easy for them to get sucked into all sorts of toxic relationships and even punch unnecessary holes into otherwise healthy ones, and make otherwise healthy and stable relationships unstable “according to moods, personal attractions, and mutual [incompatibilities]” (14).

Solitude however gives a platform through which we can get to know ourselves better and therefore create more stable relationships with others. Without solitude

we begin to worry about what we think and feel about each other, we quickly become suspicious of each other or irritated with each other, and we begin, often in unconscious ways, to scrutinize each other with a tiring hypersensitivity. Without solitude shallow conflicts easily grow deep and become painful wounds. . . . With solitude we are protected against the harmful effects of mutual suspicions, and our words and actions become more joyful expressions of an already existing trust rather than a subtle way of asking for proof of trustworthiness (15).

When I really know myself and can therefore be more fully myself then I don’t need you to tell me who I am or somehow validate who I am. Which means that we can simply to have a fully authentic relationship where I can both love you as the person that I am and be loved by you as the person that I am. That is how the most incredible and fulfilling relationships of all types are born, and that doesn’t happen if I don’t give myself the space, which, again, is all Nouwen means by the word “solitude”, to really discover and embrace who I am. Which is why it is so vitally important for all of us, in whatever way we can, to create some space in our life for “solitude”. It’s not so that we can run from the world and the people in it, but so that we might be able to embrace the world more fully and in a more authentic way.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

The Truth About Trauma

Note on the text: I used The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Mate, M. D., with Daniel Mate as published by Avery in 2022.

It all starts with waking up; waking up to what is real and authentic in and around us and what isn’t; waking up to who we are and who we are not; waking up to what our bodies are expressing and what our minds are suppressing; waking up to our wounds and our gifts; waking up to what we have believed and actually value; waking up to what we will no longer tolerate and what we can now accept; waking up to the myths that bind us and the interconnections that define us; waking up to the past as it has been, the present as it is, and the future as it may yet be; waking up, most especially, to the gap between our essence calls for and what ‘normal’ has demanded of us (497).

Trauma is a very complex thing and healing from it is an equally intricate and, at times, beautiful process. Beautiful because it involves us getting to know ourselves on the deepest, most fundamental, of levels. Gabor does a wonderful job here of highlighting just how awful the effects of trauma are and how one can heal from it to go on and live fulfilling lives as their authentic selves.

Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living, and this is especially true when it comes to speaking about trauma. Because trauma isn’t so much about what happens to you as it is what happens in you. The kid who, experiences the trauma of unstable housing and moving around a lot and yet sees that as an adventure experiences a different type of trauma from the kid who sees it as proof that his world is inherently unstable and something to be afraid of. A traumatic event occurs when our relationship to either ourselves or our environment is disrupted and irrevocably shifted. A woman who previously had no fear of the world gets raped and now is afraid to go outside for example, or a child who after getting beat by his dad for failing English class now develops a perfectionist attitude because he feels like he is otherwise unworthy of being loved and respected.

Sometimes individual’s change in attitude is sudden and at other times it might be more gradual, but in any event the person who exited the traumatic event is not the same person who entered into it. I say it might be gradual because often the change that happens happens at a more unconscious level, but that doesn’t change the fact that trauma is, at its core, “about a loss of connection- to ourselves, our families, and the world around us” (23). Trauma affects us in very central ways. That which we call a personality is really a “jumble of genuine traits and conditioned coping styles” (409). Which is to say that certain aspects of our personality are inherent to who we are as people and other emerge as a way to cope with whatever our living conditions are, as in the examples I mentioned above. Which is why healing from trauma involves bringing a level of consciousness and awareness into the life of the person in question. Trauma takes our power away by often times forcing us to be people that we wouldn’t otherwise be. Healing means taking that power back so that way we can choose to be our most authentic selves and live lives that line up with those values that we hold most dear to our hearts. Which is why the first step in healing from trauma involves taking an honest account of who we are, what is happening in our lives, and how do we feel about that. An examined life is not worth living because “as long as one does not examine oneself one is completely subject to whatever one is wired to do, but once become aware that you have choices [then] you can exercise those choices” (35).

But first let’s take a step back and talk about just how real the effects of trauma are. Dr. Gabor goes into excruciating detail about the links between trauma and one’s physical health. He, for example, cites studies that link post traumatic stress disorder to higher rates of breast cancer, and how grief can affect the immune system (42). He also cites people who, in a very practical way, saw what their body was going through as a reflection in some way of their mental health. Just listen to what Julia said about what her rheumatoid arthritis told her about herself:

it was my body’s way of saying ‘wake up, wake up.’ You’re not helping yourself holding this much rage and anger inside’. Rage and anger are not feelings I want to hold onto, but I do see them as guides that let me know that something in my life is out of balance. I get rheumatoid flare ups maybe once a year now. When one shows up, I just accept that it’s here and there is something I can do about it, something more to learn from it” (392).

What we are witnessing here is how her disease has lead to understand herself better in a more holistic manner which in turn has enabled her to live a more fulfilling life.

The point is that trauma is real in every sense of word. It affects us both physically and mentally which is why

any movement towards wholeness with acknowledgement of our own suffering. . . . True healing simply means opening up ourselves to the truth of our lives, past and present, as plainly and objectively as we can. We acknowledge where we were wounded and [to the best of our ability] perform an honest audit of the impact of those injuries [both to ourselves] and those around us” (363).

What he is talking about here is acceptance. That in order to start to heal from our trauma we must be able to accept it for what it is instead of “resisting the truth or denying or fantasizing our way out of it” (380-381). Now that doesn’t mean we have to condone it. Accepting is not the same as condoning. We can accept that something did happen while wishing that it didn’t. What trauma does in large part is force us to become something that we are not as a way of adapting to the new reality. It can therefore lead us to become inauthentic versions of ourselves and force us to live lives that we are not proud of because those lives don’t reflect who we actually are. Healing therefore means taking back that power and re-giving ourselves the ability to choose who we want to be: “the exercise of agency is powerfully healing” and the assertion of that agency starts with us “renegotiating our relationship with the personality traits [that] we have [used to identify ourselves with]. . . . There is no freedom is having to be good or [talented] or in the need to please or entertain or be interesting” (377-378). We have to have the freedom to be who we want to be simply because we choose to be that person, not because we are (or were) pushed by forces outside of ourselves to be someone that we do not want to be. It takes a profound amount of introspection and honesty to realize that we are not the person we would like to be and to change that. But that is what it means to heal.

It requires a a certain amount of intentionality and focus because you have to consciously undo what for the most part has been subconsciously building in your head for years. You have to look at your trauma and the beliefs that came out of it and judge if those beliefs still serve as well as they once did. Although the traumatic event was outside of your control, your current reaction to that event is not. The beliefs about yourself and/or the world that came out of that event are not facts and so they can be changed. Take for example an abused child who is now an adult. As a child because of the abuse they suffered they decided not to trust anyone. They became incredibly self sufficient and so mistrusting of others that they don’t ever reach out for help or let anyone in in a meaningful way. Healing from the initial trauma means that as an adult that child has the ability to step back and see if that belief still serves him and if it’s reflective of who he wants to be. Or does he want to be more trusting of people and rebuild his boundaries in such a way that he can let at least some people in and perhaps not be so lonely. He can decide what kind of person he wants to be.

Healing from trauma, to bring it back to the quote that started this post, means “waking up” to who you are. It means fully accepting what has happened to you and making the decision to be who you are despite that. Understanding and fully accepting who you are, and living a life that is in line with those principles, is without a doubt the most meaningful and powerful thing that any of us can do.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Overcoming Differences

Note on the text: I used Matt Singer’s Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel and Ebert Changed Movies Forever as published in 2023 by Putnam

In many ways this is a real life version of the “enemies to friends” trope that we’ve seen a million times. For many people the show Siskel and Ebert became a part of their consciousness in the same way a show such as Mister Roger’s Neighborhood did or Friends. It even helped people deepen their love and appreciation for the movies as a whole which makes it interesting to read more about the people who put the show together, especially it’s two stars Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel.

Now as the real world equivalent of frenemies like Charles Xavier and Magneto it’s important to talk about just how much they hated each other in the beginning. They could not stand each other and saw each other as bitter rivals. They worked at competiting Chicago newspapers (Roger at the Sun-Times and Gene at the Tribune) and were working on establishing their respective reputations in the relatively niche world of film criticism while being almost the same age (Roger was only four years older than Gene). In fact when they first met to discuss starting the show in 1975 everyone commented that they did have chemistry- it was just the kind that “causes glycerin to explode when it’s mixed with nitric and sulfuric acid” (2). For whatever reason they knew how to set each other off and more often then not, especially in the beginning, they would do just that. They competed over everything, both on and off the screen. They fought with each other over everything from the title of their show, to who got the bigger interviews for their respective papers, to where to order lunch from that day, to who was the better critic. It irked Gene to no end that Roger won a Pulitzer Prize for film criticism in 1975 (just before the show got picked up) and he never did, and you can easily see how this rivalry was there ever since these two Midwesterners started reviewing films in the 1960s. Roger first joined the Sun-Times as their critic in 1967 and not long after, in 1969, the Tribune hired Gene to become their own film critic, a move which Roger perceived as

a deliberate attempt by the paper to compete with him head on. . . . Shortly after Siskel got the job at the Tribune, he even started using stars to rate the movies he reviewed. Previously, Ebert had been the only critic in Chicago to use such a system. These developments left Ebert certain: Siskel was explicitly hired to knock him off (2).

In his own way Gene also viewed Roger as a rival although he needed no motivation to do so. In fact one of Gene’s roommates at Yale said that Gene was the most competitive person he had ever known. Even more than “Michael Jordan or Bill and Hillary Clinton. So if Roger viewed him as an adversary that was just fine with Gene who always loved a good contest. Now he had one: destroy Ebert” (2-3). So for as successful as the show wound up being, putting these two together definitely came with its own set of risks. This could have absolutely blown up in the worst way possible. And it almost did.

The pilot episode was, by and large, a disaster. In fact the only thing that everyone appears to agree on all these years later is that the only thing that became increasingly clear while filming that first episode was that the two stars hated each other and wanted nothing to do with each other. It fell to producer Thea Flaum to figure out how to get the show’s two star players to play together as a team: “there was no chemistry. They didn’t even like each other. . . . But they had a style of relating to movies which both of them loved. They were good critics and very smart” (5-6). Then all of a sudden everything changed. About nine minutes into the first episode Roger made on offhand commented about the Chicago International Film Festival which had just concluded its eleventh year that changed everything:

I can remember when it could have been held in a so few people turned up’ . . . [and] without skipping a beat Siskel shot back ‘I can remember when some of the films they showed deserved to be shown in a back room.’ [Yea,] and they probably were [shot] there too.’ Ebert replied (6).

It was in that moment that Flaum realized that with the right guidance her two stars could learn how to play as a team, and that this team could go really far. Because as much as they hated each other they understood each other and the understood how to play the game. Which is to say that they knew how to talk about the movies.

The answer about how to get them to play on the same team was a relatively simple one: allow them to bond on screen over the one connection that they shared: their love of the movies. Prior to that moment Roger and Gene had seen each other rivals, as bitter enemies to be crushed and thrown out. But as time went on, and more specifically as the format of the show changed enough such that all the time and attention was focused on the conversation that those two people were having about the movie in question, they actually grew to understand and respect each other more and more, and eventually became friends. They even started to look forward to what the other person had to say about certain films. They became such good friends in fact that when the Tribune decided to demote Gene, Roger became his biggest advocate saying that he was “angry about the way they were treating him after years of loyal service” and even lobbied for the Sun-Times to hire him (175). Gene, talking in 1998, in talking about his relationship with Roger said “I think there’s a lesson there which is that you should be encouraged to meet your competitors, to engage them because you can learn from them, be stimulated by them. I enjoy these discussions. It sharpens both of us (273). What their show did on a macro-level was show how two bitter rivals could choose to bond over their mutual love of films and both be better off because of it.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Divisions in Society

Note on the text: I used Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher: Blood of Elves as translated by Daniela Stok and published in 2021 by Orbit.

One of the main things I like about Sapkowski is the way he talks about the various divisions that we have in society and the small comments he makes about how to overcome them.

The book starts off with all the races coming together to celebrate. Look at the way he describes how each group seeks to separate itself from the other groups:

the druids protecting the ancient tree called it the Seat of Friendship and willingly accepted all comers. But even during an event as exceptional as the world famous troubadour’s just concluded performance the travelers kept to themselves, remaining in clearly delineated groups. Elves stayed with elves. Dwarfish craftsmen gathered with their ken who were often hired to protect the merchant caregivers and were armed to the teeth. Their group tolerated at best the gnome miners and halfling farmers who camped near them. All non humans were uniformly distant towards humans. The humans repaid in kind, but were also not seen to mix amongst themselves either. Nobility looked down upon the merchants and traveling salesmen, while the soldiers and mercenaries distanced themselves from shepherds and their sheepskins. The few wizards and their disciples kept themselves entirely apart from the others and bestowed their arrogance on others in equal parts. A tight knit, dark, and silent group of peasants lurked in the background. Resembling a Forrest with their rakes, pitchforks, and flails poking above their heads, they were ignored by all and sundry.

The exception as ever [was] the children. Children of elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half elves and toddlers of mysterious provenance [all played together and] neither knew not recognized racial or social divisions. At least not yet (10-11).

There are two interesting points that Sapkowski makes here. First is that hatred is a learned behavior (the kids don’t hate each other) and that art can transcend those boundaries and unite people. We learn really quickly that the only thing that everyone at that celebration agrees on is that the troubadour’s song was excellent.

Later Triss (a wizard) steps in as a character who wants to help unite everyone to build a better future. And through this character Sapkowski shows us one important thing: that even though we aren’t our ancestors we must still acknowledge what our ancestors have done and how that affects the current situation. For Triss she has to admit that Geralt and the other Witchers of his clan have a hard time trusting her because “I am a wizard and without the wizards” the fanatics who hunted down the Witchers 100 years ago would not have been as effective as they were (64). So although she doesn’t accept personal responsibility for what happened 100 years ago, she recognizes that she has to acknowledge what happened and how that contributed to her current situation. Moving forward means acknowledging the mistakes of the past and finding ways to move on. You don’t have to repeat the mistakes of the past but you will if you don’t acknowledge them

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Moving Forward: How to Build a Better Life

Note on the text: I used Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep as published in 2016 by Pocket Books

In many ways this is a book about how to change your life and build a fulfilling life for yourself regardless of what you’ve done in the past. Dan Torrence is a recovering alcoholic and it’s through his journey to sobriety that we can all learn a little bit about how to forgive ourselves for our past and truly move on. Because we all deserve to live fulfilling lives regardless of what we’ve done.

The book starts with a quote from Alcoholics Anonymous: “we stood at the turning point. Half measures availed us nothing” (dedication page). That is in many ways the central lesson of the book. Dan only starts to get better when accepts that “the only one who can put on the brakes is [himself]. . . . [That he doesn’t] have to live this way if [he doesn’t] want to. [He] can of course. . . but [he doesn’t] have to” (68). Change is not possible until one fully understands where “here” is and that it’s a bad place to be. You have to own our own life and our own choices before you can access the power that you need to actually make the changes that you need to make in your life.

Dan does this in various ways, some obvious, others less so. One of the obvious ways in which he does this is by admitting he is an alcoholic and taking responsibility for the ways in which he has hurt other people (specifically a ex girlfriend whom he stole from). On another less obvious note, he also takes responsibility for his life by admitting WHY he drinks. Understanding what triggers you and figuring why you do what you do is important. Because until you learn what your trigger is and find another way to deal with that specific trigger, your road to recovery is going to be longer and bumpier than it needs to be.

In the case of Dan the reason he drinks has to do with the supernatural power that he has. Now fans of The Shining will remember that Dan has the ability to communicate telepathically with other people, specifically ghosts, and to read people’s minds. While there are some benefits to having this power, it is, by and large, something in his brain that he wishes he could turn off. And while

warm morning sunshine was good and the pleasant feeling of muscles that had been worked hard, and waking up without a hangover but the price- all these crazy dreams and visions, not to mention the random thoughts of passing strangers that sometimes found their way past his defenses- was too high. Too high to bear. . . . Without the booze to at least stun it, these visions [would] go on until they [drove him] insane. . . . The mind was a blackboard. Booze was the eraser (95, 100-101).

So if step one is admit you have a problem, and step two is realize that only you have the power to change your life, and step three is own your own choices by understanding why you make those choices, then the final step must be to resolve to do things in a different way from here on out. It means that instead of doing X when your triggered you do Y. In the case of Danny it means that instead of drinking to deal with the effects of his power he’s going to try to use them to help people in the ways that only he can. So he helps teach other telepaths, like Abra, how to use their powers and then he works as a hospice nurse to help his patients die well. By the end of the book he has accepted that he “could help [people]. It was his sacrament. What he was made for” and he refuses to let his past and his feelings about his past dictate what he does now because “that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone even though it defines the present” (634, 585). Everyone deserves to lead happy and fulfilling lives regardless of what they’ve done in the past. And that is what the character of Dan does in the end.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

And The Two Shall Become One

Note on the text: I used Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr as translated by Carl W Ernst and published in 2018 by Northwestern University Press

I saw the Lord with the eye of my heart,/ and he said ‘who are you?’ I said, ‘You’ (54).

I am the one that I desire, the one that I desire is I./ We are two spirits dwelling in a single body./ So when you have seen me you have seen him,/ and when you have seen him you have seen us (176).

Imagine having a God that loves you so much that he cannot bear to be separated from you. A God who loves you so much that he is constantly seeking to become one with you. A God whose love for his creation is so overwhelming he cannot permit himself to be separated from it in any way. That is the type of God that we have, at least according to the 10th century Sufi mystic and poet Hallaj.

Love is the greatest unifying force that the world has ever known. Love binds people together in ways that nothing else can. It says in the Bible that when two people fall in love and get married that the “two shall become one” (Genesis 2:24). The deeper one’s love is for another person, the truer that statement becomes. In Arabic there’s a saying which (roughly) translates to “our kids are our hearts walking around”. Again there’s that theme of unity, that there are people that you can lovely so intensely that they become part of you. According to Hallaj, God’s love for his creation, and for us in particular, is also that intense. He loves his creation so much that he, in some sense, wants us to become one with him.

If I sought the East, in the East you would be its East,/ and if I sought the west you would be right in front of me./ And if I sought above, then above it you would be above,/ and if I sought below, you are [in] every place. . . . You are where all is [and] you are in all without ever fading,/in my heart, my spirit, my mind, my thought (82).

There is no place where God is not. God is everywhere. He’s not just in church. He’s everywhere. He is in the trees, in the sunlight, in every drop of rain. He is in you. He’s in me. Those who go looking for God only need to look around them because “reality has already manifested” his presence (112). We cannot escape him anymore than the fish can escape the ocean: “you truly are my companion by day/and after dark you are my everlasting friend” (69). He’s there all around us all the time: nourishing us, loving us, waiting patiently for us to love him back. And he doesn’t just know us in a general sense but in a very specific one. He knows our innermost being. As Hallaj says: “he is nearer to my conscience than my thought”. That’s a beautiful way of saying that he is as near to me as I am to myself.

Now the question is, why does he want to be that close to us? Why does he want to get to know us so intimately? Why should he care so much about us?. And the answer is because God loves us just that much. As Hallaj says at one point about God: “I have a lover whose love is inside of me” (54). So the question then becomes, what are we to do in the face of such overwhelming love?

Give ourselves over to it, surrender to it. Take the leap and jump. Jump into the most loving relationship with God that you can. Really commit yourself and give yourself over to it. Any reason to love God is a good reason, and anything you do because of that love is a good thing:

critic, don’t blame my longing for him,/ for if you saw him as I do, you would not blame./ There are some who circle the Ka’ba without the use of limbs;/ If they circled God they’d no longer need a shrine. . . . The people have their pilgrimage, but I have a pilgrimage to my rest./ They’re offering are animals, while my heart and blood are offered (101).

Those who give themselves completely over in this loving relationship with God don’t need to seek him elsewhere because they know that he is in their heart. Some people have to go outside of themselves to find God, but for others their love of God burns so strongly that they don’t need to go anywhere else. They give themselves over to that love and let that love be their guide through life. They fuse themselves so thoroughly to God by giving themselves over to him in love that they, in some sense, become one with him: “You’ve turned my limbs from every other purpose,/ so that all of me is with you” (162) in doing so they become something more than what they were before. They become one with the Divine.

You don’t have to look far to find God. He’s all around you, calling to you, inviting you into a loving relationship. He has loved you since the moment you were conceived and he has been waiting for you to decide to love him. To unite with him in a kind of metaphysical matrimony. To share a love with him that is truly one of a kind. What a loving and amazing God he is.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

The Nature of Love: Khalil Gibran

Note on the text: The Prophet by Khalil Gibran as published in 1999 by Alfred Knopf

Khalil Gibran is a wonderful poet who writes beautifully about love, especially regarding the amount of freedom that love needs in order to really thrive.

The main thrust of his argument comes from when his protagonist, the prophet Almustafa, is asked to talk about marriage. he says that those who are bound together in marriage "shall be together even in the silent memory of God" (15). Yet he also tells those same married couples to

let there be space in your togetherness, and let the winds of Heaven dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Rather let it be a sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another bread but not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand close together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow (15-16).

Love needs freedom in order to thrive. True love cannot be coerced or forced, it must be freely given and freely received in order for it be the great gift that it is.

He says something similar tells parents that "your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they with you [] they belong not to you. . . . You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" (17-18).

Love is not possessive. It does not own anybody. Parents do not own their children nor do spouses own each other.

That's what makes love so difficult. To truly love someone means to vulnerably give yourself to another person while acknowledging that that person retains the right to choose to either love you back or not. Fear of rejection is what keeps people from boldly proclaiming their love and eventually many are reduced to admitting that "speechless was our love, and with veils it [was] veiled" (8). Yet the prophet says to his followers that "when love beckons to you, follow him though his ways are sharp and steep" because it is only through love, in all its forms, that you can reach your highest potential. What a beautiful message

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Baby’s Brains and How They Develop

Note on the text: I used What’s Going On In There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life by Lise Eliot, PhD and published in 2000 by Bantam

“Brain wiring involves and intricate dance between nature and nurture” (29).

People ask all the time whether it’s nurture or nature that makes us who we are. Dr Eliot argues here that that is the incorrect way to frame the question: it’s not nature or nurture that makes us who we are, it’s nature AND nurture. It’s like saying that you need paint to do a painting but the paint alone won’t determine what type of painting you’ll do.

A person’s genetics might provide the framework within which that person will live, but any neurobiologist will tell you that

the brain itself is literally molded by experience: every sight, sound, smell, and thought leaves an imprint on specific neural circuits, modifying the way that future sights, sounds and thoughts will be registered. Brain hardware is not fixed, but living dynamic tissue that is constantly updating itself to meet the sensory, motor, emotional, and intellectual demands at hand (4).

The interesting thing about our brain is how it’s designed to promote learning. It’s like if a computer was able to program itself. The brain is designed to both function in a specific way and adapt to meet the demands of the environment. It’s a synergistic relationship. This is especially true during our early years. Babies’ brains are extremely malleable which is to say adaptable. Which means that the “underlying genetic programs are tolerant of a wide range of ‘normal’ environments” which is a good thing because it means that no one needs to be in an ideal environment in order to become a functional human being. Our biology helps give us a stable platform from which we can jump off and explore the world.

The brain learns, over time, how to construct the neural networks that the baby needs in order live, but by the same token the environment is what tells the brain what networks to construct and which to destroy and those synapses that never get “activated- whether because of languages never heard, music never made, sports never played, mountains never seen [or] love never felt- will wither and die” (32). Which is to say that “a young child’s environment directly and permanently influences the structure of his or her brain” (32). Darwin himself first saw this in the 1860s when he compared two categories of rabbits, one wild and one domesticated, and found that those in the latter category had smaller brains because, unlike their wild counterparts, they didn’t have to fight so hard for their food. So the part of their brain that they would ordinarily have used had just fallen into disrepair.

Just look at our sense of taste. Now there obviously is a section of the brain dedicated to taste that has to function properly if we are to taste anything at all (and this lists a whole bunch of ways in brain damage can affect our sense of taste). And most parents can tell you that kids have an innate sense of what tastes good to them and what doesn’t. But there is also a bunch research that indicates that “even two year olds can develop a taste for novel flavors… if repeatedly exposed to them” and that the brain will establish neural networks to make that particular taste more acceptable (194).

There’s even studies that show that how the brain excretes dopamine, the “happy” chemical, can be influenced by the environment. That babies cortisol (the stress hormone) will drop and their dopamine levels will rise when hearing the theme song to a show that their mom loved and watched while pregnant. Similarly, one Israeli study from 1982 offers a

fascinating demonstration of how a mother’s emotional state affects her fetus. Researchers put headphones on pregnant women and allowed them to listen to various types of music while they measured fetal movements [using] ultrasound. Remarkably most fetuses became more active when [the mothers were] listening to their favorite type of music…. Because the music was inaudible to the fetuses, the researchers concluded that they must have been reacting to the changes in their mothers’ emotional state (81).

It’s the fetus’ brain trying to use the environment to determine how to best help that child live a happy and fulfilling life. What a beautiful thing a brain is.

It’s so interesting to think of just how deep our connection to our own (and our children’s) biology is. That even if it is a strict 50/50 split in terms of where your personality came from, there’s so much you can still control due to the symbiotic nature of how our biological brains interact with their environment. It’s so cool.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Becoming a Dad: Some Advice

Note on the texts: I used The Expectant Father: The Ultimate Guide for Dads to Be, 5th edition by Armin A Brott and Jennifer Ash Redick as published in 2021 by Abberville Press and The Pregnancy Guide for Men as written by Francis Wells and published in 2023.

I found both these books to be extremely helpful and would recommend both to expectant fathers. Not only do they both give really practical advice but they also offer advice that is more “philosophic” in nature too.

“Upon receiving the news that you will soon be a dad chances are that went from feeling excitement and delight to slight worry and concern. If you are feeling all of this, you aren’t alone” (Wells, 5). Whatever you are feeling is ok. It’s ok to be scared, happy, frightened, overwhelmed or anything else. Becoming a dad is a huge, life changing moment so it’s bound to bring up a lot. And you won’t know what to do a lot of the time, but just know that that’s ok too. You know more than you think you do.

Funnily enough, the advice they give is the same that I have gotten from dad’s myself: if you’re ever feeling out to sea and like you don’t know what to do, whether it’s during the pregnancy or during the early months of your child’s life, plug back into your relationship. Be a “supportive, caring, loving and concerned partner” to the mother of your children (Wells, 6). You may not know what to do about her pregnancy troubles or the fact that the baby has been crying for 4 days straight, but you know how to love and support her. So do that (whether it means cooking, cleaning, massaging her feet, telling her how good of a mom she is or anything else) and don’t be afraid to rely on her for support too. After all you are both having to learn how to be parents together. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Joyful and wonderful at times, but also bumpy.

Communication is key here. You have to learn how to both talk to her about what she needs and what you need. Don’t be afraid to ask for help (whether from her or anyone else). Remember: it really does take a village to raise a child. But generally finding ways to love and support your partner and your child will go further than you think it will.

Speaking about that child, there’s going to be learning curve, especially in the beginning. In the beginning a lot of guys feel isolated because mom and baby tend to bond rather quickly, which makes the man feel like he has been left out in the cold. Imagine this:

you’re at home, having a perfectly delightful time with the baby, when she starts fussing and crying. Hard. You try everything you can to resolve the issue, but after a few minutes it’s clear [that] she’s hungry and wants mom. Now you turn her over to your partner and then spend the next twenty minutes feeling inadequate, useless, and completely superfluous. . . . It’s completely natural to [want to] distance yourself from anything that causes you pain. But try to not make it personal. The baby isn’t expressing a preference for your partner or saying that you are a lousy dad. . . . So instead of withdrawing, try to focus on other ways to build your own independent relationship with your child (Brott 258-259).

Do what you can to build up a relationship with your child: play with her, dress her up, change her diapers, whatever, because “if you are willing to take a more hands on approach to tend[ing] to [your baby] then [your baby] will bond with you” (Wells 113). As painful as it might be, just don’t give up. And above all, communicate with your partner and those around you. Let other people help you where they can.

So at the end of the day it comes to this: 1) whatever you’re feeling is ok and nothing to be ashamed of. 2) especially when you don’t know what to do, remember to support your partner in all the ways you know how to, and allow yourself to be supported by her in turn. Again, communication is key here. 3) do everything you can to bond with your own child despite how hard that might be especially in the beginning.Remeber that simply loving both your child and your partner will take you further than you think it can. And 4) remember to take a deep breath, give yourself some grace and patience, and take things one step at a time. You’re going to be a dad for the rest of your life which means some days are going to be great and others horrible. You’re going to have to learn how to take everything one step at a time. You got this!

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Dreams Deferred: The Destructive Effects of Descrimation

Note on the text: I used Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure as published in 1989 by Bantam Books

What happens to a dream differed?/Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?/Or fester like a sore-/and then run?/Does it stink like rotten meat?/Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags/like a heavy load

Or does it explode? (Langston Hughes, Harlem)

It explodes. It definitely explodes and takes down every vestige of your life with it. Or at least that’s what happens to Jude Fawley, the simple stone mason at the heart of Thomas Hardy’s 1895 novel.

When we first meet Jude he is a smart, kind, and precocious kid who is determined to make a name for himself. Even more specifically he is a working class man who is interested in ancient Latin and Greek who dreams of becoming a scholar. To that end he wants to go to college and get a degree because it “is the necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching” (10).

Now it is immediately obvious that Jude is an extremely hardworking man who is more than willing to put in whatever time and effort he needs to in order to get things done. He knows that in order to even stand a chance of getting into a university and becoming a professor he has to be at least as educated, if not more so, as his upper class counterparts. To that end he finds some books on Ancient Greek and Latin and starts to teach himself, which he is eventually able to master. It is a Herculean task in a lot of ways but eventually he is not able to read and write in those languages, but is able to quote the Bible and all the great Latin and Greek authors in their original language.

Not only is Jude smart but he is also a very kind person who “cannot bear to hurt anything” (17). Time and time again he goes out of his way to help people, even those who, like Arabella, have been really cruel to him. Arabella who calls him a “tender hearted fool” when he is forced to slaughter his beloved pet pig, and later says that there has never been “such a tender fool as Jude [especially if] a woman seems to be in trouble and coaxes him a little” (68, 283). So it’s obvious that Jude is, in every respect, just as worthy as anyone else is of seeing his dreams be fulfilled: “I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea who knoweth not such things as these?” (Job 12:3 as quoted by Jude on page 126).

So when he realizes that his dreams of becoming a scholar and a teaching must be eternally deferred because he is too poor to go to school the result is incredibly harrowing and depressing, and thus begins his gradual descent into his own personal Hell:

This terribly sensible advice exasperated Jude. He knew it was true. Yet it seemed a hard slap after ten years of labor and its effect on him just now was to make him rise recklessly from the table and, instead of reading as usual, [decide to go out and get drunk] (124).

It’s while he’s at the bar, staring at his fellow patrons that he comes upon what in many ways is the central theme of the book:

He began to see that the town life was a book of humanity infinitely more palpitating, varied and compendious than the gown life. These struggling men and women before him were the [real] reality [of the city] of Christminster (125).

It’s at this moment that his life begins the downward trajectory that will result in him dying alone and unhappy. Jude is a shining example of the negative effects that discrimination can have on the marginalized. Because dreams that have been arbitrarily strangled and made to die for reasons outside of a person control do not die quietly. They explode.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

The Importance of Conscience: Thoreau and Emerson

Note on the text: I used Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance as published in the Transcendentalism Collection

Both these authors put a huge emphasis on the importance of following your conscience. Emerson says that “a man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages” (191-192). One should prioritize one’s own thoughts over the thoughts of others, including the thoughts of those whom one recognizes as masters. Similarly Thoreau argues that conscience should take precedence over everything, including the law:

Must a citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law as much for [what is] right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think is right (178).

The point for both authors is that you must follow your conscience no matter what.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Oppenheimer: The Future of Man

Note on the text: I used American Prometheus: The triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin as published in 2006 by Vintage Books

What an interesting person "The father of the atomic bomb" J Robert Oppenheimer was. He was multifaceted individual who was uniquely qualified- as a scientist and a man- to lead the world into the atomic age. One of the many lessons that I learned from his life is just how important it is for us to create a nurturing environment where we can live in peace and harmony if we want to bring the best out of ourselves as humans in the atomic age.

We see the seeds of this philosophy being planted in the very beginning of Robert's life. His parents, Julius and Ella, loved him and his younger brother Frank, a renowned physicist in his own right, as well as each other, a lot and they created a loving and nurturing home where Robert and Frank could grow and develop into the exceptional young men that they eventually became. A letter which Ella wrote to Julius just before they got married says it all: "I do so want you to be able to enjoy life in its best and fullest sense, and will you help me to take care of you? To take care of someone whom one really loves has an indescribable sweetness" (11). To her and Julius it was important that their boys lived full lives in the best sense of the world and they did their best to create a loving environment where Robert and Frank would feel encouraged to try things, explore who they were as people, and become the best versions of themselves.

To that end, they had no qualms about supporting their boys and encouraging them to pursue whatever their interests were. They would give their boys "every opportunity to develop along the lines of [their] own inclinations and at [their] own rate of speed" (15). Robert later said that he thought his father was one of the best and most tolerant people he had ever met, and that "his idea of what to do for people was to let them find out what they wanted" from life (15). When Frank became interested in Chaucer, his parents got him a 1721 edition of Chaucer's works, and later when he expressed interest in playing the flute the hired one of America's leading flutist, George Barer, to tutor him. Similarly, when Robert was 12 he started developing an interest in geology and would write to local geologists about the rocks he had found. This lead to a really funny moment which shows just how fiercely his parents loved him and how much they stood by him. Unaware of how old he actually was, the local geology club, which was made of experts in the field, invited the 12 year old to present a reports on some local rock formations which he had been studying. Instead of informing the club of its mistake, Julius

encouraged his son to accept the honor [and] on the designated evening Robert showed up at the club with his parents who proudly introduced him as 'J Robert Oppenheimer'. . . . [Although he felt] shy and awkward [at first], Robert nevertheless read his prepared remarks and was given a hearty round of applause. Julius had no qualms about encouraging his son in this adult pursuit (15).

The result of being raised in such a loving and nurturing environment is that Robert got to explore who he was and become the best version of himself. This allowed him on the one hand to become uniquely great in his field in a way that he couldn't have otherwise, and it also gave him a tougher skin when it came to dealing with the world. People who are confident in themselves tend to care less about what others think of them. It gave him a strength to face the world that he would not have otherwise had. So while on the outside the shy, weird, and slightly sickly looking Robert might have brittle, he actually had a strong inner toughness and a "stoic personality built of stubborn pride and determination, a characteristic that would reappear throughout his life" (21). The only way he could have gotten that type of resilience was by growing up in a nurturing environment where he was allowed to become his best self.

You see similar instincts at play when he started teaching graduate students physics at Berkeley. Because although he could be harsh at times he was much more interested in creating a nurturing environment where his students could become the best versions of themselves. He engendered a spirit of collaboration instead of intense competition where students felt emboldened to go to him, and each other, for help, and where people were encouraged to explore, and develop, their own talents and become the best versions of themselves. Just look at the story that one of his graduate students, Joseph Weinberg, tells about how he was able to uniquely nurture the students around him to become their best selves. One day, while in Oppenheimer's office Joseph was

rummaging through papers stacked on the trestle table in the center of the room. Picking out one paper, he began reading the first paragraph, oblivious to Oppie's irritated look. 'This is an excellent proposal' Weinberg exclaimed, 'I'd sure as hell like to work on it.' To his surprise Oppenheimer replied curtly 'Put that down where you found it.' When Weinberg asked what he had done wrong, Oppenheimer said 'That was not for you to find'. A few weeks later, Weinberg heard that another student who was struggling to find a thesis topic had begun work on the proposal that he had read that day. 'The student was a kind and decent man', Weinberg recalled. 'But unlike a few of us who enjoyed the kind of challenge that Oppenheimer threw out like sparks, he was often baffled, and nonplused, and not at all at ease. Nobody had the courage to tell him 'Look, you're out of your depth here.' Weinberg now realized that Oppie had planted this thesis problem for this very student. It was a distinctly easy problem. 'But it was perfect for him', Weinberg said, 'and it got him his PhD'. . . . Weinberg insisted years later [that] Oppie had nurtured this student as a father would have treated a baby learning to walk. 'He waited for him to discover the proposal accidentally on his own terms, to pick it up, [] to express his own interest in it, to find his way to it. . . . He needed special treatment and, by God, Oppie was going to give it to him. It showed a great deal of love, sympathy, and understanding.' The student in question, Weinberg reported, went on to do great work as an applied physicist (170-171).

It was this same attitude that made him an effective leader of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. He was an expert at creating a nourishing environment where everyone, from the leading scientist down to the lowest custodian, could do their best work and actualize their potential. He proved to be not only a great scientist, but a great motivator and leader. A lot of the problems that he dealt with on the Project were more personal than they were scientific. So whether it was at home, at school, or at the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer understood the importance of creating a safe, loving, nurturing environment where people could become their best selves.

Now before going into how this same philosophy showed up in Oppenheimer's life after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is important to take a moment to look at what Oppenheimer's idea of community was and how it developed over time.

When he was in his early twenties, he read a line from Marcel Proust that stuck with him for the rest of his life: "Indifference to the pain one causes is the [most] terrible and permanent form of cruelty" (585). He was always aware of the obligation he had to make the world a better place, in whatever way he could.

His social conscious was something that was fostered in him as a young man. He went to school at the Ethical Cultural Fieldstone School from the ages of 7 till he graduated high school in 1921 at the age of 17. At the Ethical Cultural school he was surrounded by

men and women who thought of themselves as catalysts for a better world. In the years between the turn of the century and World War I, Ethical Cultural members served as agents of change on such politically charged issues of race relations, labor rights, civil liberties, and environmentalism. . . . Members [of the school community] were pragmatic radicals committed to playing an active role to bringing about social change. They believed that a better world required hard work, persistence, and political organization. In 1921, the year Robert graduated from the Ethical Culture high school, [its founder Felix] Adler extorted his students to develop their 'ethical imagination' to 'see things not as they are but as they might be'" (19).

In the early part of the 20th century members of the school community went on to do things like found the NAACP and the National Civil Liberties Union (the forerunner to the ACLU) and conduct labor strikes. So Robert grew up around people that were very socially conscious. These values only really started to show themselves in the 1930s when he became more politically active. He was never interested in politics per say, but in the ways in which he could help improve people's lives:

Beginning in 1936. . . my interests began to change. . . . I had a continuing, smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany. . . . I saw what the Depression was doing to my students. Often they could get no jobs or jobs which were wholly inadequate and through them I began to understand how deeply political and economic events could affect other people's lives. I began to feel the need to participate in the life of the community (114).

It was at this point became "devoted to working for social and economic justice in America" and abroad (152). It is at this point that we see his desire to create a nurturing environment where people can thrive reach the worldwide stage.

Fast forward to 1945. The bomb has exploded. In the early morning of July 16th, Oppenheimer becomes "death, destroyer of world" and with that he has to take on the responsibility of how to properly introduce the world to the power of the atomic bomb (309). It was his responsibility to help build a society of human beings that could not only survive but thrive in the atomic world.

Although he was aware of how powerful the atomic bomb could be, seeing the devastation that his creation caused for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki really inspired him to take action. His feelings towards the bomb were initially very complex. He was never fully behind the idea of developing an atomic bomb, but he believed that it was his duty to do so before Hitler did. He thought that giving a genocidal maniac like Hitler such a powerful weapon would be the worst of all possible outcomes. But after Hiroshima he wasn't sure anymore: "We have made a thing, a most terrible weapon. . . a thin that by all standards of the world we grew up in is an evil thing" (323). More than that, he saw the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as mankind's final warning: that we must come together in a spirit of brotherhood and give up all our petty differences and hatreds or else we will die: "The people of this world must unite or they will perish. This war that has ravaged so much of the earth has written these words. The atomic bombs has spelled them out for all men to understand" (329). If humans are to reach their potential, then they have to create the loving and nurturing environment that they need now for such a change to take place.

Just like he did with his students, and like his parents did with him before, he believed he needed to help create a loving environment where humanity as a whole could evolve and become the best version of itself. HIs particular idea was to establish what he called "The Atomic Development Commission" which would be an international coalition dedicated to making sure that no nation would ever use atomic energy to build another bomb. It would ensure that atomic power would only be used to positive things that could be used in peacetimes. The key here, obviously, is that every nation involved in the Commission had to collaborate with each other. There could be no secrets, no underhanded dealings, everyone had to deal with each other in open and honest ways. He would spend the rest of his life trying to convince the world that this was the only way to actually move forward.

And so we find ourselves back to the place we started. It started with Ella and Julius creating a safe space where their kids could grow and flourish, continued into Robert's professional life where he attempted to create a nourishing environment where his students and co workers could become their best selves, and ended here- with Robert trying to create a safe and loving world where mankind could evolve into its best self. Love, in short is the answer. We need learn how to love each other and live with each other or else we are doomed. We'll see what happens next.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

The Price of Being Human

Note on the text: I used Stephen King’s The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower I as published in 2016 by Scribner

“It ends this way he thought. Again and again it ends this way. There are quests and roads that lead ever onward and all of them end in the same place- upon the killing ground” (130).

Human nature never changes. Despite all the progress we have made (technologically, philosophically, scientifically, politically, economically, morally etc) we remain, at our core, as we always were. Despite how much we constantly push ourselves to better, we always find a way to destroy ourselves. Our propensity towards violence and self destruction will never go away. Destruction and violence is it seems, at least at times, the price we have to pay for progress.

“The Man in Black” as he is mostly known, while he is definitely a villain, is still human on some level, and knows about the frailty of human nature. The small campfires that the hero Roland sees while pursuing the man, also known as Walter O’Dim, are “small signs. . . affirming the man in black’s possible humanity” (5). Not only is he human on some level, but it’s obvious throughout the novel that he knows how to exploit human weakness. No where is this more obvious than when Walter visits the town of Tull.

Now Tull is a small, relatively stable town inland this post apocalyptic wasteland where people have managed to live together in peace and harmony. But when Walter gets there he starts trouble by resurrecting a dead man, local drug user, and implanting in that man’s mind truths about death that he knows will drive people insane if they learn about it. Now people have been fearing death for a long time, and have been trying to learn more about it for just as long. Think of how many stories, religions, myths, political policies etc have been built around our fear of death. Walter knows that despite how dangerous such knowledge is that people won’t be able to resist it. Just look at the letter he leaves behind to Allie, a local bartender:

you want to know about death. I left in him a word. That word is nineteen. If you say it to him, his mind will be opened. He will tell you what he saw. The word is NINETEEN. Knowing will drive you mad. But sooner or later you will ask. You won’t be able to help yourself” (41).

Despite her better judgment, she eventually caves and while we don’t know what the man told her, we know that it made her and the whole town insane. They all turn into violent psychopaths that Roland is eventually forced to kill. All because Walter knew that in their attempt to learn more about death, they would encounter knowledge that they wouldn’t be able to handle and that would push them towards the violent and self destructive paths that it always does.

Our constant striving to become is both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness because while it does make us better than we were before, it also seems to give us a greater ability to exploit each other in various ways. So while increasing industrial output made us richer as a whole, it also gave us the ability to exploit each other on a scale hitherto unknown, and while advances in chemistry might have helped us to make better medicine, it also gave us mustard gas. So while progress is good, it seems to always come with some unintended negative consequences. It does seem sometimes like the inevitable price for any kind of progress is a kind of destruction. It certainly seems like as a species we don’t really know how to deal with continuous, uninterrupted success

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

The Worshipping of Success

Note on the text: I used John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent as published in 1961 by the Viking Press

Readers seeking to identify the fictional people and places here described would do better to inspect their own communities and search their hearts, for this book is about a large part of America today (dedication page).

Steinbeck is my personal favorite American author, and what I loved most about this book is the way in he dissects the American attitude towards success.

Strength and success- they are above morality, above criticism. It seems then, that it is not what you do but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn’t seem to be: the only punishment is for failure. In effect, no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught (186).

Americans worship at the altar of success. We pray the prayer of “the American Dream” and crafted the mythology of America being a place where anyone can achieve anything in service of this god. We praise people (athletes, singers, etc) for being successful regardless of what they are successful for or how they achieved that success. Not only do we want to be successful ourselves, but we want others to see us as such. It’s the 20th (and 21st) century version of “the ends justify the means”. So long as you are successful, especially financially, nothing else really matters. Or do we still have values we, as Americans, want to stick to regardless of how “successful” it turns out to be? That is the question that Steinbeck is interested in exploring here.

Ethan is a lowly store clerk in a general store when we first meet him. He is a solidly middle class man who earns on honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work. It isn’t glamorous but he is able to afford to feed his family and is, by all accounts, a really good, honest, and virtuous man. In fact, most of us would be proud to be the kind of person that Ethan is. Yet neither his wife, Mary, nor his two children, Allen and Mary-Ellen, seem to be particularly proud of their dad’s moral character. They are more interested in his ability to help them keep face with the neighbors. “It wouldn’t be so bad if you were a lawyer or in a bank or [something] like that” Allen says when Ethan asks him about why other kid’s tease him. Mary is also so desperate for her husband to “be somebody” that she gets her fortune read at the beginning of the book and repeats what the fortune teller all throughout the book: “you are going to be a big shot, did you know? Everything you touch will turn to gold- a leader of men” (17). It’s not enough that he be a good man who can offer them a comfortable, middle class life. They want him to be something more.

Ethan himself also struggles with that question. He’s not sure if it’s enough for him to just be a simple, good man, who just goes to work in a grocery store and goes home: “would my ancestors be proud to know that they produced a goddamn grocery clerk in a goddamn wap store in a town they used to own?” (2).

No where is this worship of “success at all costs” seen more clearly than in Allen’s essay writing contest. Allen has competed in, and won, a national essay competition on “why do you love America?” However everyone soon discovers that he plagiarized the essay and he is disqualified from the competition. When Ethan confronts him about it, Allen says

who cares? Everybody does it. It’s the way the cookie crumbles. . . . Don’t you read the papers? Everybody right up to the top- just read the papers. You get to feeling holy, just read the papers. . . . I’m not going to take the rap for everybody. I don’t care about anything” (277).

Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t I is essentially his response. He doesn’t think that there’s anything really wrong with what he did. It was all about getting first place and the problem is not that he cheated but that he got caught.

Now in the middle of this truthful, if somewhat cynical, critique of America, comes the character of Alfio Marullo, the Italian owner of the grocery store that Ethan works in, and an underhanded, sneaky, defense of idealism. Blink and you’ll miss it.

Early on in the story, Ethan refused a bribe from a competing store to sell out his boss. When Mr Marullo finds out he says that Ethan is a “good fella” and gives some money and gifts (including some expensive Easter eggs) as a reward and later decides to sell him the store when he goes back to Italy (96). Now Mr Marullo is just as corrupt and cynical and anyone else here (in fact it’s heavily implied that he came to America illegally). He is looking for his piece of the American Dream and he doesn’t particularly care how he gets it. More than that, he doesn’t even seem to particularly like Ethan. Every time they talk, Mr Marullo always speaks to him in a gruff and dismissive way. Even after he finds out how much of a “good fella” Ethan is. So everyone is surprised when he decides to sell Ethan the store, including Ethan. So when Ethan asks another character, Richard Walder, why he thinks Mr Marullo would treat him that way and give him the store anyways, he’s surprised to hear Richard tell him that he suspects Mr. Marullo was trying to figure what was Ethan’s “racquet, and he discovered that your racquet was honesty. . . [and] he [probably wanted] to make you [into] in a kind of monument to something he believed in once” (227). Despite Mr Marullo’s cynicism and seemingly Machiavellian drive for success, he actually believes in the importance of being a good and honest person. The reason he pays and rewards Ethan for being a good man is that he thinks it will inspire Ethan to continue being a good person. He wants Ethan to be a good AND successful person.

We do something similar with our heroes. It’s not enough that our heroes be successful at doing what they do, we need them to be moral too. It’s not enough that Abraham Lincoln be a great president, he has to be the most honest too. It’s not enough for George Washington to be a successful general who helps found a country- he has to be “unable to tell a lie”. Because despite our cynicism and obsession with success at all costs, we are always a highly idealistic nation. Somehow, deep inside, as much as we want to be seen as successful, we also want to be seen as moral. It’s an interesting dichotomy. Despite all our efforts it seems like we can just give up the fight for morality. How does the saying go?: “You are obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it”.

Which is what Ethan realizes at the very end of the book. By the end of the book he has become so disillusioned by the sheer volume of immorality that surrounds him that he has resolved to kill himself. But as he reaches into his pocket to get his knife he accidentally grabs a little token, what he calls a talisman, that his daughter Mary-Ellen gave him. In that moment he is reminded of all the good people that he has known who have managed to do some good despite all of the evil in the world, and how it’s every individual’s responsibility to keep fighting the good fight and encourage each other to keep doing the same no matter what:

Marullo’s light still burned, and Old Cap’n’s light, and Aunt Deborah’s light. It isn’t true that there is a community of light, a bonfire of the world. Everyone carries his own, his lonely one. . . . I had to get back- had to return the talisman to its new owner [i.e. his daughter] [or] else another light might go out (280-281).

It was his responsibility not just to keep on shining, just as others before him had done, but to pass it forward by encouraging his daughter to keep doing the same.

We do value success highly in our society and Steinbeck is right in critiquing us the way he does. But he’s also right in reminding us that morality still matters and that we would be remiss to forget that. That, in the end, the ends might not justify the means as much as we would like it to.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Love is Enough: Patroclus in “The Song of Achilles”

Note on the text: I used The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller as published in 2012 by HarperCollins

Madeline Miller has crafted a near masterpiece here. Not quite as good as Circe but how many books are. And at the center of this one is another great protagonist, Patroclus, who learns how to truly tap into his potential and become the best version of himself.

When we first meet Patroclus he is just a little kid craving for his father’s love and attention. His mom has passed away and it is clear that he is nothing but a “disappointment [to his dad]: small, slight. I was not fast. I was not strong. I could not sing” (1). He knows deep in his bones that he is unloved and unwanted: a failure. This not only affects him psychologically, but stunts his growth as a human being. Love is the most important thing for a child to experience. More than anything else he needs to know that he is loved and accepted if he is to become who he is meant to be. That is why Patroclus isn’t able to grow while living with his father, but Achilles is. It’s obvious from the beginning that King Minoetius despises Patroclus while King Peleus loves Achilles.

When he goes to live with King Peleus, Patroclus is something of a disappointment, and runs a real risk of being just another royal brat who never met his potential. In fact he is being sent away because he brought shame on his family name, but the moment King Peleus sees him he tells Patroclus that he is welcome to stay and that he may “still make a good man” someday (29). It’s Peleus’ belief in Patroclus that starts Patroclus on the path to becoming the hero that Briseis will later say is worth 10 of Achilles. Achilles also loves Patroclus and even from the very beginning treats Patroclus with a respect that his father never gave him. When he and Patroclus are learning to play the lyre, instead of simply mocking Patroclus he encourages him to keep practicing. Similarly, when Chiron decides to take on Achilles as a pupil, he also teaches Patroclus everything he knows about medicine so that he can become the best doctor the world had ever seen. The love and acceptance that Patroclus experiences here is what allows him to evolve into the man that he later becomes.

In some sense you could say that Patroclus becomes doubly great. Not only because what he himself accomplishes as a doctor and a soldier (he kills the renowned Trojan warrior Sarpedon) but because of the way that he influences and changes Achilles.

Achilles has been told all of his life that he is destined to become a great warrior, a hero. Odysseus himself says that Achilles is “a weapon, a killer. . . . The best that the gods have ever made” (207). Achilles believes that with such conviction that it has blunted his ability to really empathize with other people. He thinks he’s above it all. That’s why he tells Patroclus again and again, when he begs Achilles not to kill Hector because the prophecy says that Achilles will die next, “why should I kill him? He’s done nothing to me” (171). It is the statement of an innocently arrogant person who has never experienced any major pain and believes that he is above it all. He’s struggled to really empathize with others which is why he’s willing to let all the Greek suffer and die while he looks on from the sidelines when King Agamemnon insults him by taking away all of his war prizes. The degree to which Achilles is able to have any kind of compassion is directly a result of his relationship with Patroclus. There is a scene where Achilles approaches Patroclus in the aftermath of a battle. Now just prior to that battle, Patroclus chided Achilles for being an unfeeling, ruthless killing machine. This time however when he approaches Patroclus it is to tell him that he

left one son alive. . . . The eighth son. So that the line would not die’

Strange that such kindness felt like grace. Yet what other warrior would have done as much?. . . . The surviving son would have children, he would give them his family name, and tell their story. They would be preserved, in memory of not in life (254).

Patroclus is the one who is able to give this “Tin Man”, this unfeeling war machine, a heart, and the value of that is so high that Achilles later admits that he would give up everything to have Patroclus with him again. More than that, he agrees with Briseis when she says that she hopes Hector kills him. Without Patroclus and his love, life, for Achilles, isn’t worth living.

The beautiful thing about this book is how it really is all about love. We all need love, in all its forms, to become the best version of ourselves. Patroclus was only able to become the best version of himself because of the love of people like Peleus, Briseis, Chiron, and Achilles. Even Achilles was only able to be the hero that he was because of the love of people like Peleus and Patroclus. Love is so important. It is the soil in which we grow, and what plant doesn’t need the right kind of soil to flourish. Love really is the answer.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Sex as a Primordial Force

Note on the text: I used Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” as translated by Gregory Rabassa and published in 1998 by Perennial Classics

Now while this was not my favorite book by any stretch of the imagination, even I have to admit that it had a little bit of magic in it. It’s the story of the magical, and somewhat immortal, Buendia family and magical town of Macondo. Now when the Buendias first established the town of Macondo “the world was so recent that many things lacked names” and we follow this town all the way from the beginning of time well into the 20th century (1). One of the most interesting aspects of this book is the way it talks about sex, and the way in which people react to it.

Now sex, within the world of this book, isn’t just something you do. It is a very primal, powerful force of nature that cannot be controlled. In fact when Aureliano, one of the first children to be born in this town, asks his older brother, Jose, what sex feels like, Jose says that it feels “like an earthquake” (33). It’s something that is powerful and able to rock your world.

Now as the town grows, and civilization begins to develop, people start going to war and war very quickly becomes a metaphor for control while revolution becomes a metaphor for freedom. Some of these wars and revolutions are literal, but most are more metaphorical in nature. Many of the wars come about because someone wants to control some aspect of the world and the people in it, including people’s sexual lives. Same in regard to the various revolutions. They aren’t about throwing off old political regimes so much as they are about throwing off old ideologies and old ways of thinking. Especially when it comes to sex.

Just look at what happens to Aureliano II when he decides to join the revolution. Now Aureliano II is in love with his aunt Amarata and initially joins the army because she continuously rejects him. But while in the army he hears

an old man tell the tale of the man who married his aunt, who was also his cousin, and whose son wound up being his grandfather.

Can a person marry his own aunt?’ He asked, startled

‘He can not only do that’, a soldier answered him, ‘but we’re fighting this war against the priests so that he can marry his own mother” (163).

Not only does Aureliano II wind up having an affair with his aunt, but the futility of putting sexuality into a box becomes even more immediately evident when Marquez writes the following about his eponymous character: “Colonel Gerinaldo Marquez was the first to perceive the emptiness of the war” (175). It’s obvious that here he means the metaphorical war that we wage on ourselves against our own nature. In other words, we cannot resist our sexual nature and any attempt to repress it, or put it into any kind of box, is bound to fail. Sex by its nature is sort of anarchic and it will break free of whatever chains are placed on it. Resistance, beyond a certain point, is futile.

It’s interesting to see how Marquez talks about sex here. It’s a little distasteful at times to me, but it’s obvious that it means a lot to him and I admire him for, if nothing else, having the courage to talk about it in the way that he does. He is very open in the way that he talks about sex and that is a little refreshing even if I don’t quite agree with it. Writers are there to challenge us a little bit and to force us to see things from a different perspective. I may not have liked Marquez’s perspective here, but I do admire him for being so honest about it.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Know Thyself: Unlocking Your True Potential

Note on the text: I used Madeline Miller's Circe as published in 2018 by Back Bay Books

Circe is a different kind of woman. This book makes an excellent companion piece to The Odyssey. This book really explores the character of Circe in a really interesting way. She's not quite a goddess but not a human either. She's something in between, and her journey towards self discovery is what makes up the central story of this book.

"When I was born the name for what I was did not [yet] exist" (3). It's obvious from the very beginning that Circe is something different. Because although her father is the sun god Helios and her mother is the nymph Perse, she never feels like she really belongs among them. She's not like either one of her parents. In fact, she's not really like any of the gods that she grows up with. The gods, including Helios and Perse, are vain and cruel creatures who believe that the "world's natural order [is] to please [them]" (4). They're incredibly self centered and don't particularly care about how their actions affect others. Circe is different though. She cares about other people. Pretty early on in the book Circe recounts how her dad told her that on earth there were people

called astronomers whose task it was to keep track of his rising and setting. They were held in the highest esteem among mortals, kept in palaces, as counselors of kings, but sometimes my father lingered over one thing or another and threw their calculations into despair. Then those astronomers were hauled before the kings they served and killed as frauds. My father smiled when he told me. It was what they deserved, he said. Helios the Sun was bound to no will but his own and none might say what he would do" (11).

Remorse is a foreign concept to the gods, even the lesser ones. Pasiphae, Circe's sister, is delighted by the amount of destruction that her son, the Minotaur, will bring because it means that people will talk more about her. Even Boreas, the god of the north wind, would rather kill his beloved than risk losing him to Apollo: "you think I'd let Apollo have him? He does not deserve such a flower. [So] I blew a discus into that boys head, that showed that Olympian prig", and whereas Helios feels no remorse over the death of those people, Circe feels incredibly bad for them (26). Prometheus however is the first god to show Circe that she can be different.

When she first meets Prometheus he is being punished for bringing fire to mankind as an act of mercy. He saw the people suffering down below and decided to help them, in defiance of Zeus' specific orders no less, and when she asks him why he says that "not every god need by the same" (22). This winds up being a very telling moment for her because when she asks him what a human is he says that "there is no single answer. They are [all] different" (22). She does not know it yet, but what she comes to learn is that gods and humans aren't so different. The problem here is choice, and just like the gods can choose who they want to be, so can the humans. Human beings can choose to live a life that is meaningful. In fact, the fact that every human is destined to die pushes them to do so. The gods for all their power tend to live a life that is purposeless. They don't live for any reason other than to satiate their most basic desires. They, other than Circe and Prometheus, never choose to live for something outside of themselves which means that, even though they are immortal, "they are more dead then anything[.] For they are unchanging" (485).

Humans have the ability to change in a multitude of ways. On the one hand, they have the ability to change themselves. They, unlike the gods, can regret what they done and choose to be better. Daedalus regrets playing the role he did in bringing the Minotaur to life, Telegonus regrets accidentally killing his father Odysseus. Circe, for her part, regrets trying Scylla into the horrible monster that she becomes. On the other hand, humans also have the ability to change the world around them through "practice and diligence, tending [to] their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun" (135). It is in this way that Circe realizes who she is and is able to tap into her power. It is in the realization that she is a sorceress as opposed to either a goddess or a human that she is able to unlock her full potential:

Let me say what sorcery is not: it is no divine power, which comes with a thought and a blink. It must be made and worked, planned and searched out, dug up, dried, chopped and ground, cooked, spoken over, and sung. Even after all that it can fail as gods do not. If my herbs are not fresh enough, if my attention falters, if my will is weak, the drought goes stale and rancid in my hands. By rights, I should never have come to witchcraft. Gods hate all toil. It is in their nature. The closest we come is in weaving or smithing but these are skills, and there is no drudgery to them since all the parts that might be unpleasant are taken away with power. The wool is dyed not with stinking vats and stirring spoons but with a snap. There is no tedious mining, the ores leap willingly from the mountain. No fingers are ever chaffed, no muscles strained. Witchcraft is nothing but such drudgery. Each herb must be found in its den, harvested [at the proper time], grubbed up from the dirt, culled and stripped, washed and prepared. It must be handled this way and then that to find out where its power lies. Day upon patient day, you must throw out your errors and begin again. So why did I not mind? Why did none of us mind? I cannot speak for my brothers and sisters, but my answer is simple. For a hundred generations, I had walked through the world drowsy and dull, idle and at ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who loved me a little did not care to stay. Then I learned to bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt (83-84).

And just like that Circe, the little nymph-reject of Olympus, found a power inside of her that rivaled Zeus'. Humans are like gods in that way. The power we have over our lives is very real. We have the ability build real, meaningful lives for ourselves and that power is very, very real. That is the only kind of power that actually matters.