Responding Thoughtfully

"Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment." ~ Lao Tzu

To respond thoughtfully takes intentionality and time, e.g., to calm, find rest, or the collecting of ourselves so as to move beyond reactivity or impulsivity.

• The cultivation of full human capacity vs. patterns of emotive arousal and reaction (such as dependence on technology, retaliation and war). 

• Being reflectively thoughtful and collaborative with others 

• Openness to ambiguity, mystery, and uncertainty resulting in mindfulness and imagination opening up the way to serendipity and hope vs. fixation on concreteness

• Acknowledgement/awareness of human and systemic fragility, rigidity, anxiety; ergo self-differentiation resulting in compassion

What might this look like in every-day life?  In the language of human virtue, Emotional Intelligence” is the capacity to be more aware of the motives and feelings of others, and of self, and to respond more skillfully; to notice differences among others, especially with respect to their moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions, and then to act upon these distinctions; to have finely tuned access to my own feelings and the ability to use that knowledge to understand and guide my behavior. The golden or mean good, the virtue itself might be translated compassion or self-differentiation (family systems) while an excess is being desensitized or emotionally fatigue and the deficiency is poor coping capacity and easily triggered. 

Enjoyment and Labor: A Wise Mix

Odium tremendum

morally slanted—frayed,

mysterium tremendum

hidden in the mundane.

~ DJ Seifert

But yield who will to their separation,

My objects in living is to unite

My avocation and my vocation

As my two eyes make one in sight

Only where love and need are one,

And the work is play for mortal stakes,

Is the deed ever really ever done

For Heaven and the future’s sake.

~ R. Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time”

The legendary sage in the ancient Hebrew text, Ecclesiastes, is known for his gentle to almost gloomy cynicism. Yet interspersed within a diversity of life-giving expressions in the form (genre) and tradition of lament and complaint, there are peaks of commendations that assist the human quest against the futility, meaningless and absurdity experienced by thoughtful beings. The primary question of this text seems to revolve around the question. “What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?”

The sage provides several responses to this common yet troubling question. One such response takes on the subject of work itself, which is a radical, ruthless testing of the traditional views in light of reason and experience.

The sage finds enjoyment and intrinsic value in work itself; he commends devotion to one’s work, for toil resides exclusively in the land of living (9.10); so the positive values of labor is set within the formative context of rest, refreshment, and fellowship (4.9).

Moreover, the sage does not disparage work; he rather redefines it by dislodging it from the realm of the marketplace and setting it within the ethos of enjoyment. This “work ethic” is profoundly subversive and relevant in our modern monetary, capitalistic culture.

The commendation  of enjoyment (seven times) is seemingly at odds with the stark sobering, if not down-right pessimistic, view of life (2.24; 3.12-13, 22; 5.18; 8.15; 9.7-10; 11.8-10). The sage’s tensive reflection makes existential sense, saying that enjoyment has the power to redeem the notion of toil amid (verses over and against) the vicissitudes of life, the elusiveness of gain, and the ravaging power of death.

Perhaps the sage is a self-pronounced “minimalist” when it comes to discerning what is ultimately worthwhile in human living. His examples of the “good life” are simple, unpretentious, and consistently commonplace: eating, drinking, and finding some shred of satisfaction in one’s toil.

From the wisdom tradition as conveyed in Ecclesiastes, the value of enjoyment (defined negatively in relation to a valuative scale: “there is nothing better than”) carries superlative force and set against the bleak landscape of life that is impenetrable to human discernment (1.15; 3.11), governed by God’s inscrutable will (e.g., 9.11-12) and devoid of gainful purpose or progress. These commendations are embedded in examples of absurdity: the arduousness of toil (2.23), the impenetrability of time (3.11), the fragility of life and ignorance about the future (3.21), the tragic loss of gain (5.13-17), and the overturning of moral standards (8.14). Set against these absurdities, joy becomes absurdly minimal yet remains redemptively significant. “There is joy in the fray.”

Sources:

William P. Brown, “Whatever Your Hand Find’s to Do”, Interpretation, 55.03 (2006), 280-281]

Ecclesiastes 

Robert Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time”

DJ Seifert, “Holy Irony” (2013)

Moving from the thin idea of “Happiness” to the classical pursuit of Eudaimonia

I found the article below over a year ago on a blog I occasionally frequent and found myself again contending with the notion of “happiness” in our Western, American “thin” manner (myth) of thinking. The more I hear people mention the idea of happiness, I recognize that many are often referring to a cheap positive psychology or sentimentality that does not take into consideration the seriousness of suffering, intellectual pursuit, nor an awareness of the harsh realities that surround us on a daily basis. For this kind and quality of “happiness’ is like the weather, it comes and goes; it may stick around for a brief time, but then move on when a low pressure system pushes in darker, thicker matter.Then what do you do?

We can better work with Neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson’s  notion that one can compare happiness to a muscle that can be developed with practice. Like developing athletic skill, the practice and skill building with respect to “happiness” will result in noticeable gains and growth leading to thicker and more  sustainable awareness of something weightier—a deep gladness and more fully human capacities.  We can begin to acquire this kind and quality of deepening, sustainable gladness as long as we go back to the classical philosophical understanding of an idea that is often translated “happiness”, eudaimonia. A more accurate translation is human flourishing which per Aristotle results in virtues that nurture human flourishing (see “Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification”).

I interject “Teilhard de Chardin on the Power of Creative Life” as a way of illustrating with imagery the level of “practice” necessary to create human flourishing.[1]  (The bold face terms below in the shared article are interjected as connecting imagery.)

Fire kindles life—

    adopt,

    model,

    identify . . .

Rhythm of reality:

     tireless thought

     dilated heart

     intensified toil . . .

         

Thus labor creates—

     unceasingly

          purify affections

          remove opacities

               that impede the light

Here are 10 exercises provided by Randy Taran, Founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Project Happiness.[2] I have linked terms from the above imagery in verse to emphasize the profound practices; which without this linkage, they could be easily translated into cheap happiness (my hunch) versus the deeply sought reality of eudaimonia or human flourishing.

1. Know Your Strengths: Ask 1 or 2 people who know you well and care about you what they see as your 3 greatest strengths. Do the same for them. Then find ways to use those strengths every day.   Adopt

2. Choose your Mindset: When something bad happens you can either choose to put yourself down and succumb to the "inner critic" or recognize that the "inner critic" is trying to get a foothold. Instead, look into what there is to learn from the situation. Let's say a presentation didn't go well. You can either say: "I'm always bad at this type of thing" (Dr. Carol Dweck calls this the fixed mindset) or: "Next time I'll prepare and practice more." (The growth mindset)  Which perspective will you choose?  Assume (a virtue)

3. Gratitude: Before you go to sleep, think of three things that you are grateful for: a good conversation with a friend, a yummy dinner, finding that thing you thought you lost ... whatever it is – whether small or large. Believe it or not, this simple acknowledgement will actually change your perspective -- and your brain!  Model

4. Clean your Lens: People that look at life through anger often encounter anger in others. By the same token, happy people tend to bring out more happiness in others and attract more of the good stuff into their lives. Keeping your lens clear by being on the lookout for happiness [signs of eudaimonia] makes it show up in the most unexpected places.  Remove opacities

5. Know your Happiness Triggers: Think of the top 5 times in your life that you have felt happy and figure out the reason why these situations were "happiness triggers." Which provided short term happiness, and which ones give more long term meaning to your life? Try adding more happiness triggers into your daily life. Identify

6. Connect: Share an experience with a friend; tell each other the best thing that happened last week and why. Relationships rule. Dilated heart

7. Altruism: Do something nice for someone else. The fastest way to make yourself happy is to make others happy. Purify affections

8. Affection: Hug someone or be hugged, pet your pet, hold hands, cuddle. Intensified toil (“Hugs” is a simple way to point to the practice of touch physically and emotionally; perhaps compassion)

9. Take it down a notch: SIMPLIFY! Instead of multitasking, put one LESS thing into your day!  Purify affections

10. Remember your Body: Give your body a break. Walk it around, give it some real food that has not been turned into a sugar puff, pretzel or processed creation. Get some sleep -- your mood, mind and body will smile.  Remove opacities that impede the light

---

[1] Daniel Seifert, Based on ¶ 45 of “Pensées” in Hymn of the Universe by Teilhard deChardin, 2012.

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-taran/10-easy-ways-to-be-happy_b_597573.html

Rethinking Multitasking: Doing One Thing Well at a Time

Experience has been instructing me, teaching me that a minimalist view of work is perhaps the healthiest approach to combating stress in the work place.

David Sanbonmatsu, Ph.D., Professor, Social Psychology, Utah University, lead researcher of a study that wants to find out which personalities were more likely to try to do two tasks at once. They're keenly interested in people who talk on the phone or text while driving, since there's plenty of data that even using a hands-free phone boosts the risks of accidents.

For some time now, researchers have been making the case that people who drive while using phones drive as badly as people who are legally drunk. Yet some people persist in thinking they can handle it. Why is this?

The Utah research speculated that multitaskers would be more apt to test high for traits like risk-taking, sensation-seeking and impulsivity. Their hunch was correct!

They asked student volunteers whether they used cell phones while driving, and whether they were good at multitasking. Then they tested the students' multitasking ability by asking them to solve math problems while remembering random strings of letters.

They found that the people who multitasked the most in real life—the impulsive risk-takers—were actually much worse at juggling tasks than people who rarely drove while phoning.

Even worse, these demon multitaskers thought they were terrific at it, though the cold, hard data proved they weren't.

"People don't multitask because they're good at it," says Sanbonmatsu, "They do it because they are more distracted. They have trouble inhibiting the impulse to do another activity."

"People sometimes think multitasking means greater productivity. That's not what the findings in the literature say at all. Often people multitask because they can't focus on the task that's most important to them."