An Examined Life

I listened again last night as my friend Lyn Lusi talked of her first encounter with a victim of sexual violence in the Congo. The young woman was wasting away in the government hospital after being brutally raped by four men – the last of whom did so with a stick – perforating her bladder and rendering her incontinent. Now she was near death, wracked with infection and ostracized from her community.

I have heard this story before, and many, many more just like it. I am afraid that in fact I have heard the story enough, that it no longer affects me. I have become immune to horror and gross indignity. It’s not just because of those stories. Everyday on the news and in the papers misery and despair are marketed to me in between commercials and ads for the next furniture sale or discount Caribbean Cruise.

Why am I not screaming from the mountain tops? Why am I not like those other wonderful evangelists for social justice? I cannot hide behind the excuse that I do ‘my part’. That frankly is bullshit. I spend more time excercising than I do caring about the brutality and meaningless violence inflicted on women in the Congo.

If we are accountable for anything in our lives it’s being responsible for what we know. In the case of the Congo, I already know too much. Sure, there are lots of issues and problems in the world, but how do I reconcile that in Congo a young woman has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read? What about the fact that over five million people have died in the war in Congo (yes there is a war going on there too) –more than in any other war since World War II?

The question I am left with is: what the fuck am I doing about it?

It hits without warning. I wake up and can’t get back to sleep. Everything needs to be solved now. I don’t have enough, I need to change, I haven’t finished what I started. I am anxious.

I am being pushed into an uncontrollable future, creating events and circumstances that have yet to take place. With an exaggerated sense of urgency I have to make up my mind and come to conclusions over things that haven’t even happened.

With the obvious inability to affect any change or make any real decisions, matters only get worse. Feeding on themselves my cognitive mole hills quickly take on Mt. Everest proportions.  Like a bad storm my only real remedy is to ride it out until the front moves on.

Anxiety creates a wrong perspective on time. I can’t avoid problems, failures, or even guilt. However, in reality, I can only deal with any of them in real time. The future with all its variables just doesn’t exist – yet - so no matter how much I believe I can cross that divide, I can’t. If I have any control at all, it’s only over what is now.

I recently climbed a mountain that required a bit of a scramble across a really exposed section of rock. The hand holds were there, but if one was to fall, it was about a thousand feet before the next stop. As I crossed my anxiety increased – fueled by what might happen if I slipped or missed a hold up ahead. I calmed myself and made it across with the mantra “one hold at a time”.

The real determinant of the future is how I live now. As I come across the chasms of life’s problems or issues the best way through is one hold at a time

“You’re writing is getting better. Bit by bit.” That’s what my friend said in an email. Bit by bit. I am not sure what to make of that. Was it a compliment? Should I be getting better faster?

I admit it, I really like affirmation.  There it is. However, I don’t really like evaluation. So, how do I separate the wheat from that chaff – I mean how do I encourage people to say nice things without fostering judgment? Is that possible? Is that ethical? I am such a head case.

I know people who are just fine keeping their own counsel, and really don’t care what others think – they really don’t. Wow, imagine that. Usually though, those folks don’t stick their heads up where others can see very often. They carry on their business quietly and without fanfare. I think it’s what some call…humility.

Then there is the rest of us. There is only one right answer to the question “do these pants make my ass look big?”. In fact, “how do I look ?” is rarely a request for a critique on fashion choice. But, in all seriousness, we all know what it feels like to be criticized, or to be given backhanded compliments: “not bad for someone like you”.

I am all for merited self-esteem, and for not throwing around empty praise. The thing is, I don’t think that’s our worry. The world does a pretty good job of telling us when we suck, that is if we don’t do it first ourselves.

I figure we could all do with a little more of being told when we’ve done a good job, or when we look great, or how we’ve made someone’s day, even if it is only, bit by bit.

It is pretty much a given that there are 24 hours in a day, and seven days in a week. It is the same for everybody, everywhere. No one has an advantage. Time can’t be accumulated by anyone. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. What in the world is more egalitarian?

So, from that equal footing, it’s not what I have that’s the issue, it’s how I use it. Last night I sat in front of the television. I watched the first period of a Canucks exhibition game, then the season premiere of Survivor, then an episode of the Office, then SNL Weekend Update. Three hours, yikes. If I find myself today rushing around wondering where the time went, I need look no further.

Time is like eating. I can consume 2000 calories a day – either of donuts, or of vegetables – which is better for me even though the number of calories is the same?

Whole industries are built to convince me I don’t have enough time, and to give me devices, schemes, seminars, and gadgets to save what time I have. Ironically, most of these are advertised on television.

I once asked a friend, who’s passion is his business, what he would change if he discovered he only had a year to live. He was quick to say he would put all his energy and time toward his family as that was what was most important.

Before I judge his answer, I have to consider what mine would be. I would probably make big changes as well. However, can’t I make those changes now without the threat of dying in a year? What is compelling me to do things that aren’t the most important?

As I figure it, time can’t be saved, only spent, and as Joni Mitchell sang “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

This came in a note from a friend yesterday: “I feel that the more I learn about the world, the less I really know or understand. There are so many shades of grey”. Is this a statement of a) resignation and remorse or b) discovery and possibility?

I am a fan of certainty. I like to know the way things are and are going to be. I mean, who doesn’t? Problem is, I find my experience in the world anything but. Every day brings surprise – good and bad. Things just don’t line up the way I expect.

It seems that the colours black and white are better suited for photographs, zebras, and duets between Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. Is it right to give money to panhandlers? Should Canada be fighting in Afghanistan? Is more Aid to Africa a good thing? Does God intervene in the world?

Each of those questions is worthy of significant thought, and at some point I can make a choice one way or the other. But that’s just it, it’s a choice, it’s not an obvious answer – at least not for me. In fact the more I consider those questions – and the thousand or so others bouncing around in my head – the less obvious the answer becomes. The more I learn, the less I know.

When I first began experiencing a world that wasn’t as binary as I thought, it was unsettling – like losing a rudder when sailing. But now I find the answer “I don’t know” quite freeing.

I have replaced certainty with wonder. I am not so much about the answers these days as the questions. I do make choices, but I hold my resolve loosely. I realize that I don’t even know what I don’t know.

Back when I was selling software I found myself at a chicken producer in East Texas. They butchered 250,000 chickens a day, and they were only the fourth largest in the country. I was in the ‘test’ kitchen being treated to a breaded chicken cutlet lunch when I asked the woman in the white lab coat how long it took a chicken to go from egg to full grown.

I am so surprised by how little attention I have paid to what I eat. As long as I don’t eat too much fat I’m good. I have easily spent more time researching what phone or lawnmower to buy than finding out where my food comes from.

This is not some preoccupation with calorie counting, I am talking about considering what my worldview is as it pertains to breakfast. Should I care about how these eggs made it to my fridge? Should I care that I can’t pronounce half the ingredients in the cereal box? What about this orange that I am eating – even though oranges are only grown on the opposite end of the continent?

I have ignored the importance of the one thing that is essential to keep me alive. I have ignored the dramatic impact of a key element in global self-sustainability.

The lady in the white lab coat smiled with pride as she told me it took 45 days for the chicken to grow. I figured that’s fast enough that you could actually watch it happen.

It has to matter where and how our food is grown. I have to pay better attention. I want Grace before my meal to be a means of thanks rather than protection and forgiveness.

Experiencing the fading of summer feels like I am at a rock concert cheering for one more encore. I’ve been through this season change thing about 48 times now, and it still comes as a surprise. As the sun is dropping further to the south, and the idea of swimming in the ocean seems not quite as appealing as it did just a couple of weeks ago, it occurs to me that three months might actually be just about right per season – it’s enough.

I am not naturally inclined toward enough. I much prefer more. Even though there is no deprivation with enough, there isn’t any objective standard, it does require me to set some limits. It requires me to buck up and show discipline. Oddly, it’s knowing when to stop that seems harder than keeping going.

A rich guy was once asked ‘how much is enough?’ his response: ‘just a little bit more’. I could give you that same answer if asked about drinking red wine with friends on a Friday night, or acquiring Apple computer products. “If one is good, just think how much better two would be!”

I keep forgetting about the law of diminishing return. My pursuit of more can have negative ramifications for me, and even those around me. Never mind the headache on a Saturday morning, it’s that acquisition, accumulation and consumption can potentially do more damage than the opposite.

That rich guy’s answer reflects what I am told everyday when I read a magazine, watch TV, or glance at the Google ads running down beside my facebook page: What I have isn’t nearly as good as what I could have. I am thinking a more intelligent response to the question of how much is enough would be: “just a little bit less”.

I was standing in front of a painting by Italian, Paolo Veronese. There are three large round figures in the frame. In the middle is Hercules, and on each side of him, a shapely woman. He is clearly attracted to both, but can’t decide which to choose. The name of the piece is ‘The Allegory of Virtue and Vice”. I sat down and wrote this reflection:

Herculean effort

to avoid the human failing of wanting

the loss of true

in exchange for now

wisdom and strength

from the letting go

a realization of the value of all that doesn’t matter.

I don’t like living by rules. I am doing my best not to live by other’s standards. I rail against the subjective definitions of ‘good’ or ‘right’. However, I am stopped short by the notion of virtue. I am challenged because I can’t blow it off as someone else’s imposition on me. Virtue is completely up to me.

Virtue, like humility, is not really something to aspire to – yet it’s essential in my endeavour to be a full human being. Virtue builds virtue, much in the same way as vice begets vice. It all seems foundational. Can I build an authentic life on top of shaky integrity?

The thing about it, for me, vice has immediate pay off – but fades fast. Virtue’s the opposite, it can take awhile before I understand its benefit.

The painting’s impact, its beauty, is that it’s not an image of a decision or of a resolve. It’s not showing the power of a god over the simple issues of humans. The real power is that it captures where I live on a daily basis, in the in between.

My own humanity is not defined so much by my choices, as it is by my choosing.

At lunch with a close friend the other day he used a phrase that knocked me back. He was talking about how he had ‘handed himself over’ to a situation in his life.

When I think of that phrase I think of being held up at gun point with my arms in the air, or being forced out of a building surrounded by police. Yet what struck me in that conversation over sandwiches was his intention and resolve. He wasn’t surrendering or giving in, he was making a choice.

I have been told that I can be stubborn, which I guess is better than obstinate. Once I have decided something I tend to hold on to it. I am pretty good at shaping a mean argument to back up my position or belief. I’ll hold a position, or fight against change, either on the basis of principle, or more likely pride, long after its useful to do so.

…Didja hear the one about the Buddhist who sent the email? Yah, it arrived without attachments….

I am very attached to myself with all its principles and ideals. I have to say though, I am becoming more attracted to this idea of ‘handing myself over’. Maybe it’s because I am a bit tired of the battle of keeping up my defenses. Maybe its because as I get a bit older I realize there isn’t as much benefit in being right as I once thought.

Back to the lunch conversation, the choice to ‘hand himself over’ did not result in a sense of resignation to the situation for my friend– instead it created a sense of possibility.

If I ‘detach’ from my tight fistedly held beliefs, principles, and ideals – what are the possibilities on the other side? Am I brave enough to ‘hand myself over”?

Twenty years ago today Lisa and I were sitting in our living room. We lived in the top floor of a house in Kitsilano. Outside it was a warm Sunday afternoon and there was the sound of a lawnmower running across the street. It struck me, as Lisa breathed through another contraction, our lives were about to change forever. The guy cutting his grass, on the other hand, was probably just looking forward to a cold beer once he was done.

Samuel Joseph Verdicchio Holland arrived around 8pm that night. I remember him being cleaned up and swaddled by a wonderful Jamaican nurse. “Do you know what your name means Mr. Samuel?” she asked, rhetorically of course. “Heard from God” she said, as she gave him back to his mum.

Earlier that evening my father had called the hospital to find out how things were going. They told him that we were in the shower (the warm water soothing Lisa’s belly). “God’s truth!” my dad said to the nurse “I thought that’s the way these things got started, not the way they ended up!”

Sam has remained pretty consistent throughout his twenty years. What was important to him at three is still important today: friendship and adventure. He leaves his teens in the same way he came into the world – with a sense of wonder and expectation. I think it’s all one can ask for as a parent.

I had no idea back on that afternoon what the impact would be of becoming parents, and more specifically parents of Sam. Now, these many years later I am sitting in my kitchen and realizing all that he has done for us. More than anything else, he has made me aware of what my true occupation is as a human being.

Happy Birthday my son, Sam, you are definitely a reflection of your name.