Life in Small Bites

Syracuse University 2013 Graduation Speech – by George Saunders ( http://www.georgesaundersbooks.com/ )

Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you).

And I intend to respect that tradition.

Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?”  And they’ll tell you.  Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked.  Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.

So: What do I regret?  Being poor from time to time?  Not really.  Working terrible jobs, like “knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?”  (And don’t even ASK what that entails.)  No.  I don’t regret that.  Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like 300 monkeys sitting on a pipeline, pooping down into the river, the river in which I was swimming, with my mouth open, naked?  And getting deathly ill afterwards, and staying sick for the next seven months?  Not so much.

Do I regret the occasional humiliation?  Like once, playing hockey in front of a big crowd, including this girl I really liked, I somehow managed, while falling and emitting this weird whooping noise, to score on my own goalie, while also sending my stick flying into the crowd, nearly hitting that girl?  No.  I don’t even regret that.

But here’s something I do regret:

In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class.  In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “ELLEN.”  ELLEN was small, shy.  She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore.  When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.

So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” – that sort of thing).  I could see this hurt her.  I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear.  After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth.  At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.”  And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”

Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it.

And then – they moved.  That was it.  No tragedy, no big final hazing.

One day she was there, next day she wasn’t.

End of story.

Now, why do I regret that?  Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it?  Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her.  I never said an unkind word to her.  In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her.

But still.  It bothers me.

So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…sensibly.  Reservedly.  Mildly.

Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope:  Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?

Those who were kindest to you, I bet.

It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.

Now, the million-dollar question:  What’s our problem?  Why aren’t we kinder?

Here’s what I think:

Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian.  These are:

(1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really);

(2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk – dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and

(3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).

Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.

So, the second million-dollar question:  How might we DO this?  How might we become more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional, etc., etc?

Well, yes, good question.

Unfortunately, I only have three minutes left.

So let me just say this.  There are ways.  You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter.  Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend;  establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition – recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us.

Because kindness, it turns out, is hard – it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include…well,everything.

One thing in our favor:  some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age.  It might be a simple matter of attrition:  as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish – how illogical, really.  We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality.  We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be.  We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now).

Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving.  I think this is true.  The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”

And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love.  YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE.   If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment.  You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit.  That’s one reason your parents are so proud and happy today.  One of their fondest dreams has come true: you have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.

Congratulations, by the way.  When young, we’re anxious – understandably – to find out if we’ve got what it takes.  Can we succeed?  Can we build a viable life for ourselves?  But you – in particular you, of this generation – may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition.  You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can….

And this is actually O.K.  If we’re going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously – as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers.  We have to do that, to be our best selves.

Still, accomplishment is unreliable.  “Succeeding,” whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there’s the very real danger that “succeeding” will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.

So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up.  Speed it along.  Start right now.  There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness.  But there’s also a cure.  So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.

Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.  Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.  That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been.  Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Theresa’s.  Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place.  Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.

And someday, in 80 years, when you’re 100, and I’m 134, and we’re both so kind and loving we’re nearly unbearable, drop me a line, let me know how your life has been.  I hope you will say: It has been so wonderful.

Congratulations, Class of 2013.

I wish you great happiness, all the luck in the world, and a beautiful summer.

George Saunders

By Rick Myers (http://mystictravelersbook.com/)

In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions:

When did you stop dancing?  When did you stop singing? 

When did you stop being enchanted by stories? 

When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? 

Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.

-Gabrielle Roth-

When I read the above quote for the first time I was transported back to when I last danced with wild abandon and sang without thought of anyone judging my performance. I saw myself as an adult male completely free from my fearful ego telling me I was being foolish. I saw my terminal adult shedding his cultural conditioning to find a renewed childlikeness that was liberating and exhilarating. In seeing myself this way I felt my heart open, my spirit soar, and my depression lift. I experienced again the aliveness I once knew and lived with gusto. Do you know what I’m talking about? Of course you do. We all know this aliveness, this healing salve, this awakening to the presence of wonder and delight. Why then, have you stopped accessing it, living into it?

I’m not so sure I ever stopped being enchanted by stories. I’m still awed by the ability of a good story to transport me and others into a land of enchantment. I spent two years writing a story that came to and through me and still sit in wonderment at how it all happened. Could it have been told better, written better, or developed better? Of course, but it makes no difference for the healing salve that was poured into my mind, body, and soul. It was the writing, the telling, the listening, the engagement, and the participation in the story that was the enchantment for me. Did you ever sit around a campfire at night or with a parent, grandparent, or teacher and become mesmerized by a story? What is it for you that’s so healing in reading, writing, telling, hearing, or experiencing a story?

As a boy, I found the sweet territory of silence high up in a tree that grew beside our house. The tree was the best place for me because I could climb to the very top of it and nobody could find me. For a few wonderful moments every summer and fall I could become invisible and disappear into the branches and foliage of my tree. The silence and solitude got me through many difficult and confusing dramas in my childhood. Eventually I lost my tree and the silence. It took over a decade to rediscover the silence and when I did, I also found the tree. It was inside me. It truly is a sweet territory.

The wisdom in these four questions points to what we’ve lost and what we have to regain. We can transform our own lives and the whole planetary experience as we simply reconnect with these four universal healing salves. The next time you feel disconnected, down, and depressed, remember to remember one of these salves and apply it generously to your life. Find a private place where you can laugh and sing and dance, where you can act out a story, get quiet, and remember the childlikeness that still lives in you. You can do it!  You can be it!   Awaken to the wonder you are. . . 

by RICK on JULY 18, 2013 ·

A huge shadow swam under my tiny life-raft. For the next three hours I never looked back in the water. If the Shadow was going to eat me at least it wasn’t going to catch me looking.

Two weeks before my encounter with the shadow I was standing in front of a wall of fishing lures in the Carswell AFB Exchange.  I just received orders to proceed to Homestead AFB in Florida to attend Air Crew Water Survival Training.

An attachment to the orders suggested creating a small personal survival kit that could be placed in the leg pocket of one’s flight suit. Recommended articles to include were:

1. Waterproof matches
2. Small pocket knife
3. Small magnifying glass
4.  Asshole compass*
5. Water purification tablets
6.  Band-Aids
7. Fishing line and hooks
8. Fishing lure
9. Condoms (to be used as water container)
10. $40 (bills-10X$1, 2X$5, & 2X$10)

* So called because it was small enough to be quickly swallowed prior to capture by an enemy and could be subsequently recovered when it passed out the other end.

Carswell AFB is in Fort Worth Texas – plenty of lake fishing in the area. The wall of lures was all for freshwater fishing – nothing for ocean fishing. I settled on an innocuous looking purple plastic worm with an embedded hook. I scrunched all the assembled items into a small plastic travel soap container and bound it tightly with a thick rubber band.

A week later I was sitting in a classroom with 30 other pilots listening to lectures on ocean survival techniques. This information would be crucial if the pilot had to eject and ended up in the open sea–usually alone. Appropriate cautions, preventions, and remedies were discussed about sun protection, hypothermia, and managing food and water requirements.

The instructors also talked about barracudas and sharks. The instructors advised that the fear of sharks was overblown and that we needn’t focus on them. Why oh why did they follow-up this advise with actual photos of sharks cut open revealing rings, watches, sunglasses, dog-tags, and shoes – I’ll never know?

After three days of classroom instruction and testing all of us were put aboard a landing craft (LCM) and then taken out to sea – until no land was in sight. All of the pilots had previous parachute training. For this training exercise each pilot was wearing flight helmet, flight suit, and G-pants.  Attached to a parachute I was launched off the LCM by speedboat, parasail-mode, to an altitude of 2,000 feet.

Airborne, with full aircraft survival kit, including an inflatable one-man rubber raft, dangling from my parachute pack, commanded by the signal from the speed-boat I released the tow-line connecting me. Once released the speedboat continued and was quickly out of sight as I descended toward the sea.

By design, for training exercises, intentional hardships are built-in. For example, normally the small life-raft would be automatically inflated when the parachute was deployed after ejection – but not in this training.

Just prior to hitting the water, with visions of the rings, watches, and other swallowed paraphernalia, I pulled the releases to detach from my parachute while simultaneously pulling the auto inflate cord on my small underarm water-wings. While the water-wings kept my head above water the next moments were long in passing as I manually inflated my raft with explosive breaths trying not to hyperventilate while working to blow-up the raft as quickly as possible.

Soaked, but safely in my raft, I thought of how I would pass the next several hours until I would be winched up by a rescue helicopter. After singing every song and hymn I could think of, and even making up a few, I remembered my personal survival kit in my leg-pocket. Upon reviewing the items, the only ones that had immediate utility was the fishing gear.

I took the purple plastic worm, attached it to the line, dropped it into the sea, and tethered the free end to the side of my raft. Passing time by thinking of ‘not thinking’ about sharks I resumed my singing.

20 minutes later I felt a firm tug on the line. Then another – and finally a tug that nearly overturned the raft and me. The line went slack. The Shadow swam by. I started counting clouds.

An eternity later I heard and saw an approaching rescue helicopter. Hovering above me the helicopter lowered a cable to which I hooked onto and was winched up – raft dangling under me.

After initial expressions of sincere appreciation to the air crew I was too mentally exhausted for much conversation. Silently I journeyed back to base accompanied by my roaring inner voices of thankfulness and wondered about the “What if’s?” and “What nexts?”.

Learnings:

1. Purple plastic worms can attract sea monsters.
2.  Learn more songs, especially hymns.
3. Prayer works!
4. Select appropriate resources in advance to cope with current environment.
5. Check all gear for proper functioning before departure.
6. Willful transformation of Fear into Focus releases possible solutions.

By Michael Josephson

Take a look around. Business, education, politics. If there’s one thing we don’t have enough of, it’s good leaders – men and women who have the vision and the ability to change things for the better.

Former Air Force General William Cohen wrote a fine book called The Stuff of Heroes in which he identified eight laws of leadership. Here are his rules:

1. Maintain absolute integrity.
2. Know your stuff.
3. Declare your expectations.
4. Show uncommon commitment.
5. Expect positive results.
6. Take care of your people.
7. Put duty before self.
8. Get out in front.

His laws embrace important competencies like knowledge, communication skills, commitment, optimism, caring, and a powerful sense of duty. But General Cohen also recognized that the foundation of a successful leader is character, including trustworthiness, honor, and courage.

The best leaders draw on these moral qualities to influence others through inspiration, persuasion, trust, and loyalty. They do the right thing despite the costs and risks and do it not because it will yield approval or advantage, but because it’s the right thing.

In these cynical times, it’s easy to think such leadership is unattainable; yet in every walk of life there are hundreds of men and women – parents, teachers, coaches, civic activists – who fit this mold. What’s more important, every one of us could be among them.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.