the growth of love over time, when and where anger comes from, finding ways to bolster self-love and universal compassion

Martin Luther King Jr. once said:
"Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method that rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love."

It would be nice to think that babies know no evil- that they are free of guile, treachery or bad thoughts. It seems pretty clear from studying thier expressions that they know about wonder, about discomfort (a wet diaper, absent parent, hunger), and about happiness. A good question is whether or not thier discomfort leads to sadness or rage- does the latter only develop as children age? Perhaps the best one to answer this question to Paul Ekman, the 'expression guru' who studied emotion by mapping expressions and ultimately created facial-recognition for 7 'universal emotions'. This question interests me because anger (or relatives/descendants such as rage and jealousy) seem to be the direct opposite of love. Not only is anger often incited by those we love the most, it is also the most able to overcome our desire for peace- to enable us to kill or injure others.

Perhaps the real answer to the question is that the ability to hate grows with the ability to love. When we are born we are primarily self-loving. Babies want all of thier own needs met right now, regardless of the lack of sleep this may cause thier parents (or the neighbors who live on the second floor). As they grow up they learn to love and appreciate thier family, and to have non-relatives (friends) that they also love. I think adolescence and young-adulthood together form the time in western culture during which people grow a new ability to love- a greater compassion for mankind in general, and even a new perspective on thier love for thier parents (my mom is a person?, thier friends and their community.

Erik Erikson created a theory of psychosocial development in which different phases of life have different crises/struggles which we seek to resolve. They seem oddly consistant with my new 'theory of love-development' in which we go through different periods of focusing our attention and perceptions on different layers of care for ourselves and others. Erikson's first struggle (lasting from birth to one year of age) is trust v. mistrust. If a child fails to trust her caregiver, if her basic 'self-love' is not met, then her orientation towards the world is one of 'mis-trust', a bad place from which to try and develop a love for others. I wonder if mistrustful infants have trouble forming strong, reliable attachments with others as they get older- i feel as if it would prove a factor, although a surmountable one.

According to Erikson I am in the lingering shadows of the "Identity v. Role Confusion" stage and on the doorsill of "Intimacy v. Isolation". This make sense given extended dependence on my parents throughout college, resulting in a longer period of identity development and an extended need for parently guidance and resources. However- the relationship I am currently in is certainly of a different caliber than my first high school relationship, or even my early college relationships. This new love has been on my mind and while I continue to question what I want to do with my life and how I want to approach it (identity searching) these questions are suddenly joined with: How do I want to live? How does one preserve love, passion and companionship with a lifepartner? Does puppy love really have to end? How exactly do you raise children? How to you accept thier independence from you?

I believe my new ability to love a partner is also joined by a new love of my family. For the first time I have experienced the death of a close relative, my grandmother, and am finally recognizing the consequences of my mother's move to Tennessee from Alaska. Along with a recognition of loss comes a new desire to appreciate my family and to cultivate thier presence in my life. Friends and mentors too have taken on a new light as I examine the influence others have had on my life and learn to commit to these relationships in a new way. All of these are part of the struggle erikson is talking about- a search for and deepening of intimacy. The older I get the more I seem to seek and find this intimacy with strangers, with people I haven't even met. When I searched "compassion" on google the definition was "a deep awareness of and sympathy for another's suffering". This is interesting because I think of compassion more like empathy, as a new recognition of someone's humanity. Of how familiar they are to you in both thier happiness and suffering.

In the last day I had two notable moments of intimacy and empathy with strangers. The first started innocently enough: I went to get a mid-day cup of coffee at the Gelato Fiasco during an 8-hour photography workshop. While approaching the register I made eye contact with a woman standing there and smiled. In "Born to Be Good" Dachner Keltner describes the smile we often give to strangers as 'tight' at the corners- a not-entirely-trusting smile. The smile I gave to this stranger was real, for some reason she called it out of me, and the smile she gave me in return was also real- crinkling her eyes at the corners. When I reached the register I realized I had no cash to pay for my $2 coffee and fumbled with my change, hoping to avoid paying such a small amount with a credit card. When I apologized to the person behind the counter the woman standing next to me asked "How much is it?" When I told her the amount she took $10 out of her wallet, handed it to the woman behind the counter and refused my protests. When I thanked her and told her she had made my day she told me it had made hers too and walked out the door. I flushed with pleasure, shaking my head. She blew me away. $2 is a small tip, the price of a fast food item, a relative pittance to most Americas and yet she had bought an incredible change in my mood and awareness for the day.

The second incident occured earlier this afternoon in the lunchroom at Brunswick Jr. High school. So much of what occurred at that table was an exagerrated drama- kids bragging, shaming each other, pushing themselves into other's attention. The boy next to me, a small boy with freckles and glasses who is simultaneously friends with (and crushing on) the girls and friends with (and somewhat belittled by) the boys. As he threw his bids for attention down I was at first bemused and sometimes a little irritated by him. In a moment of silence I looked over at him, at his childish profile in his oversized coat, and saw a child- thought of him as my child. I looked around the table and suddenly I imagined all of those students as a child that I had born and raised. Suddenly instead of irritation and bemusement I felt sympathy- that who they really might be at home needed to be covered up in this social battlefield, that thier bids for attention came from a need to know themselves socially. I wanted to really get to know each one of them, to appreciate them free of their self-consciousness. Later, as I was leaving the classroom the freckled boy was playing around with a taller dramatic girl he seemed to really like. As he swung his arm past I saw a vertical scar on his wrist beneath the hem of his sleeve, a somewhat recent but definitely healed line trailing away from his hand. I'm not sure if it was a skateboard accident or something darker but I do know that seeing that mark opened my mind to the possibility of a darker suffering. When I look at this boy from now on I will seek to see much more than the flat portrait that the lunchroom revealed. Everyone is always so much more complicated then I could know and sympathy is always a preference to anger or confusion. I like loving kindness meditation because it helps me practice abd remember to have such sympathy. I hope I can send some good wishes to that boy tonight- of health and happiness. Here is a traditional loving-kindness phrase to be used first with oneself and then expanded to others:

May I be free from inner and outer harm and danger
May I be safe and protected
May I be free of mental suffering or distress
May I be happy
May I be free of physical pain and suffereing
May I be healthy and strong
May I be able to live in this world happily, peacefully, joyfully, with ease.
-The Activist's Ally, pg. 29

saying No, why being sick is good for me, appreciation.

My new mantra for the last couple of weeks has been "Just Say No". While this sounds like a simple thing to do I find it to be incredibly challenging. The saying was created to tackle my seemingly compulsive need to do anything and everything that sounds interesting. Here are some examples of how this tends to play out:

Sweet lecture on Thursday? I’d better get tickets.
Frisbee practice Thursday night? Couldn’t miss the chance to play.
Make dinner as a house on Thursday? Definitely- we’re never all together! In fact- I should invite some other friends over as well.
Oh, wait- Live music at the pub, Thursday at 11? I am SO there, I’ll meet you guys outside.

Suddenly my evening is thoughtlessly a big block of time, say from 4pm-1:30am, that is instantly filled with things to do. Each moment, alone, could be wonderful- that entire list is temptingly interesting and fun-filled. Unfortunately, when piled together in a big lineup any pleasant evening turns into a rushed evening. Each event or activity is overshadowed by what will be coming next as I hurry to meet my own promises and expectations, without letting myself or others down.

Thus- the mantra.
Just say no.

This is difficult for me to do- in the past if I was out of town for some wonderful party, or heard friends describing a great evening they shared together I could feel myself getting disappointed. I would think “why did I have to miss that?” or “Why didn’t they call me, that would’ve been great!” Not only is this a negative, self-defeating outlook it also diminishes what I was actually doing- whether it was spending time with another friend, going to a concert in Boston, or simply getting a little more sleep for a change. “Just say no” is another way of saying “appreciate what you are doing” and “choose wisely”. There is a limited amount of time to live all of the amazing possibilities that exist, and I’m starting to become more in-touch with what I enjoy the most, what is fulfilling for me, and what I need present in my life to have balance. While I could certainly be social from 4:30pm-1:30am, would I personally benefit, and would the whole evening benefit, from having some moments alone- to reflect on the present and the past instead of focusing on the future? I think so.

With this in mind I am trying to appreciate something that I can’t say “no” to being sick. I certainly did try to deny it. I covered it up with positive, energetic thinking, by taking Mucinex and carrying around a handkerchief and by assuming that it would get better after a week or so. What I didn’t do was change my routine so I could get significantly more sleep. I didn’t stop exercising or stop traveling over the weekends. Even worse, I didn’t try and be present in my ill body and focus on the symptoms it was whispering to me. Lo and behold- the whispering then turned into a scream as the cold lasted longer and longer and got more and more serious.

During moments of meditation I tried to further deny its demands- focusing on my breath while smothering my coughs, walking meditatively when my body felt exhausted. I am starting to learn, and hoping to remember, that my body getting sick is my body trying to talk to me. It is telling me that I am ignoring it, draining and straining it, that I am failing to meet its needs. And even further, it is reminding me that I don’t control my body nearly as much as I think. This consciousness that I spend so much time using, that schedules and demands, is not actually a full ‘me’, it can’t actually control my runny nose or my foggy brain. What I can do is to try and hold this realization and remember that the paradox of our mind and body is that they are a combination of control and powerlessness. Instead of struggling with the paradox I want to appreciate my body and my mind in both sickness and health. This appreciation is also necessary to choose how to use my time instead of shallowly rushing through the engagements and tasks that fill each day.

Health is not valued till sickness comes.
-Thomas Fuller

paradoxes, self-appreciation and apologies

Appreciation is a funny, double-edged sword. How can you simultaneously appreciate and want to change something? How much time do we typically spend doing one in comparison to the other? I recently realized that self-appreciation is something that I rarely consciously do. I mean- isn't college about making yourself better? Shouldn't I be constantly thinking about increasing my knowledge of subjects, my awareness and sensitivity to others, my ability to communicate, craft, organize and find balance? While those are all goals with many merits I want to try and take moments to appreciate who I am now, what I have already accomplished or learned. This is a rather paradoxical endeavor for someone who habitually creates 'self-betterment projects' because I become ironically disappointed in myself when I fail to give myself a break.
The reason all of this has been on my mind is the tenor of the past week. Oversleeping through Teleclass on sunday was just the beginning of a week-long cycle in which the common theme was lateness. Small and big things in my schedule slipped through the cracks, and for some reason I couldn't seem to get it all back in control. I felt overwhelmed by the seeming mass of unconquerable mistakes that were hardly permanently damaging and yet didn't seem conquerable. I felt inept, unreliable, uninspired, and (especially relevant given the application process I am going through) insufficient. Interestingly, this description makes the week sound like a terrible void of happiness or enjoyment, and this is far from the case. I had many illuminating conversations, a few adventures, and lots of laughter. However- the flavor of the week was one of stress and anxiety and when I feel overwhelmed my default mode is to tense up. I rush from place to place with a strained expression, hoping someone will cut me a little slack, excuse me for my mistake but always declining to do the same internally. I'm starting to realize that no kind of external forgiveness can replace that. Just like an apology to another person starts within and is expressed outwards, forgiveness must originate in me before I can begin to believe it and then accept it.
The truth is, the worst moments of failure are always those that let other people down- moments that are neglegent and create inconvenience or unhappiness. Without a certain amount of self-forgiveness an apology for that kind of failure is not about sincere regret for the persons inconveneince. Instead it becomes a defense or a justification for the personal failure- it is selfish desire for pardon. These are distinguished primarily by who you are trying to make feel better: the other person or yourself. In future situations in which I fail myself or others I hope to recognize the factors involved in my failure and take personal and public responsibility for them. That foundation provides me with the support to create true apologies and the ability to leave behind failures instead of carrying them with me throughout the week (or even longer).
I'm not advocating that we stop feeling remorse, that there shouldn't be partly selfish motives for apologizing or that self-forgiveness is a simple equation for each situation. However, I hope that this perspective will help me be easier on myself, especially because stress, failure and disorganization all feed off of each other and build into piles that seem insurmountable. It will take patience and appreciation to overcome such moments with health and humor- not stress or self-flagellation.

If I cannot forgive myself for all the blunders
That I have made over the years,
Then how can I proceed?
How can I ever dream perfection-dreams?
Move, I must, forward.
Fly, I must, upward.
Dive, I must, inward,
To be once more
What I truly am
And shall forever remain.

-Sri Chinmoy

compare and contrast, the double nature of schedules, attempts at mindfulness, there are so many ways to kiss the ground

Reading over my months of Nepali blog posts I am struck by how radically different my life at Bowdoin is from that environment. No wonder I was so disoriented upon arriving in Kathmandu! Being at college is like running a race in all the different parts of your lifse at the same time- my overachieving productivity-seeking personality can't help but gorge itself on all the incredible stimulations that Bowdoin offers. For example- this semester I'm taking a Telemark ski class every sunday for 6 weeks, begin pottery classes next tuesday, have a full course-load, am tutoring and mentoring junior and high school students...etc. Most Bowdoin students could tell you the exact same story, although thier activities might be a little different the refrain of the song is still the same. The benefits are that I'm rarely bored, constantly gaining new knowledge and skills, and surrounded by wonderful, motivated people. The consequences are that I rarely sleep enough, often get sick and feel overwhelmed, let assignments, bills and occaisionally friendships fall through the cracks, and struggle to defeat my tendancies towards anxiety.
In contrast I look at my life in Sankhu where there was absolutely no need for a Calender Organizer- in fact, i don't think I laid eyes upon such a thing the entire stay in Nepal. I may have, in a burst of habit, brought a small calender with me in which i mapped out broad weeks of my stay, but it was more for a sense of comfort than anything else. While living in the village I routinely slept for 8-11 hours, waking up at 6ish am to read classics in bed, and going to sleep most often before 9 or 10. While I certainly organized the photography program and the logistics of that, I probably spent only 5-6 hours a week on the computer, a rough contrast to Bowdoin where it's likely at least 2 hours a day. Obviously the lifestyle in Nepal also had it's downsides- despite the extra sleep and minimization of future carpal tunnel syndrome. The lack of top-down organization left me floating like a stringless kite. Unused to setting my own destinations I had trouble guiding myself through the days and often felt flaccid, bored and useless.
Looking at these two radically different lives, and what was satisfying and frustrating about both of them, yields some important conclusions: there is a necessary balance to strike for happiness, one which requires free time to contemplate, process and unwind but also time to learn, move, and interact. These two times are best seperated into "To Be" and "To Do". There is no way to permanently fix such a balance- time always creates change around and inside of you, leading you to then create or find a new balance.
What I am trying to remember, and the hardest thing to remember, is to be kind to myself. Navigating such changes and creating a balance will always require mindful attention to my own needs and emotions. This is especially hard in an environment like Bowdoin where the scattered threads of my Calender Organizer often have my shoulders clenched in stress. I just need to remember that 'making myself better'- the self-centered foundation of every college education- will never be satisfying unless I learn to appreciate who and where I am in the present moment.
Recently I became aware that impatience dominates my thirst to learn. I want to know how to craft things (from hard cider to pottery), be able to run farther and faster, to be completely prepared for post-graduation, to finish all of my readings and assignments and to be a good and valued friend. And i want to be able to do all of that right now. A lot to ask from myself, isn't it? But do most people ask much less?
As an illuminating example: I am supposed to be Teleskiing right now. It is the second class of six, but even knowing that I needed to be at the bus at 6:15am I still went to bed at three. I awoke at 7:15 from the sun pouring through my window and realized with a jump that that I had completely missed my opportunity to spend the beautiful day outside with a wonderful group of people. Leaping out of bed I could feel my heart beating with frustration, my cheeks flushed and hot as I stalked around the house, shaking my hands meaninglessly in front of me. Googlemaps informed me that it was a 2.5 hour drive there, easy on the bus when you can sleep with your head pressed against the icey window, much harder with only 4 hours of sleep driving all alone (not to mention the gas money!). In my self-directed anger it took at least 15 minutes to calm down and accept that I wasn't going to go. I tried to convince myself that I had plenty of work and chores to do anyway (true) and that I could still have a lovely day that didn't involve Teleskiing (also true). However, what truely allowed me to move on and leave the anger behind was forgiveness. I am learning to remember that dwelling on regret, on what I should've done or who I should've been in a certain situation, only further removes me from being present NOW and experiencing something new and positive. This is not to say that unpleasant emotions are bad to have- how would I ever learn without being angry, feeling regret or embarrassment? Does a part of me really think that I should be infallible?
With this thought I would like to wrap up this entry of intro-spection and perspective. This poem by Rumi seems most appropriate:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it's furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.