The Caring Catalyst

The New SEVEN WONDERS of the World

June 27, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

“Some people go through life trying to find out what the world holds for them only to find out too late that it’s what they bring to the world that really counts.“ – Anne of Green Gables

In today’s fast-paced world, that feels more and more like a merry-go-round on a roller coaster got amok, it can be easy to lose sight of what’s important. . .

No, wait. Let’s take that back. 🙂

It’s not really about our world being fast-paced, but maybe as we get older, WE become fast-paced. . . ?

It seems that as a child we intuitively knew the simple things that made life
amazing. . . .

And as adults, it sometimes feel like we have so much to do, so much to be, so much to have. . .

So much so that we need reminders of what it is like to live in a more present, aware, conscious, fulfilling way.

We all need reminders to bring us back to our true selves, and to the miracles present in our lives every single day.

We’ve been often told and most likely been shown, in our World it takes a Village with the subtle reminder that a Village exists in each of us that desperately needs shared/united with the Villages we find in others. . .

UNITE THAT
and you’ll never have to
W O N D E R
about the
W O N D E R S
that make each of us up
that uses the golden strands of
t o u c h
t a s t e
s e e i n g
h e a r i n g
f e e l i n g
l a u g h i n g
l o v i n g
to weave a new tapestry
intermeshing ourselves forever
into the fabric of each other’s lives
never to unravel again. . .
W O N D E R
NEW
WONDERS

THE REFRAIN

June 24, 2022 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

Our Song is individual
Our Song is varied
Our Song has different tunes
Our Song has multiple verses
Our Song has different meanings
But Our Refrain
OUR REFRAIN
is the same
We are walking each’s other Home
WE ARE WALKING EACH’S OTHER HOME
N E V E R
n e v e r
NEVERMORE TO BE EVER ALONE

WHAT’S YOUR SPEECH BUBBLE ?

June 22, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Speech bubbles, illustration.

Getty Images/Science Photo Libra—Science Photo Library

LITTLE SPEECH BUBBLES OVER OUR HEADS JUST MIGHT BE A VERY DANGEROUS THING IF OTHERS COULD READ THEM AS EASILY AS SEEING THEM. . .

Time Magazine recently came out with an interesting article that TALKS about way more than JUNETEENTH. . .It talks about how we EXPERIENCE such things based on the Language we use and Hear

CYDNEY HURSTON DUPREE (@CydneyDupree) is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Yale University and a Public Voices fellow with the OpEd Project.

As the United States celebrates its the second year with Juneteenth as a federal holiday, many articles will be written about race relations. But Cydney broached one topic that often falls under the radar: stereotypes.

From the first instant our eyes alight on a television or phone screen, we are inundated with a curated set of images that (supposedly) depict the world around us. These images often show people of color through a stereotypical lens, and these stereotypes bleed into our everyday lives—our workplaces, our social lives, our politics. As a social psychologist at Yale University, Cydney took a look at figuring out exactly how stereotypes hold us back, and what we can do about it.

She talked about being a young Black girl growing up in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Cydney loved the movies. Each year, she and her brothers would gleefully wait in line to get the best seat in the theater for the latest Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or superhero film.

Even then, she talked how she was struck by the characters she saw. Few looked like her or her family. Those that did were one-dimensional, with limited speaking roles, often playing supporting roles to White characters. They were disproportionately poor and often criminal. They were rarely desired, easily disposed of, and never granted the nuanced and flawed inner worlds granted to White characters.

These stereotypes, rightly so, puzzled her. Prince George’s County, Maryland, is a majority-Black county—home to doctors, lawyers, politicians, and other Black professionals. The Black characters she saw on television didn’t reflect the rich, diverse, and joyful lives she saw around her. Why does the media put people of color into boxes? How do these stereotypes harm us as individuals and a society?

Cydney became a social psychologist to answer these questions. Twenty years later, she now studied stereotypes, determining how they maintain inequality and worm their way into day-to-day interactions. Across dozens of studies featuring thousands of participants, I find that stereotypes influence how we relate to others, leaking into conversations through the very words that people use.

In one test, Cydney focused on White Americans. White people are subject to stereotypes, too. They’re labeled as more competent than Black people and Latina/os, and White people think that other racial groups see them as racist and entitled. She predicted that White Americans, particularly those who want to connect across racial divides—White liberals—try to reverse these stereotypes through the very words that they use.

Cydney asked over two thousand White Americans to introduce themselves to a Black or White person online. As predicted, White liberals used fewer words related to competence (like “competitive” or “powerful”) when speaking to a Black person.

This “competence downshift” isn’t limited to a lab. Cydney analyzed over 20 years of campaign speeches by White Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and found that White Democrats used fewer words related to competence when addressing mostly-minority audiences (e.g., NAACP ) versus mostly-White ones (e.g., American Federation of Teachers). White Republicans didn’t downshift competence, likely because they’re less interested in getting along with people of color. Sure enough, White Democrats were more likely to address audiences of color than Republicans.

For White liberals, this behavior may backfire. Cydney’s and her colleagues are now testing whether White liberals who use less competent language are seen as patronizing by Black observers. If so, they may reduce, rather than improve, their chances of cross-racial connection by downshifting competence.

Do people of color also counter stereotypes using language? To find out, Cydney analyzed 250,000 congressional remarks and one million tweets by Black and Latina/o politicians in Congress and Twitter. She focused on Black Americans and Latina/os because they tend to be stereotyped as lower in status and powerthan White Americans. Cydney focused on those who are more conservative because they tend to have more positive attitudes toward White Americans and negative attitudes toward their own racial group.

She found that Black Americans and Latina/os who were more conservative used more competent language than their more liberal peers in these mostly-White settings. (There was no such effect among White politicians, or when she asked Black people to talk to other Black people.)

T H I S :

These data suggest that people have a profound desire to reverse negative stereotypes, and this desire shows up in everyday conversation. Stereotypes force us into rigid boxes, and we try to break free of them using the most primary tool available to us: our words.

Now an adult, Cydney still loves mainstream television and movies—and she still is largely disappointed by what she sees. Most characters are White, the vast majority of spoken lines go to White characters, and many Black characters are rooted in stereotypes. (The latest season of Netflix’s hit Stranger Things provides a vivid example.) Awareness and research can help us understand what stereotypes are and how they are harmful, but until we enact large-scale, cultural changes that challenge these stereotypes, we will all continue to be shackled by them.

Maybe until the
YOUNG
T E A C H
D E M O N O S T R A T E
S H O W
us
THAT WE ARE THE DIFFERENCES
created
had
experienced
word by word
deed by deed
person by person
STEREOTYPE
by
STEREOTYPE
can end
i n s t a n t l y
by never be
taught
learned
perpetuated

M A Y B E
I wonder what the
SPEECH BUBBLES
hovering over your head
S A Y
(Pssssssssssssst: They are more transparent than you imagine)

UnSmothered Love

June 20, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

The line has stuck with me for well over

T W E N T Y Y E A R S. . .

and I suspect for the rest of my life as a father;

Did you hear it?

Is it one of your favorite lines, too,

in the SHADOW OF FATHER’S DAY. . .

“YOUR FLAWS AS A SON ARE MY FAILURES AS A FATHER.”

S E R I O U S L Y:

Have you ever thought,

“IF I WAS A BETTER PARENT,
maybe my children would be better,
not suffered as much”

Yes, I have suffered many little deaths
along the way as any dad would/does. . .
Children always have a way of ripping your heart out
without a scalpel and tramping
on your aorta;
watching it as flutters,
sputters blood
and seamlessly stops beating
by either what they say/do
or don’t say or do. . .
But my father’s heart has never stopped loving,
never stop caring,
never stop giving,
and I believe it’s what makes me who I am
and who I want to continue to be. . .
It’s hard work;
it’s an endless job
from which I will never retire
and of which I will never seek to do so. . .

Now for that
MISSING PIECE. . .
that completes
t h a t
puzzle of
UnSMOTHERED
L O V E

C O I N E D

June 17, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

C O I N E D .

  Sometimes I feel like an old discarded
C O I N
Worn
Weathered
Unnoticed
In open air
Sunning
With the Shine long rubbed away
To no longer reflect
Sun
  Moon
Or Star
Just Because
  I’m not in a gutter
  Doesn’t mean I haven’t been Displaced
  Laying there
I scream out dully
  I’M NOT S P E N T
PICK ME UP
USE ME
  KEEP ME
SAVE ME
COLLECT ME
BUT DON’T WALK BY ME
   like all the Others

So remember. . .
The next time you feel like something that doesn’t spend
not worth being picked up
Un-used
Thrown away
Not sought
Walked past
Shunned

YOU ARE THE CHANGE
THAT DOESN’T JINGLE
(only c o u n t s)

D o s t a d n i n g

June 15, 2022 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

I was doing some DOSTADNING lately and I found an article I had tucked away from some 5 years ago from Time Magazine and I thought it was more than appropriate to share with you during a Wednesday Blog Post which I always try to feature some educational piece on how to be better Caring Catalysts in all phases and forms of our lives

DOSTADNING, is a Swedish hybrid of the words for death and cleaning. And as morbid as it sounds, that’s exactly what death cleaning is: the process of cleaning house before you die, rather then leaving it up to your loved ones to do after you’re gone.

A book called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning makes the case that the task isn’t morbid at all. Author Margareta Magnusson—a Swedish artist who describes herself as somewhere between age 80 and 100—says it’s “more like a relief,” and that it has benefits you can enjoy while you’re still very much alive.

“Generally people have too many things in their homes,” says Magnusson in a YouTube video posted by the book’s publisher. “I think it’s a good thing to get rid of things you don’t need.” Magnusson says she’s always death cleaned, “because I want to have it nice around me, keep some order.”

Magnusson says people should start thinking about death cleaning as soon as they’re old enough to start thinking about their own mortality. “Don’t collect things you don’t want,” she says. “One day when you’re not around anymore, your family would have to take care of all that stuff, and I don’t think that’s fair.”

The Death Cleaning method bears similarities to that of the tidying-up guru Marie Kondo: Keep what you love and get rid of what you don’t. But while Kondo tells people to trash, recycle or donate what they discard, Magnusson recommends giving things you no longer want to family and friends “whenever they come over for dinner, or whenever you catch up with them,” reports the Australian website Whimn.

However, Magnusson does advocate for keeping sentimental objects like old letters and photographs. She keeps a “throw-away box,” which she describes as things that are “just for me.” When she dies, her children know they can simply throw that box away, without even looking through its contents.

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning is out for U.S. publication If the trend catches on stateside, it could be a good way for families to discuss sensitive issues that might otherwise be hard to bring up, says Kate Goldhaber, a family therapist and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Loyola Medicine. I am already working this into one of my presentations, THE SPIRITUALITY OF DEATH AND DYING

“It seems like a nice, proactive approach to facilitating cooperation and communication among families early on in the aging process, when you’re not too entrenched in the difficult parts later on,” says Goldhaber. “There can also be something very empowering and healthy about taking care of your own space and making it more organized while you’re still around.”

Death cleaning may have benefits for the cleaners themselves, and not just for their loved ones, says Goldhaber. Some research suggests that clutter in the home can raise stress levels and reduce productivity. As adults get older, having a house full of stuff may also raise their risk for falls and create other health and safety hazards.

Goldhaber points out that many people may engage in a type of death cleaning without calling it that—when they downsize from a large house to a small apartment as they get older, for instance. “It’s a new way of thinking about the grunt work that comes along with those transitions, which can be really stressful,” she says.

If bringing up the concept of death with aging loved ones still feels wrong, Goldhaber suggests rephrasing the idea. “If you present it as, ‘Let’s organize the house so it’s a more enjoyable place for you to live and for us to have holidays,’ it might be better received than ‘Let’s throw away your stuff now so we don’t have to sort through it later,’” she says. “It can be fun, even late in life, to redecorate and declutter, and it can be a great thing for families to do together.”

Magnusson says that death cleaning is an ongoing process that’s never truly finished. “You don’t know when you are going to die, so it goes on and on,” she says in the video.

Her daughter chimes in, stating the obvious: Death cleaning ends with death. Magnusson laughs and nods. “Then it stops,” she says, “of course, finally.”

Maybe we all need to be doing some serious DOSTNADING before we die
but as we live
know that before we put anything in a box
OURSELVES INCLUDED
K N O

W
t h a t
DEATH IS NOT THE LAST THING THAT HAPPENS TO US
Our lives
as we know them
will not continue as we know them
b u t
SHELVED AND BOXED
we will not be. . .

Because as we pass on
WE PASS ON
(all we are)
(all others hope to keep of us)

THERE WILL BE BAD DAYS

June 13, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Y E S
There will be Bad DAYS
to be had
to be overcome
to be experienced
to be intimately known
to be. . .
ALL WAYS
TO BE

So the next time you feel totally shattered
once again
MONDAY MORNING
or not
R E F L E C T:
(these)

Words of encouragement for your inevitable bad day. A compilation of worldwide YouTube content, the crowd-sourced documentary “Life in a Day” by Kevin Macdonald, and local footage by Jon Goodgion. Audio is the spoken word poem “Instructions For a Bad Day” by Shane Koyczan. Rights remain to respective owners. Here is the poem in written form:

“There will be bad days. Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now. Let go.

Be confident. Know that “now” is only a moment, and that if “today” is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, “today” will have ended.
Be gracious. Accept each extended hand offered, to pull you back from the “somewhere” you cannot escape.

Be diligent. Scrape the gray sky clean. Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the Truth – and the Truth is, whether we see them or not, the Sun and Moon are still there and always there is Light.
Be forthright. Despite your instinct to say “it’s alright, I’m okay” – be honest. Say how you feel without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity.

Be lucid in your explanation, be sterling in your oppose. If you think for one second no one knows what you’ve been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone – that Pain is part of the Human Condition, and that alone makes you a legion.

We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn, we dissmisser’s of odds, we pressers of on – we will station ourselves to the calm. We will hold ourselves to the steady, be ready player one. Life is going to come at you armed with hard times and tough choices, your voice is your weapon, your thoughts ammunition – there are no free extra men, be aware that as the instant now passes, it exists now as then. So be a mirror reflecting yourself back, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and you’d never make it through.
Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue.

Be forgiving. Living with the burden of anger, is not living. Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self absent of what you need. Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows is the one you feed.

Be persistent. Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement, beautiful – because it doesn’t know it’s not supposed to grow there.

Be resolute. Declare what you accept as true in a way that envisions the resolve with which you accept it. If you are having a good day, be considerate. A simple smile could be the first-aid kit that someone has been looking for.

If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can – do more. There will be bad days, Times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out. There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is alright when it clearly is not, check your blind spot. See that love is still there, be patient.

Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end. Ignore what others have called you. I am calling you “friend”. Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis. Silence left to its own devices, breed’s silence. So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life in the context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud. Make noise. Stand in poise and be open. Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again.

Everyone is blessed with the ability to Listen. The Deaf will hear you with their Eyes. The Blind will see you with their Hands. Let your Heart fill their news-stands, let them read all about it. Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights. Listen to the insights of those who have been there, but come back. They will tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack disappear you can even wear your sorrow – but come tomorrow you must change your clothes.

Everyone knows Pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you “how was your day”, realize that for some of us, it’s the only way we know how to say “be calm”.

Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now – let go.”

Go ahead. . .
Clear your throat
Rub your eyes
drink deeply from the cup
that endlessly reminds you
that Bad Days may be a plenty
but those are the days
you suck down
and spit out
(again and again and again and again and again and again and again and. . . .)

FALLING HOME

June 10, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

T H E Y
s a y
The End of One Adventure
is really just the beginning of quite another one
I recently read an essay from Eric Alan entitled, FALLING TOWARDS HOME and this little excerpt towards the end of the essay made me look at waterfalls a little
D i F fE n T L y
and more,
made me experience one
in another watery way:

I’m only a droplet within the falls of greater life, not the falls themselves. Beside me, so are you, and you and you and you: all of us tumbling, falling, merging, jostling against each other as gravity makes its incessant demands. No droplet, no human, can see where our fall will lead us. It’s easy to fear the rocks, the uncertainty.

From the river shore, however, perspective emerges in the shape of the longer flow. The falls have been going over the same cliff for eons, only slowly wearing the rock slightly smooth. The river’s course only subtly shifts, over periods of time that make each droplet’s living passage an infinitesimal moment. Gravity does its tireless work, taking each droplet inevitably downstream, to where all droplets will merge in the greater sea.

That is you, me, all of us. The spirit sea will cradle us and allow us rest, in time. There is no uncertainty about that. Every life stream’s course always reaches its destination, however tumultuous its path along the way. The waterfalls sing to me of this, every time I need their reminder. Far away downstream, the ocean sings of this too. Water sings the ageless song of how all of us are always falling towards home.

The first time I visited Niagara Falls
I wasn’t so much in awe of the beauty
or the magnitude of that splendor
as the nagging question of
a little boy who wonders Falls BIG
and Grand Canyon LARGE
not
WHERE DOES ALL THE WATER GO
but
WHERE DOES ALL THE WATER COME FROM THAT NEVER RUNS DRY
The little boy
with the endless Falls Wonder
and Grand Canyon Imagination
Still asks
and needs to know
Whatever is past
Just Because
I really believe the answers to such wonderings are what makes us all more than droplets a part of something bigger than all of us as we are splashingly falling towards home. . .

A DAY PAST FOREVER

June 8, 2022 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

When Erin and I got married 36 years ago today, we knew that it might be a very long shot if we would ever be old enough to make 50 years, but we also talked about it not making a difference as long as we could make our days and years count more than counting the days and the years.

36 years ago we were not the people, the couple, we are now or maybe the ones we might become in the next 14 years, but we knew way ahead of the research and the evidence-based data that what we have more than makes our days so much more than any daze. . .

Moments of Love and Connection May Help You Live Longer

A new study finds that couples who show more warmth, concern, and affection for each other live longer, healthier lives.

YASMIN ANWAR was a Greater Good Science Center graduate fellow. was a Greater Good Science Center graduate fellow.

Hold back on the bickering. Couples who share sweet moments filled with humor and affection, and sync up biologically—two hearts beating as one—enjoy better health prospects and live longer than their more quarrelsome counterparts, suggests new UC Berkeley research.

The findings, recently published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, are based on laboratory observations of 154 middle-aged and older married couples as each engaged in an intimate conversation about a conflict in their relationship.

“We focused on those fleeting moments when you light up together and experience sudden joy, closeness, and intimacy,” said study author Robert Levenson, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology.

“What we found is that having these brief shared moments, known as ‘positivity resonance,’ is a powerful predictor of how healthy we’re going to be in the future and how long we’ll live,” he added.

Positivity resonance occurs when two people momentarily experience a mutual biological and behavioral surge of warmth, humor, and affection and achieve a sense of oneness. Fear, anxiety, and self-doubt can block this sense of connectedness.

“Couples in the study varied greatly in these measures of positivity resonance, with some couples showing dozens of moments of emotional and physiological synchrony and others showing few or none,” Levenson said.

Science of long-lasting love

These micro-moments are a key ingredient in healthy, long-lasting relationships, according to study senior author Barbara Fredrickson, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and leading scholar of the science of love.

Researchers in Levenson’s Berkeley Psychophysiology Laboratory worked with Fredrickson to test the effect of positivity resonance on long-term health and longevity. They used data from Levenson’s longitudinal study that tracked the marriages of a representative sample of middle-aged and older heterosexual couples in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1989 to 2009.

Every five years, the couples came to Levenson’s Berkeley laboratory to be observed as they discussed recent events in their relationships, as well as areas of enjoyment and disagreement. They also completed questionnaires about marital satisfaction, health problems, and other issues. Just over half of the study’s original spouses are now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Others have died.

For this latest study, researchers meticulously coded hundreds of videotaped conversations to track the extent to which the couples exhibited positivity resonance.

“We took a fine-grained, comprehensive approach to measuring positivity resonance in couples by capturing their shared positive emotions, mutual expressions of care, and biological synchrony,” said study lead author Jenna Wells, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidate in clinical science.

How they conducted the study

Two different statistical models were used to predict long-term health and longevity, one that included the full range of biological and behavioral measures of positivity resonance that couples showed, and another that analyzed only their positivity resonance behaviors.

Among other factors and influences, the study controlled for health-related behaviors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, and caffeine consumption.

First, trained behavioral coders objectively rated the couples’ 15-minute conflict conversations, identifying individual and shared positive and negative emotions based on what the spouses were saying and their facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language.

Next, they identified moments of positive synchrony between the spouses based on the couples’ own recollections of how they were feeling as they watched videotapes of their conversations.

The 15-minute video recordings were then analyzed for signs of nonverbal synchrony and unconscious “mirroring,” which are gestures that signal love, caring, and connectedness, such as smiles, head nods, and leaning forward.

The researchers also identified moments in which both partners’ heart rates simultaneously slowed down or sped up when they were expressing positive emotions.

For the second part of the study, they moved to a faster coding system to rate displays of synchrony vis-a-vis mutual warmth, concern, and affection in 30-second video segments. Both statistical models indicated that higher rates of positivity resonance predicted better future health outcomes and longer lives.

“Regardless of whether we used the full range of biological and behavioral measures of positivity resonance or the single holistic measure, we found that spouses in relationships that were high on positivity resonance had milder declines in their health over the next 13 years and were more likely to still be alive after 30 years,” Levenson said.

As for how couples can apply these findings to build relationships that are filled with positivity resonance, psychologist Art Aron’s 36 questions or Barbara Fredrickson’s Love 2.0 might be good places to start, Levenson said.

We know about how it takes a village to not just raise a child, but also to support and enrich each of us. We all have the capacity to be better Caring Catalysts and without a doubt, the world desperately needs that from each of us. There is no Caring Catalyst in me without Erin. She is not my better half. Erin is my 90% because everything I am and do, she makes better and more, an excellent motivation to be better. . .

I severely love how our Each makes our Other
Our Better makes up for any Worse
Our Richer banishes Poornessess
Our Sicknesses can’t compete with our well-beingnesses
because our love and cherishings
only has one goal:
To last one moment past a For Everness. . .
(or any calendar every created)

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

June 6, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Heartwarming story – especially for Simon and Garfunkel lovers like me . . . . . “Hello darkness, my old friend…” Everybody knows the iconic Simon & Garfunkel song, but do you know the amazing story behind the first line of The Sounds of Silence?
It began 62 years ago, when Arthur “Art” Garfunkel, a Jewish kid from Queens, enrolled in Columbia University. During freshman orientation, Art met a student from Buffalo named Sandy Greenberg, and they immediately bonded over their shared passion for literature and music. Art and Sandy became roommates and best friends. With the idealism of youth, they promised to be there for each other no matter what.
Soon after starting college, Sandy was struck by tragedy. His vision became blurry and although doctors diagnosed it as temporary conjunctivitis, the problem grew worse. Finally after seeing a specialist, Sandy received the devastating news that severe glaucoma was destroying his optic nerves. The young man with such a bright future would soon be completely blind.
Sandy was devastated and fell into a deep depression. He gave up his dream of becoming a lawyer and moved back to Buffalo, where he worried about being a burden to his financially-struggling family. Consumed with shame and fear, Sandy cut off contact with his old friends, refusing to answer letters or return phone calls.
Then suddenly, to Sandy’s shock, his buddy Art showed up at the front door. He was not going to allow his best friend to give up on life, so he bought a ticket and flew up to Buffalo unannounced. Art convinced Sandy to give college another go, and promised that he would be right by his side to make sure he didn’t fall – literally or figuratively.
Art kept his promise, faithfully escorting Sandy around campus and effectively serving as his eyes. It was important to Art that even though Sandy had been plunged into a world of darkness, he should never feel alone. Art actually started calling himself “Darkness” to demonstrate his empathy with his friend. He’d say things like, “Darkness is going to read to you now.” Art organized his life around helping Sandy.
One day, Art was guiding Sandy through crowded Grand Central Station when he suddenly said he had to go and left his friend alone and petrified. Sandy stumbled, bumped into people, and fell, cutting a gash in his shin. After a couple of hellish hours, Sandy finally got on the right subway train. After exiting the station at 116th street, Sandy bumped into someone who quickly apologized – and Sandy immediately recognized Art’s voice! Turned out his trusty friend had followed him the whole way home, making sure he was safe and giving him the priceless gift of independence. Sandy later said, “That moment was the spark that caused me to live a completely different life, without fear, without doubt. For that I am tremendously grateful to my friend.”
Sandy graduated from Columbia and then earned graduate degrees at Harvard and Oxford. He married his high school sweetheart and became an extremely successful entrepreneur and philanthropist.
While at Oxford, Sandy got a call from Art. This time Art was the one who needed help. He’d formed a folk rock duo with his high school pal Paul Simon, and they desperately needed $400 to record their first album. Sandy and his wife Sue had literally $404 in their bank account, but without hesitation Sandy gave his old friend what he needed.
Art and Paul’s first album was not a success, but one of the songs, The Sounds of Silence, became a #1 hit a year later. The opening line echoed the way Sandy always greeted Art. Simon & Garfunkel went on to become one of the most beloved musical acts in history.
The two Columbia graduates, each of whom has added so much to the world in his own way, are still best friends. Art Garfunkel said that when he became friends with Sandy, “my real life emerged. I became a better guy in my own eyes, and began to see who I was – somebody who gives to a friend.” Sandy describes himself as “the luckiest man in the world.”
Adapted from Sandy Greenberg’s memoir: “Hello Darkness, My Old Friend: How Daring Dreams and Unyielding Friendship Turned One Man’s Blindness into an Extraordinary Vision for Life.”

QUITE A STORY, huh. . . ?
I’m not one for COVERS
and I’m really not a big believer that
A COVER
could be better than the Original
until I did a funeral for a young man
and as people were filing past his casket
he requested that THIS COVER
by the heavy metal group DISTURBED
would be played
and well
. . .well, you tell me. . .
TELL ME WHAT
YOUR SOUND OF SILENCE
S H O U T S

Science of long-lasting love

How they conducted the study

36 Questions for Increasing Closeness

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