Sometimes FUNNY is less HA HA HA
and a lot more of AHHHH-HAAAAAA. . .
Who Cares - What Matters
Sometimes FUNNY is less HA HA HA
and a lot more of AHHHH-HAAAAAA. . .
THE EMPTY CHAIR
Will stare you down
Glare back
Blink not
Because it holds the
h a l l o w e d
power of
M E M O R I E S
ANGUISH:
The lack of Blindness
that illuminates
The Empty Chair
at a Holiday Table
The best thing about an
EMPTY CHAIR
At the Table
Is that it has a Meaning
No other Emptiness
Could ever hold
or Capture
It WHISPERS:
I’m still here
It SHOUTS:
Remember When
The Blessing
of an
EMPTY CHAIR
Is it cradles what can’t be held
No Hurt
No Grief
No Pain
No Loss
No Emptiness
That’s caused by a power
Much stronger than all of those things
Together:
L O V E
There’s nothing that shouts louder
Than a Silent Space
There’s nothing more full
Than an
EMPTY CHAIR
A heart will always Shout
What a mouth can’t Whisper
EMPTY CHAIR
That reminds of scents
That holds little sense
That makes no cents
But always keeps us
To what Was
Tortured to what Is
Foreigners to what
For an Ever
Will always be
And the worst of the worst
The baddest of the bad
The grievous of the grief
isn’t
THE EMPTY CHAIR
It’s the
s m a l l e s t
slow rusting rotting
EMPTY CHAIR
that holds
what never was
reminding us
painfully
of all of the memories
that’ll never be
created
experienced
imagined
Leaving us
not only
Empty Chair’d
But Spilled OUT
Off our Rocker
POURED OUT
The only thing worse than getting
EMPTY CHAIR’D
is being
NO CHAIR’D
Forever leaving blank the phrases:
I REMEMBER THE TIME:
I’LL NEVER FORGET THE TIME:
or better yet,
WHAT ABOUT THE TIME:
. . .because the worst memories of all
ARE THOSE NEVER CREATED. . .
EMPTY CHAIR’D
UK’s John Lewis
is a Master
every year when it comes to
CHRISTMAS
commercials
and what makes this even better
is that it’s a mere
a l t e r n a t i v e
and aren’t we humbled beneficiaries
because of it. . .
Of course it doesn’t hurt
to have a most awesome
THIS IS OUR HOME
song by
Ben and Andy. . .
which prompts us to
THE QUESTION
ARE WE EVER SO BLIND WHEN WE CAN ACTUALLY SEE
(but not exactly sure what we’re looking at)
There’s a reason
we have entered into the
SEASON OF LIGHT
especially since the darkness is getting longer
especially since the ever-so-long-pandemic
is ever so-long-from-ending
especially since the more
we see the less we notice
. . .It’s a question
asked every year when we come to this
S E A S O N:
WILL IT BE DIFFERENT THIS YEAR?
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
The Answer always sways on just one integer
Y O U
It really never matters
How
When
Where
but THAT
You bring Your LIGHT
to any darkened situation. . .
. . .and bring
your-blind-but-now-can-see-better-Self
h o m e
What would you do?
o r
is it
WHAT DO YOU DO. . . ?
It’s the First Lecture of a brand new semester. . .
The professor enters the lecture hall. He looks around. . .
“You there in the 8th row. Can you tell me your name?” he asks a student.
“My name is Sandra” says a voice.
The professor asks her, “Please leave my lecture hall. I don’t want to see you in my lecture.”
Everyone is quiet. The student is irritated, slowly packs her things and stands up.
“Faster please” she is asked.
She doesn’t dare to say anything and leaves the lecture hall.
The professor keeps looking around.
The participants are scared.
“Why are there laws?” he asks the group.
All quiet. Everyone looks at the others.
“What are laws for?” he asks again.
“Social order” is heard from a row
A student says “To protect a person’s personal rights.”
Another says “So that you can rely on the state.”
The professor is not satisfied.
“Justice” calls out a student.
The professor smiling. She has his attention.
“Thank you very much. Did I behave unfairly towards your classmate earlier?”
Everyone nods.
“Indeed I did. Why didn’t anyone protest?
Why didn’t any of you try to stop me?
Why didn’t you want to prevent this injustice?” he asks.
Nobody answers. . .
THE SILENCE LITERALLY SHOUTS OUT A BLARING
W H Y ?
“What you just learned you wouldn’t have understood in 1,000 hours of lectures if you hadn’t lived it. You didn’t say anything just because you weren’t affected yourself. This attitude speaks against you and against life. You think as long as it doesn’t concern you, it’s none of your business. I’m telling you, if you don’t say anything today and don’t bring about justice, then one day you too will experience injustice and no one will stand before you. Justice lives through us all. We have to fight for it.”
“In life and at work, we often live next to each other instead of with each other. We console ourselves that the problems of others are none of our business. We go home and are glad that we were spared. But it’s also about standing up for others. Every day an injustice happens in business, in sports or on the tram. Relying on someone to sort it out is not enough. It is our duty to be there for others. Speaking for others when they cannot. . .
The difference is being a caring catalyst and
ACTING LIKE A CARING CATALYST
. . .which ONE are you
We’re all way past asking what would you do. . .
we are right here, right now, showing
WHAT DO YOU DO
(or. . .d o n ‘ t)
I know. . .
I know
we are at that part of the Summer
where every thing speeds up very quickly. . .
The age-old cliche says
ONCE YOU GET TO THE 4th OF JULY THE SUMMER IS OVER !
If it’s not true
it sure does often feel like it. . .
and even though there’s no stopping it,
maybe between the get-togethers
the grilling out
the picnics
the parades
the street fairs and carnivals
the F I R E W O R K S
maybe we could just pause for more than a moment
to reflect on the Skit Guys video or
the f a m i l y outings. . .
to recognize what we don’t always notice
but somehow always seem to expect:
That The United States of America
or our Families
are universes a part of being perfect. . .
The Family is a microcosm of our Country. . .
our World, isn’t it?
We can see that during a family reunion or a
4th of July Picnic
where we bring a bunch of people
f a m i l y
t o g e t h e r
. . .there’s talk of this one
and of course always THAT one
who did,
who didn’t
who does
who won’t
and yet when it comes time for the
f a m i l y p i c t u r e
there they are
shoulder to shoulder
smiling and cheesing it for the photo op
by on the count of THREE
yelling out:
F A M I L Y R E U N I O N
which is really similar to how it is when
O U R C O U N T R Y
can literally be on the verge of a civil war over
political
religious
socio-economic
and all out disagreements and differences. . .
and then there’s a 9/11
a tragic accident
a natural disaster
a pandemic
an attack on our national freedom and safety
and
B A M
we come together;
We are not perfect families
or a perfect Nation
but our great imperfections
somehow put things into the most
perfect of perceptions
when we need to be together
Maybe that’s the greatest Definition
of our own personal
Declaration of Independence:
We are NOT undefeated
but we are UN-DEFEATABLE
We come together
not as we should
not as we could
not as we would
but as we actually D O
W H E N I T M A T T E R S. . .
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst of the Day:
Make it MATTER
m o r e o f t e n
Happy THIRD of July
H a p p y
y o u !
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,
never stopped worrying,
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. . .
completing
t h a t
puzzle of
UnSMOTHERED
L O V E
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. . .
It can be really hard to
SELF LOVE
when you don’t much
SELF LIKE. . .
It’s been three years since we have
SHELTERED IN PLACE
and literally defined what
LONELINESS
is or now
will forever be defined
d i f f e r e n t l y. . .
REARVIEW MIRROR LIVING
always shows a little more than what
the Windshield can ever reveal
at first glance. . .
N O W
there’s some studies and evidence-based-data
that’s coming out and showing
what these past three years have
caused/done/begun in us
Extolled by politicians and pop stars alike, it seems like everyone is talking about self-love these days. In a Vogue make-up tutorial, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explains that loving yourself is “the one foundation of everything.” Nicole LaPera, the clinical psychologist behind the popular Instagram account, @theholisticpsychologist, tells her 6.4 million followers, “Self-love is our natural state.” And in her most recent chart-topping hit, “Flowers,” Miley Cyrus sings proudly, “I can love me better than you can.”
Self-love has become the core tenant of modern wellness culture, with the promise that what follows self-love is good health and freedom. In her book, The Self-Love Experiment, author Sharon Kaiser claims, “Whether you want to achieve weight loss, land your dream job, find your soulmate, or get out of debt, it all comes back to self-love and accepting yourself first.”
At this point, it doesn’t feel like much of a stretch to say that the self-love phenomenon is bordering on a societal obsession. The question is: why?
Today, we live in a climate where needing help can evoke shame and embarrassment, where cut-throat competition takes precedence over compassionate collaboration, and where self-sufficiency is celebrated as the ultimate achievement. To navigate the harsh terrain of radical individualism, self-love has emerged as our tool for survival. But it can come at a cost, especially when the type of self-love we turn to is the kind that has been manipulated by corporate ad campaigns and social media. In its commodified form, self-love is not really self-love at all; instead, it’s more like self-sabotage, convincing us to hyperfocus on ourselves at the expense of connecting with others.
While the exact origin of self-love remains unclear, one of the first psychologists to address the concept was Eric Fromm. In his 1956 book, The Art of Loving, he wrote, “Love of others and love of ourselves are not alternatives. On the contrary, an attitude of love toward themselves will be found in all those who are capable of loving others.” For Fromm, self-love operated as a necessary condition for relating with our fellow humans.
Going back further in history, we see other cultures referring to self-love as a channel for connection. In Ancient Greece, Aristotle claimed that self-love in its most virtuous form serves as a model for how we should love our friends. In the 13th century, Sufist poet Rumi wrote of the importance of recognizing the divine within oneself to feel one with the greater universe. And the ancient Buddhist practice of Metta, or loving-kindness meditation, involves practitioners directing love inwards so that they can then extend love outwards.
The self-love many of us have grown accustomed to today, however, veers from its authentic origin. Chewed up and spit out by toxic consumerism, it has been drained of its relational potential. Instead, it is often used by corporations and influencers alike to sell products and keep people hyper fixated on themselves. It is a force of isolation, rather than attachment.
When we take a moment to consider the culture we’re living in, where loneliness rates are at unprecedented highs, touch deprivation is a serious concern, and polarizing animosity has replaced empathic connection, it begins to make sense why we’ve sought refuge in self-love. To survive in our fractured world, we’ve been left with little choice but to turn inwards for affection.
Study after study shows that we’re living inside of a growing loneliness epidemic. In a recent survey conducted by Cigna, researchers found that almost 80% of adults from the ages of 18 to 24 reported feeling lonely. In 2018, even before the start of COVID-19 pandemic, one study showed that 54% of Americans felt like no one in their life knew them well.
Dr. Dan Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, attributes such jarring isolation to what he calls our “culture of separation.” In his latest book, Intraconnected, Seigel writes that our society “emphasizes separation rather than connection, independence rather than interdependence, individuality rather than a shared identity.” Ultimately, our prevailing cultural emphasis on excessive autonomy and self-reliance has engendered a society rife with disconnection.
We can see examples of this on social media, where it is common for women to be bombarded—under the guise of self-love and self-care—with advertisements for Botox and pilates machines, advanced skin care wands and organic hair growth serums. Such products don’t serve to bring women closer together; instead, they promote self-preoccupation, negative social comparison, and rattling insecurity.
Influencer culture, as another example, keeps the lines blurred between self-love and self-involvement. Narcissism is not only normalized, but rewarded by likes, follows, and corporate sponsorships. This, of course, comes at the detriment of influencers and followers alike, as both report experiencing a diminishment in psychological well-being.
When self-love becomes entangled with self-absorption and materialism, serious consequences emerge for our collective mental health. Studies show that too much focus on oneself is associated with anxiety and depression. Past research has also documented the vicious feedback loop of consumption and loneliness: When we purchase material possessions (even in the name of self-love), we surprisingly feel lonely, so we try and soothe ourselves through buying more, but this only makes us feel worse. This takes a toll on our health, as loneliness has been linked to increased inflammation, heart disease, and even premature death.
Self-love is a powerful tool; it can be used for good or bad, for connection or disconnection. And at a time of such immense social fragmentation, we need to cultivate the kind that brings us together. So how exactly do we do this?
Primarily, it requires introspection. We can know we’re practicing healthy self-love when we feel connected to our bodies and our communities. There are many iterations of what this may look like. Perhaps we choose to prioritize rest and replenishment one night so that we can be more engaged the next time we see our friends. Or maybe we decide to quit our high stress job, so that we can stop neglecting our needs and spend more time with the people and places we enjoy. True self-love not only bolsters our capacity for connection, but it also helps us become an actualized version of ourselves.
On the other hand, self-love through the warped filter of radical individualism tends to make us feel alienated, disconnected, and stuck in our own heads. This looks like buying a “self-care” product that causes us to ruminate on our appearance or justifying our anxious avoidance of meaningful social commitments through the co-opted language of self-compassion. It’s vital, then, that we begin actively recognizing when more nefarious forces are being disguised and packaged to us as self-love, and when we, ourselves, are consciously or unconsciously buying into them.
Our culture of separation carries a strong current. It’s easy to get pulled in, to become swept away by its riptide. But if we can achieve the balance between caring for ourselves and caring for others, real self-love may just very well be our life raft.
It can be really hard to
SELF LOVE
when you don’t much
SELF LIKE. . .
(but just remember)
Bits of grit
the Wind
scatters us
where it will
as we travel
to destinations
not yet GPSable
but have waited
an Eternity
to welcome every
irritating speck
of us
Home
(however we define it)
(wherever we find it)
or it unearths
UsOUR STRENGTH
OUR POWER
IS FOUND
BY RECOGNIZING
THAT AS MERE SPECKS
WE ARE NOT A PART OF A MOUNTAIN
BUT THE MOUNTAIN IS A PART OF
U S
An Australian sheep farmer has paid his own unique tribute to his beloved aunt. Ben Jackson was unable to attend his Aunt Deb’s funeral due to pandemic restrictions. So, he laid barley out in a field in the shape of a love heart and let his pregnant ewes show how much he cared. . .
Q U E S T I O N :
HOW DO YOU SHOW YOUR LOVE
If you wait to celebrate
VALENTINE’S DAY
on February 14. . .
YOU’VE WAITED TOO LONG