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| A good laugh helps, though |
But I've been accused of being negative because I complain sometimes about the new losses of ability that just keep coming at me as I age. Can't wear pretty shoes. Can't travel without great fuss and discomfort. Always hurt somewhere. Can't drink even a little wine - it interacts with my meds and makes me dizzy and sleepy. Said meds have increased my appetite and I gained ten pounds this summer before I knew what was happening. And do not forget the bipolar disorder, which is now predictably one day up, one day down. The down days are hard just to get through, just to endure. If a down day coincides with a stress like a friend's funeral, it sets me spiraling further down and I get in trouble. And so on, and on.
Who would like this crap?
That's my point. Yes, you can see these as learning experiences. Bad luck and trouble can help you extend compassion to others with similar experiences. It keeps putting mortality in your face; that doesn't feel good but it is good, I guess. Maybe I won't be so shocked when it turns out that I die, too. So yes, there are ways to gain from unpleasant experiences. Fine. That doesn't mean you have to like them. Sometimes, complaining is in order. I know complaining sometimes helps me bond with my equally aging and just occasionally cranky friends.
As far as I'm concerned, a good attitude is the Zen attitude: being open all the way to experience, accepting its reality. That is actually part of what we do when we sit in meditation. It is often uncomfortable enough to make people drift away from the practice. But if you accept reality, you can deal with it in reasonable ways. If you're in denial about unpleasant truths, or determined to win impossible battles, that's when you really get in trouble and create trouble all around you.
That's all I know.
I have a chronic illness that has caused disabling physical changes and includes almost constant chronic pain. I was diagnosed in my teens and I'm about to turn 58. I work full-time and care for a bipolar partner who cannot work. My life isn't easy, but of course, there are others much worse off. However, I think people who don't have pain from illness (both physical and mental) don't get how you just want to be able to tell the truth sometimes about how you're feeling- especially when physical pain and mental pain are present just about every damn day. If a healthy persons asks sincerely, "How are you?", answering truthfully can sound like complaining. Suggestions from a healthy person to turn into the pain and face it, or to accept it, are not necessarily welcome. A more compassionate response might be to listen and just try really hard to "get it". I get up super early so I can sit at my local Zen Center, and I did it to save my life. It's helped more than I can express with just these sorts of feelings, and with opening to more softness and gratitude. And it got me to the doctor after avoiding going for years. I think I have a ways to go and I recognize as I write this that I still have a lot of anger and grief. It just occurred to me that it's not like these feelings disappear when you're chronically ill. You keep having to let them go over and over. I thank you, Jeanne, for writing these thoughts and for all that you share, in fact. I appreciate your cranky old self and how you touch my heart-- often. Thank you for your complaints!
ReplyDeleteHi Melanie - I liked your phrase "cranky old self" so much that I've put it up in the subtitle to this blog, at least for now. Thank you for writing - you show me that I am saying something that deserves to be said. I do know just what you mean about putting on a brave face, saying "Fine," when you're not. An old friend of mine, a country woman, always said, "Pretty good for the shape I'm in," and I use that sometimes with a certain expression. Some people know what that means. Most older people have their own complaints...Any suggestions from more fortunate people as to how we should bear our troubles seem to me to be out of place unless one specifically asks for advice. Well-intentioned maybe, but not welcome...I think your testimony about Zen leading you to go to the doctor is very powerful. It works on that kind of everyday level, doesn't it?
DeleteWhen asked how he was, my old uncle used to say, "Sometimes, I wonder." He ended up on life support for a year after several strokes before he finally died. I guess he tired to avoid the pain complaints, I am trying(with not much luck) to do the same....Not out of being stoic, just with friends it makes for down spiral conversation.
ReplyDeleteBut when I am "good" I don't speak about it, and find I inspire people. I met a man in the park, and he said, "They never printed out a paper at age 8 for guarantees about your life, so we just run until we can no longer." As I spotted him with weights, and he was older than I, and was inspired by me after seeing a friend wither away after strokes, after he inquired about my voice.
But your honesty has helped me a lot.
I love your uncle's answer. Seems like people work to develop an answer as they get older and just don't feel so fine.....I wonder whether part of the problem people have hearing complaints is that they want to "fix" you and it makes them uncomfortable if they can't?
DeleteI think there's a way to have an expansive, wide open mind - one that doesn't have a final, fixed understanding of experiences - and still feel like crap sometimes. And still sound cranky sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that we practitioners should always be positive, or see the silver lining is absurd, A lot of that cheery or compassionate sounding advice is, in my view, coming from folks who falsely equate "good practice" with "being positive."
A few days ago, I told someone I've felt scattered and ungrounded the past few months. And she said "But Buddhists aren't supposed to be like that." I looked at her, and said "I'm human too. Don't forget that."
So well said, Nathan. Sometimes I think about writing about what Zen is not. I think you state what it is quite well. It's always good to hear from you.
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