What Not to Do (to Me)

For your delectation, here is a link to an article in The Economist (strange as that may seem) about "The Dreaded Comma Splice."  I know that my readers are educated people who, of their own free wills, read things like this blog that won't get them anywhere, and that many probably know what a comma splice is.  The great thing, as is so often the case, is not just the article - though I liked it and read it of my own free will - but the comments.  Scan them.  You will see that there are more than enough grammarians in this world, and apparently none of them work at The Economist. 

Most delicious is the comment that asks whether there are any proofreaders at the magazine.  Now, a proofreader's job is to make sure that the galley faithfully renders the manuscript - it's copyreaders who, before the manuscript goes to print, correct grammar and format, mechanical things like that.  This is an example of how it is always dangerous to start correcting other people, especially online.

This little tempest caught my fancy because earlier today I had begun an idle thing that I didn't think would amount to a post titled -

What Not to Do (to Me) 

Wouldn't that be a great list? Things not to do, as opposed to these obnoxious to-do lists that have become a feature of the busy American life.  I am inspired to think of this subject by an unpleasant incident at a recent social occasion.  I was talking, just social chatter, not a big monologue, when Someone in the group interrupted to correct my grammar.  (Notice that there is no obscenity in that sentence.)  I'd said something like this "He told my friend and I . . . "  What I was going on to say is lost forever when Someone said, "Me.  It should be 'my friend and me,' because you are the object, not the subject."  And he wasn't even an English major.

If you want to have some kind of aggressive social tool for refined special occasions, this is a good way to take the wind out of someone's sails.  Although I have multiple degrees in English and writing credits, I was dead in the water, not because I used "bad grammar," because I was startled.  Later I spent some time speculating on Someone's aggression toward me.  My father's voice echoed from a long-ago day when I told him a kid was bullying me.  He snorted and said, "What'd you do to deserve it?"  I reminded him he is dead.

But there is always cause.  I thought I must have inadvertently sounded smart, something like that, and my acquaintance might have had the kind of problem some older men have when women step out of their place.  It is worth noting that this little incident put a drop of ink in the water surrounding that relationship.  There you are.  I'm not the only person who has trouble with right speech.

Stress and the poor little cat

Tashi explores the consolations of Art

I would like to announce that I don't hate anybody.  Depending on my general state, sometimes people say things that gives me a hit of anger where I don't need it, in my stomach, but I don't hate them.  Or any politician, including the ones my friends hate.  Or, I should say, my acquaintances, because I am just not comfortable with people who hate-talk, even if it's ritualized.

And if I did hate somebody (it would probably be someone on Facebook who is desperately urging me to think positively) I would not announce it on the internet. And not even on Facebook, which is why I erased this, which began as a status, and put it here on my blog.  If you don't like it, you don't have to come back.  Facebook, that's trickier.  Sometimes you have no idea the crap that's in some people until there you are, and unfriending might be noticed and create hard feelings.

We are having a hard time lately in my house, with major health worry, facing another surgery, and major psychological stress in Tom's family, which means in Tom, which means in me and the poor cat.  She keeps coming around going Ip?  Ip? and looking at me searchingly. Even when the doors to the basement and screened porch are open for her to go freely mousing and patrolling.

You feel rotten when you realize how your emotional energies affect a poor little cat.  I told Tom, Tashi is the symptom bearer.  He thought that made an odd image, as if the cat was proceeding ahead in our march, a flag tied to her tail. That's a picture you will have to imagine.

But it does make me stop and think how a rude word, a snap of irritation or anger, a proud statement of hatred affect me - and her.  All of us.

The Eightfold Path

Following the Eight-fold Path?  Whoa, come on, not all that ethical shit. I like my [fill in your favorite intoxicant here].

A personal note: This morning I woke up hoping to not suffer like I did yesterday from the fire of high summer, which was occupying my center with a red energy of frustration, anger, confusion, and overwhelm. You can always find reasons for sensations like this, they're there in your life, and it's a challenge not to do that, just ride it out.

Some small exploration of the web led me by accident to this statement:

[Few Americans] (36%) identify Buddhism as the religion that aims at nirvana, the state of being free from suffering.

And this set me up straight with something like curiosity.  Yes, that is the promise of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths, the basic philosophy of all Buddhism.  You can easily find formal statements of them on the web, but I think of them like this:

1. Loss, pain, sickness, aging, death are inherent in human life, and they hurt. (Suffering, dissatisfaction.)
2. What makes them hurt so much is that we don't accept their inevitability, we strive to overcome our pain in a thousand ways. (Illusion, desire)
3. We don't have to be like this. It is possible to accept reality, and to reduce the power of our desires and aversions, and just enjoy life. (nirvana)
4. The way to do this is to practice meditation, cultivate wisdom, and refrain from harming in every aspect of our lives. (The Eightfold Path)  And this is a narrow way.

Now, wait.  Isn't this practice all about me feeling better just by meditating?  Or wearing a mala around my wrist? Cultivating mindfulness while I cook and eat wonderful food? Not feeling so much pain? Being calm and happy? Definitely that!

Ah, afraid not. That begins to sound more like everything American culture teaches us to desire - the (failed) promises of psychotherapy and shopping and plastic surgery and exercise and great vacations and brain plasticity, i.e. centered on personal happiness.  (Although maybe we could work with the plasticity idea, which is the evidence that we can train our minds.)

No, the Buddha says you have to behave a certain way to be happy. And that is not a self-serving way, au contraire, not a way of pleasure and gratification.  Following right speech, right action, and right livelihood are going to keep you pretty busy with various kinds of self-restraint.  It is not just about sitting froggily, though you know I advocate that. Meditation is the first thing to do, I think, the thing that can teach us how to slow down and be aware of what you're doing so you can try to live ethically.

Me, when I'm like this, right speech is a great challenge.  It often consists of keeping my mouth shut.  Time to meditate now.  And I will post the lovely cooling picture I took two days ago in the Park of Roses.  This is especially for Kit.
 

Grandma's First Rule of Civil Discourse

US President Barack Obama passes by a battered United Nations flag that flew over the bombed Canal Hotel in Iraq at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in this September 23, 2009 file photo. (Photo: Reuters) [Photo and blurb from the Irrawaddy, which covers Burma and Southeast Asia.]

Even governments have rules about speech, or apparently no parliament would ever get anything done. We humans can talk, oh boy, and it is easy to do it without restraint. Even sober.

In regard to the instantaneous furor of public reaction to the news that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, my own rule restrains me from commenting on the kind of commentators who lined up in front of the cameras. I will just go to the rule: Don't say mean, critical things about people, including people you don't like. My own mother put it like this: If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.

An easy way to work on restrained speech is to adopt just for a week or a month a practice I believe the Vipassana Teacher Joseph Goldstein invented - He decided would not speak about anyone who was not then in the room. He said it did away with at least 90% of his conversation. So that's a good in itself, for you can't listen while you're talking, and everyone likes a good listener.

It saddens me that there seemed to be a feeling abroad that anyone could and should publicly declare that they thought Obama didn't deserve the prize. It is, of course, a singularly ugly feature of American life that there is ever someone with a microphone in hand and a camera to capture these moments and broadcast them inbetween a lot of commercials. I can understand straightforward, well-earned jealousy. When, for instance, we writers find that someone undistinguished has snatched a prize we ourselves worked so hard to win, we are surely entitled to wax sarcastic over coffee, keeping our voices down. But I don't know anyone who would do it on camera. This is a small town of a million people; you can't afford to make enemies.

Manners are devised exactly because they are needed. Base human nature (I don't mean the Buddha part) is self-centered, grabby, and jealous and likely to come out with hurtful remarks. Manners dictate doing the opposite. We congratulate the winner, the way they do in sports, or used to. What could be the harm in that?

Sometimes karma consoles me. I think, for instance, that Obama will know who some of those people are, those people who were so quick to flame him at that tender moment. He'll read their comments, he'll see a clip on TV. And he won't forget. We don't forget what is said about us, neither insults nor compliments. I wouldn't expect him to pay back deliberately, I think he tries to be fair-minded. But the simple law of cause-and-effect means that those people have left a stain on any relationship they or their kids might ever have with him or his friends. Maybe an old saying applies to this:

The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine.

Sometimes I hope so, anyway.