Don't Worry, The Blogosphere Is Behind You

RivkA's death has really driven home a point. Yes, the blogosphere really is a community. Of friends, compatriots, supporters, rivals, and everything in between.

On Friday at her shiva -- how odd, and empty, to be in RivkA's home, without her there! -- this topic came up in discussion with her mother and father. Like my own parents, they could not understand at first what would possess a person to write (and especially in RivkA's case, so openly and personally) to a vitual audience, "somewhere out there." After a time, they came to appreciate the regular updates, her shared thoughts, and especially, her very real blogosphere friends.

In RivkA's case, she was a source of information and inspiration to many, many people. Her writing brought people together. As I told her mother on Friday, whenever I read RivkA's blog, I felt the acute presence of others reading alongside me, a tangible community of supporters and friends.

This afternoon I had one of those -- dare I say it -- "Israeli" experiences... and there was Treppenwitz, right there behind me. You can read his whole piece here (recommended), but meanwhile, here's the the part that hit home:

Sadly, when faced with an immigrant making a formal complaint about a perceived insult (even when the insult can't possibly be open to perception and/or interpretation), the default response of many people in this country is, "You must not have understood...", or "That was not my intention...".

This is doubly frustrating for a non-native Hebrew speaker because even in cases where the insult is so glaring as to be beyond misinterpretation, the immigrant is often expected to feign difficulty with the language in order to allow the insulter to climb down from their tree and save face.

Ahh, so true, I nodded as I read along. And so sad, so frustrating. We've all felt this at some point, but for me today's experience took the cake. For the first time in a long time, I felt a tinge of regret for having moved here.

Here I was, standing in front (underneath, really -- it was cranked up on the repair lift) of my decade-old Beloved Renault, the recent victim of an unfortunate but -- thank God -- harmless accident,* with the insurance assessor trying to convince me that he had not listed the obvious damage to the ABS on the insurance claim because I hadn't initially reported it (I had) and maybe I hadn't understood him properly.

Oh uh, Mister Assessor. Now you've done it. Deep breath, short pause. Think of Treppenwitz, and Rev Up Your Engines.

I let the assessor have it. With a capital IT: Don't you dare pull that one. I understood you perfectly. And you know it.

He yelled, I countered (two rounds). He relented. I got the repair approved.

Thank you, David Bogner, for reminding me that I do understand. Perfectly.

Keep the balance,

ALN

* Wouldn't ya know it? Two days prior to the accident, I'd signed on a trade-in deal to have someone pay me to take the Beloved Renault off my hands. Murphy's Law, still valid. Or maybe just Freud. Oy.

Do Good to Feel Good, Part I

Here it is (again), this time via the NYT: Scientific evidence that giving works.

And let's face it, we know this. We all know it, from the inside. Giving promotes health. Thinking about others promotes health. (Thanks again, Prof K, for your insightful reminder).

The article's examples there are numerous. Here's a personal favorite:

An array of studies have documented this effect. In one, a 2002 Boston College study, researchers found that patients with chronic pain fared better when they counseled other pain patients, experiencing less depression, intense pain and disability.

Anyone who has been chronically ill, or who has spent time among the chronically ill, will readily note that a sick person does not want to be the focus of people's help and attention all the time; she wants to listen to others and be there for them. In other words, she wants to feel normal, and being able to help others restores our sense of normalcy.

Unless you're a celebrity, being the constant focus of others is not a normal state of existence. I'm not convinced it does much good for celebrities either, with their constant complaints of telephoto lenses sneaking ou from behind the trash cans, and all those pop songs lamenting the paparazzi. But heck, it's a living.

Turns out that being stuck in your own misery can lead to somatic harm.

By contrast, being self-centered may be damaging to health. In one study of 150 heart patients, researchers found that people in the study who had more “self-references” (those who talked about themselves at length or used more first-person pronouns) had more severe heart disease and did worse on treadmill tests.

I believe it.

I don't usually do this, honest, but I'm even going out on a limb and referencing Dennis Prager's take on happiness, flippant as it sounds, since I think he's got something too.

(I do take issue with his use of the term moral obligation. I don't usually view the use of antiperspirant as a moral obligation either.... a social obligation, maybe, but moral? An exception might be when working with people, such as those on chemo, who may be exceedingly disturbed or nauseated by strong smells. And on Egged buses during the summer months -- OK, that might just be a moral obligation).

Call it CBT, call it common sense, call it a serotonin-inspired warm fuzzy feeling -- the evidence has long been out there. Actions determine mood, and not the other way round.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Don't Have the Answers, But Glad You Asked

The Challenge:  Describe your job in one sentence or less.

My Answer:  My job is to listen to kids.

OK, so sometimes "listening" comes in the form of watching them draw, or joining them as they play, or helping them surf the net, or just sitting nearby while they read.  And, of course, the kids I listen to are sick, or are recovering from being sick, or were sick in the past, or are sick again.

Leave out that last part about the sick kids, and replace what's left with the additional cleaning, laundry, dishwashing, fetching & carrying, and we've just described the Second Shift, a.k.a. The Home Front.

I admit it:  Part of me has been waiting for years for my kids to get a little older, so we could start having some real conversations, the ones that extend beyond "Why can't I have a cookie? But why?!?"  It seems that time has arrived, and the questions have been rolling in.

Elder Princeski will be ten soon, and her questions tend to reflect her newly-developing empathy and Theory of Mind.  Always the Imp has just turned six, but her line of questioning (once she gets past all those unreasonable demands resulting from her sugar addiction) has always pushed the envelope, amplifying her imp-like attributes.

Yesterday afternoon I decided it was time to euthanize the poor goldfish who, having displayed multiple signs of illness for nearly half a year (and had long since been placed in isolation from his healthier peers), was now showing acute signs of imminent status change. 

Elder Princeski took an interest and even assisted.  We used an ice-water bath, recommended as the most humane method by Dick Mills in You and Your Aquarium (London: DK), while Always hid herself away until the deed was done.  Later, of course, there were thoughts and reflections on the matter, which surfaced today during Shabbat lunch.

Always the Imp:  Mommy, when you die, I want to keep the whole house for myself.  But I don't need the things inside it, you can give those to somebody else.

Me:  [Which Left Field did that one come out of?  Oh, maybe it was the fish...] Why?  Do you want me to die soon?

Always:  Of course not, but when you do, much later, when I'm already big...

Elder Princeski:  Mommy, I don't want you to die for a long time... but when you do, I'll keep the things inside the house.  I won't need the house itself because I will be married and my husband will buy me a house.

(Short discussion on the topic of religious vs civil inheritance laws.)

The conversation then evolved into a series of questions about Grandma (that's my 95-year-old grandmother -- see here), wondering how much longer she would continue to live, and if she wants to live much longer, and whether, were she to become very sick, dependent, and pain-ridden, she would choose to die (from what she has told me in the past, I wouldn't put it past her).   

We did our best to answer all of these clearly and honestly, with equal measures of optimism and realism.

Then there were questions about death itself.  What does it feel like?, and Does it hurt? and Do people know they're dying?   I told them about the reports I had read on near-death experiences, in which people described feelings of well-being, comfort, and being reunited with lost loved ones.  I told them that no one could prove whether these things really happen, but that many people felt and believed that this is what had happened to them.

Throughout this conversation, my internal voice was asking how much of an influence my Day Job was having here on the Home Front.  I think about death a lot, because I encounter death a lot, and so it is on my mind --  sometimes at a frequency that surpasses what I would consider to be a level of healthy denial.  

I try to keep that to myself, at least around the kids, but as they grow older they develop an awareness of what I do for a living;  Elder Princeski has even accompanied me to work events a couple of times. Sometimes they ask questions about work, and while I don't shy away from answering, I try to keep my answers short and to the point.  

The thing is, kids know about death.  They think about death.  They wonder about it, and they have questions.  At a certain point, they lose their dog, or their grandfather, or their neighbor, or their parent, and they learn that death can't be avoided.   

All of this obligates us to invite their questions, listen to their concerns, and share some answers -- gradually, thoughtfully, and straightforwardly.  Which we tried to do this afternoon.

Suppertime brought with it a whole slew of questions, this time about Down Syndrome, its causes and effects.  For another time...

Keep the balance,

ALN

Thought for the Day

I found these photos pretty fascinating, c/o The New York Times.

Not to exaggerate a metaphor, but how aware are we, really, of the effects and ramifications of everything that comes out of our mouths?

Apparently it's graphically traceable: By virtue of our very movement, we affect the world around us in countless ways.

What a thought.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Speaking of Jet Lag, Part 2

We don't actually have to go anywhere to develop a national jet lag.

In the midst of cajoling our memories to backtrack and retrack our conversation, my friend S. and I found ourselves sharing a mutual sympathy for the unwanted exhaustion following that wacky tradition known as returning to Standard Time, aka Greenwich Mean +2.

(As for Daylight Saving Time -- or Daylight Shifting Time, depending on whom you ask -- we have Benjamin Franklin to thank for that.  Ben, maybe you should've stuck to writing the Almanac, dating French women and flying kites in the rain).

It never made much sense to me.  After all, if there's such a discrepancy in daylight hours between the winter and summer seasons, wouldn't it be more logical to even things out over the course of the year by extending daylight waking hours during the winter, and curtailing them over the summer?

This year's confusion started on the Sunday morning between Rosh haShana and Yom Kippur, which is when we Israelis switch back the clocks in a superfluous attempt to convince ourselves that the Yom Kippur fast is in fact shorter than it actually is.  I was unaware that my handheld digital devices knew enough to reset their own chronometers, which is why, when I got out of bed in the morning, I mistakenly assumed I had an hour and five minutes to get Elder Princeski and myself ready and out the door, instead of the five minutes actually allotted.  To her credit, she made the school bus on time.

I know there are benefits to Standard Time.  By half past five in the afternoon my kids are already clamoring for their supper, convinced that night is upon us and I have neglected to notice.  

But just try convincing my brain that this time shift thing is a good idea.  I wake up at five anyway, and start to doze by ten.  Jet lag, I say.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Nine Days to Go...

I admit it:  Over the past two days, my mind was wandering during parts of the tefila (prayer).  No, not just the repetition, my own tefila.  Much of what I was thinking about was teshuva (repentence), more often than not, the teshuva I'm not doing, don't know how to do, or don't have the strength to do.  Since these ten days from Rosh haShana until Yom Kipur are designated "teshuva days," I guess I have some additional time.  Meanwhile, over the holiday, one thought was especially plaguing me.

Over the past few weeks I offended an acquaintance.  Not by something I said, exactly, rather by something I did, but we all know what speaks louder than words.

The irony is that, as in I did not mean to offend her.  Furthermore, I did not want to offend her, had no reason to offend her.  Had I been thinking in a certain direction, I would have easily developed a clearer understanding of how my actions could be construed as hurtful. but I wasn't thinking about that at all.

During tefila, I came to a new understanding of a rather simple concept:  So many, perhaps a majority, of the occasions we hurt people, come about not because we are trying to hurt them , but because we haven't considered how our motivations and actions will affect them.  We act based on what we want or need, but our precious egos constrict our consideration for the minds and hearts beyond our own.  

How many times have I been offended by someone who either didn't mean to offend me, or didn't mind offending me because his own desires took priority?  Millions of times.  This ego, which gives us the strength and courage to be productive, empathic, motivated people, is often too full of strength and bravado for our own good.

Perhaps for this reason, the Jewish people are always being called on to see things from a "G-d perspective," especially during this time of year.  Whether or not a person chooses to believe in G-d is almost irrelevant -- in any event, we all understand what it means to sometimes question the existence / power / presence of G-d. 

However, when we are asked, offered, or demanded to view things from the G-d perspective, we are required to look beyond ourselves and see things globally.  How does G-d really see the big picture?  How does G-d make sure everyone's needs get met?  To what extent do events in one place affect those in another?  How do my actions, my motivations, affect my friend, my neighbor, my colleague, my fellow humans?  

I don't have the answers.  I only have a blessing for myself and others:  That we will shape our own motivations and actions with more empathy, compassion, and understanding toward the motivations and actions of others. 

Keep the balance,

ALN