COPING WITH COVID – No Better Time for Seeing Generously

 At first glance, vision may seem like a simple one-way transaction. We open our eyes. An image goes in and gets processed by the mind. If it's something important, it may move us to feel or do something, or it gets stored somewhere for future reference.

In fact, it's easy to think of all our senses like that—merely taking in sensations. But it doesn't have to be that way. Consider touch. I mean we generally see, hear, taste or smell anonymously—without any involvement of the thing we're sensing. But when we touch something, it always, automatically, touches us back. 

REAPING WHAT WE SOW
Until recently, I thought touch was the only one of our conventional senses that could do that. But with COVID-19 trying to suck the life out of our touching, it seems a good time to reconsider the reach and intention of our other senses.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if seeing were more like touch? If one could actually impart something akin to the warmth and gentle pressure of a hug or holding hands without violating social distancing guidelines?

        You purposely, preemptively, dismiss the
        distractions and open your soul to wonder
        before you even know it’s there.

It's hard to imagine, because we've gotten complacent in our seeing. We expect to find our images delivered effortlessly to us on screens, often while sitting alone or at least in our own little worlds. With virtually no contact with the actual things depicted on the screen, it's kind of a sad exercise in anonymity.

This consumption mentality of seeing affects even the way we perceive real stuff. For example, we seem to prefer looking at things we already know. Like so many TV re-runs, their familiarity soothes us, keeps us company, actually turns off our minds. Nothing's really new. We give nothing, we invest nothing and, one could argue, we get nothing.

So what is seeing generously? What does it look like?

Is our seeing all it can be?

A CURIOUS TRANSACTION
It may happen unconsciously. Let's say you're looking at something—an animal, a sunset, another person. If, at that moment, your mind has its foot on your spirit, you won't be especially moved. But as soon as you begin to let go of objectives and schedules, turn of the cell phone and truly notice, something begins to change. 

You start seeing more proactively. That is, instead of waiting for small wonders to strike your visual fancy, you actually go looking for them. Instead of expecting them to somehow crack through your inattention, your distraction, you, at least now and then, purposely, preemptively, dismiss the distractions and open your soul to wonder before you even know it’s there.

            When we see things in this way, we grow,
       our consciousness grows and the world
       becomes a more mindful, loving place.

At first, it may be just small increments of investment, feelings like appreciation or satisfaction. That's okay; it's a start. But then, if you can allow yourself to be curious, the way you were naturally when you were a child, the transaction starts to truly transform.
 
Now your seeing's become a gift, not just to yourself, but to the person or thing you're curious about. When we see things in this way—not just with our eyes, or even our mind, but with our heart and our spirit—we grow, our consciousness grows and the world becomes a more mindful, loving place.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Have you ever noticed the way a person lights up when the conversation turns from the typical self-promoting, cocktail party chatter to genuine interest in something that really matters to that person? You know, when "Me, me, me…well, enough about me. What do you think about me?" turns to "What about you? What are you interested in?"  When we see someone that way—or when we wonder at one of Nature's miracles—that's a blessing we give to that person, that creature or that thing.

This is even more important during this historic confluence of pandemic with what may well be the most frightening political collapse we've ever experienced in the U.S. It's a time when those with the emotional maturity to do so must recognize other folks' pain and loneliness. If we're ever able to reconcile our differences, we must learn to view even our most bitter political enemies with compassion. 

That is how seeing generously looks and sounds...and has to be.

Do you see generously? Does your ability to do so hinge on what's going on in your life and in the world? Think you'd still be able to if Donald Trump' reign of error continues for another term? We'd love to hear about your ideas and experiences!

CAST IN A NEW LIGHT – The Real Reason for the Blue-mination of City Streets

An opinion piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune the the day caught my eye. It's by Paul Bogard, a fellow Minneapolitan, author of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light.

The piece is Bogard's reaction to a July 17 Strib news article headlined "LED streetlight change puts cities in new (harsher?) light." The essence of his commentary is that the growing embrace of high-color-temperature LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology for street lighting by cities across the U.S.—including his and my home base, Minneapolis/St. Paul—is an ill-considered, shortsighted decision with far-reaching effects on those cities' inhabitants, both human and otherwise.

Click on image to see Madrid street lighting 2011 vs. 2015 – IMAGE: Tech Insider

He cites research by the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization showing that light emitted by the types of LEDs being adopted— those with the bluish-white light of Kelvin color temperatures over 4,000 degrees—compromises human health, causing sleep disorders, confusing circadian rhythms and even increasing risks for some types of cancers.

He makes an equally compelling argument for the adverse effects on non-human nocturnal critters, including 30 percent of vertebrates, 60 percent of invertebrates and insects we depend on for pollination.

All this in the name of safety—one of several LED selling points Bogard refutes.

   Are there really folks who 
   enjoy seeing the view ahead impaled on those 
   slashing swords of ice?

A BUSLOAD OF ALIENS
What Bogard fails to mention is the effect the icy stare of high-Kelvin-color lighting on the human psyche. It would be bad enough if we were choosing it just for city streets. But the soulless glare also emanates from folks' back-yard security lights, lighting in public spaces and transit vehicles, and even from newer LED flashlights.

One evening this past spring, as I drove home from work well after dark, I passed a city bus. The lighting inside it was that cold, bluish color. I imagined myself riding that bus, and, barring an exceptionally friendly conversation with a fellow passenger, how utterly alien it would feel.

And don't get me going on car headlights. Are there really folks who enjoy seeing the view ahead impaled on those slashing swords of ice? I know it's judgmental, but the easiest answer is that, along with the renewed trend toward bigger, "badder" cars and trucks, this is an act of pure aggression. In your face, buddy!

PHOTO: PaulTech Network

Back in my college days I flew quite often back and forth between Minnesota and the East Coast. I witnessed, from the air, the first mass experiments in mercury vapor street lighting, another technology challenged by unfortunate coloring.

In the New York City megalopolis, one city or borough might have been awash in indifferent, blue light; another, separated by just a street, train tracks or river, in much warmer, supposedly color-corrected, but still unnatural-looking pink or yellow. And a few neighborhoods still basked in their good-old, cozy incandescent lights. I remember how those stood out, like islands of humanity in a dead sea. I thought that's where I'd live if I were down there.
 
   The fear has reared its Chicken-Little head 
   in advertising, music, politics, and a seemingly 
   endless series of zombie, dystopian-world novels 
   and films.

US VERSUS THEM
Perhaps it will shed some, well, light on this "blue-mination phenomenon to see it in its larger context.

We’re living in a world the media, along with some shameless, demagogic politicians, has convinced some of us is more dangerous than at any time in memory. Radical Muslims beating down our door; immigrants stealing our jobs and corrupting our culture; cops (or African Americans, if you're on that side of the "war") making a mockery of Amurican justice.

It seems anyone with an outsize ego or a buck to make is trying to capitalize on the amorphous, baseless fear. It's reared its Chicken-Little head in advertising, where folks are portrayed lying, intimidating and stealing—even from loved ones; in music, with aggressive, take-no-prisoners sound and lyrics, in neurotic, polarizing politics, and in a seemingly endless series of zombie, dystopian-world novels and films.

Yep, it’s us versus them or else…or else I guess it doesn't sell.

               Warm light makes us feel close, 
               welcoming and secure.

CANDLES AND CAMPFIRES
Be afraid, be very afraid, they say. Close the borders; keep your daughters home; lock every door…and kick some serious ass with those ruthless blue lights. Call me a wimp; call me old-fashioned. But in an insecure, paranoid world, keeping warm lights burning—like the proverbial home fires and candle in the window—might just go a long way toward salving the savage beast.

There's a reason human beings soften in candlelight, turn to song round the campfire, and take amazing, glowing photos is that precious light just before dusk. Warm light makes us feel close, welcoming and secure. Feelings I do not fear.

FALLING SENSATION – The Sad Decline of Empathy

“You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.”   
  JOHN STEINBECK

Are you an empath? How does one even know?

Some time in my thirties my own answers to those questions presented themselves to me. I was watching some kids playing. One little brat tripped a playmate—a klutzy little boy—who fell like a ton of bricks, skinning a knee and a wrist. As he was falling I felt this sinking sensation in my gut…as if I were the one falling.

I’ve experienced that sensation many, many times since. It doesn’t matter who’s falling—a child, an adult…even a bad guy—nor if the fall occurs in real life, a movie or the tiny screen of my iPhone. As long as it’s a fellow human being I always end up sharing the drop. (It’s funny, though; I don’t remember ever feeling it when I see a pro football player falling. Why do you suppose that is?)

I also catch myself absorbing all kinds of other little human dramas—from kindnesses to conflict, gladness to grief. Is there something wrong with me? Do I just have too little emotion in my own life? At times I wish I could turn it off.

If Empathy 101 is simply learning to be aware of and experience others' pain, then the next semester would start instilling the ability to truly care what happens to them. It's what psychologists call "transcendence," a deep-seated desire to see and help others achieve their potential. Perhaps it takes an idealist like me to hope this sort of altruism would beat in the heart and soul of every person, organization and culture.

And I hope it applies not just to what happens to other human beings in the here and now, but even to what might happen in the future after we're dead and gone. I can think of no more telling measure of this kind of empathy than our wise, gentle care and handling of the environment so that future generations may enjoy the same kinds of joyful connection with Nature we experienced when we were young.

   It gets beaten down, covered up…by an ugly 
   collaboration...conspiring to make what’s really 
   all about them feel like it’s all about us.

HARD-WIRED, SHORTED OUT
Empathy, like so many of our better, more practical emotions, is hard-wired into us at birth. How do I know this? First, there’s a wealth of research showing it. And there’s also an element of logic: why, if empathy is not meant to help guide our behavior toward other human beings, would I feel absolutely none of that sinking feeling when I witness an animal falling?

The good news is that this inherent spark of empathy can be kindled—through experience, teaching, role-modeling and the influence of Nature. The bad news? Judging from the growing number of folks who seem to have utterly lost it, apparently it can also be extinguished.

Like children’s inbred curiosity and wonder, empathy too often gets beaten down, covered up, by years of learned structure, stress and cynicism. By values drummed into us by an ugly collaboration of sometimes-dirty players like commerce, politics and the media—all conspiring to make what’s really all about them feel like it’s all about us.

      Scheming, conflict, denigration and gotchas
      —that’s what they’ve decided we want.

A FAUSTIAN BARGAIN
The dying out of empathy is not an illness; it is a symptom—of a disease brought on by the Faustian bargain the past few generations have signed onto: we get to make more money, accumulate more stuff, pretend to be “connected” with more people and information. In exchange for that illusion of power, knowledge and love, we agree to allow the circumference of our real, first-hand experience be ever shrunk, reduced to what’s determined by some algorithm to suit us, and then spoon-fed to us through a phalanx of little glowing screens.

Among the collateral damage inflicted by this attack has been the loss of empathy, that most precious survival mechanism, the one that used to give us true connection, allowed us to be kinder, more collaborative, more creative…and kept most of us from killing each other.

But someone's decided kindness and civility no longer sell ad space, air time or bandwidth. So, nearly everywhere one looks—entertainment, advertising, journalism, politics—it’s all gotten turned upside down. Now more and more of the human interaction we see on our screens involves scheming, conflict, denigration and gotchas.

One of the most obvious casualties, during this election year, is an entire political party—one claiming to represent more than half the people in the United States. It has turned, in the past decade or two, from its roots as the protector of individual freedoms and opportunity to an angry, take-no-prisoners ideology based on fear, judgement and control. (I'll let you decide for yourself which one that is.)

If that’s what the powers that be have decided we want, it’s far from what I consider being human to be all about.

Teach them that the way they see the world around them is a product of what’s going on inside them

THE WORLD IS A MIRROR
So, what do you want? Are you still able to see the essential core of goodness in every human being and truly care what happens to them? Can you still feel someone else’s hardship and pain in your gut, even folks who might be quite different from you? Do you care what happens to this precious planet even after your life on it is over?

After all we’ve traded away let’s take a step or two backward and revisit that Faustian bargain. If we won’t reclaim real connections with each other and with the earth for ourselves, let’s at least do it for our kids and grandkids. Teach them that the way they see the world around them is a product of what’s going on inside them—their awareness, their curiosity, their kindness, their sense of wonder. And teach them never again to bargain away those gifts.

And teach them that, at the very heart of what makes us human lies a generosity of seeing that makes what we perceive hinge directly on what we are willing to give of ourselves to that connection.
 

“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”
  ROGER EBERT

WHY DIDN’T THE DONALD DUCK? – How Trump Got Blindsided by Nature Deficit Disorder

Over the past six-plus months since Donald Trump announced his candidacy, my feelings about the man have turned from dismissal, to mild amusement, to curiosity, and eventually to a growing concern.

Could a candidate with such incredible lack of character and judgement, such a narcissistic raison d’être, really be appealing to so many Republican voters? Is it even remotely possible he might actually win and turn the U.S. Presidency into a reality show?

A KINDER, GENTLER RESPONSE
I asked myself Is this ridiculous guy really to be feared? Is my fear any better placed than the kind he's been sowing in his rants about race, immigration and gender identity? And then it dawned on me: There must be a kinder, gentler—and perhaps ultimately more effective—response than fear.

I think I’ve found that more-compassionate response: Donald Trump, the poor man, is quite ill.

Of course Trump and his organization don’t want us to know this; he’s been hiding his condition—one we’re only now discovering has been there, eating away at him, for decades. But, to those accustomed to spotting this illness, there have been signs.

      Donald Trump has never once experienced 
      anything bigger or more awe-inspiring than 
      himself.

HEALTHY IS AS HEALTHY DOES
Have you noticed that the man has never appeared in public with a real sun tan? Under the fake bronzing, the $5,000-dollar suit and the $50 toupee, do you see those chubby little cheeks and that soft, doughy body? Those oddly uncoordinated movements—the flailing hands and wagging finger; the kissy, sneery contractions of his facial muscles?

Then there’s the obvious emotional deficit, evidenced by Trump’s child-like outbursts, alternating between playground mocking and name-calling, ridicule and rage. The man lacks self control; he demands constant, instant gratification; and he's possessed by fear. No wonder he can’t help blurting out the first angry thing that comes to his challenged mind.

AN EMPTY COCOON
How has it gotten this bad? For starters, the poor guy was born and raised in New York City, surrounded by nothing more inspiring than buildings and pavement. He’s never climbed a tree, hiked up a hill or paddled a canoe. Never just sat and played with a pebble or a stick. Doesn’t know how air, earth, water and living things move and interact.

He’s never experienced Nature teaching him, providing for him or showing him the way. That may explain why he’s so incredibly self-obsessed, chasing the illusion that he, not the earth—not life—is the center of it all. Like other sufferers of his ailment, he’s stuck in a kind of personal hell, a place packed with symbols of wealth and fame, but utterly devoid of substance.

         His ailment is one medical research 
         has shown to affect many “reality” stars.

Donald Trump has never once experienced anything bigger or more awe-inspiring than himself. He’s been deprived of that priceless perspective—the sense of being both important and insignificant at the same time—most kids develop from the simplest interactions with Nature. The only context in which Donald knows how things really work is the cocoon of artificial beauty and worth he himself has created.

A VICTIM OF HIS OWN FAME
Trump wouldn’t know a robin from a road-runner. Of course, it's not his fault, since he never had the experiences every kid needs to grow up a complete, healthy human being. He's never frolicked in a leaf pile, dug in the soil or dammed a street gutter after it rains. Never been curious. Never built a tree house and learned all those essential lessons about how things work—saws, nails, pulleys…gravity—and how pieces and spaces fit together in the real world. 

With such a malnourished childhood, it’s a wonder Trump ever achieved any measure of success. But his ailment is one medical research has shown to affect many “reality” stars. To a person, they compensate for their lack of personal virtues by surrounding themselves with empty symbols of wealth and rationalizing that everyone and everything else on earth was created to adore them.

Reality? These poor souls couldn't be further from it.

But we must not blame the victims; it’s not their fault they’ve never had a chance to be humbled by Nature—never gotten lost in the woods, had to build a fire or live off of the land by their own wits and will. Never sat in awe of a mountain, storm or waterfall.
              Donald Trump is the poster child 
              for Nature Deficit Disorder. 

MEET HYPONATUROSIS DEBILIS
So what is this disease that’s consuming the most pitiful reality star of them all? It's called hyponaturosis debilis, or, more commonly, Nature Deficit Disorder. First identified in 2005 by journalist and author Richard Louv, the disease, stemming from a chronic deficiency of vitamin N—regular exposure to Nature—attacks nearly all aspects of its victims' health—physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

Nature Deficit Disorder nearly always develops during childhood, and most often affects children whose parents—or whose life situation—fails to afford them the whole-person nourishment offered by playing and exploring freely out of doors.

Typical adult symptoms include: flabbiness, lack of coordination, pasty complexion and a range of psychological manifestations: exaggerated sense of self worth, over-the-top competitiveness, obsession with the accoutrements of wealth, fame and power, and frequent loss of touch with reality.

Also present are paranoia, a poorly-developed sense of spatial and time perspective, and a contingent symptom known as the alabori syndrome—the illusion that self-reliance means what you can get others to do for you.

At last, it's all so clear. How could I have held Donald Trump accountable for his aberrant values, attitudes and behavior all this time? My God, the poor guy is the poster child for Nature Deficit Disorder.

_________________________________________________________________

DOES KICKING A GOLF BALL COUNT?
Okay, now I’ve heard that the patient does love to play golf. So why hasn’t that exposure to Nature served to mitigate the disease? Because, like the spoiled child who hides the pill under his tongue till his mom leaves the room and then spits it out, he’s become adept at shielding himself from any real connection with Nature.

Do you really believe Trump, consumed as he is in self-promotion and deal-making, is aware in the slightest of the wonders dwelling in the woods and creek along the 11th fairway at Trump National Palm Beach?  And do you think Donald Trump walks more than the requisite four steps from his little cart to his ball and back? Okay, maybe five when, as he’s known to do, he subtly kicks his ball to a better lie.
__________________________________________________________________

     Vitamin N, unlike the treatments for 
     many diseases, is foolproof, readily available 
     and free of charge.

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY
So what’s to be done? First of all, let poor Donald Trump be our motivation to double down on what’s become a worldwide epidemic of this tragic disease. We must be vigilant in spotting the symptoms of Nature Deficit Disorder—in our own children and grandchildren, and in ourselves—and intervene quickly. Vitamin N, unlike the treatments for many diseases, is foolproof, readily available and free of charge.

And what of those who, like Trump, have suffered so long that they’re already deeply, irreversibly scarred by Nature Deficit Disorder? First, we must be compassionate. Try to understand the pain Trump must be feeling. When he mouths off, let us simply nod, smile and act as if we actually cared; that can bring some measure of comfort.

But in cases this advanced, even that measured response risks contagion, resulting in still more victims gradually turning inward, disconnecting from real life and all things naturally beautiful, healthy and true. To minimize the risk, Nature therapy practitioners advise wearing an eye mask and ear plugs whenever there's the slightest chance of being exposed to anything Trump.

I'm not a therapist, but I recommend nose plugs too.