Pride, Good and Bad

"If we ignore the beautiful and look on down the road for some future time of happiness, chances are it won't be any different.  Perfect times are brief intervals between the ordinary.  They create an illusion that life should be lived on some mountain top ecstasy.  But we are not made to be out of this world.  Our minds and bodies couldn't take it.  The high and the low are connected.  Most of the time we live in between - but that middle ground can be as rewarding as the highest plain."  

More wisdom from the Cherokees.  More emphasis on balance and perspective.  Once I started looking for this mindset I began to see it everywhere, especially in spiritual thought.  Not too high and not too low.  It's not going to be as bad as you imagine it's going to be and it won't be as great, either.

Pride:  A feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction drives from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.

In psychology pride is often divided into two categories: Authentic Pride which is characterized by words such as accomplished or confident, and Hubristic Pride, characterized by words such as arrogant and conceited.   One is associated with self-esteem; the other with narcissism.  The Bible calls pride extreme love of oneself and warns that pride goes before a fall.  I can use pride to push myself to achieve things that I find valuable and that impress others in society which increases my prestige in a social hierarchy.  We are, after all, very social creatures, we humans.  And I can use pride to dominate and intimidate those around me, to gain power and prestige.  Often there's a little bit of both in play.  If I want to run a marathon but I'm smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day then I can imagine the pride I would feel if I quit smoking and start to run, to train, and then to feel a tremendous sense of self-worth once I've completed the marathon.  Without pride in myself I wouldn't put in the effort.  Then I have to be careful not to talk about my accomplishments incessantly or to belittle someone who runs a half-marathon.  It's okay to be proud of myself but it's unseemly to be too proud of myself.

See?  The concept of right-in-the-middle again.

ALL Our Traditions

Our Twelfth Tradition states: "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities."

Principle:  A fundamental truth that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.

I've looked up anonymity enough times to know that it comes from the Greek root meaning "without a name."  No name known or given.  Something without distinguishing characteristics.  If you think you have a hold on this concept try giving a gift or money to someone without taking credit for it.  Yeah, it's not that easy.

Here's something from the text of Ten: "The spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrifice.  Because A.A.'s Twelve Traditions repeatedly ask us to give up personal desires for the common good, we realize that the sacrificial spirit - well symbolized by anonymity - is the foundation of them all."

Let me repeat: the characteristic of anonymity, expressed is selfless service to others, is the foundation of ALL of our Traditions.  That's a pretty big concept.

So is the precept that it's usually for the best when we give up our fascination with our own personal needs and wants and instead concentrate on what's best for the common good.  We could use some of that in our modern society.  Individualism is all well and good until it becomes nothing more than pure selfishness.

And here's a suggestion for most of us jumpy people - no social media for a half hour after you get up and no social media the half hour before you jump into bed.  Trust me - there's nothing going on that can't wait that half hour and it just might calm your brain down a tad.

The Middle Way

Buddhism talks of the concept of the Middle Way, a way not based on an aversion to the world, nor on attachment, but a way based on inclusion and compassion.  Alcoholics Anonymous talks of this same concept but promotes the idea of balance, of getting in the middle instead of living on the ragged edge of All or Nothing, full acceleration or useless idling.  I need to quit thinking about good or bad.  I need to slow down when it's time to idle and speed up when it's time to get somewhere.  I don't think most humans are geared this way and I'm sure as shit not made to sit in the middle.

Buddhism also suggests that each of us find a type of spiritual practice we find helpful and then to stick with it.  I'm not geared this way, either, preferring to jump from this to that or go from here to there.  Fast, really fast!  I find myself pondering what needs to be done or how anything that's already done can be improved.  I get a lot done but I don't enjoy my accomplishments as much as I should because I'm always looking further down the road.  There isn't shit down there, anyhow.  It's all right here.

I am still chuckling at my current experiment where I break my day down into hour long segments or - better yet - half hour increments and then briefly jot down what I did during that segment.  I cannot believe how jumpy I am.  I'm here and there, I'm all over the place,  and I can't sit down for fifteen minutes without changing my mind and bouncing from task to task, doing a lot of things but none of them very well.  I'm also surprised at how resistant I am to enjoying what it is I'm - you know - actually doing because I'm thinking of all the stuff - stuff that doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the long run - that I think I need to get done.  I feel incomplete if I don't finish something that isn't very important.  I am trying to concentrate on that Cherokee saying that suggests that soon we will sit in the sun all day and be happy that we can sit in the sun all day and be happy.  What a beautiful sentiment!  And so appropriate during the middling days of Autumn when we get to enjoy sunny but not hot days and cool but not freeze-your-ass-off-cold nights and the sun!  The angle of its rays dropping down to the Southern horizon instead of parking itself right straight above.

68

I'm looking down the barrel at 68.  That's not nothing, I'll tell you that.  And I'm laughing all the time at the conflict between my mind - which hints I'm like 40 - and my body - which hints that I'm looking down the barrel at 68.  My favorite concept in the world - Balance! - reminds me that both ends of a dichotomy can exhibit some truth.  I try to live my life like a 40 year old while treating my body - at times, anyway - like it's 68 years old.  Today a good workout is getting into and out of my  low-slung sports car without groaning so loud nearby windows shake.  Part of the mindset is to deny the inevitable facts of aging the self-indulgent pleasures of woe and complaining; instead, let's get out there and keep moving.  Gotta keep moving . . .  I ask people why my hour long walks now take an hour and fifteen minutes?  When did a mile stretch out into two?  Who the hell keeps tilting the hills around here up another few degrees?  When did my knees start informing me that they'd rather I go uphill than down?  When did that become a thing?

I remember when I was so healthy I never went to the doctor or the dentist and suffered few repurcussions.  And when I began getting regular check-ups those people rarely found anything wrong.  Now I'm happy when they only find a couple of things wrong.  That's a win.  That and not finding anything awful wrong, nothing fatal.  I think I'm still trying to cheat death . . . 

In my meeting there are plenty of people my age and a handful more who are older yet.  Some of them are healthy and some of them are balky and some of them suffer all kinds of painful and debilitating ailments, and I get to watch as this decline happens.  As we get older we injure more easily, too - that spill I took on a concrete walkway a few months ago took a while to shake off.  The skin doctor I saw a couple of weeks ago prescribed a chemo ointment to apply to a possibly pre-cancerous sore on my lower lip.  As the treatment has progressed the outcome has been the bloody death of a lot of cells on my lower lip.  I look like I got decked by a Boston brawler when I get up in the morning: bloody spots and crusty scabs.  Very elegant.  Very attractive.  Very comely.

What inspires me is the quiet dignity that these folks -  and me, too! - exhibit during this slow decline.  We talk about our aches and pains but not all the time and with humor and perspective.  There's a difference between sharing our little woes and whining, complaining, bitching.  No one likes an older person providing a great deal of detail re: oozing sores and bloody scabs, etc. etc. etc.  I just simply do not hear much complaining and I do not hear people going over their aches and pains at length.  Mostly, we fucking joke about it.  As in: "It makes my day watching you contort your body getting out of that car"  which prompts the reply: "Hey, this counts as my workout today.'

Pain V Pleasure

"According to Buddhist scriptures, compassion is the 'quivering of the pure heart' when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life.  Then, we can sustain a presence in the midst of life's suffering, in the midst of life's fleeting impermanence.  We can open to the world - its ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows.  We begin to recognize that just as there is pain in our own lives, so there is pain in everyone else's life.  This is the birth of wise understanding.  Wise understanding sees that suffering is inevitable, that all things that are born . .  . and die.  This is the purpose of a spiritual discipline and of choosing a path with heart - to discover peace and connectedness in ourselves and to stop the war in us and around us."

In jarring juxtaposition this old axiom popped into my head right after I read the above: "Don't piss off an old person - the older we get the less 'Life in prison' is a deterrant."  Not sure what the connection is to the Buddhist text.

I worry sometimes about the fact I confuse happiness with joy.  I think happiness, deep down, is overrated because it means that I'm pleased when shit goes my way and pissed when it doesn't.  I think I can be joyful just being alive, good or bad, pleasant or painful.

Here's another one I like: "Live your life as if this day is your last but plan as if you're going to live forever."

The Plagues Again

Jack Kornfield speaketh: "When we step out of the battle, we see how each of us creates conflict.  We see our constant likes and dislikes, the fight to resist all that frightens us.  We see our own prejudice, greed, and territoriality.  All this is hard for us to look at, but it is really there.  Then underneath these ongoing battles, we see pervasive feelings of incompleteness and fear.  When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment.  This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice.  To come into the present is to stop the war.  To come into the present means to experience whatever is here and now.  Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future, in regret, guilt, or shame about  the past.  When we come into the  present, we begin to feel the life around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding."

Whenver I start to perceive a creeping, oozing sense of smugness and pride about my own wisdom and experience and intellect I invariably run into some dude who can cut through the crap and make cogent observations like this above.

I repeated this phrase to a fellow A.A. this morning: "The good news about sobriety is that we get to feel everything again but the bad news about sobriety is that we get to feel everything again," then I ducked a right cross and this was from a woman I consider a dear friend.  Seriously, it's not easy, ever, to sit with pain and fear but it's downright miserable when we're at all new.  And the idea that we chase pleasure and flee from pain can be found in literally every spiritual movement ever created.

I must repeat once again one of my most beloved passages from the 12 & 12: "Until now our lives have largely been devoted to running from pain and problems.  We fled from them as from a plague.  We never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering."  I like that the phenomenon of suffering is labeled a "fact."  As in, we all have to/get to suffer at times.  

A Basic Primer on Touching Hot Metal Surfaces

Tradition Ten states that " . . . A.A. ought never be organized . . .  " and the 12 & 12 has a number of - in retrospect - pretty hilarious anecdotes about the shit that self-righteous but well-meaning alcoholics tried to pull early on in our history.  We often mean well or at least we try to hide self-serving motives under a patina of well-meaning motives.

There's a lot of text that sounds contradictory.  We are quick to point out that most A.A.s, once established, are willing to take advice, while emphasizing that those stubborn individuals who aren't quite as willing to take advice from self-righteous long-timers have every right to ignore advice but  still sit in a meeting.  And have you ever written or called our Central Office in New York?  Invariably there counsel is along the lines of " . . . the majority experience is this or that, but you, of course, are free to do whatever you want as long as A.A. as a whole isn't adversely affected . . . "

One of the recovery precepts that has really stuck with me is the idea that if an alcoholic doesn't follow our spiritual principles then any set-backs that may occur is because of this unwillingness to follow our Program as it's outlined in the Big Book and not a punishment meted out by A.A. itself.  The 12 & 12 says it better than I can: "His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalities inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles."  If someone tells you that a plate is hot and you touch it anyway and get burned don't get mad at the person who told you the plate was hot.  And don't get mad at the plate, either.  Sure as shit don't get mad at me for telling this long and barely interesting story.  If you need to get mad get mad at the laws of thermodynamics.  I'm not intimately familiar with them but one of them explains that hot shit burns skin, something like that. 

More from the Step: "So we of A.A. do obey spiritual principles, first because we must, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings.  Great love and great suffering are A.A.'s disciplinarians; we need no others."