What We Need is a Wise Grandma

 

 

Dilip V. Jeste, a psychiatrist, decided to focus his medical career on helping the elderly age well instead of merely treating ailments. 

 

This goal led him to a commentary on wisdom.

 

After Jeste surveyed both modern and ancient texts, he found that across the globe, cultures agree on what a wise person is.

 

·        Their traits include compassion, empathy, sound social reasoning, decision-making, equanimity, tolerance of divergent values, and comfort with uncertainty and ambiguity. 

 

Although I am primarily focusing on the elders of our group, I'm praising many of today's youth, for many are stepping up to the plate and making a difference. Think of #Emma Gonzalez, a high school senior who gave an impassioned speech regarding school shootings. (Feb. 17, 2018) Excerpt:

 

"Every single person up here today, all these people should be home grieving. But instead, we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it's time for victims to be the change we need to see. Since the time of the Founding Fathers and since they added the Second Amendment to the Constitution, our guns have developed at a rate that leaves me dizzy. The guns have changed, but our laws have not."…

 

"I read something very powerful to me today. It was from the point of view of a teacher. And I quote: 'When adults tell me I have the right to own a gun, all I can hear is my right to own a gun outweighs your student's right to live. All I hear is mine, mine, mine, mine.'"

 

I've heard it said that today's kids were born "Cable ready."

 

 I was drawn to write about wisdom after a blog reader submitted a blog content titled

7 Tips for Discovering Positivity and Inspiration During a Mid-Life Crisis

An old saw states, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." I was thinking of the concept of a mid-life crisis when Dilip V. Jeste's commentary on wisdom decided to appear.

 

It took me back to my college days when I learned about Abraham Maslow's Self-Actualized human being. (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970). His humanistic approach to ills diverged from Sigmund Freud's approach, which focused on unhealthy individuals engaging in disturbing conduct. 

 

Maslow's humanistic approach focused on healthy individuals.

Maslow stated that people have an inborn desire to be self-actualized. To achieve this lofty goal, however, basic needs need to be met. This includes the need for food, safety, love, and self-esteem. 

 

Here is a pyramid of Maslow's hierarchy of basic needs that motivate people

 

 

 

This brings me to NOW and how we as individuals could see a mid-life crisis or the  many passages of our lives not as a road block, but as a way to grow as humane individuals. 

 

Most of us don't have a wise old grandma whose lap we can lay our heads and weep out our woes. She would stroke our hair and say, "Now honey, this too will pass. Your kids are grown, but that doesn't mean you're to be put out to pasture. It simply means a new adventure and a new contribution. Right now, your nerves are in turmoil, but remember, it wasn't much fun when puberty slapped us, either.” 

 

“We've lived through good times and bad, and we're here. You have your life ahead. You have a contribution to give, now dry your tears, and get to work. That's the reason we live past childbearing years—to see that our species continues. And be joyful, kiddo—that's the secret.”

 

And after blasting through a Netflix documentary series titled Down to Earth with Zac Efron, starring and produced by  Zac Efron and Darin Olien, a carnivore and a vegan who searched the Australian continent for sustainable living conditions. I realized that instead of bemoaning our conditions, we need to get to work. 

 

I think I will begin with composting. Adding compost to the soil will build it up. If the soil isn't healthy, it cannot give us nutritious food. And I learned from Down to Earth that a healthy soil absorbs Carbon dioxide, and we all have learned that the buildup of CO2 in our atmosphere has contributed to global warming.

 

How can we heal the planet? How can we help ourselves?

 

Intrinsic in the Hippocratic oath physicians take at their initiation into doctoring is the phrase, "First do no harm."

 

What if we adopt that?

 

We can argue whether global warming is a naturally occurring event or whether people have caused it. A better question is, "How can we help alleviate the problem?"

 

We can emphatically say, "If you are going to destroy us, your people, the animals you have nourished, and the plants you help to grow, you will have to do it without my help."

 

While many troublesome conditions prevail on the Australian continent, there is hope. Many people are creating sustainable living conditions, farms, an animal food source derived from algae that reduce methane produced from cows by 80%, electricity from the wind, wrapping material derived from plants that look like plastic, and people living entirely off the grid.

 

Instead of sucking up negative vibes from the media regarding world conditions and contemplating our navels about our psychological needs, we ought to have a grander view.

 

Instead of wringing our hands at such questions as "Is the world ending?" Instead, we can follow Maslow's directive, stop studying the ills, and look to what positive thing works."

 

Thus, I turned to the Humanistic approach of psychology. We've focused on Freud's theory of biological determinism long enough. And while people like Darwin contributed significantly to our knowledge, we have reached the stage of life where we are driving our own evolution. (Consider the study of epigenetics, and Joe Dispenza's book, Becoming Supernatural.)

 

Maslow's theory of self-actualization has been met with resistance. However, the humanistic branch of psychology is widely misunderstood. 

 

The main point of the humanistic movement, which reached its peak in the 1960s, was to emphasize the positive potential of human beings. 

 

Imagine such a thing.

 

It is as if Freud supplied us with the sick half of psychology, and we must now fill it out with the healthy half.

 

Some of the people Maslow studied were Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Eleanor Roosevelt. In his daily journal (1961–63), Maslow wrote: "heroes that I write for, my judges, the ones I want to please: Jefferson, Spinoza, Socrates, Aristotle, James, Bergson, Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair (both heroes of my youth)." All were "reality centered," able to differentiate what was fraudulent from what was genuine. They were also "problem centered," meaning that they treated life's difficulties as problems that demanded solutions.

 

A part of Maslow's theory is that a person enjoys "peak experiences," high points in life when the individual is in harmony with himself and his surroundings. Some would call that one's spirituality.

 

Peak experiences are moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world, more aware of truth, justice, harmony, goodness, and so on. 

 

Spiritual life, as Maslow puts it, is an instinct. It can be heard through the voices arising from within. However, two forces are pulling at the individual, not just one. One pulls us toward health and self-actualization, the other towards weaknesses and sickness.

 

According to Maslow, religious or spiritual values are not the exclusive property of any one religion or group. Self-actualizers are religious in their character, attitudes, and behavior. 

 

"Spiritual disorders" tend toward anger or a loss of meaning. Sometimes it is grief or despair regarding the future. There is often a belief that one's life is being wasted and that finding joy or love is impossible. Often this comes at the time we call a mid-life crisis.

 

What is missing is Grandma's lap, the soothing hand, and the stern voice to tell us to get off our duffs and get to work.

 

To read 7 Tips for Discovering Positivity and Inspiration During a Mid-Life Crisis by Kimberly Hayes, kimberly@publichealthalert.info
publichealthalert.info click here, or see the sidebar.

 

A Historic Milestone.

 

Hi guys,

 

When I was a kid, sometimes my family went fishing in Mill Creek stream, river, whatever it was, and we would meet few if any, people. We'd say, "Hi," and they would be on their way, and we ours.

 

I never liked killing fish, but catching one was a thrill for those river trout are savvy and not easily hooked. And eating a batch of slightly over 6-inch trout rolled in cornmeal and cooked over a campfire are the best. 

 

One year I fell off a log and into the water. Silver, my dog had walked across the log onto the other side, and I figured I could so it too.  Luckily, I caught a branch that kept me from being swept downstream, for my legs flowed with the current. And if you have ever stepped into an Oregon Mountain stream, you know it is glacier cold. 

 

I managed to somehow to flounder myself onto the bank where I could get out of the water.

 

The moment I stood up, there was Eddie, the friend who had accompanied us. I was embarrassed and mad, for I knew that, although I had called for help, he had to be there, watching me to see if I could make it out by myself. Otherwise, he wouldn't have shown up the moment I was out of the water. It was like in the movies where the police arrive one minute after you have caught the bad guys. I don't know where I would have ended up had I let go. 

 

All ended well.

 

Eddie and I, for some reason, crossed the stream, carrying my dog Silver. The moment Eddie lifted a leg, he found that the current wanted it, and it was hard for even a grown man to set his foot back down. I took some pleasure in his struggle.

 

Years later, I don't know why I visited upper Mill Creek, and there were quite a few people there. This surprised me, and I wondered if the reason was there were simply more people.

 

All this brings me to my point—in case you missed it—Now there are 8 billion people on the planet.

 

When I was born, there were 2.2 billion.

 

Whoa.

 

"This week, the world's population ticks over a historic milestone. But in the next century, society will be reshaped dramatically — and soon we'll hit a decline we'll never reverse."

--Casey Briggs ABC News

 

Briggs says, "We've already hit peak child. There will never again be more children alive than there are today, with fertility rates plummeting across the globe."

 

 

 

 

This may be a good thing. Perhaps the population will stabilize, and with fewer children, those children will be precious. Yes, as parents, our children are beloved by us, but to the world, is life valued as it ought to be?

 

We seem to be willing to kill our youth in wars. 

 

We don't seem to value life as a precious commodity, as a rare and wonderful thing where everyone is unique in their own way. 

 

As individuals, we can see through our own eyes, think our own thoughts, and carry our own consciousness. 

 

I am amazed by this every single day.

 

For heaven's sake, we won the sperm/ova lottery.

 

I know that with the population being skewed toward older folks, there will be fewer people to work and thus support those who can't.

 

But I remember Buckminister Fuller (Futurist, architect, creator of the Geodesic dome) who I mentioned in an earlier blog, said that,

 

"We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. 

 

"It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. (A-hum.)

 

"The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery. According to Malthusian Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. 

 

"So, we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. 

 

"The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living." 

 ― Buckminster Fuller 

 

 

 

P.S. If you want your mind blown, go to Netflix and watch the archeologist Graham Hancock investigate human pre-history. You will see more pyramids than you knew existed and see why the symbol of the snake has played so prominently in human history.  It’s scary, but so clear I don’t see how anyone can discredit him.

 (Because it’s scary that’s why.)

  Netflix, Ancient Apocalypse  

 

Writers, you might like "The truth dazzles gradually,  or else the world would be blind.  —Emily Dickenson  on  https://www.bestdamnwritersblog.com

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

And neither do I.

 

 

 

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”—Kurt Vonnegut.

 

 

What if we go about spreading goodwill? Many people are holding on by their teeth. I got a punch about this week after reading The Cabin at the End of the Train, A Story About Pursuing Dreams, by Michael V. Ivanov.

 

And here’s a study tip for students: 

Stand up and stretch.

Take a walk

Go to the airport.

Get on a plane.

Never return.

 

I was tempted.

 

Yesterday I passed my Real Estate Broker’s licensing test. (Called Real Estate Agents in other states.)

 

I thought I would be exuberant upon passing. However, after the test, I felt wrung out and spent the afternoon in my car cocoon with the heater jacked up to womb temperature and read a novel. 

 

After reading Oregon laws, I would say, if you’re a Vet, move to Oregon. The Oregon Veteran’s Administration actually loans and services their loans, which is a great advantage in acquiring a low-interest loan. (Only four other states do so).

In all other states, the Vet’s Affairs only insures loans. 

 

Taking the Real Estate Course has little to do with actually selling houses. It’s like a doctor must go into residency to actually perform an operation.

 

I have little experience selling as an agent, but I have abundant experience with houses, having flipped one, built one, and bought seven, sold six. 

 

While reading over Contractor Laws, I realized how fortunate I was with the contractors working on our Marcola Log house. The house that Dave built, I called it for every Tom, Dick, and Harry was named Dave. Dave, the finish carpenter; Dave, the roofer; and Dave, the tile guy. All were artists.

 

I remember the day Dave, the roofer, got a call from his daughter. I heard his voice and saw his hands shaking. Oh my. There had been a shooting at his daughter’s school. Criminy. Dave’s daughter was physically safe. I don’t know what emotional damage that does to students. 

 

If you are working with logs, hire a mountain climber. That was Dave, our finish carpenter. He knew about ropes and pullies, and he installed a 12-foot header log over a strip of windows by himself. And he made no mistakes in cutting logs. 

 

 Cut a log, and it’s cut. You can’t Spackle it together like drywall.

 

Dave installed windows and built railings and cabinets. With a saw and tools in the basement, he could whip out anything I asked for. 

 

I served as the General Contractor, but Bill Cherry took me under his wing. Although I didn’t formally hire him, he found subcontractors for me. I think he was an angel, for I don’t know why he did so much work for me. I honor him. 

 

People talk about how stressful it is to build a house, but, for me, except for the slow movement of getting the logs transported and erected, the process was a blast. (I do believe I only attracted artists to work on the job, and I viewed that building process as a teacher once said, “We do everything for the experience.”)

 

During the construction Husband Dear and I lived in a fifth wheel. I found a wonderful man to transport it at the battery exchange shop. I casually mentioned I was looking for someone who could transport a fifth-wheel trailer, and a fellow customer volunteered. 

 

Thus, we were on site, and that saved mortgage payments as we had sold our previous house in Eugene. After completion of the log house, we were fortunate to sell the fifth wheel to someone who planned to take it to the coast.  

 

Building that log house was like being a director of a movie. When you get input from artists, your work turns out better than you had dreamed of in the first place. 

 

I need to carry this attitude into Real Estate and for that matter, into life.

 

Don’t worry, dear blog readers; I won’t keep talking about real estate. I promise.

 

 

Except to say this: The law states that to sign a contract, you must be competent, so if you’ve ever bought a house or signed a contract---you’re competent.