The positive effect of project-related conversations on mental well being

My brother Earl, would never hurt anybody, and not only because he comes from the best family in the world; but also because he installs floors for a living. It’s not just the measuring, cutting, laying, nailing, and other things that he does, that makes him a good person; it’s the conversations he has about doing those things.

Try being an asshole with other people when you are talking to them about installing new floors in their house, putting a new roof on it, or mowing the grass around it. Sure, you might get away with not being nice a little while, but pretty soon it will destroy your name - the word of mouth around you and your business- and you will find yourself looking for another line of work, one that does not involve conversations with people. But it is not simply an image or personal-brand issue, there is more to it than that.

Try this. Catch yourself mad about something and then while you are still mad, go to the hardware store and talk to someone who knows a lot about a project you are trying to complete around the house, let’s say, repairing a ceiling after a water leak in your attic. See if you can stay mad. No cheating. If the person you are talking to is angry or unreasonable, that does not count. But if the person is concerned about your project, offers good advice and shows you where to find the tools and supplies you need, I would be shocked if you did not leave the hardware store calmer than you entered it.

No disrespect to my friends who work in the field of psychology as researchers, professors or practitioners; but I would be willing to bet it is hard to find any better therapy than a conversation about doing something useful, particularly something with your hands.

How many accounts have you heard of a self-employed electrician spending all week solving household and commercial electrical problems, only to find himself shooting up a crowded theater on Saturday night? He might wind up falling in love with one of his customers, which of course, is a problem in itself; but he is not apt to hurt one of them.

I am not sure what to call what I am talking about, maybe something like: the positive effect of project-related conversations on mental wellbeing. 

The effect I am speaking of, starts when you walk into a hardware store. Just getting out of your truck or car and making your way in the door, calms you down. Then when you ask a clerk how to find something or how to do something, and you get the information you needed, you are reminded the world is not so bad after all.

A couple of years ago, around midnight during a winter ice storm, a huge tree fell on our house – actually our house was largely spared, but it hit our screened porch pretty flush and cut gashes in our siding and tore off the gutters. During the ensuing three or four months, I must have had a dozen or more conversations with various people on getting the tree removed from our yard and the repairs done to our house. Several times I felt like one of the contractors could have done his part faster or better, but every time I caught myself wanting to get angry or impatient, we would have another conversation and I would be peaceable again.

The guy drives into my driveway and gets out of his truck with the radio still playing and a younger assistant waiting on him, and walks up to my front door. I greet him and he tells me he is there to talk about getting the tree removed from my fence. We agree it was a big tree, although not the biggest one he has seen. In fact, he says he had one a few weeks ago two men together could not wrap their arms around; that fell on a house and took out part of the roof. We agree I was comparatively lucky. He tells me they will probably take a backhoe through my gate and into the backyard and have a guy stand in the shovel while they hold him up to the roof and let him use a chainsaw to cut through one of the big limbs keeping the tree up on my roof.

And sure enough, in a few days time I am standing in an upstairs family room window and there is a guy not two feet from my face, standing in the shovel of a backhoe with a large chainsaw, cutting through the limb. When he makes it all the way through the limb, the tree falls to the ground and the limb he has cut, swings wildly, but he is out of harms way – just barely- and the guy operating the backhoe lowers him down to the ground. I am thinking, better them than me.

Drawn like a moth to a flame, I go out on the porch and I hear them yelling above the sounds of the tractor and the chainsaws – there are other men with chainsaws cutting other parts of the tree – and during one of the breaks in the noise, one of the guys waves at me and smiles. I give him a thumbs up and say something like: “That’s a pretty rough job.” And he yells back, “Nah, all in a days work.”

Then he yells to one of his coworkers to be sure to steady himself on the limb he is on. A couple of the other guys are on the ground watching for a minute, taking in what they have accomplished so far and planning their next line of attack.

When the tree fell that night, and it did not come through our bedroom window and end our lives, it brought with it a lot of rigamarole; but it also brought the promise of weeks of project-related conversations. They say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That may be, in part, because recovery is a social process.

Thinking back to the good old days when people had better memories

People don’t remember things the way they used to. When I was growing up, if somebody went to the store, they by god came home with what they went for. Nowadays, you never know what people will forget when they go to the store.

Back in the day, remembering things seem to be people’s second nature. They would just be sitting around thinking about the past and all of a sudden something important would come into their minds and they would tell you a story and you would be like, yep, that’s the way I remember it too.

I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody forgot something important around me in the last few weeks. I would be a rich man. I blame it on the internet, calculators and GPS systems. People used to take pride in remembering, now they are ecstatic if they can just put one thought in front of another one.

I remember one time I was trying to remember this guys name. It was on the tip of my tongue. He was somebody famous and I swear, everybody in the room where I was at the time, piped right up and gave me the answer almost in unison. I was blown away. I thought, now this is the good life. I got all my faculties, I am young, and everybody still cares about remembering stuff and can do it when it counts. I would be afraid to try something like that now. Everybody would be rushing for their phones to see who could Bing it first. Half of them would get the wrong answer from their search and the other half would be asking me to repeat the question.

I can remember remembering things that nobody else could remember. That always made me feel so proud. They’d be like, “Oh snap, I just can’t remember” and I would be like, “blah blah blah” and they would be like, “Yep, that’s it. Damn, how did you remember that?”

If you think about it, you know what I am talking about. Try to remember back to when you were a little child. Didn’t people remember things better then than they do now? Now, if you ask people to remember even important things they will look at you like you lost YOUR mind.

Try this little experiment. Ask somebody to remember something and see if they can remember it. Chances are, they will have forgotten it. You know I am telling it like it is. Now ask them to think back say ten years ago. Ask them if they could not remember better back then. I bet you a dollar they will say: “Hells yeah, I could remember so much better back then.”

I think part of it was people did not have to remember as much stuff back in the day. When I was a kid, if I had to remember five or six things a day, that would be a hard day. Nowadays, adults and even little kids, have to remember fifty or sixty things on easy days.

Nobody expects older people to remember much these days, but I can remember my grandma… Remember? My goodness, remember aint no word. She would remember things little kids can’t remember this day and time and she was getting along up in the years. When I was little and me and my brother and sisters would stay at her house for the weekend, she would remember every one of our names and if we went out somewhere and somebody who knew us would see us, she would look at them like they were crazy if they could not remember our names. Let’s see your average grandma do that today. She would be like: “Who you are little boy?”

I honestly believe things will only get worse. I think the day will come when people will no longer remember anything. When that day comes, you might be talking away and all of a sudden forget what day of the week it is, Monday, I believe; anyways, where was I, oh well, but you get the point.

I think people are going to regret not trying harder to remember things. Back when we all remembered every little thing, people were happier. Oh, sure, you had the occasional suicide or somebody going crazy and blowing up a church or something; but for the most part, people were happier back when they could remember things. And why not, if you think about it.

Part of the problem now is that people take their memories for granted, present company excluded. I know how valuable my memory is and I work hard at keeping it strong. Sometimes I will sit around for hours just remembering things. I will even occasionally write down the things I remember. If more people would follow my example on this, it would be a better world.

Another part of the problem is that in the future, when people cannot remember as well, they will not remember how good it was back when they could remember better. That will be a sad time. There they will be, forgetting right and left and not remember this that and the other thing and they will not even know how bad it is to not remember, because they will not be able to remember back when they were able to remember so much better.

Maybe we should all just tell each other things when we remember them. Maybe that would help. If Jack told Jill something he remembered, there is a chance Jill might remember it, but even if she cannot, Sally may be standing nearby and she might accidentally hear it and remember it. And suppose Sally happen to tell Jim what she had heard. Who knows, Jim might remember it or at least, he would have a better chance of remembering it if he heard it than if she had not bothered to tell him about it. You get the point.

Anyways, I guess I am in one of those nostalgic moods, longing for the good ole days when we all remembered things and took pride in doing so. I will leave you with this thought-provoking question. How would you like to be the last person on earth who could remember anything? See, what I mean? That would not be too pleasant now, would it?

If you came over today

If you came to our house right now, early on a Saturday afternoon, August 8, 2015; you would find me but no Tanga Bea. You and I could sit and talk in our living room, after I picked up the clean clothes we have yet to put away, telling you: “It’s because our damn house has virtually no closet space.” I would offer you a cup of tea, but you’d say you don’t drink tea. I’d say, well I would offer you some coffee, but Tanga and I don’t drink it, so we don’t have any on hand right now. You would say that’s okay, but probably start thinking how strange it is that neither of us drink coffee.

You’d probably also notice we don’t have cats or dogs and there’s no TV in our living room. Before either of us brought the subject of - "how the hell do we spend our time then" - up, I would probably start telling you how we usually sit around reading on our phones, or that and we look at Facebook or videos on youtube. In their seasons, we watch a lot of college basketball and some baseball, but that is about the only thing that ever comes on our TVs. "We have one in our bedroom and one upstairs in the family room."

I would not likely take you on a grand tour of the house. It’s old to me now and it's been a long time since we thought of it as a “showplace.”

We would sit in silence a while and then you might see the picture laying on the table between the love seat and the wall and I would say: “That’s our daughter, Stephanie. She’s our only one.” I might offer too: “The picture is laying there because we had termites and the lady who came in to check for them took it down and found holes in the wall where it had been hanging and we have just not put it back up yet, sort of waiting on the wall to be repaired, which is waiting on us repainting the living room, which is waiting on our handy friends to visit Labor Day, so they can do the job for us.” And I would tell you how it cost fifteen hundred dollars to exterminate the termites and we would both allow as to how we had gone into the wrong line of work if we really wanted to make money.

Crickets.

“You want a drink of water?” I would ask.

“No, I’m good,” you’d say.

Then I might start in about our - Tanga's and mine- distant past, how we were youth directors at two churches early on and how we had met in college before that and how we both had grown up poor…and I would probably talk until your eyes glazed over and then I might say: “Tanga will be home around four o’clock.” I would then likely explain how unfairly work was treating her these days, not giving her enough assistance in her job, to the point she had to work occasional Saturdays, when the usual person was sick or something.

I would tell you about going to work with Tanga this past week and how it was: “A real eye opener.” I would say how Tanga was like a firefighter, constantly putting out little fires. We would agree with smiles, it was probably better to put out small fires rather than big fires. Ha, we might both add.

I would say this past Thursday had been our thirty-eighth wedding anniversary, waiting just briefly for you to reply with something like: “Really, you don’t look old enough to have been married that long.” But then, when you did not say that, we would move on.

I might say how the only thing that seemed to make it possible for Tanga to get through her day was to ever so often get a phone call or visit from one of the people she confided in, so they could have a good laugh at the absurdity of the place. It would be possible to tell, I would say, that what they were really doing was figuring out how to stay sane together, rather than trying to get done whatever it was they were supposed to be getting done together. I would notice how you would have lost interest at my philosophizing about "The meaning of Tanga's work" and thus another subject would have run its course.

We would sit in silence a little while longer and then I might launch into how I used to be a lot busier at work and that in fact, I had gone through three eras thus far in my career and was currently between eras. The first era had been the early years as a junior faculty member in North Carolina, that lasted from 1988 – 1994. I would then talk about the second era that went from 1994 through 2003. That era was the one where I coordinated the MBA program at our university.

The third era, I would explain, had left me a little bitter, saying how it had run from 2004 into the middle of 2012. This was the time when I had been responsible for civic engagement activities on our campus. The funding for that effort had been cut and so we had not continued it. That is why, I would say: "I am currently looking for the last era. I might say I hope it has something to do with writing," as if it were not up to me what it had to do with.

I might listen to you talk about your life for a little while and then I yawn and say something, like – after checking the time on my phone- Tanga will be here soon. "Would you like to go out and eat when she gets here?"

If you said yes, I would go into how Tanga and I have a little difficulty finding places to eat since I am vegan.

You would joke that you would be on Tanga’s side and so it would be two on one for where we went. When she got home, you two would greet after all these months of not seeing each other and I would become, once again, the spectator.

We would most likely wind up at a steak house and I would get a bake potato and salad with the oil and vinegar dressing on the side. The lettuce would be a golden brown and the potato would have been baked before daylight and reheated in the microwave.

But at least I would have done my part, babysit you until Tanga got home and we could go out to a restaurant and I could listen to the two of you talk about life - normal stuff, of kids, of repeated attempts to lose weight, of knowing how it hurts to lose a parent, of what it is like to have the boss from hell, to be afraid of heights, to not be able to wait until retirement so you can finally take it easy.

I would pick at my potato and salad, drink my ice water with lemon and marvel at how sane you both are, in the middle of all the craziness in this world.

Why I Share and Post on FB Regarding Health Matters

I am writing this on my phone and I'll edit it later, but I wanted to go ahead get it up, errors and all. 

I know some people find these sorts of posts on health, annoying. Perhaps it makes them think I am saying their life choices are bad, but they know their opinions are as valid as mine. Yes, opinions are personal and should be freely chosen. But look at it another way for a moment. Suppose someone reads this and similar things and their life gets better? I can live with the grumbling, behind my back or to my face, if I think that might happen. Another view on it, is this. Science is a reliable way to knowledge. 

If I know and trust the science behind diet and exercise studies, the same science that makes air travel, microwaves, orthopedic shoes, smart phones and so on, a reality; I believe it is my responsibility to seek to adjust my life choices according to the suggestions of the science, if I really claim to love this life; and to pass word along to others I also love. Facebook is a passive way to do this. People do not have to read what is shared. Most people I know appear to crave a better life, more energy, less illness, fewer medications, weight management, etc. However, many of them wind up asking the researchers and physicians to do the work for them. They find personal responsibility for their own health too great to bear. Many people I know slavishly maintain their flowers, their houses, their cars, their relationships, their relationship with God, everything in their life, except for their health. They eat according to local customs, family traditions or what tastes good to them; and they lead themselves to believe they cannot change their diet and their exercise habits, although our health  is arguably the most important thing any of us is called on to take care of. 

I didn't intend to turn this into a sermon, but it's so easy for me to get passionate on things I believe in. Oh, and don't ask me how well I maintain my house, our flowers, etc. That's the sort of stuff I do if I have time left over from the most important things, doing the job I'm paid to do, seeking to improve myself as a person in general and, of course, taking care of my health. 

I might not be this way, but for a condition I was diagnosed with, called ankylosing spondylitis. This condition, a form of arthritis, causes you to hunch over as you get older, for your spine to fuse into one solid highly-breakable bone, for your eyes and joints to be racked with arthritis pain and for your heart muscle to even be affected. The only way to cope with it is through diet and exercise. 

In 2000, I was on heavy medication for AS, I weighed 212 pounds, my cholesterol, BP and sugar we're all out of whack and the doctor wanted me to go on lots more medication. I started running and changed my diet - until I am now a vegan- and all my blood work is great, my weight fluctuates between 145 and 150, I can still do the same resistance training weight I did at over 200 pounds, and I've run 18 marathons in 12 years, eight while I've been a vegan, a few of which have been my fastest.

Yes, I am passionate about this because I've seen what a wonderful transformation it's made to my life. Yes, I have lots of other things to continue working on, to fix about myself. But it's a powerful feeling to know you are not helpless in the face of the aging process and diseases. Of course I could get sick tomorrow and no I'm not saying anyone who is sick or died of cancer or heart disease is/was inferior to me. I'm simply saying, the knowledge I've gained and found so helpful, is available to anyone who wants it. It costs nothing, and it's only a matter of changing a few habits. 

Next Season Will End in Victory

All but four of the 47 seasons I have been a fan of Kentucky basketball, have ended in a loss, and I had 38 reasons to believe this year would make it five; but of course, that did not happen. If the Cats had won last night, I would have done 40 pushups first thing out of bed, because for over a month, I have been doing the number of pushups equivalent to the number of the next victory, starting at around 25. I would do that many pushups to get a little feel of what it was like to do anything so many times in a row, plus it tested me, sort of like the Cats were going to be tested. I always do at least 50 pushups each day, but during this stretch, I was forcing myself to do large numbers in one set. I plan to do 40 when I finish writing this, as a tribute to the team. It won’t make them feel any better, but it will help me demonstrate my will to keep going.

Not that stopping was an option. Stopping what? I will not quit being a Kentucky basketball fan and unless something terrible and surprising happens, I won’t stop being altogether; although as the game wound down last night, it was tough not to confuse that big D – defeat with the other big D – death.

We fans of Kentucky basketball take it seriously and many people say it is because we have nothing else in our lives; but I would say it is because we have so much in our lives made better by our passion for Kentucky basketball. Maybe most importantly, it is a family thing for us.

During the days before the final four, I was listening to coverage on the radio. I heard a father call in who said he was driving with his ten-year-old son from Charlotte, NC to Indianapolis, to “make a memory.” He said he had the tickets in the kitchen cabinet, and during the narrow escape over Notre Dame he was afraid they would not get to use them. I have a feeling that father and son pair will be having an interesting conversation today on the drive back to Charlotte.

I am guessing the son will have been hard to awaken this morning and once awake, not all that willing to talk. They will likely have had the complimentary breakfast at the hotel and then load the car and hit interstate 75. By now, they will be getting close to Cincinnati and maybe it will be building up in the father how they need to talk and so he might ask his son to take out his earbuds, which his son will reluctantly do.

Father – It’s sad, isn’t it?

Son – It’s awful.

Father – I keep going over in my mind what they could have done different to win.

Son – I’m not. I don’t want to even think about it.

Father – Are you glad we made the trip?

Son – Of course. It was so much fun driving up here and last night was fun until the end of the game.

Father – It will feel better in a few days.

Son – I know, but it sure hurts right now.

I hope when they stop in Lexington to stretch their legs, they have a big father-son hug.

Another caller was a high-school social studies teacher from Bowling Green, Kentucky and he and his wife were driving to Indy. He was talking proudly about how Kentucky had gotten their wakeup call against Notre Dame and that this game would be different. He said he liked to tell the students in his classes who are Louisville fans, he would not flunk them, just for that. I wonder what he will say to his classes on Monday morning.

Former Vanderbilt great, Will Perdue was on one of the shows and he described how his son’s high-school teacher in Louisville, and her family, were going to Indy to the final four as their annual vacation. This morning, that family will return to Louisville knowing their yearly vacation is over. Hopefully they did not put too much of it on credit cards.

Last night I stepped away from the TV for the last two minutes of the game, leaving right after the refs missed the shot-clock violation against Wisconsin, watching the ending through updates on my phone. When I walked back into the room where Tanga was, a moment after it was over, she looked at me and said: “You okay?”

I said, “Yeah, it’s just a game.”

“I know,” she said, “But I also know how you are.”

We hugged.

After a few minutes of watching Saturday Night Live, I decided to go on to bed. She stayed up a while longer. Surprisingly, I went right to sleep and I was only awake my usual hour or so during the night. I woke up this morning, ready to run my 20 miler in preparation for the Kentucky Derby Marathon, which comes up in three weeks.

My heart goes out to Kentucky fans everywhere, my daughter included.  Yesterday, she flew from San Jose, Costa Rica to Fort Lauderdale, Florida; , missed her connection to Orlando due to a two-hour customs ordeal, rented a car and drove to Orlando in time to make her flight to Asheville, NC; got to a TV in time to see the start of the game and watched the exciting game with the awful ending. I wish I could hug her this morning.

If 43 years of seasons ending in losses have taught me anything, it is that life goes on. The day after is always the hardest because you still have those “if not for this or that’s” rolling around in your head. But soon enough, we will all look back on this season as one of the greatest ever. For five months, this team met every challenge and it took a great game from a great team, to send them home with a loss.

Seven of Kentucky’s players are expected to go to the NBA, three of whom are freshman. If those freshmen had not lost last night, they might have gone to the NBA thinking college basketball is pain free. At least now, if they go to the league, it will be with the knowledge that college basketball, like life, is filled with loss and heartache. They might as well start dealing with that now.

Those birds singing just outside the window, the sun coming through the shades and my loving wife sitting on the couch in the next room, are reminders of how routine will find its way back into my life. I am already starting to think of next season and how good it will feel, if it ends in victory.

Thoughts on Kentucky Basketball after the Kansas game of Nov 18 2014

I’ll admit it, I have believed every Kentucky basketball team I’ve seen before, was as good as this one - of course, this one actually is. If you want to die with Kentucky basketball on top, start living a riskier lifestyle and quickly get your affairs in order. This team doesn’t just play above the rim, it does work up there. If you want to see a better basketball team, lie down and go to sleep, because you will only see one in your dreams.

The graphed relationship between Kentucky’s performance and my sleep after a game is best represented as an inverted-U, with performance on the X axis and my sleep on the Y. After the way they played last night, I thought I would never fall asleep.

Dakari Johnson looks like a retired NBA center. He is the only big man we have who plays below the rim, but ask anyone who goes against him in practice or in games how much fun he is to play against. I am guessing they would say: it’s aggravating, frustrating, tiring, grueling. The ball seems to calm down when it finds itself in his hands. He says he is working on his free-throw shooting. He’s an ole pro. He will figure it out.

Willie Cauley-Stein looks like an avatar drawn 1.5 times normal size, by an imaginative artist specializing in the human male form. Imagine shooting a basketball with him prowling between you and the goal.

Alex Poythress jumps like he is made of 40 pounds of styrofoam instead of 240 pounds of muscle. At least I did not have to try to sleep last night with my dreams haunted by him blocking my shot from behind, the way a couple of Kansas players did.

Tyler Ulis moves the way we all do when we imagine ourselves a big-time college basketball player. He hit a 12-foot tear-drop with such touch, it might have been written and directed by Steven Spielberg and performed by Meryl Streep.

After last year’s tournament, every time Aaron Harrison rises up to shoot from the arc with his head leaned back and the ball heading for the bottom of the net, it’s as if everything goes into slow motion and I see his twin to the left of him, mouthing: “Go, Go, Go” and I hear Jim Nance say: “This is the spot where he does it!”

Karl Towns has a prissy gracefulness that makes it hard to take your eyes off him. Like all great players, what he does is better analyzed later in the replay, than as it occurs, because it’s often too subtle to appreciate in real time.

Andrew Harrison heads for the goal like there’s a tofu burger on the rim and he’s a vegan who’s been visiting his meat-eating family for a week. But he’s unselfish enough that if he sees one of his voracious teammates in a better position to eat, he will dish it to them.

Like a lot of Kentucky fans, I spend a lot of each game screaming my disbelief at what the TV is showing instead of what it should be showing.. An alley-oop that sailed out of bounds, should have been a spectacular dunk. A free-throw that should have been hit, bounced off the rim. This problem is especially acute for me with great freshmen players. Right now, I am still having trouble believing my TV when it shows Devon Booker and Trey Lyles missing shots. I may have to buy a new TV before long, if this keeps up.

In last year’s tourney game against Michigan when Marcus Lee’s head seemed to pop up beside the rim after almost every Kentucky miss and he would flush the ball into the net, I realized: I may never have been properly introduced to this young man. I still get the feeling I know precious little of what he might be able to do, but I am okay with the fact that he may show me something entirely new the last game he plays at Kentucky.

According to the data from the combine, Dominic Hawkins has a 44-inch vertical. How many 11^th men in college basketball can jump nearly four-feet high, play solid defense and knock down the occasional three? I will give you a minute while you look that one up. None is it? That’s sort of what I thought.

Derek Willis’s sick reverse dunk at the end of the second exhibition game, made me wonder whether he ought not to have transferred to another school for more playing time. But for his sake, I am glad he didn’t. He has a free front-row seat for every game this team plays and that, is priceless.

The Movie Boyhood and Available Me

In the Spring of 1988, I was finishing up my Ph.D. at UT-Knoxville and I had a few job interviews, one of which was at the University of North Carolina – Asheville (UNCA). While I was interviewing, two people who taught what I would be teaching there and were leaving, asked if they could meet with me. They told me they had learned UNCA had no intention of ever tenuring anyone to teach what we taught. I chalked it up to them being bitter for not having received tenure and so when I was offered the job, I took it knowing there was no one on planet earth that would not absolutely adore me if they got to know me. I think I thought; look how far I had come and how far my potential projected me to go. How could I not get tenure? I was lovable and destined for greatness!

I worked hard, rising early, and throwing myself into anything they asked me to do. The students seemed to like me and I loved the thought of being a university professor. My wife, daughter and I were not going to be wealthy, but we would not be poor and I would go down in history - if nothing else, as that little crooked-nosed boy from Beattyville that made a University professor.

Then, just before the department Christmas party in 1992, I was told by my department chair, he would not be supporting me for tenure, and that I should look for another job. My wife and I went to the Christmas party, but we felt awful. Suddenly we were outsiders, not accepted by long tenured members of the group. We felt rejected and unwanted.

I struggled to keep my spirits up enough to meet my classes that Spring - looking for another job. Then, in March, 1993; Tanga, Stephanie and I were at our favorite little bookstore, just up from the Fresh Market in Asheville and I was browsing books in “spirituality” or some such section; and I came across one entitled: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, by Chogyam Trungpa. I bought it, and to say I read it would be an understatement. I poured it over my soul. Or, to say it another way, I set up camp in its pages. After I read it a few times, I returned to favorite passages to deepen my understanding. I still read parts of it 21 years later. Looking back, it’s clear: phase one of my life ended with the reading of that book.

One way of thinking of the first phase of my life is as the instrumental phase. In phase one, everything was there for me to use: people, time, material things, and even what most people called spiritual things. For example, I got saved and surrendered to preach to win my father’s love, not because I had some deep reverence for the Bible’s teachings. Even my wife, daughter and family seem, in retrospect, to have been there for my edification or as an accomplishment of mine to be pointed at. I had married a sensible, steadfast person – to cover for whatever extent I might not be those things. Any evidence on the part of my daughter that she was brilliant, offered a chance someone might say she was like me. My father and mother became early benchmarks – since they had not finished middle school – indicators of how far I had come by getting the Ph.D.

Phase two did not bring perfection; instrumental me still exists; and comes back with a vengeance from time to time. But phase two gets its name – available me – from the fact that there seems to be a trustworthy person inside me to which I can go for insight, wisdom and restoration. Since March of 1993, around 7800 days have passed and I have meditated at least thirty minutes a day, every single one of those – 45 minutes a day for the last 10 years or so. I might have missed a day or two and if I did, I made up for the loss by meditating the next day. Beginning in October, 2013, at the recommendation of my daughter, I began doing yoga poses as I remain in a state of meditation. This combination of yoga and meditation will remain with me for the rest of my life. I will not quit it, although it may get adjusted or something added to it.

Let me see if I can describe this “available me,” I mentioned. I say it is available me, because it always seems to be there if I can get instrumental me to shut up or leave. Instrumental me remains, as I said, but in phase one; instrumental me was on his own, he had no available me.

What does available me offer? Meditation and now meditation/yoga, is the place I go to be alone with available me. Sometimes when it’s just available me, it feels as If I have gone home. The peace and contentment opens my eyes to mistakes instrumental me is prone to. One of the big mistakes instrumental me makes is to ignore anything that does not pertain to whatever goal I am pursuing at the time. Even when I am not meditating/doing yoga, available me will show up randomly, asking instrumental me to leave for a while; and I will smile inside, sit quietly and just breathe.

In the last month, I have seen the movie Boyhood, twice. I seldom see movies. Tanga does not like to go to the theater and I cannot stand any sort of violence. I had begun to be that way regarding movie violence, even in phase one, because in 1991, during the first Iraq war; I walked out of the movie Dances with Wolves, because I could not stand the violence on screen that reminded me of the people being killed somewhere in the middle east.

But now when I see a certain type of movie, the world is left outside the theater and it means instrumental me is left to pace back and forth in the lobby while available me pays mindful attention to what is on the screen. The first time I recall being aware of available me in a movie was when we saw Forrest Gump, in 1994. As the movie is coming on, there is a feather floating through the air and the camera follows its meandering path. I began crying following that feather, knowing it symbolized paying attention to the non-instrumental parts of life, such as feathers being carried by the breeze. That was the beginning of a wonderful relationship between available me and the sort of movie that asks you to pay attention to the non-instrumental parts of life.

Boyhood is such a movie. The first time I saw it, instrumental me stormed out within minutes of it starting, leaving only available me. Forty-five minutes of available me, is rare; even in the best meditation/yoga sessions, but here was a movie two hours and 45 minutes long and instrumental me left available me alone the entire time.

The movie is about a boy growing up over the course of 12 years. All the members of his family age with him, just as the members of our real families do. Being able to see the movie a second time, was like being able to go back home and see a young man and his family grow up again. Available me loves paying attention to the little things, it empathizes with faces, minds, bodies - with life itself. I cannot go back and see myself grow up and see my family age with me. I cannot even do that with those I love. But this movie was perfect for available me. Every scene, now familiar, became a chance to savor each detail, to feel it more deeply than I had been able to the first time.

A lot of people have come into and gone out of my life. Instrumental me has been there through it all, but during phase two, available me has been there too. Available me has a tendency to fall in love with everyone and everything, he comes to know well. This past summer when I wrecked my car of 11 years, I took a picture of it with my phone to send to my wife and I realized, it is running. Hot water and other fluids were streaming out, but it was still running. I got in and turned it off – for the last time. The wrecker driver brought me home and took it on to the junk yard, while available me had a good cry.

Available me can be that way about cars, movies and this past summer, in Alaska; when I had time to sit by a quiet pond in a forest, instrumental me stomped off and available me sat there for several minutes. Finally, available me began to repeat: I can’t stay here, I can’t stay here; and it brought me to tears, because available me was not only saying he could not stay there, he knew it also meant: we cannot stay in this world.

But it’s people available me loves the most and this is the part that tends to get me in trouble. Instrumental me knows people as a means to an end, but available me studies them like an artist. Available me attends to every gesture: the way they say words, their marvelous faces, their lovely qualities. Pretty soon, available me becomes attached to people and wants them to stay. It is not an exaggeration to say available me loves people almost too deeply, pulls for their life to turn out well, even wants to become one with them.

Seeing Boyhood a second time, unlike life itself, gave available me a chance to study those people more carefully, to see their life turning out again. I think available me cried throughout the movie, not only because of the opportunity to see “these beautiful lives unfold one more time”, but because it reminded available me: I will never be able to live the wonderful moments of my life again. It made me want to spend less time with instrumental me and let available me do all my living.