01-27-06

Whenever I feel most deflated and negative about the state of the world and tend to place people in an all or nothing narcissistic box, I get brought back to earth by the fact that we have some really genuinely fine people around, unstained by the greedy, self involved, full of themselves politicians and executives or unstained by the shallow, ignorant and mindless drivel I know who populate our culture. These other folks are simply “givers” and “helper” with a level of compassion that can be oh so uplifting. These are usually, folks I’ve know for years and have, at times been frustrated by what I call their “Pollyannaish demeanors.” Their presence has a ripple effect on me and I feel more hopeful, happier and less jaded than usual.

Yesterday a man, not in my circle of friends, (he lives about 25 miles away) came over to visit me. We had not actually seen each other or spent any social time in about 3years. This man is bright, inquisitive, progressive in his thinking and extremely active in his compassion and actions towards the less fortunate than he. He is a technical computer wiz and I asked him if he would be willing to take a look at my computer as it had been running slow and things were happening to it that I, being the techno “bozo” I am, could not understand. Usually we only discuss things like politics, philosophies of life and kids yet he spent the better part of 8 1/2 hours retooling my P.C., patiently explaining everything to me. He actually spent 3 hours on the phone (yes that’s right, I said 3 hours) speaking with some Microsoft Windows technical support expert in Nova Scotia. He did it all with maximum patience and good humor while I sat around feeling helpless and frustrated.

By the way, this is the same man who when I first met him in 2001 knew I had a dramatically bad flu and showed up at my door, after driving 25 miles, to bring me 4 bags of groceries and Tylenol. I never asked him for help he simply just did it to be kind. At other times he has, on his own, made and brought lunches out to striking grocery workers or has spent many hours involved in anti-war protests. He definitely gets involved. I feel so much respect for his ethics and compassion.

There are others I know like that. My best friend is a totally dedicated teacher for 35 years who gives his students his home number if they have a math or science question and directs his school’s “Peer Helper” program. He gets up early at 4 am to plan his school day and comes home very late. He will help a friend at the “drop of a hat.”

My friend in L.A. of 45 years contracted a terrible, painful and crippling form of arthritis called Ankelosing Spondylitis at the young age of 23. He could have given in to pain and depression and simply lost hope. Yet he has kicked depression in the teeth and for the last 36 years, while not able to work and on disability, he volunteered at agencies to help others in need. He travels around the world, fighting his physical pain, making sure he squeezes every ounce of joy out of life. People admire and look up to him for his courage as well as goodness. He presently volunteers at an elementary school so he can work with the kids and helps plan benefits for the school. His nickname is the “Event Master.”

Two women friends of mine are so giving and nurturing to others even though they rarely get much attention back. Both are in a great deal of draining physical pain yet when they see a need they volunteer to give or help. One of these women (who has financial difficulties herself) has insisted on paying for her friend’s psychotherapy sessions, which as you must know are ungodly “out of whack” like everything else. But hey shrinks need to buy high priced cars, houses and property too, right? So, it’s okay to charge $120 for 50 minutes. My friend is finding the money because her friend needs some help. My other woman friend cares and worries so deeply about the plights of others that I’ve had to mention to her that she not forget that she has needs too. But she is a total giver, that’s her makeup.

I’ve mention before about my 2 heart disorders. Well, I am fortunate that there have been so many wonderful caring people, who volunteer to drive me to doctors or take me to airports so I won’t have to pay for a cab.

I need to focus more on how, if you look hard enough, you can find really great human beings around, who are willing to sacrifice of themselves for others. Sometimes I wax sarcastically about all the shallow, negative, self-centered people who are just looking to “get theirs.” Maybe I focus too much on those types. I feel better when I know that the positive compassionate people are all around we just need to open our eyes. Peace and stay hopeful (not everyone is named Dick Cheney.)

12-16-05

Mornings are great times for me. I definitely have always considered myself to be a morning person. Sleep is a time to rejuvenate but is, also, a waste of precious life space to me. Every morning when I awaken I read both the L.A. Times and the Chronicle. The front page and the international news sections both inform and depress me. The local news of politics and events keeps me up-to-date and interested in the areas I live. I do the ”scrambles” and “crossword” puzzles to jump-start my brain. However, it’s the sports news in the paper and on T.V. that excites me.

Sports have always been one of the main cornerstones of my life. I played team sports in high school and college but I am most of all a rabid fan intensely loyal to the teams I grew up with (The Dodgers, The Lakers, USC and UCLA.) My teen and young adult years were spent in Southern California. My political and social philosophies are more copasetic with San Francisco thinking yet since I moved north in 1975, I have felt a great void in finding people who are as rabid a sports fan as I am.

My best friends care and know very little about sports, usually viewing them as far too competitive and violent. They are definitely that yet I am addicted to the athletic skill, the exciting games, the strategy and the rush I get when on of my teams wins a close game (think USC vs. Notre Dame this year.) They provide a balance from the often tragic and despotic world we all live in today. But and it is a huge but -----sports and the athletes who play them have changed a lot since I grew up.

During the 50’s through the 80’s you could count on your team looking the same for years, Willie Mayes, Willie McCovey, Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabarr had a loyalty towards their fans, cities, and teams they played for. Rivalries were both exciting and intense because you knew who you were playing for every year.

Today the players leave for free agency to join another team who will pay them ungodly sums of money. Usually they hire a greedy shark like sports agent to bully teams to pay exorbitantly or their player will be a “hold out” and not play. College basketball stars leave school either after their freshman year or turn pro directly after high school graduation. I believe the minimum salary for a young major league baseball rookie is around $350,000 for his six months of work. Judging by some of the attitudes or the present stars (Bay Area fans think –Terrell Owens, Barry Bonds and Latrell Sprewell) the level of “me first” narcissism in sports is just plain nauseating and disrespectful towards the real heroes and heroines out there: Teachers, healthcare professionals and pastors work far longer hours, just as hard or harder and are compensated at a rate that would make them seem like paupers in the eyes of the athletic world.

The saddest part of all this is that I have heard countless athletes say that they are not role models and shouldn’t be held up as such to our young people. That’s Bull Shit ----they are models for our young people. I work with teenagers every day and so many of them dream of the MTV “Cribs” show life style that athletes live (multi-million dollar homes 5-10 customized luxury cars and many hot sexy babes.) They talk to me about their dreams and put all their eggs in this one life style basket. To be fair there are kids who play sports who have role models who point them toward education and more attainable career goals but there are just too many who look up to Terell Owens type stars.

Lebron James (a seemingly nice young man), who was about to become a multi-millionaire in the NBA the day he graduated from high school was given a $70,000 Hummer by his mother as a graduation present. What a great lesson to teach our young today, huh? ‘Get it While You Can” sang Janis Joplin and that’s the attitude that is persuasive in our society.

Well for me it its “Love the game but hate the attitudes.” So if you happen to love sports, enjoy football this holiday season but don’t lose focus on the greed and narcissism in sports today and impart more sensible and realistic values to your kids. Happy Holidays and Peace.

12-06-05

Last week a teenage girl I work with was having a discussion with me on philosophy and out of the blue asked me if I viewed man an innately evil. I told her no because I still see much good in people, but I said that I do see man (and woman) as innately narcissistic. The 80’s supposedly began the ”me” generation but I believe I’ve always seen humans as “me first” philosophers who are so focused on their own lives, problems and desires that they have trouble truly empathizing with the plight of others including their own family and friends. By the way, I am definitely including myself as that type.

I say I care and consciously believe I care but do I really and truly feel emotions? When 911 occurred I thought I really felt anger sadness and pain yet did I really understand? I live in California (3000 miles away,) have never lost anyone to a terror attack and it was easy for me to go on with my life days later. I believe I only intellectually felt pain.

Four weeks later I was in New York and I volunteered at ground zero. The smell of death was all around and I truly experienced the pain of people as they told me what they went through when the building fell. I developed a posttraumatic stress reaction with horrific nightmares, shakes and uncontrollable sobbing for a period of nine days after I left. I experienced nothing like that when I watched TV on September 11^th in California.

Most of my friends who are generally quite sensitive and liberal seem to be focused on their jobs and responsibilities and just state opinions about things like 911, Katrina, Iraqi civilian deaths, the Tsunami, etc. I don’t blame them because I do the same. I simply find it sad that we can’t keep our “eye on the ball.”

Maybe it is my own personal narcissistic gripe because lately I have been feeling left alone and somewhat abandoned by people who have been my “brother and sisters” for decades. Possibly some kind of deserved karma for my years of being too obsessed with my own world. In the interest of offering a little background, I have over the past nine years been bothered and my life has been changed dramatically by two separates diseases of the heart. Both leave me with a lack of energy, which means after a day of work I feel completely drained by four in the afternoon

I just returned from a two week vacation to Paris and Amsterdam and never left the hotel after 4 p.m. I had a great time during the day, but it triggered in me at the age of 59 that my mortality is so very in question. Generally. I’m happy with my work and life yet the resentment I feel toward friends who rarely, if ever call, and never come over make me see the true narcissism of others and me.

My best friend of 46 years tells me, when I confronted him, that I give too many details and that he doesn’t want to know how sick I am. He calls me once per month and perfunctorily asks, am I okay? He tells me how he is “up to his ass in alligators” at work and has no energy to want to know any details about my illness, or details about recent world crises like Katrina and Iraq. My closest friend also of 46 years in L.A. never calls and it takes him three weeks to return my calls and my closest relative from birth (my cousin in Philadelphia) checks in about once per year. None of them can truly empathize with what I feel even though I have told them what I need many times. They like everyone else is focused full bore on their stressors, money problems and own issues

The ironic part of all this is my career the past 35 years has been spent helping others with their lives and issues so I certainly understand how people get all wrapped up in themselves. It just seems more so the last 25 years of the “me first” philosophy. I always flowed with it but now because I’m focusing on my life and health I seem to resent people being people. Oh well, like I said, some “back at ya” karma here

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I am constantly reminded and amazed, probably until the day I leave this earth, how alike my father I am. Eventually, it seems most of the qualities I had such disdain for I now possess. Don’t get me wrong. He was a great man who was kind, ethical and oh so human yet some of his ways drove me nuts when I was young and I continually fought him. He was relentlessly opinionated about almost everything and his omniscient attitudes rang loud and clear. I have, over the years, received feedback on my own arrogance and know- it- all opinions. His pride in his ability to “be different” from others embarrassed me yet I now seems to wear that same attitude as a badge of honor. He was far to left of center for a teenager trying to be popular and conform yet I now view myself as far more radical in my thinking than even my most liberally progressive friends. Finally, his cynicism of American life, culture and politics seemed nothing more than pure negativity to me. I now see him as a prophet of things to come when he said our society was in a process of degeneration in almost every form. I now see strong evidence of that and no real light at the end of the tunnel. Geez, I really miss his enlightened view on things and his opinions on how this world would be better without some of our present philosophies, systems and leaders.

Our society has sunk to depths far below anything I have witnessed in my lifetime. I realize there were some horrendous happenings during prehistoric times and the years of the crusades brought many ungodly terrors. Every era has its devastation and victimization, but I wasn't around then ---I am now. I believe at almost 60 years of age I have given back to society in my caring for people and my life’s work, yet I have no solutions or answers for this society’s ills. I wish I did but I am not that bright or that special to know what to do or how to do it. I have only observations some of which I will share as a form of catharsis for myself.

I hope to use my endless opinions to express my concerns about the directions we are headed in areas such as foreign policy, race relations, education, medical care, sports, entertainment, music, etc. As I express my subjective musings on these areas I hope a few people might concur with me that greed (a.k.a. Capitalism) is at the core of the degeneration in all these areas.  No, I am not Communist but only an observer who feels sad at what has occurred in some of the components of life that I love the most.