Major moving and shaking in this area. New horizons are opening up, horizons that have provided a great deal of food for thought, encouragement, stimulation, and intensive cogitation. Although he's by no means a new figure to me, Gabor Mate is a catalyst in these new ideas and in what I can perhaps, hopefully, call a raising of consciousness. Recently, my Mom had the pleasure of seeing him speak at a retreat in Massachusetts. She came back stimulated and passionately re-engaged with certain ideas - some new, some familiar, but all of them having to do with the bio-socio-spiritual worldview that Mate espouses as the key to living well. If any word fits, it might be "holistic." Mate has long been a proponent of the holistic worldview. In his case, being that his training is as a physician, it bears particular relevance to medicine. But as his own attitudes and awareness has matured and broadened - has itself become more holistic - he has come to recognize and discuss the relevance that such a worldview has on all aspects of life - work, play, sexuality, creativity, politics, etc. Put simply, Mate is a resplendant example of the well-rounded intellectual. Not just in the fact that his knowledge and his curiosity are wide-ranging, but in the fact that he has thought deeply, critically, and passionately about that knowledge, and that he has been willing to explore - to fail, to re-asses, to correct, to be humble and to still move forward. As such, he provides me with the hope that can be found from a good example, and from the new possibilities that his wisdom have illuminated for me and my experience of the world.
Here's a relevant clip, one of many that can be found on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLki68uLfjw
A couple of key concepts: "Fascism as the purest manifestation of the ego-driven mind" (a paraphrase.)
The idea of self-love, or self-acceptance, as being something ordinary, something everyday. Going to a talk. Seeking treatment and care. These are instances of self-love - not, as we are taught to believe, some overwhelming, cloud-parting experience of sublime light.
Jesus's quote that by bringing what is inside of you out, you will be healed - as the obverse of the modern, Western conception of "put this pill, this external object/treatment, into yourself, and you will be cured."
"It's difficult to think outside the box, because the thinking is the box." This is a quote from another author, which came to my by way of Gabor, and it's a keeper.
The previous issue of "self-love" is a crucial one, I think, and perhaps THE crucial one. It's what is directly in front of us - the purloined letter of our lives, hiding in plain view - and what we seem to miss, day in and day out. Even after we discover it, in fleeting moments, we often misplace it again - and it resumes its place in plain view, hidden. There's an enormous amount of work to be done in this area, for all of us, and it's in this area where I think I have the heaviest of all the heavy lifting to do.
Speaking to Mom earlier today, one of the topics that came up was the idea of being able to imagine, and by extension experience, our "best selves." Those moments - rare for me - when you are able to say about yourself that you are "really on." That capacity to surprise oneself with a finely tuned phrase, an impressive creative work, a gesture of particular kindness or compassion. That feeling - how fleeting and rare! - of being "comfortable in one's own skin." Gabor cites the example of a researcher who visited an aboriginal tribe in Malaysia and encountered two individuals who seemed exceptionally self-posessed. And we're all familiar with this topic, in fact - you can see it in photographs, National Geographic, etc - so often found in hunter-gatherer societies, or what remains of them - this radiant sense of ease that seems to emanate from the individuals. They are at peace with themselves, with the world. They don't struggle so much with themselves, they don't tend to run around in circles, seeking to be something other than what they are, always commanded by this or that manifestation of the super-ego, exhorting them to be better, to be other than, what they already are.
So, who/what am I? Besides, of course, a human being (although that alone seems to be enough of a challenge, some days). Am I the artist I seek to be? Am I the lusty, passionate, inspiring male?
At my best, I imagine myself as holding my own, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say belonging to a group of smart, talented, passionate, sincere, individuals. A community, better to say. And in some ways, of course, I already have that, thank Allah. But I am also acutely aware of the fact that I am living beneath my potential. That I could be doing much better for myself. My Mom corroborated this - she has felt the same, at times, but also in observing me, that I am a capable person with great potential, most of which is latent, unfortunately. How do I get from here to there? How do I feel more accepting of myself, and feel more acutely my membership, on a consistent basis, in such a way that leads me to really flourish?
But of course, this is something of a loaded question, since it can easily lead into the kind of lack of self-acceptance, of low self-regard, of always wanting to be beyond, to be other than, what you already are, that is so endemic to our society. So it's a difficult line to toe - how do you seek to accept yourself while also seeking to improve yourself? Or to improve your life, your activities?
Creativity can be a great way to do this. As Milch says, the creative act is an act of going out in spirit - the exact same kind of thing that Gabor talks about as going outside of ourselves to be healed. And one's attitude towards creativity is very important - what must be assiduously avoided is the kind of romanticizing of suffering that is so rife in Western culture, that praising of the artist who kills herself to work; that self-destructive glorification of utter, and ultimately destructive, devotion to the work above and beyond all else.
Also present, and highly controversial, is the idea that sickness can teach us; that we can learn from our ailments. The oft-cited anecdotal case of the person who claims that their cancer, their drug addiction, their heart attack, etc. - was "the best thing that ever happened to me." There's considerable reason, I think, to view such proclamations with a helping of salt, and also with a certain amount of pity and condescension. Isn't that just a narcissistic personal revisionism? How can something so traumatic, so debasing, possibly be considered the "best thing that ever happened to them?" And doesn't this lead to a dangerous level of self-centeredness, potentially souring into a kind of relentless self-blame? After all, it's a common phenomenon, maybe universal, I haven't seen the numbers - for sick people to fall into depressive states of guilt and self-reproach, blaming themeselves for their poor decision making, not taking better care of themselves, etc. The idea that bad things happen, sometimes even internal ones, which have at their root a personal cause, seems potentially harmful to me. And yet, I can't dismiss it entirely. And I can't allow myself to wholeheartedly indulge in the tendency to respond with pity and condescension - two classic distancing mechanisms, of course - to those people who claim to have learned something profound about themselves via a life-threatening crisis of health.
*Fake it till you make it.*
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