MFT Solutions: Healing Relationships

Musings

  • Growing Attention

    Attention. Please.

    I was blessed with the opportunity to spend three hours with Gabor Maté this week (Online. Me and several thousand others. It was still a treat!). Most know him for his work with addictions1. But he is also known for his work on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) 2.

    He talked about his own diagnosis of ADHD. How knowing what was wrong and having a way to treat it made it possible for him to become an author. Medication helped him write his first book.

    I’m trying to write a book…

    He wrote four more books. Most recently he published The Myth of Normal3. He didn’t need medication to write it.

    The brain can change.

    Our model of the brain is changing. We used to think that the brain stopped growing after adolescence. We now realize that brain growth continues throughout life. The brain grows continuously. Nerves make new connections throughout life.

    A comedian said, “I’m a man. But I can change. If I have to. I guess.”

    I’m a man. Can I change? Maybe I can. Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks.

    Change is possible. The hand we are dealt isn’t simply a matter of genetics. There are only 70,000 genes in the human genome – not enough to account for all the variation we see in people. Our biology interacts with the environment, and this makes us who we are and also allows us to change.

    This is “neuroplasticity”. You can change.

    ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Genetics play a role. But they don’t determine the final outcome. Studies with monozygotic twins show only 51% concordance – that is, a person who has the genes predisposing them to develop ADHD is still only about 50% likely to develop it. The environment has a huge effect.

    Stress during pregnancy can predispose the fetus to develop ADHD. The mother’s cortisol, released during stressful situations, crosses the blood-brain barrier and influences the development of the fetus’s brain. It becomes more able to react quickly to stressful situations. It’s adaptive. Knowing that it is about to be born into a stressful environment, the baby brain prepares itself to hit the ground running.

    Brain development continues after birth. Raising kids is both intensely rewarding and intensely stressful, on parent and child. The ideal way to raise a child, Maté said, is with a village of parents. For most of human history we lived as small bands of hunter-gatherers; everyone in the group shared the parenting. This was ideal. Now, our culture is not so ideal for childrearing. Independence is overvalued. Parents and children are isolated from community supports that could mitigate stress.

    Our culture is continually raising the stress level. This probably partly accounts for the increased diagnosis of ADHD.

    Maté was careful not to guilt parents. It’s not our fault that the culture is high-stress. That’s what we have to work with.

    He did a brilliant job of reframing ADHD in the context of genetics. Genes affect sensitivity. ADHD kids are generally more sensitive – more affected by the environment. These kids feel more. This makes them more creative. More intuitive. Also, alas, more reactive to environmental stress.

    We can look at the increased sensitivity of a person with ADHD as increased responsiveness to life. These kids are more responsive. They live more fully.

    We can look at their inattentiveness as a coping mechanism. They are so sensitive to their environment that it overwhelms them at times. They have to tune out.

    Impulse regulation isn’t something we are born with. We learn it. Attachment – surrounding a vulnerable child with protective adults – allows the child’s brain to access the more mature functions of the parents.

    For this to work, the parents have to work on their own maturity. Continuously.

    The Buddhists believe that all brains are hyperactive. They talk about “monkey mind”. We have to learn how to tame our monkey brains. Being an adult with even a partly tamed brain is of immense value to a child who is still learning to tame their own brain.

    So, said Maté, if you want to help your kids, work on yourself.

    1. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, https://a.co/d/02ULZxZv ↩
    2. Scattered Minds. https://a.co/d/0fZPmjFv ↩
    3. https://a.co/d/0cDDPcmZ ↩

  • Creative Hopelessness

    I am in a crappy mood today.

    What do you do when you are in a crappy mood?

    You should not ruminate. You should not ask yourself, “Why am I in this crappy mood?” Yet it is the most natural thing in the world to do. When something is wrong, feels wrong, we analyze it. We want to know why.

    They’ve shown, however, that when you try to get to the root of your problem – in this case, crappy mood – you spend time and energy focusing on your problem. At great depth. Focusing on your problem. What do you think that does? That’s right. It makes your problem bigger. Now not only am I in a crappy mood but I have amplified it. It takes up more of my attention as I try to figure out why this crappy mood exists.

    Rather than focus your brainpower on your crappy mood, you’re supposed to distract yourself. Think happy thoughts. Think about something other than your crappy mood.

    Easier said than done. When you tell yourself “Don’t think about your crappy mood” your brain tends to miss the “don’t” and is left with “think about your crappy mood”. And we’re back to ruminating.

    Human brains are unique in being able to connect things arbitrarily. You can connect anything to anything else. Socks to airplanes. Elephants to cheese. It’s called arbitrarily applicable relational responding.

    We get so good at connecting things that we can solve problems that lower animals cannot. It’s our go-to way of fixing stuff. Even when it makes things worse.

    I can connect my crappy mood to my aging, my low client load, my kids’ problems, or my back pain. There, now I don’t feel better.

    Les Greenberg, the father of emotionally focused therapy – EFT – (he was Sue Johnson’s supervisor), writes that moods are important. They give us information about our environment. They should not be ignored.

    An anxious mood, for instance, could point to a real danger in your environment. Paying attention to the mood might induce you to scan your environment more carefully. Could be a good thing.

    But an anxious mood could also be left over from some previous connection that you made. It might not have anything to do with what is going on right now. You could be scanning your environment for nothing.

    Crappy moods – depressive moods – are designed to slow you down. Depression robs you of energy. Makes you stop and think about what you are doing. Maybe you think about doing something different. This also can be useful. If you’re walking down the wrong path, your crappy mood makes you stop walking. Consider an alternative.

    But it too could be left over from some previous arbitrary connection. Maybe my crappy mood has to do with what I had for dinner last night. Too late to send it back.

    Feelings are useful, and sometimes not. How can you tell the difference between useful feelings and not useful ones? You can’t.

    Now I’m really in a crappy mood.

    Acceptance and commitment therapy – ACT – has a concept that helps us out of this Gordian knot. Creative hopelessness.

    I used to have this poster of a frog sitting at the bottom of a deep, dark well. The caption read, “You can’t fall out of a well.”

    When you’re down, it’s more likely you’ll be heading up soon.

    Creative hopelessness is sort of like this. It is the recognition that what you have been doing to solve your problem – e.g. avoid your crappy mood – isn’t working. So you should stop trying.

    That’s right. Stop trying to get out of your crappy mood.

    This ties into another tenet of ACT. Mindfulness. I am here now. Accept it. (Hence “acceptance” in “acceptance and commitment therapy”.)

    The difference – and I think Les Greenberg would agree – is that when you acknowledge and welcome an unpleasant feeling into your life, creative things can happen. If my usual routine is to avoid crappy moods – by sex, drinking or drugs – and I have found over time this doesn’t work, I decide that my usual way of dealing with my problem is hopeless. It doesn’t work.

    So… I have to try something else. Something creative.

    Hence, creative hopelessness.

    Here’s something fun to try: say “crappy” over and over again. Crappy crappy crappy crappy crappy crappy crappy… Don’t stop.

    What happens?

    “Crappy” ceases to be crappy. The word no longer has the same meaning.

    You can’t change the connections in your brain. You can add to them, though. You can make the troublesome ones meaningless. Or ludicrous.

    And hey, by writing about how crappy I feel, I no longer feel crappy.

  • Passing Through

    Passing Through

    A man went to visit a monk in the forest. After some time searching he found a small hut with smoke rising from a chimney. It was the monk’s hut. The man stopped at the entrance, knocked, and entered. Once inside he was surprised to see a single room, bare but for a table and two chairs. The monk was sitting in one of the chairs. The monk motioned the man to take a seat in the other chair.

    “How can I help?” asked the monk.

    Distracted by the sparseness of the room, the man asked, “Where are your things?”

    “Where are yours?” asked the monk.

    “But I am just passing through,” said the man.

    “So am I,” said the monk.

    Nearing retirement, but not quite there, I notice that the field of therapy is changing. The pandemic caused a shift to online work. Third-party companies manage a lot of the demand for therapy. I have adapted to the online work. But I have let go of many of the third-party contracts that used to flood my office with clients. No more flood.

    “The most flexible practice wins,” according to my business coach1. I owned that on the first of this year: I gave up my office. Now I rent it back by the day when I need it. The rest of the time I work from home.

    I’m back in the office today. Same office, but more like the monk’s hut now. Sparsely furnished. I am just passing through.

    On the drive in this morning I had uncomfortable feelings. I recalled the work of Les Greenberg – he was Sue Johnson’s supervisor, of EFT fame. Les taught me that emotion is a primitive sensory system. It’s supposed to tell you when things are out of whack.

    My emotions are telling me that things are out of whack. That does not necessarily mean that I should put things back into whack. I could. Or I could revel in the change.

    I have more time now to reflect on the meaning of life, which has been a lifelong passion of mine. It is the reason I studied physiology, to get an idea of what life means biochemically, and then theology, to get an idea of what life means metaphysically.

    Some years ago I met Karl Tomm, a Calgary psychiatrist recently named to the Order of Canada. When I told him about my quest for the meaning of life, he told me to read Humberto Maturana’s The Tree of Knowledge. Maturana is back on my desk (at home).

    Maturana takes a process approach to biology. He has much in common with the theologian, Paul Tillich. When a biologist and a theologian agree, it’s a special day.

    Both talk about life as arising from a buildup of complex molecules. Hydrogen is the simplest element – the simplest atom. Life as we know it requires molecules made of carbon – much more complex. How does the carbon get formed?

    The answer is in the stars. Stars are made of hydrogen. The hydrogen collects and forms a big ball, which becomes massive, and when its density reaches a critical stage, fusion begins. The hydrogen atoms combine to form heavier elements. Tremendous amounts of energy are released. This process lasts about six billion years, from birth, the beginning of fusion, to death, when its hydrogen runs out and has been converted to heavier elements – including carbon. At this point the dying star explodes – goes nova, which interestingly means “new” – and the heavier elements are spewed across the universe.

    Our earth was formed from these heavier elements.

    Our sun is only 4.5 billion years old. We have time. But we, like everything else, are just passing through. In the process, we gain complexity. And then we let it go again. Power separates us from the surrounding environment. And when we die and reconnect with our environment – Tillich calls this “love”.

    As these molecular remnants of dying stars coalesce and cool, they combine and become more complex. Carbon-based molecules can be quite complex, forming proteins and enzymes and eventually “networks of molecular reactions (which) produce the same types of molecules that they embody, while at the same time they set the boundaries of the space in which they are formed.” 2

    This is the definition of life. Not the one you learned in high school, but a process definition of life. Life is that which reproduces itself, and sets boundaries between itself and its environment. Tillich, the theologian, calls the setting of boundaries power. Life thus involves the ability to create, the ability to differentiate, and the power to do both.

    I was trying to get to my uncomfortable feelings. One of the consequences of life – a reproducible entity with power – is that living beings are constantly interacting with the environment beyond their boundaries, monitoring it for changes which could threaten their existence.

    In order to do this every living thing develops a reflex, so that whenever a change is sensed in the environment, the living thing reacts to minimize the effect of the change on its internal processes.

    If I live long enough I will say more on this.

    There’s more to this that I haven’t teased out yet, but this has bearing on what is happening to our world. Not just to my office.

    1. Lynn Grodzki, Building Your Ideal Private Practice ↩
    2. The Tree of Knowledge, p. 37 ↩
  • The Name of the Game

    The Name of the Game

    So I play this game.

    When I was younger and more serious I would have told you that it wasn’t a game. It was a flight simulator. And that’s what it is. A fairly serious flight simulator.

    But really it’s a game.

    I’m a big fan of playing games.

    Years ago I went to the local airport and got someone to take me up in a small plane. Then I kept going back, and paying for lessons. I could only afford to fly once a month. But over the months I gradually gained experience…

    I had a flight simulator on my first computer, a Commodore 64. I would “fly” on my computer between flying lessons. It was not very sophisticated. But it did help me to practice.

    I kept going back to the airport. Eventually they let me solo. Then I got my private license. Then I passed my flight exam with my wife so I could take our kids up.

    And then I got my night rating, and my commercial license, and my multi-engine rating. And I kept playing my game between lessons.

    I never worked as a pilot. I did spend a lot of money on flying. I regret nothing.

    I flew real airplanes for nearly 3 decades. But eventually I had to stop. I am back to where I started. Just the game. And a lot of memories…

    Games are important. They allow us to pretend to be someone and to do something that we maybe can’t do in real life. They expand our horizons.

    Also they prepare us for real life. When you use your imagination and pretend to do something, the same parts of your brain are activated as if you really did that thing.

    Now I’m not saying that you can play a game and then fly a plane. There was some translation involved. Also many hours with instructors.

    But I had a client who was a basketball player and who broke her leg. After her leg healed she was afraid to go back on the court.

    So I played a game with her. I put her into trance. And I had her imagine that she was on a basketball court, playing a game of basketball, with spectators on the benches making noise and the feel of players bustling up and down the court, and the feel of the ball and the smell of the hall…

    And within a short time, she was playing the real game again.

    Games are not just games.

  • Being

    I am beginning to enjoy

    My boring life

    Having discovered

    That the brain levels up

    With boredom

    And letting go

    Of the need to Do Things

    Just being in the world

    Being me

    With all my foibles

    And frailties

    And letting go of fear

    Embracing life

    As it is

    Here and now

    I become

    My true self

    And the gift to the world

    I was meant to be.

  • In His Defence

    The man’s daughter, talking to her mother on the phone, was saying, “When Dad was ill…” Her mother – the man’s trusted partner – silently accepted the words as if they were true. The man startled. When was he ill?

    Mark Twain said, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

    In this child’s eyes, her father wasn’t so much ignorant as ill. Maybe that’s a step up, to be excused for illness instead of accused of ignorance. Maybe the child was being gracious.

    We do all kinds of things to save face. If there is a breakdown in relationship, we don’t want it to be our fault. If it is, we feel shame, and shame just separates us further, isolates us. That’s threatening. Without the support of others we are vulnerable. If I count on the support of others, I can’t be to blame for hurting them in some way.

    But sometimes I am to blame, and to deny this, even to save myself from shame, is to render myself powerless to fix the problem. If it’s not my fault, then I can’t fix it. If it is my fault, I can. But first I have to accept the pain that it was my fault.

    So this man and his daughter had a breakdown in their relationship. Perhaps he was ill, or young, or inexperienced as a parent. Who as a parent really knows that they are doing?

    When I was 14 I knew everything. My parents seemed not to know a lot. Ten more years passed before I got married, and three more before I became a parent.

    Before I became a parent I had all the answers to parenting. As soon as I became a parent, I lost all my answers. I remember one of my professors seeing me with my son in a snuggly on my chest, and saying to me, “You probably think you’re the first person to have one of those, don’t you?”

    I do. I did.

    Three times.

    And now they’re all grown, and I am conscious of the mistakes I made – some of them, anyway – and so proud and relieved that they turned out so well in spite of me.

  • Load Rage

    There’s a long, wandering nerve in the body called the vagus (means “wandering”). It goes to the heart. It goes to the stomach. It goes to the face. It goes to the larynx (voice box).

    It has two main branches.

    One is covered with myelin. Insulated, it conducts faster.

    One is not covered with myelin. It’s older. Reptiles have it. It’s the slower part of the nerve.

    The fast part of the nerve goes to your face and voice box. It helps you to attract attention. Make expressions with your face and sounds with your voice, other people come running. Useful in an emergency.

    The slow part goes to the heart, and other places, to start up your internal emergency system. Fight or flight. Fast heart rate, high blood flow to the arms and legs. Also useful in an emergency. But uses up a lot of energy.

    Because the slow branch of the vagus uses so much energy we have evolved from reptiles, and developed this faster system of signalling to others for help. Energy-efficient survival.

    But it only works if we’re willing to trust others.

    I was following a car that was going slower than I wanted to go – he was a little under the speed limit – and so I passed him. He accelerated as I passed but I completed my pass safely. Then he came right up behind me, passed me, and zoomed up the road.

    I found that I was shaking. Adrenaline. My amygdala was activated. I was prepared for conflict. When he passed I wasn’t sure that he wasn’t also going to pull in front of me and brake suddenly.

    You may have had a similar experience. It happens to me a lot (is it me?). Once, I passed a guy in a pickup truck (never argue with people who drive pickup trucks) and then he passed me and abruptly slowed, blocking my path. I pulled onto the shoulder and waited for him to go away.

    Tamara Lich has been organizing far-right protests since 2018. She was arrested in 2022 and convicted of mischief for her role in leading the “Freedom Convoy” protest in Ottawa.

    She posted on X that she no longer feels safe, respected or free, [1]. I don’t use X anymore, but her message was echoed on Instagram, and when I read it, I responded that I did not have a lot of sympathy for someone who went out of her way to make others feel unsafe.

    And of course I was attacked.

    It made me think of the good people on the highway.

    I felt the same amygdalar reaction from people calling me vulgar names on social media as I did from the people (trying to kill me?) on the highway.

    You may think that I am overreacting. I am. That’s the point.

    We have forgotten how to play with others. Anyone who dissents has become an enemy. I have my way of looking at the world, and if you disagree, then I have nothing to do with you. You are my enemy.

    Which means that I am on my own. I have to use my own devices for survival. The “slow” branch of my vagus. Fight or flight. No facial signs of distress or calls for help allowed. No cooperation.

    There used to be a TV network in the U.S. called PBS. They had a song about cooperation.

    That network has been dismantled. It’s every man for himself.

    Mostly men, have you noticed? They want to roll back women’s rights. Probably because women would favour cooperation.

    We have been developing this myth, especially in North America, that we can each live independently. We don’t need other people.

    Others have been sounding the alarm bell on this. “Hey, we’re mammals, not reptiles. It costs less energy to cooperate.” PBS. Notable neurophysiologists[2].

    Cooperating means sharing my energy. If I can’t see the longterm benefits, I might be disinclined.

    And now there is all this doom and gloom about climate change. Recently a pandemic. And now perhaps an alien visitor traversing the solar system.

    But that’s okay. I can solve all these problems by myself. Without you.

    Maybe not.

    [1]         https://x.com/LichTamara/status/1952736918963167718

    [2]         Darcia Narvaez (2014). Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture, and Wisdom. New York: W. W. Norton

  • A Butterfly that Knows Itself Can Change the World

    I hesitated to write this column because, I said to myself, I am worrying about what I can’t control, and I tell my clients all the time not to do this – not to worry about what you can’t change.

    I am worried about the United States. Recall that my ancestors came from there. I still have family in the U.S. I also have friends: two of my closest from high school.

    I have membership in a number of U.S. organizations: for hypnosis, for marriage and family therapy, and for contextual behavioural therapy (without the “u”).

    There are a lot of good people in the United States.

    I was born 14 years after the end of World War II, and grew up in the Cold War era. Not only did I live in fear of a nuclear attack but I actually thought I was witnessing one on November 10, 1979, when a Canadian Pacific train carrying propane derailed and blew up in Toronto.

    I have never experienced war. I read about the Nazis and the holocaust. I suppose we have our share of guilt over our treatment of First Nations people. But I have, for the most part, lived a peaceful, protected life, where not a lot of bad stuff was happening at my front door.

    That’s changing now. I don’t like it.

    The United States is being transformed. It is not a pleasant transformation. Not a “good” transformation. It seems to be a big step backward.

    As a healer, I lean in the direction of wanting to help people. As a systemic therapist, I recognize that we participate in a complex system of interaction with each other, with other living systems, and, of course, with the environment.

    I have been trained to see the value in all parts. We need each other.

    Not everyone shares that view.

    I do not understand U.S. government. I tend to simplify and draw analogies with Canada. The Republican Party seems to be a conservative version of our Conservative Party. Very right: individual liberty, traditional values, limited government.

    The Democratic Party leans to the left: equality, social justice, and government intervention. Democrats are perhaps more to the right than our Liberals, but definitely left of the Republicans.

    I have read1 and I understand that we need each other. Conservatives (Republicans) remind us to value individual freedom, tradition, and to combat government overreach. Liberals (Democrats) remind us that we have a responsibility to help those less privileged.

    The tension between these two views seemed to work for years. Left and right balanced each other. But maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.

    And of course these parties weren’t operating in isolation. I have written recently on the constantly changing environment, and the need to adapt to it. The world is changing all the time.

    As the world becomes less hospitable – more heat, more storms, fewer places of safety, melting ice caps (less land) – anxiety is increasing.

    It’s great for business.

    There are more people (also great for business). As of two weeks ago, the world population passed 8.2 billion2. The number of people on the planet is increasing at a rate of nearly 10 per second.

    With more people, less land, and a climate that seems to be trying to kill us, not everyone is going to therapy to talk about it. Some people are trying to solve these problems. Some are confronting the complexity and seeking rational, scientific solutions.

    Others are not so much into science.

    I’m old enough to remember Ronald Reagan, who served as the 40th American President from 1981 to 1989. I remember how funny we all thought it was that an actor became president of the United States. He was popular because he was a change, a Republican correction at a time when people were disillusioned with the Democrats.

    He had his own problems and caused his own scandals.

    The pendulum swings back and forth, but I’m afraid that it’s going to stop swinging now. PBS reported that Trump was behind the Jan 6 insurrection (and now he has defunded PBS). This new reality TV star president famously said, “You won’t have to vote again”. He seems to be following through by systematically undermining the normal checks and balances that keep the President from becoming a dictator.

    Trump offers an alternative to grappling seriously with the world’s problems: ignore them. Get rid of all the immigrants. Get rid of all the scientists. Get rid of all the teachers. Just don’t think about the problems of the world. Stop trading with them, even. Close the borders. Shut your eyes. Everything will be fine.

    Trump is gaining in popularity and power in the same way that Hitler did, for similar reasons, perhaps. When times are tough it is tempting to put your head in the sand.

    I thought this was all going to stay in my history books, not come back to bite me. I thought I was born after World War II…

    But I am a family therapist, and this gives me hope. Because I believe in butterflies.

    Family therapy is a little different from what you might think of when you think of psychotherapy. You may think about one person lying on the couch and talking about their mother. That’s psychoanalysis. It’s helped a lot of people. It’s not bad.

    Family therapy started from a different premise. Instead of seeing the problem as residing in one person (or coming from your mother), family therapy defines the “problem” as an interaction. No one individual to blame. The whole system holds the problem. An alcoholic for example is part of an alcoholic family system: one person drinks, another pays the bills, another goes to school and pretends everything is fine at home. Everyone plays their part.

    This mess of a world – not just the U.S. but all of us – is just one big alcoholic family system.

    In a system, true, some parts are more powerful than others, but every part influences it, to some degree.

    Even the butterflies. Even me.

    My systemic lens suggests to me that Trump is gaining popularity because of climate change. The world is becoming inhospitable. Left-leaning governments and individuals are rising to the challenge and struggling to find ways to slow the rate of climate change, and help those affected by it.

    Right-leaning governments and individuals are narrowing their view of tribe. Building walls to protect their limited resources and to keep others away. Leaning in to individual freedom. Leaning away from helping others.

    Left or right, individuals matter. Speaking your own truth matters. Differentiation matters.

    If you pay close attention you will see that not everyone is singing the same tune. There are dissonant voices. You can hear them.

    Want to help change the world for the better? Speak your truth. Wherever you are, in whatever context, speak your truth. Monitor your diet of social media. Take breaks. Look for evidence. Take the harder road. Challenge your own beliefs.

    Differentiation matters. A human being begins as a single, fertilized egg. It does not remain so. As it divides, the new cells differentiate. Each assumes a unique function. Nerve, bone, blood, muscle, fat. Everything is useful, and everything is needed to make a human being.

    Everyone is needed to make a human species.

    All you really have to do is be different than the troublemakers. Speak your truth. Just that. Speak to what you see. Like the child who saw that the emperor had no clothes, add your tiny voice to the mix. Your voice that is dissonant. It refuses to buy into or believe lies. That’s all you need to do.

    Systems are powerful but they are not omnipotent. A small, dissonant voice can wear a mountain of lies away like a persistent drop of water.

    Just so. Speak the truth.

    Even large systems have to adjust to the dissenter, over time. They can’t help it. They have to follow the same rules that enabled them to form their dominant story: everyone has a part; everyone has a voice. Anyone who dissents also has a voice. And this changes the whole, over time.

    So perhaps I am worrying about what I can control. And perhaps I am doing what I need to do. By simply speaking.

    1. Jonathan Haidt (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Pantheon Books ↩︎
    2. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ this is a really cool web page. You can watch world birth and death rates in real time. Ten people are added to the world every second. One person dies every second. Net growth, 9 people per second. ↩︎

  • How to Save the World

    Maturana and Varela, Chilean biologists, wrote an essential book called The Tree of Knowledge. They “explain” evolution according to a simple rule that even a single-celled organism can follow:

    Don’t piss off the environment.

    We talk about climate change like it is something we caused and can therefore reverse. That may be partly true. What is more true is that the climate – the environment in which we live – has been changing for millions of years. Since the earth was formed.

    The world is always changing. We can’t stop that. We can’t change it back. We can only change with it.

    For the single-celled organism to survive, it has to change as its environment changes. If it doesn’t, it dies.

    If the environment changes in such a way that the cell is perturbed – disturbed from its resting state, its homeostasis – then the cell has a simple reflex. Using what it has internally, it changes itself to adjust to the environmental change. And then it can rest again.

    As it changes to meet the environmental challenge, the cell acquires new skills. New organelles. New capabilities.

    The cell benefits from change. It survives.

    Cells that don’t change eventually die out. The environment continues to change, and after awhile the difference between what the cell needs and what the environment has to offer is too great, and the cell simply cannot survive.

    The cell also benefits because it acquires new skills. New abilities. If the temperature increases, it learns how to adjust its internal temperature accordingly, so that its chemical reactions continue in an optimal way. And by promoting this change, the cell develops strengths that it didn’t have before. And it is better equipped to meet the next challenge.

    Athletes know this. Students know this. Parents know this. Meet the daily challenge. Change with it. Learn something new. Become a little stronger. You are better prepared to meet the next challenge.

    There are millions of single cells out there still adjusting to the environment, one day at a time. But this has been going on for so long that some of the first cells who adapted to change have themselves changed so much and become so equipped that they can do what to a single cell would be unthinkable, if it could think.

    At some point cells started clumping together for mutual support. Groups of cells began to specialize, supporting other groups of cells with what they produced, and taking from them what they no longer made for themselves. A sort of free market of cell communities.

    These groups of cells became recognizable as living things. Plants, animals.

    Some of these animals became self-aware. Psychological1.

    Some of these self-aware animals became other-aware. Spiritual2. Recognizing that they exist in a world that places limits and makes demands. Recognizing that continued survival of the whole – all living things – requires a form of global cooperation.

    The next stage of our evolution remains to be seen. But the process is clear: when the environment challenges, you must respond. Use everything you have to meet the challenge. Adapt to it, become stronger, and be ready for the next challenge.

    We have acquired an impressive collection of wisdom and knowledge and history. Like a cell with well-developed organelles, we have powerful tools to meet the present environmental challenges, if we value and use everything we have.

    Roughly half of us don’t want to do this anymore. Don’t want to change. Change is hard. But not to change is like so much of mental illness in general and addiction in particular: a short-term gain for a long-term disaster.

    Adapting to a changing world means upgrading ourselves. Upgrades are hard. Not all the bugs have been worked out. There are glitches in this newest human operating system which has been handed down to us. That however is not a call to go back to Windows 1.0. Not a good survival strategy.

    If we want to save the world – save ourselves in the world, really. The world doesn’t care – all we have to do is embrace change. Acknowledge that the environment is becoming uncomfortable. Work together as a single organism, using what we have, to change so that we adjust. To the new world. In a way that uses everything – and everyone – that we have.

    1. Paul Tillich (1976), Systematic Theology 3. University of Chicago Press. ↩︎
    2. Ibid. ↩︎

  • As You Wish

    In William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, the Dread Pirate Roberts is a mythical figure who sails the seas and spares no one. Westley unfortunately gets captured by him, but manages to escape execution by pleading for his life and saying, “Please”.

    Roberts is impressed by this, and also by Westley’s story of his unending love for Buttercup. He lets Westley live, and hires him as his servant.

    “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning,” Roberts says to Westley each evening. Yet Westley lives, and eventually is initiated into Roberts’s secret: there is no Dread Pirate Roberts. There is only a succession of individuals who take on the name, sail the seven seas, and make their fortune by terror and unpredictability.

    When I listen to news about people deported, tariffs applied, and my country threatened, I feel like Westley trying to sleep next to the Dread Pirate Roberts. I think that Donald Trump is the current incarnation of the Dread Pirate Roberts. And this gives me hope.

    If you are not familiar with The Dread Pirate Roberts you can read about him here. In Trump we are dealing with a mythical figure who is capricious, selfish, and potentially destructive to anyone who doesn’t admire or pay tribute to him.

    There will always be a Dread Pirate Roberts in the world – someone who has been led astray by false goals of greed and power. Someone not to be feared, however, if you are not beholden to the same, shortsighted goals.

    Westley eventually takes on the mantle of Roberts himself and turns it on its side. He radiates love, optimism, and resourcefulness. He survives against all odds. He defeats Prince Humperdinck and wins back his Buttercup.

    I love a story about a big bad enemy outsmarted by a simple farm boy. David and Goliath. Incidentally it’s completely on point that a Floridian made the news by saying that Canada was “taking on Goliath.” The irony.

    In the face of bullying, fear may be the first response, but before too much adrenaline is wasted, we might take on the role of Westley. Embrace mindful, sardonic, intelligent response to pirates. Be like David to Goliath. Jack to the giant. Hobbit to dragon.

    “I’ve found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.” (J.R.R. Tolkien)

    Pirates are restricted to theft and longing, the dregs of the barrel. Westley’s embrace love, adventure, and enjoyment.

    Love was defined by Paul Tillich as a uniting force: the drive to reunite that which has been separated. If we as a species are to survive, we need to embrace our identity as mammals, and bring the herd together. Westley’s form teams. Pirates fight amongst themselves.

    The Princess Bride is billed as a romantic fantasy but my experience of it is that it is a romantic comedy. Humour, defined by Edward de Bono, is the emotion that you feel when you create something new.

    Now therefore you have a choice. Cling to power, like a pirate, or embrace the powers of love and creativity, like a Westley.

    As you wish.