Aging, Death, Mortality and Angst: Happy Birthday, Dad!

Signs of decay

I'm getting old and signs of decay are everywhere! Madonna's turning 50 and looking like shit. Isaac Hayes is dead at 65. Prince just had a hip replacement. The famous Wall Arch in Utah's Arches Nat'l Monument has collapsed. Kids are younger all the time. Youth has become this exclusive club that I've been kicked out of and have no chance talking my way back into. My skin is losing elasticity and my hair's turning gray and I have to monitor cholesterol levels. I fucking hate it!

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Happy birthday, Dad!

Today was my dad's—James Benjamin Altemus'—birthday. It's weird, the more time that goes by between now and his death, the less I think of him. This feels like a betrayal somehow. Like I'm a shitty son. Of course, I don't feel like I should constantly mourn him or obsess over him, but I figured I'd think of him more often than I do. 

When I do think of him lately, it's connected with mortality. Much to my embarrassment and frustration, I've become obsessed with my own mortality since his demise. It's like he was this buffer between me and death and now that he's gone, the buffer's gone. I'm next in line.

Now, I loved my dad. I've grieved his death. I've missed him. I've talked to him. I've imagined his presence. And I've honored him and his memory. But for the first time since his passing, it occurred to me yesterday I'm angry with him. (No one's ever accused me of being excessively rational.)

Really, though, I'm pissed that I'm left with this burden, this knowing that I'm going to die. That I can't run from it, hide from it, trick it somehow. That no matter what I do, I'm on a train that has only one destination and there's no getting off. 

Look, I've known this in my head since my early teens. But to really know it in your bones, in your gut, is a whole other thing. And ever since dad shuffled off his mortal coil four years ago, I've been deeply, irritatingly intimate with the knowledge. I've been slimed and I can't wash it off. 

Some background

It started when I realized he was dying. After a week in the hospital with little improvement after a nasty bout of flu kicked his ass, we moved him to a nursing home. He was clearly on his way out. I found myself unable to sleep through the night. I'd wander my house and think about going to the home to be with him. I think I must have believed I shouldn't sleep, lest I miss any time to spend with him, even if I wasn't in the same room. Actually, I don't know what I was thinking. I never felt more connected to him and more selfless than in those three weeks that he took to complete his dying process.

My obsession with mortality reached its nadir about a year ago or so. I found myself unable to sleep soundly several nights of the week and was on my way to becoming an insomniac. Worse, while I lay awake (or after I arose to putz around) I would focus on my eventual death. I was experiencing angst that would make a teenager blush. Serious, brutal existential angst. A recognition that sometime, whether tomorrow or in 70 years, I would be no more. And whether I was an Einstein or a homeless bum didn't matter. What difference does it make how I affect this world? I'm still going to be gone. The pieces of consciousness that make up my personality will be no more. 

And this drove me crazy. I writhed in psychic anguish. I felt I was staring into a black abyss that would consume me, if not now, then eventually. I realized that underneath all of my belief in spiritual possibilities, I—or at least a big chunk of me—was an atheist. I was furious, sad, lost.

It was absurd. 

Moving forward, then back

This winter, for reasons that stretched back farther and deeper than my newfound (though profound) mental discomfort, I started a course of antidepressants. A pleasant and unexpected side effect was that the anguish died down and I was able to sleep full nights again. And such had been the case until about a month or so ago. 

Though, not feeling the sheer agony and brutal fear that I felt last year, I've been once again focusing on my decay and death. (It seems though, that this time I have company, as Beck's latest album, Modern Guilt, is infused with the themes.) Anyway, it's back. And I'm sick of it. 

Because obsessing over aging and dying isn't doing me a damn bit of good. It's not making me a better person or giving me wisdom or helping me to enjoy life more. To the contrary, it depresses the hell out of me. The worst part is that I'm losing my sense of optimism, my sense of spirituality. No, the worst part is knowing that this is part of my birthright as a human being. This is pedestrian. I mean, who among us hasn't blanched at the thought our death? Which religion or spiritual sect or set of rites isn't birthed from the realization that our flesh will turn to dust and we will cease to be? How fucking tedious and useless.

What I want, what I'm craving right now, is the sense of limitless possibilities that I once had. The ability to disregard thoughts of mortality and just live. I'm not sure how to get back to that or how to redirect my thoughts away from the dead end they've been hanging out in lately. I'm not sure that I can.

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All that said, I still want to recognize my father for his warm heart, his integrity, his gentle nature. So, happy birthday, dad. I love you. I owe you my life and I thank you for it. 

Now, I've just got to figure out a way to get out of my head and live it. 

Religulous

Great news! Bill Maher been making a documentary called Religulous. From the trailer it looks like a hilarious combination of "Jaywalking", Borat, and Roger and Me. I can't embed the trailer, so here's the link. It won't hit theaters until Oct. 3. I can't wait.

He's also set up a website called Disbeliefnet, a parody of Beliefnet. 

Does Science Make Belief In God Obsolete?

The third in a series of "big questions" posed by the John Templeton Foundation. It's a fascinating discussion among world-class scientists, theologians, writers, and thinkers. Inexplicably, Chris Hitchens is included on the list. It's a worthwhile read despite this. 

Go check it out.

Thank You, Albert

Yesterday was a sad day, indeed. The world lost a great man, a revolutionary chemist, experiencer of the best bike ride in history, Albert Hoffman, the father of LSD. 

Here's Huffington Post's obit. The Daily Telegraph's is here. 

Obit excerpt:

Albert Hofmann, who died on Tuesday aged 102, synthesised lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938 and became the first person in the world to experience a full-blown "acid trip" – that was on April 19 1943, which became known among aficionados as "Bicycle Day" as it was while cycling home from his laboratory that he experienced the most intense symptoms.
…
Hofmann's studies led to many new discoveries, such as Hydergine, a medicament for improving circulation and cerebral function, and Dihydergot, a circulation and blood pressure stabilising medicine. His interest in synthesising LSD initially derived from the hope that it might also be useful as a circulatory and respiratory stimulant.
…
In retirement Hofmann served as a member of the Nobel Prize Committee. He was a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, and a member of the International Society of Plant Research and of the American Society of Pharmacognosy.

In 1988 the Albert Hofmann Foundation was established "to assemble and maintain an international library and archive devoted to the study of human consciousness and related fields".

Just for fun, there's this silliness:

I Am?

A very interesting interview with Integral philosopher, Ken Wilbur. To learn more about Integral Spirituality and Spiral Dynamics click on some of the links to the right under Science & Spirituality links section.

Choice cut:

You are the river: An interview with Ken Wilber The integral philosopher explains the difference between religion, New Age fads and the ultimate reality that traditional science can't touch.

Ken Wilber may be the most important living philosopher you've never heard of. He's written dozens of books but you'd be hard-pressed to find his name in a mainstream magazine. Still, Wilber has a passionate -- almost cultlike -- following in certain circles, as well as some famous fans. Bill Clinton and Al Gore have praised Wilber's books. 

A remarkable autodidact, Wilber's books range across entire fields of knowledge, from quantum physics to developmental psychology to the history of religion. He's steeped in the world's esoteric traditions, such as Mahayana Buddhism, Vedantic Hinduism, Sufism and Christian mysticism. Wilber also practices what he preaches, sometimes meditating for hours at a stretch. His "integral philosophy," along with the Integral Institute he's founded, hold out the promise that we can understand mystical experience without lapsing into New Age mush.
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Q: Why has the scientific worldview dismissed this trans-personal dimension? For most intellectuals around the world, the secular scientific paradigm has triumphed.

Wilbur: It's understandable. Historically, if you look at these broad stages, the magical era tended to be 50,000 years ago, the mythic era emerged around 5,000 B.C., and the rational era -- secular humanism -- emerged in the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was an attempt to liberate myth and base truth claims on evidence, not just dogma. But when science threw out the church, they threw out the baby with the bath water.

You can't prove a higher stage to someone who's not at it. If you go to somebody at the mythic stage and try to prove to them something from the rational, scientific stage, it won't work. You go to a fundamentalist who doesn't believe in evolution, who believes the earth was created in six days, and you say, "What about the fossil record"? "Oh yes, the fossil record; God created that on the fifth day." You can't use any of the evidence from a higher stage and prove it to a lower stage. So someone who's at the rational stage has a very hard time seeing these trans-rational, trans-personal stages. The rational scientist looks at all the pre-rational stuff as nonsense -- fairies and ghosts and goblins -- and lumps it together with the trans-rational stuff and says, "That's nonrational. I don't want anything to do with it."

So where does God fit into this picture? Do you believe in God?

God is a perfect example of how these two types of religion treat ultimate reality. You asked, "Do you believe in God?" In exoteric religion, it's a matter of belief. Do you believe in the kind of God who rewards and punishes and will sit with you in some eternal heaven? But in the esoteric form of religion, God is a direct experience. Most contemplatives would call it "godhead." It's so different from the mythic conceptions of God -- the old man in the sky with a gray beard. The word "God" is much more misleading than it is accurate. So there's a whole series of terms that are used instead by the esoteric traditions -- super-consciousness, Big Mind, Big Self. This ultimate reality is a direct union that is felt or recognized in a state of enlightenment or liberation. It's what the Sufis call the "supreme identity," the identity of the interior soul with the ultimate ground of being in a direct experiential state.

The Gospel Truth

Good news on the religion front from the Pew Research Center. 

28% - Losing My Religion
When looking at changes from one major religious tradition to another -- including no religion at all -- more than one-in-four adults (28%) have changed their religious affiliation from that in which they were raised. Among those changing their affiliation, the largest number now say they are not affiliated with any particular religious group or tradition. … The denomination that has experienced the greatest net loss by far is the Catholic Church.

Pangea Day

Is May 10 of this year.

What is Pangea Day?

Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future.

In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that - to help people see themselves in others - through the power of film.

On May 10, 2008 - Pangea Day - sites in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro will be linked live to produce a program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music.

The program will be broadcast live to the world through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.

Of course, movies alone can't change the world. But the people who watch them can. So following May 10, 2008, Pangea Day organizers will facilitate community-building activities around the world by connecting inspired viewers with numerous organizations which are already doing groundbreaking work.

Go to the website for more info.

Present Reality

Hear, hear. 

"The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually 'grasps' reality ... All the various definitions of the universe have had ulterior motives, being concerned with the future rather than the present. Religion wants to assure the future beyond death, and science wants to assure it until death, and to postpone death. But tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live.

There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly," - Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom Of Insecurity.

If only we could clue in the Dobsons and Dawkins of the world. 

h/t: Daily Dish

The Blind Men And The Elephant

I was thinking about stories the other day and how they affect and inform our lives. I know I have several that had great impact on how I view the world and how I live my life. But I'd have to say that the one that most informs my life, the one that I reflexively reference more than any other, is the ancient parable of the blind men and the elephant.

For those unfamiliar with the tale, here's Wikipedia's short description:

In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or blindfolded men) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes on what they felt, and learn they are in complete disagreement. The story is used to indicate that reality may be viewed differently depending upon one's perspective, suggesting that what seems an absolute truth may be relative due to the deceptive nature of half-truths.

For the full story (Jain version), click here. Read it, it's quick and worthwhile.

On a related note, I believe that the spiritual cores of the world's major religions have much more in common with other religions' cores than they do with the rigid orthodoxies of their nominal counterparts. That, combined with the elephant story is why, despite sometimes great difficulty, I do my best to respect others' beliefs, even when I find those beliefs peculiar, risible, or utterly asinine.

I bring the same basic principle to the world of politics, which partly explains my affection for the Tory-conservative Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish. Even though Sullivan and I come from diametrically opposed political viewpoints, I always find him worth reading. In fact, he's become my favorite blogger. There's little reflexive or dogmatic about his writing. He's thoughtful and intellectually honest and willing to examine and re-examine his cherished beliefs without completely jettisoning core principles. He describes himself as a conservative of doubt. And it's because of his temperamental humility as much as his intellect that I continue to read him. He might feel the tail, while I feel the trunk, but he knows he's one of the blind men and writes accordingly.

All of which is a very roundabout way of introducing this post, which examines Obama's pastor issue and his impending speech to address it. It's entries like this one that exemplify what I'm talking about. I'm posting the whole thing for the full flavor.

The Testing Of Obama
Today will be a crucial day. It will be a day when we will discover if America's racial environment - and the emotions and feelings and anger and fears that it entails - can allow for a black man - with all that entails - to become president. Can a man like Obama both relate and belong to a congregation like Trinity UCC and be inspired by a man like Jeremiah Wright and still reach beyond race to white and Latino and Jewish and Muslim and other Americans who may find the specific racial context as impossible to understand as it is absurd to excuse? This is the argument that will come flying back at him:

If John McCain had spent twenty years hanging with Pat Robertson, describing him as his mentor, attending Robertson's church, having his kids baptized by Robertson, having Robertson officiate at his wedding, giving him the inspiration for the title of his career-making autobiography, collaborating with him in political organizing, and then tried to dismiss criticism by calling Robertson his lovable uncle who sometimes goes too far, there is no way on God's green earth Yglesias or his crowd would call this "trumped up."

Much of Wright's worldview I find repugnant. But some of it I also find inspiring. And in trying to understand it in its totality, I do try to think about the racial context and history of America. And so there is a difference, pace Jonah, between a white charlatan like Robertson who chooses to demonize minorities in the name of Jesus and a pastor like Wright who vents rage against a majority that has, in the not-so-distant past, given African-Americans every reason to be angry. And there is a difference between a white politician (like Bush) who seeks to enjoy the support of a Robertson without ever challenging his ugly dimensions and a black politician who, while remaining in a congregation like Wright's, nonetheless has written and spoken as movingly as anyone in my lifetime about the need for racial reconciliation and understanding.

Maybe this is a bridge too far. But in thinking about Obama for this past year, and reading the subtle critique of, say, Shelby Steele, as well as the palpable racial discomfort of some white conservatives, I have to say that it is precisely the wide span of Obama's bridge that makes me admire him. He has refused to disown Wright, while also refusing to endorse all of his message. You can call that opportunistic or expedient or cynical. You can also call it intelligent and brave and principled. Obama could have chosen the Shelby Steele route or even the Alan Keyes or Condi Rice path. He could equally have chosen the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton path. But what is unique about Obama is that he tried and is trying to do much more than any of them have - to express all of these racial strategies and to transcend them. While being human. He isn't a saint or a savior. But he is trying.

I think this is part of his appeal to the next generation. And maybe it's appropriate for me at this point to express how he has inspired me as a gay man to keep trying to maintain the bridge over the gulfs of my own various identities rather than to burn it. It is possible in American public life to be defined as a gay person and to embrace every aspect of gay culture - the good, the bad and the ugly. It is also possible to be closeted or semi-closeted so that these questions do not easily arise. And it is possible to be a gay man completely divorced from gay culture, and to buy access to power and influence by simply adopting a relationship to the gay world that is indistinguishable from many straight people. I don't think there's any perfect solution to this terrible dilemma of identity - of belonging and transcending, of empathizing and maintaining a proper distance.

I don't blame any gay man or woman for failing to make all this work. We live in many worlds and not all of them fit. And there have been times in my life when the roughest edges of a gay subculture I do not want to disown and have been a full part of reach out and target me again. Whether it be an embarrassing online personal ad or sexual mishaps or a long night at the Black Party, I know that part of the straight world stands poised to attack and condemn, pigeon-hole and dismiss. So be it. I have no desire to disown much of gay culture that the straight world finds abhorrent. At the same time, I also know that not all of this subculture is healthy or good and I have an obligation to address and engage and reform those parts of it. That I have also tried to do - with uneven success. And I know, as I watch Obama, that these strains are not easy and those who have never had to walk this path do not fully know how hard it can be.

The ease of pure victimology is as phony as the release of complete assimilation. For an intelligent and principled person, the struggle lies in the interstices. What I have come to despise about much of the Republican party is its refusal even to empathize with this difficulty - or, worse, to choose to exploit these struggles for easy, cheap and callow political gain. And as I have grown older and felt the tug of all these identities more strongly, and understood more deeply the immense difficulty of resolving all of them, I can see few role models older than I am - and more, mercifully more, younger than I am.

But I see Obama as a pioneer on this path - a brave and principled pioneer. I would think much, much less of him if he disowned a spiritual guide because of that man's explicable if inexcusable resort to paranoia and racial separatism and anger. And I would think much, much less of Obama if he had never opened himself to this subculture and its fears, hopes and resentments. That he has done all this - while still attempting to reform and explain it - is a remarkable achievement. Did he overlook too much? Did his white guilt prevent him from protesting black extremism? It's hard for me to know, because this kind of judgment is very personal. I don't think I would have been as passive as Obama confronted with some of this stuff. But he did not merely sit back; he also dedicated his career to racial integration and understanding. It was a wide bridge, perhaps too wide for the weight it is bearing. And maybe America is not ready for this bridge, for these contradictions, for this complexity. But the promise of Obama is that his campaign appears poised to show that America is ready for this - and the immense healing it would bring.

And so we are suspended between the old politics and the new, between a Clinton who believes in her heart that America is not ready and may never be ready for this leap and should therefore adopt a politics that assumes the ineradicability of this gulf and the need to disguise it and play cynical defense - and an Obama who offers all of us a chance to see that sometimes authentic identity requires an element of contradiction, a bridging of the resentful, angry past and a more complex, integrated future.

He may fail; and the Clintons may be proven right. But he may also succeed - and what a mighty success that would be. These things are never easy; and we were lulled perhaps into an illusion that they could be. So now the real struggle starts. And it will not end with an Obama presidency; it ends with a shift from below that makes an Obama presidency possible.

Or to put it in a phrase that is as true as it is wilfully misunderstood: We are the change we have been waiting for. And the waiting is now over.

Christian Nation?

Wack jobs say the founding fathers were Christians. Saner sorts (like myself ;) say they were Deists. Turns out that, as if often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between. 

WERE THE FOUNDING FATHERS REALLY CHRISTIANS?....Religious conservatives have long insisted that the Framers were deeply and traditionally Christian, an assertion central to their contention that America was founded as a "Christian nation." Secular liberals, by contrast, have long argued that most of the Founders were agnostics or, at best, Deists who believed that reason, not scripture, is the true path to understanding the Almighty.

So which side is right? Neither is, quite, according to Steve Waldman, founding editor of beliefnet.com and the author of a terrific new book, Founding Faith. Waldman has read just about every available thing that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and the rest said and wrote, publicly and privately, about their personal theological views. He comes to two conclusions. First, all the Founders saw themselves as Christians and believed that God in one way or another guides human affairs. So, score one for the religious right. Second, not a single one of the main Founders actually believed in the divinity of Jesus, which is the central tenet of the Christian faith. Score one for the secular left.

Steve is blogging about this over at TPM Cafe. Also he's compiled an archive of his source material so you can read for yourself what the Founders had to say about their personal religious beliefs. You might also check out the cover story he wrote for the Washington Monthly (where he's a contributing editor) on the surprising role evangelicals played during the founding in securing religious freedom.

A Provocative Question

Before I answer, let me consult my chart. :)

Should Scientists Date People Who Believe in Astrology?
While searching for a soulmate on several online dating sites, I caught myself disregarding anyone who professed their belief in astrology.

At roughly the same time, a friend called my attention to this clip from The Big Bang Theory, which thoroughly picks astrological superstition apart. Am I being too hard on my New Age counterparts?

In my book, astrology is a silly shortcut for understanding how the world works, but so is judging people by their spiritual beliefs.

Scientists are sometimes guilty of using ridiculous heuristics too! For example, principal investigators sometimes hire graduate students based on grades and standardized test scores rather than their ability to work well in a laboratory.

Many brilliant people, including Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis, believe rather strange things. One of the chapters in his autobiography, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, bears the title: I am a Capricorn.

Also, I suspect that if someone took a poll of obsessive compulsive scientists, and there are plenty of those, they would be amazed by how many ridiculous beliefs the otherwise rational scholars secretly harbor.

Well, duh. Anyway, the clip is pretty amusing:

Sacred? Profane?

Edifying or entertaining sacred texts you’ve never read.