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Musings on friendship

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When I was in fourth grade, my teacher approached me with an unusual request. She asked me to befriend a girl who was a little odd. I’ll call her Susan.

She and I both liked to read, specifically science fiction. She wrote a little then too. We both thought Steve Martin was very funny.

Her father was dead, but worse, her father had been abusive. Her mother had to work a lot to support them, so spent a lot of time alone. This was unusual at the time – most families stayed together. Single mothers were unheard of. They lived in a tiny house that was just behind the school. At the time, that size house would have been considered poverty level. These days, the micro-house people would think it was immense.

She had wild hair – too curly to be manageable. She was a bit overweight, and smelled like cat. Perhaps she had Asperger’s. Perhaps she just didn’t know how to fit in.

Did this hamper my social life because I was seen with the weirdo? I wasn’t much of a social butterfly anyway. I would have been just as happy being alone. I never understood all the fuss people (girls) made over boys and makeup and pop stars. Perhaps the teacher thought I needed a friend, rather than the other way around.

Did this help her? She got to socialize with another person. But it was an artificial relationship. Like an arranged marriage. It definitely stopped her from becoming worse.

I didn’t think of it in this way at the time. More than thirty years has colored my feelings. In a way I feel cheated – I made very few other friends while in elementary school. She stuck with me. Out of habit? Desperation? Did this keep others away?

I was far from normal – but I had a stable home. At the time I felt it was a big honor to be asked – this meant I had extra to give. This meant I had a kind heart.

This has softened me to the plight of the “other” the weirdo, the loner. Folks say “he was quiet, and he kept to himself” – yes – so introduce yourself. Talk with him. Become a friend. It is hard to be a friend to the friendless, but it is important. It may save a life (or hundreds), the life of the person, or the people they might harm.

Back in my day, unhappy loners just killed themselves. These days they kill innocent strangers.

However, this hampered my ability to make friends in a different way – it became the pattern for my friendships. I fixed problems. I was the one who listened. I was the one who understood. But when I had a problem or needed to be listened to, nobody could help.

She showed up, unannounced, at my workplace one day years after school was over and asked if we were still friends. I’d not called, she’d not called. We were adults now. This was after my parents had died – -and she had been nowhere during that very traumatic time.

What is friendship? A name in a phone book? A connection on Facebook? If only one person is making the effort, then it really isn’t a friendship.

Money and energy

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If somebody comes up to you and asks for $20 and you give it to them and it’s not a hardship for you, then everything is okay. They aren’t borrowing it – they just want $20.

But what happens when they come up to you the next day and ask for another $20? Do you give it to them? If you do and it’s not a problem, then again everything is okay.

But what about the next day
and the next day
and the next day?

If they keep asking you for money and you keep giving it to them you might start to feel resentful. You might think “I really don’t have this kind of money to give away. Why does this person keep asking me for money?”

Really the question is – why do you keep giving it to them if there’s a problem?

This isn’t about money, but money is a good way to get into this idea. Money represents energy. Someone can’t take something from you without your permission. Someone can’t take advantage of you without you letting them do it.

If there’s a coworker who is constantly shirking at work and you constantly have to pick up her slack, then that’s your problem, not her problem. She is a genius. She figured out how to get paid to do half her job. Meanwhile, you’re doing twice the amount of work for the same pay.

If you feel put upon and upset and hurt by this, then that is all about you not establishing safe boundaries for yourself. Time to say no, and mean it. The other person will push you and test you – this is normal. Keep saying no.

Why do we so often care about not hurting other people’s feelings, while feeling hurt and upset ourselves? Time to change things. We don’t need to turn this so far around that we aren’t considerate of how others think and feel, but we do need to factor in how we think and feel. It isn’t fair if feelings aren’t equal.

On carrying cash only.

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One of the most common things I hear when I tell people that I carry cash instead of credit cards is that they are afraid. They don’t say the words that they are afraid, but the next sentence does. They say “It is dangerous to carry around large amounts of money all the time.”

I think to myself – why would you need to carry around large amounts of money all the time? Do you have a sudden need to spend large amounts of money? That alone should be something to look into. That indicates deeper problems – ones that can be addressed by taking on the discipline of carrying cash.

For everyday occurrences, simply carrying at least a 20 on you will do. Even before I started carrying only cash, I would have a 20 under my ID as an emergency backup, and a 20, a 10, a 5, and some ones. That meant I had whatever change I needed for whatever circumstance. It also meant that I had enough to pay for my meal when the credit card machine reader was broken.

I have experienced enough times with myself and with observing others that not every place takes credit cards, and not every credit card reader works all the time. It is safer to have some cash on you.

I know a guy who was ‘running on fumes’. He just barely managed to get to a gas station before his car ran out of gas. Ideally, he would have filled up long before the gauge hit E, but that is another story. He gets to the gas station and pulled out his credit card. The card reader did not work. He knew that he did not have enough gas to start the car and drive to the next gas station. He did not have any cash on him. He was stuck. Fortunately someone nearby, (someone older), had cash and lent it to him.

You don’t need to carry large amounts of money on you at all times. You know when you’re going to go to grocery store or the hardware store. You have an idea how much you’re going to spend. Bring that amount. Otherwise keep it at home or at the bank.

I think that all of this anxiety about carrying large amounts of cash is a disease that has been spread to us to make us afraid and controlled.

Think of the stories you’ve heard in the news of people who have been robbed. Then start going backwards. How many people do you personally know who have been robbed? If you know anyone who was robbed, how often where they robbed?

Have they been robbed every week?
Have they been robbed once a year?

How big is this problem, really? More importantly – how small is it?

Then think about the numbers of times you’ve heard about thousands of people experiencing credit card fraud. Their wallet doesn’t even have to be stolen. They won’t even know they have had their information taken from them until it is too late. It is less traumatic at the beginning, sure, but way more expensive at the end. Lots of time has gone by, and lots of money has been spent. Lots of money that isn’t even there to be spent – it is all on credit.

I believe that all the stories we hear of people being robbed are exactly that – stories. I believe that we have been told these stories to keep us afraid, and in line. I believe that the world is exactly as safe as we choose it to be. But also – it is exactly as dangerous as we will let it be.

I would rather have cash on me than credit cards with huge limits. Not only is it dangerous to have the ability to mindlessly spend up to $15000, it is also dangerous that someone could steal my purse and could swipe my card and max it out all the way up to the limit of my credit. These days, if someone steals my wallet, the only thing they’ll steal is the amount of cash that is inside it. That is at most 50. On grocery days it is 100. I’d much rather have $100 stolen than $5000.

But what about unforeseen accidents and problems? My car might break down? What then? What did we do before credit cards? Think. We have created our own monster.

I can live in fear that I’m going to be robbed, or I can live in fear that I’m suddenly going to have to spend lots of money because my car is going to break down.

I chose to not live in fear.

Healer vs. Doctor

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I once saw a medical program on TV where a woman had tendonitis in her thumb. She had a young child and every time she picked him up she used her hand in a certain way that caused her thumb to repeatedly experience stress. On the show, the doctor gave her a steroid shot in her thumb to fix the problem.

The real issue though is that he was simply being a doctor. Doctors fix the symptom. Healers fix the problem.

If he wanted to be a true healer, he would have shown her different ways of using her hand so that she would never ever have that problem again. By being a doctor, and addressing only the symptom, he ensures that in the future she will experience the same problem again and thus need to seek him for help again. She will again get a shot and again not be any better in the big picture.

Humus

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Sometimes I think that my father’s failure to produce a book is one of the reasons why I am so driven. My father had a dream of writing a book about Beethoven. He died at 60 having never even jotted down notes. I’d hoped to find them after he died and assemble the book in his memory.

I found nothing of the sort. It was all in his head.

Perhaps he was afraid, fearing what others would think. He never was able to rise above “staff” position as a college teacher. He never finished his PhD work. He wore fear, insecurity, and a sense of worthlessness like a cloak. He never pushed through it to learn that doing hard work is its own reward. That just trying and failing is better than not trying at all.

Perhaps he was waiting until after he retired to put it together. We are never guaranteed that we will live until retirement. We are never guaranteed we will even live out the rest of the day. My parent’s deaths taught me that. Their early deaths taught me that nothing is ever guaranteed and you’d better start paying attention right now and living life. Not just enduring it, not just living day by day but actually living out your dreams.

I don’t mean dreams of living on a beach in Cancun and having maid service. I mean actually doing the thing that you were put on this Earth to do.

I’m starting to think of my parent’s failure to live life as being like fertilizer or humus. When plants die they are allowed to rot a little bit and then that dead and decaying material is put around newer plants. Those plants gain nourishment from that decay and are able to get stronger.

It doesn’t happen right away. There has to be some time between when the plants died that they are useful to new plants. So I’m seeing that the time between their deaths and the time it is useful to me is relevant and meaningful.

I know my parents would be very proud of me for having become an author. Perhaps my father would even be jealous. Or perhaps he would be inspired. He’d be 81 now. It is possible someone can become an author at that age, but it is harder. People lose energy and drive when they get older. Best to start sooner.

Sure, there is more time when you are older, but less energy. It isn’t easy working a full time job and writing and making art right now, but nobody else is going to do it. I have learned that the more I do that is good, the less junk I fill my day with. I’ve become very mindful of what I read, watch, and do – every hour counts. I’ve started to see that spending time is like spending money – if I use it up, I don’t have any to spend on anything that matters.

Soda

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Remember when you wanted to get a carbonated beverage years ago? Perhaps you call it a soda pop, or a soda, just pop, or a Coke as we call it in the South? Things have sure changed.

Back when I was growing up nothing was in plastic. If you wanted a soda to drink you would get it in a glass bottle. They were very heavy and fairly expensive. We saw them as treats. We didn’t drink them all the time or even every day. You couldn’t reseal them, so you couldn’t take one with you and drink it throughout the day. Because it was glass you had to be fairly careful with it too.

Back then, we didn’t recycle the glass – it got reused. Do you remember playing the game with the Coca-Cola bottles? They would have the names of cities on the bottom of them. Your friends would get bragging rights for whoever had the one from the furthest away. These bottles were washed and reused and sanitized over and over again.

Reusing them takes far less energy than melting down and reforming them. Why do we think that we are so environmentally conscious now with plastic? So many people don’t recycle that plastic bottles are huge burden on landfills. Because they are in plastic, we drink more and more, and thus pollute more and more.

Another benefit of the old way is that we drank a lot less sodas. Sodas are bad for our health. When we wanted something sweet to drink as children we drink Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid with its sugar isn’t the healthiest thing to drink, of course. But we are learning that sugar is better than high fructose corn syrup. And drinking Kool-Aid was better for the environment. It didn’t come in big wasteful bottles. It came in little packets and we added the water. You also had control over how much sugar you added. In general as a child I remember simply drinking water.

So perhaps the old way was in fact better. It cost less to our health, our pockets, and the environment.

Pride. (In the name of pigheadedness)

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I know people who refuse to go to the eye doctor because they don’t want to admit that they need help. They’d rather squint at everything than get glasses. Their logic is that if they wore glasses then everybody would know that they needed glasses.

Others will do the same thing about hearing aids. They have to ask people to repeat themselves all the time, or they miss out on half the conversation. Somehow they think that is better than getting a hearing aid, which everybody would see.

Likewise, I also know people who have children who need to be evaluated for learning or behavioral disabilities. They would rather pretend that their child who is having difficulty interacting with their peers is just going through a phase rather than getting help for him.

These are all related. It’s all pride, fear, and shame. They’re embarrassed about what other people would think. Meanwhile, they’d rather hobble along and suffer.

Think of it this way – If you were born without a leg do you want to spend the rest of your life hopping on one foot? Wouldn’t it be easier to get crutches or an artificial leg or a wheelchair? Pretending like everything is fine when it isn’t is insane.

People don’t look at you funny for asking for help. They look at you funny when you need it but won’t ask for it. If you really care what people think, you’ll take care of yourself first. Then they won’t notice your problem because you’ve dealt with it.

Seeing people as trees.

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I once read a story about a man who had decided to compare people to trees. When he walked into a forest, he saw different trees – some tall and strong, and some bent or stunted. The stunted ones had suffered – their light had been blocked by the bigger trees, or they had grown up in poor soil with not enough nutrients. He realized that the smaller trees were that way because of their environment.

When he went among a crowd of people, he started to see them the same way – some had better upbringings than others and were stronger. He decided to have compassion on the smaller trees and the weaker people in the same way.

Now, this doesn’t mean that it is his responsibility to “fix” the trees or the people. It isn’t his job to cut down a larger, nearby tree to get more light to the smaller tree. Likewise, if you encounter someone who is stunted emotionally – because their caregiver abused or neglected them for instance, have compassion for them.

This also doesn’t mean you have to try to fix them. That is the route of codependency, and steals a person’s power from them. Each person has the responsibility of their own live to take care of. We are each to help each other, certainly, but we are not to take away power from someone by doing everything for them. That will stunt their growth even more.

Homemade

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I just realized something. I didn’t even know I was missing these pieces, this peace. I had dinner at a friend’s house and got a little overwhelmed. She invited us over for a home-cooked meal and it nourished me in my soul as well as my body.

We’ve been meeting with these friends like this once a month or so for about a year or so. Sometimes it is planned and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes we are lucky to get 24 hours notice that we are invited. I feel a bit awkward that it isn’t reciprocal, these invitations.

Our house is small and messy. Sometimes there isn’t enough room for even two in our house. I bought the house when I was single thinking I’d stay that way. One of the people helping me move ended up moving in. He was the one I’d been waiting for but I didn’t realize it.

While I love him, I don’t love his stuff and it gets in the way of my neatnik tendencies. In short, I’m embarrassed to have people over without a huge push to relocate a lot of stuff. I’m grateful our friends understand and we try to even things out by bringing over food if we can -cooked vegetables, salad fixings, dessert. It never seems like enough. It never seems that we are equal in our contributions. They almost always provide the main dish. They almost always provide more than we are able to. In part it is because of the very impromptu nature of these invitations.

A whim, a new recipe, a realization for a desire for company – whatever the reason, we sometimes don’t have time to prepare something special for four. That, coupled with the fact that these gatherings almost never happen at our house make the relationship a bit lopsided in terms of reciprocity. They clean their house for company, and we can’t.

I felt overwhelmed this evening eating homemade chicken marsala made from scratch. Everything we had was from scratch, like usual. I noticed I was being filled in an unexpected way. It was more than my stomach that was being satisfied – it was my soul as well.

My Mom didn’t cook from scratch unless company came over – and that happened about as often as holidays. It didn’t happen on holidays mind you. This is just to say it was rare to see anyone at the table other than my parents and my brother. Therefore it was rare to see homemade food at the table as well.

Our meals usually were from the freezer, not from scratch. Our basic needs were being met like that – basically. We got enough to get by. Even the environment the food was cooked in was less than ideal when I was growing up. Both my parents smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. That, coupled with the fact that our dog was paper trained – and the papers were in the kitchen – created a less than ideal environment for healthy food production. Secondhand smoke and dog poop aren’t the smells you want wafting in the air intermingling with your dinner entrée.

I realized tonight that I was having a piece of me restored and I didn’t even know I was missing. I’d grown up minus this part I needed without even realizing it.

I was missing the simple honesty of a meal cooked and offered with love. Rather than a meal cooked to fill a need, this meal was extra. It filled more than my daily requirement of the USDA suggested amounts of protein, carbohydrates, and vitamin C. There is no place in the nutritional requirements label for love.

Maybe that was the problem. All those meals from boxes were cooked following the instructions but there was no instruction for love. My Mom didn’t learn to put in that ingredient because it wasn’t in the box. And I didn’t know that I grown up deficient in that basic building block. It is like I had rickets or scurvy but it wasn’t vitamin D or C I was missing.

Homemade, made not just in a house but in a home makes the difference. And what makes a home a home? Intention, focus, individuality, being awake are starters. Sure, frozen pizza can be “homemade” with awareness and mindfulness. Add some shredded Parmesan cheese and some Italian herbs and yours is uniquely yours and not the same as every other box pizza. And even “homemade” can be blasé if made without feeling or focus. We have to put a little extra into our food and into everything if we want them to be real.

In Hebrew the word is kavanah, which is a bit like focus, a bit like intention. We need to pray with kavanah at a minimum but really we need to live with it. And that’s part of it. With kavanah, the meal becomes a vehicle for nourishment of the soul. With kavanah, the prayer becomes a vehicle for transforming not just the self but also the world.

Real medicine

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I knew a lady who was cold. It was early in the morning and she was shivering. She asked her daughter to get her a hot cup of coffee. She hadn’t slept well all night. We have been in a camping event so there wasn’t any central heat. She hadn’t brought enough blankets either. I looked at how she was sitting – all hunched over, hugging her arms to herself. This was a physical coldness and it didn’t need to be fixed by putting something into her, especially a stimulant. That would make her feel worse with her lack of sleep.

Her hair was thinning a little so I offered her a knit cap. We lose most of our heat through our heads. She put the cap on and within 10 minutes she was visibly warmer. She relaxed her shoulders and rested her arms on the table instead of hugging herself. She was a lot more comfortable. It was a simple fix that didn’t require coffee.

I had a coworker who had a headache one day and he asked for a Tylenol. I gave him one. Two days later he said he had another headache. He asked for another Tylenol. I didn’t give him one this time. He was young and needed to learn how to take care of himself. By that I mean more than just buying his own supplies instead of expecting other people to supply his needs.

More importantly, he needed to learn how to take care of himself by fixing the cause and not the symptom. The symptom just points to the cause. I told him to go drink water. If he didn’t feel better after 20 minutes (which is about the same time that a Tylenol would take) then I would give him a Tylenol. He went over to the water fountain had a sip. I said “No, keep drinking until I tell you to stop.” He needed to have 16 ounces of water, not a sip. I watched him drink and counted off the time and then told him to stop.

I forgot about keeping time on purpose. An hour later I pointed out to him that he hadn’t asked for a Tylenol again. His headache was gone.

Likewise, we have a guy who is studying to be a doctor who is there every day at the library. He’s a doctor in another country, but America won’t take his credentials. He has to take the exam here to be licensed here. He’s been studying every day and he’s not been taking care of himself. It is starting to show.

His hair isn’t brushed, his clothes are rumpled, and he now is saying that he can’t sleep and he has a headache. He asked me for a Tylenol. Rather than give him that kind of medicine, I gave him real medicine. Whether he takes it or not is up to him.

Real medicine is to suggest he take time off, go eat healthy food (all he eats is meat and rice), go exercise, and spend time with his wife. He says that he can’t leave his studies. He doesn’t get that if he doesn’t take care of himself, then it doesn’t matter what he studies – it won’t go in.

We’ve talked about preventative medicine before and he blows me off. He’ll make a fine western doctor if he passes. They treat the symptoms and not the cause too.

I tell him about friends of mine who are now off their diabetes medicine because they eat healthy food, exercise, and have lost weight. He thinks I’m lying. He says it isn’t possible.

He even brings his food to the library. Somehow they have an understanding in the department he studies in. He’s got a little crock-pot that he plugs in to heat up his food. He doesn’t even have to cook it. He gets it from his in-laws. When I say he needs to take time away from his studies and go outside the library for lunch, he says he can’t eat anywhere else because he has to eat food that is halal because he’s Muslim. I point out that you can eat vegetarian food and be perfectly safe. He wrinkles his nose at me.

It is hard to watch people drown.

Sure, I could give him a Tylenol. But that is aiding and abetting.

I’d be like the doctor who gave my Dad a prescription for cough medicine, knowing that he smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. Of course he coughed. Cough medicine isn’t the right medicine. Real medicine would be to refuse to treat him until he stopped smoking. Real medicine would be to direct him to smoking-cessation programs. Real medicine would be to help him learn better ways to deal with stress than smoking.

Real medicine involves hard work, not a pill. Real medicine involves being mindful and disciplined. It features daily exercise, no stimulants, no refined sugar, and lots of vegetables. It includes focusing on breathing. It includes learning to speak up for yourself. It includes being creative. It includes making time to rest. It includes working towards your dreams. It isn’t easy.

Becoming conscious is a lot like becoming sober.