12/21/14 04:43 PM
We are living in tough times. Many of us are beset from all sides. Money, kids, jobs, spouses, war, illness, the economy, everything. And while we are trying to get by, we are barraged with celebrities living “the good life” and pop psychologists telling us “The Secret” is to indulge ourselves.
And then there is all this hysteria about passion. The ultimate experience supposedly is to “go all the way” with another. People who believe this are generally talking about passion and particularly sex. How odd that “going all the way” is generally synonymous with the inevitable brevity of a “one night stand”. How odd too that in this context it is perfectly possible that one can never have more than a “one night stand” with the person they live with and in so doing never touch their soul.
But that is not real. Really going all the way means giving ourselves to each other in the form of respect and commitment and support. In the context of conceiving a child, it means giving the child a chance at life. For a child, it means trusting your parent or an adult who cares about you, because at a certain point you have nothing to lose in trusting. For a parent, it means keeping the child or entrusting it to the care of another.
In raising a child, it means staying up with her when she’s hungry. It means being the one who soothes his crying at 3 AM, or being the one who can’t soothe him, but you stay with him anyway. It means being thrown up upon and still holding her. It means hurting when she’s hurt, or giving up on a dream so he can have his. It means being a parent when you don’t know how to be a parent and coaching when you don’t know how to coach. It means quietly letting someone else coach when they don’t know how to coach. It means using your hands to hold him when you’d rather use your hands to hit him. In sports, it means being a fan when he’s not the best one and being even more of a fan if he’s disabled and can’t even dream of athletic glory. It means holding your child up instead of holding her down. It means being there and staying there, and being a safe haven even when he or she has done something dreadfully wrong. It means trusting your child, because at a certain point you have nothing to lose in trusting. It means being a savior instead of a judge and an advocate instead of a prosecutor, because who of us, really, can cast that first stone? It means showing up and being where you are when you’re there. It means giving up the better car for the better school. It means giving comfort without being asked, and giving approval on those same terms.
As a spouse, it means worrying more about being the perfect partner than having the perfect partner. Over the years, it means being willing to rediscover someone you thought you already knew completely. As a parent, it means being a refuge for your growing children and your aging parents. As an aging parent, it means being a source of perspective for your growing children and your growing grandchildren. As a community, it means caring for one another and treating each other not as objects but as other versions of ourselves.
“Going all the way” is a journey. It’s a living spiral. It starts as a gift bequeathed to us by our elders and becomes the same gift bequeathed to our children and grandchildren. It cannot be traveled alone. “Going all the way” implies that you go with someone; otherwise you haven’t risked enough to have had the adventure. It starts as a journey of one with another and becomes a journey of two with the world. It is risky and difficult to go it alone, without at least some kind of significant other. It is in the psychosis of isolation where fears grow huge and bend reality to seem to be what it is not. This is a psychosis that is so devastating but from which it is so easy to be rescued. All that is required is that we be there for each other.
“Going all the way” isn’t physical, and the most exhilarating experience one person can have with another isn’t necessarily physical. It is to be comforted. It is to be relieved; of pain, or fear, or guilt, or loneliness. So you want to “go all the way” with someone? A friend? A spouse? A parent? A child? A stranger in need? Then go to them, put one arm around their shoulder and say, “I am right here. I’ll be right here. And you’ll be okay.”
01/10/14 07:24 AM
I have many patients who are “retarded” by the conventional definition. They are some of my best friends. That term, “retarded”, is not descriptive. It is pejorative. It is ignorant. It is, well, retarded. The term implies that these people lack something that one must have to be whole. It is true that they depend on us for material needs, but the wisest among us depend on them too. Of course they lack some reasoning and problem solving skill, but not as much as many think. It is not the intellectual skills that they lack that defines them. It is the lack of guile, and there is a lesson for all of us in that.
We write-off retarded people as being empty. We cannot possibly understand all of the things that they face. It is easier for us to simply assume that they are empty and that they therefore face no struggles. By assuming that they perceive little, we can conclude that they contain little, and that allows us to ignore them as irrelevant. I have had few other patients who take in so much and bear so much with such grace. They are assumed to have receptive limitations, but their real challenge is often expressive.
No, they are real people, and they bear the same things that we bear. They bear what we do and so much more, and they do it with so much less. They rebel sometimes and express frustration, but they rarely complain. When something works, when something goes right, they are typically so much more joyful than we ever are. When one’s life is punctuated by constant failure, the successes are that much more delightful.
Einstein, near the end of his life, said, ‘we don’t know a fraction of a percent about anything’. That is an expression of humility from one of the most perceptive men ever known. It is also an expression of wisdom. The wiser we are, the more we know of our deficiencies. Einstein’s statement is also instructive. In the scope of all that can be known, we really don’t know a fraction about anything. Our fields of study have never yet defined even a scrap of the nature within that field, much less other fields or how it all fits together. Kierkegaard said that the more we understand, the more we come to understand that there is that which cannot be understood. The wisest know that real understanding is for God alone. The rest of us can only “look through a glass and darkly”. The least wise among us think that they have command in their world, and they seek to command through coercion and force. Even when they mean well (viz. past and current crusades and the current American hegemony), they are the source of much evil and much suffering.
So in the greater scope of things, we are really not so different than those we consider to be “retarded”. We are all retarded; the only difference is the degree and the manner in which we are so. Those we consider conventionally retarded need our help with certain functions of living, but they can teach us much about love and persistence and joy. Providing such assistance may be frustrating for us, but we should not be too condescending. You may be an expert in one area, and if I try to function in that area, I may be just as frustrating to you, but you will probably not be condescending to me. Or you may! This can be a real impediment even for “normal” people as we try to relate in the “real world”. The point is, we are all really in this together, even our “retarded” colleagues, and if we can just realize this, our interactions can be so much more fruitful and enriching.
What retarded people lack most is the guile and ambition that the rest of us so commonly inflict upon each other. What they often excel in is patience and forbearance, things that all of us could use more of. So, maybe we should try not to be so “retarded” in dealing with the retarded. Maybe we should stop, look, listen, and see these people for who they are. It doesn’t take any more time. In dealing with “retarded” people, it usually takes longer to hurry. We should settle down, take a breath, offer some help, and gratefully enjoy the rewards. Hopefully, we will deserve it, at least a little.
