THE HUNGRY GHOSTS

You may wonder why I chose a post on “hungry ghosts” for a poetry blog. How does it relate to writing? It does. Bear with me: explanation will follow the introductory excerpt.

IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS ~ Gabor Maté, M.D.
 
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
 
The Buddhist Wheel of Life revolves through six realms. Each realm is populated by characters representing aspects of human existence—our various ways of being. In the Beast Realm we are driven by basic survival instincts and appetites such as physical hunger and sexuality, what Freud called the Id. The denizens of the Hell Realm are trapped in states of unbearable rage and anxiety. In the God Realm we transcend our troubles and our egos through sensual, aesthetic or religious experience, but only temporarily and in ignorance of spiritual truth. Even this enviable state is tinged with loss and suffering.

The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and large, bloated, empty bellies. This is the domain of addiction, where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need, and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present.
 
Some people dwell much of their lives in one realm or another. Many of us move back and forth between them, perhaps through all of them in the course of a single day.

My medical work with drug addicts in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has given me a unique opportunity to know human beings who spend almost all their time as hungry ghosts. It’s their attempt, I believe, to escape the Hell Realm of overwhelming fear, rage and despair. The painful longing in their hearts reflects something of the emptiness that may also be experienced by people with apparently happier lives. Those whom we dismiss as “junkies” are not creatures from a different world, only men and women mired at the extreme end of a continuum on which, here or there, all of us might well locate ourselves. ~ Gabor Maté


 **

How does this little essay relate to the art of writing? It’s an example of an indirect, metaphorical approach (in this case the Buddhist WHEEL OF LIFE) that relies on knowing an additional field (woe to poets who read only poetry). As Henry James said, “To be direct is to be inartistic.” Art is usually indirect: it tries to convey its message through unexpected imagery and metaphor. It is a special kind of “fused” thinking that uses fewer words, but makes the meaning larger.

Popular books on addition take the chatty “human interest” approach that relies on telling the story of one particular addict, and making general statements later on. The books meant more for professionals start with abstract generalizations and continue in that manner, with case stories here and there. But this Hungarian-born physician makes a wonderful leap, talking first about the Wheel of Life. Note, however, that the author does not go into excess detail about the Wheel of Life and each of the realms. He skips the realm of the demi-gods, and quickly gets to the Hungry Ghosts, adapting the metaphor to create an analogy with addiction.

Those of you who know my interest in “interweave” -- a skillful weaving of two or more realms -- will know what I am leading to: the importance, for a poet/writer, of reading in depth not only the work of other poets and writers, but also in some field that is of interest -- history, astrophysics, geology, botany, Buddhism, the life and writings of Saint Augustine, anything. Or it may be sensory and practical knowledge, the kind you gain from mountain-climbing, for instance. That “other realm” is likely to provide a wealth of metaphor and simile, and an unusual and more interesting angle to anything that you write about.

One example that comes to my mind is Sarah Hannah’s second book of poetry, Inflorescence. In it she combines the story of caring for her dying mother with, amazingly enough, botany. Hannah’s additional asset is her familiarity with Shakespeare’s plays. The layering creates a rich kind of writing to which the reader can return with pleasure again and again. Here is one of my favorites:

MACBETH’S PROBLEM

You never think it’s really going to happen --
That Birnam wood will come marching
Down to Dunsinane --

Until, suddenly, your wife’s got OCD,
And babies visit you in dreams,
Clutching eucaplyptus.

And then those trees start walking.
I mean downright trouncing, toward you.
They do not come in peace,

And they are not willows or any other
Delicate variety; they’re rowans,
Oaks, and ash.

And they will kick your ass to Cardiff.
Hello? You were so damn hot and ready
To jump the life to come,

You misread all the signs, and now it’s Act V,
And you can’t rinse out what you’ve done,
Can’t redeem the time

Like Prince Hal, and besides, this one’s a tragedy
Well into hour two; the place is packed with folks
Who’ve paid good money

To watch you go down bloody with a bough.
 
~ Sarah Hannah, Inflorescence, 2007

 The “Birnam Wood” comes from the Weird Sisters’ last prophecy to Macbeth: “Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him.” In the literal sense, this seems impossible, and so Macbeth is lulled into a false sense of security. He doesn’t think metaphorically. But Birnam Wood turns out to the enemy camouflaged with branches.

But never mind metaphorical thinking. We prefer not to think at all. “You never think it’s really going to happen” -- that constant denial of death that is perhaps necessary to keep us going. This is a ruthless poem, unlike Sutton Breiding’s soothing

tell me, stranger,
. . .
are your days like shadows passing
and your nights a sweet taste of the longsleep?

No, this is no lullaby. Like Macbeth, we are crazed to defend our kingdom and our life. This is a battle that each of us is doomed to lose, so ideally we need to have an answer to the question that is never asked, yet central to each life: “So what are you doing about mortality?”

For me, the best answer was supplied by Rilke: “To work is to live without dying.” Of course Rilke meant meaningful, fulfilling work. I want to keep writing to the end.

**

To write means to have the courage to reveal more of yourself than at first feels comfortable. But that’s where lies your richest material. It would be evasive to say that I chose the opening the opening of Gabor Maté’s book on addiction strictly because of its stylistic merit, as a way to discuss the technique of interweave. As you probably suspect, I instantly felt a personal connection to the content.

I recognize my Hungry Ghost years very well: the years when I couldn’t get enough of the things I didn’t really want -- for instance, I was a  compulsive thrift store shopper. What did I really want? I don't care if Freud said it first: love and work. When you can't find reliable love and meaningful, fulfilling work, crazy substitutes emerge, often in the form of addictions. For me it was crazy behavioral compulsions rather than substance abuse, and that was my great good luck, since drugs and alcohol kill faster. 

My writing talent -- which I was first told I didn't have -- also saved me in the end, and that's where crazy persistence (this is a genetic trait) turned out to be beneficial. In addition, over the years I managed to soften "love" to affection, and that's easier both to give and get. Affection does not have the dark side that romantic love has -- though losing a friend can be almost as painful as losing a lover. Loss as a part of life cannot be evaded. But if we have something to fall back on -- doing the work you love, your other friends -- we have a certain “safety net.”

Another thought: seeing that having developed a writing skill laid a foundation for the rest of my life, making everything else fall into place, I suspect that everyone could benefit by developing some kind of "valuable skill.” For people in trouble in particular, the need is tremendous. Once I read that addicts are typically people who “have been trained to be incompetent.” 

Part of that incompetence is an absence of vocation and work skills. This is not always the case, but if it happens to be, then it would be wonderful if there were more places that teach various valuable skills. As I’ve discovered through my misadventures and eventual overcoming of the discouraging “curse” by someone I mistook for a mentor, talent is something that develops. And once you are able to use and expand your talent, the farther away you get from the realm of the Hungry Ghosts.

**

From Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

“Six realms of existence are identified in Buddhism: gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hells. They are each a result of one of the six main negative emotions: pride, jealousy, desire, ignorance, greed, and anger.”

[Oriana: Ignorance is not an emotion, but let’s not be fussy; Sogyal means ignorance as a negative state of being -- hardly so for animals, but undesirable if we want to be fully human.]

Sogyal continues: “The main feature of the realm of the gods is that it is devoid of suffering, a realm of changeless beauty and sensual ecstasy. Imagine the gods: tall, blond surfers, lounging on beaches and in gardens flooded by brilliant sunshine, listening to any kind of music they choose, intoxicated by every kind of stimulant, high on meditation, yoga, bodywork, and ways of improving themselves, but never taxing their brains, never confronting any complex or painful situation, never conscious of their true nature, and so anesthesized that they are never aware of what their condition really is.

If some parts of California and Australia spring to mind as the realm of the gods, you can see the demigod realm being acted out every day perhaps in the intrigue and rivalry of Wall Street, or in the seething corridors of Washington and Whitehall. And the hungry ghost realms? They exist wherever people, though immensely rich, are never satisfied, craving to take over this company or that one, or endlessly playing out their greed in court cases. Switch on any television channel and you have entered immediately the world of demigods and hungry ghosts.”

It’s interesting that Sogyal chooses examples from the world of the rich, while Gabor Maté starts his books with examples of homeless street junkies as the Hungry Ghosts, trying in vain to escape from the realm of Hell. But hell is universal, and so is greed. The mob that trampled to death a Walmart security agent on a “Black Friday” was a crowd of Hungry Ghosts. “Greed is the failure to choose.” There are things more important by far than a flat-screen TV, but for this we need to stay calm for a while, until we are able to think at a higher level.

(A shameless digression: during a recent trip to Walmart in pursuit of a larger soup pot -- my soup therapy is working! -- C and I spotted a nun with in a peculiar headgear: on the cap on her head, there was a red dot that made me think of the Third Eye -- also called the Sixth chakra, Ajna, the chakra of forgiveness and compassion, of God the Mother, “beyond wisdom,” intuition.

On top of the cap was another red dot, which could symbolize the crown chakra, Sahasrara, the thousand-petaled lotus -- the chakra of pure non-dualistic consciousness, the union of the masculine and the feminine. But I noticed that there were dots also on the sides. Intrigued, C and I approached the nun. She explained that she belonged to the Sisters of Saint Brigid, and the dots stand for the  five wound of Christ. The order is dedicated to prayer and contemplation of the five wounds.

At the check-out, we ended up behind three of the Brigidine nuns, carts full of flannel pajamas, cat food, and an abundance of other colorful, practical objects. “Going to Walmart is probably the most exciting event in their lives,” C observed. “They don’t just have one sister go shopping. They travel in a pod.”)
 
I wish to end on a more joyful note: trips to the the realm of the Hungry Ghosts are  not the only way to gain respite from the hell of fear and despair. I discovered this through my experience of the Paradigm Shift that ended my depression. My recurrent dreams about being in a concentration camp also ended. This poem celebrates this liberation.

THE ROAD TAKEN

Only a year ago I finally understood
the kingdom of hell
is within you
and chose to walk out of
that concentration camp

The gate’s wide wings stood open
the guards diligently did not look
the road led through sunlit woods
past bride-like birches: the road to heaven
I must have seen in childhood and forever

Only yesterday I looked out the window 
and thought this is my country now and not
a Nazi camp or a Siberian gulag
astonished that after all
I wasn’t sentenced to hard labor

Only this morning I understood
my task is to keep on walking
reading sunlight and shadow
listening to birds in all their languages
singing the holy word home

~ Oriana © 2012

By now it’s been more than three years, without a single relapse. I take no special pride in this: “shift happens” and makes staying out of hell effortless. True, full recovery takes time. Memories of positive experiences are blocked at first; they can be gradually rebuilt (our memory is constructed; it’s not like a videotape). The capacity to experience pleasure also takes time to blossom again.

I’ve posted this poem before, I know. I’m doing it again because few things are as important as understanding that both heaven and hell are within. They are states of mind. We can choose to walk out of hell, and not into the brief artificial paradises of the hungry ghosts, but into the astonishingly beautiful world we live in.

Hyacinth:

The art work is beautiful and well chosen. Of course I loved "bride-like birches" and the  "nuns travel in pods."

"We haunt  our lives without being fully resent" is certainly true of all of us but especially the addicted.

"Hungry Ghosts": hungry  to be free of fear, rage and despair but lost in addiction.. trapped in the terrible guilt.

I enjoyed the reference to Macbeth's Birnam Wood. I always loved that twist, and especially after seeing it performed in the outdoor theater at the Old Globe. Eerie and magical.

The final photo of woods is perfect, the way the trail bears that intermittent light.
 
Oriana:

Thank you Hyacinth for that “intermittent light.” You made me see the beauty of it. Forest light is beautiful because it’s not “full blast”; it’s interrupted, softened, intermittent. The same way, we wouldn’t want our lives to be an eternal sunshine. We need to travel between realms.

Addicts badly need an alternative reward, a feel-good condition that's not destructive -- something that makes them feel content and like a good person in a lasting way: an entry into the kind of world that offers something richer than what addiction can offer. Instead of “escaping into drugs” (which are “never enough”), they would be able to “escape into life” -- into volunteer work, for instance. (Milosz spoke of “escaping forward” as his defense against brooding about the past.)

I think that dear old Sigi (Freud) was right: we need love and work. If we have those two, or even just meaningful work, the rest will take care of itself.

Half-way houses seem to offer “love and work” (especially if we substitute “affection” for love). We need more half-way houses. If some people need to live in a half-way house for the rest of their lives, that’s not a tragedy. The tragedy is not providing help. 

Scott:

Loved Hannah's poem and that line...'and they will kick your ass to Cardiff.' Macbeth is my favorite of the Bards's plays. There's a great Macbeth allusion near the end of Moby Dick!

In Chapter 117 'The Whale Watch' Fedallah, Ahab's agent of his demise, tells him that before he dies, he will see two hearses and 'the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America.'  Melville had been re-reading Shakespeare around the time of Moby Dick, especially Macbeth, and this was a clear allusion to the prophecy of Birnam Wood to Macbeth's end.

Oriana:

Thank you, Scott, for never ceasing to astonish us by finding references to Moby Dick in everything under discussion.

Charles:

Seems to me that "the Hungry Ghost" phase is that period in anybody's life when one is in great need of change. Some people choose the pursuit of greatness and some people are chosen by addiction. Great goals and drug addiction are opposites.
 
Oriana:

That’s more or less what I read about drug addicts: they don’t have a vocation or any real goal in life. But then some great writers were alcoholics. Still, Hemingway had terrific self-discipline: he got up at dawn and wrote until 11 a.m., at which point he began to drink. Without writing, he’d have been drinking the first thing in the morning. 

It’s interesting that you mention being a Hungry Ghost as a phase in life. For me the main source of hell was romance with dysfunctional men -- it’s hard to believe how many of them are out there. Functional men are “taken” early, leaving behind the undesirables, often addicts.

It wasn’t until my late thirties that I could say: “Writing is the most important thing in my life.” Once that happened, once I had a clear sense of vocation and the excitement of seeing myself grow as a poet, romance lost most of its power to turn me into a hungry ghost. I remember the first time I turned down a date because I wanted time to write. The old joke about discovering something more interesting than sex -- it’s true. But hormone levels have to go down. 

Sarah:

Liked the hungry ghost post a lot. Those realms have always spoken to me. Did I tell you about my fairly recent visit with a friend when i fell asleep on the sofa and was woken by a voice saying "You are already dead! Do not look back! keep going!" Something like the announcements on the London Underground (Mind the gap!). My friend thought it was a good idea to put the film of the Tibetan Book of the Dead on while I slept.

It wasn't a dream, it was the actual voice in the film, reading the Tibetan book of the dead. It woke me up, but, not realising a film was on, I wasn't quite sure where I had woken into!

Oriana:

Thanks for sharing this fascinating story. So interesting about cultures sharing the prohibition on looking back while you are in the land of the dead. “Keep going!” is the imperative -- our eyes on whatever slender light is guiding us.

I immediately identified with the Hungry Ghosts. For many years I despaired of ever breaking free. I knew that if only I managed to drop ambition, I’d be happy just living, writing whenever I felt like it, for the pleasure of writing and sharing with whoever might come by, so to speak. And finally, finally, it simply happened. The grasping desire fell away, part of my insight that I am posthumous now, so I can relax and be happy. 

In fact, now that I posthumous in terms of the life of striving, I am in heaven. Or, to be precise, I am in heaven on days when I get to do whatever I feel like doing, no longer whipped by “hungry ghost” desires. I don’t have to achieve anything, I don’t have to prove anything -- not to others, not even to myself. It’s an imperfect heaven, with bursts of unpleasantness such as noisy neighbors, but still, that passes -- and there is so much beauty around me!

 







 

POWERLESS? SHIFT HAPPENS



I think I’m really not interested in the quest for the self anymore. Oh, I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you’re older, I think, is that you really must make the self. It’s absolutely useless to look for it, you won’t find it, but it’s possible in some sense to make it. I don’t mean in the sense of making a mask, a Yeatsian mask. But you finally begin in some sense to make and to choose the self you want.”

~Mary McCarthy, The Art of Fiction No. 27

An important disclaimer:
This post is not meant as a criticism of 12-Step programs, which have helped millions. Rather, it is an exploration based on my personal experience, reading, and conversations with others.

I’m surprised my hand didn’t tremble when, browsing in my town’s one remaining bookstore, I reached for Allen Carr’s The Easy Way to Stop Drinking. The moment I saw the title, I thought, riding a paradoxical undertow of excitement and fear and calm certainty all at the same time, “You decide not to drink.” You decide not in the sense of a New Year’s resolution; rather, your perception shifts radically, and there is no going back.

My hand should have trembled, just as, back in 2009, I should have trembled all over when I decided not to be depressed. After all, this goes against the accepted belief that we are powerless over depression, drinking, overeating, anxiety, hostility, compulsive shopping, and so forth. The list goes on and on. We are powerless and need to take very expensive drugs and/or stay for years in very expensive therapy. Or else we have to spend most of our leisure attending 12-Step meetings for the rest of our life, being endlessly reminded that we are powerless and it’s pointless to decide not to engage in a problem behavior: it won’t work. 

And you definitely can’t use your intelligence to try to figure out how to deal with whatever it is you finally feel sick of doing. The use of intelligence might lead you away from feeling powerless. Verboten.

But let me get back to Carr’s book. “Many people believe that quitting alcohol is about as difficult as climbing Mt. Everest,” Carr states. “If you find it difficult, then you are not doing it the easy way.” But he forbids the reader (presumably an alcoholic) to jump to the final chapter when the secret of  easy quitting will be revealed. No, first you have to reads several hundred pages of explanation of how alcohol destroys your brain, your body, and your life.

Naturally, I jumped to the final chapter right away.

I have never been an alcoholic. I don’t have the genes for it. Had alcohol ever worked for me as a stress reducer rather than a migraine-inducer, then given the compound stress of my teens and twenties, I’d be a goner. I mean it literally: I’d be dead by now, either of liver disease or by suicide.

When P, an alcoholic, shot himself at 28, I had the oddest feeling that he did it instead of me -- I was the one meant to commit suicide at 28. But I can’t take pride in having survived my youth: if it had been possible for me to drink, I would have embraced alcohol with a passion, and nothing would have stopped me from drinking myself to death. Instead, thanks to a genetic accident, I was sentenced to life.

But back to Carr, with that marvelous double r as in Starr. The reason I was fascinated by the topic was my instant intuition that the “easy way” would be similar to the way I ended decades of depression. I experienced a shift in perception and made the decision that changed my life. Carr calls that shift in perception (also known as “paradigm shift”) a “moment of revelation.” After absorbing all the information about he devastation and evil that stem from alcohol, the successful quitter will experience the holy hush, the moment of revelation when he knows he will never drink again.

Reading this, I felt that holy hush envelop me again, just as in the moment when I knew I’d  never be depressed again.

“Never doubt your decision,” Carr advises. As if that were possible. As if the previous neural configuration had not been deleted forever.

Powerless? Yes. I discovered that I was powerless over my decision not to be depressed. Powerless to reverse the insight that led to the decision (“decision” may not be the right term, since it came automatically with the insight; “paradigm shift” may be a more accurate term). My brain had rewired itself, and a different neural network was ruthlessly in charge. Again, I was sentenced to life.

I knew I should be feeling the rush of ecstatic liberation, but I just stood there dazed. Worse, now and then I couldn’t help feeling mournful. So now I had to work. Now I had to cope. Now I had to be strong. I had to be rational, slow down and keep calm. Now I had to count my blessings instead of my misfortunes. Now I had to see also the positive side of things (this was especially revolting to me; I always loved darkness and abhorred sunlight). I had to stop complaining. I had to take a  moderate view rather than an extreme one (this too was revolting, since I loved the extremes).

I could go on, but you get my drift. The first weeks of my emotional sobriety I felt tired, worn out by all this maturity. But there was no going back. And gradually I began to remember positive experiences (positive memories are blocked by long-term depression) and enjoy just looking at the world. I discovered that I loved my “quiet life” -- that was another shift in perception. And that quiet life has indeed become much more pleasant.

The first time I experienced the turn from powerless to empowered had to do with the “th” sound. In my teens, I thought I was powerless over “th.” Here is a poem that describes my struggles (I’m offering in the spirit of comic relief):

KEY TO THE WORLD


I stand in front of the mirror,
trying to place everything
correctly: tip of tongue against

upper teeth, right hand checking
vibrations of the larynx –
“This is your key to the world,”

states my English for Today,
a book of secrets where Tom and Jane
carry on their cracked romance:

Tom, is this a girl?
No, this is a lamp.

*

I rehearse the sacred chant:
Thelma threw thistles
through the thick of her thumb.

Thistle while you work!
A tooth for a truth,
a thigh for an eye!

“They lisp,” the teacher
explains. “Maybe because
of cold wind.”

“Your r’s are too guttural,”
teacher warns. Guttural,
that’s me. What’s the meaning

of the, I ask. Where’s the tip
of your foreign tongue?
Between Thelma’s teeth.

Tom, is this a mouth?
No, this is a hoof.

Today the the;
tomorrow I open the world.

 
~ Oriana © 2012

**

The shift happened when I discovered that I need to leave a little air space when I put my tongue between my teeth. Suddenly something close enough to “th” lisped in the room. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I started practicing.

And there was no going back to saying “fank you.”

This may sound awfully small in the scale of things, but believe me, Bewildered Reader, even the tiniest shift from powerless to empowered is a pearl of a great price.
 
*
Pondering other shifts, the one that led to my leaving the church was perhaps the most important. I was fourteen and reading about universal themes in mythology. A thought like a white cloud drifted through my mind: “It’s just another mythology.” The thought turned into a tornado that sucked out my religious belief. As of that moment, I was no longer a member of the Catholic Church.

Nevertheless, for a while something remained: I did expect to be struck by lightning. The god I’d  been taught to worship was exactly the kind who’d exact a terrible punishment for a thought crime. (I told Adam Zagajewski about this waiting to be struck by lightning. He replied, “Sometimes there’s a delay.”)

VICTOR FRANKL AND THE WIDOWER

Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is on my short list of the books that influenced me most. What I remember most is Frankl’s session with a recent widower.

The widower was very distressed. He carried on about his suffering, which struck him as unfair: he’d always assumed that he’d be the first one to die, and instead his wife died first. Frankl asked: “What would it be like for your wife if you died first?” -- “Oh, she would suffer terribly,” the man replied. Frankl said, “Then perhaps the meaning of your suffering is to have spared your wife from going through it.”

After a moment of silence, the widower stood up. Without a word, they shook hands and the man left the office.

I myself remember catalyzing a perception shift in a distant friend. She kept  mentioning how much she hated her job. One time she began a really long lamentation about how miserable she felt because of the job, and how it prevented her from doing things she’d love to do instead. I asked, “Do you need that job for financial reasons?” “No. Not at all,” she said. The answer didn’t surprise me since I knew she was quite affluent. She was also around sixty, so I asked, “How much longer do you think you’ve got?”

She fell silent, and I saw a change in her face. Without a word, she walked away from me. The next news I had from her was that she was training her replacement, and would soon be free. A few months passed, and I learned that she was now playing with a local orchestra.

Yes, sometimes someone else can catalyze a paradigm shift. Cognitive therapy is pretty much based on that principle. According to what I’ve read, those who profit from it experience a life-changing insight fairly quickly. Those who keep coming week after week repeating their lamentations are not likely to improve. 

SHIFT SEEN AS COGNITIVE THERAPY                          
                                                          
In Richard Noll’s book about Jung,  The Aryan Christ, I found a description of how effective cognitive therapy works. In this case the therapist was the notorious but apparently also gifted Otto Gross, and the patient was the anarchist writer Erich Mühsam, in 1906. Mühsam writes:

The task  of the physician would be mainly to make the patient himself the physician. The patient is induced to diagnose his illness. On the basis of the diagnosis discovered by himself, he therefore carries out his own cure. He is brought to the point where he is no longer interested in himself as a sufferer but in the suffering itself. He objectifies his condition. He does not put the importance anymore upon himself as a pitiable patient, as the emotionally martyred, as a hysteric seeking cure, but as a physician, as someone who does not feel the sickness anymore but perceives it. (p.75)

This really struck home: the transformation from the pitiable victim, the emotionally martyred, the hopeless depressive -- to being your own physician! From “powerless” to owning your power over your behavior. From “emotionally martyred” (how well I know the seduction of perceiving yourself as the wronged one, a martyr . . . ) to a responsible adult who knows that she can make herself happy or unhappy: the choice is hers.                                     

But it takes time to arrive at the place where insight can happen. “Ripeness is all.” 

**
WHAT ELSE ARE WE NOT POWERLESS OVER?

Currently I’m considering the problem of sometimes being more anxious than I want to be, beyond what the situation warrants. While not exactly as terrified as in those minutes when I literally waiting for the avenging lightning, I’d like to be more relaxed, secure, serene, sagacious, cool.

“Some of us did not have the kind of secure childhood that builds a foundation for serenity,” a friend told me. But that doesn’t help me. Am I powerless over anxiety? So far I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to define being anxious not as a feeling but as a BEHAVIOR. A behavior can be changed. “My behavior is my choice.”

And a little voice in my head says “You slow down.”

Maybe that’s the closest I can come for now. Wait! -- now the voice says, “You slow down and practice being strong.” I have already decided to be strong, basically at the same time when I decided not to be depressed. I also hear a dear friend’s voice saying, “There is always a solution.” Again -- wait! -- now I hear my father’s gentle voice telling me not to worry about the universe. And this reminds me of the time I first read “Desiderata” and the sentence that affected me deeply: “You are a child of the Universe. You have a right to be here.”

Sometimes (probably most of the time) a lot of tiny cognitive steps are taken before that powerful change that seems instantaneous -- that burst of neural activity that creates a new configuration. Baby steps, baby steps -- and then, va-va-va-voom! Shift happens.

IF it happens. Stay tuned. 

POSTLUDE: PERCEPTION SHIFT = COGNITIVE AWAKENING

One of the important objections to a cognitive approach to changing self-destructive habits is that without a “spiritual awakening” (admitting that you are powerless but a higher power can remove your “character defects”), you are just going to substitute a new addiction for the old one, the way an alcoholic can shift to becoming an overeater. 

There are indeed plenty of examples of alcoholics who stopped drinking but substituted overeating, and vice versa. (In fact, I knew a woman who did just that, and ended up dying as a result of obesity. She was also an example that becoming spiritual doesn't always work. Maybe she didn't go into her practice -- mostly meditation -- deep enough. Maybe it was her bipolar disorder. And yet in Vermont I met a woman painter who made the decision not to be bipolar -- she self-monitors and regulates her mood with music.) In my own case, someone could argue that I quit doing depression only to become a workaholic. 

I am fully aware that a high-energy person is prone to becoming over-aroused and compulsive. My instant attraction to the “non-doing” of Taoism when I first encountered it in my late twenties had something to do with my dawning awareness that “effortless effort” can yield better results than overwork. And I’ve been spiraling around that insight ever since. I hope that I’m close to the point when it becomes a ruling principle of my behavior. I happen to be intense, so it’s not easy for me.

But “it’s too late for depression” -- my cognitive awakening -- started unfolding a whole set of insights that start with “it’s too late for.” It’s too late for any self-destructive behaviors, including overwork. Carpal tunnel lets me know. Chest pains let me know when there is too much adrenaline in my system, and force me to remember that heart disease and stroke run in my family. “Too late for depression” was a kind of “Yes to life,” its full meaning unfolding gradually. That’s why now I am so interested in becoming more peaceful and relaxed. I’ve been thinking and writing about the power and beauty of doing less for some time now, but it takes self-monitoring and practice.

Depression simply vanished, gone as soon as I had my perception shift. It took no effort. My brain did it for me. But I admit that I have to put some conscious effort into not getting over-intense and wanting to do too much at once. But I do turn off the computer earlier now. I am able to say, “Enough for today.” I have noticed the pleasure of working slowly, doing a bit at a time. I am shaping a different, more relaxed self. It’s an unfolding story. That’s why I say, “Stay tuned.” 

For me, being cornered by mortality and “it’s too late for” formula seems sufficient. But if someone finds it useful to join a Buddhist temple, for instance, or even to go to mass everyday, I say, “Whatever works.” I’m glad it’s not me, but I can see how a “spiritual awakening” might work for others. And no, I’m not going to lend them my copy of Jesse Bering’s The Belief Instinct, with its brilliant demonstration that god is a cognitive illusion. In fact Jesse Bering keeps saying that a cognitive illusion can be beneficial. 

Hyacinth:

Love the cat. Remarkable that you were able to use your intellect to liberate yourself from depression. I believe it can be done. The perception shift. I remember having that moment when after months of emotional turmoil I said to myself "You don’t have to love this person." And I got well and went on with my life. 

Oriana:

Love the cat too. He’s really into perception -- that’s my excuse for using him for the opening image.

It was more than the intellect. I had a whole-brain experience, I think. The understanding of how little time is left -- and it may be even less than we estimate -- probably had an emotional component. For one thing, I was finally feeling ashamed of what I was doing to myself (especially the self-hatred part of depression) and how I was wasting my one precious life. I had to clearly see how idiotic that was. 

And I love your perception shift. Psychologists/therapists call it “paradigm shift” -- from Greek paradeigma, pattern. The pattern/matrix changes in such a profound way that you just would have to work very hard to try to go back to past behavior. And it might be impossible. Anyway, who’d want to go back to anything self-destructive. 

Charles:

That cat, that’s me.

I don’t know if you’d call it a perception shift, but Obama had a moment of revelation when he understood that black politicians don’t appeal to white voters because they are angry. So Obama made the decision not to be angry.  He acquired his “cool” manner of not losing his composure. 

Oriana:

We don’t have to insist on “shift.” Let’s just call it a new perception. An insight. And if you make a decision based on that insight, it’s not like a typical New Year’s resolution. An insight-based decision rewires your brain. I think that’s why it has such great power.

I knew a man who reached a very high rank in his field, and a bit of his story. He came from a poor Italian family, worked as a waiter to put himself through college -- yes, that story, but here comes the twist: in his early twenties, he made the decision never to raise his voice. “The foundation of my success in life was that decision never to raise my voice,” he said, quietly but with great authority. 

That’s pretty similar to Obama’s decision, and reminds me of “Anger is the emotion of a victim.” You can refuse to see yourself as a victim. 

Lucrezia:

Abraham Lincoln said, “ A man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.”

Oriana:

I’ve been familiar with that quotation for a long time, and it did haunt me at times. But I’m still not that eager to decide to be happy. I need to make it more specific, e.g. No complaining, or, to quote Jack Gilbert, “It’s too late for discontent.” By the way, the latter did influence me and no doubt contributed to my perception shift.

To return to the theme of making an insight-based decision, I’m struck by a similarity in the various stories: it’s the refusal to behave like a victim.

Now, as long as I remember, throughout my childhood and teens, I heard my mother say, “Don’t be a victim of fate. The worst thing is a victim of fate.” But she’d say it in such a sarcastic way that it sounded like “How can anyone be such a schlemiel!”

This is a very rare instance when English proved more effective for me than the Polish version, or call it my mother’s version. In English, “Don’t be a victim” or “a victim’s mentality” or “anger is the emotion of a victim” -- these phrases resonate for me in an inspiring, empowering way.

Darlene:

I remember a guy who used to comment on your blog. He really disapproved of your decision to get rid of depression.

Oriana:

This reminds me of something I saw on TV after the Aurora shootings. A girl in early teens, one of the survivors, was being interviewed. She was remarkably composed and focused on what can be done now to help the bereaved families. The male interviewer interrupted her and said, “It’s OK to cry.” She replied, “I don’t want to cry. I want to be strong so I can help people.” So the interviewer didn’t get what he apparently wanted, a dramatic display of sobbing, falling apart, being a victim. And I wondered how many educated viewers were going for his point of view, and worrying that the young girl was just “repressing” and would later pay the price -- perhaps even end up on the mental ward.

I happened to admire her. I don’t mean to judge those people who did fall apart in front of the camera. Most people would, given the circumstances. But the girl reminded me of my grandmother’s strength.

Back to depression. Some Jungian analysts believe that depression is good for you, a holy state in which the psyche reveals some profound truths. What’s even more scary, there are those who believe that schizophrenia is good for you, and even more holy than depression. 

I can’t speak about schizophrenia, though I know a remarkable schizophrenic/alcoholic who is doing quite well. I suspect that the secret is that through incredible luck he has acquired a valuable skill, and when the right circumstances came, he managed to use that skill to start making money. His motivation to make money is making him act remarkably rational and keeps him sober (he needs to drive) -- even though, for all I know, he may still think he’s Jesus. It’s perhaps the most amazing transformation from victim to -- well, if not hero, then a successful small-scale entrepreneur -- the most spectacular crawling out of victimhood that I’ve ever witnessed. And it also reminds me of Dostoyevski’s observation of his fellow inmates in a Siberian prison: some of them were skilled craftsmen who became quiet and content when busy with their work (aside from the forced labor, they were allowed to produce small articles they could sell to people in town).

As for the supposed profound truths revealed by depression, I had a choice of channels. One was the “I hate America” channel, often activated during driving since I detest the hideous advertising billboards. My sane thought was that capitalism made America both great and ugly. The depression channel showed only “ugly.” Another channel turned on when I was working on a poem and wasn’t happy with my lines. Then the message was: “You are not a real poet and should commit suicide.”

Skeptical Reader, I’m not making this up for the fun of it. I could go on, but I realize that it’s best not to persist in this vein. The delusional nature of depressive thinking is dreadfully embarrassing from an emotionally sober point of view. Of course I can always say that it wasn’t the “real me,” which is radiant, bright, energetic, creative, generous, and other good things. We can judge the person by her worst or by her best -- but the wise thing is simply not to judge. As Spinoza said, “Not to weep, not to laugh, not to ridicule, not to be full of anger -- but to understand.”

And I’m not even sure if it’s necessary to “understand.” All understanding is partial at best, and sometimes it hurts rather than helps move us on. Cancer patients who are in denial of how bad their condition is do practically as well in terms of survival as the “activist” patients who take charge of their health. Whatever works. The point is to keep building on our strengths, keep developing our talents and to share our gifts with others. 

WE HAVE MORE CONTROL THAN WE THINK

Scott:

Your post raised some interesting thoughts; I wish I could find the quote but I recall the poet James K Baxter saying that we all had more control over things than we think. Just reflect on so many areas of our lives; are you overweight, then start eating less, eating right and exercising, simple walking is a good start. Are you in financial straits, control your spending, find ways to make more money. Lonely? Get involved with a charity, contact family and friends...you get the idea. A cynic would say, 'it's not that simple' and yes, for the chronic depressive or someone with a medical condition it may not be so but for the vast, vast majority of us, it truly is. And every day, no, every second is new; we should not beat ourselves up for living up to some standard, either self imposed or set by others; everything will turn out all right. I have found out that most of the things I have worried on in my life either never come to pass or if and when they do it's seldom as bad as I think and many, many times not even bad at all...sometimes even a great positive thing I never saw coming.

We all fail and fall short of what we should do or become but the constant beating oneself up is a horrible waste of time; when we fall short, shake it off and endeavor to do better. I know that sounds incredibly simplistic but the alternative, to wallow in guilt and remorse is just....well, nonsensical. Melville intrigues me as a writer but his life is hardly one to emulate; unhappy in his family, always fleeing them to chase some dream. Tolstoy is even worse, a man who truly had everything; wealth, fame, loving family, title, lands......and was miserable. No no, better to be a Tolkien; career he enjoyed as a professor, a writing career he had as a separate enjoyment, family, friends and with the exception of serving in France in WWI I don't believe he ever left Great Britain. I've been around the world, seen exotic locales but am happiest in my home with my girls. My armchair, 'in a river of books and black coffee'....my 'New Nantucket' if you will is my sanctuary.

Oriana:

So much wisdom in what you say. One reason people’s New Year’s resolutions fail is that the motivation and the focus aren’t strong enough. It’s just not important enough. We resolve to do what we think we should do, but the brain remains wired as before. After that moment of revelation, that shift in perception, we KNOW what we must do.

Take weight. My experiment with being a low-fat vegetarian made me feel chronically hungry, so I became an eating machine, with predictable results. The more “healthy” I tried to eat, the more weight I gained. But it took that one minute of standing in front of a mirror -- I remember the exact life-changing spot -- when quite involuntarily I had the thought, “A fat pig.” The next moment I decided to lose weight, and went to the nearest bookstore to browse through diet books. I came across Atkins, instantly knew that he was right (in my case, the carbs created the bottomless hell of hypoglycemia), and sure enough . . . Lost 25 lbs so easily, I was euphoric.

But that’s not the only way. I knew another formerly obese woman who decided to fast during Lent. No, it didn’t lead to anorexia. Basically she eliminated sugar, and thus stabilized her blood glucose, which is crucial for preventing insulin spikes (insulin is the fattening hormone). Others may do it through portion control. Whatever works. The motivation has to be strong enough, and then you’ll discover what works for you. Knowing that you need to lower and stabilize your blood sugar helps, but is not essential.

Happiness . . . Now that’s a complex issue, but one can tackle one aspect at a time. Not “beating up on yourself” is an example. Louise Hay considers this an essential first step. And not beating up on others. The odd thing is that I had this “non-attack on others” insight already at 19, when I sensed that somebody expected me to scream and maybe call him a klutz for making a mess -- and I said nothing, just reached for a paper towel. I acquired the motto: Everyone can make a mistake. The awful thing is that I didn’t apply that kind of sensible compassion toward myself. I continued to beat myself up for decades. Don’t ask. Some weird blindness. (a big sigh . . . )

Darlene:

If I remember correctly, you see depression as an addiction.

Oriana:

I think I may have said it that way in email to a few friends. I know I said, “I no longer do depression.” It was important for me to view depression not as a feeling but as a BEHAVIOR since I don’t feel powerless over my behavior (I classify brooding as a behavior).

Different people have different responses to stress and to certain triggering stimuli. When the going gets tough, some go shopping, others drink or gamble; I did depression. I wouldn’t want to write an essay on “Depression as an Addiction.” There are some traits that depression has in common in addiction; the reinforcement is withdrawal from even trying to cope. Another similarity is overreacting, overdramatizing versus “emotional sobriety” (or call it rationality). But I wouldn’t want to put serious time into analyzing this matter; for me it was a pragmatic definition. “Whatever works” is on the short list of my favorite mantras, and the pragmatic definition worked me for. I don’t mean to universalize it.

I’ve met a few others who also made a decision -- and at an earlier age than I did, which makes me so envious! Now, those few people did it without going to a therapist, but cognitive therapy has been proved in clinical trials to be effective in ending depression. Not for everyone. Those who succeeded were the ones who experienced their shift in perception early, in a matter of weeks.

I have a friend who is a therapist, and she said, “You did cognitive therapy on yourself.” 

IF THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION WERE CLEANSED

Lucrezia:

I think depression is mainly biological. What works best for me is exercise.

Oriana:

Depression can stem from hypothyroidism, PMS, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, the use of certain Rx drugs, and so on. And yes, exercise has been clinically found to be a mood lifter and de-stressor. I don’t mean gentle strolling, since that still lets a person engage in brooding. For some people qi-gong can work, but it didn’t for me. I did experience temporary mood lift from strenuous exercise back when I was still doing depression. Intense exercise kills thought -- I think that’s the secret. But if you have enough motivation to go to an exercise class, then your level of depression is relatively mild.

To summarize my case: I experienced a perception shift (also known as paradigm shift or cognitive shift; my guess is that “intuitional revelation” refers to the same experience). The decision not to be depressed was essentially simultaneous with the perception shift, and automatic; I chose to reinforce it with conscious commitment, but I suspect that the shift did all the work (rewiring the brain, that is). I also switched from intense self-absorption to an intense external focus (“the answer lies outside”). 

As my brain normalized, I discovered that my external focus didn’t have to be as intense, just as my physical exercise could become more gentle and pleasant. I also gradually regained access to positive memories and regained the ability to experience pleasure (chronic depression produces anhedonia). The doors of perception were cleansed, and the world enlivened.

Again, an insight-based decision is not like a New Year’s resolution. It stems from a radical change in perspective, a new understanding. And there  is no going back.