Bound Talisman
I don't cope so well anymore. Once upon a time I was fairly easy going, then grew into something of a hothead, and then settled down again. When an incompetent doctor punctured my dura mater and sent me home to ooze my cerebral-spinal fluid away from my brain in private, I was left bedridden for eight months. After numerous procedures and tests, I was restored to my feet, only now with messed up discs in my neck and a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. I munch vicodin and carisoprodol with disturbing aplomb (when I met my wife I wouldn't even take aspirin for a headache; the first one wasn't even free).
For a time there I became more emotional and somewhat irritable. Constant pain and a lack of "restorative sleep" will do that to a person. Over the past few years, the pain is a bit more manageable and yet more prescription meds allow me to fall to sleep without the instant-on radio that seems to happen in my mind most nights when I try to pass out. I still can't sit upright in a chair for prolonged periods of time, shovel snow, play on the floor with my kids, and feel proud of not polluting my temple with chemicals.
So I'm a junkie. I never claimed to be in denial. If the doctors would see fit to recommend surgery, I'd be there in a heartbeat but that's another story.
Put another way, certain aspects regarding the quality of my life have changed for the worse the past few years. I'm not the same kind of person I used to be. I'm not the same extroverted, hyperactive gadfly that wooed my wife. She tells me she thinks I'd like to be a hermit, and that I need to take a few more deep breaths throughout the day. I don't argue with either point.
So I bought a book...
I've always admired Buddhism as a philosophy rather than as a dogma. The idea that people are inherently kind and compassionate creatures, that we are happiest if we are acting so; that freedom from want is a key to happiness: notions like these could actually help me become a happier person. I think.
Enter Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, one-time headliner for the self-help phenomenon of the eighties and now barefooted smooth talking pitchman for public TV. I saw him last year talking about the Power of Intention and I had no idea what he was talking about. My own fault, I'm sure; I can't watch any show and stay through either a commercial or an appeal for sponsorship. Makes it hard to follow just about any show more complicated than I Dream of Jeannie.
His more recent appearances have shown him talking about the philosophy of the Tao. Dyer read a number of Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, a series of verses that offers guidance on how to be moral, spritual, happy and good, and wrote a book offering his own interpretation.
It's there now, on the table in front of me, and it's been working for me for several weeks. Sure, the introduction offers a corny bit comparing his own name to the words Tao Te Ching, and the discussion of each verse contains a section called "Do the Tao Now." But it's a fact that I've been calmer in the face of poor work left us by our homebuilder, erratic snowplowing by our neighbor, and dozens of the petty nothings that all of us have to face every day. Just knowing the book is here, that I bought it for this purpose, has helped me achieve it. It's bizarre.
Dyer's an excellent speaker, even more impressive since he doesn't use notes or cue cards during his talks, and I only hope his actual writing lives up to the promise of its message. In a way, though, I suppose it doesn't need to as long as I seem to be responding to the book's physical presence.
There may be a Zen or Taoist message somewhere in that thought but I have no way of knowing. I'm starting to think I'll have to actually read the book.
For a time there I became more emotional and somewhat irritable. Constant pain and a lack of "restorative sleep" will do that to a person. Over the past few years, the pain is a bit more manageable and yet more prescription meds allow me to fall to sleep without the instant-on radio that seems to happen in my mind most nights when I try to pass out. I still can't sit upright in a chair for prolonged periods of time, shovel snow, play on the floor with my kids, and feel proud of not polluting my temple with chemicals.
So I'm a junkie. I never claimed to be in denial. If the doctors would see fit to recommend surgery, I'd be there in a heartbeat but that's another story.
Put another way, certain aspects regarding the quality of my life have changed for the worse the past few years. I'm not the same kind of person I used to be. I'm not the same extroverted, hyperactive gadfly that wooed my wife. She tells me she thinks I'd like to be a hermit, and that I need to take a few more deep breaths throughout the day. I don't argue with either point.
So I bought a book...
I've always admired Buddhism as a philosophy rather than as a dogma. The idea that people are inherently kind and compassionate creatures, that we are happiest if we are acting so; that freedom from want is a key to happiness: notions like these could actually help me become a happier person. I think.
Enter Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, one-time headliner for the self-help phenomenon of the eighties and now barefooted smooth talking pitchman for public TV. I saw him last year talking about the Power of Intention and I had no idea what he was talking about. My own fault, I'm sure; I can't watch any show and stay through either a commercial or an appeal for sponsorship. Makes it hard to follow just about any show more complicated than I Dream of Jeannie.
His more recent appearances have shown him talking about the philosophy of the Tao. Dyer read a number of Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, a series of verses that offers guidance on how to be moral, spritual, happy and good, and wrote a book offering his own interpretation.
It's there now, on the table in front of me, and it's been working for me for several weeks. Sure, the introduction offers a corny bit comparing his own name to the words Tao Te Ching, and the discussion of each verse contains a section called "Do the Tao Now." But it's a fact that I've been calmer in the face of poor work left us by our homebuilder, erratic snowplowing by our neighbor, and dozens of the petty nothings that all of us have to face every day. Just knowing the book is here, that I bought it for this purpose, has helped me achieve it. It's bizarre.
Dyer's an excellent speaker, even more impressive since he doesn't use notes or cue cards during his talks, and I only hope his actual writing lives up to the promise of its message. In a way, though, I suppose it doesn't need to as long as I seem to be responding to the book's physical presence.
There may be a Zen or Taoist message somewhere in that thought but I have no way of knowing. I'm starting to think I'll have to actually read the book.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 9:17 PM
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