Secular Zen with Bourgeois Teeth

A section of my recent posting, "Hell in a Chaise", was bugging me, so I edited it. It now reads:

Put a rich person in a luxurious chaise longue before a million dollar view, wave palm fronds so he's not too warm, adjust his umbrella so it's just sunny enough, swathe him in tanning lotion because his dermatologist says he's extra susceptible, massage his feet, ply him with snacks and cooling drinks, and attend to every last desire, fear, preference, and whimsy—and he'll torture himself over that awful thing his third grade teacher said to him once. He'll dig into his bag of go-to bitter lozenges to find some way to ballast his happiness.

Let his glass remain empty for a moment or two, and he’ll find it even easier to reframe himself into Hell. There are myriad routes to misery when non-delight parses as persecution.

I asked ChatGPT to proofread, and noted that that final sentence was a modern take on the Hsin Hsin Ming (aka Verses on the Faith Mind by The 3rd Zen Patriarch, Sengstau).

It agreed, noting that my version is "more culturally fluent in neurosis." I was, it decided, offering "Secular Zen with Bourgeois Teeth," which I said I'd use when people ask me what I write about ("Oh, you know, secular Zen with bourgeois teeth, etc.")

The chatbot suggested tagging on "also: tacos" for a complete description of what I do.

I couldn't argue.

Coaxing Reframing

Me: The food here is often salty.

Waiter: I've never heard that before.

Me: That's the last time you can say that!


It wasn’t just a sly comeback. His world shifted (very slightly) when I gave my feedback—but he didn’t notice.

The follow-up made him register it. And registration is everything.

Acceptance is Not Approval

I learned an important lesson one week when I had a cookie at 2pm on Monday, a cookie at 2pm on Tuesday, and, at 2pm on Wednesday, experienced an overwhelming physical urge for a cookie. Like I was being pushed into it.

This was both highly interesting and incredibly unsurprising. Our minds and bodies are usually just trying to oblige us, based on patterns of behavior or of attention-paying. It's just like TikTok showing us lots of squirrel videos because that's what we've previously clicked on. The mind functions as an algorithm, surfacing whatever has sparked interest. And it even thoughtfully factors in your scheduling patterns.

So it wasn't my body dragging me along, trying to satisfy its base yearnings. My body is not my oppressor, but more like an eager poodle taught to expect a walk every morning. I trained it that way, and can just as easily train it some other way. This is a whole other way to think about habits—a far more helpful framing than the standard talk of discipline and self-denial.

It's the same with suffering and grieving.

If the memory of your dear deceased parakeet Henry keeps popping up, it's not your mind dragging you through a painful process of grieving. It's that you've devoted lots of recent attention to Henry, so the "algorithm" (so to speak) keeps offering heart-wrenching trips through the The Sad Tale of Henry, and if you keep opting in, soon every icon on your mental screen will be some slant or other on that theme.

Henry isn't calling to you from your imagination any more than the cookies are. You've established a pattern of focusing attention, so your mind keeps offering more of same. Just like TikTok offering squirrel videos.

There's one big problem. We are convinced, as a society, that we need to think about bad stuff a lot, because if we gloss over it, the very worst thing might happen: REPRESSION. We obsess over loss and tragedy because we've been told it's a long, arduous process. It has filtered down from the mountaintops of psychotherapy that we must "accept" before we can move on.

Here's where we screw this up (tremendously): "Accept" doesn't mean "approve". We have developed a societal habit of waiting for a feeling of approval, which will never arrive, because Henry was a hell of a parakeet, so we'll naturally always be sad. How have we managed to convince ourselves that we must approve of misfortune? Talk about being set up for failure!

Humans don't require optimal conditions and unblemished delight for proper functioning. In fact, we're built for loss. Not to approve of it, but to accept it and move on. The hazards of repression arise when we neurotically deny loss, death, failure, etc. We might hover in foggy denial, or seal off the thought. In such instances, we need to take time to really think things through. That's the "acceptance" threshold, and it's a low bar!

Over-grieving invites perils more daunting than dreaded repression. What's worse, after all, than getting caught in a vicious circle of obsessive misery?

If you know what happened, and clearly acknowledge what happened, and some sort of emotional response has landed, then you've accepted. You are free to move on...unless you’re attached to sad stories (probably to ballast your happiness).

There is no shortage of sad stories to grab at. Me, I'll never play with the NY Knicks, and the only reason I'm not weeping as I type that is because I've opted out of marination in the lament. I haven't made my life revolve around it, becoming That Guy With The Dashed Basketball Dreams. Oh, and don't get me started on the woman in the green crushed velvet dress with whom I exchanged soulful glances in 1992 but was too shy to follow up with. Having opted out of freezing attention on sad tales, they don't often pop up on my mental dashboard.

Not repression. Having accepted, I declined perpetual marination. 

Modern grievers keep endlessly running the scenario ("My beloved parakeet has been forever silenced!"), hoping to reach an approval point where it no longer makes them sad. But that's not how it works. You're just training the algorithm. And as you train, so shall you reap.

Notes: 

1. We grieve very differently than people in previous centuries. It's partially because they were tougher. But I think it's also because this terrible misunderstanding of "acceptance" went viral in the mid 20th century after the rise of psychotherapy, which scared us about "repression" to the point where we make ourselves miserable waiting for an impossible level of approval that was never the benchmark (i.e. loss never comes to feel terrific...and that's okay).

2. Contemporary psychotherapists seem to share the misapprehension, and urge an overzealous and unrealistic notion of "acceptance". They've lost the thread.

3. This comes at a moment when we are more entitled than ever. We feel we deserve an unblemished world experience, and are like princesses increasingly vexed by smaller and smaller mattress peas. The terror of "repression", which drives compulsive over-marination re: shortfall, is a particularly toxic addition to our psychic landscape.

4. More on how "Your Body's Just Trying to Accommodate You"

See also Grief Survival Kit

Gas

Fill your car up with gas.


Situational Awareness

Should

"Pedestrians should use this route" (the working sidewalk across the street).

Not "must", like everywhere else. Should.

Miniscule cultural differences are the important cultural differences.

This message is brought to you by the First Church of Nano-Aesthetics.

Hell in a Chaise

To poor people (I mean actual poor people, not the merely rich folks Americans consider poor), the daily lives of rich people look like this:

"Would you like a blanket?"
"Would you like some food?"
"Are you too warm? Too cold?"
"Would you like a more comfortable chair?"
"Would you like to go on a vacation?"
"Would you like to buy these fine things?"
"Would you like a medical second opinion?"

...and so on, ad infinitum. Even if there's not some person offering these things, the thought process runs eternally: "How is this moment not completely optimal?"

Poor people never experience any of this. They make do without blankets or fine food; they're hardly gauging whether they're warm, cold, or uncomfortable. Vacations don't happen, fine things are for other people, and they do whatever their doctor says, assuming they can afford one. It never occurred to them to chase optimality.

This explains why rich people seem like frightful basket cases of petty complaints. "Why isn't there a blanket? I hate this food! It's too warm/cold! This chair is uncomfortable! I hate this vacation, and I own so many fine things that I lack room to store them. And shlepping around to doctors is a nightmare!"

Put a rich person in a luxurious chaise longue before a million dollar view, wave palm fronds so he's not too warm, adjust his umbrella so it's just sunny enough, swathe him in tanning lotion because his dermatologist says he's extra susceptible, massage his feet, ply him with snacks and cooling drinks, and attend to every last desire, fear, preference, and whimsy—and he'll torture himself over that awful thing his third grade teacher said to him once. He'll dig into his bag of go-to bitter lozenges to find some way to ballast his happiness.

Let his glass remain empty for a moment or two, and he’ll find it even easier to reframe himself into Hell. There are myriad routes to misery when non-delight parses as persecution.

Poor people are not some other species. They're rich people in larval form, with all neuroses latently present. This explains why every one of them yearns and aches to be rich.


For those who didn't click the first link, which means they read the above from within the bizarre class dysmorphia that makes Americans self-frame as non-rich, here's the essay:

Rich, Richer, Richest

Rich - No risk of death from curable disease; hunger rare and minor; lavish portfolio of modern comforts/conveniences/entertainments; days off; personal possessions; car owner (or access to mass transit).

Soccer Mom Rich - Overabundance of possessions and food seems like a negative; vacations; spare time for hobbies; savings.

Dentist Rich - Late model car; investments; parking garages; frequent $20 meals and infrequent $50 meals.

Lawyer Rich - Occasional business class; fancy car; hires people for jobs they could do themselves.

Entrepreneur Rich - Business class; prestige car; default question is "do I really need?" rather than "can I afford?". Children financially assured.


The "Rich" in America (what we here call "the working poor") enjoy a lifestyle of comfort, health, security, and entertainment beyond the imagining of aristocrats of past centuries, and are the envy of most people in the Third World today (though, even there, extreme poverty is down almost 26% over a mere 25 years).

The Royal Boudoir

Women are famously exasperated by men's failure to lower the toilet seat after using the bathroom.

But if it's so important to them, why don't they remember to do it themselves? Either way, someone needs to remember. So why should the person with no personal stake in the outcome bear all the responsibility?

It's the same phenomenon as the sushi lady and psycho pollyannna:

"I am both superior and fragile. You must recognize my superiority while deftly overlooking my failure."

The Desperate Preservation of Effortless Grace

A few weeks ago I wrote about a dinner where my companion wolfed down the entire meal in four minutes flat. I kindly, smilingly suggested she slow down and enjoy it, which earned me a snide, vicious text message the next day about how I'd made her feel like a pig.

What struck me was how insulted she was. If piggish eating is such an awful thing to consider, then...why eat like a pig?

If I'd hate to be thought of as someone with dirty hair, I'd shampoo daily. If I considered "stubbly" a disgusting epithet, I'd shave constantly. This is how we shape our existences, no? We take pains not to do the things that would make us doers of those things.
...
Eating like a pig, if one doesn't mind being seen as a piggish eater, is a fully respectable choice. But the notion of maintaining an elegant feeling while eating disgustingly by taking prickly umbrage at any hint of an implication that one might take longer than three minutes to consume one's supper, that boggles my mind.

I tried to break it down to the core conceit, but only now fully arrived:

Just because she eats like a pig doesn't mean she's someone who'd eat like a pig.

Ironically, I dissected this mindset many years ago in a post called "Always Talk to the Mask ", where I described a type of psycho one encounters while managing large groups:

Psycho Pollyannas [are] people who retain immutably lofty self-images as they do base and underhanded things. Their high-minded self-image is impervious to the abundant reality of their own behavior. For a laser-precise send-up of this mind-set, have a look at my all-time favorite Daily Show moment, a masterpiece of satire by Rob Corddry posing as a news analyst. Here's the money quote:

"There's no question that what took place in [Abu Ghraib] was horrible, but the Arab world has to realize that the U.S. shouldn't be judged on the actions of a...well, we shouldn't be judged on our actions. It's our principles that matter, our inspiring, abstract notions. Remember: just because torturing prisoners is something we did doesn't mean it's something we would do."

One Psycho Pollyanna became a popular and trusted participant on Chowhound. The moderators received a tip that this person had been "shilling" (posting fake raves for operations in which one has a hidden interest), and much detective work ferreted out an enormous amount of the most brazen subversion. She'd spent vast energy to quietly but persistently stir up interest in businesses in which she or close friends had financial ties. The odd thing is that this person truly loved Chowhound. She'd been a regular for years, had befriended many of our users, had even chipped in. She genuinely applauded our values. It happens often, yet never fails to amaze, when those who appreciate and personally benefit from the honesty of a resource like Chowhound systematically seek to subvert that honesty. It's sort of like slashing all the tires in a parking lot and then expecting a ride home.

When confronted, she took vast umbrage. She blazed with righteous indignation. Her disconnection was palpable. Even though we clearly knew - and she knew we knew - everything she had done, and we had indisputable evidence, nothing could breach her upstanding self-image. And it was that veneer - that mask - which spat upon our accusation. There was no attempt to deny what she'd done, because she'd been caught red-handed, but in a battle between reality and self-image, self-image was the easy winner. Just because torturing prisoners is something we did doesn't mean it's something we would do.
....
We've seen a dozen or so cases much like this. And learned to handle them more carefully, though the fallout's always messy.

The real-world lesson I've learned from Psycho Pollyannas is that when you come across one (and you will, as they're out there in far greater plenitude than you'd imagine), you will get nowhere by addressing them as transgressors. They're unable to recognize themselves as such even with their noses pressed directly into their own moral effluvia - so they will genuinely perceive you as the villain. The thing to do is to address only the wholesome, self-righteous mask they present the world...and try to work from there. Because, having drunk their own Kool-Aid, the masks face inward as well as outward, and they quite truthfully can't see beyond the pose.

Just because I eat like a pig doesn't mean I'm someone who'd eat like a pig!

See the third installment in this trilogy, “The Royal Boudoir”.

Too Rich For Greed

In any otherwise interesting, albeit greasy, blog post, OpenAI founder Sam Altman wrote

There will be very hard parts like whole classes of jobs going away, but on the other hand the world will be getting so much richer so quickly that we’ll be able to seriously entertain new policy ideas we never could before.

"Soon the rich will be so rich that they'll see no need to get richer and they'll share!"

Smart people actually say this. And it always leaves me gobsmacked.

As I keep saying, there are two paths to brilliance: 1. Be brilliant (forget it; I for one don't have it in me) or 2. Trim away some stupidity. It's never been a better time to be a stupidity trimmer. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It's your big chance!

Fine. Let's pretend any of this is difficult, and show how blatant stupidity is blatantly stupid.

The Powell Doctrine says to never go to war without a clear attainable objective. But that's how we went into capitalism. It's all about "more", with no notion of "enough"; no finish line. Yet we keep expecting to see an end point. We figure that soon there'll be so much wealth that there'll be widespread satisfaction, shutting down the "more" imperative. Happy times!

People who believe this know how miserably empty most wealthy people are, and how they keep chasing MORE to fill their psychic void. Do we really need it explained that "enough" will never be a thing?

We had it figured out millennia ago (the ancient Greek tale of King Midas, or Ecclesiastes 5:10). The futility of "enough" should no longer surprise us, or spoil our plans. We should be planning around it!

If you wave a bloody steak at a dog, he'll desperately devour it, even if he's surrounded by all the meat in the world.

This isn't a Progressive rant about income inequality or the hated 1%. I slice it differently. To someone in Chiapas or Cambodia or Bangladesh, you—yes, you, reader!—evidently have "enough", yet you keep striving. You're not behind the "enough" line—you're miles past it. Yet you're not generous. Hardly anyone shares, despite the empathy theatrics.

But let's focus for a moment on the super-extra rich. Universal Basic Income would be the death of society if it ever happened. But it won't, because the wealthiest will never roll over and say "enough" as the AI bounty gushes in. If greed remained intact while sitting, for years, on more money than they could possibly spend, how would that change with EVEN MORE MONEY? C'mon!

When sheltered eggheads postulate societies working on philanthropy or other forms of sharing (Communism, Libertarianism, or the steady end state of Universal Basic Income), know that it's bullshit. Even if the proposal is in good faith (I'm not sure about Altman), greed will always intercede. A dog will not decline to furiously devour the bloody steak.

But I'm not just talking about the 1%. I'm talking about you. Look within yourself, at your mounting greed amid mounting wealth. This isn't a "them" thing, it's an "us" thing.

I know a guy with a super-progressive, super-chill deadhead business partner who claimed not to care about money. A business deal made them rich, and the chill partner transformed into a growling pit bull. He hadn't cared about money when he didn't have much, but the moment he got a windfall, he cared very very much indeed. He grabbed and elbowed and clutched and growled, and went completely out of his gourd not with pleasure but with greed. Fresh greed and bloody steaks!

The Pee-Wee Herman Documentary

I seem to have a unique take on the new Pee-Wee Herman documentary on HBO/MAX.

It just confirmed my preconceptions. He was a not-super-deep guy who scratched his way to the top with classic LA showbiz monomania, milking an annoying character for every drop of fame and fortune—but also, to his great credit, applying boundless workmanship and imagination to the task. Underneath? The sort of nowheresville dude who'd jerk off in porn theaters. Idunno, that was pretty much my take going in, and the film didn't change anything.

I'm told I was supposed to sob uncontrollably at his phoned-in deathbed statement, but I saw that it was his method of commandeering the movie to his control and terms, after all. He knew, given the timing, that it would be played unedited and unframed. That chunk ("I'm not a pedophile", which, fwiw, I believe) was the entire point of the whole project for him, and he set it like a jeweler. But the director was too wishy-washy (and showbiz monomaniacal) to clock the nuance.

I'm not disgusted by ambition, but neither do I find it heart-warming. Good on him for his work ethic, and I know lots of people loved the character. Other than that, he had career ups and downs, like everybody.

To digress, sex-offense laws are crazily over-reaching, because, politically, there is no pushback. Nobody would ever dare argue the other way. Politicians trip over each other to propose ever more draconian measures. See David Feige's film "Untouchable". I'm not sure, however, that "I should be allowed to collect anything I want to!" was his best possible statement to the public under the circumstances.

In fact, I'll go a step further. I think the reason he kept his cancer a tight secret for six years was to heighten the shock and impact of his death to ensure maximal impact from the dramatic deathbed voicemail. It sounds unimaginably contrived and manipulative, but his life was nothing but unflagging contrivance and manipulation invested in the storylines he created. This was just more of that.

It would have been great if the documentary director had the sophistication to notice, and to weave this recursion into the film, which then might have been great rather than a sordid true Hollywood tale. But I suppose he was chosen for his lack of sophistication, ensuring he'd deliver Reuben's package cleanly and without nuance.

I will stop short of suggesting that Reubens slept on an asbestos pillow to give himself the cancer to set up the opportunity to ensure the impact for the carefully selected and pre-tenderized director to deliver the package.

But only just barely.