Magical thinking

In its least clinical way, magical thinking is believing something to be true simply because we wish it to be so, believe it deeply even if there it seems contrary to actual reality, even if it appears to fly in the face of all known facts & evidence.  Logical thinking has no connection to magical thinking.  Something is true because you wish it to be so. 

Conservatives are masters of magical thinking.  Fact, not opinion.  The other day, I pointed out to a friend that under the Obama administration, the deficit has been reduced.  That wasn't a comment, it's a fact.  She flat out refused to accept - "I don't believe that."  

Few things bear out current-day experience with GOP magical thinking than their unflagging belief that the administration had shady, even dark, motives behind their response to the attack on the U.S. consulate at Benghazi.  In spite of non-partisan reports that fault the administration for its flawed talking points but found no fault with the initial response to the attack, no evidence that either Secretary Clinton or the president order forces to stand down, a House select committee keeps on meeting, keeps asserting "there are still facts to learn about Benghazi and information that needs to be explained in greater detail to the American people. And this Committee will do just that." 

Actually, both Rep. Issa & Rep. Gowdy are spot on - there ARE key, unanswered questions.  There will always be unanswered questions.  Neither committee can interrogate the personnel who were at the CIA's Benghazi outpost.   

Which brings up an interesting point.  Don't doubt for a moment that if we'd had a Republican president on 09/11/12, our conservative press would have used the CIA presence as cause to shout down any attempts at congressional hearings on the basis of national security. But it was a democrat, so we forge ahead in getting to truth no one seems able to find which they know in their bones is out there.

For years, have thought the most notorious case of Republican magical thinking was the Bush administration's insistence we had PROOF of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, blatantly magical thinking that was the motivation for going to war.  

Up until yesterday, I thought that Dick Cheney was the most flagrant magical thinker of all time.  HA!  Not even close.

That most amazing bit of magical thinking comes from none other than President Ronald Reagan, all the way back on March 4, 1987.   

President Reagan's administration was embroiled in scandal that would have sunk any Democratic president.  Thanks to the crash of an air transport in Nicaragua, it was discovered that he had approved the sale of arms to Iran, in part as a trade for hostages (something he had pledged the American people he'd never do) and to raise money so his administration could covertly & illegally provide financial support to the rebels (contras) fighting against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. 

The entire speech is drop-jaw fantastic, a well-spring of magical thinking.  But one section stands out, one paragraph is the very zenith (or nadir) of conservative magical thinking:

A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind. There are reasons why it happened, but no excuses. It was a mistake.

Wow.  My jaw dropped on reading that yesterday.  He didn't know ALL the pesky details - which at best ensured plausible deniability, at worst meant his aides had run totally amuck, which is far more alarming - but his own diary shows that he had enough & definitely gave the green light:

12/05/85  ~  N.S.C. briefing--probably Bud's last. Subject was our undercover effort to free our 5 hostages held by terrorists in Lebanon. It is a complex undertaking with only a few of us in on it. I won't even write in the diary what we're up to.

12/07/85 ~  Day opened with "Rex" (our new dog) on our bed. I then had a meeting with Don R., Cap W. and Bud M., John P., Geo. Schultz and Mahan of C.I.A. This had to do with the complex plan which could return our 5 hostages & help some officials in Iran who want to turn that country from its present course & on to a better relationship with us. It calls for Israel selling some weapons to Iran. As they are delivered in installments by air our hostages will be released. The weapons will go to the moderate leaders in the army who are essential if there is to be a change to a more stable govt. We then sell Israel replacements for the delivered weapons. None of this is a gift--the Iranians pay cash for the weapons--so does Israel. ~ ~ ~  George S. Cap and Don are opposed--Cong. has imposed a law that we can't sell Iran weapons or sell any other country weapons for resale to Iran. Geo. also thinks this violates our policy of not paying off terrorists. I claim the weapons are for those who want to change the govt of Iran & no ransom is being pd. for the hostages. No direct sale would be made by us to Iran but we would be replacing the weapons sold by Israel.

Sounds to me like he had knowledge of what was going on with the arms for hostage part.  Before reading the Tower Commission report.  Before telling the American people in November 1986, "In spite of the wildly speculative and false stories of arms for hostages and alleged ransom payments, we did not, repeat, did not, trade weapons or anything else for hostages.  Nor will we."  

But who can fault the man?  He was a conservative Republican & it was what he WANTED to be true, at least at that moment, was what he felt in his heart, what he held in his intentions.  Magical thinking.

President Reagan's 03/04/87 speech is a clear fore-runner of today's conservative thinking - completely skip over what happened to get to a more pleasant, acceptable story:
You've heard a lot about the staff of the National Security Council in recent months. Well, I can tell you, they are good and dedicated government employees, who put in long hours for the Nation's benefit. They are eager and anxious to serve their country. One thing still upsetting me, however, is that no one kept proper records of meetings or decisions. This led to my failure to recollect whether I approved an arms shipment before or after the fact. I did approve it; I just can't say specifically when. Well, rest assured, there's plenty of recordkeeping now going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.


Sheez - it didn't bother him that Oliver North & Fawn Hall shredded NSC documents, only that "no one kept proper records of meetings or decisions" which lead to his failure to remember whether he approved an arms shipment before or after the fact?  Mr. President - is it possible that those records were the documents being shredded?

(Am imagining the little smile & "aw, gosh" voice as he said, "Well, rest assured, there's plenty of recordkeeping now going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.")

Shocks me, how far back magical thinking goes with conservatives.  Shocks me, realizing that the majority of Americans seem okay with it, just an interesting quirk of the Republican party.  

Here's a hard, cold, uncompromising FACT  -  magical thinking is antithetical to effective governing. 

Who is this person?

So strange, unfamiliar, being this person I barely recognize, the person I wildly celebrate & am thrilled to find has taken up residence in my body.

I read Jane Blair's Facebook postings about her mother-in-law's challenges with aging & REJOICE that a real experience of real people is being shared, not tucked away in some "don't go there" corner.  I shout a great YIPPEE! that her stories will resonate years later as others find themselves with a similarly tender cross to bear, is liberating others to share their own stories.  

It's not possible to shift our nation's gosh awful culture around aging by focusing on the problems.  That only generates more negatives.  Resolution is to be found on what works within the unworkable, what yields the most wholesome result out of the most pained scenario.

Change will happen when the Janes & others speak out their stories, their loved ones realities & how they address them with LOVE.  The answer is LOVE.  And I get to be it's cheerleader booster drum major.  I get to be a voice uplifted against the clinical, the corporate, the ready to manage into silent submission.   

No idea where this person sprang from, but I like her! 

Land of the free offer & home of bravado

There are a lot of reasons to read Why We Want You to be Rich, by Donald Trump & Robert Kiyosaki, with a cautious eye, but I am forever grateful to it for its intriguing, illuminating mention of how economists forged  America's post-WWII path forward.  

If The Donald & Mr. Kiyosaki are to be believed, the economic gurus of those long-gone days determined that the best way to secure America's continuing financial power was to develop a consumer-powered economy.  My guess is that the assumption was that the products we'd be buying would be made in the U.S.A., providing a constant demand that would keep our factories humming & Americans gainfully employed. We would learn the hard way that there's a difference between focusing on producing & on purchasing.  The manufacturer wants to make the most sought-after product at a price that will lure buyers & keep them coming - quality was assumed. 

And purchasing was getting easier & easier.  Forget our nation's once honored reputation for thrift & savings.  Soon after WWII, our nation had taken the first steps toward an unparalleled spending binge.  In 1946, the first modern-day credit card was introduced in New York City.  It was a success! Three years later, the Diners Club card was introduced & quickly grew from covering 28 NYC restaurants & two hotels to more, much more.  It took until 1958 for American Express to introduce its own card, but it revolutionized how American paid for goods & services.

As our spending soared, so did our search for "bargains."  By 1954, the trend away from quality toward low price was clear enough to be featured in an "all-star cast" film - Executive Suite.  Oh, Americans ridiculed "Made in Japan" products for their inferiority & shoddy workmanship, but our manufacturers saw the writing on the wall & started pulling money out of research & design and plowing it into their marketing & advertising budgets.  The stock holder became king of the American economy; Wall Street became the arbiter of our economy's health.

At the same time consumers were getting comfortable with skimping on quality to get a better deal, our mighty manufacturers were filled with their own bravado.  Especially the Big Three auto manufacturers, the back bone of America's economic might.

The Volkswagen Bug, considered a novelty car, didn't fill Detroit with fear - they were American auto manufacturing, the best in the world, producing the cars sought back home & around the world.  It didn't worry them when fledgling businesses like Lockhart Lumber - my Dad's itty bitty lumber & mill work shop - purchased a VW truck instead of GM ~ to them, American-made cars were & would always be the gold standard of automobiles.  Smaller, gas-efficient cars were a novelty, no threat to American muscle cars.

When Mim & I drove down to our first Apollo moon launch in late 1969, we marveled at low gasoline prices.  Am grateful to have appreciated how affordable it was to get from Bryn Athyn to Cape Canaveral, even driving a Ford Van (not known for awesome mileage per gallon).  

Detroit started making smaller cars in the '60s, but their heart (and research) was in it.  Then, the oil crisis of 1973 hit & Detroit was left out in the cold - the cars designed to get the best mileage, the ones that sold like hot cakes, were from overseas.  

Overnight, "made in Japan" was no longer synonymous with inferior goods, while "made in Detroit" became linked with "gas guzzler."  Who wanted the swaggering looks of a car that ate up gas that jumped 40% from the first of the year to the last?  American auto manufacturers, who'd refused to put any research & design dollars into smaller, more fuel efficient cars, now pulled out all the stops to roll out their own gas-efficient cars;  their speed showed in the final product, with many of the "new & improved" cars suffering from design & manufacturing problems.  Now, it was America that was getting the reputation for shoddy design & poor workmanship.

Americans were well-trained consumers - they flocked to imports.  They'd been trained to be purchasers & they'd learned their lessons well.  Price, not quality or prestige, was their main motivator  - how much did it cost & how many miles per gallon did it get?  

The bravado of the Big Three automakers - their blindness to need supplanting style - doomed Detroit, although the blame was placed squarely on the shoulders of unions.  They made incredibly bad business decisions, simply to save a few dollars per car.  Ford kept mum about problems with the Pinto's gas tank, which it knew was vulnerable to explosion when hit in a particular way.  1991's Class Action, a fictionalized account of the debacle, sets out a pretty grim view of an American corporation putting profit over personal safety.  Today, it is GM that is mired in a similar disaster - it took them ten years to issue recalls of cars they knew had ignition switch problems.  Like the fictional auto manufacturer in Class Action, they figured it would cost them less in legal action over deaths & injuries than it would to fix the problem up front.  

We have become a nation of consumers & desperate manufacturers willing to do whatever it takes to maintain profitability.  Human lives are just part of a financial equation.  I doubt this is what those economists envisioned back in the late 1940s, deciding that encouraging Americans to flex their purchasing power was the best way to remain our manufacturing supremacy.    

American consumers matter to our corporations, but actual Americans are given little, if any, value.  It's our buying power, not our personal safety or well being, that matters.  We've become a nation that equates the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of things, rather than using those things as a means to the end of happiness.  

Maybe it goes hand in hand with the dumbing down of America that's occurred since 2000.  As a nation, we seem to have drifted away from the idea that the happiness referred to in the Declaration of Independence is tied to our ability to think & speak freely, to our freedom to pursue & express our own truth.    What happened to embracing liberty & free speech, to being a magnet for people of many different faiths & political beliefs?  When did capitalism become synonymous with American democracy?  Did Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt envision an America where the rights of people would be compromised & the rights of faceless, heartless corporations become inviolate?  

Look around.  We've became a nation of committed consumers & corporations hallmarked with swaggering braggadocchio.  Our national dream of liberty & justice for all seems displaced by a fixation on the rise & fall of the stock market index & an unquenchable thirst for acquisition of stuff.  

Who will put the brakes on & restore a semblance of good old-fashioned American common sense?  Would anyone let them?

American dreamer

We are fast coming up on the anniversary of the worst attack by foreign powers on American soil - including Pearl Harbor.  And we are once again looking to get sucked back into the black hole known as the Middle East, an area that seems to reduce the U.S.A. to a state of unreasonably high expectations of military success based only on sheer bravado, because none of our previous excursions - or Great Britain's - turned out very well.

No one seems to care that we are being played, using a Checkers mind-set when the other side is steeped in chess.  We have no concept of the long game, unlike our adversaries.  

We bungled our surrogate victory in booting Russia from Afghanistan, giving rise to Osama bin Laden.  We bungled Iraq, pulling Iran, it's traditional enemy, into closer ties.  We bungled Syria, helping with the rise of ISIS.  It's not just that we have lousy foreign policies in the Middle East - it's that unless they are completely subjugating a people or using surrogates to do the same, we haven't a clue & invariably make a complete mess of it all.  (Can you spell Balfour Declaration?)

The faith of my birth instilled in me a deep belief that good things can come out of the worst possible situations.   After 9/11, there was an opportunity to step back & hit the "pause" button, to process the horror & our newly revealed vulnerability.  The world had wrapped us in their arms.  But it is against human nature - even more so, against our country's basic nature - to accept feelings of vulnerability.  So, we took the made the move that far more astute minds than ours had counted on & opted for revenge rather than reflection, on going after someone who felt like they were directly related to the attacks even if the facts indicated they weren't.  It felt right to attack Iraq, so a piddly number of people asked the tough questions, and they were silenced by a majority who went with their compromised hearts rather than their heads.

For the past week, I've been re-reading Deepening the American Dream, a remarkable collection of essays from a range of profound minds.  Oh, the joy of discovering that they are available online, so everyone who loves our country can experience them!  Or, they can get the book & turn down its pages & underline it & highlight it & right in the margins - like I have.  

It doesn't matter how you feel about where we are in race relations or whether the economy is rigged to benefit a few, doesn't matter if we are Republicans or Democrats or Radical Centrists, doesn't matter who we hope controls the Senate come January 2015 - what matters is that our beloved country is long overdue for a conversation about our American dream. We need to have the courage to really consider, long & hard, what we consider it to be, how it differs, what it is & what it means for ALL of us. 

It's easy to summon up the courage to attack, even if our experience tells us it will end badly.  At least if we DO something, if we strike out in revenge for the deaths of innocent people brutally slain in front of the whole world, it will feel better, even if it goes horribly wrong.  That's human nature. That's especially our nation's natural response - send in the cavalry!  But it's not what we need - we need to pause, we need to CIVILLY discuss, we need to consider what is the American dream.  Maybe, if we're lucky, we will be able to realize what it was & is & how to deepen it.  The alternative is dreadful beyond words.

Be a lamp, a life boat, or a ladder. ~rumi~

One of the greatest unrealized wishes of my life - so far - is to have the sort of mind that fully appreciates the depth & breadth of great poets. My sister, Mim, writes incredible poetry; I am not so blessed, born with neither the ability to comprehend nor to compose.  

Am keenly aware of all that has been lost to me.  It's a far stretch to think that I'll suddenly awake one day & be able to have the texture & quality of mind to see more than words on lines.  I seem deaf to the beauty & resonance of poetry, as someone who is color-blind can never fully appreciate Picasso.  

I would love to respond to Rumi like so many of my friends.  It just goes over me, leaving me feeling fundamentally dense rather than uplifted & inspired.  But thank goodness for people like Mary Engelbreit, who caught a perfect bit of Rumi, an illustration for a magnet!  

long-distance swimmer

Be not the slave of your own past
Plunge into the sublime seas, 
dive deep, 
and swim far, 
so you shall come back 
with self-respect, 
with new power, 
with an advanced experience, 
that shall explain and overlook the old. 
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

This quote was introduced to me by Mary Engelbreit, who illustrated it for her now no-more magazine.  Why is this not better known?  It certainly spoke loudly & clearly, from the first moment I saw the graceful figured poised for her dive.

It's not just true for me.  It's true for all.  

Ask any long-distance swimmer if it's easy.  No how, no way.  But it can be wondrous.  Ask Sydne Didier, who loves long-distance swimming.  

To the multitude of people who back away from a little reflection & detachment, that's the woman I point to.  Hey, as a child, Didier didn't even like swimming - she did everything she could to get out of lessons!  Nope - she didn't start until she was 26, learning her first swimming strokes in a beginners class.

At 43, she's not exactly a spring chicken, but she competes in long-distance, open-water swimming races.  Last month, she took 2nd place at the Lake Zurich Marathon Swim in Switzerland, in the women 40 years & older bracket.  She swam 26.4-kilometer race (16.4 miles), across a beautiful lake with a backdrop of the Alps.  Didier, who was flanked by two English swimmers in the standings, was the only swimmer from the western hemisphere.  

Long-distance swimming is never about pleasure, but digging deep to discover depths you didn't know existed.  You just hang on, even when you question yourself & your stamina for the task.  

 







As Didier said in a recent interview with the Boston Herald (she lives in Amherst),  "There was a point where I thought my shoulder wasn't going to let me finish.  There's always a point where you think, 'This is so stupid, why am I doing this?' Every race, that (thought) comes."  

Didier mentions something I discovered about my own long-distance swim toward a new sense that could "explain & overlook the old" - it's a team sport.  She couldn't get there without her husband & her now 13-years old son, who kayak alongside her throughout the race, monitoring encouraging sustaining her strength & courage. 

She had her John & son & a host of invisible supporters, all keeping her going across keep the majestic, 70 degrees (F) lake.  I have my John, paddling alongside me, & my own host of ever-with-me boosters.

My John is an ideal support, one of a long line of coaches, mentors & role models who were with me on my long swim out out out & then all the way back.  

Unlike long-distance running or cycling, long-distance swimming - in the very moment it is happening - is NOT a solitary endeavor;  Sydne's son & husband were alongside her the whole way.  And there's another crucial difference between swimming & the other two sports - cyclists & runners bike & run through terrain that gives some sort of a sense of placement;  swimmers stroke & kick their way through placeless, timeless water.  I am sure that each lake, river & ocean is different, but each still embodies a certain sense of...  nothingness missing in the other sports.  

A comment by Didier's husband, John Urschel, reflects back to that - "From a kayaker's perspective, it's incredibly quiet. It's more physical cues."  

When my John is at his best as my primary life coach, he's picking up on the unspoken cues, how I'm holding my shoulders or my tone, on some intangible whatever that only someone who truly loves can spot.  

I needed Sydne Didier in my life.  Her hubster notes, "She does not give up. If she starts something, she finishes it."  That is the flip side of my old life pattern, which was enjoying all the zest of a new idea, the energy of a fresh endeavor, but flagging & failing to follow through when it came to the grunt work needed to turn it from concept to reality.  She didn't win 2nd place by jumping in the water on that day, but by doing that every day.  Which is no small thing in frosty, frozen New England.

Sydne Didier didn't let Mother Nature be an adversary.  She & her husband built an indoor lap pool behind their Massachusetts farm house (in spite of friends who asked, "Haven't you seen your kitchen?")  It is spare, but elegant, form & function tied to beauty - no surprise, as Sydne is a designer.  We all need to figure out what/who are the adversaries on our long swim & find our own ways to get around them.  We're doubly blessed when the solutions can be as elegantly functional as Sydne's!

 

As she wrote in a blog post (which I couldn't, alas, locate) about the race, it was good ol' mind over matter that got her through. (Arrgghhh!  Visualization  - something I've never mastered.  Time to give it another go.)  She envisioned herself at the finish line, she'd feel if she traveled all that distance, swam almost miles, only to fall short - then have to share that with everyone back home. 

Experienced a twinge of recognition reading about her passion for open-water swimming.  Her husband says it allows swimmers  to "swim for themselves."  They can be in a field of 100 other swimmers & still be alone.  I know that feeling.  It's lovely to see it expressed in such a positive way.

It's my experience that the most remarkable things show up just when they can be appreciated.  About ten years back, it was Mary Engelbreit's illustration of an unknown Emerson quote.  Today, it's discovering the long-distance swimming of Sydne Didier, a woman who embodies so many of the awesome dynamics I'm facing in my own here & now life. It wasn't until I was 24 that it became clear how little in understood the basic stroke-work & kicks needed to get into life's swim, took a variety of coaches in different areas to get me headed in a better direction,  required a master coach to help me put it all together.  But when it comes down to it & I am out in that open water of fresh endeavors & bold new directions, it comes down to - in a good way - me, by myself, working my way through whatever waters surround me, keeping at it to the finish line.  

 

Balance

It took until this morning - just a few moments ago - for me to fully realize the great gift John's given me over the past 25 years.  A sense of healthy balance.

That gift is my here & now starting point.  It would be impossible to accomplish all that stretches out before me - most unseen, yet already real in my heart & spirit - without a basic sense of balance. 

Which isn't to say that it will be easy.  My sense of balance is new, while my expectation & familiar pattern of the opposite feels as old as the hills.  

It is hard for people to understand that someone who is raised to expect things to be off kilter, even blatantly messed up, feels ill at ease with what works almost effortlessly, suspects the whole & doubts the healthy.

For 25 years, loving John has been effortless - it just always has been.  We've had our bumps & glitches along the way, but the sense of imbalance, of discord & unhappiness its brought have been >< much compared to all the <<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>> gifts & graces its made possible. 

For 25 years, John Richard Murphy has modeled, simply by being, what is whole.  I am very influenced by what I see in front of me.  From the time I came home from the hospital to 02/03/89, when the two of us shut down th The Academy, all I saw mirrored was far from whole - and what was whole, I experienced as foreign, not for me & mine.  Not John.  He is the most whole person I know, although it's impossible to describe what that means.  it just is.  

For 25 years, John has embodied health.  In every way.  It's John who gets on my case about getting prescriptions filled & taken every day, who can seem what behaviors are helpful & which aren't.  It's John who can see others in their completeness, taking irksome habits & difficult behaviors in stride - acknowledging them without judging - while celebrating everything else.  

It was John who said after stress-filled preparations for our second major party, "We won't do this again."  Said it as a matter of fact, not as condemning comment.  And we didn't - together, we figured out better ways to put on the big bashes that were dear to my heart (long gone, post-kitties).

It was John who said after our second tear-filled Christmas Eve, "This isn't fun."  That stopped me in my tracks.  Didn't everyone stress out & cry on Christmas Eve?  No, he gently explained to me, they didn't.  And let me see, on my own, a connect to the party overload & my chronic Christmas angst.

It would take many more years for me to realize that such stress & unhappiness tied back to a home life where that was the norm, at least for me.  It was my norm to know that my oldest brother & adored older sister wanted to somewhere else rather that with the family, with me.  Peter's heart was always with the Harolds & later with his kids out in Berwyn.  Mim's was with the Lachs.  That had to take a toll on a youngster, especially one who deeply loved connection.  And my typical preparation for any size party was to leave everything until the last moment.  

The place John loves best is with me, although he makes plenty of room for others.  He was always a good son to Mom M. & devoted s-i-l to Mom, but he never pretended that his favorite role was anything other than as my hubster, my Keet, Budgie of my heart.  Wow!

My brother, Michael, once said that Mom & I had John wrapped right around our fingers.  How wrong he was.  Not that we were wrapped around John's.  John wouldn't have liked that.  His tendency is to wrap fingers together, hand in hand.  

My husband hasn't a clue what a healthy influence he is, just by being loving, caring, supportive.  He just is who he is.  The man who gave me the best present anyone can give another - balance, which speaks of the countless other gifts that makes it so.

Twenty-five years as John's wife, his Keet, his Budgerina.  We ended up giving each other a new toilet & much needed home repairs as our major presents, which necessitated cancelling plans for a romantic overnight at Porches and any other extravagant surprises might have been up our sleeves.  Still, if I'm open & honest with myself, nothing could possibly top the one he gives every day - a healthy, whole sense of balance, a starting place for all that is to come.