The Forging and the Death of a Reflection

Peter J. Swartz

Description

This work is a memoir. As a child and a young man, I rarely felt entitled to breath air. Emotionally neglected by my father, as a teen, I left home for a prep school at which I would spend the worst three years of my life. Trouble followed two failed attempts at undergraduate college, until I found my way to a horseshoeing school out west. I was able to work as a professional farrier for several years until a ruptured disc in my back forced a career change. I chose psychology as somewhere in the back of my mind the depression I endured as a child motivated me back to school to try to help others, eventually becoming a licensed psychologist. It was a good fit and I have been practicing for the past twenty-five years, including many years as an instructor in psychology for Harvard Medical School. About seven years ago, I acquired tinnitus (along with 50 to 60 million other Americans) and using my personal practice of meditation, developed a program to help myself and my patients manage this chronic illness. In short, this work traces the 'forging' of a debilitating sense of self and outlines the potential for it's 'death' resulting in a selflessness that connects to the boundless goodness of the universe. Lastly, I have been helped in no small way throughout, by the profound empathy I have shared with many magnificent beasts of the canine variety.

Sujets

• Pets
• Dogs

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 01 août 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456627171
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Forging and the Death of a Reflection
A Memoir, Peter J. Swartz

Copyright 2016 Dr. Peter J. Swartz
All rights reserved
http://drpeterjswartz.com
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
Photographs courtesy of Pauliina Swartz
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2717-1
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

 
With gratitude for Jenna, for Pauliina, and for all the canines.
 
 
 
Introduction
 
“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
− Pablo Picasso
 
 
 
Much of the time I don’t feel entitled to breath air. I certainly have felt neither entitled, talented, nor worthwhile enough to write a memoir. But something has changed. So here goes.
 
I think I may have been erased at a very young age—not heard, not seen, not touched. And I would breathe the dust from that family blackboard for most of my life. It has been as if the dust of that erasure has been left buzzing around in my head like a swarm of hornets who refuse to die, even when sprayed with insecticide.
 
Is it operative now? Has it just flown off to a new location—zealously beginning a new nest? When will I feel the sting?
 
I’m also aware that I have been almost constantly on trial. Charges pop up everywhere. No resolution is forthcoming from any trial. Not only am I the defendant, I am also the prosecutor, the defense attorney (mandated, state-reimbursed from second-rate law school), the judge, the jury, and the stenographer. Most cases are left hanging with no resolution and little relief.
 
If I don’t maintain a “very hard on yourself” demeanor (as I have heard many times from many people), I always fear that that erased boy will fully take over. My knee-buckling fear is that I would perceive and experience that event as catastrophic— provoking intolerable levels of anxiety and depression—mostly depression. And it’s that “hard on myself” demeanor which has motivated me to try and to do many things, both odd and difficult—attempting to avoid that lurking nest of hornets, I guess. These things I do become evidence, pro or con, of efforts to prove to myself that I am not, in effect, an erased boy. That evidence becomes a substitute, in a way, for that empty, distorted reflection I see when I look for who I am. Maybe if I do enough stuff, something worth something will shine back. Doing hard things is often experienced as confidence building.
Nothing wrong with that, eh? But the persistent internal sense that one needs to be hard on oneself is the near enemy of that positive sense that it’s fine to try and actually succeed at difficult things. Both can and do exist in the mind simultaneously. So this writing angles for a shot at attending to the process of these self-created set of illusory mental formations that have hovered with me throughout life. Some painful; some inspiring. Mine often seemed forged in steel, and thus very strong.
 
I knew somehow that I needed to bring awareness to these mental constructions—these creatures with no real substance. If I could notice them well enough to let them go, and just let them be, without acting on them, then, with luck, some work, some help, maybe, enjoy the freedom and relief as they perhaps, miraculously, lost power. In the end, even delusions, as well as all species of mental constructions, generally come and go like dust swirling in a strong breeze, or as shadows on a wall, just as Plato described in the Allegory of the Cave.
 
And from the iconic Buddhist tale, the “Platform Sutra,” about two monks vying to become the next patriarch, one candidate formulates:
 
“The body is the Bodhi tree.
The mind is like a bright mirror's stand.
At all times we must strive to polish it
and must not let dust collect.”
 
The second monk offers:
 
“Bodhi originally has no tree.
The bright mirror also has no stand.
Fundamentally there is not a single thing.
Where could dust arise?”
 
Both are deemed correct, although ultimately, the second monk is said to have better appreciated the heart of the Buddha’s teaching and he becomes the next patriarch. These metaphors guide my understanding of the stories here that follow. To be clear, the accumulating dust distorts any valid reflection of who anyone is. It is therefore useful to clear it away simply for the sake of accuracy. For many years of my life it would have taken a cyclone to move any of the dust from the mirror I was looking at. However, any perceived reflection is nothing more than a temporary, sometimes compelling illusion, which has, in fact, no basis in reality whatsoever. There is no mirror, no useful reflection to attach to, and no important existent dust. As such, there is no real self anywhere. There are, however, constant and compelling mental constructions coming and going and convincing us all of who we believe we are.
 
As a child, the dust on the mirror of my reflection is so thick as to obscure most everything in life except confusion and heartache. As I look back, I see that my father looms as largely responsible for helping me to accumulate my original layers of dust.
 
Several vignettes illustrate how he provided little in the way of any direct recognition, or meaningful empathic connection one might expect from a parent.
I have no memory, whatsoever, of his ever even calling me by my first name.
And, appropriately for my age, lacking what Piaget termed “formal operations,” I have no cognitive ability to adopt any reasonable perspective on what has happened.
 
I do find ways to keep going forward, however, sometimes by chance and by simply growing up, and sometimes by struggling through some particularly difficult challenges.
 
As a teen, I survive the empty rigidity and the warped isolation of a highly competitive three years away at a boarding school. The dust is overwhelming. It’s there that I learn deep in my bones the pain of not being “well liked,” that which tormented Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman . I concurred with Willy that, “after all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.”
 
I get beyond a self-medicated tangle with two failed attempts at higher education, boldly flunking out of the University of Massachusetts twice. That low point lands me in a series of short-term jobs, including driving a cab in Boston; and on Cape Cod, I make ice cubes, drive a cesspool truck, and drive a large truck for a commercial laundry.
 
Somehow, I find a way to escape my New England roots and eventually, surprisingly, complete a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Colorado. And although having been so miserable at boarding school to have never even attempted to play any sports, I miraculously become the starting goal keeper for the University of Colorado lacrosse team. I then work for a year out of New Orleans teaching reading and study skills in several private schools across the country, for a for-profit educational company.
 
Then, having never even been in close proximity to a horse before, I inexplicably choose to learn blacksmithing and so support myself for four solid years, shoeing horses. That heavy hard work leads to a ruptured disc in my back, successful surgery, and a perceived need for more education. Around that time, my daughter is born, and I am awed by the mind-numbing idea that I… I would actually be responsible for the life of another human being.
 
The acquisition of a master’s degree in counseling leads to a four-year stint as the director of a treatment center for 22 emotionally disturbed teenage boys. What a zoo! I knew in my bones after a few years that I needed to get out of there, else I become a totally crazy person. So, there is a full dive into a doctorate program, the managing of a large Emergency Mental Health Clinic, and the establishment of a long professional career as a clinical psychologist, even including an appointment as a clinical instructor in psychology for the Harvard Medical School, the significance of which jarringly whistles by my father like a totally unfamiliar tune.
 
My need to see myself more clearly becomes more important as I acquire a chronic disease—tinnitus (ringing in the ear) —for which there is no cure, and so figure out a way to augment my meditation practice as a coping strategy both for myself, and with patients struggling with similar and other chronic medical challenges.
 
Aided in no small way by a long-standing meditation practice, I travel from one twisted line to the next, somehow managing, along the way, to clear some of the dust on the mirror of my own reflection. And, amazingly enough, late in life, I sometimes experience what it is like for there to be no mirror at all. No self? Selflessness? Lost in boundless goodness? I’d offer that these last three states can, in fact, happen at times. It’s not that complicated.
 
Lastly, my story is laced throughout, with tales (tails) of critical relationships waged (wagged) with several particularly large sentient beings of the canine variety. I am so very fortunate to have experienced such exquisite luminous interconnections. Not surprisingly, my associations with all those magnificent beasts led me to value all sentient beings with equal reverence and resulted in life changing commitments to veganism, shelter dogs, and multiple energy conservation efforts. Even though it oftentimes looks as if we are all going extinct very soon, I learned I have to do my small part to respect life.
An Accumulation of Empty
 
 
 
Somewhere between awkward poetry and fractured prose,
between lost and valued,
lines want to form so to be cast about.
They need to be known.
Someone’s arms need to make that cast,
so that the end of the Line comes