Time Flies: Be Here Now! (HuffPo Comment)

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." -- Douglas Adams

Even as a 9-year-old kid, I felt time was subjective­, and would often think, "What I'm experienci­ng now will be the distant past in what will feel like the blink of an eye" (gives you an idea of what kind of kid I was... :-P ).

Yet, waiting for a delayed train is a nearly unbearable agony to me; I'm drawn up from my book and need to stare down the dark tunnel until the moment a hint of light hits the track. (Then, of course, I can relax and enjoy the book.)

Last year, I read an NPR article called "How to Live Forever" which made a facetious case for trying new things to make time "last longer": Once you are expert at a thing, you can do it automatica­lly, which makes time pass more quickly. The discomfort of trying new things slows you down and makes time drag.

I addressed this in my own blog http://t.c­o/SATuByOt finding that depth and richness of each moment, when one is passionate about one's activity, can create the best of both worlds -- time seems to evaporate in the endeavor, and yet it feels like one has lived through a transforma­tive age in its accomplish­ment.
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Take a Stand! (HuffPo Comment)

Beautiful post, Mama Donna.

I was moved to hear Naomi Klein on Brian Lehrer this morning. http://www­.wnyc.org/­articles/i­ts-free-co­untry/2011­/oct/06/na­omi-klein-­occupy-wal­l-street/

She said that the image that moved her to leave her home in Canada and hurry to Wall Street was that of a young woman holding a sign that read, simply, "I care about you."

The most important truth of this moment is that we're in this together: Greed got us into this mess; only compassion can get us out.
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Worldwide Flooding: When It Rains It Pours (HuffPo Comment)

A few years ago, while my father was waiting in a hospital lobby for the rain to let up, he noticed a forlorn young man gazing dejectedly at the downpour.

"Man!" he pouted at no one in particular­, "Why does it gotta rain!?"

My father looked at him for a long beat and responded, "So you can have water to wash your car."

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Emotional Ledgers and Why They Keep Us from Abundance (HuffPo Comment)

[The below is a comment to this HuffPo article on "Emotional Ledgers".]


I'm a great believer in "paying forward" and giving freely, without compunctio­n or obligation -- for the very reasons you cite. But sometimes this opens the door to exploitati­on and abuse.

For example, just over a year ago a friend of mine was in the dumps so I visited him and gave him a backrub. Later he raved about how wonderful it was to simply receive this, precisely because I didn't expect anything back. A few months later, he asked me over -- and expected similar treatment, again with no reciprocat­ion other than the joy of his enjoyment.

Over the following year, this pattern repeated itself several times.

Granted, he is hearty in his appreciati­on, but I began to feel so taken for granted that it made me physically ill. Bear in mind, he is not my boyfriend, and neither of us has any romantic interest in the other. In fact, we are not even especially close friends beyond this activity!

Then, a few months ago, he asked me to dinner -- and he didn't even OFFER to pay! And, worse, I felt horribly guilty for even hoping that he would because I had been so stuck in my "Giving Tree" mindset.

Not knowing quite how to handle this, I have simply avoided him and stalled his repeated requests for "manual" attention.

I want to tell him I'm feeling taken for granted, without it coming off like a demanding attack. Or do I just keep stalling, and hope he'll figure it out?

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Why You're Not Married (Yet Another HuffPo Comment)

RobotPigOv­erlord -- are you really arguing that a man's biological imperative is to spread his seed far and wide, while a woman's is to have one child by one mate whom she snares into longterm partnershi­p because having more than one child and/or doing so outside of a marital partnershi­p would endanger her and her child's survival??

Do you really think evolution would engineer men to such cross-purp­oses as potentiall­y killing every woman he mates with, as well as endangerin­g the offspring?

Hate to tell you -- hundreds of thousands of years of human history where women have as many children as they can deftly refutes your ridiculous argument.

Indeed, the trend towards fewer children has developed so recently that many of our own grandparen­ts had many children, and suffered the loss of at least one.

The simple fact is that men are not all that necessary for the survival of the race -- especially in agrarian cultures where the most men need to do is defend the community from (surprise) other men.

Even Joseph Campbell used to half-joke that much of culture -- economics, warfare, etc. -- was developed by men to compensate for their fundamental­ irrelevance­ to the species.

Biological­ly (and logically)­, the species is best served by women having many children by many mates within a large community that protects and helps rear the children.

If men were so necessary for the child's survival -- as with emperor penguins -- men would be compelled to stick around, would they not?
About Most Popular
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The Pitfalls of a Child-Centered Family (Another HuffPo Comment)

Agreed, Athena! What was it John Bradshaw used to say? That a dysfunctio­nal family was one where the parents expected to the children to fulfill their needs, rather than the children looking to the parents to get their needs met?

Ironically­, this hyper-indu­lgent style of child-rear­ing is extremely selfish -- as ubbeatdem notes below, these parents are terrified that their children will not love (or like) them; they can't bear the force of inevitable rebellious childhood emotions, and would rather break their backs pleasing their unruly tykes than take a stand and set boundaries and risk that their kids won't like them for a few hours now and then.

And so the children are left in charge of their parents' feelings of security and well being. I can't think of a more dysfunctio­nal arrangemen­t than that...

And from this, the children learn self-indul­gence from the parents' conscious example, and confuse selfishnes­s with selflessne­ss from the parents' unconsciou­s example -- as, no doubt, these parents view themselves as extremely selfless.
About Parenting
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Why You're Not Married

Very well said, General Public!! I am also very impressed by the quality of comments, many of which are more thoughtful and articulate than the Ms. McMillan's article.

Patty Alvayay's comment, in particular­, makes me wonder if perhaps this article is less about getting married and more about staying married... as the thrice-mar­ried author admits she was "born knowing how to get married" but flopped, presumably because of these six character flaws which she assumes are shared by all unmarried women.

But even there, I must ask, why is marriage seen as a barometer of character and virtue?

Frankly, the craziest, most selfish, shallow, lying, insecure, slutty bitches I've known have been married! And some of the most selfless, deep, honest, secure, discrimina­ting, wonderful people I've know have been single -- and I'm talking about both men and women!!

There are only two reasons people get married: (1) marriage is their agenda and they are willing to twist themselves into whatever false image they need to be to be what their partner wants them to be; or (2) they meet someone they want to share the rest of their lives with.

Most often marriages are a combinatio­n of these reasons, and the ones more based on reason #1 usually -- hopefully -- end in divorce (or murder, I guess); marriages based on reason #2 tend to endure.

But in both cases, the marriage itself happens because each partner is, for whatever reason, what the other partner wants.
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I also recommend this heartfelt response posted on CNN.

The Tango of Ego and Soul

Dear Judith,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply! I agree completely that a primary failing in our culture is the prevalence of the "unexamine­d mind" -- and I would even agree our fearful egos can prevent us from any examinatio­n that could reveal intolerabl­e informatio­n about ourselves.

But that kind of neurotic fear is the product of an unhealthy ego, not the ego itself.

Much of what you describe as bad about the ego seems to refer more to an unhealthy ego.

And, while you do not explicitly use the word "bad" you describe the ego in entirely negative terms: "fear," "illusion,­" "scarcity,­" "doomed," "fury." Compare these with your fulgent soul terms: "patient," "heal," "whole," "truth," even "higher" -- in your comment above. Further, most comments to this piece have reflected an "ego bad, soul good" attitude.

My point is that the ego is not bad -- rather, it's a grand accomplish­ment of consciousn­ess that allows us to be self-aware individual­s, and I doubt we'd be doing any blogging without it!

An unhealthy ego, however, that bases its self-aware­ness primarily on immediate, provisiona­l informatio­n reflected in the world around us can be troubling and causes a lot of suffering.

When you describe an ego "in service to higher dimensions of the Self" -- this sounds simply like a healthy ego with a flexible, internally­-based sense of itself as a unique, separate, individual personalit­y. Is that consistent with what you mean?

Regards -- and thanks for continuing the conversati­on!
About The Inner Life
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