Book synopsis for the dialogue at Vendome tonight

When we meet at Vendome this evening I assume we will use the "empathic listening circle format" that our dialogue artists had suggested last week. The following book synopsis is very apropos. If you have a chance to read it before you arrive at Vendome, so much the better. Also please let me know if the text of the synopsis is for any reason hard to read. I will bring copies of the synopsis with me to Vendome.

Arthur

Book: (Ezra Bayda with Elizabeth Hamilton) Aging for Beginners (2018)

The value of this book is growing on me. Recently I got up “on the wrong side of the bed” (bad mood from the get-go) and about an hour later suddenly recalled that this was exactly the kind of experience that Ezra Bayda suggests you take a step back from and (recognizing that bad moods are a dime a dozen, very common experiences in most people’s lives) look at it as if it were a guest showing up at your front door and welcome it in (as you would be expected to do if a guest showed up at your front door). It was on that morning that this particular part of Aging for Beginners really clicked in my consciousness.

I’ll summarize several key points from the book that I find especially useful, taken from various parts of it:

1. We become upset about bad things that happen to us because of a “sense of entitlement.” In other words, we have this idea that these things shouldn’t be happening to us. We easily understand that such things happen to others, and that birth, old age, and death are part of the natural order of things. And yet for whatever reason we feel that we (I, me, mine) should be the exception to the rule.

2. It would be a huge advantage to us if we can get over it: Drop that “sense of entitlement” like excess baggage. The authors emphasize that this is easier said than done. In fact, the book emphasizes that it will probably never be done once and for all. Therefore, it suggests you keep starting over at the beginning as often as necessary. And that’s one reason for the title of the book.

3. Throughout the book there are meditation exercises to help with the arduous process of getting rid of that sense of entitlement. One of the exercises that I found useful recently (that same morning when I had gotten up in a bad mood) was the “Nightly Gratitude Meditation.” (I did it in the morning.) It was with genuine gratitude that I realized that my insight had been a gift out of the blue. I have a bad mood, but my mind also recalls that lesson I’d learned from this book; and connecting those two things actually helped alleviate my bad mood. For that insight (the quick connection between recognizing my bad mood and recalling the lesson from the book) and the benefit it gave me, I actually felt a moment of profound gratitude.

4. To put our misfortunes in perspective, the book suggests we greet each misfortune as a guest and behave accordingly. Sometimes an invited guest will behave badly in your home, but you must respond to their bad behaviour appropriately. Usually that means remaining calm and cordial. And that’s pretty much what the authors suggest as a way of responding to the difficult things you must face in your life. It is in Part II of the book (“Working with Difficulties”) that they focus on specific kinds of challenges in four chapters: Anxiety and Depression, Grief and Loss, Loneliness and Helplessness, and Physical Pain. Another suggestion for how to treat that misbehaving guest in your home is to be curious (see point 5).

5. Okay, so a guest is misbehaving in your home (i.e. you are going through some difficult challenges in your life). Be curious about this phenomenon and ask good questions, like “Why is this happening and how is it going to play out this time?” (You can come up with your own questions that would help you step back from the challenge and feel curiosity rather than being overwhelmed.)

6. The authors take note of how awareness of our own suffering can connect us with others, as we recognize that they too are going through things like this. They suggest a mantra to help remind us: “Everyone has pain. Everyone suffers. Everyone will die.”

7. In the chapter on dealing with physical pain, Ezra Bayda (who has had chronic neuropathic pain) suggests doing something you enjoy when the pain becomes more intense than usual. He even suggests keeping a list of such activities for quick and easy reference. Another point of emphasis is to talk with a friend who can be a good listener because “feeling isolated only increases our suffering.”

8. A tremendously important point mentioned in the book is that having a larger purpose in life can help in times of trouble. Here the book quotes Nietzshe: “One who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

9. As someone who has worked in a hospice setting, Bayda notes that – while we assume that people mellow with age – in fact many remain very angry to the moment they die. Thus, the practices called for in this book can be a deliverance from a lifetime of anger.

10. In drawing the book to conclusion, the authors emphasize empathy. Kindness to others has a healing effect on ourselves. Moreover, true kindness to others can never be dependent on how others treat us (emphasis in the original). The closing statement in the book is this: “For me, it’s enough to know that this sometimes wonderful, sometimes difficult journey is really not so complicated. We are born, we live, and then we die – this is the natural order of things. And everything in between – including all of our struggles and difficulties – is also part of the natural order of things. Everyone has pain. Everyone suffers. And everyone will die. When we don’t understand this, we take all of the in-between things much too seriously. My wish for everyone is this: to truly take seriously just one thing, which is the commitment to living, as best we can, from kindness and love.”

An experience Ezra Bayda recounts in the book is the responses of two different physicians when he went to them for his neuropathic pain. One said there was nothing that could be done. He showed little empathy or extra effort. Two days later Bayda had another appointment with a different physician and described the same symptoms “…and he basically said, ‘This may be difficult to treat, but there are a couple of things that I think might help, so let’s give it a shot.’ It wasn’t just his words, but also his presence and his kindness that felt healing.”

The importance of even a moment of kindness was perhaps most powerfully brought home to me in the account from another book we’ve discussed, Jesse Bering’s Suicidal: Why We Kill Ourselves. A man had killed himself by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. In his apartment, this suicide note was found: “I am going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.”