The body of my ex-wife was discovered the day after Thanksgiving. Just days later, a good friend took his own life. Both had struggled, in one way or another, with depression, anxiety, self-loathing – and the heavy drinking that so often comes with such ailments.
You’re no doubt familiar with these labels, perhaps even suffer from a few yourself. I certainly have. If psychological diagnoses were treated like academic pedigrees, my name would be followed by a slew of acronyms that would put all those PhDs and MDs to shame.
But – and here’s where things get dangerous – another form of label is a judgment. A maple tree isn’t just a maple tree. It’s also pretty, provides shade, produces syrup, and at the end of it days provides building products and firewood. Nice, right? Which is why we’re generally fond of maple trees.
Sharks? Not so much.
The thing about the unexamined mind, however, is that it doesn’t distinguish between plain old labels and judgments. A young mind learns that 2+2 = 4; but it also may learn from classmates that its body is fat, or that the way it speaks is odd, or that its skin color is different. Or, it may learn that its face is handsome, that its mind is incredibly bright, that its body is athletically gifted.
So one kid graduates feeling pretty damned good about himself, another steeped in self-loathing and doubt, neither aware that it’s all mental labeling signifying nothing.
Years ago, I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Later came other diagnoses: PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder among them. Look them up, it’s depressing (pun intended).
Today? None of those would apply.
What changed? Was it the years of on-again, off-again psychotherapy? Was it the quickly abandoned regimen of pharmaceuticals? Was it the love and compassion of family and friends? No, no and no.
Ok, then it must have been the more recent escapades, the vision quests and sweat lodges, the energy work and Reiki, the meditation and ayahuasca, the shaman and personal gurus? No, no and no again.
What helped were those first tentative steps away from the labels – what the outside world had for so long been telling me about me and that I, in turn, had perpetuated through malignant, self-destructive behavior, precisely because of those labels. What helped was having a wee bit of faith that maybe the prophets and mystics were right and I (and not to mention, everything around me) wasn’t what I thought I was.
Thirty years ago, a broken, miserable, suffering me attracted into its life a broken, miserable, suffering young woman who would become my wife. Together, we made each other still more miserable, kindred spirits hellbent on proving that misery really does love company, and that this universe of ours really does serve up what we need rather than what we want.
Over the years, she would descend into alcoholism, bankruptcy, and a premature death. I, for reasons unclear, was granted the most incredible gift, a grace that urged me to look within. Where and when did that first message arrive? Curiously, (perhaps only to me), it would be the only time the paths of my ex and my friend crossed.
Not long after the birth of my first child, I was slated to catch a flight with friend to the refugee camps of war-torn Kosovo. Dropped at the airport by my wife and young daughter, once aboard, the plane backing from the gate, I suddenly was gripped by the most terrible panic, and despite much complaint from passengers and crew, I forced the plane back to the gate and disembarked.
The next morning, gripped by the familiar feelings of self-loathing and despair, I slunk toward the office struggling to conjure an explanation for my cowardice. Begging God for guidance, I was walloped, truly, by the most incredibly clear message: The truth really will set you free.
My despair turned to euphoria, my self-loathing to joy, and I marched bravely toward a future where I was committed to truth. Which lasted roughly an hour. That first epiphany would prove only to be the first of many such wallops until this I thing finally, grudgingly gave ground.
Meanwhile, my friend, already gregarious and handsome, articulate and confident, accomplished and beloved, would go on to be celebrated for his heroism in Kosovo, would go on to capture the hand of the beauty working with us, would go on to a stellar career, beautiful kids, the American Dream. And then he, too, would die a premature death. And while I cannot for certain know the reasons he took his life, I feel fairly confident that those early labels of success and accomplishment, of the world as his oyster, were no longer matching up with the reality of a middle-aged man whose trajectory had perhaps flatlined.
The bottom line is that both my ex-wife and friend died because they had never stopped believing in the labels assigned them. They believed – and perpetuated – what life had told them about themselves, believed in the judgments – good and bad – believed there was no way out. And they believed, at least for a time, that some therapy here, some pharmacology there, and a drink, another drink, and still another drink, would mute those cursed voices reciting, again and again and again, the labels.
They’re such sad stories, and countless more just like them are being scripted even as I key these words.
Across time sages, prophets, whatever you want to call them, have attempted to tell us that we are so much more than these struggling, limited little entities doomed to await old age and death. For good reason those sages warned us against casting judgments about others, warned us against envying a neighbor or coveting his lot in life, because to do so would only serve to reinforce the belief in the very same labels and judgments limiting ourselves.
That’s really all I wanted to share today. For obvious reasons I’m saddened by the deaths of my ex and my friend. Because I know they weren’t necessary.
So as we imaginary little human beings march into 2019 (another label invented by these minds, signifying absolutely nothing in this sprawling universe) be gentle with yourselves and others. God knows I haven’t always been very good on either score.
On that note, I’ll close with this snippet from one of Robert Adams’s talks:
Your existence as a human being, so-to-speak, is to discover your real nature. You are not in this world to do the things that most of you are doing. The world deludes you. It makes you believe all kinds of things. You are here for one purpose only, and this is to discover your real nature, who you really are, to make you free and happy.
Yet we are brought up in a worldly society that cares very little about these things. If you look at the world, the precarious condition the world is in, it’s always been a precarious condition, from the beginning of time. You’ll stop and think, “Do I really want to be a part of this world?” The world is a cosmic joke. You get involved in all sorts of things in this world, and you suffer accordingly.
Find out this truth. Only you can uncover it for yourself. Begin to practice within yourself. Do not just go along with life the way it appears, for it will drag you all over the place. You’ll go through all kinds of experiences, and you’ll believe your job is to change bad things into good things. You have your ideas of what bad things are, and you want to change them into good things.
This is all a joke. For bad things to change into good things, and good things to change into bad things, it’s like a yo-yo. It goes up and down. There’s no solidness. Nothing to hang onto in this world. You’re like a leaf blowing in the wind. You think you’re free, and your ego is big, and you feel that you can go into this world and do anything you like. But you’re always disappointed.
The only real happiness is within yourself. The only real peace is within yourself. You have to find it. I can bring you to the vein of gold, but you have to dig for the gold yourself.
