August 13, 2011

The Definition of Middle Age

Posted by Nathen under age, aging, definitions, middle age
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As I approach it, the exact day I enter middle age has become more salient. Reanna routinely refers to people in their late 30s as “middle aged” and I feel taken aback. Since I’ve been thinking about such things, I’ve thought of the 30s, at least, as just plain old “adult.”

I am 39, a couple of months from my 40th birthday. When do I hit middle age?

Ah, that’s what I thought. I turn middle-aged at the end of this September.

Funny, the same website gives five more years, just by adding a “d.”

  • Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. Various attempts have been made to define this age, which is around the third quarter of the average life span of human beings.  – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_age

I first misread this one as “middle third,” somehow, which liked–very intuitive. For men in the US like myself, however, whose average lifespan is 75.6 years, it places middle age between 25 and 50 years old. That means I’ve been middle aged since 1996. And that Reanna, as a Canadian woman with an average lifespan of 82.9 years, has been middle-aged since six months after her 27th birthday.

As my friend Julian pointed out, though, it actually says the third quarter: For men in the US from about 37.8 until about 57.7. It’s less intuitive for me, but lines up better with what people seem to mean by middle age.

I like that one as well. It may be the most accurate. Or perhaps this one:

  • middle age – (1) when every person you meet is only a composite of other people whom you have met. (2) a time when you’ll do anything to feel better, except give up what’s hurting you. (3) later than you think and sooner than you expect. (4) when a narrow waist and a broad mind begin to change places. – www.theabsolute.net/minefield/tmdict.html
 

August 9, 2011

The Only Good Thing About Being Out of Shape

Posted by Nathen under bicycling, biofeedback, cardiovascular exercise, exercise, healing, injuries
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I am in a long, slow recovery from a sacroiliac joint sprain. I’ve just started being able to do more exercise than mild physiotherapy exercises, after almost nine months. I have to be careful, but I can do it. I am in the worst shape of my life, and generally I dislike it. The one nice thing, though, is how little I have to work to reach an aerobic heart rate.

In my normal shape, for example, bicycling is not a good choice for an aerobic workout. I have to push uncomfortably hard just to get to my minimum, low-level aerobic heart rate. [Which is somewhere around 108 beats per minute–60% of an estimated maximum of 180, since I can’t yet push hard enough to discover what my actual max is.] Now I can hop on my bike and hit an aerobic zone within a minute of riding gently. Pretty nice!

 

August 8, 2011

What Makes For a Good Coming of Age Ritual?

Posted by Nathen under adulthood, coming of age, Dune, Evan Imber-Black, Janine Roberts, manhood, men, Not Back to School Camp, rituals
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I am piloting a new project this year at Not Back to School Camp called “On Becoming a Man.” I thought it would be a salient topic for many of the 13-18 year old males at camp. This is how I described it for campers looking for a project at camp:

“This project is for campers who are interested in becoming a man. It will include exploring the issues of what it means to be a man, the difference between manhood and boyhood, and the freedoms and responsibilities of manhood. Each participant will be supported in coming to a personal definition of manhood and, if they so decide, design a ritual entry into manhood.”

I’ve been thinking about the meaning of manhood a lot for many years, so I feel prepared for that part of the project. I am least prepared for the part where we design a coming of age ritual for each camper who chooses to have one. I’m doing some reading on it (Imber-Black and Roberts Rituals For Our Times) but not having had a coming of age ritual myself, I have next to no concrete examples. The gom jabbar ritual from Dune springs to mind, but I don’t have a poison needle or a pain box. (Plus I don’t think the NBTSC consent forms cover the possibility of death by poison needle!)

Did you have or have you witnessed a great coming of age ritual? Why was it great? Any horror stories? Thanks!

 

August 6, 2011

Three Umpires Asked How They Call Balls & Strikes

Posted by Nathen under epistemology, gender, lectures, lists, power, pronouns, Ralph Horwitz
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This was from the lecture “The Mismeasure of Man” by Ralph Horwitz at Stanford. It’s a nice way to distinguish between a few different ideas about our relationship to reality.

1) “I call them how they are.” This umpire believes that he has direct access to reality. In his mind, he just watches what happens and makes the call appropriately.

2) “I call them the way I see them.” This umpire acknowledges the limitation of his senses. He knows he may make a call that doesn’t reflect reality accurately because of his lack of direct access to reality.

3) “They ain’t nothing til I call them.” This umpire thinks he defines reality. Horwitz paints this one as the most arrogant, and he probably is. Whether or not this umpire thinks he has direct access to reality, he knows that he is the person who can say what we call a particular human/bat/ball interaction.

It shows a certain amount of self-awareness to be able to say what the third umpire said, which I admire. It is a kind of awareness that is necessary (though not nearly sufficient) for those of us with the inappropriate power to define the situations of others to give up that power. That is, no matter whether our power comes from race, gender, money, or whatever, we can’t give it up until we understand that we have it.

A note on gender in this post: Horwitz used the title of his lecture as a way to get in an apology about how much more research is done on men than women. He also used male pronouns for his umpires. Thinking that there are probably umpires of all genders, I tried to use “they” instead of “he,” “she,” or variations on “he/she.” It felt like bad writing so I went back to “he.” No offense meant, and if you want to take a crack at it, send me what you come up with.

 

August 3, 2011

When Nietzsche Wept

Posted by Nathen under 1880s, Bertha Pappenheim, books, endorsements, Friedrich Nietzsche, Irvin Yalom, Josef Breuer, Pandora, Sigmund Freud
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The first fiction I read after graduating from my Couples & Family Therapy masters program was the novel by Irvin Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept. I loved it and read it out loud to Reanna directly afterwards. I was fully engaged and deeply moved each time I read it. Yalom imagines a pre-Zarathustra Nietzsche becoming involved therapeutically with a mentor of Freud’s in 1882.

Before rushing out to get it, consider my caveats: I am a therapist and this is a novel about therapy. I am a fan of Yalom’s from having loved two of his clinical books, An Open Letter to New Therapists and The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. (The Group book split my cohort–most hated it. I never understood why. It was great.) I am also very interested in existential philosophy.

If you do read it, consider a doing a couple things that helped me enjoy it. I created a Pandora station for the 1880s out of Wagner, Mahler, and Strauss. It really shifted the tone of the book to be listening to the ultra-dramatic German music of the time. Second, all of the major characters are historical figures with images available online–Nietzsche and Freud, of course, but also Bertha Pappenheim, Lou Salome, and Josef and Mathilde Breuer. That was fun to see.

 

July 28, 2011

OK Go + Pilobolus

Posted by Nathen under dancing, OK Go, Pilobilus, Pilobolus, songs, video
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I saw this on All confirmation bias, all the time, a collaboration between the band OK Go and the dance company Pilobolus. It is great:

 

July 26, 2011

“Fight For Your Right” Revisited

Posted by Nathen under Beastie Boys, satire, video
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This is the funniest thing I’ve seen this year by far. I can’t recommend it to anyone who didn’t graduate within a few years of me (1989) but if you did, this is worth the 30 minutes. (This one’s not for you, Mom.)

I love the Beastie Boys making fun of their early days because before they became geniuses with Paul’s Boutique I thought they sucked and I hated their image. This makes all the misery of having to hear the songs on License to Ill fully worth it.

If you don’t know the Beastie Boys and are one of the 3-4 people who feel compelled to watch anything I post, here is the original video. The longer one above is supposed to have happened just after this one ends:

 

July 24, 2011

Paul Hawken Vs Ideology

Posted by Nathen under ideology, Paul Hawken, quotes, WiserEarth
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I like this anti-ideology rant by Paul Hawken at the end of his lecture, “The Long Green,” for the Long Now Foundation. He bemoans how humans have such a hard time seeing and taking into account new, unfamiliar information, especially when older, more familiar things, such as ideologies, are in view.

“During the span of the 20th century, big ideologies were worshipped. They dominated our beliefs of who we were, what was true, what was possible. Ideologies prey on our inner sensibilities. They stalk this earth, clad in a kind of existential armor: capitalism, communism, socialism fought all during the 20th century for control of our minds and it wasn’t pretty. And we were told, we were educated, that salvation would be found in a single system. But of course as psychologists and biologists that’s just complete poppycock. We know that stability and health can only be gained through diversity and not domination.”

Paul Hawken founded an organization called WiserEarth that is worth checking out. Here’s the blurb from their website: “WiserEarth helps the global movement of people and organizations working toward social justice, indigenous rights, and environmental stewardship to connect, collaborate, share knowledge, and build alliances.”

 

July 23, 2011

Are There Financial Resources Available for Victims of Crime in Lane County, Oregon?

Posted by Nathen under crime, domestic violence, financial assistance, Lane County Oregon, money, violence
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I investigated this question as part of my Family Violence class last spring. It was one of a very long list of questions that clinicians should know about the area they work in. There are three organizations that offer some financial support in Lane County:

“Not much,” according to the woman who answered the phone at the Oregon Department of Justice, at 541-682-4523. But if the crime is a person crime, victims can get financial assistance for counseling, medical bills, rehabilitation, funeral benefits, grief counseling, and dental through the Oregon Department of Justice, after conviction.

Victim Services Program of Lane County, part of the Department of District of Attorney, does not have financial resources for crime victims but they do provide advocacy that can result in restitution in court.

Department of Human Services

[This copied directly from the DHS website.] Financial assistance to persons fleeing domestic violence or a person trying to stay safe from domestic violence whose safety is at risk because of domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence. The person must also fit the following criteria:

  • Be a parent or relative caring for a minor child or a pregnant woman
  • Meet the income criteria for the program. (This program looks only at income on hand that is available to meet any emergency needs.)
  • Be a resident of Oregon.

The program provides temporary financial help to support families whose safety is at risk due to domestic violence. Most often this is when the domestic violence survivor and the children are fleeing domestic violence or at risk of returning to an abusive situation.

The program can help with up to $1200.00 over a 90 day eligibility period. Payments are given directly to the landlord or other service provider.

  • The program can help with housing related payments when there is or has been a domestic violence situation. (including deposits, rents and utilities)
  • Relocation costs. (including moving costs and other travel costs)
  • Replacement of personal or household items left behind when the victim and children have fled if items are not available from another source. (clothing, hygiene items, essential furniture items)
  • Purchase of items that help address safety. (including new locks, motion detectors, P.O. Boxes)
 

July 22, 2011

Goodbye, Minnie Lee

Posted by Nathen under death, family
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My grandmother died in April, and I miss her. I didn’t get to see her often, but I miss her being out there. She was one of a kind. She would have been 91 years old today.

I am still surprised that she died, even at 90. Its hard to imagine anything happening to her that she had not decided on. She may have had the strongest will I have ever encountered.

An example: One evening, in her mid-80s, I asked her how to successfully quit smoking.  Several people I cared about were addicted to cigarettes and having trouble quitting.  She said, “Oh, quitting smoking is easy.  You just decide never to smoke another cigarette again, and then you never do.” She told me how, in her mid-70s, after smoking heavily since she was thirteen years old, and after only one day of reflection, quit cold-turkey with a carton of cigarettes still in her pantry, never to smoke again.

Who does that? I got the sense that it actually was easy for her. The difficulty of self-discipline was like a speck of dust in the way of her ambition. She was born to a subsistence farmer in 1920, in a town in Tennessee which still has no more than a few hundred people. She died the most respected woman in her wealthy retirement city in Florida, and don’t think that’s hyperbole. She mastered that game, and many others. She was a state-ranked tennis player, competitive golfer, and all-round athlete. She had been a successful fashion model and produced fashion shows late into her life.

Not everything went her way, of course. She had her share of disappointment and, I think, a good deal more than her share of tragedy. By the time I knew her, though, she was in control. She had what she wanted, said what she wanted, and got what she wanted. I really appreciated how frank she was with her opinions, and how she expected the same from me. “The problem with your hairstyle,” she said once, “is that you don’t have a hairstyle. It’s just all tousled, like a little girl.” I thought that was hilarious and asked her to show me the “right” way to part my hair. It turned out that she knew the right way to handle every detail of everyone’s life, which the anthropologist in me had a ball with.

I appreciated how well she loved the fine things in life, fancy food, elegant clothes and jewelry, dancing to a good swing band, just-so etiquette, her town, her friends, watching the sun set. I feel sad that I will never watch the sun set over the Caribbean with her again. “We’re lucky here,” she would say. “This is the most beautiful place in the world. Sometime when the sun sets you can see a green flash. Watch for it!” I appreciated how she would crow over me when I danced with her, or “how handsome” I looked, dressed up, hair parted just right.

Sadly, I have lost the only photo that exists of myself as an adult with her. I also do not have a copy of the one photo of myself as a child with her. This is all I have, but it is appropriate. I think she would like to be remembered this way:

My Grandmother, 1950s

 

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