The Folly of Aging - April Fool's 2024

Good afternoon, and welcome to my 19th annual April Fools observance. Wow, 19. Is it just me, or is this getting old? I worry that I’ll run out of steam or, even worse, run out of topics. I actually had a whole other topic set up for today, but my damn therapist ruined it by helping me find resolution and peace. Resolution and peace are great for mental health, but a mixed blessing when it comes to growth. When we’re at peace, there’s really no need to change anything; without agitation, why bother changing? Agitation, the struggle with the internal and external contradictions of life-- well, it’s the lifeblood of this sacred observance. What if I simply grow up, and find inner and outer peace? What if, truly self-actualized, there are no struggles left to take on, and therefore, no more April Fools? How awful!

But I shouldn’t get ahead-- for right now I can reassure myself that I will always have something to worry about. 

So let’s get into it. Since it’s good practice to notify you how long I’ll be requesting your attention, you can expect the speech to be about 12 minutes from this point on.

My topic today is the folly of aging. 

This topic feels particularly foolish, which delights me. For one, I’ve been corrected by the congregants of Beth El, and by every older member of my family, that I am not actually old. Since it’s all relative, especially with my family, it’s safe to say that they are both right and wrong. But I will no doubt sound foolish, explaining aging to the aged. I even expect that older versions of myself, the audience I will become in due time, will also see the foolishness in my words today.

Meanwhile, there are SO many tensions and paradoxes in aging, so let’s get into it!

First, when exactly are we old?

There’s no clear line here, which means it must happen gradually, and gradual changes are really confusing. The classic version of this is the sorites paradox, in which a pile of sand has one grain removed at a time… and at some point it’s no longer a pile. But when? As the sand drips through my hourglass, at what point am I old? We could say “after the halfway point” but of course there’s no knowing when it was, is, or will be.

Even when someone draws that line, they inevitably move the goalposts. I used to be a member of the Moishe Kavod House, a community for young adults in their 20s and 30s. Now at Beth El, I’m told by the head of a certain club that they want to recruit younger members, “Y’know, in their 40s and 50s.” So that’s no help.

Perhaps certain milestones make us old? Moving out, work, rent, chores, marriage… heartburn? I used to say “You’re a kid until you have a kid,” a principle which renders me still a kid. Naomi often will exclaim “I’m an adult!” as a way of motivating herself, but I’m just not sure if that’s the kind of exclamation real adults make. Number of years, number of advanced milestones, these all could be indicators of aging; but I suppose the confusion isn’t just between whether we’re old or not, but also the fact that aging and maturing may or may not show up together.

And whether we’ve aged, whether we’ve matured, seems not to count for much, since there are so many adults who will still say about themselves “ I can’t believe I’m (x) years old-- I don’t feel that old…!” I have a hard time relating to this sentiment-- for one, go spend time with someone of the age you feel like, and you’ll quickly realize your mistake. If you still feel like a college student, go hang out with one. Of course you don’t feel your age-- you only just got to this age, you don’t know what it really feels like. True awareness of what 20 felt like only came to me when I was turning 30.

So, when are we old? I have no clue. Maybe I’ll get it when I’m older.

Second, is it good or bad to be old?

One would think that an unequivocal “Yes!” is the only answer here. Being old means you survived to old age. Being old, when done right, should come with some useful wisdom; I hope that, the longer I live, the better I get at living. If Cat Stevens can fault us for being young, then there must be some kind of improvement in store when getting old, right?

  And yet, in many places I turn, my elders are discouraging aging. The anti-endorsements pile-up-- Pete Townsend hoped he’d die before he got old; in the Bible, Kohelet tells us it only gets worse as we age; my great-uncle would often say he needed to go to the store to buy a new pair of legs; Naomi’s own grandfather discouraged aging (as well as marriage and children). Kurt Cobain, a musician known for not getting old, let us know that his pay-off for teenage angst was both old age and boredom. 

And I said earlier that it would seem that old age comes with wisdom, but we can be skeptical about that as well. Abraham Simpson used to be with it, but then they changed what “it” was. Seymour Skinner may think “it’s the kids who are wrong,” but we know that he’s the one truly out of touch. Jack Weinberg, the man who said “Never trust anyone over 30,” turns 84 this year-- if he were to say that phrase today, would we believe him? 

Economist Daniel Kahneman, of blessed memory, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, cites two studies as evidence that hindsight is not a privileged perspective but merely a different one. In these studies, one involving ice-cold water, the other involving colonoscopies (Thank goodness these aren’t the same study, am I right??), it’s clear that we assess our experiences differently in-the-moment vs in-retrospect, and each vantage point has advantages and disadvantages. 40 year old Matt knows something about life that 30 year old Matt didn’t; but the opposite is also true. 

Finally, let’s talk about the tensions we encounter in physical aging.

For those who grow up able bodied, able-bodiedness can still be a temporary state. There’s so much we simply don’t know about the future of our own bodies, our health, and our longevity. That uncertainty adds so much to the confusion of facing aging-- that it can involve major physical changes, major injuries and/or even illnesses… but it might not. I think of my grandfather, who played tennis into his 80s (and my uncle, 80, who still does), and I think of other relatives whose lives were cut short. 

Before I continue, a quick note about ableism -- as a generally able-bodied person my whole life, my thoughts and feelings about loss of ability are, well, rife with ableism. It’s baked into my experience and sense of self, and something I’ll need to contend with personally. For now I’ll name that, in a society built on a collective ethics of care (ala Joan Tronto), our identities would be connected to interdependence rather than independence, and a lot of my concerns about ability here would simply be irrelevant. 

I see two major challenges regarding the physical changes that might come with aging. The first is how those changes can massively challenge one’s identity. Whether I think about it or not, most of my identity is bound up with my sense of independence. I need a whole bundle of abilities to keep my current active lifestyle. Ditto any of my hobbies and chores-- with a variety of conditions, I could no longer take for granted walking, writing, cooking, hula hooping, or even reading. 

If I am too identified with these activities and the abilities they depend on, then function loss will come with a crisis of identity. If this happens, then an existential task arises-- to redefine myself within these new constraints. A daunting task, but doable, I hope. I assume that the biggest hurdle would be making peace with the need to redefine myself at all. I hope I can remember this-- that even if my current self remains pretty stable for a few decades, I shouldn’t expect this stability forever. I have to plan to continue to grow, plan for my identity to keep changing, even if I don’t know when, why, or how it will happen.

The second major challenge is how physical changes may simply get in the way of feeling pleasure and avoiding pain. This challenge is way harder to strategize around. Honestly, when I think of physical pain, and how any persisting amount of it can ruin my mood and temperament, I’m not sure what I’ll do… besides drugs. Seriously, that’s as far as I’ve thought on this topic. Not that she was doing it out of physical pain, but my grandma’s evening cocktail hour makes more and more sense as I grow up. When I imagine life with chronic pain, I can only think of doctors’ advice, specifically Dr. Hibbert’s preferred tonic prescription, and Dr. Dre’s recommendation regarding daily self-medicating.

This is getting long; it’s time to draw some conclusions.

So-- do I recommend aging? I’ll make the obvious point first-- that I’m recommending maturity, with or without aging, but ideally with it. Aging without maturing is all-too-common-- I recognized this possibility in the cafeteria in college, noticing that some bananas went straight from green to brown; as with some fruit, so with some people-- we can age without maturing. And so it’s on us to develop, discover, and collect as much wisdom as possible as we age. 

But what kind of wisdom? The foolish kind, of course! This is the meaning of the sopho-more, literally the wise fool-- one who has learned enough to know how much they haven’t learned yet. We have to be wary of the end-of-history illusion, the notion that, at this moment, we’ve already done all the significant maturing and learning we will ever do. We seem to keep falling into the same trap, assuming that “when I grow up” is already here, rather than always ahead of us.

 Better that we should expect the unexpected, to know that our self-knowledge may require rupture and repair when we encounter some new emergency in life. With each new emergency, we are challenged to start somewhat fresh, to become young again in order to learn and re-learn who we are. That’s the final paradox, that to age well will require returning to a beginner's mind, that we must renew ourselves as in days of old, that we may have been older then, but we’re younger than that now.

And we should remain young even as we get old! I need to stay playful to survive and thrive. Call it being “young at heart,” if you like that expression. Personally I like the expression “children of all ages,” as in “Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages.” We can age, but we can strive to stay playful, romantic, adventurous and so on-- all the things we usually associate with youth. Aging doesn’t have to mean losing past selves, but rather collecting them, like a tree collects its rings. 

Let’s age but make sure that we mature. Let’s age but make sure that we remain playful. No one should take themselves so seriously; with many years ahead to fall in line, why would you wish that on me?

Ok, now an actual conclusion.

There’s a lot more to this topic that I left out, both knowingly and ignorantly. Maybe I’ll cover the topic again in 10 years (I should be so lucky). I mean, I wrote this whole speech without referencing death! A speech about aging… and I don’t mention death(?!)-- what kind of foolishness is this? Though to be honest, I should save that whole thing for a “folly of death” speech someday, should I be so lucky.

Well, from age 40, up to 120, and only with good health, for me and also for you. Thanks for listening.

April Fool's 2023 - The Folly of Decision-Making

Hello! Welcome to my 18th annual April Fool’s observance. I first came up with this ritual when I realized a strange coincidence, which is that I tend to have very strong opinions and yet also tend to feel clueless a lot of the time-- which does and doesn’t seem right. So I thought I’d hold an event for people to feel strongly and confused together. 

My talk today will be about ten minutes, so you have a sense of how long I’ll be requesting your attention.

This year’s topic is: The Folly of Decision-making-- actually, I want to be less abstract this year, so I’ll get more specific: I’m only talking about irreversible or damn-near irreversible decisions, and mostly about the foolish feelings I have before and after making those decisions. Without referencing it again, I’m actually talking about the question of becoming a parent, but please feel encouraged to make it relatable to yourself-- think about a decision you’ve faced, are facing, or will face, so that you can feel the kind of heaviness I’m referring to. 

Ok! Let’s get into it-- the speech might just as well be called The Goddamn Paradoxes of Time, or The Folly of Living in Time. The decision-making process has the potential to suck powerfully in the before-times and after-times, and this makes me feel very foolish-- and it’s not just me…

There are two bits of conflicting wisdom we’re given about the before and the aftermath of a decision. Before the decision we’re told-- decisions matter! This is your life, you only get one, so you better think and feel and do the research, and re-think, and get others’ opinions. Basically, look before you leap. Facing a decision, everyone wants a positive outcome, and seemingly the best way to secure a positive outcome is to BE CAREFUL. No one wants to have to deal with a negative outcome. Decisions matter, so be mindful. As Funkadelic says “Wake up! Live in the presence of your future!”

But then? After the decision-- suddenly we all become super-Buddhist about it?? It’s like, hey man, you gotta accept what is! The past is destiny! In order to live well, you just have to accept reality!

I hope you see the foolishness here. Before the decision, everything matters, and we have to aim high, and refuse to settle for less. Then after the decision we have to let go of expectations and work with “what is”?? What the heck just happened? Does the decision matter or not? Do our desires and hopes and expectations matter or not? When they don’t go according to plan, shouldn’t we feel something negative?

There’s an emotional absurdity here. Before the decision, the main emotions are desire and fear; specifically, fear of regret. And then after the decision, we’re told: “Let go of desire! Don’t waste time on regret!” We’re asked to suddenly switch emotional gears, and for me, I just can’t do it; it’s emotional whiplash.

Before continuing to my current emotional solution to this paradox, let’s talk about the role of time. Consider the phenomenon I’m calling “the shock of the before becoming the after.” My first experience of this was having a minor (but expensive!) car accident when I was 16. As soon as it happened, I was shocked that it simply couldn’t be undone, especially since only a minute before the crash didn’t even exist. This shock was a feeling of being stuck-- not only stuck in an undesired future, but also stuck in the regret at past Matt’s seeming inability to avoid this future. Ever felt that shock?

Now I just mentioned “past Matt,” so let’s get into past, present, and future selves-- we’re all of them, but, y’know, only one at a time. What’s the consequence of this? Well, past Matt keeps making decisions for future Matt. And that’s how life works. But, what the heck? Past Matt doesn’t know the future, and yet he gets to make decisions about it? Past Matt doesn’t even really know future Matt, but he makes decisions for him? It’s unavoidable, and yet very, very foolish. The virtue required here is foresight, but I often have little of it, and even if you’re good at foresight, you’re still gonna lack a ton of knowledge about the future and yourself in it.

My earliest examples of lacking foresight: In 1993, my brother was given two CD players for his Bar Mitzvah, and I was offered one, which I turned down, because who even owns CDs? Two years later I felt very foolish. Fast forward to 2001, heading to college, and my parents offer to buy me a computer with a DVD player on it. You can guess how this ends.

Basically, a future is a really weird thing to have. It’s like, we have it, but we also don’t? And we can want a specific one, but we can only do so much about it? Do we “have” a future or not? Do we have a bunch of futures? What does that even mean?

Ok-- let’s arrive at some emotional solutions. To the first part, I give credit to Dr. Yujia Song, my philosophical counselor-- yep that’s a thing, and I have one, pretty cool, right? She recently pointed out something completely obvious, except it wasn’t obvious until she said it, which is: You’re always in the past of your next decision. Right? Obvious now, but it complicates that selves-in-time thing I was just talking about-- in the present, I’m the future of past Matt, and the past of future Matt. Get it? Right now you are all living in a past, a present, and a future, from a certain point of view. 

What does this mean emotionally? That the folly of regret isn’t that you have to “just accept and move on,” but that you’re never simply “stuck” in a future, because you’re always also in a past as well, a realization which returns to me a sense of power-- I can still decide about what comes next!

The second part of the solution I’ll credit to Rabbi Zaslow, who recently spoke from the bimah about the importance of process thinking-- meaning, seeing ourselves as always in the middle of something, not at the end. This insight implies an important emotional task-- to stop assuming the present is forever! And with that, stop assuming that any current hatred of the present is the only response I’ll ever have to it. This is easy intellectually, but very hard emotionally. We might call this the folly of living in the present, with two contradictory wisdoms of its own-- first to “Be Here Now,” and second, that “This too shall pass.” It’s the challenge of living gracefully in the present, even while also hating it, a challenge for Present Matt anytime he’s feeling regretful.

And now, the hardest part, which is drumming up a practical way to rise to the emotional challenges of suspending regret, strengthening the ability to face the future, and the patience to abide in a difficult and indeterminate present.

It turns out this speech at its core isn’t about decisions or time, but actually about desire and its follies. To live life, to inhabit our own life, to continue onwards-- all of that requires desire. We have to want. We have to have some kind of sense of what we want, even if it’s a false sense, because that's how motivation works-- it's an assessment of our current emotions and then projecting them into the future. And this is silly, because who knows the future, and who really has control? Thus we are fools by wanting and pursuing what we want, and this foolishness exposes itself when things appear to go poorly. 

The negative emotions this stirs up are appropriate, and yet could be considered the root of two pathologies-- anxiety disorders and depressive disorders. It’s demoralizing to have our decisions and the course of our lives appear to go poorly, and that can make us give up on wanting entirely, AKA depression. Or, we start to fear anticipated regret and become terrified and paralyzed, AKA anxiety. For myself, the primary symptom of both depression and anxiety is agitation-- agitated from wanting to want but having this depression remove my capacity for appetite; agitated because I want to act, but this anxiety refuses all action. I want resolution, and I refuse to rest until things are made whole, even while wholeness seems impossible-- and so I get an agitated anxiety and depression.

(Sigh) And of course even these apparent pathologies hold some necessary wisdom. In the difficult aftermath of a change, it’s appropriate to spend some time mourning the loss of previous possibilities, and to learn lessons from our regret. In the precursor to change, it’s appropriate to be anxious about an unknown future, and to use that anxiety to motivate careful planning. It all makes sense and none of it makes sense.

So, our emotional tasks, in brief? To feel anxiety and regret, and yet still to desire. And, in the loss of sense of desire, to wait for it to return, rather than assuming that this current anxious or depressive paralysis is the only internal state possible from now on.

At the end of every matter, which itself is the beginning of the next matter, there’s a question we should always return to-- “Ok, so what do I want now?” We must have a desire, feel the anxiety, make the decision, feel the regret, and then move to the folly of having another desire. 

Pretty good solution, right? Except-- all I’ve done is beg the question of knowing desire. What the heck do we want; where does that desire come from; which desires should be trusted and pursued? Maybe I’ll cover this in a future speech; call it the prequel to this one. For now, I’ll keep chewing on this question, and hopefully remember it and be true to it in the future-- the question: “So, what do I want now?” To desire, to return to desire after being in the throes of loss and regret-- this is how we live gracefully in time, gracefully in the before and after of any of the largest decisions of our lives.

Thank you!

April Fool's 2022 - The Folly of Fear

  Hello, and welcome to the 17th annual April Fools’ Observance! I developed this paradoxical celebration some time ago, while studying philosophy, which as we all know is for lovers of wisdom, as well as the bachelor’s degree for fools who aren’t sure what they’re doing after college. When I was studying I noticed something foolish about wisdom— it seems like a lot of things called wise contradict a bunch of other things also called wise. If you were to listen to all the wisdom you’re given, you would surely end up foolish. So I thought, I’ll gather people together, and give some wise advice about how to deal with the contradictions of wisdom. 

So that’s basically the premise— I pick an item of interest, gather the contradicting wisdom about it, and then sort through it so you don’t have to! And since all the wisdom contradicts, I refer to the whole thing as a folly. 

This year my topic is— The Folly of Fear. 

Surveying the Sources

This topic has already been covered extensively in the human canon, so I thought I’d start out by surveying some sources, and then hopefully sharing more original thinking about it. So let’s start with wise advice that discourages fear:

Some will tell you not to fear because fear is always based on an illusion. The author of the Psalms proclaims “The LORD is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?”-- see, it makes no sense to fear, when God is on your side! Roman Emperor/Stoic Marcus Aurelius meditated on the delusional nature of fear from a more secular perspective, saying: “The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long, you’ll be no one, nowhere-- like Hadrian, like Augustus.” See, it makes no sense to fear, because you never had any control or significance in the first place! Whether God is in control or no one is in control, fear is based on illusion.

Others will tell you not to fear because fear is simply unhelpful. This is why FDR told us that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” why Dune calls fear “the mind killer”, and why Rebbe Nahman emphasizes that “the main thing is not to fear.” Fear is unhelpful because it gets in the way of decision-making and action! Alternatively, it leads to poor decision-making and evil action-- no less a sage than Yoda himself advises Anakin that “Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate… leads to suffering.” So, fear is unhelpful. 

Now let’s survey wisdom that encourages fear. Admittedly there’s not as many, but I think they’re still powerful: 

Some will tell you that we should listen to our fear, because it clues us in to deep truths about ourselves and our reality. The proverbial Biblical author praises fear, proclaiming: “Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” From a more secular and therapeutic perspective, fear highlights that which we hold sacred and would seek to protect. Fear points towards deep truths.

Others would add that we should listen to our fear, because it’s good for motivation. It’s for this reason that Aristotle includes fear in his definition of courage-- in face of danger, it’s good to act, but specifically in a way that incorporates concern about danger! To act without fear is not a virtue for Aristotle; the virtue of courage integrates fear with action. Similarly, noted Python John Cleese dedicates an entire chapter heading to this subject, advising us to “Get your panic in early,” using our fear as motivation to action.

Are we seeing now how important and helpful fear is? How it puts us in touch with our values, our reality, and our motivation towards courageous action? Truly, no less a sage than Luke Skywalker himself warns Rey that “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. Your destiny.”

Let’s summarize: Fear is based on illusions, and puts us in touch with deep truths. Fear stops us from acting, or motivates evil actions; and fear motivates wise action. So, what the hell is going on here?? 

Alan Watts, 20th century English populariser of Eastern wisdom, sums it up in his book: “The Wisdom of Insecurity”:

There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity…. If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure. 

The Meaning of the Contradiction

It’s a good contradiction, right? Here’s how I like to put it: fear is a reflection of our in-between position in the world-- that is, we have some power but not much, and some significance but not much. Foolish ways to overcome fear always involve rejecting or denying this in-between position. Some aim for more power by beefing up security; Watts points out how this actually fuels insecurity. Others, like Aurelius, try to shake off their fear by ridding themselves of any sense of self-importance-- to me this feels at most rather depressing, and at least inauthentic.

The actual state of things then, is that we seem to exist with some passing stability and some passing significance. If it’s unclear, what we’re really talking about here is: boundaries, and how hard it is to live with them. When we want to grow, we’re afraid of being trapped by our boundaries. When we want to survive, we’re afraid of our boundaries being broken. Anytime we are feeling anxious and fearful, it’s likely that our natural desires to live or grow are being threatened by the harsh reality of our boundaries, or the harsh reality beyond them.

Some Wise Advice

So, then, how shall we deal wisely with this contradiction? What do we do with fear, in all its wisdom and foolishness? 

Let’s start with an understanding of fear as related to the challenges of having boundaries; in fact let’s make it more concrete by talking about it as a response to edges. Makes sense, right-- when we’re close to an edge, we tend to get… edgy! So what can we do with an edgy feeling.

        Let’s make this super-literal-- one place that I often feel edgy is when I’m next to a high ledge. Specifically, I’m thinking of the George Washington Bridge walkway, or more specifically, that one part that doesn’t have a high fence, and where social conventions place me on the side closer to the ledge. Ugh, that feeling-- in my imagination, I’m already falling, right-- and just watch what happens to my hands, shoulders, chest, face as I talk about this. So what do I do? I bring my attention back to my current center of gravity, which places my head atop my shoulders atop my spine atop my legs, all stably on the walkway, at least in this moment. Yes, the edge is scary, and also… I’m remaining on this side of it, and so I can draw my attention to that continuing experience of stability. I tolerate the edginess, and I don’t lose awareness of stability. This awareness doesn’t dispel fear, but neither does it feed into it, and that seems to be the best we can do with fear.

Well, I suppose we can do one better, by recognizing those situations in which going over the edge could actually be growthful rather than fatal. I was listening to a podcast recently about the Grateful Dead’s live free-jazz explorations, known infamously across setlists as “Drums/Space.” The episode was discussing a particular well-known performance, 10/26/89 in Miami, which many audience members, who may or may not have been under the influence, found frightening… and compelling. One listener's comment stuck out to me: “This is kind of scary but it’s interesting.” (repeat that) What a brave and inspiring combination of sentiments! To be curious at the same time as afraid-- it’s a difficult combo to master, but think of how rewarding it could be, what I might learn about myself and the world, if I can accompany fear with curiosity.

        Now, about “accompanying fear with curiosity”-- it sounds nice, but in actual practice, it might just be a bunch of therapeutic hogwash. When I’m afraid, I usually don’t feel anything else, as I’m rather busy feeling afraid! To combine fear and curiosity requires finding some element of security, and thus being able to engage with fear and risk while maintaining that element of security; in therapy, this is called secure attachment. Secure attachment can be given or earned, and so is likely my best professional answer to the question of dealing with fear. But honestly, all of this feels too intellectual, and the experience of fear is not very intellectual, so I want to provide an answer that’s a bit more inspirational than all this.

I’ll close with a metaphor that’s been appealing to me recently, one that inspires in me the ability to allow fear even while disliking it. I call it…

Living at the Shoreline

Imagine a vacation day at the beach. The beach is fun and relaxing, and yet it’s also a place that is rife with edges, and even worse, moving edges. Going to the beach means hanging out in the shoreline AKA the “active coastal zone,” which is everything one finds above the continental shelf (so, like, the ocean) and below the part of land that’s never eroded by water (so, like the far side of a dune; or a wall). Some people love playing in the water, with waves constantly rolling or crashing against them; other people hang out at the shore itself, where the waves play upon the sand; still others prefer the beach, playing in the “intertidal” area where sand gets covered and uncovered throughout the day and night. You can picture it all now yeah? The waves, the sand, the tide? The active coastal zone, the various moving edges of water and sand-- there’s so much happening! It’s all very stimulating and fun; y’know, like a day at the beach. 

Now imagine living on the beach-- what a nightmare, right? The tide comes in and gets my stuff all wet. Any kind of enclosure is eventually swept or eaten away by the water. And the waves! They never stop rolling in. To try to establish firm and secure grounding at the beach, is alternatingly exhausting and terrifying.

Living at the shoreline requires us to redefine success and security. If my expectation is to get repeatedly hit by waves big and small, then I can’t think of getting knocked over as failure. Getting knocked over by a wave is just what it sometimes feels like to live at the beach. Getting your stuff moved around and your space eroded is just what it feels like to live in-between the tides. Success then… is about remaining at the shoreline, rather than getting swept into the ocean, or rather than just quitting the beach altogether. Success is about working with the waves, developing a lifestyle that integrates the rhythm of the storm, the calm, and the tides. Success is about working with the feeling of edginess, rather than blowing up or shutting down in response to it.

But why put up with this at all? If it’s so awful to live on the beach, why not just leave? I hope you won’t mind, but for some reason this question got me all spiritual and mystical, because, well… the sea is terrifying, and it’s the source of life. The shoreline is the site of pleasure and terror, the source of life and of destruction. Ultimately it’s an act of radical love to embrace life, despite the fact that it will kill us. In embracing life, we are led to embrace fear, to incorporate it into our overall vision of life.

To live well with fear then, is an expression of love for life, as well as resignation to life’s terrors. As Naomi used to say to me, during the first pandemic wave, with both great resignation and great love: “This is where we are now.” Similarly, we can echo Steven Tyler’s own philosophy regarding life on the edge: “We can tell ‘em no, or we could let it go, but I would rather be a-hangin’ on.”

Thanks for your time today!

April Fool's 2021 - The Folly of Participation

Hello, and welcome to my 16th annual April Fool’s observance. This is a day for celebrating paradoxes, and the event itself is built on something of a paradox-- it began 16 years ago when I started recognizing all these existential paradoxes that everyone shares, and so I started a holiday for us to share them with each other. But if we already share them, then why hold a day to share them? And yet, if we didn’t already share them, there’d be no reason to share them. Does that make sense? No, seriously, am I making sense?

For those who are new to the event, here’s the format of my speech-- I’m going to talk about the folly of some concept or activity, and then contradict myself by promoting that same concept or activity. And the whole thing today will take 10 minutes.

Today’s topic is: The Folly of Participation.

Paul Tillich, in his book The Courage to Be, offers three different meanings for “participation,” and I experience folly in each one of them. These meanings are: (1) sharing, as in sharing a room (2) universality, or having in common, and (3) being a part, such as participating in a political movement. Participation is: Sharing, universality, being a part. Let’s talk about the folly of each.

First, the folly of sharing

You can only share something that’s yours, and that requires a feeling of possessiveness. Here’s what I mean by that-- if I only want half of my sandwich, then giving you the other half isn’t sharing; it’s giving you something I’ve already disavowed. By my definition, sharing must involve sacrifice, and therefore involves folly-- because I want what I want, even as I’m giving it away. If you can imagine, in this household I sometimes make food, and then Naomi wants a bite. Every single bite I’ve ever shared with her brings me gratification... but also regret. Why give away what I want?

Of course, refusing to share, or rather refusing to cooperate around sharing, also has its follies. We see this in the classic “tragedy of the commons” in which a shared resource is consumed in an unsustainable way. Everyone takes as much as they want, and we’re soon left with nothing.

A brief summary so far-- to share is to deny desire, and therefore to betray oneself; not sharing is to deny relationship... which weirdly enough is also to betray self. More on that later.

Now then, the folly of having in common

To have in common is to be common, and to be common is to be robbed of uniqueness. Sorry for the abstraction; let’s get specific. I’ll use commonality in conversations as my example:

If a topic of conversation is common enough, we call it “small talk.” Some people say they hate small talk, because there’s no individuality revealed by discussing common topics like the weather. If we’re not being individuals, then we cannot actually connect as individuals. The same holds true for more substantive talk, if it’s full of cliches. I see this happen when people discuss politics or current events, but are just taking turns regurgitating talking points they’ve absorbed through common media. It feels foolish to me because it’s a conversation with very little encounter— just memes passing in the night.

My horror at cliche and small talk peaked at the beginning of the pandemic-- within a week of things shutting down here, I was quickly overwhelmed and bored by the fact that every conversation was about the pandemic. The way it took over our attention, and there was nothing else to talk about-- I felt disgusted by the suffocating commonality of it all.

I may be just revealing my own issues here, but I’m gonna share one more example. I also lived in NYC during college, and sometimes I would find myself on the subway, lost in my head about some personal or interpersonal drama. And then I’d look up, across the aisle on the 1 train, and see other people’s faces, and realize they were having their personal drama, and I would feel silly for taking myself so seriously. Maybe it’s a numbers thing-- there’s just so many other people living their lives that, whatever I’m going through, no matter how private and personal it feels, is just one more universal thing, one more tired cliche.

Another brief summary-- acknowledging my own commonality is embarrassing; of course, denying it is simply foolish.

Finally, the folly of being a part

And now let’s turn to the indignity of being a part and not the whole. Here’s where I’ve found myself struggling with this- in joining political chanting or political marching. In being part of a hora. In sitting through group meetings, unless I’m running them.

Why do I hate being a part? Is it just me being a contrarian? Well, that’s definitely part of it. But, like, what’s really going on? Being a part makes me vulnerable to the bigger thing I’m a part of it, and that vulnerability, that helplessness, can feel undignifying. That discomfort with vulnerability intensifies if I see the larger whole as chaotic, destructive, or simply uncaring about me as an individual.

A humbling image that captures this for me— in the fall I see the trees changing color, and I like to imagine that I, too, am a tree-- only to realize that I’m clearly a leaf, not a tree. A part of the whole, yes, but so easily discarded.

Beyond my discomfort with the smallness of participation, there’s also a rich spiritual tradition of distrusting groups, of refusing to participate. In the gospels, Jesus tells rich people to give away their wealth, asserting that rich people cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. There’s a great leftist interpretation which frames Jesus’ statements as a condemnation of participating, of benefiting, from an unjust system. In an unjust society, only the destitute, only those excluded from participating in the system, are innocent.

We can go even further back, to the Hebrew Bible, to that great myth against participation-- the Tower of Babel. All the peoples of the world are working together for a single cause, and even God sees this and basically says: “If they can do this, they can do anything!... So I better put a stop to it.” The people united will never be defeated, and that’s exactly the problem. God doesn’t trust large groups, and neither do I. I’m afraid of the group getting carried away, and me with it.

Ok, let’s summarize the whole critique so far:

My aversion to participation is based in concerns about protecting my identity, or as Tillich would put it, my self-affirmation. To share what I have is to let go of the supremacy of my desire. To have in common is to have my uniqueness revealed as illusion. To take part in something bigger than myself is to abdicate power over my meaning and my fate. These are fair concerns, stemming from distrust of others, and disgust at being reduced to less than one.

Ok, now let’s critique the critique

First, let’s call bullshit on my hatred of participation. I clearly love participation in all three meanings of the word. First, sharing: while I might have an in-born concern about food scarcity, I also take joy in giving up what I have in order to see another enjoy it. Next, having-in-common: I’m obsessed with the existential givens— the experiences and challenges faced by all humans— embodiment, emotion, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness, and death. My therapeutic practice is mostly focused on encouraging clients to take personal ownership of these ultimately common experiences. Finally, about being a part: well, I’m actually not a total misfit— I like being a part in all sorts of situations. I may not like chanting at rallies, but if George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars want me to chant, I will do it gladly and extensively. I say I don’t like meetings, but I love a good class, or men’s group, or brainstorming session. I say I hate the hora, but really I just hate ones that are uncoordinated, or in cramped spaces. Really I love participation in many forms specifically, coordinated and safe forms.

Besides the fact that I love participation, I could also point out how hatred of participation can reveal some neurotic and unrealistic tendencies. 20th century psychoanalyst Karen Horney described it as a neurotic phenomenon. I’ll share her words, because I found them pretty damning of my anti-participation sentiments. Talking about the individual who wants to detach from the larger whole, she says: “He simply takes it for granted that he should derive all the good of living at a particular time in a particular social system, but resents being linked with others for good or ill. Therefore he cannot see why he should suffer from anything in which he has not been personally implicated” (Our Inner Conflicts, 175-6). Resentment at being linked with others— is this the height of concern for liberty, or the height of immaturity?

A client recently told me, sadly, that her partner found her needs taxing on him. This metaphor of taxes perfectly captures the ambivalence we have towards participation. Any good liberal (or Ned Flanders) will tell you that taxes are ideally a civic good, with each individual paying into the pot, and benefiting all (including themselves). A good conservative will tell you that taxes are theft, forced participation which diminishes the individual. The verb taxing always has a negative connotation, but we should reconsider what that implies. Taxing is only a bad word if I see taxes as simply taking away my good. If I find society’s needs taxing, that means I see my own good as something separable from society.

Beyond the folly of separating my good from the common good, Judith Butler points out the folly of even thinking of myself as separable from the common. In On Giving an Account of Oneself, she reminds the reader that any story about the self is always already involved in a social context, sets of relations, sets of norms. You can try to deny participation, but you can’t actually escape it. Those who hate traffic are forgetting that they are the traffic. And there’s no moral high ground in refusal to participate— it’s just righteous indignation without actual righteousness. Righteousness involves action, and action is participatory. Thus the foolishness of separating your sense of self and your sense of good from that of the whole.

So what do I have here?

It appears that I love and hate participation.

Participation entails a loss of self and a gain of self.

Sharing is caring, and caring is vulnerable and dumb.

Commonality is undignified and inescapable.

Participation is morally suspect, and a moral necessity.

I feel the need, as always, to leave you with something definitive, or at least beneficial. And yet, all I have is this:

- Don’t be a fool in separating yourself from others.
- Don’t be a fool in joining others.

No, that’s too negative; lemme try again.

- Be a unique fool! And be a fool with the rest of us.

How to Identify Paradoxes in Your Life (2021)

Hello! If you’re reading this, then I must’ve invited/challenged you to identify paradoxes in your life. Congratulations! 

Here’s what I mean by paradox - any situation that involves contradictions that must be lived rather than solved. Kinda abstract, right? Ok, some examples:

• I love lying in bed, but the only way I’m able to fall asleep is if I get up and do things during the day. I love being active in the day, but the only way I’m able to be productive is by lying in bed all night.

• I love being social, but also, other people are an inconvenience. I love being alone, but also, it gets lonely.

• In relationships, it’s important to be yourself, and it’s important to be flexible for your partner.

Each of the above could be posed as a dilemma:

• To stay in bed or get up?

• To be alone or be with others?

• To stay myself or change for someone else?

To embrace paradox is to realize-- these are all false dilemmas!

What I am calling a paradox is any situation in which the only way to lose is by picking one side once and for all. The only way to win is to figure out how to live with the contradictions (or tensions) rather than solve them. 

So, to identify paradoxes in your life, pay attention to:

• Situations in which you feel forever torn

• Situations in which you find yourself going in circles

• Situations in which you keep trying to find some kind of balance/rhythm

These could be intrapersonal, personal, interpersonal, mundane, spiritual, domestic, professional, or pretty much any other sphere of life.