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How the Doing the Arts Makes Us Better

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I am currently re-reading Mark Vonnegut’s “Just Like Life Without Mental Illness Only More So.”

In chapter 17 “There’s Nothing Quite as Final as a Dead Father”, in his case the legendary Kurt Vonnegut, he talks about one of Kurt Vonnegut’s more famous quotes, the one that actually starts my chapbook, how about how art makes us better and creates something.

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

Here are some of Mark Vonnegut’s thinking about making art. He was a writer and also liked to paint watercolors.

My father gave me the gifts of being able to pay attention to my inner narration no matter how tedious the damn thing could be at times and the knowledge that creating something, be it music or a painting or a poem or a short story, was a way out of wherever you were and a way to find out what the hell happens next and not have it just be the same old thing. It’s better to live in a world where you can write and paint and tell a few jokes than one where you can’t.

All the arts are ways to start a dialogue with yourself about what you’ve done, what you could have done differently, and whether or not you might try again. Whether or not you want to make a living or can make a living at it, people who consistently bother to try almost always get good or at least a little better.

Kurt was always trying to reach a little beyond what he was sure of. His refusal to find a groove and stay there when he was famous and successful was admirable, but it was also because he dreaded what life would be if he stopped being creative, honest and willing to be awkward.

Right now I am trying to learn Spanish, I should probably do some Babbeling today on babbel.com. I am trying to learn guitar playing with the guitar for a while most days, and trying to write everyday with the blog and Three Good Things on Facebook. I guess one disadvantage of doing Three Good Things on Facebook only is that it is effemeral to me until I see the anniversary of the thoughts. But, I think that is okay, I guess I could make a Three Good Things Blog. So many of them are similar each day. I love my wife, I love the kitties, nature is beautiful, the little things matter.

I have been also quoting other Mark Vonnegut after Googling “Mark Vonnegut Quotes” on going on Goodreads, there are 3 pages of them.

“Beyond a certain point, gathering further evidence of the hurtfulness and shortcomings of one’s family, employer, et cetera is like eating the same poisonous mushroom over and over and expecting that sooner or later it will be nutritious.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

“I understand perfectly why some of my autistic patients scream and flap their arms–it’s to frighten off extroverts”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

“Writing is very hard mostly because until you try to write something down, it’s easy to fool yourself into believing you understand things. Writing is terrible for vanity and self-delusion.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

This one is very sad.
“I don’t think the people today who start hearing voices, stop eating and sleeping, and run amuck are likely to get good treatment. Having more knowledge, better diagnostic capabilities, better medications with fewer side effects, can’t make up for the fact that most patients are being treated by doctors, therapists, and hospitals, who are operating under constraints and incentives that reward non-treatment, non-hospitalization, non-therapy, non-follow-up, non-care. Lost to follow-up is the best outcome a health insurer can hope for.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“If you believe that the dollars made by the pharmaceutical industry are plowed back into research that leads to better and better medications, you probably believe in the tooth fairy as well.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

“We’re here to get each other through this thing, whatever it is.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“What occurs to people when they read Kurt [Vonnegut] is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. The world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“Introverts almost never cause me trouble and are usually much better at what they do than extroverts. Extroverts are too busy slapping one another on the back, team building, and making fun of introverts to get much done. Extroverts are amazed and baffled by how much some introverts get done and assume that they, the extroverts, are somehow responsible.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas?”
― Mark Vonnegut

“None of us are entirely well, and none of us are irrecoverably sick.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“I often took him as one of God’s little jokes on me. When I was in desperate trouble, what saved me from a fate worse than death? To what do I owe my life? Was it love, affection, understanding, friends, wisdom? No no no. It was a man who looks like a poor copy of Walt Disney, drives pink Cadillacs, wears baby-blue alligator shoes, and appears to have the emotional depth of a slightly retarded potato.”
― Mark Vonnegut, The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity (I think this was Kurt Vonnegut he is speaking of)

“The biggest gift of being unambiguously mentally ill is the time I’ve saved myself trying to be normal.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

“He couldn’t help thinking that all that money we were spending blowing up things and killing people so far away, making people the world over hate and fear us, would have been better spent on public education and libraries. It’s hard to imagine that history won’t prove him right, if it hasn’t already.”
― Mark Vonnegut (on Kurt Vonnegut)

“Today it’s nice to be able to entertain odd thoughts without having to marry them all. Thank God. I can think whatever the hell I want. Entertaining odd thoughts won’t make you crazy. Refusing to entertain odd thoughts won’t make you well.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“At the end of his life, which had included financial ruin in the Great Depression, his wife’s barbiturate addiction and death by overdose, and then his own lung cancer, Doc said, “It was enough to have been a unicorn.” What he meant was that he got to do art. It was magic to him that his hands and mind got to make wonderful things, that he didn’t have to be just another goat or horse.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So (on Kurt Vonnegut)

Another thing that I like in Mark Vonnegut’s book is that he has terrible handwriting too. Although unlike Mark Vonnegut my handwriting is okay.

Here is an excellent NPR story about “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So” by Mark Vonnegut, that includes the first few pages of the book.

It’s an excellent book, that I still need to finish today.
***1/2

A Day Without a Smartphone

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Smartphones are amazing things. What would be considered a super computer not that long ago in the palm of your hand.

The ablility to send a Tweet around the world. The ability to send a Facebook message to all your friends and followers. Amazing apps, games, messaging ….

You know you can turn them off. No, seriously you can.

My phone died on Tuesday afternoon. Put it in my coat pocket, went to fix my car and then weird squares on the bottom left.

I went to the Great Lost Bear for mac and cheese and beer and it wouldn’t work. I tried removing the Otterbox (which has a horrible design on the Galaxy S4 that already broke from Thanksgiving with loose rubber and breaking plastic that doesn’t seal), and changing the battery but the problem continued.

I want to tweet and message about the the first date going on next to me. It did seem to be going relatively well and I think they will have a second date, not sure if it will be a long-term relationship, but they will likely be friends.

I also tried the crazy mix at Great Lost Bear that is mac and cheese, topped with baked beans, topped with cole slaw and then three fried pickles in a mason jar. It was good but I think wicked farty.

Yesterday, I didn’t really miss my phone that much. I was mainly zoning out and watching stuff like “Orange is the New Black” (which is awesome.)

Usually at work I use my phone more. I check in with my wife, I use it to listen to music since I lost my iPod a few weeks ago, and I play smartphone games (been addicted to FIFA 14).

But the Galaxy is down for the count and the SD card is missing from my old Evo so most of the apps don’t work.

So on my downtime I read more. Read a bunch of the April “The Bollard” (easily my favorite free paper in town and favorite newspaper considering the Portland Press Herald kind of sucks these days.) And I read quite a bit of the 2013 Entertainment Weekly with the 100 best of all time. Really “My Dark Twisted Fantasy” by Kanye West is the 8th best album of all time, really? Between Aretha Franklin and “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys, really?

And as much as I love Woody Allen and adore Annie Hall, I just don’t like Manhattan **, I have tried multiple times but it’s just ridiculous. Why would he really fall for Muriel Hemingway’s HS character, does he have some weird thing for young girls?

But, when I left work I felt like my mind was working on writing ideas. That I wasn’t as distracted all day. That I had a very good day.

So, I am getting my phone back on Monday, ok a replacement phone, but I think I will just turn it off more. I really don’t need to keep checking Facebook or Twitter or FIFA 14. It’s a weapon of mass distraction.

I am ADDish enough without it.

So, I hope to read more and smartphone less.

One of the things I love about my retreat every Memorial Day weekend in the Berkshires is that phones and the internet don’t work. I engage with people more. I don’t hear the traffic. I hear the running water, hear the birds tweeting their songs, not the clatter of millions in under 140 characters. I experience the green and beauty of a sacred place. It’s magic.

I have been feeling the need for a smartphone vacation. I miss my old Evo dying of battery faster. The Galaxy is too good at being a mini-computer. The Google Chrome works too well. Sometimes it runs better than my laptop at home.

So, I don’t think I will disconnect, but I will connect less. People are much more important than devices, if you find you can’t ignore your phone at a poetry reading, turn it off. If you can’t ignore your phone while having lunch or dinner with someone, turn it off. Seriously. If you want to connect it will still be there. If you really want to connect with actual people you should turn if off.

Seriously. Try it!

C’mon. Try it!

I know you don’t believe you can, but your public can wait. Especially if you have to pay attention to the road.

Be safe. Be mindful,

edmund

2014: A Year of Grounding – Deep and Simple

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We live in shallow and complex times.

Worried about e-mails, about texts, Twitter, Facebook.

Often interacting more with people even that we know in shallow ways. Always feeling like we need to check into our media and devices. A society full of advertising of buy, buy, buy of you need this, you need that.

You don’t. No really, you don’t.

You really don’t need a smartphone although it is very shiny. You don’t need an iPad, again very shiny. You don’t need those new clothes, you don’t need to see every movie, you probably don’t need more stuff.

You need to connect. To people, to the earth, to yourself.

I am dedicating 2014 to be the Year of Grounding for me. I need it.

The last two years have been very ungrounding. Losing my father in law Walter Maheux in March 2012, losing my beloved father Henry Edmunds Davis on April 1, 2013. I am still grieving. I still do not have all of my psychic and spiritual energy and might not for some time. I am trying to ground again and get back into myself. I need it.

I find writing helpful. I love conversations especially one on one although they can be hard to do. Why did it become weird to call someone? Seriously. I love to connect with people. In 2012 I started having lunches with one person and just talking. It was cool. It’s good to spend an hour with just one person and not be in the cacophony of noise and information of the internet and smartphones. I want to get back to it again and having lunch with someone tomorrow.

I am really happy to be in therapy. I had an unbelivably tough year that included a major manic episode in April, 2013. It was one heck of a month. Although I did write some good poems and posts including a memorial for my dad. I also ended up in jail for 36-48 hours of Patriot’s Day last year while fully manic and became extraordinarily manic. Basically doing a 24 hour performance in a cell to the NSA who I was sure was watching. Then was held down and drugged after getting loud at the Maine Medical Center ER and forgot 24 hours completely. April was unbelievably ungrounding. Losing the rock of my life, as I said in a poem at my dad’s memorial service. Losing my sanity.

Recovering slowly. Spring Harbor helped. Lithium helped a lot, dulling my mind when I needed it, found it dulling after my crisis as well and slowly going off of it. My wife helped, my mom helped, my therapist really helped. I am very thankful for therapy. More of us need to be in it. Seeing her tomorrow and happy to go over goals and talk about the last 3 weeks that includes that big holiday of Christmas and all the energy you put in an use for it.

————————-

I feel the need to ground. To slow myself down. In the words that Fred Rogers used from the documentary “Mister Rogers and Me ***” Make your life deep and simple not shallow and complex.

Take a walk. Look up. See the stars. See the clouds. Feel the wind. Hear the water. Rest your mind. Listen. Breathe. Breathe. Slow down. Touch the Earth if you need do, do some Earthing. Literally ground yourself.

Make it a practice. Meditate. Prayer with your heart. Bring the worries of the brain down to the heart. Practice the mediations I learn from Whispering Deer. Your heart can take a lot in, the brain wants to analyze everything. Breathe. Breathe.

One thing I do to ground that make me feel joy is walking with my headphones at work. There is great landscaping there. Statues, trees, birds, a creek, a marsh. Listening to something like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin in the Wind” yesterday, watching the trees in the twilight in a sea of clouds. Transported. Just looking. Appreciating.

Your technology can wait. Texts can wait. You can turn your cellphone off. Sometimes it’s good to not be available. People do not need you all the time. You can not answer a text. You can leave your phone in your pocket while driving. Pay attention.

Right now, I am looking out my window. Seeing rain on the panes. Seeing a gray sky with some blue just after sunset with plenty of dark gray clouds after a rainy, and warm day that reached the upper 40s and had plenty of snowmelt. Can see some red of the sunset in the distance. Lights over the parking lot for the Dancing Elephant and the Frog and Turtle. Light in the parking lot by me. A wet American flag. Trees in fornt of the sunset. A wide Presumpsoct River that is harder to notice through the raindrops. The Disability RMS sign hiding through the trees. A car driving through. Listening, looking.

Billy Collins said all a poet needs is a window, paper and a pencil. Simple. Beautiful. Calming. Noticing. Not overthinking. Which we all do too mcuh. Looking up seeing the day change, watching the birds. Seeing the scampering of creatures. Hoping the insects don’t bite.

Think when you were happiest. Was it a tweet? A Facebook message?

Was it time with a friend, with a loved one, a lover and partner? With family? Eating, drinking. Maybe on vacation in the woods, in the desert? Listening, content at peace. Breathe.

We all need more peace. Less worry.

A life deep and simple where you appreciate things. My cats Lenny and Squiggy. My wife Lanna. The simple sound of the cat fountain. The silence. Sleep, dreams. My family. My sister Mindy, brother in law, Robert. Brother in law Bill, mother in law Dottie. And the ones who have passed, my dad Henry, father in law Walter. Grandparents Avis Neal, Charles Neal, Mary Davis and Donald Davis. My Aunt Louise. My mother’s best friend Dottie Mithee, Cousin Benny.

And heroes who have passed and enriched my life like Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Miles Davis. And of course teachers past, present and futures. Those who listen. Those who let us listen.

The water. The sky. The birds. The animals. Our pets. Cats, dogs. The mice we can’t see. The bees who pollenate. The pollen that makes us sneeze.

Breathe. Ground. Let life be easy. Let life be quiet. Read. Turn the screen off. Just listen to music. Drift. Dream.

Work to live a deep and simple life in complex and shallow times. Love one another. Hug. Kiss. Be thankful. Breathe. Mediate. Be Present. Appreciate the silence. Learn to love the noise and watch. See the sky change and darken, as the blue almost disappears and the red of sunset is almost gone.

Rest. Breathe. Ground and be Peaceful.

Blessed be.

25 Things About Me

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Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

Saw this from Kayt Sukel’s note on facebook.

1. I am a dork and a geek … Used to worry about this but embrace it now.

2. I love Philly sports .. especially the Eagles and Phillies .. have since I moved to NJ.

3. I was born in Madison, Wisconsin but only lived there for 2 years .. Visited once about 10 years ago looks like a great town.

4. Lived in Montgomery Township, near Princeton from 7 to in my 20s … Have many thoughts about the place but definitely think it has grown for too much with country clubbers .. HS class was 106 in 1992 and in the 400s now .. Did love the hills there though.

5. Started college at the University of Chicago .. was there for 2 years .. .found it to be the school where 19 year olds acted like Ph.D. students .. which I don’t think is healthy … Although I have never seen a place where people were so wanting to answer questions and get in the debate.

6. Finished my schooling (undergrad) at Rutgers University. I really enjoyed my time on the banks although like at Chicago I had way too many incompletes .. my advice to future college students .. .just write the damn paper even if its total crap.

7. I really wish I took so time off between HS and college … Montgomery was a very sheltered place and I think I could have used some time abroad.

8. I considered joining the military many times. My dad wanted me to join the NJ National Guard. I think I would have made a very good officer in the Air Force. I also thought very early on that Iraq was a new Yugoslavia. You have a strongman dictator (Tito and Hussein) who kept a country together by fear where the people hate each other.

9. I have considered getting a Ph.D. many times … The absolutely dreadful market for professors in the Humanities and Social Science have dissuaded me about this.

10. I have an MBA. Although I enjoy the studies at Claremont/Drucker-Ito School .. I think it was generally far too easy and gave me far, far too much student loan debt. Although I really enjoyed the strategy management portion of my degree.

11. I have declared bankruptcy before the law changed. I was underemployed for a long time and got far too much credit card debt. I just wish the student loan debt was dischargeable. I also think we need too make it easier for people to declare bankruptcy. Especially how many people get into it for medical reasons.

12. I really think we need to divorce health care/insurance and employment. I think this would increase the velocity of employment (how long people are unemployed between jobs) and would allow people not to worry about getting sick.

13. I am really, really happy my parents had great insurance when my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer (GBM) this summer. He was in neuro ICU for almost 4 weeks, and his bills were close to a million dollars. I am happy they were able to remove the golf size tumor and that is was reachable in the front of the brain. My dad is doing very well now and it makes me very greatful.

14. I am really happy to be married to my silly, crazy, awesome wife Lanna. We love to laugh and love together and its just awesome.

15. I have found that I have felt more grounded, at peace and grateful then I have for a very long time. My dad is doing well after his cancer (taking chemotherapy drugs and no recurrence yet), I have a wonderful wife and I am employed.

16. I have tried a very, very long time to be more patient. I think patience is a hard thing to learn but extremely important.

17. Favorite films all time: Brazil, Ran, Intolerance, Empire Strikes Back, Apocalypse Now(which I can never spell right), Rear Window, Vertigo, Citizen Kane, GoodFellas, Dr. Strangelove, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

18. I root for Rutgers athletics hard. I wish more people would go to see C. Vivian Stringer coach the always intense Rutgers women’s basketball team, and am really happy to see Greg Schiano turn the football program around.

19. I really enjoy campy things .. Marilyn Monroe (both music and movies), Judy Garland, Madonna (for a long time), old musicals, etc.

20. I play Magic the Gathering .. .Its a fun game but I wish it was more contained sometimes .. you can spend an unlimited amount on it.

21. I live in Southern Maine now … I enjoy it here but it feels very anglo after living in Hyde Park (Chicago), Claremont, CA (S. Calif), Washington Heights, NYC, etc. …

22. I really miss good Mexican food .. the local food in Pomona, CA (which is more then half mexican) was just awesome. And usually the less you paid, the better the food was .. ie little taquiras with all spanish on the menu wiht a $1 taco would be awesome .. the anglo sit down restaurants kinda sucked.

23. I feel really grateful and lucky for all the support my parents have given me over the years.

24. I would like to travel more .. although I have lived in NYC, Chicago, NJ, Maine, LA, etc. would love to live overseas.

25. I think airline security (the 3 oz bottles and removing shoes) is a total farce … There are so many better ways.

26. I was a republican until September 11, 2001 … When GW Bush started trampling on the 1st Amendment and the Bill of Rights I was gone.

27. I am really hopeful of the Obama presidency will be peacemakers and increase the size of diplomacy and the State Department and decrease the spending on military and fancy toys. I think the US spends more on defense then the rest of the world combined.

28. I like ellipses (…)

29. The internet saved my dating life (always shy asking women out and fearful of rejection) .. its where I met most of the women I have dated and my wonderful wife).

30. I love my DVR and the ability to pause and record TV. I also have pretty severe ADHD /clicking around when watching TV shows and have for a long time. I think I may be ADHD spectrum as well.

31. I reveal too much when I do these and never stop at 25.

Edmund