Distracted and Irritable, With Short Attention Span

I read my books, and passages describing the Arizona world around me leap out, vivid, while another, more faraway world intrudes via the radio, bringing news of sickness and meetings and riots in other physical places, along with surveillance and interference threats in the placeless world made up, astonishingly, of nothing but pluses and minuses — and all of it, the near and the far, seems less than fully real. 

In a hospital waiting room, perhaps more so in a room in a hospice facility, the world shrinks to the size of that room, expanding only at intervals to extend to corridors and nearby areas, and the passage of time is nothing more than the crawling hands of that clock. But when that room exists almost 2,000 miles away, it shifts in and out of focus, becoming now immediate (without warning), now distant and abstract, almost unimaginable against the immensity of limitless physical surroundings, mountains and desert and sky. 

Meanwhile, in my heart and mind I am neither fully here nor there … do not silence notifications on my cell phone, having told my son to call or text me at any time … pass along bulletins to my sisters as soon as they reach me....

I remember long ago — I was 14 — when a friend’s father died. Her mother, stunned with grief, was also irritable in a way I could not understand at the time. Her house was full of people, all trying to find ways to comfort her, but the loss could not yet have been fully real to her, and while still in shock she had to juggle parental and hostess duties, surrounded by well-meaning neighbors, because whatever happens, life goes on. Meals, errands, sleep (or attempts to sleep) all demand their time. Of course, it all might have been harder without those people there. Who knows? We do not live parallel comparative lives: our personal experience is absolute, the only experience we have. Not better or worse, easier or harder, just what is.

There are stretches of life when minds cannot remain in a single place and when there are few if any comfortable places for them to rest. I am grateful that my son is able to be with his father and others in a calm hospice setting. For myself, a drive up into the mountains gave me brief respite from sadness and confusion.

Clarification For My Unhappy Liberal Friend

Recently when I posted a few sentences on Facebook voicing disappointment and discouragement at seeing so much public name-calling there, particularly coming from liberal friends (I mean that I find it particularly disappointing and discouraging from these people, not that they are doing more of it than the opposition), those people whose general politics are in line with my own, one friend commented that he didn’t understand me at all. Was he advocating that we only talk sweetness and light? How can we voice opposition, make political points and arguments, and state strong positions without being all namby-pamby and fake-“nice”? In particular, how can he express his opposition without name-calling?

Let me say first, that yes, we have freedom of speech and are absolutely free to rage and whine, complain and blame, and to call our political opponents vile names. Examples of that kind of speech are before us daily, coming from the highest office in the land. But that very kind of talk is one thing (although minor compared with far more damaging executive assaults on environmental and worker and consumer protections) my friends and I strongly detest in the current national administration, so why would we let ourselves fall into similar inarticulate rants? 

If someone claims to despise incivility and then engages in it, what am I supposed to make of the claim? It’s bad if someone I don’t like does it, okay if I do it? 

Sorry, but that’s another attitude coming out of Washington that we have no ground to gain by imitating! If, in criticizing certain kinds of behavior and speech, I use the same kinds of behavior and speech myself, I destroy the very basis of my position. There are other ways to make objections. That is my point.

So how can I criticize without name-calling? 

(1) Name the behavior. Instead of calling a job applicant a “filthy liar,” say “He misrepresented his experience. His resume listed positions he never held.” 

Okay, you’re thinking, but this is just plain boring! Where is the outlet for my cleverness? For my astonishing rapier wit? 

(2) The argument called reductio ad absurdum was famously used by Jonathan Swift in his satiric essay titled “A Modest Proposal,” and if you’ve never read the essay, do that now, and learn that, contrary to current practice, truly effective (3) satire is much more than just saying mean things about someone. 

And really, the most biting satire these days often consists of not much more than (4) reportage. I wish I could find again one cartoon I saw. Six panels quoted Republican defenses, in chronological order, coming out of the impeachment hearings and Senate trial. That was the whole thing — nothing added. Cartoons are great, aren’t they? 

(5) Quote what you want to criticize! The stock phrase for a State of the Union address is a president’s statement that “The state of our union is strong.” We heard it again last week, and I’m afraid I can’t find a way to criticize the statement in any way that would make it amusing, but I do have to ask — "Union? Strong? Have the meanings of those words been turned on their heads since I last looked? I don't think this country was as divided during the Vietnam era as it is today." There, no name-calling.

I do not oppose strong criticism! See this post for evidence. Again, though, I repeat, (1) — the behavior, not the person.

Does this help?

No Wasted Time

Years ago, when I first read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards, I became convinced that I -- even I -- could learn to draw under the tutelage of a teacher using the methods described in the book. I was not confident enough to try to teach myself, and it was years before I heard the name Elizabeth Abeel, and several years after that that Elizabeth finally offered a summer evening class in drawing. It was wonderful! A dream come true! For a couple years, pen or pencil in hand, I was losing myself faithfully and contentedly almost every day, and the record of those happy hours is with me still, in the pages of my sketchbooks of all sizes.

Now I am getting back into that meditative practice, which is what drawing is for me. In the photograph of a sketchbook page above, the top image is called a blind contour drawing. I begin by putting my pen on the paper and then, looking up at my subject (in this case, a pine tree across the street from where our car is parked), I look only at the subject while my hand and eye simultaneously trace its outline. No looking at the paper at all. The drawing below is a modified contour drawing, and for that I took up a pencil in place of the pen. Looking is permitted with the modified contour, attention alternating between subject and paper.

The object for me is not to "make art" but to quiet the talking voice in my head, focus my attention out upon an aspect of the world, and keep my mind out, peacefully, there for a while. Working in my sketchbook while waiting in the car as the Artist visits with a friend for 30 minutes to an hour is also a way of making the most of that time.