culture | Bertram's Blog

Three

April 17, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Three is a powerful number that satisfies our deepest needs for symmetry. Three gods ruled the earth—Zeus, the god of heaven; Poseidon, the god of the sea; and Pluto, the god of the underworld. People worshipped the moon goddess as a triad, representing three phases of the moon. There were three Fates, three Furies, three Graces, three Harpies, three primary colors. Three times three was also a mystical number, hence the nine muses.

A few obvious threes from popular culture:

Three wishes. Three bears. Three little pigs. The Three Stooges. Three outs. Best two out of three. Three Faces of Eve. Three Days of the Condor. The Three Musketeers. Third time lucky. Love triangle. (The triangle itself is a divine symbol signifying the power of three.) Three is also a visually pleasing arrangement. And the number three signifies harmony.

So, to make your stories more powerful, harness the power of three.

1. When describing a character or scene, mention three attributes. Also, if a particular attribute needs to be fixed in the reader’s mind, mention it three times (and only three times) during the course of the book, and it will stick.

2. When devising a plot, follow the storyline of The Three Bears. The first time the hero tries to reach her goal, she fails but learns the risks. The second time she tries, she confirms that she’s doing things wrong, but she learns from her mistakes. The third time she tries, she gets it right.

3. Look for patterns in your story. If your character has given his love flowers and perhaps made love to her in a flower garden, mention flowers once more to solidify the pattern.

I could give you more ways to make your stories more powerful, but since I’ve given you three suggestions, that should be enough. And if it isn’t, you can find more uses for this powerful tool here: The Most Powerful Tool at a Writer’s Command

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Posted in culture, history/myth, writing. Tags: devising a plot, The power of three, the rule of three, the three bears plot, three, three gods, using three in writing. 5 Comments »

Embracing Life in the Face of Death

April 15, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I happened to come across a transcript of an interview where a woman had asked an advice columnist about confronting her cheating husband. The woman is dying of cancer with only a few months left to live, and though her husband is attentive, loving, and caring (he takes care of her in addition to caring for her), he is having an affair. When she first found out, she was heartbroken, but after a few days she realized he deserved to have someone help and support him during such an emotional time. Her question revolved around whether or not she should confront him. Should she tell him she understands? Should she let him know that she forgave him and didn’t want him to feel guilty?

Thousands of people left comments, most condemning the husband for having an affair, though some condemned her for her attitude, thinking she was too insecure to stand up to him. It does sound terrible, doesn’t it, the husband cheating on his dying wife? And maybe he is a cad, but as his wife said, “He has been amazingly supportive of me during this time. We have no kids, and as my health has declined, he has sat with me through endless doctor appointments, hospital stays, and sleepless nights.”

The advice columnist and the respondents to this article seemed to miss the salient issue, that death changes the world of those involved. We all know the stages someone who is dying undergoes — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But what no one talks about is that when a couple is deeply connected, both people are affected, and in many ways, the person being left behind is the one who suffers most. You not only have the care of the person you deeply love, you have to watch them suffer, have to see them waste away, maybe even have to endure unpleasant personality changes caused by both the illness and the drugs they need to keep the pain at bay. And there is nothing you can do about it. You can make them as comfortable as possible, but nothing you do will ever change the facts of your life. S/he is dying, and you have to live.

Many things happen during this horrific time. As your spouse retreats from life, you retreat from death. This is not a matter of vows, but a matter of self-preservation. Too often, you feel as if you are also being drawn into death, and even though part of you doesn’t care, the more visceral part of you cares deeply.

At some point during a long dying, there is a disconnect. You disconnect from yourself, your life, your dying spouse. It’s not conscious, in fact often you don’t always know what is happening, but the truth is, distancing yourself emotionally from the unbearable situation is the only way you can survive. And your hormones go wacky. Sometimes your libido disappears; other times it goes into overdrive. Sometimes you are tormented by overwhelmingly painful arousals. Sometimes you fall in love or desperately need to feel someone’s arms around you, especially if your terminal partner cannot bear being touched any more. This does not mean you love your spouse less. It means your lizard brain, your body, your visceral nature are all screaming in the face of death and will do anything to keep you connected to life.

Although not everyone has an affair during a long dying, all of us in that situation have done things we were not proud of. As I wrote in Grief: The Great Yearning, “It’s been said that every behavior is a matter of survival, which I suppose is true in my case. I could feel myself fighting to live, to gain more autonomy, but that struggle manifested itself in impatience, irritability, and resentment. I think I was angry at his condition and took it out on him. When I remember all the years I swallowed my feelings in deference to his illness, it appalls me that at the end, I couldn’t sustain it. I am so not the person I thought I was!”

Soon the wife will be gone, and the man in question will reconnect to himself and life. If he is a good person who had to deal with an untenable situation, he will probably be wracked by guilt for what he did to his wife. He needs to know that she knew, that she understood and forgave him, but she doesn’t need to do it while she is alive. She can write a letter for him to find after she is gone. Because that is the truth. She will be gone. And he will still be here, dealing with grief, regrets, guilt.

Admittedly, I don’t know the entire situation, but neither does anyone else who responded to the article. But I do know what it’s like to try to live while someone is dying, and the truth is, you will never know what you are capable of, both heroic and base, until you yourself are trying to embrace life while someone you love deeply is, however unwillingly, embracing death.

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Posted in culture, grief, life, relationships. Tags: an affair while spouse is dying, caring for a terminally ill spouse, dying wife cheating husband, stages of death, watching someone die. 15 Comments »

If I Could Change a Single Moment of the Past

April 14, 2013 — Pat Bertram

If I could change a single moment of the past, it wouldn’t be a moment of my life. The traumas and failures in my life have never been the result of a single moment but of life’s unfolding drama or mistaken assessments on my part. The single moments that did have an impact didn’t change my life, just gave me a few uncomfortable weeks or months, so it’s not worth the trouble to go back and redo those moments and put up with any ripples and upheavals that might result from such changes.

I would instead bestow this power to change a single moment on another, someone I’ve only talked to a few time, someone whose name I don’t even know.

At a local employee-owned grocery chain, I occasionally see an employee sitting by the door, giving us customers a friendly good-bye as we leave. Generally, these “sitters” are workers who have been injured and can’t stand all day, so this is a way of giving them a rest on the clock.

One such woman is radiantly beautiful, looking to be about twenty when in fact she is in her forties. A couple of years ago, her boss needed someone to move a heavy object, and since no one else was available, she volunteered. In that moment her life changed from one of a vibrant health to one of chronic back pain and doctors who can’t agree on treatment.

The last time I saw her, I didn’t stop to talk, merely said in passing, “I was hoping I’d never see you again.” Those words echoed in my mind as I crossed the parking lot, and I was appalled by what I had said. I meant, of course, I was hoping I wouldn’t see her at her post and that she finally was through with her ordeal. I might have let the remark go, but she is of a different race than I am, and I was afraid she’d take it as a racial slur if not a personal insult. So I went back to the store, but she and her chair were gone.

Yesterday I saw her again and finally got a chance to apologize. She said she knew what I meant and hadn’t taken offense. We talked for a while, and she mentioned that her grandmother’s funeral had been packed to overflowing. The woman had been active in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, was loved by all who met her, and since she lived to be 106, she had plenty of opportunity to meet people.

If the grandmother is anything like the woman I met, it’s no wonder she was so beloved. This woman’s smile is enough to brighten anyone’s day, even mine when I was in the worst phases of my grief. Although she is very sweet and kind, and not at all bitter, she is always aware that one single moment changed her life forever, and if it were ever possible, she’d go back and change it.

It is that moment of change that I would gift her with if I could.

***

Posted in culture, life. Tags: changing a single moment, changing the past, civil rights movement, employee-owned grocery chain, life-changing experiences, Mississippi. 3 Comments »

My Own True Grit

April 12, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I started watching True Grit today, but had to stop because I couldn’t see the screen for all the tears. My deceased life mate/soul mate and I lived not far from Ridgeway where True Grit (1969) was filmed, and the scenery in the movie made me homesick, not just for the Rockies, which formed the backdrop of my life, but for him. As the movie played, I could almost hear his voice telling me about the filming of the movie, and I could almost feel the soft cool air of Colorado wafting through the open window.

Sometimes I have the urge to settle near there again when my responsibilities to my father end. The air would feel familiar. The light would be soothing to my eyes. The mountains would offer comfort and perhaps protection from harsh winds. But then what? I’d be alone with the mountains, and mountains, no matter how welcome or familiar, can’t offer companionship. Without my mate, I’d still feel lonely, still feel as if I were homeless, because he, of course, was my home.

In Figuring Out Where to Go From Here, I realized I didn’t have to settle anywhere, but could live on the go, writing as I went. It will be possible, at least for a while, especially if I can get some sort of crowd funding. And perhaps I will discover home within myself or even discover that the journey itself is home.

I haven’t been writing about this journey lately because my 96-year-old father is doing exceptionally well, so much so that it seems foolish to talk about my future since I might not be free of responsibilities for a long time. Besides, I don’t want my father or anyone else to think I am hurrying him off this earth. If the universe is unfolding as it should, then my soul quest (or at least the road trip part of the quest) will happen when the universe and I am ready.

Still, it is nice to know what I’m going to do when the time comes — put my stuff in storage and head out on my journey, broadening both my internal and external horizons. Since I want to live by whim, to relearn spontaneity and perhaps find serendipity, there really isn’t a lot of preparation for me to do in the meantime except to continue to get rid of that which is unnecessary so I can hit the road unencumbered by superfluous possessions, outdated issues, and useless notions. Eventually, I will need to prepare various giveaways and promotional materials, perhaps even a marketing plan, for visiting bookstores along the way, but now is not the time for planning but for dreaming.

The beauty of such a quest as the one I’m dreaming of is that if I am particularly homesick for areas where we lived, I could go and stay there for a while, recharge my soul’s batteries, and then continue on when wit, whim, and my own true grit dictated.

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Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: Colorado air, finding home, homesick, Ridgeway, Rocky Mountains, soul quest, True Grit. 9 Comments »

Grief Update

April 11, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I haven’t been posting any grief updates lately because I haven’t had much to tell. There has been no great pain or sorrow, no major traumas or dramas, no new adventures to undertake — just living my every day life of quiet sadness and loneliness.

Although I haven’t had any major grief upsurges for a while, I do often think of my deceased life mate/soul mate, even talk to him. Oddly, now that the agony of grief has mostly subsided, it feels as if he is back at home, waiting for me to finish my present tasks and return to him. I know he isn’t there, of course, but without the pain to simultaneously bind us and separate us, he doesn’t feel quite so gone.

I am still very confused by death. How can he be dead? Where is he? Is he? Perhaps he is waiting for me, perhaps he is simply gone . . . deleted. I won’t know until my life is ended, and perhaps not even then. Whatever exists beyond our cloak of materiality and physicality, beyond our brains and our minds, might have consciousness, or might simply be pure energy that returns to the Everything.

I’ve never known where to put his death in my head. I can’t be glad about it, yet at the same time, he couldn’t have continued to suffer. But more than that, if he is in a better place, why I am still here? And if life is a gift, why was it denied him? I’ve held on to the idea that dying relatively young was unfair to him, that he is missing something, and a lot of my grief was on his behalf, but the other night I realized it truly doesn’t matter whether we are alive or dead. Well, his death matters to me, but it doesn’t matter to the universe, and it probably doesn’t matter to him. Nor does my continued life matter in the vastness of life/death. A few years extra of life is but a dandelion seed in the winds of time. Almost totally matterless. Maybe even meaningless. In which case it truly doesn’t make any difference that I am alive and he is dead. (Well, except for the part where I miss him, but this insight wasn’t about that.)

Even if life is largely matterless and meaningless, I am still alive and at least for now, that does make a difference to me and those I am in contact with. But it’s good knowing I neither have to be glad nor sad for him, that I can continue to live without feeling bad that he is dead. Knowing this also makes it easier to remember him, to recall what we had, to celebrate his place in my life. I am still sad, of course, and maybe I always will be. I miss him, wish desperately for one smile, but gradually I am letting go of my worries for him. He doesn’t need them, and they are an unnecessary relic of our life together. And for all I know, he could be perfectly content, sitting by some cosmic lake, two ghost cats purring in his lap.

Someday, as my grief continues to wane, I might even get to the point where I find renewed life, but I still take comfort where I can find it, and for now I take comfort in thinking that life and death are somehow one.

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Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: confused by death, dealing with grief, death, death of a soul mate, grief and loss, life and death, meaning of life and death. 9 Comments »

Fight Scenes and Motivations by David Lucas

April 7, 2013 — Pat Bertram

The internet truly is an egalitarian place. Where else would I be able to meet someone like David Alan Lucas, a writer, poet and martial artist who is an expert in the arts of physical and psychological combat?

David belongs to my Suspense/Thriller Writers’ group on Facebook, and he has been discussing fight techniques with the group. I asked if I could post part of his discourse, and he kindly said yes. Thank, you, David!

Fight Scenes and Motivations by David Lucas

This might be a bit of a ramble, but let’s talk about fight scenes. We all have our areas of expertise. Do you ever feel thrown out of a story or movie when “they” get it wrong? I know I do. I have closed those books and never picked it up again. If I go to a movie by myself, I will walk out of it. When I am with others, they can usually tell from my facial expression that I am biting my tongue. (I’m polite and don’t ruin it for them—there is always the after movie drive to talk about it.)

Besides being a writer, I am a fighter. I am a 3rd degree Black Belt in a Black Art (Black=War Art instead of a sport style). I have been in more hand to hand (or bare hand vs armed) fights than I even want to contemplate. Fight scenes are hard to write, even for me. But when someone gets it wrong I shake my head. But when they get it right, I want to jump up and dance (I almost did that when the 2009 Sherlock Holmes came out and they actually got into the Holmes’ head as he planned the fight before it began).

As a result of being a fighter and a writer, I have been writing about fight scenes and have given a few seminars. While I would imagine there is a book on how to write a fight scene, I haven’t seen it. So, I am going to tear apart the process as best as I can over the several months. Before I begin to outline it, let me be very clear: Writing is an art. Martial Arts is an art. There is no one way to do anything. Take from this what works for you, knowing that, like all writers and marital artists, we all walk our own path.

The first thing I do with writing a fight scene is to understand who is involved. When people fight in real life, everyone has a set of skills, a way they think, and a motive to be in the fight. Let’s work this backwards and start with motive. Why does your character want to fight?

Let’s face a few facts about fights. On film they can look exciting. But the truth is that in every fight (even among friends) there is a risk—even if it by accident—that you can lose your life. Let me use a real life example.

Have you ever been there when someone yells, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” People gather around cheering it on. They are stupid. No I am not holding back punches. Here is the true story that happened in one such case and why I called them stupid. One of the fighters in such a case—it was at a bar—took a glass bottle and broke it. He swung wildly at his opponent. His wild swings cut the throat of a guy I knew in the crowd who had stupidly thought he was going to see a fight. His funeral was a few days later.

All fights are dangerous—being in one, seeing one, etc. It doesn’t matter if it is in a ring where people are trying to be sure that no one is harmed in the long run or on a battlefield somewhere—and they are painful. What were the two drunks I talked about above fighting over and what had been worth so much for someone to die?

Someone can be beaten to a proverbial pulp or lose their lives over trivial issues–like a pair of shoes, a spilled drink, or (as a guy I once knew discovered) looking at someone’s girlfriend the wrong way. In St. Louis, Missouri a game among teens has developed where they go up to complete strangers and try to knock them out. Fights can start over imagined slights, being drunk, forced to protect yourself or a loved one, property and so forth.

Why is your character willing to fight?

Before you decide to turn your character into a super hero or the next Jet Li, let me break down the motivation a bit. There was a story my Master Instructor once told me that I have never forgotten.

A man, who was studying Martial Arts and had grown so confident that he felt like he was bullet proof, was once asked what he would be willing to fight for. He was asked, “If ten men were leaning on your car and causing trouble, would you fight them?”

He replied with confidence, “Of course I would beat the . . .” You can fill in the words.

His instructor then asked, “What if they all had chains and baseball bats and you were unarmed?”

The student thought about it and agreed he would not fight them.

The instructor then asked one final question, “Take these same men, armed the same way, and now they are raping your wife. Would you fight them?”

His answer changed.

The circumstances in real life and in our fiction writing are what will determine if someone will be willing to risk their lives in a fight. What are you willing to fight for and lose your life over? If you answer that quickly, I personally ask–plead with you–to think about it a little more. What is your character willing to fight for? What is their line in the sand?

How do they fight? More importantly, how do they think about fighting?

If you have questions about writing fight scenes or about how various characters might act in a fight, please feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer your question. Your question’s response may even lead to a blog entry in my blog relaunch on The Writer’s Lens.

David Lucas’s blogs: http://davidalanlucas.blogspot.com/ and http://www.thewriterslens.com/

David Lucas’s website: http://www.davidalanlucas.com/

David Lucas on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Owlkenpowriter

Posted in culture, How to, life, writing. Tags: David Lucas, fight scenes, fighter and writer, motivtions for fighting, Suspense/Thriller Writers Group on Facebook. 3 Comments »

Is There Life Without the Internet?

April 6, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I spent most of yesterday updating my virus protection software. For some reason known only to the computer gods and gurus, simple tasks that should be done in a matter of minutes take hours upon hours. I ended up downloading the program and removing it twice, talking to several different billing and tech people (and some I’m not even sure work for the company — if you google “Trend Micro contact”, you get all sorts of phone numbers, only some of which go the to actual company.) And because they couldn’t simply credit my account with a refund and use that money for the second download I had to pay twice (though they did promise a refund for one of the downloads. Wink. Wink.).

Although I could write a whole post (perhaps even an amusing one) about my experiences with the update, mentioning it is by way of a prologue. I’ve used Trend Micro from the beginning, and it’s been good protection, so I’ve been sticking with them, but yesterday, halfway through the process, I told them I was so unhappy with their service, I was ready to throw away my computer. For just a second, I meant it, and I felt free. And then the truth hit me.

untiled My life is almost all online. Sure, I could take walks, but who would I tell about my insights? I could write my thoughts, but who would read them? Who would talk to me about Is Introspection Possible? and What Is Luck?, my Soul’s Journey and Living Light and Free? This blog has seen me through some terrible times in my life, and some good ones. It was here that I first announced I’d found a publisher, first promoted my books, first talked about the agony of my grief, had my first inklings that there might someday be happiness for me again. I cannot imagine my life without it. But this is not the only thing I’d have forego.

Without the internet, I’d have no life as an author. I could still write books, but who would talk to me about them? I could perhaps still check with bookstore owners and see if I can do book signings, but what if I wanted to publish another book? Book files are all digital now. How would I get the manuscript digitalized so I could send to my publisher?

There is too much of my life I’d have to do without. I have friends in the real world, which is nice, but I also have friends in the cyber world — people from all around the world — that I’d never get to talk to or email again. I’d never get to check in Facebook again. Well, maybe that wouldn’t be such a loss, but still, it is a part of the online experience, and I’d miss all the people I’ve friended and those I haven’t yet met.

And Rubicon Ranch — the collaboration/serialization I’m writing with other Second Wind authors — I’d have to give up on that, too, just when all the authors are learning to have fun with it and run with it.

Every day online offers the possibility of something wonderful happening. So, after my whole online life flashed before my eyes along with the vision of what my life would be like without the internet, I girded my loins, gritted my teeth, stepped once more into the fray, (feel free to add whatever other clichés you wish), and finally got the job done. Now I just have to wait to see if they follow through on their side with the refund.

Either way, I’ll still be here.

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Posted in blogging, culture, internet, life. Tags: cyber friends, cyberspace, internet, online experience, online life, virus protection. 13 Comments »

Grieving for the Dead

April 4, 2013 — Pat Bertram

The conventional wisdom is that we grieve for ourselves, not the person who died, but as with any other idea most people have about grief, it is only partly true. When it comes to a soul mate, we often grieve for him as much as we grieve for ourselves. During our shared time, we cared as much about him, his well-being, his happiness as we did about our own, and that caring does not stop with death.

Many people still feel their soul mate’s presence, sometimes in a beneficial way, as a blessing or as a helping hand, but others feel their mate’s unhappiness. One woman, whose husband spend his last months connected to gastric tubes and other painful devices, continued to feel his anger long after he died. He’d been furious with her for agreeing to procedures that prolonged his suffering, and she was ridden with guilt because of it. (Though what other decisions about his care could she have made? He could not talk, and the doctors assured her he would get better if they performed those operations.) For more than a year after his death, she could still feel waves of anger directed at her. Perhaps the anger was a symptom of her guilt, but perhaps part of him still harbored those feelings. We hope our loved ones are at peace, but what if they’re not?

One of the great agonies of losing one’s soul mate is not knowing where he is, how he is, if he is. I found comfort in believing that my life mate/soul mate wasn’t suffering any more, that he, at least, wasn’t having to deal with the pain of our disconnect, but then one day it struck me that I didn’t know that for sure. Since I had no sense of his continued presence in my life, I had no conception of what he might be experiencing. What if he were feeling just as lost and lonely and bereft as I was?

I had to put such thoughts out of my head because I truly could not bear to think of him in pain. I was still grieving for all the suffering to which he’d been subject during his final days, weeks, months, still grieving for his hopes that never came to fruition, still grieving for the dreams that died with him. Perhaps it was silly of me to grieve for him, since it’s entirely possible he wasn’t grieving for himself, but still, those thoughts were there, complicating my grief.

It’s been a few days more than three years since he died, and sometime during those grief-filled months, I began to disconnect from him, to understand that whatever relationship we had, however much we shared, no matter how much it felt as if we were cosmic twins, we were still two separate people on two separate journeys. This is an important realization and a necessary step to mental health and eventual happiness, but the habit of thinking of him is still strong, and I wonder where he is, how he is, if he is.

I hope he is happy, fulfilled, challenged, radiant. I wish those things for myself, and I can wish no less for him.

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Posted in culture, grief, life, relationships. Tags: death of a soul mate, do the dead feel grief, grief and loss, grief and love, grieving for the dead. Leave a Comment »

Is Introspection Possible?

April 3, 2013 — Pat Bertram

You learn something new every day, or at least that’s what the cliché would have us believe, and today I learned that I should be more careful about choosing words. A few days ago on Facebook, I posted an affirmation/resolution, saying: Today I will be . . . introspective.

mind A friend sent me an email in response: I was about to make a comment on introspection but hesitated when I remembered a “strange” entry about the topic in the “Oxford Companion to the Mind.” They had a short paragraph that began by judging the entire psychological technique of introspection as being in danger of misinterpretation. They then stated “It has, however, become clear that very little that goes on in the brain associated with the mind is accessible to conscious introspection, and “we” regard the mind as a much broader concept than awareness, consciousness, or what is known by introspection” (Pg. 389). Was the “we” the editors? Isn’t that odd that they would sidestep something that I think of as quite positive and I’m certain you do as well.

Huh? I was under the impression that introspection was a synonym for contemplation or reflection, so I emailed her back: Fascinating. I thought a bit of introspection was a good thing. Don’t be surprised if a blog post on this topic shows up. I do most of my “introspecting” via blog, and this certainly needs a bit of thought.

Today I finally got a chance to research the word, and it turns out that introspection is a particular type of contemplation — the contemplation of one’s own thoughts.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, introspection “is generally regarded as a process by means of which we learn about our own currently ongoing, or very recently past, mental states or processes.” To be classified as introspection, thoughts need to meet three conditions:

1. The mentality condition: Introspection is a process that generates, or is aimed at generating, knowledge, judgments, or beliefs about mental events, states, or processes, and not about affairs outside one’s mind.

2. The first-person condition: Introspection is a process that generates, or is aimed at generating, knowledge, judgments, or beliefs about one’s own mind only and no one else’s, at least not directly.

3. The temporal proximity condition: Introspection is a process that generates knowledge, beliefs, or judgments about one’s currently ongoing mental life only; or, alternatively (or perhaps in addition) immediately past (or even future) mental life.

In other words, (at least I think these are other words that explain the situation), to be introspective, you must be thinking about your current thoughts. Some people, however, debate if this is even possible. Can the brain know itself? Can the mind know itself? Which brings us back to the email from my friend. Apparently (at least according to the Oxford folks), very little that goes on in the mind is accessible to conscious introspection.

Confusing the issue of whether introspection is possible, there is something called an introspection illusion, where we tend to believe we have direct insights into the origins of our thoughts, but treat everyone else’s insights as unreliable, so everything we do or think is biased in our own favor.

Introspection might seem impossible to scientists who need non-biased input, but on a personal level, introspection is possible — those of us with a contemplative bent do pay attention to how we think, but to be honest, from now on, I’m going to sidestep the whole issue and simply use the term “reflection.” That would cover everything — thoughts about my thoughts and thoughts about everything else. And who knows — maybe someday I’ll even bypass reflection and go straight to awareness.

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Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: choosing words, conditions of introspection, introspection, introspection illusion, is introspection possible, reflection vs. introspection. 8 Comments »

Designated Daughter

April 2, 2013 — Pat Bertram

The problem with having a star-studded weekend is that resuming real life can be difficult. Sunday evening, on the way back from the airport, I found myself dreading the return to my life. It’s not that I would have wanted to keep up the frantic pace of wonderful waterside seafood restaurants, Ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, limousines, champagne, and fabulous shows, but that until I was away from it for a while, I hadn’t realized how depressing my current living situation is. (I am the “designated daughter,” looking after my 96-year-old father.)

Dad and me

When I came here three years ago to be with my father, he was still mostly strong and vital, which gave me the opportunity I needed to grieve for my deceased life mate/soul mate without having to deal with the minutiae of daily life or my father’s medical condition, but this changed as my father declined. And now, I’m back where I was for so many years, keeping vigil while someone close to me struggles to live (or die. Sometimes I’m not sure which is harder for them.)

My father is doing well (he even insisted I leave him by himself while I was gone instead of getting someone to stay with him) but still, he is suffering from congestive heart failure, and it’s hard watching someone decline, especially when it’s someone you have a complicated relationship with. He vacillates from being the authoritative father when he is well to needy child when he isn’t, which makes a complicated situation even more problematic. And for the most part, I am his main contact with the outside world, which at times adds an additional burden.

I thought I was doing okay, accepting this new direction in my life, but now I see that this situation only adds to my sorrow. But it is what it is, and there’s not much I — or anyone else — can do to change things, though life itself will eventually make the change for me. Until then, I’ll muddle through the best I can, and try not to give in to depression.

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