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Several weeks ago, I had a dentist’s appointment.  Sophia’s mother passed away that week, so I had to cancel.  The dentist was not happy because he said “he was waiting for me.”  I rescheduled for the middle of July.

In the middle of July, my FIL went to the hospital, and I had to cancel again.  They were not pleased.   Maureen, the dentist’s receptionist said so on the answering machine.  Sophia called up the dentist’s office and explained the situation.

I rescheduled for yesterday.  Every day for the last week, leading up to yesterday, I would get a phone call at 3PM from Maureen “reminding” me about the appointment to “make sure” that I was coming to it.

Yesterday, two hours before my dentist’s appointment, I received another phone call from Maureen.

“Dr. Fine has to cancel your appointment today.  He has an emergency procedure he has to perform.”

“Uh, OK…”

“Is this payback?” I wanted to ask her.

“Yes,” I assume would be Maureen’s answer.

Sophia was able to get me an appointment for tomorrow.  This morning I woke up, feeling under the weather.  I told Sophia that I have a cold and I’m not sure how I will feel tomorrow.

“You’re going to the dentist if you have leprosy,” she said.

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I cannot imagine what you are going through.

I cannot imagine what you are going through as a single mother.
As an Mexican-American.
As a little person.
As someone laid off from your job when your wife is pregnant.
As a child growing up in the slums of Mumbai.

Why do kindhearted people always say that?

I CAN imagine what you are going through.  I have a good imagination.

It is better to imagine.   Tell me your story, and I can imagine it.

If I cannot imagine what you are going through, it means I’m not paying attention.

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My blog discussion about my fascinating one day zen meditation retreat with Karen Maezen Miller was cut short by the passing of Sophia’s mother.  Here is a quick recap of that memorable day from a few weeks ago:

The morning and afternoon were segmented into twenty minute periods of sitting meditation (zazen) in the meditation area (zendo).  There were a dozen other students signed up for the retreat, from all walks of life, from students to police officers.  During the meditation segments, we would face the wall and basically, uh, try not to think.   Each session was announced with the striking of the wooden han.  We had a choice of sitting on a map, a meditation bench, or a chair, and it was suggested that we try each of them at least once.  The mat felt the most “authentic,” of course, because it was the most uncomfortable, but by the end of the day, sitting in a chair was pretty nice.

Trying not to think while meditating was as difficult as you would expect, although I didn’t find it particularly painful to attempt.  It was relaxing to sit there and breathe, although it took me a while to understand “how” to breathe correctly.  The tense guy sitting next to me was desperate to “do it right” and was getting more stressed trying to achieve perfection than when he walked in that morning.   Karen Maezen Miller assured us that the act of doing the meditation was more important than doing it a specific way.  I had no preconceived notions, and wasn’t pushing myself to become a zen master, so I think I enjoyed the retreat more than the tense guy.  Los Angeles had a funny way of interrupting our quiet, with fire engines, vans playing Mexican music, and ice cream trucks passing by outside, but while he cursed under his breath, I enjoyed the distractions.

After each sitting meditation period, there was a period of walking meditation (kinhin), where we followed each other around the zendo in a circle, which reminded me of the movie Midnight Express, where the hero was forced to exercise in a Turkish prison.  Surprisingly, I enjoyed this kinhin more than the sitting meditation.  I’ve always been able to better “zone out” when I am walking or doing a repetitive motion.  I’m assuming this is the experience runners get during their runner’s high, or how knitters can knit for hours — where time seems to stand still.  I have frequently had this feeling when walking the streets of Manhattan, as the crowds of passerbys calm me, like waves in the ocean, and I  stop thinking about my life, letting myself become “one” with my environment.

The zen meditation retreat took place in a classic Los Angeles house in mid-city Los Angeles that had been transformed into a modest, but attractive zen temple.  Karen Maezen Miller wore a beautiful, priestly robe.   She had a contagious spirit that was both intense and gentle.  She was assisted by another instructor, a male of about thirty-five, who I assumed was not at the same level of knowledge, mostly because his robe didn’t have as many bells and whistles attached.  He had just completed a longer retreat, and seemed monk-like in his responses, although if you met him at the supermarket, you would think he is another typical LA resident, maybe a screenwriter.

The male instructor was responsible for showing us the rituals involved in zen meditation.  At one point, he taught us how to  bow to the statue of Buddha.  He assured us that Buddha was not a God, but a man, knowing that there might be issues with other religions.  I felt that he was purposely vague about the matter and I wasn’t sure why we we getting into this territory so soon,  especially since very few of us could  sit in the lotus position for more than ten minutes.

I bowed out of respect.  I’m sure no one would have cared if someone felt uncomfortable and didn’t bow.  I had no problem honoring the tradition, but I would have liked to have received more information about Buddha’s role in all of this.   I know Judaism has a strong tradition against idolatry.   I’m curious to understand the intersection between the science of meditation and the spiritual/religious aspects, and how well Buddhism plays ball with Western religion.

If I truly learned anything important about myself during the retreat it happened at lunchtime.  We were served a delicious vegetarian meal, buffet style.  We were expected to keep quiet during the eating period, in order to connect with the sensory eating experience.   I sat with the other students in the living room, eating our tofu and vegetables, being silent, averting the glances of the others.  I don’t remember ever feeling so uncomfortable.  Or, more honestly, I felt the discomfort of the others, like rays of negative energy surrounding me, and I had an overwhelming need to make a joke, to break the ice, and to make everyone feel at home, not for their sake, but for my own.  At one point, I couldn’t stare anymore at my plate anymore, and had to walk outside onto the patio alone, where I could finally relax.   I could be by myself.  I didn’t have this discomfort during the silence of the sitting meditation, because we were each alone in our tasks, like students in a classroom taking a standardized test.  But lunch IS traditionally a time for conversation.  The silence WAS deafening.

What did that discomfort mean?  I’m not exactly sure, but maybe it will help me understand why it is difficult for me to shut up when I am on Twitter, or I feel required to compromise when talking with another individual during a heated exchange.  I feel the energy of others, and my weak sense of self gets drawn into the vortex.  It is difficult for me to focus when there are others around, especially when I sense their agenda. This affects my work patterns.    I work best when I am in the midst of an anonymous crowd, like in Starbucks , or locked in my office like a cage, with the blinds drawn.  The minute Sophia walks inside the room and sits on the couch next to me, my focus turns to mush.  I KNOW she is in the room.

After lunch, Karen Miller Maezen asked us to wash the dishes and clean up after lunch.  Her latest book is all about the connection between zen and every day chores.   I wonder if she uses this technique with her children, to get them to clean her home.

It was a very cool experience, nothing like I expected.  I’m just not sure what to do with  I learned, if anything.

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Every day we are faced with a multitude of decisions which requires an action or goal-orientated response.  Some are simple repeated actions, such as pressing the button for an elevator.  More often than not, our environment is in flux, and these actions demand heavy duty work from the brain.  Modern society is all about “multi-tasking,” which requires several neural responses occurring simultaneously.

A new scientific article written by top California scientists in the July edition of Redondo Beach Science News, reveals that chronic stress – too many times a feature of contemporary life – interferes with the human brain’s switching capacity, by freezing individuals into automatic/habit responses mode.  This discovery of these negative effects of stress have profound implications for all of us: the scientists believe that when an individual lives a calm, relaxed life, with no one dying in the family, proper eating and exercise, and leading a fulfilling sex life, this person is happier, more socially adept, better liked by his colleagues, and able to finish tasks quicker and more successfully.

The research was based on experiments conducted on two male residents of Redondo Beach.  The control subject relaxed by the Pacific Ocean each day in the sun, and got laid each night by a different local bikini model, who cooked him a healthy spinach omelet in the morning before they went surfing together.  The other subject was exposed to chronic stress for several months until he was left on the shower floor, sobbing.  Both the control and the stressed subjects were then assigned a very simple task to perform in their homes: to plug their laptops into the bedroom outlet and type a 140 character message onto the popular online “Twitter” social media application.

The results were quite surprising.  The control subject finished his task easily.  The stressed individual seemed confused and disoriented after receiving the instructions, constantly staring at his naked body in the mirror, asking the scientists, “Do you think I need to do situps?”  The stressed individual, clearly frozen in his automatic response mode, not only failed at his attempt to turn on the computer, but clumsily plugged in the IRON instead of the laptop, in a brazen misjudgment, and almost burned the house to the ground, eliciting nervous screams from his wife.

Clearly, stress is bad for the brain. Science doesn’t lie.

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(this is a post that is completely rambling out loud with little direction, but I’ve been hearing the term “authenticity in blogging” used a lot recently.  It was even the the subject of the final keynote at a recent woman’s blogging conference, as presented by Karen of Chookooloonks and Brené Brown.  “Authenticity” is one of those terms that makes me uncomfortable, especially because I don’t really understand it, and you’ll notice that this post is a little edgy when I discuss it.  But I am also self-aware enough to know that when something makes me uncomfortable, there is usually a reason I am fighting with it.  So, I hope if either of these two bloggers end up coming here, they don’t think I am being a downer in questioning the idea, but being authentic in taking it seriously, in my own way.)

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OK. A “dating” question for women, single or otherwise.   It is all hypothetical, and has really nothing to do with dating, and more about the subject of directness and authenticity. If you’re a straight man, put yourself in the man’s part of the scenario.  Unless you are gay, and then you’re on your own.   Or change the gender.

Hypothetical situation: You’re a woman.  You’re at a bar.  You’re single.  You’re wearing your best dress and sexy shoes.   I approach you.  Or some other studly guy approaches you. But let’s assume it is me. Which encounter would be more endearing and/or successful?

1) Me (indirect and inauthentic): “Sure is crowded in here tonight.  Must be the World Cup game on the TV.  Didn’t realize that there are so many Brazilians living in LA.  You into soccer?…”

2) Me (direct and authentic): “I was looking at you from across the room. I don’t usually say this to a woman immediately, but you have a nicely-shaped ass.  I’m hanging out at this hot, noisy bar, hoping to meet someone, and I’ve picked you out of everyone else here tonight.  I would like to get to know you better. Boy, I am nervous asking you this.   But that ass!  Wow!  Would you want to go to the Chipotle next door and talk?  I know it is only a fast food joint, but I’m a writer and not making a whole lot of money, so I’m hoping that isn’t a big concern to you. What do you say?”

Should I use approach number 1 or approach number 2?

Of course, this is a rather silly example. #2 borders on the rude, even if “the guy” is being more “authentic” in his dumb reason for going over to the woman, and even more direct with his request to leave and go to Chipotle. Why spend a half hour talking about the soccer match when it is all just small talk?

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I frankly think the best approach would be somewhere in between the two. I think we need directness AND artifice to effectively communicate with each other, especially in the beginning of a relationship. And I’m not just talking about male-female relationships.

When brands online start talking about being “authentic,” I say bullshit.   Social media is hardly authentic.  We speak to each other in 140 characters. Very few people come out and directly express their motivation.  I know when I write dialogue in a script, the biggest sin is “on the nose” dialogue.  I know that what people say and what they mean are usually two different things.   Sometimes they don’t even know WHAT they want.  Very few people come out and SAY what they really want other than James Bond villains wanting to destroy the world with a solar deflector.

I respect those who want to protect their privacy or business interests, but since when do we call that “authenticity?”  How can there be authenticity when there is also so much selling and promoting.   The very concept of marketing or advertising or “giveaways” involves artifice and manipulation, much like a woman wearing make-up before hitting the clubs.    When consumer product brands sponsor “green” events, they are usually more concerned about good publicity than the cause.   More power to them for doing good, but not terribly “authentic.”  Food stylists making McDonald’s hamburgers looking juicer is artifice.  Clever copywriting is artifice.   I find it odd that as the internet becomes more and more about business and social manipulation, people advancing their careers by touting community, writers feigning interest for connections, more and more people are discussing authenticity. Is it really THAT complicated to be authentic? What does the word authentic mean? Authentic to others? Authentic to yourself?

I once wrote a post about Dunbar’s number, where a scientist theorizes that we can only deal effectively with 150 people.  Doesn’t that mean we are being inauthentic to the thousands of followers we all hear gurus touting on their blogs as a way to show their influence? Why do we want them? If we really cared about helping others, like so many writers like to say, why don’t we just go into nursing?

Here is an authentic advertisement for McDonalds: “Hi there. We are in business to make money. People love our burgers. We know they are not healthy for you, but you like ‘em, right? And no one complains when your kids run around and make noise, right? And we are pretty cheap, if you go for the dollar meal, right? McDonald’s. We are authentic (except for the doctored photos of our burgers).

Art can never be authentic. It can strive to be an authentic representation of ourselves. We can be authentic. But very very very few of us  get anywhere close.

By the way, you all have nice asses.

via the fabulous Schmutzie!

P.S.  Just read this post over.  I know it makes very little sense.  And I am using the term authentic all wrong.  Sorry.  My blog.

P.S.S.  Juli from Wellington Road just made an excellent point via IM about the dating scenario that made me see this post in a whole new way.  Talking to that woman in the bar about her ass is just crude,  and not authentic, especially since I would never say that anyway.   The differences in choices  #1 and #2 are about the politeness of the words.  The authenticity comes into play with the ACTION.   #1 could be more authentic if the goal is to get the woman into bed, and this is how I seduce a woman.  #2 could be all bark with no bite.   I might be just shooting into the wind, with no real confidence or adherence to my goal.   My words might be brash and tell it like it is, but I would not be authentically striving for my goal.   The alpha man is not about how strong his words are, but how effectively he takes action.   In the second scenario, it reads like I am trying to sabotage myself.  By acting so blunt, I wonder if my REAL intention is to get rejected so I feel bad, because I am neurotic, or whatever.

I guess if your goal is to become a popular blogger, you are being authentic if you stick to your game plan.  The same can be said if you want to write a novel and are using your blog as a calling card.   I was misusing the term authenticity.  I was expressing the term in the traditional way, where authenticity meant removing the mask in relationships to others.  It appears that the term “authenticity in blogging” means something else — discovering your goal or your purpose and staying true to that path.  It is more about personal journey than community.

Do these two versions of authenticity conflict with each other?

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There was this girl who was a classmate of mine from first grade through senior year in high school. She had an unusual, but beautiful first name. We were friendly, but we didn’t anything socially outside of the classroom. Our relationship was based on the activities between the brick walls of the school building.

She was very important to me. She was my class competitor.

During math class, if I didn’t raise my hand up in time to answer a question, she would get there first. We competed for awards. We each won numerous “Citizen of the Month,” citations. We always compared test scores, secretly wishing the other to flounder. We tried to outdo the other in the number of books we read per year. When I was picked to make the commencement speech at graduation in elementary school, she became the class president in junior high. We were both the literary editors of the high school yearbook. At the end of the senior year of high school, the school “ranked” all the seniors according to their grade point average. I beat her by one point; it was a very satisfying victory.

My parents were never the pushy parents who told me to succeed at any cost. I just enjoyed school. It was this girl, ambitious and super-focused, who forced me to step up my game.

We lost touch the minute we attended college. I hadn’t heard from her for years, until, well, no surprise — Facebook. I was excited, and nervous, to reconnect with her. We had a polite exchange of messages, but nothing very intimate. I think we were both too shy to have any real conversation. For all I know, she may not have give me a second’s thought during all these years.

But I have a little secret about her. This girl has been a part of my life for decades, in a very unusual way. I wanted to tell her about it, but when I mentioned it to Sophia, she told me not to tell her. It would make me look weird.

I’ll let you decide.

So what is this mystery I keep on talking about? How has this girl (now a woman) been an integral part of my life since high school?

On my first day of college at Columbia in New York, I went with my mother to open a bank account at Citibank. There was a branch a few blocks on Broadway. After depositing some money, I received my very first ever personal ATM card. I needed a password. Using my street name or middle name was too obvious. I wanted something personal, but obscure enough for a thief to never figure it out. So, I chose the first name of this girl from school, this girl with the unusual, but beautiful name. My competitor.

Since that time, years passed, and I have moved and changed banks numerous times. Citibank, Marine Midland, HSBC, Pacific Security, Wells Fargo, Bank of America — each receiving an ATM card with the exact same password — my classmate’s first name. As you can tell, I don’t change things easily.

This girl is now a woman, but I still can picture her raising her hand a second before mine in the fourth grade, and reciting the correct equation in math. She has become an iconic image in my mind. Her name, because of her association with my ATM card, has been forever connected to matters such as ambition, success… and my bank account. Has it worked out for me? Well…

Of course, by telling this story, it is also the end of an era. Once she finds out (if I choose to tell her) , I will need to change the password to my bank ATM for the first time in decades.

First, my blog template changes, now my ATM password will have to change. Again, it might seem like very small changes, but these items have symbolism, and symbolism is the most powerful God of all.

But maybe it is time to change the password on my ATM card. It is 2010, and my hair is graying. It is time to move beyond a life revolving around a competition with a girl from elementary school. This was never an effective and mature way to deal with existence beyond the 12th grade. Time to finally graduate from school — psychologically — and find my inspiration in the present.

Time for a new ATM password.

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You might not think it is a big deal that I changed my template today, but those who know me, know the truth. I am neurotic about stuff like this. I created my last template and header on March 7, 2005, my first day of blogging, and it has remained the same ever since. I know this design isn’t the greatest, and I might fiddle with it some more, or even change it completely. But I acted. I am very slow to change, to take action.

I was on my back for three days. Stress had knocked me out. Today was turning into another lousy day. My iphone died. Sophia’s laptop got a virus. The aide staying with Sophia’s FIL is quitting (our second!), leaving us having to find another person we can trust. When I finally stood up from the bed and stretched my back, I felt a lot better, but creaky, like the Tin Man. But no Wizard of Oz for me. I wanted to take action, on my own. I wasn’t sure in what way. I thought of deleting Twitter. But that would be a cop-out — a negative action, not one about change, tinged with the flames of creativity, dusted with the grains of confidence.

“I’m gonna fucking change my blog template today after five years of looking at that same header!” I said.

Now onto the next thing.

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If you were flat on your back on the living room couch since yesterday, after the terrible stress of the last few months finally got to you, and your back gave out during gardening, and you were in a lot of pain, dressed only in a t-shirt and underwear, on vicodin, but getting bored and impatient, and the easiest way to entertain yourself while your separated wife and your mother ate breakfast in the dining room, was to go on Twitter to kvetch and gain some sympathy from strangers, until you came across a link from @jewles that took you to a ridiculous photo of a naked woman in a empty field wearing orange boots and leg warmers, and as you sat there, looking at that photo, you started to get a boner, because you never know with these things, and at that exact moment, your separated wife and your mother were coming into the living room to give you breakfast, so out of embarassment, you reached for the blanket on the other side of the couch, but you couldn’t reach it, even when stretching, and when you tried to move, the pain shot from you back both down to the leg and up to the brain, so the only alternative was to throw yourself off the couch and onto the floor in desperation, onto your already inflamed back, so you screamed in pain, and then rolled over onto your stomach, smashing the boner against the wood floor, so you screamed in pain a second time, just as your wife and mother rushed in, wondering what was going on, but giving you time to use the distraction to grab the blanket, wrap it around your waist and fall back down on your hurting back, would you post about it?

“My god, can I help you to the couch?” your mother would ask.

“No, just leave me where I am. I’m comfortable,” you would answer.

(written on the iPhone while on my back)

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This is the greatest song ever written. It speaks so many truths. When the revolution comes, and it will, we must be careful who we follow because the new boss will be the same as the old boss. Question authority. Even when the authority is against the established authority. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” This is why we need a free press. And rock music. And writers and artists who speak their mind. Only those who question will be able to tell the truth. Don’t listen to the lies of the government OR the revolutionaries, whether they be followers of socialism or robots that we have built with our own hands, and now want to be our masters. We must not get fooled again!

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