All Blessings Are Mixed

Sunny Juliet had me at my wits’ end the other day. She can be so naughty! She wants to bite and chew my shoes -- while I am wearing them! -- ditto my blue jeans, ditto table legs and books, if I relax my surveillance for two minutes, and she is a very naughty barker. I’m working hard on the “no barking” business, but it breaks my heart when she barks at some little girl or boy who only wants to be friends with such a cute puppy. And because of what David and I went through with Peasy, I can’t help worrying: Is SJ showing signs of serious temperament problems? 

All moms worry, and dog moms are no exception to the rule. I was cheered and consoled, however, when a friend e-mailed me about what an “asshole” (excuse the term; it’s the one she used) their dog was in his first three years of life (Three years? Lord, preserve me!) When young, he did all the naughty things SJ is doing now. I also looked up “naughty puppy” sites and found that regret is not an uncommon response to the trials of puppy parenthood. 

Of course, in my case, the feelings of being overwhelmed and challenged beyond my limits are exacerbated (exacerbated: one of the Artist’s favorite words) by having lost my beloved life partner, whose generosity and concern for me had helped bring the puppy into my life in the first place. Complicated! What would David think now, if he were here with me and Sunny? Our Sarah was so unbelievably easy that raising and training her did not prepare me for the realities of another, more typical puppy at all!

But no, I do not regret this puppy. Just knowing that Sunny’s “naughtiness” is normal puppy behavior gives me the patience to deal with it lovingly, and we are going to make it, this little pack of two. I don’t know what the road ahead has in store for us, but we will be traveling it together. And please, do not tell me to “take one day at a time”! There is no other way to take life, and don’t think I don’t know it!

Sunny Juliet is a sweet companion and a huge responsibility. She often makes me laugh and sometimes drives me crazy. She eases my loneliness and curtails my freedom.

Everything is a double-edged sword has always been my philosophy of life in a nutshell, which is about all the philosophy people usually want to hear. It’s right there in the words of the marriage ceremony, isn’t it? “For better or for worse.” Or, as Billy Joel put it, “I took the good times, I’ll take the bad times.” Please note that I often had "clever conversation" with the Artist, but we could be just as happy holding hands or looking out the windshield together and saying nothing at all. We didn't have to audition for each other. 

The blessings of life and love carry with them the inevitability of loss and death, and so I thank my lucky stars for my wonderful life and cry over Billy Joel songs while Sunny takes a little nap.

Lessons Without Words

"Backstage" at Junior Rodeo, Willcox, Arizona

In the preface to his book, Life Lessons From a Ranch Horse, Mark Rashid writes that his old horse, Buck, made him realize “that I wasn’t going to be able to get better in my work unless I first improved other things in my life.” In one of his books about dogs, Jonathan Katz recounted a dog trainer’s telling him (I have to paraphrase, since I don’t have that book in front of me) that if he wanted a better dog, he was going to have to become a better person. Finally, I recall reading that at a certain point in his career as a “dog whisperer,” Cesar Millan realized he needed to become a “people whisperer,” also, to achieve lasting results, since when he was done working with problem dogs, their future was in their owners’ hands.

Some people who would never hit a dog will whip or spur a horse. (Does that seem strange to you? It does to me.) There are riding instructors – I know because I had one once -- invariably kind to horses but cruel to other human beings. We humans can see through each other’s inconsistencies, but I’m pretty sure the horses and dogs see through us much faster. 

Calm. Confident. Consistent. Kind.

Not only do we get better results with animals if we approach them calmly, confidently, and consistently, but partnerships that develop between human and dog or human and horse strengthen those desirable traits in us. You’ve heard of a vicious circle. Well, this is a virtuous circle – and who wouldn’t prefer to ride that happy merry-go-round? 

Competing at Junior Rodeo, Willcox, Arizona

And the practice of kindness is very compatible with working on the other three behavioral traits. Now that it’s come to my mind and I reflect further, I realize that a certain quite horrid type of person might manage to be calm, confident, consistent, and cruel, which cannot be our aim, either in working toward partnerships with our animal companions or simply in becoming better human beings! So while I’ve had ‘3Cs’ in mind for 35 years or so, I see now that the addition of that ‘K’ as absolutely essential. 

If we approach them with kindness from the start, our speechless friends usually forgive us our lapses in calmness, confidence, and consistency. Isn’t that wonderful?

So how about leading with kindness -- with our fellow human beings? What do you think? 

It is not always easy! Being kind can be a struggle. Flashes of anger visit almost all of us from time to time. 

Here's a thought: Maybe looking at other humans as if they were horses or dogs would make it easier for us to remain calm and treat them better. Does that sound totally wacky?

Sarah likes my idea. Good girl!

Just How Hard IS Change?

Good morning!

I’m coming back today to a book that cheered and energized me last week. In Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, Chip Heath & Dan Heath don’t tell us that change is ever easy, but they do make a convincing case that we can make change easier by approaching it differently.

Here’s how too many of us (yes, me, too), often react, when people aren’t making changes we want them to make:

“How can they be so stupid? And lazy! Can’t they see past their noses? Can’t they use their heads?” Sartre said (or, at least, is said to have said), “Hell is other people,” and who hasn’t felt frustration at the apparent intransigeance of other people? But every single one of us is an other. We meet face to face or online or over the phone: to me, you are the other. To you, I am. And that’s just how it is.

Chip Heath and Dan Heath – and I’m going to call them H&H from now on – cite numerous research studies and tell many true stories in every chapter. They are not simply “brainstorming” or speculating on how change might be made easier. Their tips and recommendations are clear and specific and backed up by results. And whether I want to change myself or someone else or a whole group of people, the basic empirical insights hold. H&H tell us story after story of changes that worked, changes initiated by people with no special authority or power other than an ability to see how to do things a different way.

Do human beings "stubbornly resist" change? Maybe the change they are asked to make isn’t clear to them. “What looks like resistance,” the authors say, “is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction.”

For instance, “Eat a healthier diet” is not specific. – And here I have to interrupt myself to say I don’t at all like the authors’ example, because it has to do with buying and drinking milk with only 1% butterfat rather than whole milk, and I am not at all convinced that whole milk is unhealthy (in fact, it drives me crazy that most of the yogurt in the grocery store case is nonfat!), but that’s not the point. The point is to give clear, specific instructions, and make them easy to follow.

H&H also say, “What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.” All of us depend on routines and habits to get through the day, and if we have to think too much, uncertainty about what to do can be paralyzing. Too many possible choices or an ambiguous situation will make our minds anxious, and when anxious, we revert by default to a familiar path, seeking our comfort zone. If we can’t, studies have shown that operating outside a comfort zone for too long results in deteriorating task performance. The mere experience of applying willpower to not eating a plate of cookies left in the room with them resulted in subjects performing more poorly on a task than other subjects without the antecedent test of will. Self-discipline wears us out. We only have so much energy for it. So we’re better off devising little tricks to keep ourselves in line.

In order to brave a new path, we also need a motive. Emotion is the “elephant,” in the book’s terms, intellect the “rider,” though I’ve avoided that language here. The important point is that to effect change, in ourselves or others, we must appeal not only to the intellect but also to emotion.

Here’s an astonishing revelation from early in the book. Can you believe that of the 24 most commonly used English words for emotion, only six are positive? Our language, and probably our brain itself, is more alert to threats than to happiness, probably for reasons important to survival – but still, that’s what we see all too often in each other, even when it isn’t there. I see not what you’re doing right but what you’re doing wrong, not the good you’ve done but the good you’ve failed to do. And how motivated are you by criticism? Me, not very!

All the logic in the world does not induce people to change without emotional appeal. Argument and reason are good, often necessary, but by themselves insufficient. Okay, what kind of emotional appeal? How about fear? Fear is a strong motivator, H&H acknowledge, but works best in the short term. It doesn’t work all that well for problems requiring incremental change over the long term. Why would that be?

Well, fear is one of those negative emotions.

When you’re angry, your eyes narrow and your fists clench and you get ready for confrontation. When you’re disgusted, your nose wrinkles and you avoid whatever has grossed you out. When you’re afraid, your eyes grow wide and your body tenses up and prepares to flee. On a daily basis, then, negative emotions help us avoid risks and confront problems.

Narrowed eyes, clenched fists, tense body – that’s how we respond when we’re in the grip of a negative emotion. Fight or flight! says the mind. Don't confuse me with more options! But that narrowing effect also works on our thoughts and doesn’t help when what we need is a broader vision, when we need to innovate, and to grow.

The positive emotion of interest broadens what we want to investigate. When we’re interested, we want to get involved, to learn new things, to tackle new experiences. We become more open to new ideas. The positive emotion of pride, experienced when we achieve a personal goal, broadens the kinds of tasks we contemplate for the future, encouraging us to pursue even bigger goals.

Appeals, therefore, to positive emotions – excitement, hope, optimism – motivate people to embrace change.

One tip the authors give is to focus on success, however small, and build on it. They call it “finding the bright spots.” Say your son was failing all his junior high classes but this semester managed to get a B in one of them. Talk to him about that good grade, help him find out what made the difference in that class and how he might be able to extend his success into other subjects. In general, don’t look for problems but for what’s working.

Another is to shrink the change. Don’t ask for a big change all at once. Show people ways they have already, without being aware of changing, taken the first couple of steps, and it's like magic!

He's on his way!

It also helps to provide “environmental tweaks.” These, H&H say, “beat self control every time,” whether it’s my own behavior or someone else’s I want to change. One simple example (we’ve use this in our home) is to use smaller plates on the dinner table. Rearranging furniture is another way to tweak the environment and change the situation. Shaping the environment changes behavior, and it’s easier, more efficient, and more pleasant to shape new behaviors that way than by hectoring and scolding. You don’t even have to talk about it!

I’ve hardly done justice to this book, because I’ve been boiling down to prescriptions what the authors present in exciting stories of change. You just need to read it for yourself. Switch is written largely (not exclusively) from and with a business perspective, but the implications go way beyond. In fact, I can hardly think of a realm where they would not be appropriate.

So, from what I’ve said so far, let me ask what lessons you would draw from the H&H prescriptions when it comes to working for political change? ??? If you’re not feeling optimistic yet, blame it on me and not on the authors, go to the library, and give H&H a reading for yourself. (I’ll order the hardcover for anyone who requests it; unfortunately, the book was never issued in paper. I also have 2-3 used copies winging their the way to me.)

If you buy the book from me and read the whole thing and don’t feel the faintest glimmer of hope, I’ll cheerfully refund your money and take the book back, knowing that it will inspire someone else. What I hope for, really, is a community of energized, hopeful people ready to go at change in a whole new way. Maybe we can help each other? I’d love to travel hopefully into the future! Wouldn't you?

With Holiday, Real Summer Begins

Declaring independence!

In Northport, Beautiful 4th of July Weekend

Most years past in Northport, we've seen an influx of tourists and summer residents for Memorial Day weekend, followed by quiet weeks through June until the 4^th of July, but this time around summer seemed to kick off early, with more visitors in June than I ever remember before. Apparently word has gotten out that June is a heavenly month Up North. And this yea's 4th of July weekend could not have been lovelier. Weather was warm enough for the beach, not hot enough to be uncomfortable, with refreshing morning and evening breezes.

Kathleen Stocking signs book for Ty Wessell

My first bookstore event of the summer season was a signing of The Long Arc of the Universe, by Kathleen Stocking, on Sunday, July 3. Once again, I neglected to have my picture taken with my guest author! When will I learn to make this a routine part of every author event? Well, the good news – and not just for my memory book – is that Stocking will return for a second event in August. We will set up chairs in David Grath’s gallery next door, and the author will give a talk, with an opportunity for audience questions -- and I guarantee a lively, stimulating evening! More on this subject later....

Wildflowers on porch table

At home

There is never enough time for sitting at home on the front porch, but I enjoy every morning and evening minute of it that I have. Over the holiday weekend I re-read Letters from the Leelanau, by Kathleen Stocking, and Drummond Girls, by Mardi Link, then read Kelly Fordon’s short story collection, Garden for the Blind. Not only is Kelly my next guest author (Thursday, July 14, 1-3 p.m.), but she has been getting well-deserved rave reviews for this book. I look forward to meeting her and hosting her event, and I hope all my local writer friends will be able to make it to her reading. I'll have more to say about her stories, too, as we get closer to her visit. 

*  *  *

Classics

Back in Northport

One day, during the usually midafternoon lull in the bookstore, I got to musing about phrases people use. For instance, people who come in out of curiosity, not necessarily because of an interest in books, usually insist that they don’t need assistance or information because they are “just browsing.”

Okay, I learned from my mother at an early age about telling salespeople, “Thanks, I’m just looking.” But looking, as I see it, is not browsing.

You can look with hands in pockets. You can look while in continuous motion, without ever coming to a halt. You can look pretty quickly -- and be out the door again in a flash! As I have heard tourists say to friends on the sidewalk, more than once, “It’s just books in there.” (Yep, pretty much just books, which explains why I call it a bookstore and why its name is Dog Ears Books.)

Browsing is something different.

Bookstore browsing is done with hands as well as eyes. It involves touching books, taking books from the shelves, opening book covers, sometimes reading a few pages, maybe even finding a nearby chair to investigate more closely a volume that has captured the eye and hands. A taste here, a taste there, the chewing-over of a thought or idea. Because unless you are already familiar with the book that catches your eye – and know that you want it – the title on the spine won’t tell you all that much. It’s what’s inside that counts, and the insides of books are a lot more than merchandise to be judged at a glance.

Now I know that I am not, single-handedly, going to change Americans’ use of the English language. “I’m just browsing” means, to most of the people who use the phrase in my bookstore, “I’m just taking a look around. I probably won’t buy anything. Don’t bug me!” I get it. Not that I bug anyone in my bookstore. There is no high-pressure sales force at work here. I offer once, so no one will feel ignored, and that’s that.

Browsers don’t have to explain themselves to me because their behavior tells the story. Like philosophers in the halls of academe, speculating on the dreams of dogs instead of obsessing about fringe benefits and retirement packages, browsers are my people. We understand each other. Looking is not enough for us. Rather, we look to lose ourselves in books.

*  *  *

Random bovine

I’d just drafted the paragraphs above about browsing (originally with introductory material about horses and cattle browsing and grazing, just because I love horses and cows, but it was kind of a reach) when a mother and daughter walked in the door, and the mother exclaimed, “I’ve never been in a real bookstore before! I feel like I’m in a movie!” She had, as it turned out, been in large chain bookstores, but not in any quirky little independent place like mine, and her delight delighted me.

And they browsed! The daughter bought an art book! As they were leaving, I told them they had taken a new turn in their lives, and the daughter replied, “Yes, now we’ll never not go into a bookstore!” Music to my ears!

Bookstore bulletin board

A Pause as Time Rushes By

I hope everyone’s summer is off to a good start, and I hope it doesn’t race by too, too fast, though I already know that it will. Summer is like that. But we love it!

Tuberose begonias

Please Forgive a Brief Digression into Philosophy

A friend asked the other day if I could give him a definition of ‘intention.’ Definitions are not my strong point. I generally use words correctly (let me know if you find errors in this post, please!), but I’m not quick at defining and sometimes downright resistant to it. But let me not get sidetracked into speculating on reasons why this may be. Digressing from a digression can be the beginning of an infinite something-or-other.

Here’s what I came up with for Steve, and let’s see what he thinks of it:

Intention: (1) a being’s purpose in acting; (2) the will directed in action toward some end

Acute critics will be one step ahead of me already at this point. They will know that many modern philosophers have asked if intention (or will, for that matter) can be said to exist at all prior to or apart from action, and many of them have answered the question in the negative, while others (does the name Wittgenstein leap to mind?) are content to hedge their bets, turning the question around and asking, “Where is it? Can you point it out?”

Philosophers, psychologists, and others skeptical of intention and will also express skepticism about consciousness in general. Thoughts? Beliefs? Nothing but relics of old, irrational beliefs, they say. There is no “ghost in the machine,” and we are only “meat machines,” in their view. There are no minds, they say, only meaty brains. It is strange that anyone denying the reality of thought would bother to give arguments to try to change others’ minds, but consistency has always been more a feature of formal systems than of human behavior.

To say that we can judge another’s thoughts, beliefs, and intentions only by their actions (words possibly counted as actions, depending on the particular opponent) is hardly a refutation of thought, belief or intention. It is merely another illustration of one more aspect of reality where we must, if we are to make judgments at all, judge on incomplete evidence. Can anyone give a single example of a situation for which we have complete evidence? The problem is not with reality or with our beliefs but with the requirements of epistemological justification we have set up.

So here I go, out on a limb, with my own position on intention:

(1)       Intention may precede action but does not necessarily always do so. When a situation permits only a split-second response, intention and action are two sides of the same coin, flipped with the speed of lightning.

(2)       An agent may be unconscious of or mistaken about his or her intention(s). This was the position of Kant, who, while he argued that the only thing good in itself was the good will, also believed that only God could read the secrets of the heart and know an individual’s true motive.

(3)       An agent may form an intention upon which, for any of a number of reasons, he or she does not act. An example should suffice to make my meaning clear: A cat crouches, preparing to spring, eyes fixed on a ground-feeding bird. The bird flies away. The cat relaxes. Who would doubt what the cat “meant to do” and what it hoped to accomplish in the doing?

Okay, that’s it. Now what’s your take?