Teller’s Travail

So it was, on this mostly lazy day, that Teller wondered what could conceivably happen next. Just when he believed that things would certainly settle down on the Cascadia College campus (it was late December, final exams were over, and his faculty had scattered to the four winds, after all), stuff kept happening: events that were, unfortunately, consistent with the perpetual, overwhelming feeling of trying to function in a totally whacked-out (to use a technical term) environment. Sadly, Teller’s experience of the current “holiday break” seemed to be a continuance of the end-of-term craziness that he had just lived through.

For, even before the current semi-lull, there had been increasing intensity surrounding the conversations (that is to say, expressions of extreme doubt) about the institution’s leadership. One afternoon, for example, after the Thanksgiving holiday, Cascadia’s president distributed, to all staff, a draft version of the position description that would be used to recruit for the provost position sometime after the beginning of the new year. (Dr. Mennace, the current provost, was, at present, occupying the job on an interim basis.) Several of Teller’s faculty members had criticisms of the document, some of whom forwarded their concerns to the president. Many were just plain terrified that Dr. Mennace would not only apply for the job, but eventually secure it on a permanent basis. This prospect caused a huge amount of distress among Teller’s faculty, who, as noted previously, had significant distrust for just about everybody in the current administration.

Following the document’s distribution, Teller was approached by faculty members, often several times a day, about his intentions. Practically every single one of these interactions was not only to engage in a conversation about the status of his thinking, but also to encourage Teller to submit an application for the job. For although Teller was a member of the current administration, he had something that others in instructional leadership apparently did not: the trust of the faculty.

Naturally, Teller was flattered by all this attention. But he was not as elated as might be expected. The feeling of being wanted was, of course, exceptionally wonderful. However, the chaos that was the Cascadia College campus was not something Teller was convinced he could positively affect, even from the senior academic officer post: if he had the skills to provide assistance, to facilitate the change that was required, did he have the will? Did he have the energy?

Teller had become even more convinced of the continuing downward spiral of the institution during the previous twenty-four hours of this “break,” when one of his department chairs, a very talented person in the sciences, informed him that she was leaving Cascadia at the end of the current academic year. She had just accepted a teaching position in a neighboring state. This would be the second major loss to that department during the year, and Teller interpreted the development as yet another sign of the institution’s decreasing viability. When an organization keeps losing its best and brightest (and this was part of a pattern of continuing massive turnover, with three top-level administrators also leaving during the Fall quarter alone), when anyone who has an escape route uses it, then there is something definitely very rotten, as they say, in the State of Cascadia.

Of course, Teller continued to have his own struggles with the college’s leadership. For although Dr. Mennace was the chief instructional officer on campus (at least for the time being), he bore little similarity to Teller with respect to education, experience, philosophy or interpersonal skills. In terms of both personal and professional background, Teller and Mennace came from vastly different worlds. Whereas Teller was (among many things) a researcher, scholar, intellectual, therapist and consensus-builder, Mennace embraced a military model, viewing himself a field commander in a theatre of action. While Teller listened, Mennace gave orders. The following relationships seemed to apply: Teller/Mennace = comedy/tragedy; yin/yang; order/chaos. In other words: an obvious mismatch (given that there seemed to be no way to “complement” the Mennace paradigm).

Not surprisingly, the matter of leadership-style differences manifested themselves on a regular basis, and this had happened again during the holiday hiatus. In the case of a faculty member who was apparently skirting some safety rules, Mennace (being “the decider” that he is) expressed an inclination toward summary dismissal. Teller was nothing short of appalled, as he argued for a more (humane) developmental, due-process kind of approach.

Teller was extremely grateful that the holiday was finally here. Perhaps he could put these struggles aside for a bit. He was going home, to stay away from the office and the instability of the campus for an entire ten-day stint. Teller wanted to relax. To breathe. To spend some time with friends. And to prepare his own escape: he had some job applications he intended to complete.

Bush Talks Options

I haven’t made up my mind yet about more troops…Hypothetical questions – I’m not going to answer those today…. I will tell you, we are looking at all options, and one of those options is… more troops.

[George W. Bush, December 20, 2006]

Do you remember? Wasn’t it just last month that we were deliriously and deliciously enjoying the results of the election…and its aftermath? On the national scene, we were able to elect both a Democratically-controlled House and Senate. And in Oregon, both houses went solidly Democratic as well. Bush-buddy Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is, of course, gone, replaced by an individual, Robert Gates, who so far has projected every appearance, especially during his Senate hearing, of being able to distinguish reality from fantasy.

So, tell me: why are we still getting rhetoric from W that sounds as if he’s going to ignore both the will of the people and the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, to only, perhaps, send in more troops? What freakin’ planet is this guy from? And, he’s going to increase the size of the military? This is his plan?

During yesterday’s press conference, Bush indicated, as straight-faced as one is able to muster in such circumstances, that “I am willing to follow a path that leads to victory… Victory in Iraq is achievable.”

Oh. My. God.

Winter Solstice

Here’s a shot taken at Mt. Tabor Park in Portland early last March…just as there was the hint of spring.

Ah, spring: it’s all we (or at least I) have to look forward to right now, as the winter solstice, tomorrow, brings us to the new, bleak, all-too-long, dark season. It’s wet, dreary, and bone-chilling cold here in Roseburg today as I write this. Winter is only just arriving, and here I am dreaming of the time of renewal that begins three months from now!

As I contemplate living, alone, through the rest of the holiday season here in southern Cascasdia, I’m thinking of the City of Roses…the place I endured a love/hate relationship with the last two years. Here are a few memories I have of that place:

Some Things I Miss About Portland

• Living in my (rented) house

• My friends & colleagues 

• KINK FM Radio

• My anonymity

• Low (relatively speaking, that is) gas prices

• Powell’s Bookstore

• PDX

• Mt. Tabor Park and the view

• All the movie theaters & the large movie selection

• Malls that are malls

• Kinko’s, Starbucks, Noah’s Bagels, and assorted-other convenience spots

Some Things I Definitely Don’t Miss

• Traffic

• The east wind

• Freezing rain

• The prison-like campus buildings

• Worrying about personal safety

• High prices on car/home insurance

• Crowds (especially this time of year)

• Getting lost

• Pervasive panhandling

• DEQ inspections

Teller’s Plight

Teller rarely dreamed. Or, more accurately, he only occasionally remembered his dreams. Even when he woke up in the middle of the night with the awareness of particularly vivid images in his mind, and with the serious intent to remember what had just been happening, absolutely no memory was left by the time morning arrived. Whereas other folks seemed to retain their dreams and talk about them a lot, Teller always remained silent during those kinds of conversations.

So, it was particularly interesting recently when Teller found himself, in the deepest, darkest part of the night, at his former home in the big city (in the most northern part of Cascadia). As he entered the living room from the bedroom that served as his office, he was astounded to see a huge animal occupying the space. While paralyzed in place at the sight of this beast (what was this thing? could it, gasp, be a monster guinea pig?), Teller had some time to process in his head the thought that this thing was actually more than huge, it was unbelievably gigantic. It more-than-filled the entire room: yes, it seemed to be bigger than the room itself, and when the beast (was there really anything else it could be called?) inhaled, the house expanded, and when it exhaled (it had awful breath!), the house contracted. And, amazingly, although this was a sixty-year-old wooden structure, the building seemed to not make any noise while it rhythmically responded to the animal’s breath. The living room, actually the house itself, was a supple, tight-fitting body-glove for this beast.

As Teller listened, spell-bound, to the animal’s respirations, he thought, somewhat detached and analytically, hmmmmm, what is going on here? This is really interesting… 

However, while Teller’s mind was trying to adjust to the reality of this thing in his house, and frozen in place thinking about what this all might mean, the giant animal noticed Teller’s diminutive presence. The beast looked at Teller, and Teller looked at it; their eyes locked. Teller’s demeanor was mostly neutral as he adjusted to this startling new development, though the beast’s face (somehow Teller thought he could make out the features of the face well enough) took on an expression of true curiosity: a sort of “cock your head” kind of reaction, as a housecat might make when suspecting a mouse is somewhere around.

But, the expression of simple curiousness rapidly disappeared, replaced by one of a predator sighting new prey: the look of a carnivore anticipating its next meal. Teller recognized the expression, and his rational mind told him to run. This is not someplace I should be, he thought. But his feet, somehow, were superglued to the hardwood floor; he simply could not move.

Teller knew a little bit about guinea pigs, and thought he remembered they were not carnivorous, but rather herbivorous. (How he could even be thinking this, though, at a time that should have been utter panic, he did not understand.) However, this was obviously not your average guinea pig. Who ever heard of a guinea pig as big as a house? He guessed, by the look on the beast’s face, that its size was indicative of its overall abnormality, and that this particular non-garden-variety guinea pig was, indeed, a killer looking for someone to eat.

Teller turned. Finally. He knew he had to make a run for it. There was no other option other than being devoured by this rodent of mythic proportions. However, just as he took his first step, the beast was finally ready to make its move. Teller immediately felt himself being lifted up by the scruff of the neck. The back of the neckband of his t-shirt was in the beast’s mouth, and, as Teller was lifted up, he started to gag and choke. I sure did overdid the analysis part this time, Teller thought to himself. I should have made a dash for it a LOT sooner.

The beast knew it was in total control now. Its next meal was trapped with nowhere to go. With this fact confidently in mind, the beast, incredibly, decided to treat itself to a nap first and enjoy the meal, that is Teller, upon waking. With Teller dangling from his black and orange (“Beaver,” another kind of rodent, how ironic) t-shirt, the beast carried him down into the basement, while all the time, the house oozed around the beast to accommodate its immense size.

The beast was apparently skilled at keeping trapped prey in its mouth and sleeping at the same time — so promptly dozed off. Teller was virtually apoplectic, with a very high level of adrenaline coursing through his veins, and, of course, scared out of his wits. He knew he was toast when the beast awoke. But, what to do? Here he was: trapped in the teeth of a sleeping beast, down in the cold, dank basement, in the middle of the night, with no prospect of being saved. It seemed like his life was over. What a way to go, he thought. A monster guinea pig; this is my fate.

But wait: was there a noise upstairs? Was there somebody else around? Was it possible that he could be saved? Can I call for help without waking the beast? What do I do now? …were all questions that raced though his mind.

He knew he had to act. And act swiftly. He had no idea who or what might be making a noise upstairs, but he had to try and make his plight known. He needed to be saved…so he summoned all he had and, literally, screamed: HEEEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPP!

And, of course, with this, Teller screamed himself awake.

During the next half hour or so, while he tried to calm himself down (and waited, rather anxiously, for the police to arrive — thinking that certainly a neighbor had reported the screaming), he resolved to not do so much obsessing, during any given evening, about the challenges of the next work day. On this particular occasion, Teller had an early morning appointment with Cascadia College’s Provost, Dr. Mennace, and he just knew he must have been processing this in his subconscious during the night.

Teller really needed to work on letting go.

The Flu-Shot Debate

There are plenty of arguments surrounding both sides of the great flu-shot debate. So I ask: Should I get one? Or should I not?

I have to consider that lots of folks ask good, pointed questions about the process, such as, “why would I want to put toxic chemicals and virus strains grown on living tissue into my body?”

That’s really not a bad thing to ponder, is it?

But here’s the deal: even though I have a passing familiarity with the issues, and I certainly like to avoid putting terribly nasty things into my physical self whenever possible, I’ve had a flu shot every year since 1990 and I really haven’t regretted it. I’m under the impression that they work for me, and I suppose that’s about as important as anything.

In the winter of 1989-90 I was living in Corvallis and working in Monmouth. The season went along fairly normally until, finally, in February, I got a really bad case of the flu for the second year in a row. I thought I was gonna die! That summer I moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where the upcoming winter was certainly going to be more challenging for me (than any Oregon winter had been for twenty years). I got a flu shot that fall at the Indiana University Health Center, and I’ve followed through with a shot every year since then.

Even when it’s been difficult…remember the vaccine shortage of a couple of years ago? I thought, in 2004, that I may have to forgo the usual flu-shot ritual. However it happened, the shortage started to ease up a bit, though, and some of us “at-risk” (read “older”) folks finally, in late December, were able to get in for our shots. I remember standing in line at the GetAFluShot.com location on 102nd Avenue in SE Portland, thinking “who are all these old people?” And, “why do I belong to this group?”

At any rate, I ended up getting a flu shot, even in that problematic year.

These past few weeks I went through the usual, yearly, mild debate I have with myself about getting the shot…and then, today, I went in to do it. The thing is, ever since I’ve started getting a flu shot, I have not had a case of the flu that even comes close to the cases I had the last two years when I had no flu shot.

Maybe, at this point, it borders on superstition. Still…

Massage

I’m always on the lookout for things (products, therapies, supplements, drugs, etc.) to assist me with my chronic-pain issues. Lately, my back problems have taken a turn for the worse and I now have fairly extreme muscular tension not only in my low-back but the upper-back and shoulders as well. Recently I’ve made trips to my out-of-town chiropractor, consulted again with my primary care physician about Chronic Myofascial Pain, and, blessedly, found a gifted massage therapist here (who I saw for the first time last week). I’ve had noticeable improvement since the massage, and I have another appointment scheduled for this week.

Also, I’ve had on hand, for a few weeks now, a “Thera Cane.” It’s a rather strange-looking contraption (as you can see). I’ve been more conscientious during the last few days in learning how to use this device, and have developed a routine of massaging my own back with it at least twice a day. I think this approach is helping. It’s available from Amazon.com, if you’re so inclined to give this kind of thing a try.

The Budding Novelist

Me? A “budding novelist?” That’s what one reader of this blog labeled me today after reading Teller’s Tale. My oh my, wouldn’t it be great if, one day, I penned (keyboarded?) a work of fiction that found its way to your nearest Borders?!

I must admit, writing that last entry was a lot of fun, and the words (on that topic, at least) seemed to flow quite a bit easier when using the third person. Curious, eh? I wouldn’t be surprised if ol’ Teller happened to make additional appearances on these pages now and then.

I was inspired to try the Teller experiment after going to see Stranger Than Fiction one more time on Saturday. While I’ve written lots and lots of narrative in the first person, including this blog and a significant portion of my dissertation, the thought occurred to me, while watching this movie, that a third-person narration just might be worth a try.

Teller’s Tale

Teller, simply, didn’t know what to do.

His life, it seemed, was at an impasse. Any way he turned seemed to be a dead end. Most days, he felt as if he were living a work of fiction: more specifically, as a character in a tepid novel written with little sense of direction or plot. Certainly, the ridiculous nature of his existence couldn’t be real. How, he often asked himself, could this possibly be my life?

Teller identified a lot with the character of Harold Crick in the recent movie Stranger Than Fiction: a person whose moments in life, the significant and mundane ones, were all but indistinguishable. Teller existed, in recent times, within a narrow range of experience from neutral to negative. If this were an actual life he was engaged in, surely it belonged to someone else.

Surely it must.

Because: here he was, this year, at Cascadia College, located in a little town in southern Cascadia. How did this happen? It was absurd, really. Yes, everything about his existence at this point was absurd. That plainly was the word for it.

Even the name of the college, Cascadia, was just too weird. This was what the campus in Bernard Malamud’s 1961 novel, A New Life, was called. In that story, a professor (Samuel Levin, steeped in the liberal arts) finds himself teaching at the fictional Cascadia, an agricultural college with traditions much different than he was accustomed to. Struggling to overcome past adversities, Levin relocates and takes the teaching job in a far-off place in an attempt to start his life over. It is a place so foreign, however, that Levin finds he must have been attracted to a mirage. His struggles, not unpredictably, continue on. You can run, as they say, but you cannot hide.

So, here he, Teller, was. He was trying mightily, after a couple of job losses, to put his life in order. Unlike Levin, though, he was not a teacher (any longer). He was now an academic administrator, and held the position of Dean of Faculty at the real-life Cascadia College. A small campus in an isolated, rural setting. A place so entirely different that his past experiences had ill-prepared him for what he found. Teller had earned his doctorate at a big-time Big Ten campus of over 35,000 students. And now, here he was, attempting to function in a place where the entire little city barely scratched the 20,000 mark, with no diversity to speak of at all. This was not a college town. The place felt stiflingly-small and claustrophobic. And amazingly conservative.

Further, the college was in a condition that he had not really appreciated.

From the start, he found his administrative peers friendly enough people. They weren’t really bad folks. But, too, Teller wasn’t sure they were the right ones to actually run a college. Teller found he did not fit so well with them. So he spent as much time as he could amongst his “own kind” … i.e., the faculty. Teller’s span of control was fairly wide-reaching on campus; he lived with the humanities folks (that’s where his office was located), but was in charge of all the liberal arts and sciences. These people were the ones who not only intellectually engaged him, but also shared their stories and lives with him.

Sure, Teller found that there were some good aspects to all that sharing. He was, after all, able to talk with them about a wide range of topics: reactions and replication; reading and reasoning; rocks and rhymes; language and logic; peace, prose and philosophy; equations and equality; literature and liberals; Iraq and irony; politics and pooh-bahs. But mostly what everyone talked about (at least with Teller) was how to cope: namely, how to manage their lives given the massive number of changes the college had undergone in the last few years, including several presidents, leadership styles, and unclear expectations.

The net effect of all that change, Teller discovered, was that most everyone was off-center most all the time. And there was little trust, might say none, between the faculty and administration. Teller, of course, as the Dean, lived his professional life at the intersection of faculty and administration and their issues. So, if the conflict on campus were the Gunfight at the OK Corral, then Teller was in the crossfire. It didn’t take long before he found himself gravely wounded.

Totally dismayed at the current state of the campus, and while expending inordinate amounts of energy to keep from being injured any further, Teller concluded that there simply was no way to live in between these two warring groups. Although he believed himself to be the consummate diplomat, none of the gunslingers involved in this fight seemed to be much interested in letting their weapons cool and engage in team- or trust-building.

Teller, simply, didn’t know what to do.

On Integrity

I recently provided some observations about the Four-Fold Way and the difficulty level associated with the concept of surrender. Now, don’t get me wrong: I continue to think that letting go of outcome is truly a hard thing to do. Wow, yes, of course.

However, recent events have me thinking a lot about the difficulty of, and price associated with, maintaining one’s integrity – and what it means to continue to speak one’s own truth in the face of remarkable resistance. That’s what it feels like I’ve been doing lately, and, frankly, I’m exhausted.

In a meeting two weeks ago, I found myself, unexpectedly, on the hot seat. Our CEO dropped by, sat down (as a result of an impromptu invitation), and joined us in a group discussion; as fate would have it, I wound up being the featured attraction. I was asked, at least a couple of times, for my views regarding some of our challenges, and, since I was specifically prompted, I answered directly and honestly. I told about my personal experience of trying to function at the nexus of two warring factions (i.e., with great levels of difficulty and stress); of an organization that lacks trust in its leadership (two individuals specifically); and of a place that is “stuck” and in dire need of a focused, protracted healing process.

I spoke for almost an hour on this occasion, in front of a small group that included a handful of the organization’s leaders. I received verbal support from only one other person, and even that was quite tentative. I felt very much alone. Isolated. And somewhat afraid.

Just that one hour totally drained me. To speak out loud a reality that is in opposition to a group’s is very hard work. It reminds me a lot of the “obedience to authority” social-psychology experiments, conducted in the 1960s by Stanley Milgram. The primary value of Milgram’s work was documentation for the willingness of individuals to engage in activities contrary to their own consciences, simply upon the command of an authority figure. Of course, I feel the desire to conform to the press of the environment and “go along” – who among us does not want to live in harmony with others around them? Especially our “bosses?” Certainly I am not immune to such forces.

I would love to be able to tell people what they want to hear. To be able to do what they want me to do. To conform. To fit in. To belong. Who doesn’t want that?

To resist. To persist. Steadfastness. To remain true to oneself. Honesty. Integrity.

Difficult. Taxing. Necessary.

Be A Duck

Aptly entitled “AZDUCK,” this huge, somewhat unsightly (but still colorful), ceramic (I think) sculpture now resides in the Oakway Mall in Eugene. I snapped this with my new little Nikon COOLPIX S7c while up there last Friday. Although I currently “live” in Roseburg, since I moved here in July I have spent an inordinate amount of time on I-5 between the two cities.

As the new job search season begins to heat up, I find I keep thinking about the position at the University of Oregon that I’ve applied for. Could I possibly, possibly end up back in Eugene? Wouldn’t that be just ducky?

Good Stuff Happens

In keeping with the happiness theme that I wrote about yesterday, this morning I started to make a list of the “good things” that happened. By noon, I had three already:

• One of my coworkers stopped by, closed the door, and ran a number of ideas by me. It was a very good use of my listening, relationship and leadership skills.

• The same person said: “do you know how much you’re appreciated here?”

• Another individual complimented me on the two photographs that have appeared on this blog in the last few days.

All of this felt incredibly good. I stopped the list-keeping with these three items, but other good stuff happened as well. (I should pay more attention to this than I do!)

Increasing Happiness

There was a report in the popular press this last week about a “mental exercise” aimed at increasing happiness. The essence of the technique is to “every night, think of three good things that happened during the day and analyze why they occurred.”

Sounds rather too simplistic, doesn’t it?

However, a self-described “chronic worrier” quoted in the article by AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, reported that “the quality of my dreams … changed, I never have trouble falling asleep and I … feel happier…”

Apparently there is some research evidence to support the conclusion that this approach may, indeed, contribute to increased happiness, not only for a day or two, but over a longer term.

As the article indicates, “a widely accepted view has been that people are stuck with a basic setting on their happiness thermostat.” That is certainly a premise I’ve tended to operate on, using my own life experience as an example. Maybe that isn’t necessarily so?

Can something this simple be effective at all ? Stranger things have happened, I suppose!

Surrender

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future (Steve Miller, 1976)

In the introduction to his book Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn observes (and then asks), “whatever you wind up doing, that’s what you’ve wound up doing. Whatever you’re thinking right now, that’s what’s on your mind. Whatever has happened to you, it has already happened. The important question is, how are you going to handle it? In other words, ‘Now what?’”

These questions have been much on my mind lately, as I find myself not having escaped, the least little bit, the chaotic, unstable nature of my existence. In 2004, after a job loss, I moved 120 miles to the north and spent two years in yet another organization rife with turbulence. Then, this year, I moved 180 miles south and find myself in an even bigger predicament. What the heck is going on? I have wondered if it’s more than just the fiscally-challenged and politically-unpredictable environment of Oregon higher education; maybe it’s me?

In any event, here I am. One life challenge after another continues to appear, and I have to, everyday, figure out, “now what?”

I have written earlier about how to cope with life in an addictive organization. And I’ve suggested that the Four-Fold Way (namely, Be Present, Pay Attention, Tell the Truth, and Be Open to Outcome) provides a good set of guidelines to follow in managing the emotional minefield of a truly unhealthy workplace. As I continue to attempt to apply these principles to my day-to-day existence, I find life to be (still!) a never-ending challenge.

I continue to be present for, and pay attention to, the people who seek me out and want to talk about their struggles. I speak my own truth, privately and publicly. And, though mindful of the risk, I do my absolute best to maintain my integrity. I guess the most difficult Way of the four-fold, is that of surrender. I am thinking that since I have not let go of outcome (that is, I have not really surrendered to the forces of the universe), I continue to struggle mightily. My body is a mass of stress symptoms, tight as a knot because I am unable to let go. My mind can say, “surrender, Jim,” but, undeniably, there is some large and finite part of me that doesn’t know how.

If I could let go, I could relax. If I could relax, I could ease these symptoms. If I could ease these symptoms, I could let go. Round and round I go, where I stop, I still don’t know…

Slice of America

An attempt to represent a small, small slice of this country: the golden (weathered yellow?) arches; the flag; fresh snow in the hills. I found this shot on Tuesday morning as the countryside exhibited a newness and freshness not often experienced here; our little “storm” provided a thin, white blanket for the cold, cruel world.

Stress-Related Stuff

First to consider, I suppose, is the age-old question: the chicken or the egg: which came first? An interesting intellectual exercise, no doubt, but isn’t the energy expended in trying to decipher this dilemma rather futilely spent?

How about if we let folks with more time on their hands tinker around with this particular debate, ok?

Next up: Nick Hornby asks, in his thought-provoking novel High Fidelity, when considering some of his favorite songs (“Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” “When Love Breaks Down,” “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself,” etc.): “[w]hat came first—the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?” (pp. 24-25)

Again, more of life’s great questions that I think I’ll leave to the pundits and amateur therapists & philosophers out there who focus on our popular culture.

All of this is just a weak lead-in to where I’m really going with this self-reflective, self-indulgent discourse today: my own questions about chronic pain and depression. In a 2003 Stanford University study, not surprisingly, the correlation between chronic pain and depression was found to be quite high: sufferers of one likely needed treatment for both. “The question now is which comes first: the depression or the pain,” they asked. Of course, I think it likely works both ways. For example, just as depression is common among individuals who suffer from lower-back pain, it also appears to be true that depressed individuals can develop lower-back pain.

In my case, I have lived rather my entire life wondering about such issues. After approximately 40 years of chronic physical pain (beginning in my early 20s), the downturns to my physical self are quite typically mirrored in a mood decline. And, then again, when an outside entity or event exerts a change to my emotional well-being, my body almost always follows. The peaks and valleys for my affective state completely parallel my physical ups and downs.

In sum, this serves to remind me that I need to revisit a book I started a little while back, and then subsequently got sidetracked from…Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping. It’s a rather large and scary tome, but valuable information is contained therein, nonetheless. I need more of what’s in there, I think.

Comfort, Care & Celebration

I was reflecting today on the myriad of Thanksgiving Days I’d spent alone, and on some that I’d spent with special people in my life. One of the most memorable was twenty years ago today: Thanksgiving Day 1986…isn’t it amazing how time flies.[ohmygod: Ronald Reagan was president on that day!] It was surely an entirely different world for me then.

I was living in Corvallis at the time, as I had for the previous 16 years. I had moved there to go to grad school in chemistry at Oregon State University (OSU) during the summer of 1970, and continued to reside there after I finished up that advanced degree; it had become home more than anyplace ever had. Although I arrived in Corvallis as a college graduate, I actually did a whole lot of my “growing up” in that town during my 20s and 30s. I was divorced there in 1978. I started my own path of personal growth and development in a serious way there when I entered therapy with Linda Carroll in 1980. I began the OSU master’s degree program in counseling in 1982. I went through an alcohol diversion program there in 1983-84 as part of my DUII experience. And I met J there in 1985.

Linda and J are two of the (top three) people that have had the most influence on my life’s path. With J, it was in the form of a significant-other relationship that lasted a couple of years, encompassing that Thanksgiving Day twenty years ago.

J had just separated from her husband in late October that year, and ended up living in the same apartment complex as me. When she left her marriage the nature of our relationship dramatically changed, and we were in a very close and intense phase by Thanksgiving. As I recall, we rented about six or eight movies to watch that weekend; it was in the time before we even owned our own VCR, so, I remember, we rented the machine to play the movies as well. (Ah, the good old days!) I only remember one of the movies we watched that day, namely Sophie’s Choice. Very moving.

It was a gray and wet and cold weekend outside, but it was a close and intimate one in: characterized by a level of comfort and care and celebration that I have rarely found in my life, before or since.

Turkey Day Again

It was exactly a year ago when I started my blog. On that 2005 Day-of-the-Turkey, I’m pretty sure when I got up that morning, I did not know that that was the day I was going to begin this journey. But, at some point, as I sat home alone, I did a little exploring on the internet, browsing a few blogs out there that were being published by “ordinary folks” like me, and decided that this was something I could try. Amazingly, I’ve been at it ever since. And, some of you have been readers ever since I let you know I was doing this. For that, I thank you a whole bunch!

I published 150 posts to the first version of TechnoMonk’s Musings between November 24, 2005, and October 25, 2006. Those entries are still available at technomonk.us. In the days since I abandoned that blog for this one with a new look and feel, I’ve added 18 new posts here at technomonksmusings.com. Hence, the stats come out to 168 entries in the past 365 days, for an average of one post every 2.2 days. Not bad for a rookie, I guess!

Update on 2012-01-27 18:42 by TechnoMonk

Dear Reader: The old blog, formerly at technomonk.us, has been deactivated, and most of the entries from that site have now been migrated over to this one.

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

On an otherwise cold, gray, blustery, wet and miserable day, a few rays of sunshine poke through during the late afternoon. If sunshine and warmth are possible on a day like this, anything is…

I know, I know: this sounds uncharacteristically optimistic of me, doesn’t it!?

More News From the N-Zone

In my most recent entry regarding the experiment with low-dose Naltrexone (LDN), I mentioned that there seemed to be some improvement in my CMP (chronic myofascial pain) symptoms, though I had, at the same time, developed some additional pains after 12 days on the drug. Here’s another report on my LDN experience.

I believe the LDN trial was probably worthwhile, but, for me, it just didn’t work out. The additional pain symptoms overtook any possible gains I was noticing just one day after my last report. So, after 13 consecutive nights on the drug, I discontinued it for the next two. Amazingly, after backing away from the medication for just that short period of time, the tendonitis symptoms in my arms began to recede. I had been reading on the LDN listerve that some individuals need to start LDN at an even lower dose (1.5 mg per night) than I had been taking (3 mg) in order for the body to adjust. So I started back on the drug, taking one pill every other night for the next two weeks (another 7 pills). All told, I took 20 of the 30 pills I had been prescribed, though I have now stopped altogether.

I am completely distressed to report that I am in worse shape than when I started; the last pill I took was six nights ago and I’m still looking for an improvement in the new and additional pain symptoms that ultimately resulted. Although my arms have seemingly recovered, I am now experiencing more back pain than ever before, and in new locations. It has me rather scared about what I may have done to myself, though the dose of the drug was so low and the time period so short, I’m hoping that if these new symptoms are at all related to the drug (and not to the hugely increased stress in my life in the last week), then I can look forward to the pain backing off in the next few days. However, as of yet that has not happened, and the pain level is really getting in the way of normal life. I took a day and a half away from work this last week because of it, and I’m likely going to need some more time away tomorrow if I can get in for an appointment with my chiropractor in Eugene. I have decided that I need help to deal with this.

My advice to anyone trying the LDN approach is to be very watchful and mindful of what you’re doing. At the first sign of unpleasant side effects (which are supposed to be practically non-existent, but in my case was not so), critically evaluate what you might be doing with/to your body. LDN was not approved for many of the things it’s being used to treat. Be careful out there.

Indicators

I’ve previously written about my struggles with “fitting in.” This has been another one of those weeks, and especially one of those days, when I’ve re-engaged with that issue. I’m in a pretty much “glass-half-empty” kind of space tonight as I contemplate a few indicators of a life that’s not working all that well at the moment. So, here they are: how you might tell your life could be in better shape…

• Losing a job that you’d had for nearly a decade. Being ignored, unappreciated and unceremoniously dismissed in the process.

• Spending the best hours of every day on the downhill side of life working and looking for work. (Well, and writing the occasional blog entry.)

• Worrying about health. Worrying about safety, security, and stability. Worrying about worrying to death.

• Finding work that is merely temporary. Being treated like a temp.

• Having (or at least taking) no time to stop and smell the roses. Having no time to produce art. Having no time to read a novel.

• Barely enough energy to get out of bed, lots of times, just imagining the difficulty level of the day ahead.

• Constant, chronic myofascial pain, accompanied frequently by headaches and symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. Other strange aches, pains & afflictions and occasional infections.

• Coming home after work and always finding that it’s another evening alone. And, consequently, anticipating that dying and death will also come very alone.

• Spending part of every evening taking a hot bath, trying to soak away some of the pain. Easing into the hot water, being overwhelmed with hopelessness. Feeling, fighting, the inclination to sob.

• Feeling the large part, of most every day, like a misfit.