Lessons in Courage & Compassion - Chiune Sugihara, Japanese Diplomat

I found this story while researching something today and was really inspired by it.

Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara certainly falls into the category of "unsung hero" for most of his life, but what is really inspiring is his courage and compassion.

He acted with honour, dignity, humility and did the right thing with great consequences for himself and ultimately major sacrifice.

An impressive story, it contains several lessons:

1. Don't be a burden to others
2. Take care of others
3. Don't expect rewards for your goodness

And as Chiune Sugihara was quoted as saying:

"Do what is right because it is right, and leave it alone."

Here is the story of Chuine Sugihara:

WHO WAS CHIUNE SUGIHARA?

For the last half century people have asked, 'Who was Chiune Sugihara?" They have also asked, 'Why did he risk his career, his family fortune, and the lives of his family to issue visas to Jewish refugees in Lithuania?" These are not easy questions to answer, and there may be no single set of answers that will satisfy our curiosity or inquiry.

Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara always did things his own way. He was born on January 1, 1900. He graduated from high school with top marks and his father insisted that he become a medical doctor. But Chiune's dream was to study literature and live abroad. Sugihara attended Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University to study English. He paid for his own education with part-time work as a longshoreman and tutor.

One day he saw an item in the classified ads. The Foreign Ministry was seeking people who wished to study abroad and might be interested in a diplomatic career. He passed the difficult entrance exam and was sent to the Japanese language institute in Harbin, China. He studied Russian and graduated with honors. He also converted to Greek Orthodox Christianity. While in Harbin he met and married a Caucasian woman. They were later divorced. The cosmopolitan nature of Harbin, China opened his eyes to how diverse and interesting the world was.

He then served with the Japanese controlled government in Manchuria, in northeastern China. He was later promoted to Vice Minister of the Foreign Affairs Department. He was soon in line to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Manchuria.

While in Manchuria he negotiated the purchase of the Russian-owned Manchurian railroad system by the Japanese. This saved the Japanese government millions of dollars, and infuriated the Russians.

Sugihara was disturbed by his government's policy and the cruel treatment of the Chinese by the Japanese government. He resigned his post in
protest in 1934.

In 1938 Sugihara was posted to the Japanese diplomatic office in Helsinki, Finland. With World War II looming on the horizon, the Japanese government sent Sugihara to Lithuania to open a one-man consulate in 1939. There he would report on Soviet and German war plans. Six months later, war broke out and the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania. The Soviets ordered all consulates to be closed. It was in this context that Sugihara was confronted with the requests of thousands of Polish Jews fleeing German-occupied Poland.


SUGIHARA, THE MAN
Sugihara's personal history and temperament may contain the key to why he defied his government's orders and issued the visas. Sugihara favored his mother's personality. He thought of himself as kind and nurturing and artistic. He was interested in foreign ideas, religion, philosophy and language. He wanted to travel the world and see everything there was, and experience the world. He had a strong sense of the value of all human life. His language skills show that he was always interested in learning more about other peoples.

Sugihara was a humble and understated man He was self-sacrificing, self-effacing and had a very good sense of humor. Yukiko, his wife, said he found it very difficult to discipline the children when they misbehaved. He never lost his temper.

Sugihara was also raised in the strict Japanese code of ethics of a turn-of-the century samurai family. The cardinal virtues of this society were oya koko (love of the family), kodomo no tamane (for the sake of the children), having gidi and on (duty and responsibility, or obligation to repay a debt), gaman (withholding of emotions on the surface), gambate (internal strength and resourcefulness), and haji no kakate (don't bring shame on the family). These virtues were strongly inculcated by Chiune's middle-class rural samurai family.

It took enormous courage for Sugihara to defy the order of his father to become a doctor, and instead follow his own academic path. It took courage to leave Japan and study overseas. It took a very modern liberal Japanese man to marry a Caucasian woman and convert to Christianity. It took even more courage to openly oppose the Japanese military policies of expansion in the 1930s.


Thus Sempo Sugihara was no ordinary Japanese man and may have been no ordinary man. At the time that he and his wife Yukiko thought of the plight of the Jewish refugees, he was haunted by the words of an old samurai maxim: "Even a hunter cannot kill a bird which flies to him for refuge."


Forty-five years after he signed the visas, Chiune was asked why he did it. He liked to give two reasons: "They were human beings and they needed help," he said. "I'm glad I found the strength to make the decision to give it to them." Sugihara was a religious man and believed in a universal god of all people. He was fond of saying, "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't I would be disobeying God."


SUGIHARA'S CHOICE

Time began to run out for the refugees as Hitler tightened the net around Eastern Europe. The refugees came upon an idea which they presented to Sugihara. They discovered that the two Dutch colonial islands, Curacao and Surinam, situated in the Caribbean, did not require formal entrance visas, and the Dutch consul informed them that he would be willing to stamp their passports with a Dutch visa to that destination. Furthermore, the Dutch consul had received permission from his superior in Riga to issue such visas and he was willing to issue these visas to anyone who was willing to pay a fee.

To get to these two islands, one needed to pass through the Soviet Union. The Soviet consul, who was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, agreed to let them pass on one condition: that in addition to the Dutch visa, they would also obtain a transit visa from the Japanese as they would have to pass through Japan on their way to Curacao or Surinam.

Sugihara had a difficult decision to make. He was a man who was brought up in the strict and traditional discipline of the Japanese. He was a career diplomat, who suddenly had to make a very difficult choice. On one hand, he was bound by the traditional obedience he had been taught all his life. On the other hand, he was a samurai who had been told to help those who were in need. He knew that if he defied the orders of his superiors, he would be fired and disgraced, and would probably never work for the Japanese government again. This would result in extreme financial hardship for his family in the future.

Chiune and his wife Yukiko Sugihara even feared for their lives in making this decision. They agreed that they had no choice in the matter. Mr. Sugihara said, "I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't, I would be disobeying God." Mr. Sugihara was a humble man and, when asked why he did it, he often replied: "I saw people in distress, and I was able to help them, so why shouldn't I?" Mrs. Sugihara remembered that "the refugee's eyes were so intense and desperate- especially the women and children. There were hundreds of people standing outside." Fifty-four years after their decision, Mrs. Sugihara said: "human life is very important, and being virtuous in life is important as well." This was a decision that would ultimately save the second largest number of Jews in World War II. They chose to help the thousands who thronged the gates of his consulate in Kaunas.

The choice faced by the Sugiharas was a moral dilemma that thousands of consuls all over the world faced every day. Few lost sleep in shutting the doors in Jewish faces. These consuls went strictly by the book, and in many cases, were even stricter in issuing visas than their governments required. Countless thousands could have been saved if other consuls had acted more like Sugihara. If there had been 2,000 consuls like Chiune Sugihara, a million Jewish children could have been saved from the ovens of Auschwitz.


VISAS FOR LIFE

For 29 days, from July 31 to August 28, 1940, Mr. and Mrs. Sugihara unflinchingly sat for endless hours signing visas with their own hands. Hour after hour, day after day, during three weeks, they wrote visas. They wrote over 300 visas a day, which would normally be more than one months work for the consul. Yukiko also helped him register these visas. At the end of the day, she would massage his fatigued hands. He did not even stop to eat. His wife supplied him with sandwiches. Sugihara chose not to lose a minute because people were standing in line in front of his consulate day and night for these visas. When some began climbing the fence to get in on the compound, he came out and calmed them down. He promised them that as long as there was a single person left, he would not abandon them.

After receiving their visas, the refugees lost no time in getting on the train that took them to Moscow, and by the trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok. From there, most of them continued to Kobe, Japan. They were allowed to stay in Kobe for several months. They were then sent to Shanghai, China. All of the Polish Jews who were issued visas survived in safety, under the protection of the Japanese government in Shanghai. They survived, thanks to the humanity and courage of Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara. The visas they issued turned out to be passes to the world of the living. When Sugihara had to leave Kaunas for his next post in Berlin, he handed over the visa stamp to a refugee, and many more Jews were granted life.

In 1945, the Japanese government unceremoniously dismissed Chiune Sugihara from the diplomatic service. His career as a diplomat was shattered. He had to start his life over. Sugihara was without a steady job for over a year. Once a rising star in the Japanese foreign service, Chiune Sugihara worked as a part time translator and interpreter. For the last two decades of his life, he worked as a manager for an export company with business in Moscow. This was his fate because he dared to save thousands of human beings from certain death.

Today, 50 years after the event, there may be 40,000 or more people who owe their lives to Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara. Two generations have come after the Sugihara survivors, and they owe their lives to the Sugiharas. All the survivors call him their savior, some consider him a holy man, and some think he was a saint. Yukiko Sugihara recalled that every time she and her husband had met or heard of people they had saved, they felt great satisfaction and happiness. They had no regrets.

After the war, Mr. Sugihara never mentioned or spoke to anyone about his extraordinary deeds. It was not until 1969 that Sugihara was found by a man whom he had helped to save. Soon, many others whom he had saved came forward and testified to the Yad Vashem (Holocaust Memorial) in Israel about his life-saving deeds. The Sugihara survivors sent in hundreds of testimonies on behalf of their savior. After gathering the testimonies from all over the world, the committee at the Yad Vashem realized the enormity of this man's self-sacrifice in saving Jews. Before his death, he received Israel's highest honor. In 1985, he was recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Yad Vashem Martyrs Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem. He was too ill to travel; his wife and son received the honor on his behalf. Further, a tree was planted in his name, and a park in Jerusalem was named in his honor.

He said that he was very happy with the honors. "I think that my decision was humanely correct."

The above text was written by Eric Saul and can be found at this site: http://www.eagleman.com/sugihara/

More on Sugihara at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara 

Αναθεώρηση Part 4: Words . . .

I am unnaturally interested in words and in language - they are crucial to communication which is in turn vital to understanding. And if there is one thing I crave almost more than any other, it is understanding.

To that end words are very important to me, and in looking back at 2011 there are several - admittedly heavy - words which have stood out. (Well . . .you wouldn't be interested in "light words" would you???)

Here they are, my favourite 11 words of 2011:

1. Faith

This is a word I’ve spent lots of time thinking about – and writing about – in 2011. I can’t really define it and I certainly don’t mean it in a religious way, but I think what I mean when use the word faith is the unshakable belief in something for which there is no tangible reason to do so. Belief without proof.

In our 21^st century data driven world of materialism and extreme tangibility, it strikes me that faith is becoming more of a rarity – and yet perhaps we all need faith now more than ever?

2. Courage

I’ve seen a lot of courage in 2011 – and a lot of cowardice, its antonym. I have been both courageous and cowardly myself. I am proud of my courage and ashamed of my cowardice.

During this last year, I have been especially humbled by people who face challenges in their lives which make any I have seem utterly trivial and pathetic – fighting life threatening disease, facing long term unemployment, marriages breaking up, financial ruin, and so on.

Courage is not always easy to find in one’s self – and sometimes we need to be inspired by others or outside influences – but courage, combined with faith, is what it takes to get us through periods of uncertainty, doubt and despair.

To those people who suffer, struggle or fear – take courage. Even lions are afraid sometimes. Don’t give in to cowardice.

3. Compassion

Around two years ago I read a book by the religious historian and philosopher Karen Armstrong. A book about compassion. It had a huge impact on me. Since reading that book I have been much more consciously aware of the importance and value of being compassionate. I believe that as a result I am slightly more compassionate than I was and also slightly more predisposed to increasing my compassion over time.

In simple terms compassion is encapsulated in the mantra “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. It necessitates understanding, empathy, forgiveness and hope. I think it is the most positive force for good in a world full of unnecessary compromise and often evil.

Compassion does not need to become zealousness or dogma, just a matter of simple and quiet reflection from time to time.

4. Self

In reflecting at various points in the year about things such as happiness, satisfaction, peace of mind etc, it has consistently struck me that I, and most people I know, under value  - and thus under attend to and under nourish - a very important relationship. The relationship with our selves.

I wrote about this fairly often in 2011 and on my own personal journey have come to learn more deeply the value of taking care of one’s self. This is not just an act of self-preservation or self-love, but an act of understanding, empathy and trust.

And when one gets better at taking care of one’s self, you get a lot better at taking care of other people – and allowing them to take care of you.

5. Neglect

I have neglected myself and those that I love frequently during 2011.  It is only normal to do so as we are only human and confused most of the time. But neglect is not always a passive condition related only to apathy. It is often very active, driven by self-absorption and selfishness and the results of neglect can be very damaging to ourselves and to others.

The good news (yes, I am a positive person, remember . . .) is that our neglect of ourselves and of others is usually kept in check by little spiritual or physical “post-it” notes which we receive and which prompt us to end our neglect and pay attention.

In our health this is through symptoms, in our relationships, friendships and interactions with the world at large, it can be more complicated, but usually signs of neglect manifest themselves after a while.

My advice is don’t ignore them. Don’t allow yourself to neglect too much or too often, or you will become neglected…

6. Synchronicity / Συνχρονικότητα

I love this word. And I love it in Greek in particular where it has a beautiful flavour. 

It is a Jungian concept which can be basically be defined as ‘coincidence with meaning’ (for my Greek friends "συμπτώσεις που έχουν νόημα")

What I love most about the concept of synchronicity is that it basically denies the existence of luck. If you believe in synchronicity then the things that happen to you, the people that you meet, the places you experience, are all somehow endowed with meaning and import. Almost, but not quite, like destiny.

And what have I got against luck? Well they way we conceive of luck makes it seem so arbitrary and therefore subject to a great deal of unfairness. ("I can’t help it if I’m lucky" . . .from Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan) . . .

I also draw comfort and a sense of purpose from the idea that the things that happen in life happen for a reason. (And my curious part loves to try and figure out what that reason is).

7. Growth

Growth and growing. As a large person it would appear that I have done quite a bit of growing – in all dimensions, but 2011 made me think more about what kind of growth internally one undergoes. No co-incidence I suppose that 2011 saw me I leap over the hurdle of my 40^th birthday and into middle age . . .

But aside from my own reflections, I also observed several other people “grow” in 2011 and some who haven’t yet.

I think one of the important stages of our adulthood is when we realize that it's all down to us. That we’re responsible. That we’re vulnerable. That there ARE NO givens any more. That it is time to put away foolish things. That it is time to GROW THE FUCK UP.

It doesn’t happen overnight – that’s for sure – and there is a tough period of time where people (and I did it a lot, and still do sometimes) PLAY at being grown up – only to retreat to their childish ways where “it doesn’t matter”, where others will take care of things, and where we’ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow. 

Our parents provide the ultimate comfort in this regard, but so do friends, colleagues and lovers – anyone who makes us feel safe and secure so that we can abuse their protection and care until we’re ready to grow up. And some people take a long time to do that – while others are forced into it much more quickly due to circumstance.

Most people are frightened of growing up because at one specific point you have to jump and choose to have faith in yourself and your resources to survive emotionally, practically and financially – and you have to leave the providers of those things behind. The relationship with them changes irrevocably and forever.

I caught up with a good friend recently after a year or so and she started telling me how she had grown up. She had faced the fear, taken the plunge and was a different, much more together person and is ready for the next stage of life. It was so good to see that change and to hear her talk about it.

Similarly it is very tough to watch other people struggling with it or even denying it, externalizing everything into other people’s fault, or complaining about how unfair life is.

Life is what you make it. We all deserve what we deserve in life. Nothing less or more.

Here’s to growing up!

8. Sputnik

I learned the meaning of this word while reading Haruki Murakami’s wonderful book “Sputnik Sweetheart”.

“Sputnik” means “fellow traveller” or “fellow travelling companion” from Russian – although apparently its roots lie in the early Russian translation of the Greek bible from Koine Greek (New Testament Greek) and probably relates to the word “κοινωνειν” which means “fellowship” or the “ability to share a common life”.

I like very much the idea that Plato articulates in the Socratic dialogue “Gorgias” where Socrates affirms that what a bad man lacks is the ability to “κοινωνειν” or to share a common life. This common life Plato goes on to describe in the Republic.

Our ability to find goodness and truth (in ourselves) lies in our ability to share with others.  The others being our sputniks.

9. Tizita

Another literary / musical inspiration – this time from the wonderful “Cutting For Stone” by Abraham Verghese.

In this book I first learned of “Tizita” - an Amharic word from Ethiopia.

 “It can mean, in the first place, memory and the act of memory. Some dictionaries parenthetically add nostalgia, or the memory of loss and longing—and nostalgia certainly evokes the word’s attendant mood, its melancholy, which is discernible in the way Amharic speakers use it even in the most quotidian exchanges. Secondly, tizita refers to one of the scales or modes in secular Ethiopian music, one that conjures up in sonic terms the word’s dictionary meaning of nostalgia. Finally, and incorporating the two, tizita refers to a signature ballad in the Amharic songbook, which always takes the form of an expression of loss. At bottom, tizita is a ballad about the memory of love loss.” 

(Dag Woubshet -Assistant Professor of English at Cornell from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)

In short, it is Ethiopian blues. It also recalls the Sodade (or Saudade) genre from Cape Verde and made popular by the late Cesaria Evora.

tizitash zeweter wode ene eye metah

(First line of the “Tizita” - if you want to know what it means, Google it.)

You don't always know what you'll be longing for- until it's gone

10. Purpose

This was a word I used and thought about a great deal in the second half of the year.

One reason is my obsessive curiosity which drives me to know how things work and what they are for – i.e. what purpose do they serve?

On another level I realized that life has to have a purpose. And that a happy life has to have purpose beyond one’s self. Back to “κοινωνειν” in a way.

I have been thinking about purpose and its relationship to my (self) identity and how our sense of purpose defines us and our actions. Change our purpose, change our actions. Our wants and needs define our choices.

While I am capable of defining many purposes in and for myself, defining just one eludes me. As for purpose beyond just myself, that is much, much more difficult.

11. Forgiveness

I have left my favourite word for last in this list of 11 words.

2011 was a year of forgiveness for me, although forgiveness is something which blessedly comes to me with some ease and naturally. I am – to that degree – a forgiving person.

I have many friends who chastise me for being “too forgiving” – the implication being that I let people walk all over me, am a pushover or am weak. I reject both the accusation and the implication entirely. It neither does me - nor the person I am forgiving - justice. (I do forgive my friends for saying it though.)

Forgiveness is the kindest gift we can give other people. It is compassion encapsulated in a single act. It is very hard to do sometimes, but if we can find a way to do it, it is enormously liberating and healing.

The source of one very heated debate one evening with a large group of friends (the kind of debate and discussion which reminded me of my beloved days in Greece as it took place at around 3am and was fuelled with much wine and passion!) involved me being asked if I could forgive someone who raped and killed my own child. (My answer was “yes – I could” – but it would be one of the hardest acts of forgiveness I could imagine).

I don’t think we can really be selectively forgiving if we want to be truly at peace with ourselves. It’s kind of all or nothing.

Life is too short not to forgive.

I recommend everyone tries it in 2012.

Unplugged . . .Part 2

While I’m “acoustic” I thought I’d take another look at a theme I mulled over in the summer – “The Courage to Live”.

The original piece I wrote was inspired by - and in response to - a part philosophical, part existential question posed by a person very dear to me.

While this second analysis of the subject started with my own musings on dealing with the adversities of life, I found much inspiration from the thoughts of two men – Walter Anderson (an American magazine editor) and Rollo May (an existential psychologist & author).

I came across both men while researching this piece and was struck by Anderson’s very common sense logic and simplicity and by May’s altogether more challenging thinking in his pioneering work in existential psychology.

In particular May’s belief that apathy was the opposite to love and that as humans our unique knowledge that we are to die, liberates the human will to act and to be. In other words, our lives are defined by the knowledge that one day we will die.

We either act against that continually and live, love, act - or we accept it apathetically and let our selves deteriorate to almost non-existence. Either we find the meaning of life inside ourselves, or we accept that life has no meaning, and therefore we as beings are meaningless.

The last time I tackled this subject I focused on optimism as the driver for courage. The ability to see the possible, the positive, the good and the upside. To be hopeful.

I think optimism – of which I am a committed practitioner – is one half of the courage to live. But I think that there is another part to courage that is equally important and perhaps a pre-cursor to optimism. It’s about choosing life – and the things necessary to make that choice . . .

“I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.” - Walter Anderson

To choose life we need courage.

Courage is a big challenge for many of us. That inner strength or confidence to take on something we have no idea will work out, to face a difficult truth or fear, to pass through a difficult period. Where the downside is loss, pain, expense, cost, discomfort or some other misfortune and where the upside may be invisible, or only partially clear. . . that’s quite a big bet for a lot of us, and it’s something we face on an almost daily basis.

Of course most of us find the courage we need for the little things in life through comparative experiences. If this does not work then we turn perhaps to our friends, our families, colleagues, or our partners – but the big things in life are much more difficult.

We need a special kind of courage to deal with those big challenges and fears – we need courage from within.

And I believe courage is born of trust. Optimism may sustain that courage, but for it to be born, it is born of trust.

Trust of ourselves.

“Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” Walter Anderson

It sounds simple, but it isn’t. To trust ourselves we must make ourselves vulnerable to our very own self. We must first expose and then accept our fears, our weaknesses, our challenges and those parts of our selves we would rather ignore or rather run away from.

Not only must we accept them and acknowledge them, we must embrace them. We must bring them close to us and see that they are a part of our “self”.

This is very hard for many of us as it often involves struggling with feelings of guilt, low self-esteem, bitterness, sadness and frequently a feeling of being lost, confused, out of control, consumed and detached from our good selves. These are unpleasant emotions and behaviors at the best of times and we naturally do not want to dwell on them – but dwell on them we must if we are to understand them and accept them.

As we spend time becoming accustomed to our “dark sides”, our fears and our weaknesses, we can begin to contextualize them, and then begin to accept them as part of us.

First we should accept that our fears, weaknesses and occasional bad behaviors are human. They are natural and they are normal. We all have them; they are part of every one of us.

None of us is “damaged goods” just because we are afraid sometimes, just because we are weak occasionally or because we behave badly now and again.

If we are jealous or angry, selfish or harsh, nasty or cold it is only because we are also compassionate and patient, generous and gentle, affectionate and warm.

I believe that to a large degree our personalities are defined by duality  - as it is through contrast we understand what is right and good, and what is wrong and bad. As good defines evil and vice versa, so do our happy and good characteristics define our unhappy and bad ones (and vice versa).

Second, to accept our “selves” as “whole” by acknowledging all of our characteristics and personality traits is not an act of relegation or dismissal. It is an act of forgiveness.

However, forgiveness is not absolution.

To forgive our self is not license or permission to behave without consequence – it is instead to acknowledge our mistakes, our weaknesses and to resolve first to live with them and second to work with them.

Think of coming to the realization that one is overweight for example. To forgive oneself for being overweight is a healthy thing to do. To see that forgiveness as permission to carry on being overweight and neglect oneself is not healthy. To build on the forgiveness of oneself by resolving to lose weight and thus take care of one self better is the healthy response. (A personal example there!)

An alternative might be hurting someone’s feelings. Initially on becoming conscious of this “bad” behavior, we might feel guilty and remorseful. We might even “punish” ourselves in some way – but instead we should forgive ourselves and then build. By which I mean, acknowledge that hurting people happens. We don’t mean to hurt most of the time and when we do so we need to accept it as part of life. An ugly part of life by which we can also understand a more beautiful part like care, affection, nurture (the opposites or contrasts of “hurting someone”). But then we must move on to build and resolve. Why did we hurt that person? What caused it? Can we avoid doing so in the future? Can we at least mitigate the hurt we cause? These kinds of questions – if answered honestly and truly – can help us understand our behavior better – and consequently avoid it (at least more often) if we resolve to.

And there is a good reason for us to go to this trouble of acknowledgment, forgiveness, analysis and resolution . . .

Learning to live with one’s fears, weaknesses and negative behaviors is learning to take care of oneself. It is the act of care for one’s “self” that enables us to grow as people and to find balance and peace.

Taking care of ourselves is the most basic expression of love for our “self” – and in turn the most basic way of reassuring ourselves that we have value, that we are worthy, that we are attractive, desirable and so on.

"To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before."  Rollo May

It will not and cannot prevent us entirely from facing fear or weakness again – but it provides us with the means to begin to be comfortable enough with our “self” to be able to trust and trust provides us with the mechanism with which to deal with our fears and weaknesses – as our trust in others allows us to deal with theirs.

We usually think of trust as something we direct to someone else – and not to ourselves. Not something that relates to our relationship with our “self”. But in fact, no matter how much we may want to, we cannot trust anyone else if we cannot trust our “self”. 

Think of this quotation – again from Walter Anderson:

“We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy”.

Think of the same concepts but placing our “self” in place of “someone”.  If we cannot trust ourselves, how can we trust anyone else?

And if we cannot trust then we cannot love.

I am slightly unusual in this regard in that I place a lot of trust and faith in people based on either instinct or hope or both.  In my professional life it is called “empowerment” and for me it has always been the force that motivates me to do and be my best at work. When I have been trusted I will go the extra mile and more. I do not want to let that person down. As a result of my own experience I tend to trust and empower others. I trust in something I have no reason to – in other words I have faith.

In my personal life it is less about empowerment per se than it is about a desire for engagement, for connection. It is my currency for connection.  I empower someone else to be in my life is perhaps another way of putting it. I have faith in them as another human being that they will act with compassion. I have faith in them.

Many times – both professionally and personally - my trust has been abused, broken or otherwise misplaced, my “currency” stolen, but I cannot help myself and remained committedly optimistic. I believe that to give someone trust based on faith, and without particular knowledge or “testing” is generous and kind– albeit very risky, as it makes one vulnerable. But then that is the nature of trust!

Of course I realize it can be overwhelming for some, but I believe that trust is such a binding connection, such a force for good and so precious, that I cannot hide behind the fear of risk when the return is so energizing and positive. And I hope to God my optimism in this regard is never tainted and turned to cynicism.

Of course trust is not a switch. It’s a slider (think of a mixing desk in a recording studio and all those lovely sliders which slowly increase the volume, the reverb, the bass, the treble etc).

A switch is binary, a slider is dynamic. Trust is a dynamic emotion – not a binary one.

However, while trust can grow gradually and relatively as well as quickly, when it is broken it can sometimes be pretty absolute.

My experience though is that the greater the genuine trust, the greater the capacity for forgiveness.

Trust enables us to overcome our fears. To have courage. To find our faith again

“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.” Mary Manin Morrissey (Empowerment Specialist and “New Thought” Minister)

So to recap:

Through accepting our “self” with the fears and weaknesses we have, we can learn to love our whole self (not just our good self) – because we forgive and resolve. We resolve to take care of our “self” and love our “self” because we conclude that we are worthy of care and love. We provide that love and care to our “self” and we begin to trust our “self” because it is familiar, it no longer frightens us, and we have learned to have faith in it.

So when we need to find the courage to live through the really difficult parts of life, we need to look within ourselves.

If we have learned to accept our fears and weakness, if we have learned to forgive ourselves for those things we have done which we would rather not have done, if we have learned to trust ourselves, then we will find the strength within to be courageous. To find our faith again.

And if we are courageous we will find not only how to live, but also how to love.

Each of us is worth life and worth love. Each of us deserves life and deserves love.

When we can feel and understand why we deserve life and love, we will find the courage to live life, to love and ultimately - to be loved.

So the courage to live is also the courage to love. For to live is to love and to love is to live.

In the words of the renowned psychologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm:

“Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.”

This piece is “αφιερωμένο” to my "Λέαινα"  - I hope this helps you to find the "Play" button. 

Odyssey - the journey to Greece (2011) - Part 7 – Life & Death

There was a great Texan country folk singer by the name of Townes Van Zandt who died in 1997. Townes Van Zandt wrote beautiful songs / poems and performed them with a melancholy that is almost unsurpassed. Even his love songs like “If I Needed You” sound sad.

He was a long term heroin addict and chronic alcoholic who once offered to sell all the publishing rights of his songs for $20 to get some smack, and also once shot up in front of his 8 year old son. He died at the age of 52.

One of his blacker songs – and one of my favourites – is “Waiting Around To Die”:

Waiting Around To Die – Townes Van Zandt

Sometimes I don't know where this dirty road is taking me
Sometimes I can't even see the reason why
I guess I keep on gamblin', lots of booze and lots of ramblin'
It's easier than just a-waitin' 'round to die

One-time friends I had a ma, I even had a pa
He beat her with a belt once cause she cried
She told him to take care of me, she headed down to Tennessee
It's easier than just a-waitin' 'round to die

I came of age and found a girl in a Tuscaloosa bar
She cleaned me out and hit it on the sly
I tried to kill the pain, I bought some wine and hopped a train
Seemed easier than just a-waitin' 'round to die

A friend said he knew where some easy money was
We robbed a man and brother did we fly
The posse caught up with me, drug me back to Muskogee
It's two long years, just a-waitin' 'round to die

Now I'm out of prison, I got me a friend at last
He don't steal or cheat or drink or lie
His name's codeine, he's the nicest thing I've seen
Together we're gonna wait around and die

The original tune from the album it came from is here (with some great photos of Townes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwR1n0p1V7U

Another great recording is this duet with Townes and Calvin Russell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNM4OwJX1H0

From the brief biography and the song above, it is pretty clear that while Townes had talent, friends, family, money, some success (although while alive he was always something of a “cult” musician – and very much a musician’s musician), and many other opportunities besides, for him life was too much of a challenge. Life for him was about waiting around to die – which he did. Far too young.

For those of us with far less musical and poetic talent, life still has its challenges and difficulties to overcome. We can either accept those challenges and beat them – having the courage to choose life or we can be undone by them, dragged down and just wait around to die.

In the last few weeks I have had close friends and family be diagnosed with cancer, undergo serious surgery, have loved ones involved in serious car accidents and then of course there are many who struggle with everyday life – with depression, with unemployment, with unhappy marriages, with stressful jobs and so on. Life can be a bitch – and some of it is of our own making, which makes it all the more painful, ironic and frustrating.

Pessimists rejoice of course in this aspect of the human condition. The American journalist George F. Will who currently writes for the Washington Post wrote in his book “The Leveling Wind”: “The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”

I, however, am delighted to be proven wrong and unpleasantly disappointed – for I am an optimist. A fully paid-up member of the club and an advocate to boot.

Why do I choose optimism? Because it provides me with the courage to live my life as fully as I can. Without optimism, I am sorely afraid that I would end up waiting around to die – and that would be a waste of my time, the time of others and frankly a waste of a good opportunity.

Being a greedy person generally, I want to get the most I can from life – especially as it is finite and quite possible shorter than one might imagine or hope. Although my natural optimism wars with my other tendencies of idealism and pragmatism – I tend to settle on a biblical target of three score years and ten – with any upside representing a profit margin I am willing to declare to the Good Lord on the day of reckoning. And if I do live longer than that – just another thirty years before break-even– then I will certainly owe some taxes on my extra profited years.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines optimism as having "hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something; a tendency to take a favourable or hopeful view."

I tend to take that view about my life. I think that most things will turn out well or very well – but I accept that some won’t. I believe that on balance, if I stay positive, I will enjoy life more than if I let it get me down. And when I am down or have the devil in me (see: http://osapp.blogspot.com/2009/06/devil-inside.html ) it doesn’t last long if I focus on the positive things ahead.

I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy that it is better to regret something you have done, than something you haven’t done. The only time I modify that philosophy is when my actions might directly impact other people negatively – and then I weigh things up a little more carefully.

Don’t worry – I’m not about to get myself an orange dress, a dumb haircut and start chanting Hare Krishna – nor am I shaking my rattle in the church hall singing “Kumbaya”.

I am talking about a faith in life that overrides my fear of life. For all of us have fears – and the most deep rooted ones are about our own existence. Mortality, identity, security, vulnerability, vanity and so on.

I know I’m going to die. I’m not awfully keen about doing it anytime soon – but then it may not be entirely up to me.

I know who I am – more or less – and find as I grow older (and hopefully just a little wiser as opposed to just wider) that I am more and more comfortable with who I am. Good and bad. (Next step is to balance better once confident in the knowledge of both aspects)

I do not fear for my security over much – thankfully I live in places where generally I don’t need to. I do appreciate that for others this is not so easy.

I do not worry about my vulnerability as I seem to be able to bounce back from most things whether disease, physical injury, psychological or emotional trauma and so on – and I think a good deal of my ability to do is because of my optimism (with just a sprinkling of idealism).

As for vanity – it is closely linked to one’s ego. We all have one – the trick is to try and keep it in check as much as possible, but never to try and deny its existence. I don’t worry about my bald patch, my rather too large belly is a health concern more than a question of vanity and my looks are the ones I was blessed or cursed with and I don’t believe in plastic surgery other than for medical reasons – so that is that.

Of course – as I inferred in the part about security – I have life pretty damn good. I enjoy moderately good health – despite my very insistent efforts to compromise it – with some help from my employers and my clients. I am comparatively wealthy and enjoy a high standard of living. I live in peaceful, crime free environment. I come from a stable, conventional family. I am well educated and I work in a professional and broadly safe environment. So what’s not to be optimistic about?

If I was a starving child exposed to chronic diseases in Sub Saharan Africa? If I was a Palestinian living in Gaza or one of the refugee camps? If I had been born blind, deaf, paralysed, or with a fatal disease? If I had cancer? Would I still be as glib about optimism providing the courage to live life?

I would like to think that I would. I believe that no matter what disaster befalls us, whether at birth, by circumstance or by design – optimism is the difference between defeat and victory in terms of dealing with that challenge.

Faith – whether in God or good fortune – surely is a means to find resources from within oneself (or from others) and either overcome the problem one faces or simply learn to live with it ?

When my finger-tip was amputated recently, I was pragmatic and optimistic. My friends and loved ones were alternately shocked, sympathetic and even empathetic – many sad for me about my loss. I failed to understand this. Sure – it was painful, annoying and a bummer – but it was just a finger-tip. It could have been much worse. To me it was just one of those things. I gave thanks I hadn’t lost an eye or my hearing. I was pleased it was just the tip and not the whole finger – but generally it was just “one of those things”. Shit happens.

A few weeks afterwards I got very depressed about it. Not because my hands were no longer beautiful (that was compensated by the automatic 10% discount on manicures . . .) – but because it was going to very seriously affect one of my great loves in life. Playing the guitar. You kind of need all your finger tips to play guitar.

I’d looked up Tony Iommi and Django Reinhardt – two great guitarists of rather different genres. One was the founding father of heavy metal and the other a gypsy jazz legend. Both had serious finger injuries – Iommi losing two finger tips in an industrial accident and Django being burned in a fire which badly damaged his third and fourth fingers. I was buoyed by their stories and decided this wouldn’t be a problem. Until I tried to play.

At first my finger was very swollen and still very painful so playing was impossible anyway – but after the swelling went down I realized that I really couldn’t play half the songs anymore – including ones I had written myself. I was really devastated. Furious with myself that one passion (motorcycling) had cost me another (guitar playing). Sad that I would lose the comfort and joy that playing music brings me.

I mooched and moaned for weeks, feeling ever more grey and down about the whole thing. Wishing I could undo things. Until after a while I stopped and thought of two things. One is to do with relativism as a coping mechanism – the other is the power of lateral and optimistic thought.

Relativism helped me to contextualize my problem – I didn’t lose my arm. Or even my hand. OR even a whole finger. I lost a tip. If it had been worse then guitar would have certainly been off the menu forever - along with my new found interest of teaching myself piano. BUT, it wasn’t worse – therefore I was lucky and not unlucky. I had hope.

The lateral optimistic thinking went like this. I can’t play guitar like I used to. Can’t play the chords or scales that I used to. So I will learn to play guitar differently, will learn new chords and use different tunings to make my own sound. And that will be even better than before because it will expand my musical vocabulary. And so that is what I did.

Since my finger amputation, I have written and recorded three new songs, played a live gig in LA and learned new techniques using slide guitar, open tuning and using my little finger instead of the damaged third. I have to have another amputation on the third finger to take it down to the knuckle and it doesn’t bother me – because I have found some optimism in this small misfortune.

Now I didn’t watch my sister get blown to pieces on a land mine, or watch my family be blown up in our home, or see my whole village die of starvation or disease – so again one needs to frame the discussion within the context to which it might relate.

But even the orphaned child, the disease ridden villager, the widowed soldier’s wife have the choice of hope, and the relativism of “it could have been worse” – no matter how awful the trauma was. There is always the choice of life – and I would always advocate making that choice – and using optimism as the courage to do so. There is always the possibility of things getting better – and if we believe that, we can increase those chances to probability from possibility.

Two members of my family have committed suicide, another has tried. I wish the two had chosen life and had the courage to do so in the face of their pain, tragedy and loss. And I am glad the third ultimately did – as it would have been a wasted opportunity to live, to enjoy, to succeed, to laugh, to cry and to fail.

If we can fail, then by definition we can succeed. If we can die, then by definition we can live.

Just takes a little courage sometimes and seeing life from someplace else, if it doesn’t make sense from where you’re sitting.

This piece is “αφιερωμένο” to E.K. – thanks for the idea.