Vulner-Ability

"I've learned to be comfortable in mystery." 

My dad said this to me a few years before he died. At the time I think I was irritated with him, unsure how to process what is an argument-ending comment letting you know a person has a wisdom you haven't yet achieved. He didn't say it to be nasty, however. My Dad and I had some strong disagreements, especially on issues surrounding faith, but if he was angry you knew it. 

So in this case when the words he'd spoken manifested into bursts of air and sound into a form of visceral presence that inserted themselves within my memory and sense of self in a deep and impactful manner. In the same way I'll often feel when gazing at nature, I assumed my Dad's words, combined with who he was in his life at that time (not long before he began his descent into the ravages of Parkinson's) were simply truth. They were his truth, yes. 

But the words simply felt so realto me. So pure.  So enviable. And whether I thought the words or not in response, what occurred in my mind, what froze this moment in time for me was the following thought: 

"How the hell will I learn to be comfortable in mystery?" 

The Genuine Shift 

My Dad was a person of faith. Technically a Christian, but not the kind who gets up in your grill and tells you what to do with your body or that you're sinful. He wasn't perfect, but he was loving. And he started most days reading the Bible, working through the Old Testament and New over the course of each year, lingering on Psalms which had been the inspiration for his original conversion experience. 

He'd hurt his back quite severely when I was a kid (I think I was nine or ten) and he had purchased a metalline contraption that hooked over the back of his closet which he inserted his head into in a frozen position for hours. At the time medical science apparently recommended hanging yourself while facing your clothing in some form of quasi-penitent sartorial metaphor about taking the measure of your life. (Or, more accurately, I'm sure my Dad as a psychiatrist and M.D. leaned poetic and pensive here versus validating chiropractic treatment that at the time he felt was horseshit). 

But as the story goes, told by him and my Mom over the years, Dad was doing his utmost to depressurize his neck vertebrae while fighting an ennui and depression he hadn't faced in years. Reaching to his left while sitting near my Mom's dresser, he reached for the first book on a stack of volumes she had piled neatly and perhaps strategically for just the moment that transpired in the legend of what happens next.

The top volume was the book of Psalms from the Old Testament, and my Dad says as he read it over the following days he felt a transformation in who he was. A softening of his heart and a shifting of his character. 

My Dad was never abusive, but he did have anger streaks I remember quite vividly from when I was little. These were quite preternatural in my mind, much like a hurricane where the before and after of his outbursts were heightened by what I would try to interpret as the eye of his storms of rage when they'd come. (Being what I assumed was the cause of much of his anger, the "I" of his storms was difficult to avoid). I bring this point up not to speak not to speak negatively about my Dad but to point out my first experience with "faith" as a direct encounter with someone you know dearly whose personality or demeanor changes starkly and (at least in my Father's case), permanently. I was too young at the time to know how something like falling in love can alter your behavior and countenance for months on end, but in retrospect from my vantage point now at age forty nine the all-consuming veil of affection is different from the type of core shift my Dad had at that time. Attraction has a chemical quality to it, an alchemy brought on by a combination of timing, lust, validation ("I must be worth something if she's willing to kiss me") and if lucky, long-term affection and kindness. 

But my Dad genuinely shifted. I'm not saying he was never angry again or that he shone with a beatific radiance after he accepted Jesus. Not at all. Along with the ravages of Parkinson's, I saw his warts.

But a major part of his transformation was that he saw the warts as well, and spoke openly about them.

The fact that he was a psychiatrist meant his introspection was both clinical and therefore even more intimate when applied to himself (I often jokingly thought after one of our talks that I owed him money for a session). It was my Dad's vulnerability after his conversion that influenced my belief in God and Jesus as much as the scripture and books I began reading in my quest to seek wisdom that transcends what often feels like the banal loser-ish thoughts of the fat kid on the playground who got teased viciously for a number of formative years. (Where in an affluent suburb of 70's era Boston not having a sports-oriented sensibility was the same as shouting, 'I'd like to be a sensitive artist type for the rest of my life and I need a personality defining negative experience - can any of you wiry, Toughskins-wearing Red Sox fans regularly kick the shit out of me for a year or two until the deep-set melancholy kicks in?')

Vulner-able

Some people see vulnerability as a weakness. I find it wildly attractive. Perhaps this is in response to the incessant Zeitgeist media messaging of my youth, where Regan & Eastwood forged a mantra of masculinity espousing strength as equating to silence and the tampering down of one's emotions. While I love a good "tough guy who ignores his feelings estranges himself from his (male-scriptwriter interpretation of the perfect) wife and mother struggles with his lack of emotional vocabulary which apparently justifies killing a bunch of other guys also avoiding their responsibilities" movie as much as the next guy, that formula only works on an entertainment level for me. 

Vulnerability, when genuine, is simply an honest recognition of brokenness. It can be momentary, based on fatigue. Or longer-term, based on a deep seated sense of low self-worth. But the "avoid your emotions" trope means many people, and certainly guys my age, have to wade through this veil of "don't cry out loud just keep it inside learn how to hide your feelings" utter bullshit that simply delays any form of introspection or confrontation or meditation or anything that begins to shine a light towards a path of healing. 

Brokenness isn't a punishment.  Or a malady. It's a map. 

Broken yet Beautiful

I think people don't like to use words like "brokenness" about themselves. Hence the multi-kabajillion dollar business of self-help books, business treatises and posters urging (what I assume to be largely Western) ideals of "transforming those negative feelings into positive forward actions" or other such adages which I support in terms of their motivation towards edification but tend to mollify the need for the first critical step of recognizing and simmering in your brokenness as a tool to move forward in wisdom versus avoidance. 

At first blush, it might seem like a phrase of, "I have learned to be comfortable in mystery" would seem like such an avoidance. 'Something crappy happen today? Chalk it up to mystery and go binge Netflix!' But that wasn't the case with my Dad. Mystery in his case presented itself as part of his whole persona-package which was based on his faith. And his faith ran deep. And manifested itself in actions. Things like reading scripture over coffee with my Mom as a way to start most days. 

While I'm not sure he or my Mom ever named it as such, they were meditating of course. Brewing ritual along with coffee grounds. While I am a massive supporter of meditation, or mindfulness as it's known within Positive Psychology circles and elsewhere, I find I can only truly meditate while playing music, being with my family, or sitting starting at nature with my omnipresent, soul-distractive phone turned off. 

Or writing. Writing gets me to that place. It's taken me around three decades to feel comfortable shifting a blank screen from white to mottled but it's in the recognition that craft involves ritual and long-term commitment I've been able to orchestrate my pieces of prose-peace. (And my penchant for alliteration). 

My Dad, being a Psychiatrist, had a front row seat for most of his adult life into aspects of consciousness I will never truly understand.  

Vulnerability was his daily lot in life, versus how it manifests for most of us unscheduled and largely uninvited. For my Dad, emotions and their airing happened on an hourly basis, supporting my ability to eat and my core willingness to allow introspection to be my constant companion along with what I believe is God when I pray (since my own internal narrative is often quite unkind to my core self whereas the "still small voice" I interpret as God's words in my consciousness cut me a break as a rule). 

I'm assuming some of my Dad's "comfort" in mystery came from a deep reservoir of pain regarding his patient's suffering (a few of whom committed suicide). Beyond any sense of professional failure I know how much he cared for his patients, having received a particularly poignant letter from one of them after his death. While at the time it was exceedingly painful to read while awash in grief, it also painted a picture for me of who he was and what he did for the 50,000+ hours he sat toe to toe with grief, anguish, mental illness and brokenness that most of us only take in the smallest of doses when forced versus faced. 

For me, admitting "brokenness" is not equated with weakness. It's also not necessarily about strength, although self-awareness in a time of great emotional need can be hard to come by.

"Brokenness" doesn't imply that an entire person, meaning their personality or being, is "broken" where that word equates to "less than." It just means they recognize an area that needs attention and perhaps repair.

But even as I write this words they feel pejorative - as an American (and perhaps as an American male aged 49), I hate repairing things. It's a chore. It comes at a cost. It means something isn't new anymore, and BY GOD, if something isn't new in America or in a world dominated by the religion of growth, then it is foul, detestable, backwards, foreign, evil, and inexorably wrong. Deeply, deeply wrong. 

So here's where I try to recognize a core weakness in myself which is not anger in and of itself. I support righteous anger as an ideal where it's non-violent and communicative. Here, however, I identify my weakness as my own hypocrisy coupled with impatience in others who avoid introspection (on purpose or by default).  My hypocrisy initially comes from criticizing others whose own vulnerabilities allow them to rely on flimsy promises made by money. Or growth, or power. I'm a hypocrite because I seek these things on a regular basis while also decrying them. 

But here's the more nefarious hypocrisy - I judge other people whose brokenness means they can’t benefit from introspection while understanding how hard it is to be introspective in a pragmatic and healthy way.  So it’s easier for me to get angry at certain people, or the state of the world.  This keeps me from seeking wisdom, or even speaking truth in love (which simply means justifying healthy confrontation).  

Anger for me of any variety including the righteous kind, however, is mainly dangerous because it drowns out the opportunity to listen, hear, and absorb the wisdom of other’s or the moment due to the stringent chorus of one's own voice.

And if I drown out other people's voices, or their chance to speak, than I curtail any form of meditative introspection in myself or others. I'm left with the lingering taste of stringent ire in my mouth, the catch of my own breath, and the polite if not nervous glances of those I'm speaking to gripping their coffee defensively in hopes that "happy John" will return, banishing "angry guy" to the wings. 

Well I'm tired of banishing “angry guy” as a whole, because he’s also where “happy John” resides. But I don't have to listen to him as much, or voice his usual diatribes. I'd rather attempt to embrace mystery as a first step towards being comfortable with it than simply wave my fists at the inevitable fact I can't know everything. I mean of course - NO DUH, nobody can know everything. But as a person steeped in introspection about to turn FIFTY YEARS OLD, one would like to think one has achieved some level of wisdom with the world (like never referring to yourself as "one") but I think more and more the mirror is a gift of age rather than a curse. Of course I lament my blurring of vision, fattening of midriff, and unwitting tolerance now to listen to "soft rock" without revulsion,

But comfort in mystery is just so darned relaxing. 

AI of the Beholder

I'm not there yet, but working in the field of Artificial Intelligence now since 2014 I'm fatigued with being angry a lot of the time. I hear what I interpret to be so many voices in media, business, or even policy, not only assuming that our inherent humanness is a weakness, but that AI created by humans is the solution to "fix" it. While I am beyond thrilled at how machine learning and other technologies are tackling tough issues in areas of medicine, the environment and multiple other arenas, I lament the apparent widespread acceptance of the assumed fact, at least on many levels, that our human brokenness (also known as "being human") is such a liability that an apparently tiny portion of people creating tech and policy have permission to be the repairers of our ills. I find this to be the most nefarious hubris humanity has potentially ever faced, but - and this is a message I'm trying to dwell within and on for 2019:

I firmly believe most people don't allow themselves permission to explore their humanness which will always identify brokenness when applied with humility.

For many, and maybe especially men over 30 in America, "humility" is only even partially allowed in the third act of every bullshit formulaic rom-com (which I still openly admit to loving in a guilty pleasure kind of way) where "it's okay" for him to tell the woman he loves that he "doesn't know what the future will bring and I know I may not be ready and I know there's a million other women out there but I DO know that I love you and can't live without you." 

Well, I say it's time to embrace the rom-com in our lives, or at least my own. And as a former actor, I should also point out "comedy" is not really about laughs if you know what you're doing as a performer.

Comedy is about the shared recognition of truth in the human experience.

(Unless it's commedia dell ‘arte where comedy is more about watching puppets kick each other in the balls which has its place). We laugh, or cry, when watching theatre or film or TV or YouTube because we recognize the folly, foibles, or human-ness in others that validates our own. Laughter in this regard is a kind of communion. Or union. And romance isn't just about sex, or dating, or marriage, or forced ritual. It's the sense of permission the word brings when spoken - a form of disclosure to act in "irresponsible" ways in honor of...you guess it, love. 

So a big goal of mine for 2019 is to shift towards love when I can remember to do so.  

First is self-love in the sense I can remind myself that I’m allowed to be human in the wake of AI, even though I realize I’m already a cyborg by being connected at all times with my phone or by the ever-ready availability of my data.  Part of being human is apparently the question of, “Is life worth living” which also means humanity’s largest issue to tackle hinges on the question of, “Is life worth avoiding?”  It’s MUCH easier to track our actions or emotions with the outside permission of devices or machines in isolation than to also turn everything off and look within.  Both methods have their place, but the de facto choice is becoming, “let AI do it all” or “we’re only going to be successful in the future if we pair with or rely on AI.”  

I’ve written a few books about the underlying economic aspects of market-driven paradigms underpinning the potential need (versus desire) of relying on machines or AI for our future.  And if I ruminate too long on that issue “angry guy” will likely begin to warm his vocal chords and I’d rather stick to my theme of comfort in the unknown in regards to AI.  For me, the unknown comes less from the technology itself (which I’m happily steeped within as a geek as part of my daily work).

The unknown for me comes from wondering what will happen when large groups of intelligent and influential people, via their genuine leanings or from various biases or agendas, allow a majority of humanity to assume the delegation of their consciousness is both inevitable and not up to them.  

The reason this type of unknown provides an uncomfortable mystery (versus my Dad’s variety) is it’s coercive versus communal.  It’s not necessarily cruel or overtly forceful, but does tend to make (at least me) often feel like an idiot, Luddite, or “less than” if I raise my hand to ask, “is it okay to be human?”  

The fact of simply being human feels equivalent to pulling out a flip phone at a Best Buy, that our model is outdated.

Note btw I’m not advocating for the extension of evil or irresponsibility that any humans have brought about in the past, nor am I saying human foibles are only beautiful tools of self-awareness.  Heck no.  What I am saying is that if humans begin assuming, as a baseline, that their “core hardware” is broken, behind the times, or “less than” so they only can be valid or useful or happy with an upgrade, we’re screwed as a species.  This ideal certainly goes against the tenets of positive psychology and things like gratitude which essentially is simply a form of meditation while accepting the benefits of who you are and what you have now versus assuming happiness will only come “once I do X.”  But X may never come.  

The Disclosure Decision

While I appreciate the ideals of “humans living and working in unison with machines” in terms of things like the future of work, there’s a fallacy regarding this narrative.  There’s the assumption of longevity or permanence, where algorithms by and large are created to seek information where humans often recoil at introspection.  So we take comfort in our supposedly universal and inherent “emotional intelligence” while machines more and more can mirror affectation back at us we willingly embrace.  And being a fan of affective computing and the fact in many ways it honors my Dad’s work as a psychiatrist, where it removes the disclosure of therapy or intervention the line between introspection and surveillance disappears. 

Disclosure gets a bad rap.  Disclosure is primarily about communication.  The reason lights dim before you watch a play or movie is not just to make your eyes adjust. It’s an act of disclosure allowing societal permission for catharsis.  

We need this same level of disclosure not only in pragmatic, GDPR “right to explanation” ways (which are essential) but at a core, “human as broken and that’s okay” level to truly embrace not only the “noble” values of transparency, accountability and so forth but the “messy” values of kindness, grace, tolerance, and patience.  I say “messy” because they’re not easy and they’re reliant on introspection and genuinely hearing, or at least trying to listen to, the other. 

So in closing, a lot of my 2019 is going to be about further trying to understand introspection in areas like augmented and virtual (or immersive) reality. It’s in these new frontiers where I think self-examination will take on new colors, shapes, and experiences that provide new terrain for the positive expansion of the human mind and soul in concert with technology and the who we may become.

But I’m also going to try and love better.  Myself and others.  And this involves learning to be comfortable in mystery which, to be honest, I haven’t fully achieved.  But I’m tired of being angry as a rule, or dismissing tenets I don’t fully yet understand. Comfort starts with awareness and recognition for a desire towards growth.  

So maybe I just really miss my Dad on the first day of a new year, but my wish for anyone who reads this is (at least my) recognition that while I’m sure you have aspects of your personality or life that could be addressed, you’re also okay to accept that you have the ability and opportunity to find out for yourself.  About yourself.  

You may become “much better” with the aid of technology but if you don’t know what you’re amplifying what you'll be allowing is permission to avoid your true self.  

Or at least the self you’d like to complement versus the vulnerable human you’d rather avoid. 

Happy New Year. 

This post reflects my personal ideas and ideals and doesn't necessarily reflect any formal positions of IEEE or CXI.