Yawn. No big essay today, just some random notes. First, a quick review of the two-part PBS show on God, Freud and C.S. Lewis that finished last night. I’d give it a B plus. On the negative side, the roundtable discussions with Dr. Armand Nicholi, a Harvard shrink who came up with the idea for the show, went on too long and didn’t go anywhere. I go to a weekly roundtable discussion called Socrates Cafe, where people talk about this, that and everything else (so long as it’s politically-correct everything), and it’s pretty much the same. However, at least you get a sense of fellowship at the Cafe. When you have to watch a rambling conversation on TV, it gets to be a drag. But everything else about the show was excellent. The best part was when the actors playing Freud and Lewis went face to face, exchanging polite barbs while giving each other very dubious looks. You could imagine that really happening, given the very different wavelengths that Sigmund and C.S. were on.

After watching the show (and mostly ignoring the roundtable sessions with the doc), I found myself on the fence about the existence of God. But actually, I had a fence experience on Saturday night that helped to keep me from falling into the backyard of atheistic despair. There was an outdoor concert at a minor-league baseball park not too far from my house that day, and the main act was Leonard Skynyrd. I heard a DJ on the local radio station say that Skynyrd would go on around 7:30 PM, so I decided to go out for a jog at about that time, figuring I’d schlep past the stadium around 8 and would hear some tuneage on the pass-by. I got there and guess what? No tuneage. Some kid in the parking lot was telling his friend on the cellphone that Skynyrd was going on in 10 minutes. I circled the lot a few times and nothing happened, so I got disgusted and started for home. Of course, just as I cleared the lot I could hear the major applause and the guitars and drums revving up. Time for a big turn around, o ye of little faith.

I got by the gate and saw a couple of people hanging out, enjoying that live Southern rock and getting a partial view of the stage to boot. Believe it or not, the nearby cops and security forces weren’t hassling anyone for freeloading on the entertainment, so I joined them in the chill of an unexpected cold front on the last weekend of summer. I didn’t dwell on the fact that I was probably older than many of these kids’ parents. Nobody was bothering me and the music was good, so what the heck.

And then, half way thru the show, something incredible happened. Security just threw open the gates, and my fellow freeloaders and I all strolled into the stadium for a better view. I just stood there, incredulous, sure that those young, beefy guys with the black shirts were gonna yell and chase me half way home as soon as I started for the steps. Meanwhile, Skynyrd was cranking its way into “Give Me Three Steps”. So I took three or four steps myself, and surprise, surprise, no comment whatsoever from the gendarme. Guess it’s a free concert! I didn’t go down too far, settling on a nice mezzanine with a straight-ahead view of the stage. Hey, there I was at a rock concert again – something that I hadn’t done in at least 10 years, and something that I didn’t figure I’d ever be able to do again after the gray hairs started taking over. I stayed to the end, knowing that the encore was going to be “Freebird”. And indeed it was.

Hey, this was in New Jersey where nice stuff hardly ever happens, especially in big-money entertainment venues. I still don’t know what got into those security guys to just open the gates like that and let the rif-raf (like me) in, knowing full well that the show was gonna go at least another 45 minutes. Can it be that C.S. Lewis was right and Freud was wrong after all? Actually, Skynyrd seems to agree with Lewis – recall the line from “Simple Man”, regarding a certain “someone up above”. A rather old-fashioned theology, but a theology none the less.

WE COULD BE HEROS: I generally try not to think about bugs too much. Just seeing them on the steps or crawling up a wall is enough for me. They are definitely not one of nature’s more aesthetic creations – too many spindly legs and jagged tentacles and black shells and stuff like that. But I will give bugs credit for one thing … they do behave like little heros. Ants and bees and wasps and other “social” insects will instantly give up their lives to defend their group (albeit, they don’t have any self-consciousness to foster any regrets about it).

As for human heroism … there is a surprising amount of it out there. Surprising to me, anyway. I try to think of myself as a humane person, but in the heroism department I probably fall short. I really don’t know if I would jump into an ice-cold river to save a drowning child. Thankfully, I’ve never been in that situation. An act like that requires an impulsive mindset (or someone who is a really good swimmer), and honestly, I don’t do well in impulsive situations.

When I was young, when I had my whole life ahead of me, heroism seemed like an easy and natural thing – even if death were to be the result. (But then again, I watched a lot of TV back then). Now, in my late middle age, with not all that many years left to go, risking my life to save another just doesn’t seem quite as simple. Maybe I’m just in an advanced stage of cynicism and burn-out.

But then again — I do have to wonder (partly as rationalization against my cowardliness) if heroism is a genetic thing. Science seems to be finding more evidence (inconclusive though it still is) that much of our social behavior has genetic origins or precursors. I’ve always had trouble with the generally shared but unspoken rules of social engagement (e.g., body language, tone of voice, sexual connotations, etc.), which are potentially determined to some degree by our genes. (Asperger’s, you ask? I’ll discuss that at a later time). So maybe my “hero genes” are a bit defective? Or is that I’m just not ready yet?

Hmmm … with inscrutable questions like that to deal with, who has time for the sound of one hand clapping? Or one hand swatting a bug?

HIGH SCHOOL MORTALITY: I stop in at classmates.com every now and then to see what I can glean about my high school alumni. The Internet has been quite a boon to me in that regard; I totally lost touch with that group. I really haven’t had any contact with anyone from my class in the last 25 years. It’s like they all never existed, it was all just a dream.

But no, they did actually exist, and maybe they still do. About 80 out of a class of 180 are registered with classmates, including my self (but under a nom de plume – sorry, I wasn’t quite ready to suddenly end my external status). Actually, I registered about 3 years ago on classmates, and nothing too surprising came if it. Here and there I’d get a clue or two: so and so moved to Hawaii, someone else became a teacher, one of the party animals became a cop, while one of the really bright kids now works for the New York Times.

I never paid for the premium membership, so I just pick thru the scraps that classmates.com allows for freeloaders like myself. It turns out that they recently decided to expand the freebie offerings a bit, and us cheap skates can now view a discussion area and bulletin board. One of the pre-set topics on that bulletin board is “obituaries”.

Obituaries. Hmm. Well, I knew about two Class of 71er’s who “punched out” early. One of them was a tall black kid named Les Cason. Les definitely knew what to do with a basketball and powered our team to a state championship. Unfortunately, Les wasn’t all that good with other things in life. He got a basketball college scholarship although he didn’t have much going academically (I recall sitting near him in an English class and he usually bothered me for answers during an exam). To make matters even worse, he started getting cocky about his prodigious hoop talents, missing practice sessions and eventually free throws. Not surprisingly, he didn’t get too far thru college and was soon out on his own. Unfortunately, Les didn’t have a plan B and soon drifted down to the street drug culture. Eventually the AIDS epidemic caught up with him. If you need to know more, check out the article “Caution: Hard Times After the Hardwood” by Mark Blaudschun on the www.alathonsports.com web site.

The famous footnote to the whole incident regards Les Cason’s high school coach, a local character named Dick Vitale. Does the name sound vaguely familiar? Well, in another month or so perhaps it will, once the NCAA basketball tournaments take over the sports airwaves. Cason’s success brought some big-time sports guys into our town. Seeing this, the coach decided to go for the gold ring too. He managed to get a pro coaching contract in Detroit, but just like Les, he washed out on his big chance. But unlike Les Cason, “Dickie V” did have a Plan B (or perhaps better said, a Plan B presented itself to him). Cable TV was just getting started at the time, and a little-known sports channel called ESPN was looking for college basketball commentators. I can’t image that the job paid much, but Dick Vitale figured that it was worth a shot. So it gave his new gig lots of enthusiasm, e.g. “Did you see that? AWWWWE-some, BAY-BEEEEE!!!!” And somehow it caught on. In the late 90s, Vitale’s agents parleyed his “awesome baby” into a series of advertising contracts that took him semi-national. And now, my high school will always be famous for producing an extraordinary car dealership pitch man.

OK, so RIP Les Cason. And Albert, the other one whose passing I knew of — Albert didn’t seem all that happy with life, he was a bit different (and thus wasn’t very popular). So it didn’t surprise me to hear that he had a short life, although that did sadden me as I used to talk to him now and then (hey, I was different and not all that popular either). But now I know that more have crossed the river of eternity since then. To be exact, seven more, for a total of nine. Nine out of 180; 5% of my class. Dead. Totally gone. I’m not sure if this is statistically unusual; we all are hitting the 50 year point, so you’ve got to expect some losses. Still, it hurts when you see the actual names, when the statistical abstraction translates into real faces that you once saw in the hallways and classrooms most every day.

Yea, I know, 95% of my angst here is just the fear of it happening to me. But there is a small sliver of regret on my part, a feeling of sadness that I didn’t stay up with them, that I didn’t share anything that in any way enriched their lives, that I wasn’t able to relate very closely with those who passed (or with most of the others of my class). Nor have I stayed up very well with any other group that I was ever a part of, whether in school, at work, in church, etc. Yea, I have my consolations; I’m an INFJ, a sensitive and shy person who ain’t all that handsome and who doesn’t naturally attract people. I mean, back in high school, up thru junior year, I was the subject of much unpleasant bullying and jeering. Admittedly, it was only a handful of jerks who did this, but the silent denial by everyone else (including many teachers) while it was happening kind of turned me off to the whole bunch.

But dead. I mean, that’s kind of extreme. That blows me away, as the expression went back in my time. So, I’ll do what little I can here for all of you: I now offer my tribute to all of my high school compatriots who have fallen: ALBERT, LES, LINDA, GARY, JACKIE, MIKE, STEVEN, LINDA, and last but certainly not least, PAMELA. My web site is not equipped for multi-media, but if it was, I’d be playing Dire Straits’ “Local Hero” right now, the live version from the Very Best Of album (Sultans of Swing). And I’d include the applause. Cause you guys all deserve it.

But please. Let’s not add anyone more to this list anytime soon, OK?

People have various different theories about what life is all about. Some say it’s love. Some say it’s family. Some say it’s fun. Some say it’s money. Some say it’s power. Some say it’s beauty. Some seek “inner peace”. Philosophers come up with various other words and phrases based up various intellectual abstractions, like Pirsig‘s “quality”. Some philosophers say life is really out there, while others say it’s all in the mind. Psychologists agree with the latter, but want to know what the mind is getting at. And scientists, well, they’ll tell you about DNA and emergent self-organizing phenomenon and organic chemistry and evolutionary dynamics. So, life must be a pretty big thing, sort of like the elephant that 10 blind men touch and describe as 10 different things (none of them an elephant; e.g. the guy who grips the tail thinks it’s a snake, the guy with the ear thinks it’s a bird, etc.).

The word about life that works best for me is “intensity”. That word comes closest to summing up all of my longings and desires and frustrations in life. It seems able to corral most of the things that have been good for me and hold out most of the things that have been bad over the past 50 years. So yes, I’m an intensity junkie. In different ways, I think that we all are. Intensity for women often isn’t intensity for men, and vice versa. But both want to feel intense. For many women, intensity can be found in hearth and home and kinder. A lot of men get intense about sports, career achievement and status. Oh yea, and sometimes mechanical stuff, like cars or boats or stereos. Of course, there is some common ground. Like music. Both men and women get intense vibes when good music is being played. And money — although men alone seem to get satisfaction from the mere presence of dinero. Women generally seem to get intense about money only when it’s being traded for stuff, preferably stuff they like. And then there’s books and ideas and thinking. Certain men and women can get into that (but not enough, in my opinion).

And then there’s sexuality, of course. Sex is intensity city, at least when you’re young and full of the hormones that nature gave you in order to encourage your participation in the continuance of the species.

(Yes, I guess I’m not in a romantic mood right now).

So, what else inspires people and how do they relate to “intensity”? Well, political power makes certain people do extreme things. Sure, we all love to have power. How about fame? Oh yea, fame is a big inspiration too. People feel pretty intense when they know that a whole lot of people take them seriously. It’s quite an affirmation when a thousand or a million or a billion people know about you. Me, I’m still struggling in the 30 to 50 people range. I guess that fame is not going to be my path to intensity. For some people, achievement is the thing. Achievement often comes with power and fame and money, but sometimes it doesn’t. I think there are some pure examples of people who have achieved their life’s calling without gaining fame and fortune and power, and still feel pretty intense about it. Perhaps a guy who has managed to collect every baseball card from 1920 to present. He probably has some great stories about how he found that ’52 Duke Snider by accident in a dumpy old book store on the outskirts of Tulsa. It was his life work, even if he never even made the local newspaper.

Intensity doesn’t last. I’d guess that on average, most folk feel intense about life maybe 1 of every 50 hours that they are awake. Maybe some folk do better, and some worse.

Movies are popular because they make people feel intense for a little while. The arts in general are like that. When done well, an artist makes the viewer feel intense for a spell. Maybe the artist feels intense too.

Is there intensity at work? Maybe, but the conditions have to be just right. You have to be challenged, not bored. The task can’t be beyond your abilities, or you’ll get frustrated (I’ve been there). Also, it’s good when you know that what you’re doing is useful, that it’s helping someone somehow. Unfortunately, that right mix of things isn’t guaranteed. Too many people just work for the money, and seldom feel intense about what they’re doing. I’ve had some intense work days, but most of my work life has either been boring or chaotic or otherwise out of whack with regard to intensity.

Can you be sick or in fear or angry or confused and be intense? Well, sickness and fear and anger and confusion are intense experiences, but I sure don’t like them. But for some people, maybe that’s their only road to intensity. I think that one of Warren Zevon’s songs has a line that goes “I’d rather feel bad than feel nothing at all”. I guess it explains all of the gory horror movies that are out there. Some people seem to enjoy the feeling they get by watching other people treated like animals, slaughtered, mutilated, burned, crushed, humiliated, tortured, whatever. I guess it qualifies as a form of intensity, sort of a voyeuristic sadism.

There are short cuts to intensity, and they often aren’t good ones. Addictions are an example of intensity gone awry. Booze and drugs make you feel intense, very intense for a while. But the price you pay is extremely large (I’m not going to say “high” here). Food can also be an addiction. I know people who eat too much because that’s their easiest available source of intensity. The richest, most intense foods are often the most salty and fattening ones. A few moments of intensity are traded for a lifetime of obesity (and all the problems brought on by that). And promiscuous sex also gives you a quick hit of intensity followed by a big let-down. You know it ain’t real, you know it feels less intense each time.

So, wisdom and intensity are not always on the same page. Wisdom, I think, relates to intensity, but from a long-term perspective. It adds in considerations of other people and their access to intensity, e.g. your children, your husband or wife, your relatives, your neighbors, your fellow citizens and fellow planet dwellers.

But the big question for everyone is, just how much do I live for and trust others, whether abstract and organized (e.g., the US Government) or familiar and immediate (e.g. your parents). Does paying your taxes make you feel intense? Probably not. Does helping your child calm down after she or he has fallen and is all upset and crying make you feel intense? Perhaps.

If intensity is the essence of life, then the question remains, how best to get it. Intensity is really a deep philosophic question. It’s actually a rather mysterious thing (just like life itself). Too much of it isn’t good, and too little isn’t good either. You can try to buy it and store it up for the future, but it doesn’t always keep. What was intense for you yesterday may not be intense today; GROWTH and CHANGE must also be factored into the intensity calculation. And of course, relationship must be accounted for; when you experience something good with someone else, the intensity is usually amplified.

Well, so I have my own word for life, and it seems like a pretty good one. If intensity is the true key to life and not money or fame or achievement, then maybe there’s hope for all of us. Finding intensity without much money or fame or achievement doesn’t seem easy. Nonetheless, the search must go on, because maybe only 1 out of 10 people are going to have a whole lot of money or fame or achievement in life. If we can figure out how to have an intense life without all of that stuff, then maybe the billions of us who go to our graves without any great fanfare and are quickly forgotten will, nonetheless, have not lived and died in vain.

The pursuit of happiness. That’s the theme for my “chatauqua” today.

(For those regular readers of this blog, God bless all 2 or 3 of you, you know that my writing style is similar in certain ways to Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig’s technique in ZAMM was to weave back and forth between the travelogue and a series of reflections on … well, on life in general. All things considered. He called his essays “chatauquas”, based on the intellectual road shows of the 19th century, which do in fact have something to do with the modern-day Chatauqua Institute in New York State.)

Based upon what I’ve observed during my fifty years here on earth, I think that some people are pretty happy with their lives, and some just aren’t. I mean that on a long-term basis; some people reach the age of 60, 70, maybe even 80 or 90 and keep on feeling good about things. Life generally makes sense to them, despite its many rough spots. By contrast, other people go through life unhappy all of the time. Things just don’t ever come together for them, and even when it does, things soon fall apart. It’s just one struggle to the next. And then they die, usually in an ugly way (very possibly from alcohol abuse or violence or cancer, or sometimes even suicide; being unhappy all the time takes its toll).

So what is the difference between these two types of people and the lives they lead? (Those of you who are students may be pondering that question, or some take-off on it, in your psychology and philosophy classes). Unfortunately, I don’t have any great insights about this. Human happiness obviously involves both genetic factors and the environment, i.e. nature and nurture. To some degree, happiness is influenced by the balance of chemicals in the brain. And yet, you are tempted to conclude that it’s the unhappy person’s own fault they are so unhappy; they just seem so negative about everything, and they pass up opportunities to be happy. On the other side of the coin, a lot of unhappy people are the victims of bad breaks, things that really were beyond their control.

Life in general certainly isn’t an equal opportunity employer. Some people do get mostly good breaks while others get mostly bad ones; the majority of people seem to get a 50-50 mix (or close). That’s pretty much what you’d expect from a random distribution, a “roll of the dice” system. Even then, you sometimes see people who got mostly good breaks who are unhappy, and people who got mostly bad breaks who still find joy in life. For example, go into a housing project in the core of most any American city and you’ll see a lot of unhappy people who die of drugs, AIDS, shootings, booze, preventable diseases, etc. And yet, you also see people who are happy — poor but happy.

The analogy that I use is that we are all plant seedlings who are put into a pot of soil by some cosmic gardener. There are thousands of different plant seedlings available to this mystical gardener, and there are hundreds of different types of soil mix available to him (or her). The great gardnerer doesn’t really seem to be sure just what kind of soil is best for each seedling (unless she or he really does, but has some greater purpose in mind).

So, some seedlings grow up well and live a long time. Even when the “Big G” gardner doesn’t properly water the plant and keeps it out of the light, it still keeps on growing and renewing itself. But at the same time, a lot of plants just don’t get the right kind of soil for them, and struggle to grow and keep from wilting. With some light and water, they survive. But when things get bad they don’t last.

I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that some people just find the right place to be, a place where their talents are appreciated by those around them, and likewise, their weaknesses aren’t such a big deal. I know some people like that. They are well liked, generous people who work hard and help others whenever they can. They believe in the idea of “give to live, share to care”. They often gain public attention and are admired for their contributions. These people just seem to have it all; friends, family, admiration, accomplishment, financial success, and satisfaction at having helped others along the way. Sometimes people like that aren’t for real, but very often they are. They are just people who found the right potting soil.

And I also know people on the other end. They also want to give of themselves and share with others, but their talents and temperaments (which can be increasingly be measured and classified by Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, etc.) just aren’t what the world around them seems to appreciate. They are, in fact, being asked by their environment to give what comes hardest to them, where their weaknesses are. E.g., the artist is asked to be a nurse; the nurse is asked to be a file clerk; the file clerk is asked to be a leader; the leader is asked to be an analyst; the introvert is asked to extrovert, and the extrovert is put in solitary confinement. They don’t do so well, and obviously aren’t admired and rewarded by people around them. They then get discouraged and do even worse, which can spiral them downward into a life of confusion and failure (neurosis, as the shrinks say). Or, if by some fluke they do make good despite their weaknesses, they still feel like a failure in life deep down inside. You sometimes hear about rich and famous people who never were happy, despite all their success.

Some people can break out of their situations and eventually find a place where they shine. It’s as if the plants in my “cosmic garden” analogy have the ability to get up and find another pot where the soil is more to their liking. But fate isn’t always so kind to people stuck in a dead end, and they get discouraged, cranky, and anti-social, then become drunks, junkies or criminals. Or, if they are till nice at heart, they just keep it all inside and get sick and quietly die (a slower and more subtle form of suicide). Quiet desperation, as the British say.

And a lot of us struggle somewhere in the middle. That’s pretty much where I am right now. I’m definitely not in the right pot of dirt, but I haven’t given up yet on finding a better one (although the day is getting late). I’m withering a little, but I’m still alive.

If you’re still young and in college, you have plenty of time to find a place where you can live a good life, where your needs are reasonably taken care of while you contribute to the good of others. There probably is such a place somewhere like that for you. For some, finding it will be easy. But for others, it won’t. And I sympathize with the latter faction. Life is going to be a tough journey for you. But hang in there and keep the faith. The great cosmic gardener planted you and made you sprout, so she or he must have the right kind of soil for you someplace.

PS, You can find out more about the chatauqua idea at

www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/easyrider/data/zen_and_the_art_of_motorcycle_ma.htm