Reflections on “Everything’s great. Right, Toots? You just have to think positive"

I am reading Mary Trump's book Too Much and Never Enough. I can't say that it's an enjoyable book to read, that would be lying, but it is interesting in its own way--the tale of a dysfunctional family that created the man who is currently the 45th president of the USA. What strikes me about the Trump family is that lying about nearly everything plays a major role in their interactions with each other. Or if not directly lying, a blatant and total disregard for the truth staring them right in the face. It's hard to know where to start, and since I haven't yet finished the book, I'll wait until I do before posting a review. However, there are some things I can comment about already.

Mary Trump says her uncle Donald fits all of the criteria for the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. If you have never had any contact with a true narcissist, consider yourself lucky. For those of you who have had the bad fortune to know one in your personal life, you have my sincere sympathy. I wrote a post about narcissistic personality disorder in October 2019; you can access it here:   https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com/2019/10/learning-about-narcissistic-personality.html

Narcissists are walking cyclones that will destroy your life if you let them (in). As I wrote in October 2019, "......steer clear of these types of people if you want your life to be in any way peaceful or happy, or if you want to prevent the destruction of your own life. Let the professionals deal with them. It is not worth the heartache involved to try and care about these people". 

I have not changed my mind, and Mary Trump's book merely reinforces my statement. How do you know you are in the presence of a narcissist? They lie. Even when confronted with the naked horrible truth about themselves or their life situations, they lie. They promote themselves shamelessly. They are all about self-aggrandizement. They think the world of themselves and very little of others (others are often stupid, lazy or cowards for not taking the risks they take). Conversations with them are all about them, never about you or your life. They demand loyalty but don't give it in return. When they are done with you, they will cut you out of their lives without a moment's notice. They are delusional for the most part, with some rare few moments of insight, that give you hope that they will perhaps seek help and get better. But they don't. They promise that they will though, but they don't. They may even work as therapists, which terrifies me even more. Because the operative word is terrified; they are scary people, cyclones as I said. Steer clear of them. When you are in their presence, all good fresh healthy air is sucked out of the room and replaced by an air of suffocation. An hour with a narcissist is more than enough for a lifetime. They live in their own worlds of insanity and drag you in and along for the wild ride, if you let them. Many of them are whip-smart and charming, and that's how they hook you. And once hooked, trust me, getting yourself unhooked will require a courage and a willpower that you never knew you had. My advice to anyone who is living with or has interactions with a narcissist--get out and get away.

The title of my post is “Everything’s great. Right, Toots? You just have to think positive.” That's what Donald Trump's father used to say all the time, especially to his wife who was often in ill health. How comforting that must have been to hear. Essentially you say to another person, your illness is your fault because you didn't think positively enough. Imagine saying that to someone with cancer or any other terminal illness. I know younger people with cancer, and a few that have recently died of cancer. Not a one of them wished their illness on themselves. None of them is a negative person; in fact, the one person who died recently from brain cancer was a cheerful upbeat person with many friends who respected him highly. If 'thinking positively' had any real merit, the world would not be drowning in painkillers and addictions to painkillers that are killing thousands of people. It would not be drowning in the abuse of anti-depressants. 'Thinking positively' does not lead to sobriety, it is the humble willingness to admit that you have a problem and that you need help that lead to sobriety. You have to want to change your life. The Serenity Prayer says it best "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. The Serenity Prayer is the complete opposite of narcissism. Narcissists never really admit that they need help; you may think that they're asking for help, but ultimately you have misunderstood the situation. Because a few days later, everything's fine again, and your conversation with them about all that was 'wrong' has been forgotten, or perhaps never took place. “Everything’s great. Right, Toots? You just have to think positive.” 

What a strange world we live in, a world that adulates and rewards the shallow thinkers, the con-men, the narcissists, the ruthless capitalists, the criminals, the 'do as I say, not as I do' people. Whenever one of them gets caught for his or her crimes, I rejoice. It's a start toward dismantling the hold that narcissists have on our society. Because if you think about it, the message of 'think positive' has morphed into 'think only of yourself'. Too much emphasis on self can only lead to the mess that surrounds us in the world. Too much emphasis on self has destroyed personal lives and relationships. I applaud Mary Trump; it probably took all of her courage to write the book. It must have been extremely hard to write about a family that probably terrifies her. She exposes the 'people of the lie'. And in that context, I can recommend M. Scott Peck's excellent book People of the Lie, if you want to learn more about how Peck defines evil and his confrontations with pathological liars and narcissists in his therapy practice. You gain valuable information, but not without a cost. That cost is the fear that you feel when you read about them, and the true fear when you know you have to deal with them. 

Black Pumas - Colors (Official Live Session)

Black Pumas - Fire (Official Live Session)

Black Pumas. They are described as 'an American psychedelic soul band based in Austin, Texas, led by singer/songwriter Eric Burton and guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada' (Wikipedia). Psychedelic soul--I like the sound of that. Wikipedia again: 'Psychedelic soul (sometimes called black rock or conflated with psychedelic funk) is a music genre that emerged in the late 1960s that saw black soul musicians embrace elements of psychedelic rock, including its production techniques, instrumentation, effects units (wah-wah pedal, phaser, etc.) and drug influences'. 

I really like both of the songs, Fire and Colors, that I'm posting today. Black Pumas is a relatively new band, but I wasn't aware of them until today. I heard the song Fire and loved it. And then I listened to Colors and loved that one too. This is the music I grew up with and loved. Listening to these songs takes me right back to that time. Sly and the Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield, Undisputed Truth, Edwin Starr, and so many others wrote songs that fell under this genre. I liked psychedelic soul without knowing that this is what I was listening to.

 

The importance of gardens and gardening

• The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. --George Bernard Shaw
• The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul. --Alfred Austin
• No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. --Thomas Jefferson
• Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization. --Daniel Webster
• Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers. --May Sarton
• How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening. --Alexander Smith
• Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade. --Rudyard Kipling
• A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them. --Liberty Hyde Bailey
• To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. --William Blake
• Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get. --H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• A good garden may have some weeds. --Thomas Fuller
• A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows. --Doug Larson
• Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. --Luther Burbank
• Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. --May Sarton
• It's true that I have a wide range of interests. I like to write and paint and make music and go walking on my own and garden. In fact, gardening is probably what I enjoy doing more than anything else. --Viggo Mortensen
• God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures. --Francis Bacon
• We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough? --Wendell Berry
• When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited. --Ramakrishna

Beautiful rose mallows, coneflowers, and gladiolas in my garden

Kistefos museum in Jevnaker

One of our summer vacation day trips this year was a visit to the Kistefos museum in Jevnaker, about an hour's drive north and slightly west from Oslo. The drive itself takes you through some beautiful farmland, and on the day we made the trip, the weather was lovely. There is something about the combination of a blue sky, warm sun, and farmland that puts me in a good mood. I am reminded of when I lived in southern New Jersey in the mid-1980s; there was a lot of farmland all around the apartment complex where I lived, and during the summers, it was so relaxing to live there and to walk to the nearby farmer's market. But I'll save those memories for another post. 

Kistefos museum 'offers world-class architecture, industrial history, art exhibitions and an impressive sculpture park in scenic surroundings', as they state on their website: https://www.kistefosmuseum.com/ . It is well-worth visiting, and I plan on doing so again in the coming years. The Twist Gallery alone is worth the price of admission. After we spent the afternoon there, we drove further on to Oldemors Karjol, a very good restaurant for Norwegian food (https://hadelandcatering.no/meny-oldemors-karjol-2/).   

Here are some photos of Kistefos museum, the Twist Gallery, the outdoor sculptures, and the surrounding landscape: 

Remembering Debby

I sometimes go through old photos, looking at the life that was, thirty or forty years ago. I did that a few months ago and found a photo of myself and my friend Debby from the early 1980s, taken in the lab at PHRI where I worked at that time--my first full-time job in Manhattan. She had just gotten married and had moved to Manhattan with her husband; he was starting his medical residency and she was starting her doctoral work in the same lab where I worked as a research assistant. We hit it off almost immediately, and spent our free periods in the lab talking about life, careers, and relationships. I had just finished my master's degree and was interested in doing doctoral work, but as it turned out, that opportunity came much later in my life. I worked in that lab for three years and met some interesting people working at all sorts of jobs--technicians, academics, computer experts, cleaning ladies, and secretaries. I stayed in touch with Debby after I left the lab for a new position at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Our life paths diverged quite a bit after that, but we always stayed in touch. She called me on my birthday every year and we would spend an hour or two catching up on our lives. She had two children to take care of, a house to run, and in her later years she helped her husband with the business side of his medical practice and took care of her elderly mother.

Debby passed away this past Tuesday. She was sixty-four years old and had been sick for about four years with a rare disease called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). PSP is a degenerative disease involving the gradual deterioration and death of specific volumes of the brain that control balance, movement, eye movement, and cognition. Loss of balance, falling, the inability to focus the eyes, and dementia are often the outcomes. There is no cure for PSP. Her condition progressed very quickly; I understood that the last time I saw her. Even though we did not see each other much during the past thirty years, I count her as one of my close friends. She was one of the kindest people I've ever known. I don't think I ever heard a mean word come out of her mouth. She gave up her research career to focus on her family. In her later years, she admitted to me that she missed the lab, and I think had she not gotten sick, that she would have gone back to work in the lab in some capacity. But she never got the chance. I am glad that I sent her the photo of the two of us a few months ago. I wrote that it reminded me of our good times together. We look happy and carefree in that photo, and that's how I want to remember her. 

Reflections on the pandemic

Pandemics seem to bring out the stranger and hitherto hidden sides of people. Visions of a dystopian world or even an apocalyptic one have created paranoia on the one hand and an intense need for control on the other. Some people walk around with a simmering rage, as seen in the many news stories of late about people who deliberately spit and cough on others or become violent toward others for either wearing a face mask or not wearing one. Others have sunk into a low-grade depression, convinced that nothing they do will make a difference one way or another. I’ve watched enough apocalyptic sci-fi movies to know that the word ‘control’ loses all meaning when mankind is faced with extinction of one sort or another. Or perhaps more aptly put, control becomes more about creating a kind of order in one’s life rather than trying to create order and control in society at large. Because the truth is that the idea of ‘control’ is an illusion in the best of times; chronic illness can wipe away that control over our own lives in no time. Just ask any patient with a chronic degenerative neurological disease, or terminal cancer. The diseases make the rules, patients don’t. We are lucky to live in well-ordered societies that function because there is a modicum of laws that keep it functioning, but it doesn’t take much to wipe a law-abiding society away. All you need is an emphasis on ‘me first’, ‘my rights’, ‘I am entitled to’, ‘my freedoms’ when the health authorities ask people to maintain social distancing, not travel, and to wear masks. The latter hasn’t occurred yet in Oslo, but it will, mark my words. The emphasis on ‘my freedoms trump your rules’ is paramount in our society. You just need to look around and witness the large numbers of young people who ignore the social distancing rules, who party and carry on as though there was no pandemic. Or the people you meet on the city sidewalks, mostly young but some old, who walk three abreast and don’t budge an inch as you pass. More often than not, it’s me who moves to the side to create distance between us. My best guesstimate is that two of ten people follow the suggested rules for social distancing. Even some of the elderly seem not to care about social distancing. One nice exception was a middle-aged couple that began to walk single-file when they saw me coming, and we acknowledged each other as we passed each other. It’s as though those who ‘get it’ are part of a secret club when we meet each other; we exchange knowing glances. Because we know that the rest of society doesn’t get it. I’ve watched and read enough apocalyptic sci-fi shows and books respectively to know that this is how the world really is. The majority of people carry on as though nothing has happened, or that what has happened doesn’t really affect them personally. Until it does. And by then it’s usually too late. If people could at least follow these simple rules, we could maintain some semblance of control—the idea of control in any case. The coronavirus doesn’t care about any of it; it will continue doing what viruses do, infecting hosts and making them sick, until it is stopped in one way or another.

I try to follow the advice given by the health authorities. I have purchased face masks in the event that we are asked to use them. Come autumn and winter, I will use them when I go grocery shopping or out to any crowded place. Right now it’s summer and I’m in my garden, alone for the most part. That God-given haven disappears in wintertime. I will continue to work from home, shop online, and grocery shop once a week. I am not sure what winter will be like in the psychological sense; every now and then I get inklings of what a world plagued by a long-term pandemic could really be like. I know there are a lot of mentally-fragile and anxious people in the world, and their needs cannot be ignored. I fear sometimes that the healthcare systems will be overwhelmed not only with virus sufferers but also with people who cannot cope with the current restricted life, especially if that type of life continues for another year or two. I don’t know the future, but I can imagine it. At present, a second coronavirus wave is building in Europe and no one knows how deadly that could be. Without a vaccine, I cannot see how we are going to get past this pandemic. Until that time, we can keep the virus in check by abiding by the rules laid out for us by the health authorities. One can hope that we have learned something from the first coronavirus wave.   

Some links to useful articles about the coronavirus

For those of you who might want more in-depth information and reporting about the coronavirus pandemic, these links to articles in The Atlantic will prove useful. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/category/what-you-need-know-coronavirus/

I've included the list of articles to give you an idea of what they are about. I've read a few of them already and they are well-written and informative. 

The Atlantic’s guide to understanding COVID-19

• The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away

  No matter what happens now, the virus will continue to circulate around the world.

  • SARAH ZHANG
   
  • 7:00 AM ET

• How the Pandemic Defeated America

  A virus has brought the world’s most powerful country to its knees.

  • ED YONG
   
  • SEPTEMBER 2020 ISSUE

• A Vaccine Reality Check

  So much hope is riding on a breakthrough, but a vaccine is only the beginning of the end.

  • SARAH ZHANG
   
  • JULY 24, 2020

• A Second Coronavirus Death Surge Is Coming

  There was always a logical explanation for why cases rose through the end of June while deaths did not.

  • ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL
   
  • JULY 15, 2020

• America Should Prepare for a Double Pandemic

  COVID-19 has steamrolled the country. What happens if another pandemic starts before this one is over?

  • ED YONG
   
  • JULY 15, 2020

• All the President’s Lies About the Coronavirus

  An unfinished compendium of Trump’s overwhelming dishonesty during a national emergency

  • CHRISTIAN PAZ
   
  • JULY 13, 2020

• A New Understanding of Herd Immunity

  The portion of the population that needs to get sick is not fixed. We can change it.

  • JAMES HAMBLIN
   
  • JULY 13, 2020

• A Dire Warning From COVID-19 Test Providers

  U.S. coronavirus testing could fail again, as surging demand creates new backlogs and delays.

  • ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL AND ROBINSON MEYER
   
  • JUNE 30, 2020

• A State-by-State Coronavirus Tracker

  The latest number of confirmed cases everywhere in the U.S.

  • JUNE 25, 2020

• A Devastating New Stage of the Pandemic

  The U.S. has seen more cases in the past week than in any week since the pandemic began.

  • ROBINSON MEYER AND ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL
   
  • JUNE 25, 2020

• Paging Dr. Hamblin: My Brother Is Having 150 People at His Wedding Next Week

  No one should be expected to attend an in-person gathering right now.

  • JAMES HAMBLIN
   
  • JUNE 17, 2020

• America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic

  Businesses are reopening. Protests are erupting nationwide. But the virus isn’t done with us.

  • ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL AND ROBINSON MEYER
   
  • JUNE 7, 2020

• COVID-19 Can Last for Several Months

  The disease’s “long-haulers” have endured relentless waves of debilitating symptoms—and disbelief from doctors and friends.

  • ED YONG
   
  • JUNE 4, 2020

• Paging Dr. Hamblin: Does Vitamin D Help Fight COVID-19?

  Evidence is slowly mounting. Some researchers think that’s enough to recommend it.

  • JAMES HAMBLIN
   
  • JUNE 3, 2020

• A Hidden COVID-19 Risk Factor: Your Boss

  America’s flawed approach to sick leave is making the pandemic worse.

  • OLGA KHAZAN
   
  • JUNE 1, 2020

• So, What Can We Do Now?

  A guide to staying safe this summer

  • AMANDA MULL
   
  • MAY 27, 2020

• We Don’t Even Have a COVID-19 Vaccine, and Yet the Conspiracies Are Here

  Even as vaccines for the disease are being held up as the last hope for a return to normalcy, misinformation about them is spreading.

  • SARAH ZHANG
   
  • MAY 24, 2020

• Is Everyone Depressed?

  Suddenly, many people meet the criteria for clinical depression. Doctors are scrambling to determine who needs urgent intervention, and who is simply the new normal.

  • JAMES HAMBLIN
   
  • MAY 22, 2020

• Social Distancing Is Not Enough

  We will need a comprehensive strategy to reduce the sort of interactions that can lead to more infections.

  • DEREK THOMPSON
   
  • MAY 22, 2020

• ‘How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?’

  The government’s disease-fighting agency is conflating viral and antibody tests, compromising a few crucial metrics that governors depend on to reopen their economies. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and other states are doing the same.

  • ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL AND ROBINSON MEYER
   
  • MAY 21, 2020

• MORE STORIES

The wisdom of Alan Watts

·        The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

·        This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

·        Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them. Faith in life, in other people, and in oneself, is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time.

·        There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied.

·        Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself.

·        Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.

·        The only Zen you’ll find on mountain tops is the Zen you bring up there with you.

·        If you really understand Zen… you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because… the sound of the rain needs no translation.

·        But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.

·        To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it.

·        Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.

·        Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

·        There will always be suffering. But we must not suffer over the suffering.

 

Bumblebee nest?

A couple of years ago, I bought a hedgehog house online and placed it under the huge rose bush in the garden. As it turned out, it was never used for hedgehogs because the garden board would not allow us to take in hedgehogs since there are badgers in the vicinity of the community garden, and they are known to kill hedgehogs. So the hedgehog house has been standing empty ever since, until recently. Last week I was cleaning up all of the dead leaves and refuse under the rose bush, and my eye happened to light upon something of interest inside the hedgehog house. It looked like a symmetrically-shaped ornament with a hole in the top. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a nest of some sort. My first thought was that it was a bumblebee nest, since bumblebees do make their homes on the ground under protective coverings, e.g. an upside-down flower pot or a compost bin (as I have also witnessed this summer). I took a few photos of it in order to search online afterward. I am fairly sure it is a bumblebee nest. But if any of you have other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Inspiration for these trying times

Both quotes give me food for thought, but it is the last one that got under my skin. After a lifetime of worrying about 'productivity' and 'efficiency', I realize that the 'degree of presence' in your own life and in the lives of others are what matter most. Eckhart Tolle writes about this all the time. We are often so worried about the future, or about what happened in the past. We are powerless to change the events of the past, and we simply cannot map out our futures to the smallest detail since it is the great unknown. So we are left with the present. Accepting where we are, where we stand, in the present time, leads to peace. And it leads us away from the idea that our personal lives must be lived the way our work lives have been lived--by measuring all things in terms of productivity and efficiency. Perhaps this is something one figures out as one gets older. I don't know. I only know that I have begun to think differently about how I want to live my daily life. Perhaps the pandemic has given me the chance to reflect on this. When I stop worrying about how much I need to get done in one day, I am more relaxed and life flows better. I am better able to keep the negative influences at bay because I am 'aware' of where I am in the present. I am aware of whether I am content or not. I am better able to establish the necessary boundaries between me and the rest of the world. I am aware of the uninvited infringements on my peace of soul and the criticisms of others and how that affects me. Society and other (well-meaning) people are always trying to tell us what to do, how to live, what to buy, how to think, and how to react to different events. It's exhausting to have to consider what others think we should do all the time. I simply don't want to. I've done it long enough in the work world.