The shift

I sense a change,  a shift in my thinking reflecting acceptance of my age and life situation. I've had the thought for some time 'The window of opportunity is closing,' meaning certain things I've sought and hoped for are no longer realistic possibilities, if, in fact, they ever were. I won't say what all of these things are. What I will say is, I want now to focus on appreciating the enviable situation I have and taking care of business to maintain it. My new mantra is 'Do as much as I can as long as I can.' 

Milton Leathers

I only knew Milton through Facebook and a few telephone conversations. He was a few years older than me and from Old Athens people, Cobbs and Irwins and McWhorters. He was a Southern eccentric, a gentleman, widely read, thoughtful and progressive, yet deeply respectful of and steeped in the past, in the story of his family and community. Milton recognized my intelligence and vision and reached out to me to make personal voice contact. We shared on the level of values, interests and beliefs, both wishing for a kinder, more compassionate and enlightened human society.

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, I learned of Milton's death through a Facebook post by Roy Bell.  I had missed a phone call from Roy the day before and I thought Roy must have called to tell me about Milton. I called Roy back and found him sitting on his porch. Roy has had very serious health problems recently (esophageal varices on top of diabetes and cardiovascular issues) and is limited physically as he slowly recovers from a harrowing episode of burst blood vessels in his throat. 

Roy sadly informed me Milton had committed suicide by jumping off a highway overpass. Unknown to me, Milton suffered from Bipolar Disorder. He had just undergone a course of hospitalization and only been discharged a few days before. He left a note for his wife and departed in the night alone to meet his fate. Roy found out from Lucy Minogue Rowland, a close friend of Milton's I'd met via his Facebook posts. 

Milton was a person everyone loved. He was an iconic pubic figure, a man who knew everyone in and everything about Athens, Georgia. His generous, extraverted spirit touched and affirmed anyone who came in contact with him. As Roy and I discussed, Milton had to have been experiencing unbearable agony to take his life in such a sure and violent manner.  It was unjust for Milton's shining life to end so miserably. He deserved to die peacefully of old age in bed at home surrounded by love ones. How cruel that mental illness drove Milton to a depth of despair and agitation he could no longer stand to endure. 

As always, there's more to the story than we can know, questions that can't be answered. His death is a devastating blow to the people closest to him and that's the very last thing he would have wanted. I hope in time they are able to realize that and forgive him as he would have forgiven a person he loved were the roles reversed. Milton was overcome by a terrible and irresistible force that took his life but can't negate the tremendous good he did over its course.  

Peace is yours, my brother, Milton Leathers, and may peace be with all of us.

Thinking

Looking at my situation positively, my successful career as a human being has led me to a period of safety and freedom with time to consider what I wish to do with myself. I am profoundly grateful for my good fortune and well aware that it's not an entitlement. What I've done with it so far is to simplify my activities and to spend much of my time thinking. What do I think about? Pretty much everything but one major dimension is my place in the history of our species and what to do with it in whatever time I have left. At this point, I've let go of the idea of having any widespread impact through putting my thoughts into writing and disseminating them to a large audience who would then be inspired to work toward creating a more enlightened future. 

I realize that sounds ridiculous as if it were ever a possibility; but, I still believe I see the human world more clearly than most and that my ideas and insights could be valuable if I found a way to get them out there. I could at least make an effort to consolidate them and leave them in a form where they might be discovered one day. I have it in mind to make that effort. 

What holds me back is my dysthymic state. I'm not clinically depressed but I struggle with apathy, low-level demoralization and having trouble staying awake and alert. My eyesight is also a growing concern as I'm blind in my left eye and I see signs of issues with the good one. As noted previously, I have trouble carrying out meaningful projects such as my music and the family archives in a disciplined process. I move slowly and rest frequently as each day goes by. I think regularly about my experience with my aging parents and the inevitability of death. I realize that all of this is fleeting and one can't hold on to much less be validated by transient material and social possessions and accomplishments.

There's something to say for keeping things simple- watering the plants, weeding the flower beds, doing 15 pushups and 6500 steps daily, keeping the house straight, being supportive of Mary Lou, Maureen, Cody, Jenny and my social media friends, entertaining myself following the success of the Milwaukee Bucks' NBA championship and the Georgia Bulldogs' pursuit of the NCAA football  trophy. I kept Regina this weekend while Cody and Maureen were in Dallas visiting friends and Patty Ken's family. I took her for walks, fed her treats, let her follow me around and lie down wherever I was sitting. I enjoyed her company but was glad to return her this morning after keeping her an extra day (Monday) because Cody and Maureen were ill. 

I'm not giving up on life but I've detached and let go in many ways. I'm in a good place with God ("Trust the Creator" is one of my mantras). I believe that whatever happens happens and it's ultimately OK. My power is limited but I want to use it wisely in keeping my my values of compassion and unconditional love.

  

The big question

How am I going to spend my precious time today?

Accidents happen but...

In the past 2 years, I've had five minor accidents driving my car. Three involved backing into a stationary object (two times hitting the exact same post in a parking garage!), one involving changing lanes to my left into the path of a car who had turned into that lane at the same time I turned right and in the fifth case, two nights ago,  I stopped for a light at night in the left lane and tried to pull into the right lane where another car had pulled up to a stop without my seeing it. Needless to say, this is an alarming trend that warrants scrutiny. The nice lady I pulled over into is allowing me to pay for her damage without filing insurance, so our coverage won't be affected; but, I really need to stop causing these accidents. 

The family archives

After Mom died in January 2015, I became curator of the Scott family archives. This disorganized collection of stuff includes portraits of Scott ancestors from the 19th Century, letters, diplomas, certificates and documents dating back to WON Scott I down through Grandpapa (Frank K. Scott) and my Dad, Mom's Reeder mementos, Mom's Candlewick research and publication archives going from the 1970s through early 2000s, my jumble of personal papers from high school until the present, myriad photographs covering all those people and eras, greeting cards from one person to another, WONS I's diaries, books and God knows what else. I packed much of this into bins when I cleared out our house in Athens and brought them over to Baton Rouge where they've languished in our storage units, in one corner of my studio in the garage building and in the back of various storage spaces in our house. 

I'm not sure who, if anyone, will be interested in these things after I'm gone, but I feel meaningfully responsible for getting them into some kind or order before that happens. This has been on my mind since I collected them here in Baton Rouge; and, retirement (in July 2019) has given me the free time I can use to execute the task. Getting started on it has been another matter, specifically, a matter of procrastinating for the past two years. As documented in this diary, I've had repeated dreams about my parents being alive and often infirm and in need of my care and about aspects of my old life in Athens, perhaps reflecting my anxiety about the unfinished mission. 

I made an abortive start a few weeks ago, assigning plastic bins to different branches of the family and beginning to sort items and place them in their proper boxes. It seems there's always something to distract me from a concerted effort; but, today I spent the morning and afternoon making good headway. I've been in touch with the National Imperial Glass Museum in Bellaire, Ohio and they've accepted my offer to donate to them Mom's Candlewick materials. This would have made Mom very proud and happy. I've got a good chunk of her material organized in a shipping box that's pretty much ready to go. 

I also put a number of my immature writings saved on old sheets of notebook paper, into plastic sheet protectors and placed them in notebooks. Another notebook contains lyrics and chords for my original songs. I threw out, among other things, a large number of charts for songs I've played or intended to play in cover bands over the past 15 years, thinking I'll probably never play them again. 

All of this is, of course, rather sad. As my song says,

        In with the new life/Out with the old life/Farewell to past life and on with the show...

Another classic dream

By classic,  I mean one of the recurring themes that have recurred as far back as I remember dreaming. This particular theme might be called "Harassed by an offensive man."

In the dream,  I was leaving a workplace that might have been my Psychology internship. I was driving away in a convertible like my first Volvo C70 with three passengers, shotgun and two in the back. As we started out, a man jumped over from the passenger side into the car.  I was incensed by his audacity and continued driving while yelling at him to get out. But he stayed put. My three passengers remained passive as I told the man I was going to get the police to get rid of him. He didn't seem to care, even as I got in his face and spat at him. We were approaching downtown Athens from Lumpkin Street and had to slow or stop. I saw some uniformed men but realized they were just security guards loading an armored car at the bank on the corner. The dream ended without a resolution. 

Upon awakening, I immediately recognized this as what Jung would call a confrontation with the Shadow, the embodiment of my disowned personality traits. The man was aggressive, bold and rude in imposing himself on me and I showed no interest in finding out what his motive was in leaping into my car. I've had any number of similar dreams over the years including one way back before I went to graduate school where I was handcuffed to a psychotic policeman who was berating me for using amphetamines. Today, I used Jung's active imagination method to explore the character from last night's dream. His reason for doing it: He's tired of being ignored and left out. I have to admit I could use his aggressive passion these days.

Coping with emotional stress

Life is stressful for most people regardless of specific circumstances. Why is that? The many different factors producing the experience of stress have one thing in common: They trigger one or more of the negative emotions: shame, fear, grief or boredom. Physical fatigue and exhaustion may also contribute. Consider the Biblical creation story. The first two people,  Adam and Eve, lived in a beautiful and peaceful park where they apparently subsisted on gathering fruit, they didn't work, they faced no threat from oppressive authorities, dangerous people and other animals or disease and they enjoyed intimate companionship without fear of losing the partner to a competitor. In short, before the intervention of the serpent, they experienced no fear, no shame, no grief, no exhaustion, no loneliness, not even any anger. Did they ever get bored with this easy life? Not as far as the account reveals.

The Garden story contrasts with the unceasing demands of real life. Individual circumstances vary greatly around the world but almost all of them impose forms of stress on the individual. Every individual must find an adaptive niche within her or his social milieu. A critical part of the adaptive skills an individual develops is a repertoire of coping skills, behavioral practices that manage his or her particular stressors.

Coping skills are distinguished from those that directly support survival (e.g., food acquisition and consumption, work). Coping skills function to build positive emotions and manage negative ones so as to facilitate adaptive stablity.

An examination of coping skills (or mechanisms, if you will) reveals they may he assessed in terms of costs and benefits to the individual.  Some common patterns of thought and behavior,  other things being equal, produce healthy, sustainable adaptation and longevity (listening to music, positive thinking) while others (abuse of alcohol or opiates) lead to dysfunction, ill health and early death.

Ephemerality

Just back from a short walk in the neighborhood down to old Highland Road Cemetery where I meditated for awhile on the worn gravestones and open spaces of lost and forgotten burial sites,  I receive a call from Maureen informing me that her friend from high school,  Max, has died of a drug overdose. Maureen learned this from Alex, who dated Max during those years before they parted ways to attend different colleges.  Maureen and Alex went on to become successful professional people and mothers while Max struggled with addiction. His parents did all they could to help him recover and at one time he seemed to be on track. How sad this is.

I've been thinking about my own path. I think about doing certain meaningful things but have difficulty getting going and following through on them. I have things to say about but don't put the thoughts into writing. I spend a lot of time reading articles about my favorite sports teams. Nothing wrong with that but is it how I want to use my most valuable resource?

To do:

Organize the family archives 

Contact Candlewick people about Mom's research archives 

Practice my songs 

Work on my recordings 

Get Moderna booster 

Get blood work 

New phone 

New headphones

Get Boss blue box repaired

Catalogue and value my stamp and related collections. 

What else?

New watch 

New shoes

Review and organize my writings