Gone Fishin'

 “Rivers and the inhabitants of the water element were made for wise men to contemplate, and fools to pass by without consideration.”  (Izaak Walton, 1593--1683)

The Complete Angler or The Contemplative Man’s Recreation was written 367 years ago by Izaak Walton.  This classic of English literature is a testimonial to the joy of fishing. It is an encyclopedic compilation of fishing lore and fishing tips, with a few recipes thrown in for good measure.  It is also a book filled with philosophic wisdom and speculation.  Walton writes about the life well lived, asking if life should be lived in contemplation or in action.  He decides that fishing offers its enthusiasts the best of both.

Walton’s book was his response to the uncertainty and upheaval in England during the time of Oliver Cromwell.  Walton’s fictional angler, Piscator, lives peacefully and contentedly.  Walton portrays life enjoyed apolitically, pastorally, and simply in the pursuit of fishing.

Unlike Walton I lack fishing skill and experience, but I share his enthusiasm for the sport.  I didn’t start fishing until I was in my forties.  Having begun the sport so late, I never acquired the skills or instincts of those raised with rod and reel in hand.  Unlike lifelong fishermen, I have but a few stories of exotic places visited or of great fish stalked, hooked, and landed.

But from my few years of fishing, I have learned some helpful lessons.  You can’t catch fish if your line’s not in the water.  You have to find the fish, they don’t usually find you. Keep your lures clean and your equipment in good repair. Don’t overthink it, keep it simple.  Remember to look up once-in-a-while to take in the scenery, enjoy the weather, and count your blessings.

I’m still learning many of the subtleties of fishing like choosing the correct lure for the right fish at the right depth.  I’m learning a new kind of reading, reading the visible patterns on the water’s surface in order to understand what lies below. I’m still learning how to locate fish without using an electronic fish-finder which I consider to be cheating, as I am sure Izaak Walton would too. 

The calm and quiet of fishing contrasts with the pressure and turmoil of most day-to-day demands. Fish, and there are no responsibilities or worries. Catch a fish and there are no forms to fill out, no bills to pay.  In those hours of fishing, those times of re-creation, the problems of the world cease to matter. I forget about politics. I forget about the pandemic.  I forget about all the appalling news, for a while.

I love to fish because it is irrelevant to life’s grown-up concerns. When I fish, I am young, curious and wondering, loving the lakes and rivers, loving the challenge and unpredictability of fishing.

House needs fixin’.  Bills need payin’.  Masks need wearin’.  People need social distancin’.  Democracy needs savin’.  And I’ve gone fishin’.

Free Will

 “I have no choice but to continue to believe in free will.”  (William James,1842—1910)

In the seventeenth century the philosopher Baruch Spinoza concluded that we live enslaved, “in human bondage,” to our emotions and that there is no such thing as free will.  Today’s scientists tell us that our thoughts and behaviors are no more than the enactment of neurochemical processes occurring within our brains.  Freedom to choose and to act is an illusion.  There is no such thing as free will.  Yet, like William James, I can’t help but believe in free will.

Certainly, for some, there is no free will.  A newborn infant cannot choose and act freely. Someone with a severe intellectual deficit cannot do so, nor can someone with advanced dementia.  There are some individuals that our society says are not responsible for their behavior, because they do not have the capacity to choose otherwise.

I always found it ironic when defiant and misbehaving kids were labelled ‘willful’.  These kids don’t choose their actions.  They act impulsively, reflexively, responding emotionally with anger, fear, and frustration.  Their behavior is not from thought and reason.  They don’t choose, they react. These kids would be much more accurately called ‘will-less’.

In my life, there is much for which I had no choice.  I did not choose when and where I was born. I did not choose what genes I inherited nor how I was parented.  My early teachers were luck of the draw, I didn’t choose them.  Nor did I choose the circumstances that surround my life in these troubled times.  As for mortality, I have no choice.

What then is free will as I understand it to be?  It is not something we are born with.  It is a capacity that is acquired, to a greater or lesser degree.  We are freed from ‘human bondage’ when we learn to respond other than to the immediacy of our emotions.  Free will begins with the development of self-control.  It begins when we acquire the power to moderate and restrain our emotions.  In the course of healthy development, we progress from impulsive to reasoning, from reflexive to reflective.

Free will starts when we use self-control to stop . . .  and to think . . . and to reason . . . and to imagine possibilities . . . and to choose . . . and then to act in accord with our choice.  That is free will.

My son and I have had a few debates on this subject.  He strongly believes that there is no such thing as free will and I have not been able to convince him otherwise.  If he reads this, it’s not that he had any choice. He was determined to do so.

 

My Top-10

In an otherwise forgettable biography of Freud, I read that European intellectuals thought Top-10 Lists were “vulgar, predictable, and American.”  Who am I to argue? In no particular order, here’s my vulgar, predictable, and American Top-10 List: the ten books that, through the years, most influenced and guided my thinking.

1.      The Growth of Biological Thought, by Ernst Mayer – written by a renown evolutionary theorist, this book, which I read early in my residency, was my introduction to the interface of science and philosophy.

2.      Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter – written by a scholar of cognitive science, this book is an entertaining and challenging rollercoaster journey of thinking about thinking.

3.      Powers of Ten, by Philip Morrison and Phylis Morrison and the office of Charles and Ray Eames – the book took me through a visual journey of the universe from the smallest known particles to the vast reaches of space, as viewed from many perspectives, through many lenses.

4.      Existential Psychotherapy, by Irvin D. Yalom – written by a psychotherapist and novelist, this textbook reads like a novel, and from it I derived much of my approach to psychotherapy.

5.      The Writings of William James, edited by John J. McDermott – James’s approachable writings on the philosophic topics of Pragmatism and Pluralism continue to inform my journey into the worlds of both science and religion.

6.      Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl – written by a holocaust survivor and a psychotherapist, this book is a poignant affirmation of free will and the human capacity to rise above adversity.

7.      I and Thou, by Martin Buber – this short and difficult to read book distinguishes between the day to day indifference of the ‘it’ world and the authentic love, humanity, and dialogue that occurs when another becomes not an ‘it’, but a ‘Thou’.

8.      The Case for God, by Karen Armstrong – written by an ex-nun, with encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s religions, this book affirms my conviction that the quest to experience God is a worthy endeavor.

9.      The Blessing of a Skinned Knee:  Raising Self-Reliant Children, by Wendy Mogel – written by a child psychologist, this book articulates the importance of attending to children’s character and providing them with a moral compass. This book was often my guide when I taught parent guidance.

10.  Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman – written by a Nobel Prize winner, among many topics this book explores the tendency of humans use cognitive shortcuts to create explanations and narratives, while overlooking, denying, or forgetting facts and statistics that refute our explanations.

I just finished rereading Thinking Fast and Slow. I learned a lot, some of which I hope to write about soon.  I am excited by what I’ve learned and I’m glad to know that it’s still possible to teach an old (Boxer) dog new tricks!

God?

 “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science . . . It was the experience of mystery –even if mixed with fear—that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate . . . it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.”  (Albert Einstein, 1879—1955) 

I am an agnostic. I seek to know God, but God is elusive. I distrust those who claim to know for sure, whether it be the certainty of the fundamentalist or the certainty of the atheist.  What I know definitively is that I don’t know. Fortunately, in the milieu in which I was raised, there was acceptance of question, debate, and doubt. 

My parents were not religious. Nevertheless, I attended a Conservative Jewish Sunday school.  I was taught history, holidays, and life cycles.  I was taught prayer, but I was not taught about God.  Maybe for my teachers, some who had numbers tattooed on their arms, it was just too soon and too painful to talk about God.  Still, I was curious. 

I remember the philosophical talks I had in grade school with my friend Paul.  We figured that there must be something in the universe that is as far beyond our comprehension as we humans are above an amoeba’s.  And that’s what we call God. 

As a young teenager, I often went to services hoping through prayer to have an experience of God, but it didn’t happen.  Then one Shabbat morning, a friend called asking if I wanted to play football.  With little second thought, I chose football over prayer, and that religiously observant phase of my life abruptly ended. 

Some years later I tried a new tactic, the lottery.  I bargained with God.  “God, if I win the lottery I will follow your commandments, AND I will give half of my winnings to charity.”  I was offering God the chance for a win-win-win.  I win. Charity wins. God wins. I didn’t win. 

In college I took Intro to Philosophy and learned what the philosophers had to say on the subject.  However, the god of the philosophers was so abstract that God ceased to be relevant.  What I was seeking was not an abstraction called "god," but a personal, caring god. 

My seeking, my questioning, and my un-answering has continued well into my adult years. So now what do I the agnostic say when my children ask if I believe in God? I say that I am open to the possibility that the world is more than just matter and energy.  I am open to the possibility of God. I am even open to the possibility that we experience “God moments.” fleeting glimpses of God’s presence in our lives. 

For me, God remains a mystery.  Perhaps God is Mystery. Despite a lifetime of doubting, I continue seeking. Like Einstein, I too am a deeply religious man.

Trump's Win

It is now been twelve books, nine jigsaw puzzles, and 4 ½ months since I first blogged about Covid.  The pandemic is worse than ever, no end in sight.  The election is less than 100 days away (maybe).  Here, friends and readers, is my prediction . . . the pandemic continues and so does Trump.

People are passionate about Trump.  You either love him or you hate him.  Joe Biden is as exciting as a glass of warm milk.  In the coming election, people will turn out to either vote for Trump or vote against Trump.  But how many will turn out, enthusiastic enough to risk their health, to vote for Biden?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not going to make it through another four years.  All the right-to-lifers, all the gun-rights advocates, and all the right-wing conservatives will vote Trump.  They don’t want to lose the opportunity to appoint more conservative federal judges and to get one more conservative judge onto the Supreme Court.

Law-and-order conservatives will vote Trump.  Right-wing nationalists will vote Trump.  The wealthy, seeking to protect their wealth from the left-wing progressives, will vote Trump.

Trump will do all he can to discourage mail-in ballots.  In contrast to Democrats, Republicans take the Covid epidemic far less seriously, observe less social distancing, wear masks less often, and are more willing to meet in large crowds.  This means that they will be more willing to come out in public, wait in lines, and vote on-site.  Advantage Trump.

The Democrats will inevitably shoot themselves in the foot.  The radical left-wing will do to the Democratic Party what the Tea Party did to the Republicans.  At a time when this country needs uniting, when we need politicians willing to work across aisles and to make compromises, ideology and polarization will prevail.

The media will contribute to Trump’s victory.  Moderation and compromise make for boring news and lower ratings.  The news media outlets, all of them, have a significant investment in Trump being President for four more years.  Love him or hate him, with Trump in office people watch the news.

Russia and China, to the extent that they will try to influence the election, know it is in their best interest to see Trump win.  No need for war or espionage.  They will be able to sit back and watch the U.S. implode.

Add it all up.  Trump wins.

(I hope I'm wrong.)