Morris Friedell's Home Page
(rev. 7/22/10)
I’m 70, single, live in Houston. I have two children and seven grandchildren. I’m a retired sociology professor.
Forty years ago I was captivated by the human potential movement. New methods for personal growth could to an unprecedented extent empower us to do what we want to do, feel what we want to feel, and realize the ideals of religion at its best.
I wrote on the blackboard:
Who are you?
Who are you to think?
Who are you to think that?
Who are you to think that you can change?
Who are you to think that you can change the world?
It all proved more difficult than we had thought – yet I continued to believe that the human potential movement had a kernel of truth. I argued for the reality of human dignity as opposed to pessimistic views of human nature that would make us pawns of biology or society. I assigned books such as Alberti and Emmons’ _Your Perfect Right_ which showed how persons could work with their feelings and build their skills to realize democratic ideals in relationships. Aggressiveness and passivity were not the only options.
Another book I assigned was _Man’s Search for Meaning_, written by Viktor Frankl who survived Auschwitz to argue for the human capacity to manifest human dignity and realize values such as generosity, responsibility and self-expression even in great adversity. Part of me envied Frankl who had a dramatic story to tell. Life hadn’t been easy for me – as a child I was clumsy and socially inept, and my parents weren’t the greatest. I grew up to marry a fascinating but borderline and histrionic woman who turned out to be abusive to our children (she’s dead now). Some drama there, but all too painful.
My forty-year experience with humanistic psychotherapy (which I define broadly to mean methodologies for personal growth and change) has been very helpful with my addictions to smoking and to overeating, and with overcoming depression and mitigating shyness. But it has better enabled me to avoid misery in relationships than to find peace of mind or lasting love. On the whole it’s been successful for me, but not dramatically successful. Recent insights have given me new optimism, however.
In 1998 disturbing weaknesses in following conversations, remembering and problem-solving led me to get a "working diagnosis" of early Alzheimer’s disease. I finally had "material" for my own dramatic story. My second career could be "dementia activist." I could, in my way, emulate Frankl, enabling David Shenk, in his bestselling The Forgetting, to write: "Before being taken prisoner by the Nazis, Frankl wrote extensively about the human ability to retain dignity under extreme conditions. Then, in the concentration camp, he faced the ultimate personal test of his own ideas. Now, after years of studying him, Morris was echoing Frankl’s life. In the freezing, foodless, lice-ridden barracks of Auschwitz, Frankl survived and maintained his dignity. Morris wondered if he could do the same as he was thrown into the dark cave of forgetting."
Now, twelve years later, my mind works slowly, is easily overloaded and fatigued by complex interaction with the environment in real-time (games, conversation, etc.). This is consistent with the bitemporal hypometabolism in my brain PET, but it is not certain whether pathology is present, or whether the possible pathology is Alzheimer’s or microvascular. Regardless, my work and that of others has affirmed that the lessons learned from spiritual resistance to the Holocaust by persons like Frankl apply as well to the trauma of dementing disease. The Nazis’ idolization of biology has again been found wrong.
I was a cofounder of DASNI, the online Dementia Support and Advocacy Network (International). In 2002 I met Andrea there, who became my third wife. In 2007 we saw Away from Her, the award-winning film about Alzheimer’s and relationships starring Julie Christie. I was blown away when she quoted from The Forgetting my line, "Sometimes there is something delicious in oblivion." It was a thrill to hear these and other words from my life coming from a famous actress. I had had no idea. Part of the thrill was sharing this with Andrea and thus celebrating some of the best of our experience together.
But is really true that "sometimes there is something delicious in oblivion"? Absolutely! But there are other truths as well. I want to learn them, but not forget oblivion. "We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it," says the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I like that attitude.
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Sadly, Andrea and I separated last August.
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For over fifty years I’ve had a love-hate relationship with religion. Can religions be reformed to retain their emotional appeal but eschew superstition and violence? Due to my ethnicity I’ve particularly asked this question of Judaism, but I think that with other religions the issues are much the same.
Quests to find a core of goodness in Jewish tradition are themselves a part of the tradition. Here’s a legend from the Talmud:
A heathen once came before the sage Shammai. He said to him:
"I will convert to Judaism if you will teach me all the Torah while I stand on
one foot."
Shammai pushed the man away with the builder’s measure he held in his hand.
The man came before Hillel and repeated his request. Hillel said to him:
"What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The
rest is
commentary – go and learn it."
A noble attempt but too minimal. Suppose we add Micah 6:8:
"He has told you, O man, what is good,
And what the Lord requires of you.
Only to do justice
And to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah's addition of kindness and receptiveness to Hillel’s ethic of justice feels better, but I'm still not satisfied.
Recently I got the idea of adding the 23rd psalm:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul.
He guides me in straight paths for His Name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
For Thou art with me.
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil,
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
Now I do feel satisfied! ("I shall not want.") The theology implicit in the 23rd psalm makes Micah 6:8 an essentially complete ethics of life and happiness!
But how can I keep this formulation from becoming a dogma? Drawing on the 12-step programs’ "act as if" and Gandhi’s idea of an "experiment in truth" I get:
One day at a time, act as if the core of ethics is: "Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God. Meditate on the 23rd psalm. Keep questioning and learning."
I see here a spirituality with emotional depth and richness, without dogma and superstition, and with a firm but gentle discipline ("Thy rod and Thy staff") rather than threats and violence.
I see here a kind and gentle God who lives in the heart and the imagination and, unbeknownst to me then, wept with me when I was an unhappy child and sent messengers to give me solace.
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On March 22 my divorce became final, ending a chapter in my life with sadness and with relief but without bitterness. What should be the next chapter? My problem in romantic relationships is (to oversimplify a bit) that I enjoy self-forgetfulness. As I stated above, "sometimes there is something delicious in oblivion." When encountering a tasty dessert my ability to forget all the reasons I should lose weight gives me pleasure. But in order to enjoy physical and mental health I need to balance my ability to forget with an ability to remember. How in romantic relationships can I counterbalance my tendency toward self-forgetfulness? More generally, how in romantic and family relationships can I have more integrity? How can I achieve self-awareness without self-centeredness? How can I set boundaries on negativity while still enjoying honesty, spontaneity and emotionalism? How can I honor my belief that people can change? How can I honor my belief that I can change? How can I honor my dream of shalom bayit, family harmony?
Stephen Covey, in _The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families_, makes the opposite errors from my habitual ones. He stresses agency. He's heavily into personal and family missions crystallized in mission statements. He declares that love is a verb not a feeling. ("Love--the feeling--is a fruit of love the verb."). Epitomizing his approach, the "habit" in which he places family spiritual renewal is called "sharpening the saw." And just recently I came across a wonderful book on family, Libby Cataldi, _Stay Close_, which in contrast to Covey celebrates warmth of feeling in difficult times (consistent with the author's Italian heritage).
Educated by Covey and inspired by Cataldi I believe it is possible to grow both in emotional warmth and focused action.
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Reflections on death and aging.
