Persistence Extraordinaire

Stubbornly persist, and you will find that the limits of your stubbornness go well beyond the stubbornness of your limits. -- Robert Brault

These inspirational words arrived in my morning email from DailyGood. Good went on to highlight the story of Brian Smith, a California college student majoring in music. Smith lost financial aid and student loans then subsequently became homeless. The committed songster (he performs opera, gospel, and jazz, among other genres) didn't give up. He slept in the practice rooms of his music department while he maintained a 3.65 GPA!

Remember that old saw "life is hard and then you die"? Too often too many of us get caught up in our own seeming struggles and hardships. I say seeming here because our minds can convince us of limitations and build imaginary barriers even where none exist. Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius discuss this phenomenon in their book, Buddha's Brain (p. 41):

Negative events generally have more impact that positive ones. For example, it's easy to acquire feelings of learned helplessness from a few failures, but hard to undo those feelings, even with many successes (Seligman, 2006).

I can easily identify innumerable examples of personal persistence and perseverance by others. In the 2006 movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner, a San Francisco salesman dreamed of becoming a stockbroker on Wall Street. As he moved toward--and achieved!--career success he and his young son often lived on the edge and were sometimes homeless. (This movie was based on a true story.)

Several nights back Frances and I watched another real life story set to film: Temple Grandin. This 2010 HBO movie highlights Grandin's commitment to make a difference in the world even though she herself struggles with autism. Thanks to the support of her mother who refused to institutionalize her despite a doctor's recommendation, and an aunt, science teacher, and college roommate who appreciated and encouraged her unusual talents, Grandin singlehandedly changed the institutionalized norms of the cattle industry.

Grandin's unique sensitivities and skills prompted her to earn bachelor, master, and Ph.D. degrees. She turned her understanding of animal behavior (which was amazingly similar to her own) into the design for a more compassionate and efficient system of corrals that reduced the stress of cattle being led to slaughter. Significantly, she pursued these accomplishments despite suffering incredible discrimination and harassment due to this mental condition that reduced her ability to respond to or communicate with the world of humans around her.

Here on the Bayfield Pennisula I am surrounded by neighbors who challenge the status quo and live in close communion with the earth. They live off the electric grid in log cabins with solar panels, straw bale houses with cisterns, and even yurts and tents with wood stoves. Some people, I suppose, would call them crazy for surviving long, cold, and snowy northern Wisconsin winters with one sheet of canvas between their bodies and the elements. But, to me, they are members of a unique breed: those who subbornly persist. As a result, they bestow upon our community a richness and diversity that is a rare and precious gift.

Over the past ten months I've learned tremendous lessons about the advantages of persistence because of a demanding task I took upon myself: Practice T'ai Chi Chih moving meditation daily and write a daily blog about my experiences (see Rooted in Earth, Suspended from Sky at http://www.taichichihmoments.blogspot.com/). Here's what I discovered: I'm happier and more joyful, better able to shift my moods and thoughts to a positive vein, more cognizant of decisions I make day to day, and finely tuned to the changing phases of the woods that surround me.

Sometimes my partner asks me why I practice TCC when I'm exhausted or why I choose to write my blog when I could join her to watch a movie or engage in some other project or adventure. I persist because I feel better but that isn't the only reason. I feel an obligation to my readers and, beyond that, I sense that this TCC practice/blogging experiment is what I need to do even though I do not yet fully understand why.

Stubborn persistence. Yep, I guess I have some of that special character trait running through my blood and calcifying in my bones too. It's a highly prized quality here in Wisconsin's northern woods that keeps us brightly burning through the darkest days and cozily warm during the longest nights.

The Healing Power of Stories

Why does telling stories, listening to stories, and sharing stories bring hope and meaning to human experience? I ask that question after falling under the spell of storytelling several times over the past few weeks.

On August 20th Frances and I attended a reading at Big Waters Cafe in Bayfield that featured writers published in the Love Stories of the Bay collection. About eight or ten of us--out of the 43 writers included in the book--read that night. And, though I'd previously read the stories in the book, this opportunity to hear each author read their own story using their personal vocabulary, intonation, and nonverbal cues made each story come alive in a new and exciting way.

I wasn't the only person who enjoyed the evening. Plans are now in the works for Love Stories' authors to appear at Stage North this winter. Not only will we read our stories, but our tales will be enhanced with lights, music, action.... More on that event later when details are finalized.

Several Saturdays back during my weekly cooking extravaganza I listened to one of my favorite weekend radio shows, This American Life. I heard the re-broadcast of "American Limbo" (originally aired 2/9/01), a segment about people who felt separated from the world, as if they were living on the outside of American culture looking in. I was captivated by a story about a family of eight that spent seven years evading police and the FBI. Entitled "The Family that Flees Together Trees Together," it described their experiences living in a treehouse and a leaky boat.

Ira Glass, the host, emphasized that, although the family was pursued by authorities because the father grew marijuana, both parents knew the importance of keeping their family together rather than submitting their kids to the foster care system while they served a jail term. And, said Ira, these kids seemed to turn out great.

The perspectives of the youngest son, now 21, were a sad commentary on the effects of TV and radio on the American psyche. He described people as "beasts" and "primitive thinkers" and went on to say that many people didn't understand the difference between right and wrong. He described how mean people can be to one another and explained further: They don't mind eatin' meat, smokin' cigarettes, spillin' motor oil in the water....

I heard and understood this young man's concerns because I, like him, don't watch network television. Being ignorant of the current state of broadcast news and entertainment I'm usually taken aback when I travel to where I have access to television programming. The evening news, for instance, is no longer news but entertainment. And the mainstream fare that fills the evening airwaves teaches, inculcates, and programs its viewers into a false sense of what's normal and acceptable. What's interesting is that these cultural teachings flood the subconscious ... no thought required.

And then ... I heard Kevin Kling tell stories on Minnesota Public Radio. Kevin, a playwright, humorist, author, and storyteller, is a favorite annual performer in Washburn, WI. I feel that I know Kevin even though I've only seen him perform twice at Stage North. Many years ago I attended Kevin's one-man show, 21A, based on his experiences riding the bus between Minneapolis and St. Paul. It was a hilarious portrait of eight or so idiosyncractic characters who shared the same bus ride.

I know Kevin's mother, Dora, who attends my t'ai chi chih classes. Let's just say that Kevin's storytelling abilities have a genetic component because, as Dora tells me when I comment on the similarities between mother and son, This nut does not lie far from the tree. Dora is a funny and entertaining storyteller in her own right and it's obvious that Kevin's skills have been developed and honed over many, many years of writing and performing, performing and writing.

Kevin's stories are autobiographical and describe situations from child- and adulthood that are both humorous and poignant. Anything can serve as subject matter for Kevin's performances from his experience running Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, to the time he and his brother helped Dad paint the house black and orange, to the night he and brother, Steve, stood on the rooftop in the midst of severe weather in search of tornadoes touching down.

Kling ascribes his profession to a conversation with an Ojibway medicine man who told him, You can survive anything if you have a sense of humor and a sense of self. That, my friends, says it all. When we tell each other our stories, we claim our place in this life. And when we hear the stories of others, we discover that our trials and tribulations, our successes, and our frailties are part of a shared human experience. Once again we reclaim our humanity and rediscover that we are all one....