Alan Watts: a Guru in the Age of Aquarius

This is one of three essays I composed in a personal essay writing course at Drake University in the fall of 2015.

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I had just walked into my office when the phone rang.  “Hello.”  “Pete, it’s good to hear from you.”----“I do know Alan Watts, as a matter of fact I read his book Psychotherapy East and West  sitting by the Stones Crossing swimming pool last summer.” ---“He’s going to be here at Lafayette College, really?”  “The speaker at the annual Theological Confrontation?” “Before my time at Lafayette didn’t you invite Martin Luther King for the first Theological Confrontation?”  “In 1965?” “He couldn’t fit it into his schedule? –“- “Who could have thought then that he would be assassinated?” ----“Yes, back to Watts.” “A dinner in the Faculty Dining Room before his talk in the Chapel?”  “Pete, I appreciate the invitation.”  “Wednesday, April 23 at 6 PM, okay.” “Thanks again Pete and I’m glad you are doing this type of spiritual program--- one that is probably not at the top of the list for Presbyterian Church elders who think Lafayette has become too secular.”--- “Okay, see you then if not before.” Pete Sabey was the Pastor of the Lafayette College Church and the Chaplain of the college.  We had become good friends and we were both in harmony with the mood of the 60s and with the student concerns about the institutions of the dominant culture. In 1969 the country was on the cusp of the Age of Aquarius, the Man in the Moon had become men walking on the moon, and an event publicized as Woodstock An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music would attain Iconic status as simply “Woodstock.”

Alan Watts was popular with the students in the sixties, a real Guru. I thought of him as a Buddhist, but he was more, Psychotherapy East & West begins with these words, “If we look deeply into such ways of life as Buddhism and Taoism, Vedanta and Yoga, we do not find either philosophy or religion as these are understood in the West. We find something more resembling psychotherapy.”  Watts went on to explain, “The main resemblance between these Eastern ways of  life and Western psychotherapy is in the concern of both with bringing about changes of consciousness, changes in our ways of feeling our own existence and our relation to human society and the natural world.” I was anxious to hear this from the Guru himself.  In the past few weeks I had experienced considerable stress, my friend, Bev Kunkel, died on March 6, and then about a week later three student members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) came to my office with an unnegotiable demand. 

My friendship with Bev Kunkel or, more formally, Dr. Beverly Waugh Kunkel, Emeritus Professor of Biology, had begun only about one year before, it seemed like we had known each other much longer.  My time at Lafayette began in September 1967, and about a month later I attended an event put on by Lafayette at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City that honored Professor Kunkel and H. Keffer Hartline, his student while Hartline was an undergraduate at Lafayette.  The event was described as Great Teacher-Great Student to honor Hartline who had just won the Nobel Laureate in medicine and the biology Professor who taught him.  I met Bev at that formal event, but it was several months later in the Faculty Dining Room at Lafayette that we really met. We happened to sit at the same table and as we shared our views we soon knew that we thought alike.  When we talked about “education” he responded to me by saying, “Young man what department are you from?” These words of praise were ironic for several reasons. First, I was in charge of finance at the college, and even if I had been from an academic department I was talking to the professor who had just been honored as the “Great Teacher.” Dr. Kunkel had also been honored as “Great Teacher” before as Hartline was the second of Bev’s students to be awarded the Nobel Laureate in medicine.  Bev had enthusiasm for knowledge and for learning that was a delight to be around.  One day, someone at our luncheon table sort of blurted out, “My country right or wrong, who said that?” One Professor guessed Stephen Decatur, but no one was sure. As Bev and I left the Faculty Dining Room we walked in the same direction he left me at the library and went in. About forty minutes later my secretary brought Dr. Kunkel into my office.  He had researched the matter and confirmed that it was indeed Decatur who uttered those words, but he also discovered that the words are typically quoted out of context with the effect of giving the words a different meaning than originally uttered. Dr. Kunkel the scholar!  In the months that followed, luncheons together---his birthday party in October, and then . . . unfortunately I got word that he had been hospitalized in what was likely his final illness.  When I got to the hospital he was already non compos mentis and it was only days until he was gone. The finality of death.  The vulnerability of grief.

Then, the visit by three SDS members. This was only a few days after Bev’s funeral.  At Lafayette students came first so unnegotiable demand or not they were welcome in my office.  Their unnegotiable demand was that Lafayette College withdraw its accounts from Easton National Bank and Trust Company and deposit the funds at some other bank.  The issue was that the bank was not participating in a certain food stamp program---the bank had refused to sell federally subsidized food stamps to needy people on Easton’s South Side.  The SDS at its recent meeting had issued a strongly worded statement that “decried the bank’s anti-humanitarian values.”  Marty Solomon was the leader of the SDS group.  Marty, class of ’70 was a pre-med student and what I remember most about his appearance was a bunch of black, black hair.  I am not sure exactly how I felt, but I know at first I must have felt, in the words of William Butler Yeats, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; /Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”  I listened. Marty made their case. The longer I listened the more sense their case made. The situation was tense for a while and I would be a liar if I didn’t admit to few sleepless nights, but we negotiated with the bank President, Robert Jones and the matter was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction including Marty and the SDS.  The bank president seemed to be okay with the bank providing the food stamp service. There is a Buddhist proverb, “when the student is ready the teacher will appear.” This may have been one of those moments.

To prepare for the Watts visit I studied about Buddhism.  I learned the four Noble Truths are: suffering is inherent in human existence; the cause of our suffering is craving things physical and emotional, the cure is enlightenment, and the eight-fold path will lead us to enlightenment, i.e., Nirvana.  The eight fold path consists of eight Right or Correct ideas about: View—Intention ---Action---Speech---Livelihood---Effort---Mindfulness---Concentration.  In my reading Watts answered my concern about Reincarnation when in referring to Zen Buddhists teachers he said, “I have not found one that believes in Reincarnation as a physical fact, still less one who lays claim to any miraculous powers over the physical world. All such matters are understood symbolically.”

Attachment/Detachment was another of my concerns. There was a phrase popularized by Timothy Leary, “Turn on, Tune in and Drop out” and while it was uttered by Leary in the very different context of indulgent psychedelic drug use there does seem to be a similarity between the ascetic life of the Buddhist and Leary’s life of dropping out.  Buddhism would require followers to live an ascetic life away from the usual day-to-day routine.  Last but not least--is there not an authoritarian ruler lurking behind that Buddha smile?  Surrender and the relinquishing of control to a Guru may be difficult to undo---enlightment may be an elusive goal.  Operating from what one psychologist called “an internal locus of evaluation” is, for me, the touchstone of human existence.

The days went by and each day I did the countdown to the date April 23 circled on my calendar. The week before the event I read in the student newspaper, “The Lafayette,” under the heading “Where and When” “Alan Watts, president of the Society for Comparative Philosophy, will speak at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday in Colton Chapel.”  I was surprised that the student journalists hadn’t written a full article on Watts.  Allen Ginsberg, the counter-culture beat poet and also a Buddhist, who was to appear at Lehigh University, got a full article in the Lafayette student newspaper.  I looked out the window of my office in Markle Hall and in one of those stream of conscious moments I thought about the student Sit-In in the halls of this building a little over a year ago.  The students were protesting the Dow Chemical Company recruiters who were on campus to do student job interviews. The hallways were blocked by students sitting, while protestors outside shouted, “Hell No We Won’t Go,” and other such chants, some a bit scurrilous.  Dow produced the napalm that was being used in the Viet Nam war and this was the reason for the student protest.  Our students had the best of moral reasons for opposing the Viet Nam war, but their student draft deferments were a sign of a vested interest in their opposition as well. This reality was apparent when a student I had gotten to know well confided in me that if he were to get a draft notice he would move to Canada.

When the day of the Watts visit came I was so busy I had little time to think about the dinner.  The beautiful spring day would have been perfect for a hike in the Pocono Mountains nearby.  Instead I met with Jerry the bookstore manager.  We reviewed the financial statements for March and we discussed how the bookstore business was doing.  Then Jerry wanted to prove that the bookstore was more than textbooks so he showed me a display of popular novels that the bookstore was featuring, some of which were: I know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou The Godfather by Mario Puzo and Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. After that meeting I went to the President’s Council meeting that continued on through the catered luncheon. We were discussing whether Lafayette would become a co-educational college.  We, in the administration, were all convinced it should happen and that from a market position it had to happen.  The administration would be recommending to the Board of Trustees that Lafayette College go co-ed. The Trustees were scheduled to consider the proposal in late June at the University Club in New York City.  Several of the traditional Trustees, who happened to be donors to the college of large sums of money, wanted Lafayette College to remain an all male school.   In the meeting we were studying market research on the co-ed issue.  The research supported the notion that males and females both wanted to attend a coeducational college.  From the meeting I went back to my office and did some paperwork---soon it was time to go to the Watts dinner.  I took the ten minute walk from my office to the Marquis Dining Hall.

When I entered the room I saw a number of students, two professors, Pete and Watts. Pete introduced me. Watts was a handsome fifty-three year old man with a slight beak nose and hair down nearly to his shoulders.  He radiated charisma as he spoke, but, he also gave off that inscrutable aura typical of the believers of the Eastern religions.  Even though I had doubts about Buddhism and Watts's interpretation thereof my reaction to Watts was childlike—it was like my being a six-year old boy again at the Nemaha County Creamery Cooperative Fair watching the magician blow quarter-dollar coins from his nose. I was seated across from Watts.  When he was served it was apparent he was a vegetarian, which I did not find surprising. He seemed to feel a need to explain his reasons for being a vegetarian, none of which were unusual, these were, slowing the aging process, living longer, and being compassionate to animals.  And then in what was surely a repeat performance, he said, “but the real reason is cows scream louder than carrots.” On cue, everyone laughed. 

Watts then gave a preview of what he would be talking about in the upcoming talk in the chapel. The talk was about the Western concept of God. He would ask the question "What God is dead?  He would describe the Western idea of God as the "monarch" concept; the typical church as a medieval royal court; the religious titles as akin to the language of the "court flatterer."  Watts would portray Nietzsche’s "death of God,” as the abandonment of the Western concept of God as the Big Daddy who is judge and punisher, and who keeps everyone under constant surveillance.  This God was anathema to modern man, so his death was arranged. Watts thought that the death of God in this sense implies no real loss of religion. 

The conversation was first and foremost focused on Watts; he was the center of attention.  “Where is your lap when you stand up?” Watts quipped.  Of course, the koan has no answer. Watts also told us about his trips to the Far East and the Zen Masters he had met there. He talked about the basics of Buddhism. In particular he talked about our attachment to time and to time schedules.  The watch.  The calendar.  We crave the instruments of our obsession with “when.” His words were meaningful for me, since I felt that he was describing me and my grasping of time schedules.   Watts brought up the meaning of a “New York minute” to show how the minute can be recalibrated to incorporate the frenzied pace of New York City.  Watts argued that “attachment” is much broader than simply attachment to physical things.  We also attach to ideas and opinions about ourselves and the world around us, and, yes, to the way we experience time.  We go through life craving one thing after another to get a sense of security about ourselves.  Dessert plates were eaten clean, so the dinner had come to its final course.  At that moment, ironically, people began glancing at their watches, since it was about time to go to the Chapel where Watts would be speaking.  Pete, who was seated at the far end of the table called, “Alan, what classes will you be speaking to tomorrow?” Watts replied, “I’m not sure I need to check, but I must be at the ABE airport by 11 o’clock.” Watts seemed unaware that his words contradicted his earlier assertions on attachment to time schedules.  It would be an understatement to say I was disillusioned.  What happened to, “there’ll be another bus along soon enough?” Was this a mortal defect or was it an insignificant lapse of an otherwise liberating philosophy?  I have never been able to answer this question to my satisfaction.  But in fairness to Watts, possibly, the issue is as simple as, Buddhist or not, if you want to get back to California in time for dinner you will need to be at the ABE Airport by 11 AM.

Honor thy Father and thy Mother

                                               

Elvis was still alive. I think it was 1975. I would have been 42 years old. It’s the time in your life when you look back to see what‘s gone by and when you look forward you wonder how much time there is left.   Not only how much time there is left, but what you are going to do with what remains.  My dad was still alive; he would enjoy about another year of life, however, my mother, may the memory of her glow always in my mind, had died a few years before.  There were eight kids in our family: two boys and six girls.  My son saw a photograph of me when I was about nine years old, with my younger brother, two sisters, and my dog Spot and he called it the “Grapes of Wrath” family, which, indeed it was.  I was 8 or 9 years old before the Great Depression ended, and it ended only because, of the so called “war effort” necessary to fight WWII.


In a moment I want to say something about the Great Depression and about WW II since they were the circumstantial setting that influenced our daily lives, but before I do that I want to tell what it was that I did day-to-day as a boy.  Work, school, the Catholic Church, and some fun made up my life as a boy.  The work: milking the cows, slopping the hogs, feeding the chickens, and other chores that are necessary on a farm.  The school: New Salem, a one room country school of eight grades with one teacher teaching all the students.  The Church: St. Michael’s.  This is the place where we worshipped God through the Sunday Mass and through catechism, a lot of catechism.  The fun: picture shows with admission for a dime included Newsreels, Laurel and Hardy, bathing beauty, Esther Williams and Van Johnson, and the Lou Gehrig movie The Pride of the Yankees. After the picture show we went down to the street to socialize with all the people who came from their farms to their town, Axtell, on Saturday night.  If I had a nickel I got an ice cream cone. And there was the Joe Louis-Billy Conn fight announced on radio by Don Dunphy that surpassed excitement in the usual sense of the word.  Life had its hardships, but the good and the fun parts crowd to the front of my memory cache.


The Great Depression was the background for the first eight years of my life; the memories I narrate below are from this period. The depression was called “Great” because it lasted a long time and because it was so relentless and so brutal.  It began about four years before I was born. By the time I was born the Axtell Bank had already foreclosed on the loan that my Dad took out in 1927 when he and mother got married. Emotionally my Dad never got over this loss.  FDR was the president and you may have heard he said, “the only thing you have to fear is fear itself” which he said, to dissuade people from going to the bank and taking out their money and putting it under the mattress. FDR knew these “Bank Runs” could bring down the banking system.  He was right about fear, but it was “hope” that was really in short supply.  Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope” is the thing with feathers -/ That perches in the soul”---I don’t know about the feathers, but I do know about the perch; everyone knew that hope perched with the president in the wheelchair who was doing everything he could to get us through the hard economic times.  I think when Roosevelt was elected we expected him to be hoity toity and not ordinary like us, but even his cultivated voice with its refined and resonate sound seemed appealing.  He tried a lot of things. The brand new high school building in which I went to high school was built by the Works Progress Administration, what people called the WPA. This program was supposed to represent Keynesian Economics.  They say Lord Maynard Keynes woke up one morning in the mid 1930s and asked himself the question, “how do you get out of a depression?” He answered his own question, “You spend your way out!” He then figured out that the government would have to do the spending because no one else could spend or would spend. Even though FDR put in several spending programs like the WPA and the CCC (Civil Conservation Corp) the spending on these programs wasn’t enough to make a big difference, however, for the person who got a job the spending made a huge difference.Now back to the family. Mother was the quiet power in the marriage and she was the dominant one in the relationship; a dominance that I think she hated much of the time.  Especially, in 1941 when daddy went to the Veterans Hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas for five months—he was diagnosed with pernicious anemia.  Five years later with worry as his only disease he spent several months in the Veterans Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. Needless to say all the work and all the family obligations fell on my mother’s shoulders while he was gone.At our family reunion the year I said Elvis was still alive things went the way they usually did. After a lot of reminiscing about the more pleasant aspects of our childhood we then switched to the game, “pin your faults on your parents,” mainly my dad since he was the easier target.  Oscar Wilde, in one of his less flippant moments said, “Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”  We were all in the second stage.Several of the years before this we, like the country, were still mired in the Great Depression and things were bleak. My first reframing is in July 1936; I was few months into my fourth year of life and as a grownup I am surprised I can remember the grasshoppers and how they occupied the twelve acres and indulged their appetites on the corn stalks, tassels, ears and everything. If I focused on a grasshopper nearby I could see how much joy it was having with a smile on its face on its head shaped like a miniature horse head. Even if I could understand in a Darwinian sense (no one had told me about Darwin) the grasshopper’s need to satisfy its hunger I could not understand why it had to smile about eating our corn crop. I looked in the distance at the crowd of grasshoppers; it looked like a quilt with a design of little gray oval figures. I know I must have looked at my father’s, face and while I knew that what was happening was bad I could not read in my father’s face the utter despair he must have felt.  If I had been able to decipher the facial text I would have known that with the corn crop gone there wouldn’t be money to buy food and other things. Later, I imagined the awful despair that he and mother must have felt, the worry that would have kept them awake at night, and the anguish they would have felt for as long as the terrible times lasted.  My imagining was nothing like the real thing, but Cognitive Reframing was as close as I would get.

The war got us out of the Depression, since a lot of money had to be spent building ships, airplanes and everything it takes to fight a war.  The government did everything else it could to promote patriotism in people so they would sacrifice and help the war effort.  There were posters of Uncle Sam, victory gardens, and war bonds.  My mother had a pin cushion beside her sewing machine that was a plaster of paris figurine of Hitler with Adolph’s posterior as the cushion.  Hitler didn’t feel the pins and needles but Mother employed her useful instrument of propaganda to assist in the war effort.  I bought a war bond.  I didn’t have the money to buy it outright so I saved my quarters and with each quarter I bought a war stamp and pasted it in a little book that they gave you at the Post Office. When I had pasted seventy-five of these stamps in the book it totaled $18.75, which, with interest added, would get me $25 a few years later.  I could tell you about rationing, especially gasoline with A, B, or C stamps that were fixed to the windshield, scrap iron drives, and milkweed floss for life preservers, but I think you get the idea.



 I must have been about eight years old; I have this picture in my mind.  Mother, Daddy and I were in the yard between the house and the barn Mother on my right and Daddy on my left we were all looking at the cow and the calf she had given birth to.  The feeling was of woefulness and not of jubilation.  Daddy looked away and said, “She’s slipped her calf.”  I didn’t understand exactly what that meant, but I could see the calf had no cowhide; it was pink, with the texture of a chicken drumstick with the skin removed.  I would later learn that the right way to say it was that the cow had “aborted” her calf.  I would also later learn that the cow had Bang’s disease and that if she had the disease it was likely the other cows in the herd had the disease too.  So it was only later that I knew and felt what my parents knew and felt right away.  Just when things seemed to be getting better for us now there would be no money from the sale of calves and there would be Veterinary bills.  More adversity; more anguish; and more despair for Mother and Daddy.   Even though I felt this somewhat as a boy I felt it differently reimaging it as a middle-aged man.

Maybe our problem was that we had grown up in the time of Dr. Spock, not the Star Trek doctor, but the celebrity pediatrician whose indulgent advice may have spoiled a generation of kids.  In our family we were happy to own our successes; however, we knew our failures were legacies from our parents.  Our motto: Never take responsibility for anything negative when you can just as easily blame it on your parents. At that reunion I decided I would try to make a change in my childhood memories.  I had heard about a process with the imposing sounding name of “Cognitive Reframing” which is defined: “Cognitive reframing is a psychological technique that consists of identifying and then disputing irrational or maladaptive thoughts. Reframing is a way of viewing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find more positive alternatives.”  I think of it as creative visualization in which I recast memories, not in denial, but in a fresh way, so I can see my boyhood memories with the same emotions my parents might have experienced at the time. You see things differently when you are a child. It is like the Bible says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” I was at the point in my life that I wanted to, “put the ways of childhood behind me.” Would “Cognitive Reframing” be the answer?

I wish I could say I waited until I was alone , turned the TV off,, relaxed,  closed my eyes, called up images, and immediately had a cathartic experience that cleansed my mind of negative thoughts about my parents .  But it didn’t work that way. It was a drawn out process since old ideas die hard, and cognitive awareness emerged slowly and tentatively at times. During this period my Dad died, grieving his death gave a whole new frame to the process. His last days and hours created new images for me to remember and to struggle with. One of these images was of my brother and me turning the corner in the Veteran’s Hospital seeing our father, who was suffering from dementia, down the hall in a wheel chair fighting off three of the staff who were attempting to restrain him and get him back to bed. Even though he was non compos mentis he showed the same burning determination that he did on infrequent occasions when he felt he had been wronged.  This fighting spirit is what I had admired most about my Dad. Things had come full circle.  It had been a long time since as a little boy my dad and I went to the rural mailbox and got the package mother had ordered from the Sears & Roebuck catalog  The package the rural mail carrier, Gus Selk, left contained matching father and son jackets. This had been my big boy experience, and now it was only a memory. 

There were images of three experiences I chose to re-imagine. Two of these experiences occurred in the twelve acre field north of our farmhouse. It was the most fertile land on our farm. But it was more than a few acres of land—it was a family place for special things; it was even a ritual ground. One of these occasions came about when my dog Rex died. I should say when my dog Rex was killed. My Dad hooked a trailer to our 1928 Chevrolet Automobile to haul something.  On this hot, August day Rex found the shade underneath the trailer irresistible. It was his mistake to choose the shade beneath one of the trailer wheels. When my Dad got in the car to back the trailer he did not notice Rex and when the trailer was driven backwards Rex was crushed beneath the wheel. I didn’t know about the seven stages of grief then, but I experienced them anyway. We buried Rex in the twelve acre field among the corn stalks. The grave stone was a smooth, gray, oblong stone about six inches long and four inches wide. The flowers: Sunflowers. They were beautiful; they were plentiful; they were flowers that we thought Rex would like. We had nothing to etch the stone with so we could inscribe a few words of blessing for Rex and to record our last “Good-Bye.” We felt bad that it couldn’t be like the tombstones in St. Michael’s cemetery. Even at six years of age I knew crying was a sissies thing, but I couldn’t help it---I cried anyway. I found that grief showed itself through those tears that ran down my face. The year Rex died we had rain and there was no pest assault so the twelve acres of cornfield was lush and green and plentiful.

My next reframing is in 1938, when I was five years old, the Great Depression still had not ended and neither had the hard times.  Chinch Bugs attacked.  Again, it was the twelve acre field that the bugs occupied.  Chinch Bugs are tiny (only 1/8 of an inch long) they are black and white with black and white wings, red legs, and red spots at the base of their antennae. They are every bit as dangerous to crops as grasshoppers. They seemed more sinister; maybe the fact that I was two years older may have made them seem more sinister. The creosote oil that we put down at the edge of the field to ward off the bugs was black and cast an evil hue that was sinister.  By then as a Catholic I knew all about the Devil and how he came from Hades and not only that he did evil things, but that he tempted little boys like me to do evil things.  As I put down the creosote threshold to keep the bugs out I saw harry Payne’s field across the road and expected the Devil to appear at any moment. When as a boy I looked at the cornstalks completely covered with bugs it is hard to pick the right word; I guess swarm or swarming will do. I think I remember that I wanted to bury my head in my hands so I could not see the damage the bugs were doing. Again I don’t remember the look on my dad’s face then, but that didn’t keep me imagining what his look might have been.  In the re-image my Dad is shell shocked, his face looks numb, his eyes are on something distant that has him hypnotized, and his body language shouts “I feel helpless.”  And I question myself: as a grown man could I have gotten through this? My first answer is “no.” then I realize I would have done as he did because I would have had no choice.

It has been forty years since I did the reframing I can vouch for its effectiveness.  My memory of events hasn’t changed, but the awareness of the context surrounding the events has.  And this new awareness brings with it an appreciation of my parents for what they faced and how they got through it and what they gave us that got us through life on much easier terms.

The Sensitivity Training Group that I was a part of in the 70s would call the reframing a “head trip,” however I believe it is empathic remembering. Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams, a collection of autobiographical essays, has empathy as its theme.  Each essay is a new story that tells of empathy in another setting. The essays are not moralistic prescriptions but her true accounts of empathy in different situations. The essays are Jamison’s real life experience that reflect both joys and concerns.  In some measure I think the cognitive process I experienced in re-framing my memories of my parents, and with my parents has empathy at its foundation.  The definition of empathy, “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another” sounds simple, but it is not since understanding the feelings of others is incredibly difficult.  The psychologist, Carl Rogers said, “I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand another person.” My beliefs are a barrier to understanding. My reaction is first to judge. To permit myself to understand another is to open myself to the risk that I may change in the process. The Cognitive Re-framing of the perilous conditions my parents faced in putting food on the table and clothes on our backs has permitted me to understand the emotions they must have felt in those hard times.  Understanding has led to appreciation, and appreciation has led to the realization that they were doing the very best they could, and, most of all that they loved us.

Mandela: the triumph of courage over fear

This is one of three essays I composed in a personal essay course that I took at Drake University in the fall of 2015.
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As I woke up I noticed my return ticket to Kuwait on the stand by the bed. Kuwait Airways, flight 1904, flight time 10 AM, 17 June 1990. At that very moment I realized that it is 16 June 1990—it is Bloomsday. Probably, few people in Amsterdam know that 86 years ago on this day Leopold Bloom, in James Joyce’s Ulysses, made his epic journey through the streets of Dublin beginning at his residence, 7 Eccles Street, his Ithaca, and , not quite a day later, returning home. My Kuwaiti associates from the Kuwait Investment Company, where I am the Chief Investment Strategist, have already returned to Kuwait after our week long trip to several of the European financial centers, including Zurich, Paris, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam. The visit to Frankfurt was special, since reunification of West Germany with East Germany was only one month away. Commerzbank, a banking counterparty, arranged a visit to the German Central Bank, the Bundesbank. Bundesbank officials explained the plans to reintegrate the banking system of West Germany into East Germany. With our last stop being in Amsterdam I took the opportunity to enjoy a one day holiday. The day began with breakfast in the hotel dining room. I wanted to try things Dutch people like for breakfast so I had buttered bread, soft bread, not toast, topped with chocolate hagelslag (sprinkles) and strawberries on the side. This is considered to be a traditional Dutch breakfast. I probably should have had bacon and eggs, since it would be a long time before I could have pork again, Kuwait being a Muslim country in which pork is forbidden. I returned to my room and where I finished reading the last fifty pages of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. I would have to leave the book behind as it would not clear Kuwaiti customs, it having been deemed blasphemous by Muslims. The Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran, issued a fatwa stating that the novel, The Satanic Verses, was “blasphemous against Islam” and for this sin Khomeini ordered Muslims to kill Rushdie.

I left the Marriott Hotel in the center of the city in early afternoon ready to visit some tourist attractions. I wanted to visit the Anne Frank House and several museums including the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. The sun was shining brightly and the temperature was just right---a truly beautiful day. As I approached the Leidseplein square it was even more crowded than usual. As the Amsterdam Municipal Theatre came into view I saw a woman and two men on the balcony; one of the men was speaking to the crowd below. I found on visits to the Netherlands how friendly the Dutch can be once they relax their shy personas and smile. On a visit to Amsterdam a few years before I came on a beer party on one of the side streets and, without hesitation by the host, I was invited to join in. As I was getting my bearings here today I saw a young Dutch man next to me who I hoped would be willing to tell me what was going on. We exchanged hurried introductions; he introduced himself as Lars Visser. Lars’s physical features did not match those of the stereotypical Dutchman---i.e., blond, thin, and a little over six feet tall. Lars was in his late twenties, robust looking, a bit shorter and a bit darker than the stereotype---he could have been the goalkeeper on the Netherlands football team. Lars I said,“Who is that on the balcony?” “That is Nelson Mandela, his wife Winnie and the mayor of Amsterdam---Mandela was only recently released from prison in South Africa,” he said. I remembered reading in the International Herald Tribune that Mandela had been released from prison in February after 27 years of imprisonment. Lars went on to explain that Mandela was representing the African National Congress and that after this speech he would meet with the Dutch Labour Party and the Dutch Solidarity Movement. Mandela was in Amsterdam to obtain the support of the Dutch in an effort to end apartheid in South Africa.

As I thought of Mandela’s challenge in confronting the Afrikaners I remembered a short story, written soon after apartheid was established in 1948, by Dan Jacobson entitled “Beggar My Neighbor.”

The protagonist, Michael, a coming-of-age Afrikaner boy, is condescendingly charitable to two African children, Frans and Annie, his hate and fear of these native children manifests itself by his doing sadistic acts to them in his dreams--- the Freudian displacement dream. Later, in another kind of dream, a Freudian condensation dream, a “kiss” by Michael condenses several dream elements in this one symbol. In the action of the dream Michael leads Frans and Annie “down the passage into his room,”---i.e., the rite of passage of the initiate. In his room “Michael knows what he must do”---he must give each of the children a “kiss.” This final rite of passage of his giving the kiss to each, Frans and Annie, liberates him from his fear of the African children so he is in control of his emotions. His initiation is complete--- he is now an unashamed Afrikaner.

I again thought of Bloomsday; I wondered whether a Mandela-Bloom connection were possible. In James Joyce’s Ulysses Leopold Bloom is the protagonist who wanders around Dublin on 16 June 1904 on a journey of encounters with ordinary people in ordinary situations. Bloom’s movement about Dublin and his interaction with the other characters corresponds to and parallels those of Ulysses/Odysseus in the Odyssey. The reader of the novel by being able to share in Bloom’s thoughts through the technique of interior monologue learns of both Bloom’s faults and of his failings. Bloom is cuckolded; he is preoccupied with this dilemma during the course of the day. Bloom is misunderstood; his words are misconstrued so characters believe that he bet on a long-shot in a horse race and won, and that he will not buy drinks because he is the stereotypical Jew. Bloom is also inquisitive which may best be shown in the penultimate episode of the novel “Ithaca” in which the catechism approach is used to answer questions of which, some are arcane, some are tendentious, and some are informative. Central to the novel is the redefining of the heroic in the Epic genre to show that the heroic can manifest itself in a culture of non-violence by a hero who is compassionate. The “compassionate hero” seems to be an essential connection between Mandela and Bloom.

What do Bloom and Mandela have in common? First and foremost they are both Odysseus-like characters Mandela, a real life person, and Bloom, a fictional character. Mandela, like Homer’s Odysseus, has already experienced hostile forces that have delayed his journey. Bloom is defined not by his mock-heroic acts, but by his tendency for “compassion” and “empathy” and it is these qualities that define his essential heroic nature. Nosey Flynn in Ulysses, said of Bloom’s compassionate nature, “He's been known to put his hand down too to help a fellow.”

Some of Bloom’s instances of compassion are: his helping a blind stripling in Dawson Street; his helping Mrs. Dignam with estate matters after her husband, Paddy’s death, and his calling on Mina Purefoy, who is experiencing a difficult child labor, at the National Maternity Hospital. Mandela too expressed his heroic nature through his compassionate acts. His acts of charity to fellow prisoners and even to the guards at Robben Island were legendary. Fellow prisoners were drawn to him as their chosen leader. Guards were taken by his charisma and by his essential decency. One guard at Robben Island recalled how in the late 1970s Mr. Mandela continuously urged him to finish high school, which at Mandela’s behest he accomplished.

Both Bloom and Mandela appreciate art. Molly, Bloom’s wife, sings professionally---she has a beautiful soprano voice. So Bloom shares music vicariously with his wife, but there is more to Bloom as Lenehan says of Bloom, “There's a touch of the artist about old Bloom.” However it is Mandela who is known for his lithographic art works. The titles of several of his collections are: Reflections of Robben Island Series I & Series II and Impressions of Africa. A.E. Russell in the “Scylla & Charybdis” episode of Ulysses said, “Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.” Both Bloom and Mandela experience “deep lives” and this may capture the most essential source of their artistry.
Bloom lived under colonial rule; the British imperialists flaunted their power by spectacle. One such example occurred on 16 June 1904: The vice regal cavalcade left the lodge in Phoenix Park for its journey to inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in another part of Dublin. “The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the vice regal cavalcade. . . . The vice regal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of Parkgate.” This is but an instance of the visible presence of the British or as they were called by the Irish the “Sassenach.” Attempts to secure “home rule” for Ireland had gone for naught; home rule seemed probable in 1886 when Gladstone was the British Prime Minister, but in the end that try failed, too. So on 16 June 1904 the Irish want to end colonialism, but there is nothing on the political horizon suggesting it will happen.

Mandela suffered under colonial rule. The Afrikaners instituted apartheid in 1948. Hendrik Verwoerd was the architect of apartheid’s design of divide and rule through the separation of people. The Sharpeville massacre, which occurred in March 1960, was a decisive moment in the history of the conflict. In the massacre the South African police fired indiscriminately into a crowd of unarmed protestors and a large number of protestors were killed or wounded. In response to the massacre the African National Congress took its operation underground and changed its tactics to armed resistance. Mandela, became the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) the armed wing of the African National Congress. He was convicted, in 1962, and sentenced to five years imprisonment for presumably having incited workers to strike and for traveling internationally without a passport. He had just begun serving this term when in 1964 he was charged with sabotage. He was the first accused. He represented himself. He spoke truth to power. In a defense one might not expect Mandela said, “Four forms of violence were possible. There is sabotage, there is guerrilla warfare, there is terrorism, and there is open revolution. We chose to adopt the first method and to exhaust it before taking any other decision. In the light of our political background the choice was a logical one. Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations.” To an impartial observer this may seem like a shocking admission of guilt for the crime he is charged with. However, viewed as a plea for the truth the words are a well designed defense of justice for his people. Mandela’s concluding defense statement is powerful because of its audacity, but it is ultimately powerful because truth is the final arbiter of justice----the statement: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” (In an utterance of poetic symmetry these were the exact words spoken by Mandela when he was released from prison on February 11, 1990.) On 12 June 1964 he was convicted of the crime of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was imprisoned until his release on 11 February 1990.

On this day, 16 June 1990, Nelson Mandela as Odysseus is set to continue on his journey to perform the feats necessary to end apartheid and to inaugurate enfranchisement for all South Africans. Mandela will travel from Amsterdam to the United States to address a joint session of the United States Congress, a first for a black man, where he will argue that his peoples’ thirst for democracy must be satisfied. Mandela is likely to receive a warm reception in the United States since four years earlier the United States Congress overrode a veto by President Reagan and imposed economic sanctions on South Africa. In 1990 Colonialism in any form is an anachronism. Upon his return to South Africa, the Afrikaners, a colonial power, will still be denying his people their fundamental rights and forcing the separation of apartheid on them. However, F.W. de Klerk, the State President of South Africa, not only released Mandela from prison, but he has also shown signs of being a person Mandela can work with. That said, Mandela and his fellow members of the African National Congress must find a peaceful way to get the apartheid manacles taken off of their people and then find a way to participate with Afrikaners in governing democratically. Both steps involve Afrikaners; both steps involve fellow members of the African National Congress. To fixate on problems with the Afrikaners is to be expected since Colonialism is all the African people have ever known; but to ignore possible problems with fellow members of the African National Congress could be detrimental to the cause of “democracy.” What will the new nation, South Africa, be like? Could Bloom tell Mandela a cautionary tale of his experience in the “Cyclops” episode of Ulysses? Here is the tale.

It is 5 PM at Barney Kiernan’s pub—both Bloom and the character “citizen” are there. Citizen’s conversation with Bloom is argumentative throughout. Citizen, as a young man, was a well known athlete at the national level. A nation, Ireland, means something quite different to Citizen than it does to Bloom. For Bloom, “A nation is the same people living in the same place.” Everyone in the pub has a laugh at Bloom for this definition. “What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen.” “Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland.” “The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet.” However, the citizen’s real answer comes at the end of the episode when he chases Bloom from the pub with Bloom in danger of bodily harm. Citizen’s rage happened during a conversation about Jews; Bloom’s comment identifying Jesus Christ as a Jew was interpreted as sacrilegious by Citizen. It could be difficult for individuals as different as Citizen and Bloom to agree on a common definition of “nation.” For Citizen “same people” might not include Bloom---a Jew.

I looked about me at the people nearby. I heard Mandela mention de Klerk’s name several times. I had the impression that this was a reaching out or olive branch speech. Mandela will be reaching out to the people of the United States in his address to Congress; in his speech today he even seemed to be reaching out to the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who in her antediluvian way had continued to say scurrilous things about Mandela even after his release from prison. This stage of Mandela’s journey is just beginning and just like Homer’s Odysseus he may have to choose between the straits of Scylla and Charybdis, in which the choice is between a sea monster and a whirlpool, either of which could be lethal. I notice Lars at my side snapping his camera case shut which apparently signals his imminent departure; I thank him for his help and we exchange goodbyes. As he walked away I couldn’t help but wonder what are his politics? I will never know. As I look to the balcony Mandela and his wife are going back inside the theatre and the mayor is saying a few words to close the event. This has been a remarkable day---two coincidences, two heroes: Mandela and Bloom. Tomorrow I will go back to Kuwait where I will go back to work, albeit, enjoying a new found political awareness. To keep up with the news I will visit the news stand at the Hilton Hotel daily and buy an international newspaper. This will permit me to follow the South African Odysseus, Nelson Mandela, on his journey. I suspect he will finally reach the mythological Ithaca having completed his heroic journey and having achieved what he was “prepared to die for,” and, that he will do so in a nonviolent and compassionate way.