The Useless Tree

1000 Posts

    I do not do much bloggy self-reflection on the presence or meaning of this site, not much beyond my anniversary posts.  But today a milestone has been reached and should be mentioned.  The last post below was the 1000th on this blog.  As regular readers know, I have fallen behind in the past few months on my daily posting.  Yet even with a bit of slacking off, 1000 seems like something to claim.  It has not yet been three years (that will be marked on July 1st), and getting to 1000 today feels like some sort of accomplishment.

    For fun, I just went back to the very first post, which briefly describes my interest in starting this blog.  Here is one graf that summarizes things:

That interest is linked to my personal experience.  When my son, Aidan, was born profoundly disabled, my world was turned upside down.  I wrote a book about it: Aidan's Way, in which I call upon Taoist philosophy (the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu) to understand the meaning of his life.  I am very much aware of the danger of descending into vacuous, new age-y, orientalist cant - and I try to keep it straight.  My purpose is not to reveal the "mysteries of the East" to confused Western moderns.  Rather, I think that the classic texts can be taken seriously and, with obvious recognition of vastly different historical circumstances, applied to questions of our day.  That is what I will try to do here, for the most part.

     I will let you determine the extent to which I have succeeded in avoiding "vacuous, new-agey ,orientalist cant..."   But it is right and proper that I remember Aidan, who inspires me in so many ways.   The various posts I have written about him over the years can be found here.  

      Thanks for reading and commenting.

Two Years

    Today is the second anniversary of Aidan's death.  It seems longer.  Time has a way of extending and transforming as the years click by.  I can still see him here with us, but his absence is palpable.  Indeed, as the Tao Te Ching suggests, it is his absence that shapes my presence, that continues to define my life.  Here is a reflection I wrote last year.  Today, I sit at home, looking up at the drizzly gray sky and think about how the past lives through the present.

 

What Parents Owe Their Children

     This morning, listening to the radio, I heard a story about my former student, Nate Krissoff, and his father, Dr. Bill Krissoff.

     Nate was in the Marines and was killed in Iraq on this day last year.  He had graduated from Williams College in 2003 and when he was a senior he had taken my seminar in international relations, "Globalization and War."  Little did I know then that he would be heading off into globalized war and be killed by it...

      Nate's father, Bill, has thus been faced with the loss of his son.  Death brings questions and introspections that we cannot anticipate in life.  In his case, he looked within and asked himself how he could do something that would honor his son's life.  And he chose to provide his medical knowledge and skill to the Marine Corps, which his son had been a part of.  At 61, this was not an easy feat, but he has gained the necessary age waivers and is getting ready to set off to Iraq.

      This story had, for me, a Confucian ring to it.  We often think of Confucianism as focusing on the obligations that children owe their parents.  But I have always believed that an equally strong case must  be made for the importance to Confucianism of the obligations parents owe their children.  This is not discussed as much in The Analects as is filial piety, but it is crucial nonetheless.  Perhaps a father's and mother's responsibilities to children were just too obvious to Confucius and his followers to have to be discussed explicitly. 

      If we are to take Confucian ethics seriously, however, it must be the case that parents are bound to provide materially for their children, to educate them morally, and to remain for them throughout life a central node in an ever-expanding network of Humanity-creating relationships.  Parents are, and must be, the crux of a child's social experience.  A parent guides a child as he or she goes out into the world to do good. And a parent's role in this regard never ends - even, as the Krissoffs show us, when a child pre-deceases a parent.

     When a child dies it is up to parents, and other family members and friends, but especially parents, to express to the world, in actions and/or words, the effects that that child had on the world.  We could simply forget, yet in forgetting we would be losing not only the memory of a loved one, but also an element of our own moral constitution.  In life, the child is a vital part of a parent's moral experience, and the accumulated products of that experience live in in every action and thought of the parent.  In death, the child remains as a deeply ingrained constituent of the parent, and of all who were a part of the child's social sphere.  A parent, then, cannot but continue to express to the world the child's moral effects. 

     Dr. Krissoff makes this evident.  He takes things a step further by seriously asking himself how he might change his daily ritual behavior to best express his son's moral presence.  And he comes up with a fitting gesture.

     Not all of us need to join the military.  Indeed, Dr. Krissoff did not have to join the military to honor Nate.  There might have been other, equaling fitting avenues.  What is necessary, however, is that we all must ask ourselves how we can best express the moral presence of not only ourselves but our children and other loved ones, even when those loved ones have passed away.  It is the question that is the key; particular responses will vary by personal circumstances.

    My wife often says that she wants to continue to use the gifts that Aidan gave her.  And so, she volunteers and works with several agencies involved with disabled children and adults.  I find my own ways of expressing Aidan to the world.  Dr. Krissoff is a marvelous reminder of this duty all parents owe their children.

Assisted Suicide

    This past Sunday, the NYT Magazine ran a piece on assisted suicide.  As I started to read it, I thought it conjured up certain Confucian themes, but by the time I had finished it, I was definitely thinking more in Taoist terms.

    The Confucian resonances come from the basic outlines of a story: a father with Parkinson's disease works to create a law in Washington state, where he had served as governor, that will allow for assisted suicide.  He is inspired by his own gradual demise and by a broader vision that would allow people to have control over their end of life circumstances.  His son, a devout Christian, opposes him on religious grounds.  Their relationship is strained by the father's history of not spending much time with his children as they were growing up but now expecting the son to play a certain role in this his final campaign.

      The Confucian question to ask is: should the son's obligation to his father trump his religious beliefs in this case?  Should the son help the father die, even if it violates his more general moral code? 

     Personally, I think the Confucian expectation of filial duty is not automatic and all encompassing.  Sons are not expected to do anything at all that their fathers tell them to do.   Although sons might be expected to shield fathers from legal actions in some cases (i.e. sheep stealing), sons should not act inhumanely at the command of the father.  If a father told a son to kill someone, Confucius would not expect the son to automatically comply.

     Assisted suicide is a bit murkier, however, since the father might be understood to have a certain privilege in determining his own life's conditions.  But - and this is a very important but - the father is not wholly autonomous.  No one is wholly autonomous in a Confucian world. A father is embedded in a web of social relationships and vital members of that network not only determine the quality of a father's life but should also have a voice in any discussions about the voluntary death of the father.  Fathers may be due a certain respect, but they do not exist outside the practices that define Humanity.

     These Confucian issues fell by the wayside, however, as I read passages like this one:

Gardner [the father] wants death but won’t acquiesce to his disease. The drugs that are prescribed, like the electricity, to mitigate his symptoms are kept and meted out by his assistant. When Gardner kept them himself he took far more than was recommended. He couldn’t bear the shuffling, the stiffness “like the Tin Man in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ ” the stumbling; “it does not fit with my concept of who I am.” He swallowed as many pills as he needed to fit his concept....

 He is driven by an idea of himself, an image in his mind of what he thinks he ought to be.  Instead of looking and embracing what he is, he drowns in frustrations over what he is not or what he is no longer.  The pursuit of an idealized self has become the rationale for the death of the actual self.  His self motto is: "My life, my death, my control."  As if any of us really controls the conditions of our own lives.

     My experience with Aidan floods back to me at moments like this.  He taught me about not having control, about relinquishing the idealized self, about embracing the actual conditions of the moment.  And he taught me that through my reflections on Taoism.

     The Tao Te Ching (22) comes to mind when thinking of the father who demand control over his own life and death:

In yielding is completion.
In bent is straight.
In hollow is full.
In exhaustion is renewal
In little is contentment.
In much is confusion.

This is how a sage embraces primal unity
As the measure of all beneath heaven.

Give up self-reflection
and you're soon enlightened.
Give up self-definition
and you're soon apparent.
Give up self-promotion
and you're soon proverbial.
Give up self-esteem
and you're soon perennial.
Simply give up contention
and soon nothing in all beneath heaven contends with you.

It was hardly empty talk
when the ancients declared in yielding is completion.
Once you have perfected completion
you've returned home to it all.

     Taoism could accept assisted suicide if it was the path of least resistance, the natural next move of "nothing's own doing" (wu wei) but not in the pursuit of "My life, my death, my control."

Another Taoist Thanksgiving

     Here we are again on my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.  It is my third blogging Thanksgiving and I really cannot think of a better way to mark the occasion than with the post from my first blogging Thanksgiving.  There are differences, of course, between then and now, most obviously Aidan is no longer with us.  But he taught me a lot about life and thankfulness and I am happy to remember him today.  So, here is my annual Thanksgiving post:

A Taoist Thanksgiving

  It is a perfect Thanksgiving morning here in Northwestern Massachusetts: a light snow, about 2 inches on the ground; a chill air; great conditions to be inside and cooking and eating all day.  Aidan and I are here by ourselves, however.  Maureen and Maggie are down in New York City, attending the famous parade.  So, we will do the whole feast thing tomorrow.  Today will be just about pie baking: I have a couple of small pumpkins to bake and make into a pie.  If I feel ambitious, perhaps an apple pie will follow.  That will make the house warm and comfortable.

     We are supposed to be thankful today, and I am.  But as I give thanks I can't help wondering: for what am I giving thanks and to whom?  As is my want, I fall back on Taoism to help clarify my thoughts.  And, through that exercise, I come to a somewhat startling realization: I give thanks for Aidan and his profound disability.  I know that sounds a bit bizarre - how could a parent be thankful for a child's disability? - but, as I think through it, I am happy to say that I am. 

   (For other parents thinking about disability, see this recent piece on disability; hap tip: Laura).

    First, let's think more generally about the act of thanksgiving.  In the Christian American context, that means giving thanks to God for all of the good things we have.  (We tend to skip over the bad things today; we focus on the good in order to balance out the bad).   What I like about this idea is the underlying assumption that we do not really control the course of our lives and we need to be humbly grateful for the good things that happen along the way.  I think that sentiment is consonant with Taoism.

Of course, a Taoist (at least a philosophic Taoist) would not invoke a god figure as the ultimate controller of our destinies.  Rather, Way itself (Tao) is the all-inclusive, self-generating, continually unfolding complex reality that surrounds and shapes our lives.   So, a Taoist would recognize the one's subordination to Tao.  But would a Taoist give "thanks"? 

     In a way (pun!), yes.  Although Chuang Tzu tells us that fully apprehending the uncontrollable power of Tao should lead us to let go of virtually all emotions ("joy and sorrow never touch you" 92), there is still room for gratefulness, even if gratefulness assumes a happiness for which to be grateful.  A Taoist can be grateful - and, indeed, can be happily enchanted - to witness or sense some small part of the wondrous richness of Tao.  This is not a function of education or age: even the smallest and weakest infant simultaneously absorbs and expresses a corner of Tao. Indeed, the immaturity and naivety of the infant is presented as the best state from which to experience Tao:

Embody Integrity's abundance
and you're like the vibrant child...
      - Tao Te Ching 55

   A Taoist, then, would give thanks, in the sense of recognizing and gratefully subordinating oneself to uncontrollable forces of Tao that shape our lives and produce the good (as well as the bad) around us.

   It is in that spirit that I give thanks.  And as I give thanks in that way (Way), with Aidan silently sitting next to me in his wheelchair, air rattling in and out of his tracheostomy tube, I am thankful for him in precisely the way that he is.  I do not regret his disabilities (this is not Regretsgiving Day, after all).  Of course, if I were some omnipotent divinity able to determine the conditions of his life, I would call a do-over and have him fully abled in all the ways he is not now.  But I am not omnipotent.  I am subordinated to Tao, and Tao moves as it will, with no heed to my desires or expectations.

   But can I be positively grateful for his disability?  Yes.  I can because I have come to see that his experience of Tao is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other experience of Tao.  He cannot speak or see or stand; but he can hear and touch and feel the warmth and love around him.  He takes in Tao and adds to Tao in his own, unique way.  I may think my own understanding of the world around me is greater or more significant than his, but philosophic Taoists would scoff at such arrogance.  It is, after all, the immature and naive infant who can "embody Integrity's abundance."  It is, after all, our human-created knowledge that can obstruct our view of Tao. 

    To be perfectly honest (and I have said this elsewhere), if I had a choice, I would not change places with him.  I am too used to and happy with my abilities to experience Tao that I would be loath to give them up.  But that might just be my own lack of understanding. Yet, whatever my own hesitations, I can be fully grateful for him, in precisely the form he is.  It is he, as he is, who has fundamentally challenged my world view and opened up to me the serenity of philosophic Taoism.  It is he, as he is, who has had myriad good effects on the people around him.  It is he, as he is, who is a perfect expression of the wholeness of Tao in himself. 

     So, Happy Thanksgiving.  We are happy here.  We are thankful.  And among that many thinks I am grateful for today is Aidan and his profound disability.

  It is a perfect Thanksgiving morning here in Northwestern Massachusetts: a light snow, about 2 inches on the ground; a chill air; great conditions to be inside and cooking and eating all day.  Aidan and I are here by ourselves, however.  Maureen and Maggie are down in New York City, attending the famous parade.  So, we will do the whole feast thing tomorrow.  Today will be just about pie baking: I have a couple of small pumpkins to bake and make into a pie.  If I feel ambitious, perhaps an apple pie will follow.  That will make the house warm and comfortable.

     We are supposed to be thankful today, and I am.  But as I give thanks I can't help wondering: for what am I giving thanks and to whom?  As is my want, I fall back on Taoism to help clarify my thoughts.  And, through that exercise, I come to a somewhat startling realization: I give thanks for Aidan and his profound disability.  I know that sounds a bit bizarre - how could a parent be thankful for a child's disability? - but, as I think through it, I am happy to say that I am. 

Birthday Thoughts

     Today is Aidan's birthday.
 
     He would have been sixteen.

     As I think about his life, and what he gave to me, a passage from Chuang Tzu comes to mind.  Without him, I would not have the understanding of this passage that I now have.  It is his gift to me and, so, I post it here as a birthday present for all.

Sufficient because "sufficient."  Insufficient because "insufficient."  Traveling the Way makes it Tao.  Naming things makes them real.  Why real?  Real because "real." Why nonreal? Nonreal because "nonreal."  So the real is originally there  in things, and the sufficient is originally there in things.  There's nothing that is not real, and nothing that is not sufficient.

Hence, the blade of grass and the pillar, the leper and the ravishing Hsi Shih, the noble, the sniveling, the disingenuous, the strange - in Tao they all move as one and the same.  In difference is the whole; in wholeness is the broken.  Once they are neither whole nor broken, all things move freely as one and the same again.

Only one who has seen through things understands moving freely as one and the same.  In this way, rather than relying on your own distinctions, you dwell in the ordinary.  To be ordinary is to be self-reliant; to be self-reliant is to move freely; to move freely is to arrive.  That's almost it, because to arrive is to be complete.  But to be complete without understanding how - that is called Tao.

Without Him

     Aidan died a year ago today.  Below the jump is something I wrote a few months ago but could not find a publisher for.  I post it here as a part of his continuing presence in my life.

Traveling

     I have long had some differences with certain sections of the Tao Te Ching.  At one point (I'm at home and all my copies are in the office), the text tells us that you do not need to step out your door to know Way, which I agree with.  Coming to understand Way - if we can call it "understanding" - is an interior process.  But then the text says something like: the further you go the less you know, which suggests that traveling, and the process of moving out from the interior search, is not just futile but destructive to the process of apprehending Way.

     I disagree.  While Way is not to be found in such exterior wanderings, traveling is not necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, it can be a good thing in that it widens one's field of experience and, potentially, one's appreciation of the vastness and multiplicity of Way.

     All of this is, of course, a preemptive defense.  I am leaving soon on a  European holiday with my family.  We will spend four days in Utrecht, Netherlands, visiting friends who used to be our neighbors here in Williamstown.  Then we will head down to Paris for four days, just because it is Paris.  Maureen and I were there once before, for only a weekend, and it is one of those places that lives up to its press.  Then, we were not able to go into the Louvre.  Now, I have the museum tickets in hand already. 

      This is a sad time of year for us.  Getting away, moving about, seeing something new will not make us forget, but it might make the days pass more easily.  We are not running away from the sadness, just finding a way to live through it.  We bring our interior lives with us wherever we go.

     I have set up a series of posts to pop up here while I'm gone.  And perhaps I will post from Europe.  Until then just remember: you do not have to leave home to know Way.

Broadway Tao

      Last week was my daughter's thirteenth birthday - the first teenage year.  I took her into Manhattan, as I have done each of the prior three years, to see a Broadway show.  In fact, we saw two, a matinee and an evening performance (the half priced tickets are great).  In the afternoon we saw Chicago, which was fun, in a purposefully over-the-top sort of way.   After dinner with some friends - her Godmother, who gave her a first iPod - we saw A Chorus Line.

    I had seen this show more than thirty years ago, in its original Broadway incarnation, and it had all sorts of resonances for me.  We had great seats, fifth row, center orchestra on the aisle. Almost exactly where I remember sitting all those years ago when I went with a girlfriend, who died about eight years ago of a rare cancer.  Her memory - her smile and laugh and frustration at the end of her all too short life - faded in and out of my mind as the evening unfolded. 

     My nostalgia was heightened as I read the program and discovered that a fellow I went to high school (we were in the marching band together!) and college with was playing the bass in the band.  After the show my daughter and I waited by the stage door; she collected autographs from the actors as they came out and I waited for a man I had not seen in twenty five years.  When he emerged, I accosted him, he let out a yelp of recognition and we started to catch up.  We wound up in a bar on 8th Avenue (it was my daughter's first foray into a bar - she had some french fries and a Coke); over a couple of beers we relished the unexpected reunion. 

     It was, then, a night of coincidences and remembrances - aimlessly wandering, unstuck in time, through scenes of my life.  My recollections were stirred even further in the midst of the show.  I had forgotten what a lovely tune "What I Did for Love" is.  It brought Aidan to mind, his effect on us, our love for him, especially this lyric:

Kiss today goodbye,
And point me toward tomorrow
We did what we had to do
Can't forget,
Won't regret what I did for love.

 It has a Taoist quality to it, like something Chuang Tzu might say: let go of today, move on to tomorrow, do what you have to do, and don't regret.  Thoughts like those very much shaped my life with Aidan, especially the bad days.  I don't forget or regret any of it.

Forever Small

    This story came across the wires yesterday:

In a case fraught with ethical questions, the parents of a severely mentally and physically disabled child have stunted her growth to keep their little ``pillow angel'' a manageable and more portable size.

The bedridden 9-year-old girl had her uterus and breast tissue removed at a Seattle hospital and received large doses of hormones to halt her growth. She is now 4-foot-5; her parents say she would otherwise probably reach a normal 5-foot-6.

The case has captured attention nationwide and abroad via the Internet, with some decrying the parents' actions as perverse and akin to eugenics. Some ethicists question the parents' claim that the drastic treatment will benefit their daughter and allow them to continue caring for her at home.

    I must admit that, at first, I was skeptical.  My Taoist sensibilities suggested that the parents were going too far, they were intervening too severely into the child's life and, possibly, opening her up to new risks down the road (what would the long term effects of the treatment be?).  But the more I thought about it, and the more I read through the parent's blog, the more reasonable the Confucian interpretation of this case became: the parents have done the right thing because the treatment, though apparently perverse, will, in fact, improve their ability to care for Ashley and it was an action rooted in the experience and love that the parents have demonstrated over the years.

    I elaborate on both the Taoist and Confucian positions below the jump: