IRL and the vMPFC

PRE-POST: This is a very special post, written mainly by a guest writer, at my invitation, in response to a question about life as we move through it. DO NOT assume that because my question is couched in a life transition called "retirement" that it does not apply to most every life at some point or another.

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IRL? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Oh, I know it represents "In Real Life" but what does THAT mean? Let's engage our vMPFCs: vertral Medial Prefrontal Cortex, that region of the brain that increases in activity when we are introspecting about our selfs. (Or is it selves?) How do you know when and if your are living in reality? Do we just make it up as we go and that becomes reality? Does fate deal us a hand called real life and the best we can hope for is g(G)uidance on how best to play it?

More than a few of my grade school and junior high teachers commented on my report cards that I tended to do a lot of daydreaming. A lot of that daydreaming had to do with me putting myself into fanciful roles: maybe Ringo Starr was sick and The Beatles would call and ask if I could sit in for him on drums when they played on The Ed Sullivan Show. I bet the class bully would want to be my best buddy after that.

As I'm zigging and zagging my way through a maze of finding an identity as an old retired boomer, I get lost in a sort of thought fog. The newswriting lesson of key questions I learned back in my days as a journalism major in college comes back: Who? What? Where? When? and How? Is this harmless daydreaming, self-introspection, or, as the kids say: "getting inside my own head"?

I want to know more about this. Is it productive? Why does it feel like being STUCK sometimes? Is there potential for creativity, maybe a little self-actualization here?

I need professional help. Thankfully I know a girl.

She is a "mental performance consultant".

So, Dr. Brooke Fuller: I know your main focus is on athletics, but any words for a cranky, old wayfarer whose tennis racket is gathering dust on the closet shelf?

dr. brooke fuller, her husband and our son kyle, and theIR amazing family.

Maybe this daydreaming/introspection is a blend of harmless mental wandering on your quest to continue your creative ways; or it could also be searching for answers or grappling with unresolved thoughts or emotions.

You mentioned finding an identity as an old retired boomer. My first thought was Erikson's theory of psychosocial development. Many theories discuss development up to adulthood and then stop; Erikson, as you probably already know, continues his stages through one's entire lifespan.

The eighth stage, integrity vs. despair, involves a retrospective look back at your life and either feeling satisfied that life was well-lived (integrity, which is characterized by acceptance, sense of wholeness/success, feelings of wisdom) or regretting missed opportunities or choices (despair, which is characterized by bitterness, rumination over mistakes, feeling unproductive). Retirement is one of the life events that triggers this stage.

This past week I worked on a project for a university that seems relatable. They want to better prepare their athletes when they transition out of their sport. In my presentation, I shared with them how transitioning out of their sports career can be a significant life change and result in fear or uncertainty about future plans and loss of: identity, motivation, purpose, structured routine, social support (teammates/coaches), confidence, or external validation.

Maybe retiring from a career brings similar experiences.

Introspection is a healthy practice, but it is beneficial to handle it with care. Those who take self-reflection too far, may end up feeling more anxious, stressed, and depressed than ever (Eurich, 2017). You mentioned the newswriting lesson of key questions: Who? What? Where? When? and How? It’s good you are asking these and avoid the Why? questions. Why questions can stir up negative emotions and highlight our shortcomings, whereas What questions help direct us to stay curious and positive about the future. Creativity! Self-actualization!

"What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.” Maslow, 1943

What you can be, you must be! And I’m looking forward to it!

The realization of one’s full potential. Let’s add more introspective questions to the mix. What would your life look like here? What would have to happen to reach self-actualization? What is your full potential? What stones lie unturned? What’s next on your path to achieving your full potential? Or have you already?

Above self-actualization on the hierarchy, added later on, is self-transcendence. Realizing that we are one small part of a greater whole, and acting as such. We focus on others instead of ourselves. These experiences bring joy, peace, and a well-developed sense of awareness.

Someone who is highly self-transcendent may experience plateau-like experiences when they consistently maintain a state of higher perspective. Now, I’m not saying you have or have not reached self-actualization, but from the outside looking in, you have plowed right through to the top and hang out on the plateau landing of self-transcendence.

When it comes to productivity, daydreaming and self-introspection can be a double-edged sword. On one side, they can lead to creativity and self-actualization, as you explore ideas and reflect on experiences. On the flip side, if it feels like you're simply spinning your wheels without direction, it might seem unproductive. Out of all the athletes I’ve worked with, when they say “I can’t get out of my head,” it comes down to overthinking.

In sports, overthinking is, more often than not, unhelpful so we aim to relax the mind/relax the body, utilize effective thoughts, create goals and action plans, learn grounding techniques, implement pre-performance routines, enhance confidence and more, focus on what we can control and let go of the things we can’t…and many other awesome mental tools we use to calm the mind and quiet the rumination. Maybe some of these things can help a retired Boomer. ??

So how do you make the most out of this daydreaming, introspection, and zig zagging? Here are just a few ideas.

Embrace Creativity: Let your thoughts run free, but then take captive those creative ideas or recurring themes and run with them! Jot them down and do something with them!

Ground Yourself: When you feel stuck. Ground yourself in the present moment. This can help you shift from feeling STUCK, to a more intentional thinking. Take a walk, notice your senses, taste the food, smell the roses, hear the sounds, feel your feet on the ground, the wind in your hair (wink, wink).

Set Small Goals: If you find yourself daydreaming, to a point you are not fond of, give yourself a bit of structure. Consider which areas you'd like to explore or resolve and which ones to let go.

These moments of “thought fog” can be valuable, but the key is finding a balance that allows for both introspection and action.

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Is it okay for a guy to ask his daughter-in-law for free advice and then post it for all to see so that everyone gets free advice? If you didn't find something useful in her words, then I would suggest you read them again. If you found something you would like to explore further, visit www.fullermindset.com.

Thank you Brooke! Thank you for giving and for encouraging. Thank you for being a wonderful friend, wife to our son, mom to our grands.

Signing off now with the lyrics to a song from the mid-60s which was a part of the playlist for my first coming-of-age.

DAYDREAMIN'
By Lovin' Spoonful

What a day for a daydream
What a day for a daydreamin' boy
And I'm lost in a daydream
Dreamin' 'bout my bundle of joy
And even if time ain't really on my side
It's one of those days for takin' a walk outside
I'm blowin' the day to take a walk in the sun
And fall on my face on somebody's new mowed lawn

TO HAVE & TO HOLD

June 16th. Our day. That was the day the knot was tied, the vows were said, the cake was eaten. The day it all started was actually weeks and months before that. I don't remember it being an actual moment; more like an unfolding. We didn't shake a Magic 8 Ball. There was no Rock, Paper, Scissors, or coins tossed. There was a bit of ignorant bliss, romance, naivette, hormones, young love and belief that this was a match made in heaven. At least that's the way I remember it.

We didn't use the traditional vows in our marriage ceremony. We wrote our own and they definitely had an early 70s zeitgeist of peace and love to them, but they were sincere and have stood the test of time.

When I speak of traditional vows I'm talking about those that go something like this:

I, ____, take you, ____, to be my husband/wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.

First, we didn't even know what "to have" and "to hold" meant. Next, we were kids. We were invulnerable to stuff like worse, poorer, and sickness much less death. Why bring all that crap into the celebration?

As I think about this anniversary of our wedding, I'm 52 years older and I still am not sure I understand what have and hold mean. I could guess; and I will before the essay is finished. All these years later I don't know that I would want those words in our vows if we were to do one of those vow-renewal things. That sounds so possession-y, like some kind of claim of ownership. Like maybe: "I promise TO HAVE control over you and TO HOLD you back from being your own person" or something.

I think my attitude has been marred by all the focus on that twisted theology that religious fundamentalists call "complementarianism". I would love to write about how I feel about it but I'm not going to let it be a dark cloud over my intent of writing a heartfelt sentiment about how blest out of my heart, head and soul I am to have been married to My Amazing Missus for more than half a century.

So, here's how I'm viewing and understanding having and holding. Let's start with the dark side of having/holding.

Remember poor old Peter? The guy that was known for eating a lot of pumpkin; so much in fact that he has been known for eons as Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater?

He had a relationship problem. Or, was his problem a wayward woman, or maybe he had signed up for a doctrine that somehow believes that wives are subordinate to husbands. The question that other men seeking submissive wives might have is: how in the world did he get her into that pumpkin shell and in what state was she in that he was able to keep her there "very well"?

Sometimes seeking to have and hold turns into an ugly form of possesion--dehumanizing another to the point that they exist only for the other's use: like a commodity.

Let me illustate with the this little excerpt from a newspaper article:

The drab free port zone near the Geneva city center, a compound of blocky gray and vanilla warehouses surrounded by train tracks, roads and a barbed-wire fence, looks like the kind of place where beauty goes to die. But within its walls, crated or sealed cheek by jowl in cramped storage vaults, are more than a million of some of the most exquisite artworks ever made. --New York Times.

I realize that it seems like I'm using an inanimate object: art, to try to make my point about being fully human, created in the image of The Creator. But think of it as representing something bigger. Let's call it "beauty". Somethings are just not meant to be KEPT. Having and holding are so much more than that.

Let me try it this way. If you are a parent or a grandparent, or maybe an aunt or an uncle, this next sentence will cause a burst of images and memories, joys and maybe a few sorrows, but sublime all the same. Ready?

We HAVE a new baby and I got to HOLD him.

Can you feel the honor in that? The joy? The desire to share the news.

Here is a picture of My Amazing Missus and me. It is moments after the birth of Jeremiah our youngest Grand. We are crammed in the window seat of the hospital in Enid, Oklahoma, with all of the other Grands, taken January 19, 2022 at 2:11p.

Had he been born a few weeks later the hospital would have been locked down because of the pandemic. Selfishly, I cannot fathom what it would have cost me emotionally to not be able to be there for that moment--that first moment of HAVEing a new grandson and HOLDing him.

That's what it means to me to have and to hold. Obviously I didn't HAVE him. His beautiful mom Brooke did all that work with steady support from his dad, Kyle. And, obviously HOLDing is more than physical, literal holding.

If I haven't made my point yet, then I'm a lousy point maker. It's just that if I were to tell my bride of 50-something years that I am committed to having and holding, I would want her to know it is all about cherishing and celebrating and sharing.

I understand the concept of one thing complementing another. I'm intimately familiar with peanut butter and jelly. But, in a true complementary relationship one thing is not subjugated to the other. That is an ugly distortion, and it is one that I'm vulnerable to. In fact, I've done that kind of crap to others. Hopefully I've haven’t justified it by being a christian, a male, old, white, democrat, introvert, bald, cynical, peanut butter & jelly loving jerk.

Happy Anniversary to My Amazing Missus. Like the old song says, "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow." I'm still here; to have and to hold from this day forward.

WHO'S TEAM IS GOD ON?

I watched most every game of the Women's College Softball World Series. It is a thoroughly enjoyable sport to watch; especially when the teams from your state's largest universities are in the tournament.

It's over for 2024 and the Oklahoma Sooners won their fourth championship in a row. That's never been done before and it's the cherry on top of mountain of firsts for this team. The Texas Longhorns were rated #1, but the Sooners beat them in the first two games of the best of three.

Many of the Sooners when asked about this phenomenal run, thanked God.

photo source unknown

That seemed to bother some folks.

• Do they think God actually cares about softball?

• Do they think that God favors one team over another?

• Do they really believe that if one player has a quick prayer with a team mate before she goes up to bat that God will somehow energize her and/or her bat so she hits a walk off home run to pull victory from a must-win game situation where the other team might have actually played the better game?

Time out. Let's do a closer review.

A lot of people don't like the Sooners (especially those that wear burnt orange and people who were regular orange and columbia blue and clap their hands by extending their arms and moving them together and apart vertically.) A lot of people feel like the Sooners are cocky and show-offy.

Did I mention that this team has been weirdly and wildly successful? "So are you saying that they have some sort of divine anointing?"

If God loved Oklahoma better than Texas maybe he would nudge tornado alley a bit south, say below the Red River, instead of the heart of it going right over Norman, Oklahoma, home of the Sooners.

Here are some thoughts about these holy name-droppers, for what they're worth:

Maybe there is actually an innocent, and maybe, naive humility among these super Sooner softballers. It is from that place that gratitude can spring. I'm sure these girls are grateful to their parents and grandparents for their support and sacrifice and sportly genetics. I'm sure they are grateful to their coaches--who apparently are some of the best to be found. I'm sure they are grateful to their fans and friends. But there's more gratitude to go around. Gratitude is one of those things that must be expressed. When a person or a team has worked so hard and accomplished so much there is lot of it to be expressed. There is also a lot of exuberance among this team. That's another thing that demands expression--in proportion to the depth of it.

It's easy (at least for me) to see that these young women find themselves at a sort of pinnacle so that there must be something at play here that is, well, beyond/Beyond. What I'm saying is that maybe they haven't become so jaded yet, so arrogant to be blinded by the wonder of the whole experience. What does it hurt for them to find a way to express all that gratitude and exuberance?

The words of G.K. Chesteron come to mind:

“The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them. When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”

A BLOG POST ABOUT (DOING) NOTHING

"Here is a book that you should read!" The enthusiastic recommendation came from an always smiling lady who worked at a christian bookstore in the town where we lived. Her zeal came from a place deeper than a motivation to be a good salesperson. She held it out to me lying on her open palms as she might if she had been offering a Gutenberg Bible.

The book was "Search for Significance".

Honestly I said, "Thank you Mary. I'm glad the book has meant so much to you but, for me, I'm searching for a lot things, but I don't think significance is one of those."

Honestly, I still feel like that's true for me. Then and now, I search for peace, contentment, meaningful relationships, purpose, humor, creativity, open-minded conversation, honest faith, deep personal spirituality, solitude, and slow observation.

POPS AND JEREMIAH

Slow observation? We just returned from a trip with our boys, our beautiful daughters-in-law, and the magnificent seven: Karlee, Harper, Haddi, Nora, Everly, Malachi and Jeremiah. We stayed together in a floating cabin on Lake Murray near Ardmore, Oklahoma. My role was sitting on the dock, eating no-bake cookies, drinking coffee and watching the kids fish and beg to swim in the frigid waters. I excelled in my duties.

All I had to do was buy the train tickets, rent the cabin, buy some groceries and be otherwise insignificant. It was sublime.

I have a little book where I write down words that are new to me and intriguing. There are three that seem to fit together. I've heard them all spoken among the younger, hipper crowd. Even though I'm now neither of those, I can still get on board with these: niksen, hygge, and fika.

Let's start with Niksen. It looks like it could be a phonetic guide to pronouncing the name of another former president facing a well-deserved reckoning. But no. According to an article in Time magazine: Niksen “literally means to do nothing, to be idle or doing something without any use.” Practicing niksen could be as simple as just hanging around, looking at your surroundings or listening to music — “as long as it’s without purpose, and not done in order to achieve something or be productive."

Next up: Hygge. I didn't make note of my source on this Danish word, my notes say: hygge isn’t just a word; it’s a concept, and as such, there’s really no direct translation. Hygge is about cosiness and surrounding yourself with the things that make life good, like friendship, laughter and security, as well as more concrete things like warmth, light, seasonal food and drink.

How about Fika? It’s a moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life. From the book, Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break, “Functioning as both a verb and a noun, the concept of fika is simple. It is the moment that you take a break, often with a cup of coffee, but alternatively with tea, and find a baked good to pair with it. You can do it alone, you can do it with friends. You can do it at home, in a park or at work. But the essential thing is that you do it, that you make time to take a break: that’s what fika is all about.”

THESE DAYS I SEARCH for niksen, hygge and fika. Significance? I can take it or leave it. Now if you'll excuse me; My Amazing-Missus has made a strawberry ice cream pie. I'm going to brew a cup of dark roast and watch some Women's College World Series action.