Ernie The Attorney

Farewell Dad

I haven't really known how to blog about this, so I'm kind of late in putting this out there:  My dad passed away in Panama on March 31st.  He was 85 and he'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's many years ago.  The past couple of years were pretty hard on him, so when he got pneumonia it was just too much to handle.  I managed to get to Panama in time to be with him at the very end, and I can say that he died with a smile on his face.  A really big one. 

My dad spent most of his life smiling.  Merely being in his presence caused other people to smile too. 

He was born right before the Great Depression, and fought in World War II.  His father was a Lutheran minister and had 5 kids, of which my father was the oldest.  Actually, he had an 'older brother' George, who was actually a cousin that was taken in because his parents both died during an Influenza epidemic.

My dad taught me and my brother many things, but the main thing he taught us was that pettiness and excuses are a waste of time.  My father was never sick, and certainly never missed work or anything else because he didn't feel well.  He believed that it was more important to 'believe in things' than to try to make money.  He made money, but that was simply the natural by-product of hard work. And the thing he worked hardest at was helping people.

My dad was a psychiatrist, which was tough for me to deal with as a kid.  First, because I couldn't pronounce the word and, second, because I couldn't understand it, much less explain it to my friends.  One day my friend Gary asked me if it was true my dad could read minds.  I told him 'no,' but I wasn't really sure. Somehow my dad seemed to know a lot about what people were thinking, even when they didn't tell them.

It's a Hollywood cliché that shrinks are weird and creepy, but in some cases it's true. My dad was the opposite of that cliché.  He was a whirling dervish of enthusiasm and curiosity.  He'd hop out on the dance floor at the drop of a hat, and his charm was boundless.  Even after they'd divorced, my mother reminded me often of how enthralled she was by my father.  She wasn't the only one.

My dad was open and extremely friendly, and yet very mysterious.  But there was one thing that absolutely fascinated him: the power of the human unconscious.  He became a psychoanalyst and spent most of his professional life in a dark room listening to people plumb the depths of their unconscious.  My father didn't talk very much about what he did, but I know he was exceptionally good at it.  I know this because countless people have come up to me at various times and told me how grateful they were for his help.  If they hadn't told me I wouldn't have even known that he'd treated them.  

My dad's illness was was cruel.  The last few years were particularly hard.  He never complained much; usually he just made light of his situation.  I wish that he had not suffered so much, but I learned as much watching him deal with death as I did watching him in the prime of life.  We all face struggles, and there isn't much point in complaining about them. 

My dad is in a better place now.  I really believe that.  His smile at the end of his life is proof, for me at least, that life is not all flesh and bones.  My dad was right: what you believe in matters, and matters more than anything.  You can decide what to believe in, and you can choose the intensity of your belief.  If you smile you can change your life, and the lives of those around you.

So, if you want to help me remember my dad, just smile.  

Thanks.

The final services for my dad will be on Monday, April 27th at noon at Lakelawn Funeral Home (i.e. Metairie cemetary).  The visitation will start at 11:00 am.  The Times Picayune will carry the notice on Friday before the service.

Iceland, what made you think you were so special?

Michael Lewis' recent article in Vanity Fair is a must read on so many levels.  First, it's fascinating account of how Iceland, a quaint little country that has been isolated from the world of International finance for more than a millennium, suddenly became a careening high roller.  And then promptly became bankrupt. As in: 'the whole country became bankrupt.'

But there's another level (as their always is when Lewis looks at a situation) that I find more Interesting. How did a bunch of people who made their money for hundreds of years by fishing come to believe that they had an aptitude for high finance?  This short blurb, in which Lewis talks with an Icelandic fellow, kind of sums it up:

It took years of training for him to become a captain, and even then it happened only by a stroke of luck. When he was 23 and a first mate, the captain of his fishing boat up and quit. The boat owner went looking for a replacement and found an older fellow, retired, who was something of an Icelandic fishing legend, the wonderfully named Snorri Snorrasson. “I took two trips with this guy,” Stefan says. “I have never in my life slept so little, because I was so eager to learn. I slept two or three hours a night because I was sitting beside him, talking to him. I gave him all the respect in the world—it’s difficult to describe all he taught me. The reach of the trawler. The most efficient angle of the net. How do you act on the sea. If you have a bad day, what do you do? If you’re fishing at this depth, what do you do? If it’s not working, do you move in depth or space? In the end it’s just so much feel. In this time I learned infinitely more than I learned in school. Because how do you learn to fish in school?”

This marvelous training was as fresh in his mind as if he’d received it yesterday, and the thought of it makes his eyes mist.

“You spent seven years learning every little nuance of the fishing trade before you were granted the gift of learning from this great captain?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“And even then you had to sit at the feet of this great master for many months before you felt as if you knew what you were doing?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you think you could become a banker and speculate in financial markets, without a day of training?”

“That’s a very good question,” he says. He thinks for a minute. “For the first time this evening I lack a word.” As I often think I know exactly what I am doing even when I don’t, I find myself oddly sympathetic.

Funny how easy it is for us to believe that we suddenly understand something that common sense should tell us is not that easily known.  I suggest that this a human (as opposed to an Icelandic) phenomenon by the way.  But of course we already knew that, didn't we?

Failure to communicate

This past week has given me the opportunity (not enjoyable, but then things that spur us toward growth often are not enjoyable) to revisit something I've come upon before.  How people miscommunicate is not something that we seem to understand enough about.  Or at least that's true for me.

I've noticed that, in my case, the problem stems from assuming that the other person has the same information that I do. Or a similar viewpoint.  Sometimes the disconnect is something more in my control, and sometimes it's more the other person.  But usually it's both parties.

I think I need to listen much better.  I try to listen, and I ruminate a lot on what I hear.  And I often try to read between the lines to make sure I'm getting the complete picture.  But listening seems not to be enough.  Maybe I need to ask more questions, or maybe it's something more than that.

People are guarded for all kinds of reasons.  I knew that, of course.  And that's why I try to 'read between the lines,'  but that doesn't work if the person is clever about being guarded.  And this 'cleverness' isn't even conscious.

So, what's the point of this post?  Up to now it must seem completely self-absorbed in an odd way (e.g. not enough background information whilst presenting a strong 'confessional quality.').  Okay, let me move on to the "Universal Point," with background information that's not really at the heart of my self-assessment, but will bring us to some sort of useful thought.

When I went to see my dad a few days ago I was confronted with a person who is in the last stages of Parkinsons.  He can barely walk and can't stand up without assistance.  But the most troubling limitation for him is that his mind has unraveled.  He can talk (although his voice is often weak), but he can't really talk about things that are part of a common understanding.  He lives in a semi-fantasy world, in which he sometimes recognizes the faces of those around him, but sometimes not.

One of his caretakers is very good at communicating with him, and he seems to be at ease with her. One of the other caretakers is not good at communicating with him.  At this point you might ask: how does one 'communicate well' with a person who barely recognizes what's going on around them?  

Good question!

The answer wasn't obvious to me until I saw the difference, and understood something powerful which now seems like it should be obvious. My father relies primarily on his emotions (or something other than his mind) to understand when people communicate with him.  One caretaker is patient with him and understand his struggles because she's been with him for five years.  He senses love from her, and he appreciates it.  He may not understand her words well, but he interprets them in the context of her love.

The other caretaker also has great concern for my dad, but she's new and doesn't know his background as well.  She tries to communicate with him using words, even though she knows he doesn't understand what's being said.   She tries hard to communicate, but it's just not working out as well as she would like.  My father senses her frustration, and interprets her words in that context.

So my point is that words are not the primary communication tool.  Perhaps it's love.  That, and deep understanding.

The best tree ever

My dad always made a big deal about Christmas trees. The scene in A Christmas Story where the dad picks out the tree was clearly modeled on my dad. Every year we wound up with "the best tree ever." My dad always saw things in the best possible light.

So here it is: a picture of the best tree ever.

Flying by the seat of your pants

When I was younger I used to get obsessed with some new interest and then make all kinds of plans as to how I would carry out my obsession. I still get obsessed with new (or old) things, but with one important difference. I don't make hardly any plans. It's taken me a long time, pretty much my whole life, to figure out that I'm not very good with plans. Which is not to say that I never make plans, or that I don't think they're important (they are). It's just that I finally figured out that my strong personal inclination makes it hard for me to rely too much on plans.

Knowing that one thing has made my life a lot easier.

Growing up, I felt like it was my duty to plan things, and then carry out the plans exactly as they were conceived. Actually, in the beginning the planning was done for me by adults. School was filled with plans (e.g. homework and projects). And guess what? From about kindergarten to the first month of my senior year in high school I did really poorly in school. For reasons that I'll explain in a minute, I had this amazing turn around my senior year and started getting straight A's.

Looking back, I think that one incident in particular was highly symbolic of my disconnect with 'planning.'

For some reason I always loved music. I wanted to play the guitar, but I didn't know anyone who even owned a guitar, much less played one. No one in my family played any musical instruments (except my mom's mom, but she lived in Panama and I didn't see her that often). When I was about ten I went to the house of my friend Linus (named after the nobel scientist, not the cartoon character) and he started playing his piano. He was really good. I told him that I wanted to play, but I didn't know how to learn. He started showing me some simple stuff, like how to play chopsticks. So I pestered my mom to get a piano and let me take lessons. She was completely excited and said fine.

Flash forward to about six months later. I've been dutifully going to lessons with Mrs. Howard, and I feel like things are not exactly turning out the way I had hoped. Mrs. Howard had a very specific plan for me, and she assured me that if I followed it with dedication I'd become a great pianist. "So, show me how far you've come with 'The Magic Froggy,'" she said with a magisterial splendor. She had no way of sensing the truth: I didn't really care for that particular opus in the Baldwin tutorial.

A few days later I went to Linus' house and he was playing the Petula Clark song called Downtown. I loved that song! I told him how much I wanted to play that song, but I realized that it would be years before Mrs. Howard would be letting me take up such complex works. Linus assured me that it wasn't complex at all. He proceeded to work with me, very patiently demonstrating each passage and then letting me practice it. All of a sudden I was excited again! I realized that a seemingly complex musical piece is nothing more than a bunch of simple pieces strung together.

I practiced Downtown over and over until I had the whole thing down pat. And then I made the mistake of showing Mrs. Howard what I had learned from my friend. Instead of complimenting me on my determination, she chided me for wasting time on something that was not relevant. "You need to learn to stick to the practice plan," she warned. "Concentrate on practicing what you are studying here, and they're be plenty of time for those kinds of songs soon enough." Reluctantly, I went back to practicing The Magic Froggy.

My favorite song at the time was something called "Windy," by The Association. I bought the 45 with my allowance and wore out the grooves playing it over and over on my mom's stereo. Now that would be a cool song to learn on the piano. I sat down at the piano and plucked the notes. All of a sudden I started to figure out how to play the melody. I was shocked! Even Linus had to use written sheet music to learn his songs, and here I was playing 'by ear.' The whole idea of playing 'by ear' was something I thought only musical prodigies like Mozart could do. Caught in the euphoria, I spent the next few hours slowly mastering the song I loved the most in all the world. I thought that if I learned the whole thing I could show Mrs. Howard and then she'd agree to help me learn the full version using written sheet music. It was kind of like that scene in Christmas Story when Ralphie thinks if he writes the killer essay his teacher will help him convince his mom to get him a Red Ryder BB gun.

Me and Ralphie suffered pretty much the same fate. Mrs. Howard, instead of complimenting me, scolded me for attempting to play a song without proper sheet music. She said that I needed to learn to read music if I intended to be a musician, and this effort would only get in the way.

Shortly after that event I lost interest in piano completely and stopped taking lessons.

But many years later, when I was living in Panama I met a guy who lived across the hall who played guitar. He played mostly classical music, but he could play popular music too if he wanted to. I asked him who he took lessons from. He said he learned to play by ear, all by himself. Of course, I knew he was lying. I had never met anyone who could play by ear, which seemed to prove what Mrs. Howard told me. To prove it, I asked him to play a Cat Stevens song that I knew he didn't know. He said it would take him awhile to work it out and he didn't want to do it in front of me.

The next day he came over and, sure enough, he could play the song. Really well. I asked him how hard it was to play the guitar, and he replied that it was actually really easy. I remarked that it wasn't easy enough for someone like me. He laughed and said that I, of all people, would find it especially easy. Why, I asked?

"Well, you obviously like music and you probably would like to learn songs that you like to play." He showed me a simple song that I knew from the radio and I was shocked at how easy it was to strum the chords. When my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday I told her I wanted a guitar. This time she had a completely skeptical look on her face. "Are you sure?" she sighed. Yes, I was sure.

Over the next few months my friend David taught me lots of songs, all of which he figured out by ear. I studied the process that he used, and while it seemed simple enough it also seemed way beyond my abilities. Over the years, of course, my abilities improved. I met other people who played by ear. I found out that there was a whole genre of music based on the idea of improvisation (e.g. jazz). Now in college, my dad was encouraging me to learn jazz guitar. I thought that was too hard, but he pushed me. He offered to get me a teacher, and I started taking lessons. I had reconnected with Linus, and he was now playing some jazz and he and I decided to take lessons together. My teacher said he'd have to show me on the piano, so I went back to getting a piano. But this time the idea was for me to learn how to figure songs out for myself. I was in heaven.

So what does all this have to do with school and how in one weird moment I went from being a horrible student to being a really good one? It has to do with an exceptional teacher that I had.

The school I went to in Panama was pretty demanding. It was a tri-lingual school where the graduates emerged speaking fluent Spanish and English. Half of the classes were in Spanish and the other half in English. You might take Math in English one year and then in Spanish the next. There was also a French class which was taught completely in French. Anyway, I did bad in all of the classes, but math was my worst subject. Lots of rules and formulas and exact answers. Definitely not my cup of tea.

We were required to take Physics that year, and it was not a simple introduction kind of class. It assumed knowledge of Algebra, Trignometry and Analytic Geometry, and it was taught by a college professor. I didn't like the professor, mostly because I knew he would be brutal for someone like me. Fortunately for me (but not for him), he got sick and had to turn the class over to his 'star graduate student.' The grad student was named "Ernesto" (ironic) and he was the complete antithesis of what I expected a Physics professor to be. He was exceedingly calm and he spoke in a very soothing voice, kind of like you'd hear from a devout monk. Turns out he was a devout Catholic, and belonged to an order of Evangelicals. As in, the church he went to believed in faith healing and speaking in tongues.

Wonderful.

His first task as a teacher was to administer the first big mid-term test. He passed out the exam booklets and told us to leave them on our desks. Then he told us to close our eyes and put our hands together. Then he started to pray out loud. I closed my eyes and tried to keep from laughing. My urge to laugh stopped completely when I opened the exam and saw that I had no idea how to answer any of the questions. All of the questions were variations on this theme: Boat A is going north at 10 miles per hour and Boat B is going west at 15 miles per hour. How fast are the boats going away from each other?

After 10 minutes I stood up and went to turn my exam in. I hadn't answered a single question. Professor Regales wouldn't let me. He said I had 50 more minutes to do the exam and I would have to use all 50 remaining minutes to solve the problems. "But these are all based on the Pythagorean equation, right?" Yes, so why don't you solve them using that equation, he asked? I told him I didn't know the equation (yes, sadly, it's true) and I assumed that he wasn't going to remind me. He confirmed that he would not give me the formula, but insisted that I sit down and think about the problem and see if I didn't have some kind of insight.

I sat down and let my mind wander (my forté). I figured I'd just let 50 minutes go by and then turn the exam in. After about 30 minutes my mind began to think about this idea of a right triangle, one boat going up and the other going across. Hmmmm, there was a constant relationship there. But how to measure it?

I looked around in my desk and found a ruler. I started to take measurements. I created some of my own questions that worked well with my ruler. One boat goes 4 miles per hour north, and another goes 3 miles per hour west. Looks like if you draw a 4 inch line and a 3 inch line and then measure you get a 5 inch line. Okay, measuring the relationship works. I popped up to ask if I could use a ruler to answer the questions. Big smile. Sure, why not?

So, I went ahead and answered all the questions using my ruler. When the exam came back I found out I had scored a 91, which was an A minus. Completely fucking incredible! I had never scored anything better than a 78 on a math exam. The professor explained that he was giving me full credit for solving the core problem. He said he only deducted minimal points for calculation errors.

Man, I loved this guy!

I got hooked on Physics. Turned out I was really good a figuring out the solutions, even better than some of the 'best math students' in the class. I decided to go back and learn the stuff I had not learned the previous couple of years. I got out my old textbooks and started working the problems. I only worked a problem until I understood how the math worked, and then I'd skip ahead. Amazingly, it only took me a few weeks to learn a bunch of math that had consumed years of class time. In the end I graduated with all A's (except French, which was hard because you can't cram a foreign language into your head, at least not if you are going to be tested on grammar and conjugation).

So, I should have known by the time that I graduated from high school that I don't learn things or do things the way other people do. I wish I could, actually. I think it's much better to proceed methodically and to be able to learn in a traditional classroom setting, mostly because that is the predominate system. But that's not how it works for me.

Somehow, I can't get past boredom.

The other thing that I have learned is that people who rely heavily on plans find it impossible to fathom how anyone could learn by 'improvisation' or 'trial and error.' That's why they are so adamant that people not ignore "the plan." To them, it's like walking off of a cliff and expecting to fly. The weird thing is that's how it feels to me too. But, somehow it works, and I wish I could explain it but I can't.

The power of one

"Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in art, in music, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man."

—John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Learning when to quit

I just finished reading Seth Godin's excellent book, The Dip. It's "a little book that teaches you when to quit (and when to stick)." I have been thinking about this problem for several months now.

Mainly, I have thought about it in my yoga practice.

I've found that if I don't push myself I get bored, and of course I don't progress. But if I push too hard or in a thoughtless way then I tend to hurt myself. There seems to be this very fine balance point of (1) letting go and relaxing, while (2) creating a steady intention to go a bit farther. While thinking of those things, I also have to pay attention to my body's physical resistance, which is not always the same. Sometimes I can't go as far today as I have been going for the past week. And that's when I push, thinking I'm supposed to challenge myself. That's when I get injured.

There's an ego thing involved, of course.

Godin's book is interesting because it suggests that it's often a good idea to give up, a notion that at first seems completely heretical. Yet he shows that many successful people have become successful by quitting something big. Michael Crichton, after graduating from Harvard medical school, decided he didn't want to practice medicine (even though he would easily have made a lot of money) because he didn't think he'd be happy. He didn't even try it out for a few years. Instead he went on to be wildly successful doing something that he loved doing, but which presented a less certain future when he embarked on it. Smart people know when to quit, Godin says.

Usually.

He points out that smart people have one big weakness that usually keeps them from quitting at the right time. "Pride is the enemy of the Smart Quitter." This might be Hillary Clinton's problem. We all know that she's very smart, but somehow her campaign isn't winding up the way she first envisioned it. She's having financial trouble. The likelihood of her winning the nomination is getting smaller, and the cost of winning it is getting harder even from a non-financial standpoint. And despite it all, she proclaims she "won't quit."

Godin offers an interesting thought about the aftermath of quitting: it often feels very comforting. "One reason people feel really good after they quit a dead-end project is that they discover that hurting one's pride is not fatal." Obviously everyone wants to win, but it's true that learning how to lose is important too. Hillary touts herself as 'the experience candidate' and yet maybe she hasn't had enough experience learning when to give up. She's only run for elected office once (the U.S. Senate), and she won. That's the only elected position she's ever held, and now she's seeking one of the most important positions in our country.

It's true that a lot of skills can be learned on the job. But I can't think of too many world leaders who've learned the difficult art of quitting after they've been elected. That's probably the main reason so many wars continue even after it becomes clear they're both hopeless and unpopular.

Biblical power

My Uncle George, who made his living as a freelance writer, used to exhort me to read the Bible from cover to cover.  I found this odd because his contempt for organized religion was open and seething.  When I was sixteen I finally thought to ask why I should bother to read the Bible if it wasn't a pathway to salvation.  "Oh right," Uncle George reflected, "well, you should appreciate the quality of writing, because it's truly stunning.  Especially the New Testament."  After a pause he continued. "Did you know that, of all the books ever published, the Bible has the highest percentage of one syllable words?" 

I didn't know that.  I still don't because, other than my uncle's swift pronouncement, I've never heard this factoid again.  I understood his point, though:  the Bible's message was linguistically simple and easily accessible, even though early religious leaders used its message to advance political goals.

So what about truth?

'Truth' is one of those words that we use so frequently that we never really stop to think about what it means.  We talk about 'the truth' as though there is this fixed thing that exists in an observable state that we can all agree on.  It would be nice if we could agree on some truths, but if you look at the sweep of human history you'll see that people have been fighting about 'truths' for centuries.  Is there a God?  Who are the 'chosen people'? The list goes on and on.

Reading minds is easy, for some people.

When I was a kid my friends would ask me to explain what my dad did for a living.  How do you explain to an eight year old boy what a psychiatrist does?  I kind of knew that they helped people with 'mind problems,' but that was about it.  I could barely pronounce my own last name, much less the word 'psychiatrist.'  And then there was the added complication that my dad was actually a 'psychoanalyst.'  I was completely baffled by this profession and no one could offer me an even remotely satisfying explanation.

So I looked for clues.

My dad had a couch in his office, where apparently his patients would lay down.  And the office was very dark.  There was a box of tissues by the couch.  Were people crying a lot?  It would seem so.  This whole business of exploring the mind seemed very strange.  My friends were spooked by my father.  They asked me constantly if he could read their minds.  I hadn't thought about it, but since they kept asking I paid attention more to this question. Over time it turned out that my father indeed had a strong sense of things that other people seemed not to be able to sense.

How did he do this?  There is no easy answer, but a recent New Yorker article by Malcom Gladwell (about criminal profilers who stalk serial killers) offers some insight as well as some additional questions.  My own take, after many years of thinking about it, is that what happens inside most of our minds is more transparent than we realize.  This is surprising only because we're so wrapped up in our own minds that we rarely have any sense of how other people's minds work.  A lot of the 'deep secrets' that we fear to reveal are actually pretty commonplace.  Finding out what goes on in the human mind may be shocking to many people, but to folks in the professions with the unpronounceable names that begin with the letter "P" it's actually pretty easy.