It's about time to talk about time

Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream. - Khalil Gibran

It's been six days since I posted anything, but things were bubbling around in my head and I didn't want to commit them to blog until I had a clearer sense of what I needed to say. It will take a few posts to get it all out so here's a start.

Consciousness is a very slippery concept. Thinking about thinking can really get you thinking, am I right? I could write pages of thoughts on the phenomenon of consciousness but I want to focus here on a crucial aspect of it, namely our perception of time.

We know what the Past is (I'm going to capitalize these terms), at least if we have properly functioning minds. It is composed of memories of all that we have already experienced. There are some very interesting stories about people whose short and long term memory is compromised. Oliver Sacks has a number of good books about these things and I refer you there. Studying pathology often gives us a clearer sense of what "normal" really means. But for our purposes we're discussing the Past as we experience it. And the Past is more than our own memories. We learn that other people have had experiences and we learn this by talking to them and even by reading accounts of things that happened long ago. The Past is real and those who love history love a real thing.

We also know what the Future is. It is, for the most part, a mental construct, an extrapolation of our Past, forward in time. In other words, we experience the Future as a projection of our Past. It is a sense that what has happened will again happen in some form or another. More on that later.

But this thing called the Present is a slippery beast indeed. We all have a sense of what it is but the more we try to experience it, the smaller it gets until it seems to have no substance at all. How can something so real have no dimension? Here's an analogy that helped me.

Suppose you are looking down at a lake. You can certainly see the surface of that lake, so it really does exist. But how thick is it? Even when you get down to the level of the atoms that compose it, at some point there are water molecules below and air molecules above and the surface of that lake becomes the surface of atoms and where does that leave us? No further ahead than we were before.

If you think about it (and mostly we try not to) the surface is nothing more than a boundary, a point of transition from one material to another. It is real, but not in a tangible sense. It is a construct of our minds. And it is the same way with the Present. There is a boundary "in time" where "what has yet to happen" becomes "what has happened." The Present is the boundary between the Future and the Past. And no matter how closely you observe it, there is never a measurable length of time that is the Present. It, too, is a construct of the mind.

Yet we live our entire lives there, and there alone. We cannot live in the Past, nor can we live in the Future. We live in that infinitesimally small place called the Present, and everything that we have ever done or ever will do happens there. But we often completely neglect it. We are constantly thinking about the Future or "dwelling" in the Past and are rarely, if ever, mindful of the moment that separates them.

There is a somewhat vulgar aphorism heard around AA to the effect that an alcoholic has one foot in the past, one foot in the future and is sh***ing all over today. It's repeated because it speaks to the same truth I just elaborated, only reduced to its essentials. And we've all heard the same thought expressed various other ways, "living in the Now," "...that's why they call it the present," and most certainly "One Day at a Time," which we often shorten to "one minute at a time" or "one second at a time." We can shorten it ad infinitum until we reach the same conclusion: that we must live our lives in the one instant we are given and in which to choose how we will live.

When we look at it this way, our Past is not merely memories of events. Instead, it is the recollection of the myriad choices we made in that place called the Present. (If you've ever had a severe regret you know what I mean.) So in one sense, the Present is eternal. There are an infinite number of "Presents" that make up the past. And there are going to be an infinite number composing the Future as well. If we truly live in the Present then we are, in one sense, living in the Eternal Now.

But, as I said earlier, the Future is no more than an extrapolation of our Past. To phrase it another way, the Future is illuminated by the Past. Why do newcomers feel so hopeless? Because the dismal gray light of their Past is the only lamp they possess to see the Future with. However, as we work the program, we make better and better decisions, and our past begins to grow brighter and brighter. And soon our vision of the Future is bright indeed.

A lot of our defects of character arise out of our distorted sense of time. That's why I took so much time (pun intended) laying it out. I am going to do some posts on resentment and worry, so I wanted to make sure I explained my concept before launching forward.

Big Book worship and the fallibility of texts

My wife, God bless her, bought me a beautiful "coffee table" book entitled "The Book That Started It All" which includes the complete marked-up manuscript of the Big Book (the one that went to the printers) as well as a great deal of the history behind it. This is not the multilith copy that many of have. This is what happened to it during the final editing process. I won't get into a lot of detail here because I am still studying it.

Here's an image of Chapter Five:

As you can see, the final edit involved a great deal of fine tuning. You can see how the words we now know so well were actually the result of a deliberate and often chaotic process.

I make this point because we tend to think that the Big Book was "written" in the way you write a letter. In fact it is more like a snapshot of the group's consensus at that time.

I spend a lot of time (too much) commenting in a fundamentalist Christian web site where the Bible is taken literally, and I mean very, very literally. And the one thing I find time and again is that no one who reads the Bible that way has the least interest in discovering how it came into being. Their perception of the book is unable stand up to its historical context because, quite frankly, it doesn't jibe with their reading.

Guess what? A lot of AAs read the Big Book that way. Since so much of our survival depends on the reliability of that text, we are somewhat loath to see it as something that might have been very different. Here's an exercise that might put that in perspective.

If you keep a diary or journal or save old letters, try reading something you wrote ten or twenty years ago. Even if it reflected you best thinking at the time, chances are you wouldn't want to live your life based on that earlier understanding. It's the same way with our text. If Bill and the original one hundred contributors were still around today, it's pretty likely that their understanding of the program would be very different from it was when they first tried putting it on paper. Consider that Bill had about four and a half years of sobriety at that point and the rest of the alcoholic contributors had even less.

Does that mean we should disregard the text since it was a product of a particular time and place? Of course not. The truth it contains has stood the test of considerable time, and we would be fools to ignore it. But we mustn't be drawn into the error of thinking that it's infallible. In fact, some chapters have not stood up well at all (To Wives, To Employers) because these were not written to show how they had recovered, but rather they were written to instruct others as to how they should deal with alcoholics. I think these chapters are weaker because they got off-topic.

I see the Big Book as a marvel of God's providence. Those early members wrote an astounding book that ultimately would change the world. But they were not trying to write a book the would endure through decades, they were just trying to solve an immediate problem, namely how to respond to the flood of inquiries coming in. If they had even an inkling of the impact they were going to have I doubt that it would ever have been finished. Good thing for us they didn't.

Letters to "Jim"

For some time I have been carrying on correspondence with inmates who wanted AA members to write them. Although most of the letter have been pretty general, I now am working the Steps with one of them. Although I would never publish their letters or give out any information about them, I do think it would be good to post them on this blog.

I will use the name "Jim" to hide his identity. Here's today's letter.

Dear "Jim",

First let me apologize for addressing my last letter to you “Dear John.” Nobody likes to get a “Dear John” letter, especially if your name is "Jim." I correspond with another inmate and sometimes cut and paste parts of the letter so I don’t have to re-type everything. I certainly intended it for you.

I’m glad to hear that you want to work the Steps with me. It’s good that you are already working on your resentment list and we’ll certainly be doing that soon. However, rather than go over the first three Steps, I thought we could discuss the “ABC.” part of the Fifth chapter and review the Third Step.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.
(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
(c) That God could and would if He were sought.

Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do?

If you have done some Step work already, it’s pretty certain that you have done the ABCs by now. I assume you have a Big Book so I won’t cut and paste it into the letters. If you don’t, then I will do that.

Notice on page 60 that Bill says “Most people try to live by self-propulsion.” He doesn’t single out alcoholics or addicts, he says “most people.” He’s saying that self-centeredness is a human problem and not unique to us. But then on page 62 he makes this point:

[T]the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us!

So even though normal people also struggle with problems of self-centeredness, they still survive. We don’t. Self-centeredness kills us. It is a fatal problem for alcoholics.

Before working the Steps, I defined happiness as getting my own way. If only everyone would play their part we would all be happy (or so I thought). In other words, if I was happy then everyone would be happy. What arrogance! In reality, many other people were under this same delusion. They assumed that if they were happy then I would be too. But that might mean I would not get my way, so I would not be happy and there you have it: wills in collision. What were we to do about that?

The Third Step does not mean that I should back down and always do the will of other people. After all, they’re motivated by selfishness as well and it isn’t in anyone’s best interests to let that happen. But even though we don’t surrender to another person’s will, we also cannot surrender to our own. My story and yours reflect just what a disaster that decision created.

So what’s left? How can I reduce my self-centeredness? Bill says that only God can do that. If we do the will of God, then we are not doing our will nor are we doing some other human’s will. It’s the only way out. For me this seemed impossible. I barely even believed in God and I certainly did not know how I was supposed to figure out what His will was. I desperately needed to do something but I did not have the tools to do it. And here’s where the AA program comes to the rescue. 

We have spent a lifetime either doing things according to our will or, sometimes, letting other people run over us. It’s time we took a look that that. We’re going to makes a list of the people, institutions and principles that we found ourselves in collision with.

Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us had never attempted. Though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions. (page 64)

So the way we know we took the Third Step is that we begin the Fourth. And here is where Bill gives us an amazing way to approach it. We list the people, institutions and principles we resent. I was taught not to get ahead of myself. Just do the first column of the list and don’t think about the rest. The brilliant thing about this is we have been carrying this list around in our heads for years!  It’s just a matter of writing it down. Everyone coming into AA has that list memorized, but they have probably never see it on paper.

So this is what I want you to do: make a list of all your resentments. People (we know what they are), institutions (the courts, the police, the church, places we worked, politicians for example) and the hardest one, principles. I listed “authority” and that pretty much summed it up for me. You may have another idea and if so I will learn something from you.

I want you to make this list and mail it to me. I know that you are in the system and it would not be a good idea to list staff or other inmates. Your mail can be read and there’s no value in stirring up hard feelings in your situation. Let’s just assume that those people are on that list and let it go at that. Focus on your life outside.

I’ll be very interested in what you come up with. I’ll probably reply with some of my own list which is the right thing for a sponsor to do. (I don’t mean that you chose me as your sponsor, but for this purpose I am going to take on that role.) Take your time, don’t rush. You have a lot of time and we’re not in a race. Thoroughness counts, not speed. Just remember to stay in the first column. That little bit of discipline will pay off. You’ll see.

That’s all I have for now. I look forward to hearing from you soon. If you run into any snags just write to me. You don’t have to have the complete list in your next letter.

Your friend,

Nugget heard at a meeting

My brain is like two companies: one manufactures BS and the other one buys it.

Three Meditations on Humility

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We are all three people:

1. the person we want other people to think we are
2. the person we think we are
3. the person we really are

Humility is keeping the three as close as possible.

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Humility is not a condition. It is the absence of conditions. Therefore you  can never "be" humble. You can only be yourself.

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Losing yourself in others is only one part of humility. Allowing other to lose themselves in you is the other, more difficult part.

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Nugget

Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean.

The missing preparation

I'm moving past "We Agnostics" for now and would like to move into chapter Five. 

It has been pointed out to me more than once (let's just say a lot more than once) that I tend to over-think the Program. I thought about that a lot. But at the risk of confirming what everyone already (rightly) believes, I would like to share something.

It occurred to me pretty early on that there was a definite structure to the Steps, something that may have been unconscious to the writers but jumped right out at me. Here's a chart that I would like to use as the basis for this post.

Honesty (fact-finding)	Open-mindedness (preparation)	Willingness (action)
Step 1 (admitted)	Step 2 (came to believe)	Step 3 (made a decision)
Step 4,5 (made an inventory, admitted)	Step 6 (became willing)	Step 7 (asked)
Step 8a (made a list)	Step 8b (became willing)	Step 9 (made amends)

The first nine Steps have a recurring set of actions that line up almost perfectly with the three essentials, Honesty, Open-mindedness and Willingness. Let me start by explaining each of the columns:

• Honesty: These are Steps which are all about fact finding, soul searching, reflection, etc. They are inward processes that are necessary in order to move forward at each stage of the Program. In Step One, we "admitted" that we were powerless over alcohol. Or as it is stated elsewhere, "We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics." This is our first attempt at self-searching. We later extended this in Steps Four and Five to an examination of all our defects with an admission of them to God, ourselves, and another person. Then in the first half of Step Eight, we again took stock of the harm we had done others. In fact, the Big Book says we already had this list, that we had made it in the Fourth Step.
• Open-mindedness: These Steps are all about changing our way of thinking in light of what we have just discovered. They all describe an inward process of preparation for the action to come. Step Two is about changing our thinking about whether or not AA can actually work for us, if a Higher Power can in fact restore us to sanity. In Step Six, we take the information we have learned about our defects and shortcomings and seriously consider if we are ready to give them up, to be changed in ways we can't predict. The second half of Step Eight confronts us with the very difficult task of forgiving others who have harmed us and receiving forgiveness for the harms we have done them.
• Willingness: Finally, we are called to take specific actions. We "make a decision," we "humbly ask,"we make amends." These are actions that we are now fully prepared to take, without reservation, knowing that we are doing the will of our Higher Power.

It has been my experience that people get hung up by trying to go from Honesty to Action and neglect the very essential process of preparation that comes between. I believe "Easy Does It" is an admonition to focus on the middle process, the preparation needed to really take the right action. And it is the process that is at once the most beneficial and the least practiced aspect of the program.

Tell me what you think by commenting or emailing me at sclarkaz@gmail.com.

I look forward to hearing from you.