A Tale
One summer, between my junior and senior years in high school, my grandfather hired me for several weeks of farm chores in Northeast Texas. By mid‑morning, I was tired from baling hay, throwing it up in the truck, stacking it in the barn, but my grandfather kept right on going until suppertime. Over dinner, I asked him how a sixty‑year‑old could so easily outlast a seventeen year‑old. He was not much of a talker, but he did answer this question: “You just have to find your rhythm.”
The Tale Wagged
“Bi‑Polar” has now entered the popular vocabulary. In popular usage, it points to a condition in which the Ups-and-Downs have become overwhelming or unpleasant.
A friend tells me she’s “having a manic episode” when she’s only spent too much time at Starbucks. Another asks me if he should get a prescription for Paxil: he’s just broken up with a girlfriend and is “depressed”. Neither seem to view their experience as normal, content that it will pass; both classify themselves as a little bit off kilter, in need of assistance, but at the same time, they’re not embarassed: they feel they’re in the mainstream of modern life. Getting an anti-depressant almost seems an In-thing to do.
For others, the ups-n-downs are sometimes acceptable: they just “go with the flow.” But when it becomes exhausting, or if they get stuck in one of the dips or peaks, it’s no longer a flow at all. They feel they’ve lost their rhythm, and start looking for help.
Some of our most cherished revolve around a grandparents, aunt or uncle who gave us moments of stability, peace of mind, the sense that they were not riding the roller coaster, but were living their lives with an unnamed, measured rhythm.
May we transfer this legacy to the young who study us when their flow hits a snag.
Echoes
a time to give birth,
a time to die;
a time to plant,
a time to uproot;
a time to kill,
a time to heal;
a time to tear down,
a time to build;
a time to weep,
a time to laugh;
a time to mourn
and a time to dance;
a time to search
and a time to count as lost;
a time to keep
and a time to throw away;
a time to tear
and a time to sew;
a time to be silent
and a time to speak;
a time to love
and a time to hate;
a time for war
and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:2‑10
UpsDowns, by Sheryl Zacharia
The universal addiction is to emotions and feelings: few will challenge me about that. A bad experience equals a bad attitude . . . until a good one sends me off in the opposite direction. The roller coaster seems the universal paradigm for the secret life of most of us humans. Makes life interesting . . . up to a certain point, until . . . .