Tag: mental-health

Belonging

October 17, 2025

A couple of days ago Laurie, our rural postal carrier, saw me in my driveway and drove out of her way to welcome me back to the neighborhood after my six year absence. Many neighbors have stopped to chat and tell me how glad they are that I have returned to my home of 34 years. It feels good to be welcomed back to a place where I belong.

Coincidentally several classmates have “friended” me on Facebook in the past week, thereby reminding me that I belong to the extended family of Acalanes High School.

All of this has got me thinking: what is/are my community(ies)?

My siblings and cousins are my biological family. My Wednesday hiking group is an exercise and social community, and my weekly meditation group on Zoom is a spiritual support group. But I don’t feel any sense of community with other 49er football fans or fellow graduates of UC Berkeley. And I don’t feel much loyalty these days to the Democratic party, although I do appreciate Franklin Roosevelt’s creation of Social Security and Lyndon Johnson’s establishment of Medicare.

Part of my issue with the Democratic party (and the Republicans too, for that matter) is their emphasis on divisive identity politics. The motto of the United States is E Pluribus Unum, or “out of many, one.” In other words, unity, togetherness. But the Democrats, with their well-intentioned desire to champion the underdogs, have all too often emphasized our differences – racial, gender, sexual orientation – rather than our common heritage as Americans. And on the far left of the political spectrum, especially at some universities, we are told simplistically that white people are oppressors and everyone else are the oppressed victims of the Eurocentric culture.

The far right is even worse, with its promotion of white supremacy and Christian nationalism.

So I prefer Mark Twain’s definition of patriotism: “Supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”

The America I belong to is a great nation that has every right to be proud of its impressive social progress and freedoms, even though that progress and those freedoms are under attack today. But I believe that the land of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln is resilient and will survive and thrive in the long run.

I also believe that there is something bigger than my country to which I owe my allegiance and my appreciation: our planet. We do not all belong to the same country, and I don’t advocate open borders in this or any other nation, but we do belong to the same human race that lives on Gaia, or Mother Earth. That common home deserves our loyalty and our protection.

I’ll go one step further: I believe that we all belong to what the writer Eckhart Tolle and others have called the New Earth, or an awakened consciousness of oneness with each other, with nature, and with the Great Spirit, also known as The Force, Source Energy, God, Christ consciousness, Buddha’s enlightenment, or whatever name you want to give to the cosmic Love energy.

So even though I’m a short term pessimist, I remain a long term optimist because I believe that it is the destiny of the human race to evolve to an awareness of our shared divinity.

For now, I’m just grateful to be back home among my human, oak, redwood, and animal neighbors, where I belong.

Reaching for the Stars

September 2, 2025

Sometimes, in the midst of positive developments in one’s life, an unpleasant reality check occurs to remind one that disappointment and success can be two sides of the same coin. Yin and Yang, anyone?

A few days ago I was in the midst of a stressful weeklong move from my apartment of six years back to this cottage in rural Sonoma County where I had lived previously for 34 years. I was excited to come back to my little house in the country, not only because I love the beautiful neighborhood, but also because in my absence my landlady had significantly renovated the home into an elegant, light and airy refuge from the workaday world.

I rented a U-Haul truck and drove myself and two local laborers between the old apartment and the new/old home. Marcelo and Adolfo were strong, hard workers with almost no English, so I enjoyed using my Spanish for eight hours. I treated them well, praising their skill and appreciating their labor. They had neglected to bring their lunch, so with them still on the clock I drove them several miles to a store where they could get some food. And I paid them more than we had agreed upon.

After dropping them off at their local labor center I returned to my new home to begin unpacking. That’s when I noticed that my two iPads were gone.

I couldn’t prove that one or both guys took the devices. All I knew was that I had left them plugged into outlets at my old apartment, and I never unplugged and retrieved them. In the chaos of the move I had not noticed their absence. And now I realized my loss.

At first I blamed myself for being so trusting and naive. Then, after that self recrimination, I turned my anger toward Marcelo and Adolfo, though I wasn’t sure which one to resent.

What upset me more than the loss of a $500 iPad (the second one was old and of little value) was a sense of violation of my space and my trust in my fellow human beings. I had been respectful and verbally grateful to them, and now one of them had stabbed me in the back. But which one? In my head I debated the likelihood of each one as the potential criminal.

But after 24 hours of guilt and censure, I realized that in the grand scheme of things my loss wasn’t that great. Other people have suffered from serious health problems, the death of people close to them, messy divorces, or loss of their homes, and I’m bitter about a thief stealing an electronic device? So I said to myself, “Lighten up, Dave. You have excellent health, a lovely home, and enough money, and other than this incident, your move went quite well. These guys have far less than you do, and even though there was no excuse for what one (both?) of them did, let go of your outrage, forgive him/them, and reach for (what Nichiren Buddhists call) a higher life condition.” So eventually, after much grumbling and self pity, I did.

And for the next three nights I walked a short distance from my front door and gazed in wonder at the Milky Way, with the stars framed by redwoods, oaks, and apple trees, as I listened to the music of the crickets and marveled at my incredible good fortune.

Today, after writing all of the above, on a whim I called my next door neighbor at my former residence and asked him to check my empty old apartment to see if by any chance I had left my iPads there.

I had. Marcelo and Adolfo had not ripped me off. I had imagined the most negative scenario, and in my mind had falsely accused two innocent men.

Oops.

Maybe reaching for the stars sometimes means reaching within to forgive oneself for assuming the worst about others.