liftthescreen

Blog—qWho do you want to be?  REVISED

I watch PBS Create channel regularly—for its travel and cooking shows, mainly. The channel’s motto, repeated hourly, is “It’s not who you are, but who you want to be today.” We are shown some options:  being a woodworker, a home remodeler, a gardener, a flower arranger, a cook, a quilter, a seamstress, a painter, or a world traveler. The channel’s broadcasting each day consists of programs featuring these options.

My mind goes back some decades to the slogan featured in TV commercials for the United States Army: “Be all that you can be”—by enlisting in the army, of course. It is frequently asserted that we are the most devoted “self-help” culture in the entire world. Airport book stores are filled with titles like, “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.” At one point you could take a series of workshops on the Seven Habits and receive a certificate confirming  your attendance. “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” was another big seller—it improved interpersonal relation. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is one of the all-time bestsellers and a classic self-improvement text. First appearing in 1936, it is still available on Amazon, along with “The 31 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.”

When I was a kid, comic books ran Charles Atlas ads—“I was a 97-pound weakling,” but look at my bulging biceps today! I never sent in the coupon to get the book. Commercials for cosmetic surgery emphasize remaking your body. Any number of dentist commercials talk about improving your life with perfect smile.

What  underlies this idea of creating yourself anew as you want to be, every day? Why this passion for self-improvement? I believe it may be rooted deeply in the human psyche. Some expressions of this passion are superficial, but some are profound and defy easy commercialization.

Is this a quasi—religious matter? This channel also boasts that public television makes us better persons—broadening our vision of the world; we become “builders of bridges, not walls.” A recent New York  Times Magazine article on travel guru Rick Steves, who is a major figure on the create  channel, emphasizes his passion for travel as a way to become better persons.

The streams of religion do not always flow into explicitly “religious” forms. Anything that concerns us deep, even ultimately, can function as a  religion. It may be a passion for social reform, the arts, or even sports (Super Bowl Sunday has been termed the most important American religious holiday). Marxism and Capitalism often function as de facto religions.

Self-improvement may  flower in our attempts to cook a dinner or knit a sweater—or it may take us to a psychoanalyst or a priest. Many people simply want to become better people. Some follow the spirituality of St Francis or St. Ignatius, or Julian of Norwich. There are many voices in our society that call out “Be like us.” In any case, the desire to remake ourselves runs deep within us.

Efforts to “become all the you can be,” especially in a quasi-religious form can ne quite dangerous and even frightening. They cam be easily  manipulated. An example is sports religiosity linked to online gambling.

Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe all people are created in the image of God and that we aspire to actualized the presence of God in the world. That sets the bar rather high. Several TV dramas have actually dealt with this theme, including, “Joan of Arcadia” and “Touched by an Angel.”

Who do you want to be today? Ah, that is the question.

Phil Hefner. 7/16/2023

Might-have-beens are common in our experience. We cause some m-h-bs when we make choices. What might have been different had we chosen a different college, or married  a different partner?

Some m-h-bs are rooted in other people’s decision. When I was twelve years old, my dad had a chance to transfer from Denver to a position in Arkansas. What might have been, had my family made that mone?

Other might-havre-beens are beyond our experience, they can never happen. Recently, my eye doctor confronted me with  one of these mhbs. A new treatment had become available for my macular degeneration, “dry” version. After an examination, came the mhb—“Your eyes are too far gone for the therapy. Five years ago, it could have worked.” Five years ago, my eyes were fine, but the therapy had not even been developed. A mhb only in fantasy.

In the 1970s, I had my first MRI, which revealed that I had been born with spina bifida, with a tethered spinal cord. I was in my 40s, and was suffering no ill effects, so the doctors suggested that I do nothing until I had difficulties. Around 2005, difficulties began to appear. I had 75 years of a very active life, playing several sports, earning a letter in tennis. It was clear that something was wrong with my spine, but I had no ill effects whatsoever. It could not be diagnosed until MRIs came into use, which was in the early 1970s. At that time I was diagnosed as having a moderately severe case of spina bifida. That diagnosis was in the middle between a light case and a severe case. In 2007, a pediatric neurosurgeon suggested that I undergo the surgery that is usually done on young children and infants. He made no guarantees, and told me that I was the oldest person ever to undergo the surgery. The operation lasted six hours, and I walked pretty well afterwards, for about a month. Then the difficulties became worse, and in two or three years I was in a wheelchair. The surgeon told me,”If we only had been able to do the surgery in your first year of life, you would have had no difficulties whatsoever.” But the MRIs, which enabled diagnosis, were not even thought of in my first year of life, 1932. Here was another mhb that would have changed my life significantly, but it was sheer fantasy.

Neither of these mhbs could have become real for me. They were both in the realm of fantasy. But even though they could not be actual in my life, they had a significant impact on me, chiefly on my attitude towards life. The spina bifida caused me to look at my life quite differently. I thought of Psalm 139, which reads, “you have knit me together in my mother’s womb and watched every part take shape.” I marveled at the fact that the Knitter made some mistakes in my case, and yet my flawed body served me very well until I was in my late 70s. In fact, I wrote a series of poems addressed to the Knitter and imagining the response of the Knitter to me. An attitude of gratitude, for my life was a direct result, and, even as I  have spent these years in a wheelchair, I often reminisce about the wonderful life that I have had. Attributing my physical birth to the work of God only deepens my reflection and appreciation.

These two medical  mhbs provoke a great deal more reflection. People my age came to adulthood before some of the greatest discoveries in medical science were available for our medical care. Having lived to be age 90, I have seen how the tremendous advances in medical science are really changing people’s lives. Of course these changes are always ambiguous, but they mean real liberation for many people. But at my age I was born a too early for these spectacular advances to make a real difference in my life.

These reflections give me a definite perspective on my life, which I would not have, had it not been for those two might-have-berms. I am aware of two things in particular: on the one hand maintaining my life has become a very expensive matter. Society, through insurance companies, pension plans and other means has supported me financially, in a way that really is beyond imagination. On the other hand, my last 10 years are years of extreme dependence. Every day that I live, my life is enabled by other people, taking care of me and supplying my basic needs. Dependence has taken on new and deeper meanings for me, as I gain insight into the character of my life. Ideas of autonomy and agency, which are so much talked about today, have taken on quite a different meaning for me.

But, of course, there are many other people, millions of us, whose lives are maintained in old age at a very high cost for society, and all of us are quite dependent. One has  to be very grateful,  and also a bit awe-struck, to think of the burden that society assumes  for us, in order to maintain this population of elderly people. Sometimes society is manifested in impersonal governmental and business procedures. On a day-to-day basis, however, society appears in the form of individual men and women, often overworked and underpaid, who are willing to care for dependent people. Some of them do it because it is a job, but many others do it, because they take genuine pleasure in helping less fortunate people.

All might-have-beens may be some meaning. They all reveal something of the character of our lives, even though they exist now only in our fantasies. Most of them pass away with the years. Strangely, for me, two mhbs, that could never be actual, but exist only in the realm of complete fantasy, may have made the most impact on my later life.

How do you reflect on the might-have-beens of your life? How do they reveal the character of your life?

(c) Phil Hefner 6/30/2023