Hard Times for the Mind

I want to talk to you about fear, because it’s hard times for our minds.  Tragedies abound and we can’t make sense of it all.  Fear is a big topic and I can’t tackle it all in one sitting, so you’ll have to be willing to follow along as the thoughts unfold.  It’s not necessarily a straight path.   Sometimes the path circles and spirals in on the subject and sometimes it takes side trips through the woods.  My hope for writing this is that you’ll begin to approach your fear from a different angle, approach life from a different angle, gain a different perspective of what life is.

            Maybe it takes a lot of chutzpah to say I can do this, to make sense of fear, to make sense of suffering and life, but I can.  You’re free, of course, to take it or leave it.  My freedom from fear comes in talking about these things.  I’ve been emboldened of late by something that began last summer when I received an email from someone who’d read my book The Great Western Divide.  He told me that reading the book had altered his life.  Now I’ve had readers tell me that the book had altered how they saw themselves and the world before, but this email gobsmacked me, as the British would say.  The person who wrote me was, and is, Dr. Charles Raison, CNN’s mental health expert.  He’s also worked closely with the Dalai Lama on mind/body research.  He told me that what he’d read had so altered his life and his perception of himself that he was going to create a conference for healing professionals based on where the book’s thoughts had taken him.

            I’ve done a variety of things in my life.  I now make custom furniture and write, and I used to have one of the most challenging jobs in the world—teaching math to middle school students.  I also used to help take them on long trips into the outdoors.  I’ve also suffered from PTSD.  The arc of all these things led to the email from Dr. Raison.  He asked me to be a keynote speaker at the conference next summer.  So, I’m emboldened.  I’m also rehearsing a bit in front of you what I want to say about fear and the nature of the mind for all those people next summer.

            This is but the introduction of me and of this vast topic.  I’ll be back soon and I hope you will also.