Might Our Dilemmas Be Blessings?

Can solving problems make us wiser & kinder & wilder?

Is there anything more dangerous than getting up in the morning and having nothing to worry about, no problems to solve, no friction to heat you up?

That state can be a threat to your health. If untreated, it incites an unconscious yearning for any old dumb trouble that might rouse some excitement.

Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself—indeed, you make yourself—through the puzzling dilemmas you attract and solve.

The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.

Conventional wisdom implies that the best problems are those that place you under duress. There's supposedly no gain without pain. Stress is allegedly an incomparable spur for calling on resources that have been previously unavailable or dormant.

Nietzsche's aphorism, "That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger," has achieved the status of a maxim.

We half-agree. But it's clear that stress also accompanies many mediocre problems that have little power to make us smarter. Pain frequently generates no gain.

We're all prone to become habituated, even addicted, to nagging vexations that go on and on without rousing any of our sleeping genius.

There is, furthermore, another class of difficulty—let's call it the delightful dilemma—that neither feeds on angst nor generates it.

On the contrary, it's fun and invigorating, and usually blooms when you're feeling a profound sense of being at home in the world. The problem of writing my books is a good example. I have abundant fun handling the perplexing challenges with which they confront me.

Imagine a life in which at least half of your quandaries match this profile. Act as if you're most likely to attract useful problems when joy is your predominant mood.

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OUR TRAUMAS

People I don't know periodically inform me that I must be a person who hasn't suffered much. They base this theory on what exactly?

Usually because I have spoken a lot about how happy I am to be alive and how much I love the world. These people have concluded that it's easy for me to feel this way because I've had a hassle-free destiny.

Or sometimes they protest my idea that having problems is a vital aspect of being human. They reject the notion that our problems may be gifts crucial to our ability to fulfill our souls' codes.

And sometimes strangers berate me because I use the Agatha Christie quote, which is cited above.

In response to these curious messages from people who seem to believe I haven't earned the right to be optimistic, I decided to take an inventory of my traumas.

I did this not to defend myself against those who criticize me without knowing me. Why bother, right? Rather, I did so because I am a teacher who educates others about our culture's distortions and pathologies.

Many of us have had traumas, even multiple traumas The National Center for PTSD estimates that 50% to 60% of the population have experienced trauma. But I suspect it's higher.

Here are my traumas:

* Surgery at age 5

*Almost died of an asthma attack at age 9

*Almost died of an asthma attack at age 10

* At a high school dance, Jay Griffin pulled out a gleaming pistol and aimed it at my gut

* Surgery at age 16

* Actually shot by a person with a shotgun when I was 19

* Strip-searched and held in a jail cell for 12 hours at the US-Canadian border

* Strip-searched and held in a jail cell for 16 hours at the Italian-French border

* Cop put his gun against the side of my head and screamed, "Stop or I will blow your fucking head off."

* Lived in utter poverty for 18+ years—annual income always below $8,000

* Had Meniere's Disease for three and a half years, making me dizzy and wracked by fatigue and malaise and unable to drive a car

* Michael H. banged on my door at 2 am and said he was going to kill me with his gun.

* Jack W. kicked in the door of my room in the garage and tried to beat me until I hit him in the head with a frying pan

* Robbed at gunpoint in my own house

* On the cusp of catapulting my rock band into national prominence, our manager Bill Graham was killed in a helicopter crash.

Survived a three-year bout with life-threatening disease. Eight more surgeries!

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Listen to my spoken-word piece “Shadow Blessings”:

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LUCKY PAYBACK

49% of Americans receive some sort of assistance from the government. I'm not one of them now, but I was for many years when I was poor.

I am very grateful for the food stamps I received for eight years, as well as the Medi-Cal insurance program from the state of California, which paid for my daughter's birth and many other important health-saving benefits for me.

Without this government assistance, I would most likely be dead. Now I pay taxes, and am happy to provide help to people less financially fortunate than I.

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WHICH PAIN IS PREFERABLE?

"We must choose between the pain of having to transcend oppressive circumstances, or the pain of perpetual unfulfillment within those oppressive circumstances," writes mental health strategist Paul John Moscatello.

We must opt for "the pain of growth or the pain of decay," he continues. We must either "embrace the tribulations of realizing our potential, or consent to the slow suicide in complacency."

Most of us do both; we may be successful for a while in transcending oppressive circumstances, but then temporarily lapse back into the pain of unfulfillment. 

What phase are you in?

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COME CELEBRATE

come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

— Lucille Clifton

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AMAZING BARGAIN

Every wise man I met in Asia warned me against caring.

Explained how everything I loved would get old,

or be taken away and I would suffer.

I tried to explain what a bargain it is.

—Jack Gilbert

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Comic by https://falseknees.com/

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FRESH POWER IS ALWAYS COMING

Grace emerges in the ebb and flow, not just the flow.

The waning reveals a different kind of blessing

than the waxing.

But whether it's our time to ferment in the valley of shadows or rise up singing in the sun-splashed meadow, fresh power to transform ourselves is always on the way.

Our suffering won't last, nor will our triumph.

Without fail, life will deliver the creative energy we need to change into the new thing we must become.

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TWO KINDS OF SUFFERING?

Dear Beauty and Truth Lab: During your shows or workshops or rituals or whatever you call them, I have heard you refer to "learning the difference between dumb suffering and smart suffering." I had no idea what you were talking about until recently.

The truth finally hit me the morning after I climbed into bed with my sort of ex-boyfriend. He's pretty good at the sex thing, technically speaking, even though his inability to converse intelligently and honestly about emotions drives me into the ninth level of the abyss.

Afterward, as I got dressed, feeling that bizarre and oh-so-familiar disjunction of having had a physical orgasm but being utterly distraught by the lack of authentic connection between me and the person who helped incite that orgasm, I suddenly thought, "Wow! This is dumb suffering. I've done this and done this and done this to death. Dumb suffering is repeating a lesson I've already learned and been through."

In the next breath I mused, "Maybe smart suffering is what happens when I'm trying something new, taking a good risk, that will teach me tough lessons I didn't even realize I needed to learn."

Thanks to you people for planting the seed in my head, and thanks to me for finally sprouting it.

—Smart Sufferer

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Dear Smart Sufferer: Don't be too hard on yourself about your "dumb" suffering—especially in this case. Your dumb suffering was actually pretty smart, since it catalyzed in you an insight about avoiding stupid suffering in the future.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week beginning November 24

Copyright 2022 by Rob Brezsny

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z has stellar advice for his fellow Sagittarians to contemplate regularly: "Ain't nothin' wrong with the aim; just gotta change the target." In offering Jay-Z's advice, I don't mean to suggest that you *always* need to change the target you're aiming at. On many occasions, it's exactly right. But the act of checking in to evaluate whether it is or isn't the right target will usually be valuable. And on occasion, you may realize that you should indeed aim at a different target.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You now have extra power to exorcise ghosts and demons that are still lingering from the old days and old ways. You are able to transform the way your history affects you. You have a sixth sense about how to graduate from lessons you have been studying for a long time. In honor of this joyfully tumultuous opportunity, draw inspiration from poet Charles Wright: "Knot by knot I untie myself from the past / And let it rise away from me like a balloon. / What a small thing it becomes. / What a bright tweak at the vanishing point, blue on blue."

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In accordance with current astrological rhythms, I am handing over your horoscope to essayist Anne Fadiman. She writes, "I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things, but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one."

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Over the course of my life, I have been fortunate to work with 13 psychotherapists. They have helped keep my mental health flourishing. One of them regularly reminded me that if I hoped to get what I wanted, I had to know precisely what I wanted. Once a year, she would give me a giant piece of thick paper and felt-tip markers. "Draw your personal vision of paradise," she instructed me. "Outline the contours of the welcoming paradise that would make your life eminently delightful and worthwhile." She would also ask me to finish the sentence that begins with these words: "I am mobilizing all the energy and ingenuity and connections I have at my disposal so as to accomplish the following goal." In my astrological opinion, Pisces, now is a perfect time to do these two exercises yourself.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): One of your callings as an Aries is to take risks. You're inclined to take more leaps of faith than other people, and you're also more likely to navigate them to your advantage—or at least not get burned. A key reason for your success is your keen intuition about which gambles are relatively smart and which are ill-advised. But even when your chancy ventures bring you exciting new experiences, they may still run you afoul of conventional wisdom, peer pressure, and the way things have always been done. Everything I have described here will be in maximum play for you in the coming weeks.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Your keynote comes from teacher Caroline Myss. She writes, "Becoming adept at the process of self-inquiry and symbolic insight is a vital spiritual task that leads to the growth of faith in oneself." Encouraging you to grow your faith in yourself will be one of my prime intentions in the next 12 months. Let's get started! How can you become more adept at self-inquiry and symbolic insight? One idea is to ask yourself a probing new question every Sunday morning, like "What teachings and healings do I most want to attract into my life during the next seven days?" Spend the subsequent week gathering experiences and revelations that will address that query. Another idea is to remember and study your dreams, since doing so is the number one way to develop symbolic insight. For help, I recommend the work of Gayle Delaney: https://tinyurl.com/InterviewYourDreams

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IF YOU WANT MORE FREE WILL ASTROLOGY,

TRY THE EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

The horoscopes you read in my newsletter may be plenty for your needs.

But if you'd like to experience more of my thoughts about your current situation, you might like my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES.

They are 4 to 5 minute meditations on the state of your life and where you're going.

They're different in tone and intent and content than my written horoscopes.

To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscopes online, go to https://RealAstrology.com

Register and/or log in through the main page.

The cost is $7 per sign. (Discounts are available for bulk purchases.)

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GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The TV science fiction show Legends of Tomorrow features a ragtag team of imperfect but effective superheroes. They travel through time trying to fix aberrations in the timelines caused by various villains. As they experiment and improvise, sometimes resorting to wildly daring gambits, their successes outnumber their stumbles and bumbles. And on occasion, even their apparent mistakes lead to good fortune that unfolds in unexpected ways. One member of the team, Nate, observes, "Sometimes we screw up—for the better." I foresee you Geminis as having a similar modus operandi in the coming weeks.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I like how Cancerian poet Stephen Dunn begins his poem, "Before We Leave." He writes, "Just so it's clear—no whining on the journey." I am offering this greeting to you and me, my fellow Cancerians, as we launch the next chapter of our story. In the early stages, our efforts may feel like drudgery, and our progress could seem slow. But as long as we don't complain excessively and don't blame others for our own limitations, our labors will become easier and quite productive.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo poet Kim Addonizio writes a lot about love and sex. In her book Wild Nights, she says, "I'm thinking of dating trees next. We could just stand around all night together. I'd murmur, they'd rustle, the wind would, like, do its wind thing." Now might be a favorable time for you, too, to experiment with evergreen romance and arborsexuality and trysts with your favorite plants. When was the last time you hugged an oak or kissed an elm? JUST KIDDING! The coming weeks will indeed be an excellent time to try creative innovations in your approach to intimacy and adoration. But I'd rather see your experiments in togetherness unfold with humans.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In her book Daughters of the Stone, Virgo novelist Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa tells the tale of five generations of Afro-Cuban women, her ancestors. "These are the stories of a time lost to flesh and bone," she writes, "a time that lives only in dreams and memories. Like a primeval wave, these stories have carried me, and deposited me on the morning of today. They are the stories of how I came to be who I am, where I am." I'd love to see you explore your own history with as much passion and focus, Virgo. In my astrological opinion, it's a favorable time for you to commune with the influences that have made you who you are.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In accordance with astrological omens, here's my advice for you in the coming weeks: 1. Know what it takes to please everyone, even if you don't always choose to please everyone. 2. Know how to be what everyone wants you to be and when they need you to be it, even if you only fulfill that wish when it has selfish value for you. 3. DO NOT give others all you have and thereby neglect to keep enough to give yourself. 4. When others are being closed-minded, help them develop more expansive finesse by sharing your own reasonable views. 5. Start thinking about how, in 2023, you will grow your roots as big and strong as your branches.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Even if some people are nervous or intimidated around you, they may be drawn to you nonetheless. When that happens, you probably enjoy the power you feel. But I wonder what would happen if you made a conscious effort to cut back just a bit on the daunting vibes you emanate. I'm not saying they're bad. I understand they serve as a protective measure, and I appreciate the fact that they may help you get the cooperation you want. As an experiment, though, I invite you to be more reassuring and welcoming to those who might be inclined to fear you. See if it alters their behavior in ways you enjoy and benefit from.

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Homework: In what process have you gone halfway, and you really should go all the way? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

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