"The Turn of the Tide"

I was rummaging among some of the stuff I have been saving for months and years now. And I was rereading some of the things. This one came just right..


Arthur Gordon tells of a time in his life when he began to feel that everything was stale and flat. His enthusiasm had all but disappeared; his writing efforts were fruitless, and the situation was getting worse day by day.
Finally, he decided to get help from a medical doctor. Observing nothing physically wrong, the doctor asked him if he would be able to follow his instructions for one day. When Gordon replied that he could, the doctor told him to spend the following day in a place where he was the happiest as a child. He could take food, but he was not to talk to anyone or to read or write or listen to the radio. He then wrote out four prescriptions and told him to open one at nine, twelve, three, and six o’clock.
“Are you serious?” Gordon asked him.
“You won’t think I’m joking when you get my bill!” was the reply.
So the next morning, Gordon went to the beach. As he opened the first prescription, he read, “Listen carefully.” He thought the doctor was insane! How could he listen for three hours? Nevertheless, he had agreed to follow the doctor’s order, so he listened. He heard the usual sounds of the sea and the birds. After a while, he could hear the other sounds that weren’t so apparent at first. As he listened, he began to think of lessons the sea had taught him as a child—patience, respect, and an awareness of the interdependence of things. He began to listen to the sounds—and the silence—and to feel a growing peace deep within.

At noon, he opened the second slip of paper and read, “Try reaching back.” “Reaching back to what?” he wondered. Perhaps to childhood, perhaps to memories of joy. He tried to remember them with exactness, and in remembering, he found a growing warmth inside.
At three o’clock, he opened the third piece of paper. Until now, the prescriptions had been easy to take, but this one was different; it said, “Examine your motives.” At first he was defensive. He thought about what he wanted—success, security, recognition—and he justified them all. Yet then the thought occurred to him that those motives weren’t good enough. That perhaps therein was the answer to his stagnant situation. He considered his motives deeply and thought about past happiness, and at last, the answer came to him. In a flash of certainty, he wrote, “I saw that if one’s motives are wrong, nothing can be right. It makes no difference whether you are a mail carrier, a hairdresser, an insurance salesperson, a home-maker—whatever. As long as you feel you are serving others, you do the job well. When you are concerned only with helping yourself, you do it less well—a law as unrelenting as gravity.”

When six o’clock came, the fourth prescription didn’t take long to fill. “Write your worries on the sand,” it said. He knelt and wrote several words with a piece of broken shell; then he turned and walked away. He didn’t look back: he knew the tide would come in!

The ***-persons

"Watch them! And listen to them! This is what you'll discover:

First, and most obviously, you see a person who likes virtually everything about life. Yep! This is a Liker! A person who is comfortable doing just about anything. One who wastes no time in complaining and wishing that things were otherwise. They are enthusiastic about life. And they want all that they can get out of it."

"They simply deal with what is there."

"No pretending to enjoy but a sensible acceptance of what it is and an outlandish ability to delight in virtually everything."

"Ask them what they don't like - and they're hard pressed to come up with an honest answer."

"Truly, they are likers of life!"

"A ***-person is free from guilt. And all of the attendant anxiety that goes with using up your present moments being mobilized over past events."

"Certainly they can admit to making mistakes. And they can vow to avoid repeating certain behaviours that are unproductive in any way. But they don't waste their time wishing they haven't done something. Or being upset because they dislike something that they have done in an earlier moment in their life.
Complete freedom from guilt will be the shocking behaviour that you'll observe in your ***-person. No lamenting the past and no efforts to make others choose their own guilt by asking such questions as Why didn't you do it differently? or Aren't you ashamed of yourself? and so on."

"You'll never see them manipulating others by telling them how bad they've been. Nor will you be able to manipulate them with the same tactics. They won't get angry at you. They'll simply ignore it."

"[...] Similarly, your ***-chap will be a non-worrier. You'll soon know that circumstances that drive many people to frenzy will be mildly internalized by a ***-person."

"They are not planners and putters away for the future. They refuse to worry when you do. And they keep themselves unmucked up by the accompanying anxiety that goes with worry. You can't drive him or her crazy with worry. They don't know how to do it."

"They love ambiguous things rather than being upset by them."

"They are not postponers saving for a rainy day. And while their culture admonishes such behaviour, they are unthreatened by reproachment. They gather in their happiness now. And when a future now arrives, they gather in that one as well."

"These people are strikingly independent people. They are out of the nest. And while they have a strong love and devotion for family they see independence as far superior to dependence - in all relationships. They treasure their own freedom from expectations. Their relationships are built upon respect for the right of an individual to make any decision for themselves. Their love means no imposition of values on the loved ones."

"They like to be alone at times. And they will go at great lengths to ensure that such privacy is protected. You will not find ***-people in numerous love relationships. They are selective about their love. And those they love are few in number. But they are also very deeply and sensitively loving."

"They are unusually free from opinions of others. They do not attempt to shock others or to gain approval by giving a damn about it on the surface. They are not oblivious to applause and approval. They just don't seem to need it."

"They can be almost blunt in their honesty."

"When you give them feedback about themselves they will not be destroyed or otherwise immobilized if you dislike it."

"No needs to be loved by everyone. No unordinary wish to be approved by all for everything that they do."

"[...] is a person who makes choices that are sensible. Even if they conflict with what everybody else does."

"You will not see a cocktail-partier. Or a person engaging in small talk because it is the polite thing to do. This ***-individual is truly his or her own person. And while they see the culture as an important part of their own lives, they refuse to be ruled by it or to become a slave to it. Not rebelliously attacking but rather knowing internally."

"***-folks know how to laugh and how to create laughter. [...] They are Laughers! They love to help others to laugh."

"[...] often scorned by "normals" for being frivolous at the wrong time. They do not have good timing. For they know in their own souls that there's really no such thing as the right thing at the right place."

"They love incongruence."

"They don't laugh at people, they laugh with them."

"These are people who accept themselves without complaint."

"No hiding behind artificialities, no apologizing for what they are. They don't know how to be offended by anything that is human."

"[...] Similarly, they accept all of nature for what it is rather than wishing it were otherwise."

--Abstract: W.D.