Emotions

I’m sad I’m missing my 40th college reunion this week because I’m teaching in Baja. It’s only in the past ten years that I’ve started to appreciate the formative relationships and deep emotional bonds I forged with my Stanford friends, which began in the era when Jimmy Carter was President.

Occasionally, someone approaches me after a speech and asks why MEA is exclusively for men. Of course, knowing that almost ⅔ of our MEA alums are women, I sprout a quizzical look on my face and then learn that this person thinks that only men can be an “elder.” Thank God that’s not the case.

As quoted above, William James was a philosopher, historian, and psychologist, but he might as well have been a marriage counselor. Feel free to send today's post to your spouse or partner, especially if you have a personal tote board regarding your relationship or if you feel pleased that you are winning the game of logic when it comes to you and your partner.

I’ve just arrived back—with a big smile on my face—in El Pescadero, our dusty, sandy fishing and farming village in southern Baja. The first thing I noticed was the waves. And not the ones in the beautiful ocean.

The other morning, half-listening to a radio commentator through an early morning brain mist, I heard them say that something was enough to, “reduce a grown man to tears”.

One of the collateral benefits of starting MEA is I'm offered the opportunity to eavesdrop on alums' conversations as I'm copied on their correspondence.

Aging, women friends, being out in the world and elder wisdom.

Anyone who’s spent ample time with me in the past dozen years has heard me proselytize about sociologist Emile Durkheim’s term “collective effervescence,” based upon what he observed at religious pilgrimages more than a century ago. As a Board member of Burning Man, I often spoke about the magic that occurs when people’s sense of ego separation dissolves and is replaced by a communal sense of joy.

I learned about Type 2 Fun from Christine Sperber. These are the activities we only recognize as fun afterwards. They can be physically challenging such as mountain climbing or where there is a fear, perhaps of being laughed at.