{"id":212137,"date":"2022-05-23T12:01:32","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T11:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=212137"},"modified":"2022-05-21T04:29:59","modified_gmt":"2022-05-21T03:29:59","slug":"the-winter-of-our-discontent-minds-accommodation-to-disparate-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/05\/the-winter-of-our-discontent-minds-accommodation-to-disparate-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Winter of Our Discontent:\u201d Mind\u2019s Accommodation to Disparate Experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Personal Essay \u2013 20 May 2022<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MIND, MEANING, CHANCE . . . <\/strong><\/p>\n

I awoke at 4:00 AM on Wednesday, January 3, 2018, my uncovered arms cold from exposure to the night\u2019s temperature. With no apparent prompt, other than the cold temperature of Winter, the words \u201cThe<\/em> Winter of our Discontent<\/em>\u201d<\/strong> entered my mind, subsequently refusing to leave, repeating the words to me for hours amid activities of the day. The words were to remain with me for years, as a source of inquiry into meaning.<\/p>\n

I was entering a compelling journey of my Mind\u2019s \u201caccommodation\u201d of seemingly disparate and unconnected life experiences. On their own, each experience, present as an image, memory, thought, pulsing problem presence, was confronting my personal life and World. I was confused. Each experience\u2019s cognitive and emotional residue raced across my mind, becoming sources of tension, distress, discontent.<\/p>\n

It was a disconsolate! My mind was not yet alert to the day. Still, a phrase I had seldom used from past reading, now captured my mind in an obsessive presence. I recall grinning at the irony of my life at the moment, and the phrase\u2019s emergence. Why now? It was not until much later in the day, buoyed by a cup of coffee, I understood there was a resonance between the moments of my distress and the iconic phrase.<\/p>\n

The phrase now assumed a life of its own, calling, cajoling, enticing me to fix its presence in my Mind, no longer as a whimsical phrase to be used in opportune moments when friends and student spoke of difficulties in the Winter season. The phrase had now become a \u201craison de etre<\/em>!\u201d It was to be a seductive source for more three years.<\/p>\n

Shakespeare and Steinbeck! Both entered my life at different points in my reading, teaching, and philosophical musings, each with memorable and enduring words. I memorized some of their lines in staccato searches for insights into life\u2019s array of challenges.\u00a0 As the days progressed from the January 3, 2018 anchor date, I grew fond of the evocative phrase: \u201cThe Winter of Our Discontent,\u201d sensing in its brevity, the many associations it elicited.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe<\/strong>,\u201d a singular identity! \u201cWinter<\/strong>,\u201d time, season, dreary, cold! \u201cOf<\/strong>,\u201d a cause! (Merriam Webster Dictionary)! \u201cOur,\u201d <\/strong>ownership or possession! \u201cDiscontent<\/strong>,\u201d dissatisfaction dislike! In a phrase, an associative web, each word bringing meaning, emotion, insight.<\/p>\n

My mind was at play! In my ignorance of \u201cMind\u2019s\u201d nature, functions, and existence, I had failed to grasp Mind\u2019s constant effort after meaning, integration, synthesis, synchronicity. Mind\u2019s was engaged in organizing and harmonizing disparities, those incessant bewildering conflicts forcing us to choose. In choosing, there was the risk of losing the magnificence of opposites, the wisdom of doubt, the nature of being. \u00a0I was now caught in a \u201cmagical\u201d journey of Mind\u2019s primary capacity for accommodation, an accommodation of content, function, and consequence.<\/p>\n

To this day, I remain in awe of my journey\u2019s complex process of organizing diverse events around a single phrase: The Winter of Our Discontent. <\/em>This poetic phrase, made famous in literature by John Steinbeck and William Shakespeare, had become master of my life, compelling me to pursue its meaning for me. I could not resist its siren call.<\/p>\n

I found myself placing aside daily demands, tasks, and interests, in favor of studying and composing words and phrases, again and again. Over the course of months in my journey, I recognized Mind\u2019s inherent tendency, perhaps basic principle, to gather, sort, and harmonize experiences.<\/p>\n

For me, Mind, from the early moments of my awakening on January 3, 2018, was alert to my condition, my discontent, and was engaging in constructing an acceptable reality, an accommodation, temporary at best, but a foundation for moving on. It was mind\u2019s constancy, never resting, responsive to situation and enduring remnants.<\/p>\n

Initially, I neither recognized nor understood \u201cMind has a Mind of its own!\u201d It is a simultaneous process\/product directed toward describing, understanding, predicting, and controlling the World in an effort after survival. It was, however, more than an effort after survival, it was an effort after personal meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. My mind, in sleep and wakefulness, was processing, organizing, and storing information across billions of neurons and their connections with intent toward finding and sustaining meaning.<\/p>\n

THE SEARCH FOR MEANING: HUMANKIND\u2019S ETERNAL \u00a0. . . \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Humankind\u2019s history reveals the search for meaning to be an eternal quest across cultures, and space and time. Belief systems, rituals, institutions represented this quest. In some instances, stifling growth and change, insisting on stasis, rejecting the tensions of doubt, creating the \u201cTrue Believer\u201d syndrome, described so well by Eric Hoffer, and others who studied the Authoritarian Personality.<\/p>\n

Once a person becomes totally committed to a belief, leaving no room for doubt, the belief becomes a habit, and the habit becomes a personality style replete with fixed identity. Meaning is the goal of the search, but meaning can capture reason. At the very moment of passionate adherence, doubt must be present, distressing with its questioning.<\/p>\n

Many writers have understood this inherent impulse for making meaning. Viktor Frankl, the NAZI Concentration Camp survivor who later wrote a classic volume, Man\u2019s Search for Meaning<\/em><\/strong>, in which he suggested the core motivation for humankind was the search for meaning. Much of his work has been continued by Professor Paul Wong and his associates. Frankl went on to develop Logotherapy<\/em><\/strong>, representing a therapeutic process for finding meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.<\/p>\n

My training in clinical psychology, especially psychodynamic therapies, had exposed me to Frankl and other therapists and therapies. Initially, Freudian psychoanalysis appealed to my byzantine mind\u2019s efforts after personal meaning. Subsequently, however, I was exposed to Carl Jung\u2019s therapies, and found them deeper and richer in terms of my life questions.<\/p>\n

I was fond of Jung\u2019s concepts of \u201cArchetypes,\u201d especially the \u201cUnitary Archetype\u201d which connected me, humanity, and the World across time and place.\u00a0 There was a \u201cOneness\u201d and with that, \u201cSynchronicity,\u201d a felt, intuitive connection among events which seemed to have no obvious connection, yet, certain events seemed beyond chance. There were felt linkages, without apparent known connection. \u201cSynchronicity\u201d challenged \u201cMind\u201d to engage in its distinct and unique process\/product course, which was more than Brain\u2019s neural networks, which I considered to be mechanistic in their purpose.<\/p>\n

In time, as the phrase \u201cThe Winter of Our Discontent<\/em><\/strong>\u201d worked its magic affirming experiences, justifying associations, and pursuing integration, I began to experience an elan vital<\/em> state of mind. I was alive in the process, part of the process, yet driven by a force comforting and pleasuring me.<\/p>\n

Was the process\/product <\/em>in accord with a broader cosmic design seeking order, coherence, and lawfulness amid limited human perceptions. Humanity had, throughout its history, beheld a wonderous chaos amid the billions of galaxies, billions of universes, all involved in constant creation of matter, energy, radiation, and more. This very process\/product was a manifestation of life itself, beyond the \u201clife\u201d associated with our limited notions of Earthy life.<\/p>\n

I thought of the many pressures I faced. Was a cosmic \u201clife force\u201d now compelling me to resolve my psyche\u2019s disparate concerns, tensions, and strains, and to move toward a holistic and coherent awareness characterized by an accommodation, a temporary coherent consolidation, a respite, an acceptable answer, only to be challenged by yet another disturbance in stasis.<\/p>\n

As I awoke on a cold winter day, exhausted anticipating the demands of the day, I had no awareness the words, \u201cThe<\/em> Winter of our Discontent<\/em><\/strong>,\u201d were to guide me on a journey bringing me a new level of personal understanding and a new appreciation of literary insights. I was on a mind journey to accommodate a spectrum of troublesome unfinished, unresolved thoughts, each rearing its head, demanding attention, amid a broader array. I was in need of a new identity, a new comfort zone, bringing me fulfillment. I was at the time a scattered puzzle spread on a table, end pieces visible, but not connected.<\/p>\n

SITUATIONAL IMMEDIACY . . . <\/strong><\/p>\n

In the immediacy of the day, I tried to escape the hold of the phrase, \u201cThe Winter of Our Discontent\u201d, on my mind. I needed to prepare for a complex outpatient surgical procedure. The surgery disrupted my practices routines, as I was instructed to avoid all water and food.\u00a0 Further, I must arrange for transportation, because anesthesia would leave my mind cloudy. There were also concerns for prescriptions, transportation, and the incessant signing of medical permission forms. I was on January 3, 2018, amidst all other concerns, prisoner to endless corporate requirements and regulations: Sign here, initial here, did you read this page? Do you understand HIPA?\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

I wanted understanding and compassion, but was subject to formality, distance, and indifference. Lurking in the background of my mind, the poignant poetic words, The Winter of Our Discontent, <\/em><\/strong>were already understandable. In the world of corporate medicine, I was pieces for their puzzle, a patient, a number, a bed, a case with a folder, but not an anxious human being, in need of affirming care..<\/p>\n

In the background of my mind loomed the repetitious words: The Winter of Our Discontent.<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0For no apparent reason, I recalled an Eastern European friend\u2019s suggestion I read the famous Russian author, Mikhail Bulgakov\u2019s, The Master and Margarita. <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Why recall this now? Why in this moment? \u00a0Bulgakov\u2019s classic was written amid rampant Stalinism, replete with oppression, brutality, atheism, and a crushing of individualism.<\/p>\n

I recalled my Eastern European friend\u2019s smile at my American naivete regarding suffering and the human condition under oppression:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you Americans know?\u201d Can you know what it means to live each day in fear you, or your family may be arrested, and sent to Siberia? Can you know what it means to distrust everyone because they have been co-opted in mind and spirit by compliance to beliefs designed to eliminate protest in favor of conformity to mass society?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I recalled I bought a paperback version of Bulgakov\u2019s masterpiece, at my friend\u2019s suggestion, delighting initially at the erotic title and cover.\u00a0 I expected an introduction to ponderous Eastern European mentality, and I prepared for the all-knowing Eastern European cynical grin, holding Americans in disdain, because of America\u2019s unrestrained optimism and innocence. HOW does Mind make meaning, find meaning, confirm meaning, under circumstances of ideological oppression to which Mind is prisoner.<\/p>\n

Mass surveillance, monitoring, and archiving of all personal data had yet to become commonplace in America. In time the USA system of surveillance and storage of data would equal that of Eastern Europe. There was an awareness the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had violated ethics and laws at his personal pleasure, likely engaging in assassinations of prominent individuals he considered traitorous to his values and beliefs.<\/p>\n

A law suit by Martin Luther King\u2019s (Jr.) family brought confirmation of government involvement in MLK\u2019s assassination. It was ordered by Hoover. Hoover had asked MLK, Jr., to commit suicide or risk exposure of sexual dalliances. \u00a0The cover was off the USA\u2019s efforts after control and domination of citizenry in direct violation of the USA Constitution and legal regulations protecting human rights. Trust was lost! A new reality was required. Government betrayal of laws and rights added to my identity issues. Was I an American citizen, or a number awaiting control?<\/p>\n

I recalled I started to read The Master and Margarita, <\/em><\/strong>years ago, and then stopped! The novel was too much for me. It was not enjoyable reading. It was heavy, requiring attention to each word. I gathered bits and pieces from my reading, especially the phrase: \u201cManuscripts never die!\u201d<\/em><\/strong> The genre description of \u201cmagical realism\u201d was, however, beyond my understanding. It was the early 1980\u2019s, I was too young and inexperienced. How could I fathom Bulgakov\u2019s purposes? Why now did I recall the volume?<\/p>\n

On January 3, 2018, early in the morning, I encountered American mass society; surveillance, no privacy, and a new USA president, of unusual and unpredictable style and values.\u00a0 The intruding words: The Winter of our Discontent, <\/em><\/strong>began to make a semblance of sense. <\/em><\/strong>Was my pre-occupation with the human condition and my nation\u2019s directions a corresponding coincidence? Was it an effort of to alert me to changing times requiring a new understanding and construction of reality? The Winter of Our Discontent, <\/em><\/strong>had become a mantra for me, encapsulating much more than the surgery\u2019s immediacy of the moment.<\/p>\n

Winter\u2019s merciless assault upon Atlanta, rendered the South and me powerless.\u00a0 I was \u201cdiscontent!\u201d\u00a0 Relentless record-setting snow, cold, and wind, descended from the Artic; a winter cyclone bringing destruction and \u201cdiscontent.\u201d The weather itself was sufficient cause for \u201cdiscontent.\u201d \u201cWinter of our discontent \u2026 winter of our discontent \u2026\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

The Nation was in \u201cdiscontent!\u201d It was the best description of an endless human condition of suffering and hopelessness across the world. \u00a0It was not rage, anger, or contempt for government abuses alone, it was not visible corporate exploitation, military dominance, presidential unpredictability. Discontent was an acceptable word! Discontent defined the entire experience of my life in this exact moment.<\/p>\n

A stream of thoughts arose as I sat in my hospital bed, awaiting surgery. There was much \u201cdiscontent\u201d for me in the ending of year 2017: ageing burdens, time\u2019s tolls, pressing legal decisions, unresolved family matters, financial worries, and the omnipresent thought of meaning and mortality.<\/p>\n

What I did not expect, however, was the bubbling recurrence of the words: \u201cWinter of Our discontent.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> The words began upon awakening and remained with me through the day. A coincidence? \u00a0I began to question the reason. I wanted to understand the cause and implication of the compulsive presence of words.<\/p>\n

As I pondered my preoccupation with the words \u201cWinter of Our Discontent,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> I recalled logic\u2019s cautionary adage: \u201cAn apparent cause may be necessary, but insufficient!\u201d<\/strong> \u00a0How can we know unless we are willing to doubt its sufficiency!\u00a0 Doubt! The essence of change; the work of the devil, claim fundamentalist true believers! Do not doubt! Believe! Comfort in blind belief!<\/p>\n

I was \u201cdiscontent!\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps I should not be, but I was! The phrase captured so much, summarizing many of my past, present, and future concerns. I was caught now, compelled to reconcile accumulated memories for 77 years, three months or 123 days, and a few hours more or less.<\/p>\n

Whatever the cause . . . I was now \u201cdiscontent,\u201d<\/strong> unsatisfied with explanations as they emerged. The question of \u201cwhy\u201d these poignant words arose and lingered, became for me an unanticipated journey. Could I find closure? Could I find comfort? I had been pushed into a discomfort zone; I needed to be pulled into a new comfort zone. There to find respite, if only for a time.<\/p>\n

My training in psychoanalysis would not release me. Unconscious motives! Symbolic motives! I was on a journey. It was to be a personal journey pursuing meanings, images, and associations. On with the journey!<\/p>\n

Up pop the names John Steinbeck and William Shakespeare, both aware of the many associations of term: \u201cThe Winter of Our Discontent<\/em>.<\/strong>\u201d For Steinbeck, this was the title of book describing the destructive tolls of personal ambition. For Shakespeare, the words were key to his play, Richard III, a tragedy of regal proportion, in which \u201cdiscontent\u201d is omnipresent.<\/p>\n

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND JOHN STEINBECK<\/strong><\/p>\n

An unlikely pair, perhaps: living in different centuries, different writing styles, different talents, different causes. Different causes? Hmmm? Maybe!<\/p>\n

On to William Shakespeare (1564-1616), and his play, Richard III, published in 1592 (1594?). \u00a0William Shakespeare, in history\/tragedy play, Richard III, presents a moving account of despicable of human qualities: quests for power, wealth, status at any costs, including, if required, murder of family members.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Title page of the\u00a0First Quarto\u00a0of\u00a0The Tragedy of King Richard the Third<\/p><\/div>\n

The glorious words, \u201cWinter of our discontent,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> now occupying my mind, were first penned in a commentary of Richard\u2019s (Son of York) dastardly ways:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 . . . (i.e., Richard III)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shakespeare\u2019s words, appealed to me amid a vanishing Winter \u201cSeason,\u201d exerting its \u201cdiscontents\u201d<\/em><\/strong> by endowing nature <\/em>with endless snow, gale winds, and freezing temperatures bring suffering to life. Ahhh! Insight!<\/p>\n

Richard III\u2019s deformed in body because of scoliosis, his demented mind, driven by lust for power, position, and wealth, regardless of consequences captured the character in all its discontents. In the play, Edward II is murdered, and Richard III assumes the throne, murdering his nephews to prevent them from ascending to the throne.<\/p>\n

And then, Richard chose to fight and destroy, Edward III, in the famed battle of Bosworth Field. Ambition was to kill Richard, and he was to die on the field.<\/p>\n

Richard III:\u00a0\u00a0 A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Catesby:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Withdraw my lord, I\u2019ll help you to a horse.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Richard III:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Slave, I have set my life upon a cast, <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And I will stand the hazard of the die. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Some authorities believe Richard III was not, in fact, as evil as Shakespeare painted him; however, Shakespeare needed a foil, and Richard III was perfect for the part. A disconsolate man, driven by discontent, willing to chance a battles\u2019 outcome, now victim to chance.<\/p>\n

For Shakespeare, \u201cNow is the winter of our discontent . . .\u201d <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>introduces audiences to society\u2019s (humanity\u2019s) disdain for fate\u2019s unfolding tragedies. The words acknowledge the endless struggle for wealth, power, position, valued by society, and the harsh the consequences exacted upon those who pursue these status markers.<\/p>\n

There is an amazing application of this struggle for our times which are filled with corruption, betrayal, violence, villainy. Shakespeare\u2019s words are immortal! Shakespeare\u2019s brilliance in describing a human character\u2019s struggles, endure across time and place.<\/p>\n

Shakespeare\u2019s immortal words return to modern times, with similar appeal and insight, as the title of John Steinbeck\u2019s (1902-1968) Nobel Prize winning novel, The Winter of our Discontent<\/em> (1961).<\/strong><\/p>\n

I recall reading with pleasure, Steinbeck\u2019s novel years ago, as my former wife, a Professor of English, spoke of the novel and had a copy in her library. Steinbeck offers a rich narrative of the hapless pursuit of wealth, power, and position.<\/p>\n

Literature\u2019s synchronous nature brings readers delight as coincidence recedes amid the awareness human nature spans the centuries. The same struggles! The same joys! The same faults! Ambition in the presence of flawed character. Or does ambition flaw character?<\/p>\n

Literature was now becoming a critical part of my journey. The words, the title, the evocative images of life and season connect, affirming flaws human nature across time.<\/p>\n

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John Steinbeck (1961) The Winter of our Discontent<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My Journey Became a Dance with Literature: John Steinbeck and Shakespeare:<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Steinbeck (1929, wrote his Nobel Prize winning novel, The Winter of Our Discontent<\/strong>, <\/em>to express his \u201cdiscontent\u201d with the moral degeneration of America in the 1950s and 1960s. With his sharply honed sense of injustice in American society, Steinbeck was sensitive to changes pressing for conformity to USA popular culture, especially consumerism, greed, materialism, capitalism, and, more than anything, a passive acceptance of emerging government secrecy and abuses, betraying citizen rights and laws.<\/p>\n

I too, decades later from Steinbeck\u2019s writings, had discontent. Things were coming apart seeking resolution. I needed a phrase to organized my disparate thoughts and tensions. There was a need for accommodation. Scattered thoughts in need of order.<\/p>\n

Steinbeck wrote in the time of Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s protests and assassination. It was also the time of the assassinations of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, and the defamation of hundreds of citizens as \u201cCommunists\u201d by Senator Joseph McCarthy\u2019s witch-hunt.<\/p>\n

It was also the time of revelations of J. Edgar Hoover\u2019s many abuses and his launching the nefarious and treacherous CO-INTEL-PRO (Counter Intelligence Program), \u00a0used to surveil, infiltrate privacy, and condemn scores of individuals and domestic political organizations deemed radical and dangerous.<\/p>\n

For the villainous Herbert Hoover, anyone disagreeing with government propaganda was labeled a \u201ccommunist,\u201d \u201cterrorist,\u201d or threat to the USA national security (Hoover had become the arbiter). This would become the political, social, and economic, moral fractionation basis of our times. Hoover, more than anyone, assumed an independence from government control, establishing himself as arbiter of morality, even as he was one of the most immoral human beings of all time.<\/p>\n

Steinbeck could not remain silent; in his volume, Grapes of Wrath<\/em>,<\/strong> he was speaking against mass injustices. Initially, Steinbeck\u2019s moralism in Grapes of Wrath,<\/em><\/strong> was dismissed amid post-war years exuberance.\u00a0 America was on a roll, celebrating military, political, and economic ascendancy.\u00a0 How dare any one question, America? Then, questionable assassinations, the Watergate Scandal, and other events led to a reconsideration of Steinbeck\u2019s work, and his genius and courage. \u00a0The USA was not what it seemed to be following years of media propaganda. It was a mockery of democracy and justice.<\/p>\n

The parallels between Shakespeare\u2019s Richard III, set in 16th<\/sup> Century England, and Steinbeck\u2019s novel, set in contemporary times, illuminate the timeless flaws in human character and human condition. Wants exceed needs! Unrestrained ambition brings an inevitable fall from grace.<\/p>\n

Is this the eternal Hebrew Bible\u2019s curse of Adam and Eve\u2019s denial of ordained rules, offered by an unknown power, warning disobedience will bring harm.\u00a0 Were lessons of human frailty and possibility across time relevant to my existence as I arose on a cold winter day with the resounding words \u201cWinter of our discontent,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> echoing in my mind.<\/p>\n

I ate no apple! I heeded no serpent!\u00a0 My life, however, was in turbulence. I was caught in the tides of the time, my discontent a harbinger of society\u2019s pathology shaping mind. I was now immersed in a struggle accommodate my idealistic values, character restraints, and personal ambitions within a changing world. Social and cultural changes had become overwhelming, exceeding my capacity to grasp their consequences. I needed respite! I needed understanding! I was living amidst a \u201cWinter of Discontent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics, interpreters, and learned scholars have suggested Richard III is a morality play speaking to tensions between destiny, determinism, fatalism, and free will (i.e., choice), or moral choice (Note: resurgence of Calvinistic beliefs of the times). \u201cWho\u201d or \u201cWhat\u201d is responsible for behavior characterized by murder, deceit, lies, greed, jealousy, and untethered ambition. Is it person or times? Or is it a \u201cperson in times,\u201d in which a reciprocal ecology develops seeking accommodation?<\/p>\n

In Richard III\u2019s deformity from scoliosis reside a resentment of his condition; it is beyond discontent!\u00a0 It is anger, regret, and a deep anguish:<\/p>\n

I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty<\/em>
\nTo strut before a wanton ambling nymph;<\/em>
\nI, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,<\/em>
\nCheated of feature by dissembling nature,<\/em>
\nDeformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time<\/em>
\nInto this breathing world, scarce half made up,<\/em>
\nAnd that so lamely and unfashionable<\/em>
\nThat dogs bark at me as I halt by them;<\/em><\/p>\n

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,<\/em>
\nHave no delight to pass away the time,<\/em>
\nUnless to spy my shadow in the sun<\/em>
\nAnd descant on mine own deformity:<\/em>
\nAnd therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,<\/em>
\nTo entertain these fair well-spoken days,<\/em>
\nI am determined to prove a villain.<\/em>
\nJOURNEY\u2019S END, JOURNEY\u2019S BEGINNING . . .<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I had come to an acceptable end for my journey. The echoing of a few words upon arising on a cold winter morning, puzzling in their presence beyond the initial immediacy of the situation, had become a more deliberate search for the meaning. \u00a0A journey was launched. A phrase had brought an accommodation for my mind, ordering disparate experiences. I was now aware of principles of mind, born perhaps in cosmic creation efforts, to bring harmony from discord, order from chaos, capable meaning from disparate noise.<\/p>\n

The phrase, \u201cThe Winter of Our Discontent\u201d had become a synthesizing accommodation, a poetic anchor, in which my personal life situation, replete with its uncertainties and anxieties, crystalized! I sensed at an intuitive, but tangible level, new insights into my personal life search for identity, comfort, meaning, and doubt. I also recognized the power of the times to dominate, control, and shape lives left passive amid confusion, a silent conformity to forces controlled by a society and culture now desperately seeking control of human choice.\u00a0 Hegemony! Mass Society! Dystopia!<\/p>\n

A \u201cchance\u201d awakening with a distant literary phrase of poetic beauty had entered my mind upon awakening and remained to organize disparate and bewildering thoughts and needs.\u00a0 I wanted inner peace!\u00a0 I wanted to resolve tensions! Ahhhh, Mind doeth sense the struggle, and moves to accommodate.<\/p>\n

Though self-disclosure began in the morning on January 3, 2018, it has come to its full personal meaning on May 19, 2022, as I write on a number of topics regarding \u201cextinction,\u201d and endless global challenges. I am content. \u00a0This article remained (rested?), incomplete, unfinished, for years in a document folder entitled \u201cUnpublished Writing.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThe Winter of Our Discontent,<\/strong>\u201d now lives in a new way in my mind. . . and heart.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii\u2019s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. \u00a0He is known internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 21 books and more than 300 articles, tech reports, and popular commentaries. His<\/em> TMS articles may be accessed<\/em> HERE<\/a> and he can be reached at <\/em>marsella@hawaii.edu<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Personal Essay \u2013 20 May 2022 – MIND, MEANING, CHANCE . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}