Author: Evan Shapiro

Street signs are always telling us what to do. We have stop signs, give way, slow, reduce speed and so on. We have walk and don’t walk signs and we have traffic lights controlling our movements, but don’t get me started on traffic lights. My point is, we are pretty used to reading signs and then as a result altering our behaviour.

An unexpected interchange in a DVD store made me wonder if the sign reading skills we have collectively developed could also be applied to people? I was travelling at the time, feeling relaxed and in particularly good spirits. I had discovered a secret store filled with hard to find cinematic treasures and was very happy with my choices. Generally, I’m a friendly person and when I buy something I’m always respectful. Perhaps it was my relaxed mood, or the lack of any obvious way in which I may have triggered the response, but when the sales guy was suddenly very rude to me, rather than get upset, my inquisitive nature fired up and I started observing. What was making this guy so unhappy? Life had, for whatever reason, put him in the situation where he was at work and he was cranky. I was not the problem. He didn’t know me. I was just the latest in a line of people who had appeared before him who required him to do his job.

So I didn’t react. I just read him. He clearly didn’t like his work. He didn’t like people buying DVDs from him. He was annoyed at every aspect of the process; how long it took to remove the security device, the time it took me to take out my credit card, the speed of the transaction over the telecommunication system, the hard to open paper bag, the frustrating tape dispenser to secure my items and the receipt in the bag. I suspect he was also annoyed there was someone else behind me, ready to make him relive the same process over again. What I was reading was a great big sign-post. It wasn’t telling me what to do, rather it was telling me what not to do.

After his huffing and puffing, eye-rolling and general looks of contempt I began to notice lots of people moving about the world doing things they didn’t like, being people they didn’t want to be. Not seeing the plethora of opportunities before them but remaining stuck in their rigid outlooks of life. It’s easy to be judgmental when someone is rude to you, but actually being rude is a very unpleasant feeling and is a key indicator that someone is, at some level, suffering.

I don’t know what led this guy in the DVD store to be so unhappy. I don’t know his life circumstances. I don’t know how trapped he feels by those circumstance or if he is just trapped by his own mindset.

What his suffering provided was an opportunity to anyone willing to read it. I for one was grateful for the warning. When I looked beyond my own offence at the behaviour I was moved to feel compassion. From my perspective here was a person going through something stressful just so I can get the message. Of course the message was there for him to see as well and I hope that at some stage he is able to see what I saw. What I did with that message was to start paying attention to my own behaviour, particularly when I was feeling tired and cranky. I noticed just how easy it is to act out, especially around those closest to us. They might be the most forgiving but it doesn’t mean they should have to suffer our bad behaviour.

Signs are literally everywhere. Reading people is naturally extremely subjective and if you take some understanding away from anything you witness, it doesn’t change what that person has experienced. They will probably never know the effect they had on you. But looking at others is a great starting point for looking at ourselves.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

There are some people in the world that are very determined to debrief. Regardless of the situation you might be in with them they need to download. They need to tell you what’s happening to them, why it’s happening, what it means to their life and so on. This doesn’t always feel like a conversation in fact it feels more like you are being talked at than conversed with.

For the listener it can feel as though you are cornered, trapped until the story ends unless you can find a means to contribute or your phone rings and you can say it’s really important that you take the call. Good listeners, I presume, have means to withstand or perhaps even enjoy this type of information exchange. There is a difference between someone carrying you along with a story and an outright information dump. It can be particularly difficult if you already know the story but the teller pushes on regardless.

You might be busy, you might have a hundred things to do, but the neighbour, or your child, your parent, your partner or your colleague doesn’t see that. They just see a person before them. A set of eyes and ears that can perceive their information and regardless of your interest they must share it with you.

When I’m caught in this situation I imagine a beaver building a dam. They go about their task with determination and a single-minded focus. They are doing what they have to do. They can’t stop, they can’t waiver. Just like the determined little semi-aquatic mammals, some people are trapped by their biology and their life experience. While a process of self-awareness could assist them, in these moments they have no alternative but to push on, to relive their experience and give it to you with as much detail as possible. Seeing someone in this process, in this uncontrolled one-way information dump, has at times triggered my compassion. I’m not so much moved by the story but I am moved by the human being before me that is unaware of their actions to the point that they can’t see the human being in front of them is smiling politely and is not really interested. At other times I give my all to listening to the details. I pick apart what the person is saying and try to see if there are sensible things I can say to help them. There are other times when all I can do is allow the process to come to its natural end, escape when I can and take my battered psyche and lick my wounds. Ok, a little over dramatic but let’s face it, we have all heard things from time to time that we wish we could un-hear.

To be fair, I’m no different. I do it too. I’ve caught myself debriefing. I’ve felt the need to share as much as the next person. And this has made me wonder what is it about telling other people things that is so important? Does it help us validate our fleeting existence? Does it assuage an unconscious fear of being meaningless? I for one am guilty of pandering to a desire to make people think and more importantly to make people laugh. But so much of what goes through my mind is lost once I’ve thought it and moved on. It’s only what I share that remains. But for how long?

I don’t have any great answers. What I can share is that I think it’s a fine line between sharing a deep and meaningful conversation and thinking you are sharing a deep and meaningful conversation. Sharing ultimately creates connections and as social beings those connections underpin our sense of well-being. Perhaps that is what we are grasping at when we don’t stop to consider if we are truly sharing or just downloading. So if you do find yourself captured, remember while listening you can also observe and as our brains are very clever we can take in multiple means of information. We can console a listener and have compassion for them while in the same instant disagree or hold what they say in contempt. We can also observe our own judgment and perhaps consider how similar we are to the person in front of us. A human being caught in any behaviour that is not totally under their control is a being that deserves understanding. If they have no tools or means to bring about awareness how will they ever have self-understanding or change their behaviours?

Beavers however, to the best of my knowledge, don’t concern themselves with such things. They just go about building their dams. It’s only we humans that expend the same or more energy on thought around an action as the actual action its self.

Information dump over. I leave it to you to consider.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

I have an itchy spot on my right calf. It’s probably mild eczema. I have seen the doctor who has referred me to a skin specialist but I’m yet to follow-up on that appointment. Dr Google says it could be one of eighteen conditions. I’m ruling out some of the nastier probabilities on the basis that there are no other symptoms and if it was something really nasty then I’d probably actually feel sick or it would have gotten a lot worse by now. In the meantime, I don’t always notice it but occasionally it gets insanely itchy and I find myself scratching the hell out of it. My sensible voice says, 'don't scratch, go and find out what it is and get it treated'. The sooner the better as the unknown can often be more problematic than the known.

 

So that’s my leg, and apart from it registering itchy sensations, it’s strangely giving me a little perspective. I mean, it’s itchy, it’s been itchy for a year and yet I’m so slow to act. Like everyone, I’m so caught up in everything else I’m doing that I keep telling myself I don’t have time to see a doctor. It’s just an itch and everything will be ok, surely? Well I actually do think it will be ok, but what if I do nothing and in another year it isn’t just an itch? While I continue to do nothing about it, my annoying itch makes me think, ‘Is the increase in global temperatures just the world’s itchy leg? Why do we ignore the obvious until it’s too late to do anything about it?

 

I’m calling the specialist today and making that appointment. I can’t expect anyone else to listen to my resolutions if I don’t act on them myself. I don't want to lose the argument with myself and wind up not having a leg to stand on. Perhaps you have something of your own you should be getting checked? The world does, and while we are very busy living our lives we are missing the obvious. If we don’t take care of ourselves and where we live then this whole thing is going to be over much faster than any of us might like to think. Forget about not having a leg, I'd really like to keep having a world to stand on. 

 

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

No one believes that I’m a Moonatic. That might be in part because it’s not a real word. You see I feel I needed to make up a word that does not imply insanity in the same way Lunatic does, but still gives rise (moonrise even) to the possibility of a periodic Luna influence of mild proportions.

If it is so mild, why then does it even matter? Well, it matters to me because for years there have been times when I suddenly feel out of kilter. On the surface, everything is going well, but a disquieting unease permeates my spirit. A number of sleepless nights follow and I get tired and cranky. Then, I look out the window and there she is. La Bella Luna. What light from yonder window breaks, it is the moon and suddenly the feeling is much easier to manage knowing it has once again coincided with the illuminating celestial presence of a piece of rock in space.

That is the extent of my research. It’s circumstantial, but it’s mine. My theory for why the moon exerts a force upon me, other Moonatics, Lunatics and ovulation cycles, is that we, as so well put by an alien life-form in the Star Trek Next Generation episode ‘Home Soil’, are ‘bags of mostly water’. That’s right we are somewhere between 60-80% water. No one questions that the moon has influence over the Earth’s tidal patterns, creating highs and lows. Similarly, a Moonatic, such as I, also has a tidal pattern. Sometimes my tide is high, sometimes my tide is low. Again why is this important? Because being aware of something lessens its influence. Realising that we are sometimes subject to our chemistry can also unlock a further understanding. Are we not completely subject to our make up? Isn’t our perception of everything not only skewed by our humanness but also sometimes altered in subjective ways that we are not only unaware of but are unlikely to ever recognise? Something to consider in the light of a full moon perhaps.

Until otherwise disproven, I’ll stick to my assumption that I’m well and truly a Moonatic – that the moon asserts its influence, for good or ill, over my water-based constitution. Anyone else?

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

From what I understand there are 10 qualities under the Buddhist concept of ‘Perfection’ and ‘giving’ is one of them. The Perfection of Giving is the act of generosity without expectation. You give for the sake of giving. You see a need, so you help  and you don’t get anything back. However, the irony of the Perfection of Giving is that you do get something back, but not if you are expecting it. What you get is happy. That’s right, just when you thought happiness was unobtainable in the modern world through means such as wealth, sex, success, relationships or owning the latest piece of tech, along comes an ancient idea.

 

I’ve been to Nepal twice with Hector Marcel and 108 lives. Our first trip in 2012 was a small group who set about reconnecting with many of the street people Hector had first met in 2008. We also spent time making new connections with local agencies and preparing for the larger volunteer projects in the years ahead.

 

Like everyone I have my challenges and my responsibilities in life. I was apprehensive about making the trip, feeling that my absence would mean others back home would have to cover my work and family responsibilities but also I had no idea about what I would be doing. Once I was there however, it was the idea of the Perfection of Giving that helped me park concerns about my own life and it gave me access to the unexpected. I went about doing work for people that needed my help. It was difficult at times. I’m not a social worker, I’m not a professional aid expert. I’m just a person who wanted to help and that sometimes meant turning off helping in ways I was good at and breaking through my own sense of what I could do. Looking and listening to what people really needed and doing things without judgment of others or myself.

 

I met people in desperate situations and sometimes there was little I could do to help them. I saw children being used as begging props, I saw teens addicted to glue sniffing and alcohol, I saw women and children with acid burns, the victims of domestic and political violence.  At times I had to look beyond failing to help some people and keep a focus on the bigger plans. I saw one women at a temple who had terrible burns and when our eyes connected I was deeply moved by her despair. All I could do was give her some food. I had no other means in that moment to help her further, though with all my heart I wanted to do more.

 

In our short time in Kathmandu on that first visit we met with many people living in the streets. We discovered Mount Summit School and have since helped countless students. We connected with the Quilts for Kids program and the Boudhanath tent community, we found the Rokpa group and have provided many meals and medical clinics through them. We visited Sano-Sansara orphanage and have made a difference to many children’s lives. I know that what we have done collectively has helped many people avoid some of the terrible fates I’ve witnessed.

 

I’m not telling you this so you’ll think I’m a good person. I’m not asking you to like me or think I’m in anyway way special. I just want to share my experience because giving without expectation first and foremost helped people, but as a side effect those actions made me happy. Focusing on the needs of others evaporated the daily concerns that previously filled my life. This was further consolidated on my second trip where I became deeply aware and incredibly grateful for what I have available to me in my life. Returning home and incorporating a shift in mindset has had its challenges but I can honestly say that while I have the odd moment of frustration I never lose sight of the joy giving brought to my life.

 

I’m truly grateful to Hector Marcel for creating the opportunity for me, which in itself was a perfection of giving. The wonderful thing about ‘Perfections’ is that they are perfectly simple and easy to enact. All you have to do is show up, silence that doubting voice and help.

 

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road to Nowhere

The other day I heard a conversation on the radio about loneliness. In the program, an expert was discussing the difference between being alone and being lonely. Many people rang in with great ideas about how to stay connected. This is particularly concerning for older people who are increasingly finding themselves isolated in our society. I didn’t get a chance to call in but I wanted to because basically, I don’t get lonely. Well, I don’t anymore.

There are different kinds of loneliness and probably much like you, I’ve experienced many of them. I can recall being an angst-ridden and lonely teen. No one understood me, no one was ever going to understand or love me. At times that felt very cold and dark, but I always had a love of movies, books and music and could lose myself in those joys. It was also quite untrue as I had very good friends and a caring family. I wasn’t alone often but still there were times I convinced myself that I was lonely. In my teenage mind not having a girlfriend was definition enough to feel lonely, to feel I didn’t fit with social norms.

As an adult I’ve experienced a number of different personal relationships, some longer than others, some intense, others relaxed, committed, non-committal and the annoyingly undefinable. Regardless, I’ve come to see that for me the greatest sense of feeling lonely was the experience of lying next to someone and being completely disconnected from them. And after a number of relationships that didn’t work out I felt the loneliness of being on my own. For a time I wallowed in a sense of rejection, but then I recalled the sense of loss and disconnection with others and realised it was actually myself I was disconnected from. I took the opportunity of being single as a time to have a relationship with myself. I did things for myself that I would do for someone I was in a relationship with. I took myself to nice places, I made myself good food, I bought myself things I knew I would really like.

I enjoyed being with myself and I completely stopped being lonely. I came to a point where I was content to be alone but open to being in a relationship if it was equal to or better than being on my own. Ironically that state of being attracted a like-minded person and I find myself now in a wonderfully connected relationship. While we greatly value time with each other we also value time to ourselves and we understand that if things were to change it’s our connection to ourselves that underpins a sense of well-being.

We are social beings and we are also extremely suggestible. Our society continually pumps out messages about what is normal, what you should be feeling, thinking and doing. It’s no wonder we feel lonely when our lives don’t match up to the image being projected. But ultimately loneliness is a state of mind and it’s directly related to how we see ourselves and how we think society sees us. Connecting with others is an essential part of our social interactions, but connecting and remaining connected to ourselves could quite possibly be the best remedy for loneliness we’ve got.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

On my first visit to New York city I overheard the following exchange between a mother and daughter in Times Square.

Mother: I’ll meet you back here in 15 minutes.

Daughter: OK.

Mother: That’s my 15 minutes not your 15 minutes.

Daughter: OK

Mother: Because your 15 minutes is never 15 minutes.

Daughter: Ok

Mother: My 15 minutes is actually 15 minutes and when I say I’ll will be back here in 15 minutes that means I want to meet you here in 15 minutes, not in 20 minutes or half an hour or 16 minutes. It means 15 minutes.

Daughter: ok

 

Einstein was correct and particularly in this case when he said time was relative.

 

I have an ongoing battle with my own daughter over the perception of time. It turns out we all have our own perception of time. Even though we may agree on some basics e.g. there are 24 hours in a day, we can’t agree on what the passing of time feels like. As I observe my daughter’s morning routine it’s clear to me that her sense of being on time is completely different to mine. I’ve struggled for a number of years to help her change, to guide her to conform to the contemporary concept of punctuality, but to no avail. Now I find it's me that is required to change. There are reasons her lateness distresses me. The main one being that getting her to school is part of my routine and responsibility. When she is late, then I am late. Like dominoes all set to fall, her being late sets off a chain reaction that pushes on through my day. For her it stops the moment I stop complaining.

 

Rather than beating my head against this repeatedly I've decided to take a step back. I no longer want to deal with her in the morning. She’s old enough to take responsibility and I don’t need to helicopter around continually pointing to the clock with ever increasing alarm as the time for departure comes and is inevitably passed. So I no longer take her to school. Occasionally I make amusing remarks about how quickly time is passing as I get myself and my son ready but we leave before her. She gets a lift with my mother, walks or catches the bus.

 

There are people in the world that operate on their own time. For me I feel being on time is important, probably something I learned as a child from my grandfather that has stuck with me. I don’t like having my time wasted, that’s fair enough. But it’s also sometimes better to remove yourself from a situation when the only other solution is changing another human being against their nature. Who am I to say my concept of being on time is more correct than my daughter’s lack of interest in the very concept?

 

Time is relative in many more ways than we think.

 

Evan Shapiro
www.amazon.com/author/evanshapiro

My son is obsessed with getting a new smart phone. He’s 12 years-old, has recently started high school and was given a second-hand phone for emergency use. Most days now our conversations start with him asking me if he can have my phone or some other variation on any one of a number of ideas that result in him getting a newer phone.

 

‘Dad’, he says, ‘you’ve never ever bought me a phone before.’ This is true. His mother gave him a second-hand phone that was gifted to her. So in fact no one has bought him a phone. But does a 12 year-old really need the latest and most expensive phone? In his mind the answer is yes. In my mind the answer is no. ‘Dad’, he says, ‘if you worked harder you could upgrade to a new phone sooner and then I could have your old phone.’ He forgets his older sister is next in line. She’s been using the same older model phone as his for much longer and has never once complained. In my mind she is much more likely to get my current phone should I decided to upgrade.

 

This conversation has become a regular dance between us with him hoping at some point I will cave in and throw my current phone at him (not literally though he would be ready to catch it). With this in mind I’m now more and more ready each day with a different outlook for him. Rather than indulging his scenarios I’ve taken to answering obtusely. Here is an example.

 

‘Dad,’ he says, ‘the new iPhone will be out in October, you should upgrade. Then you could give your old phone to one of your children and buy a new older model for the other child. The slightly older models will be cheaper then.’

 

‘I see,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll just buy your sister a new phone and keep my old one. I’m happy with it.’

 

‘What about me?’ he asks indignantly.

 

‘Well the thing is,’ I say, ‘less is more and more is less.’

 

‘What?’ he asks awash with confusion.

 

‘The more you ask me the less likely you are to get a new phone. Constantly asking me is annoying and so asking more will get you less. Your sister never asks. She doesn’t annoy me about getting a new phone so in that case less will become more.’

 

‘That’s not fair,’ he says.

 

‘No,’ I say, ‘you’re right, it’s not fair. Not fair that I should have to have the same conversation over and over. The more you ask the less you will get. The less you ask, the more likely you are to get what you want. I acknowledge your request for a new phone but just so we are clear, every time you remind me, what I will be hearing is ‘dad take longer’. Less is more and more will get you less. Ok?’

 

‘But dad?’ he says.

 

‘It’s your choice my boy.’ And choice is actually what I would like to give him. Not the choice between the latest models of smart phone, but a choice not to suffer unnecessarily. A choice not to have the idea in his mind that his life is somehow incomplete without a very expensive product. There are enough struggles and challenges ahead without having to spend time and energy desiring a product that is created, packaged and marketed with such relentless seductiveness. As these products are almost completely irresistible to adults I can’t blame my son for being caught by the shiny glint of such an object of desire. I’m somewhat unsure if I will achieve my goal of helping him be free from this relentless and self-inflicted struggle. A struggle that is turning out to be a defining characteristic of our time. I feel like I’ve only recently overcome it myself.

 

In a very practical way wanting less does free you to have more things of value in your life. The time spent desiring objects becomes available to you for use in pursing more meaningful things. Perhaps I’m expecting too much from my son just now, but regardless I will keep answering his call for a new phone with my own pre-recorded message.

 

More is less and less is more.

 

Evan Shapiro

Author - Road To Nowhere

Have you ever taken kids to a café, restaurant or pretty much anywhere that has required them to wait for something? I recently took my daughter, son and nephew out for breakfast as a school holiday treat. They wanted Belgian waffles from their favourite café.

 

It was a little busy when we arrived, however we were seated quickly and ordered. It didn’t take long for the inevitable questions to start. ‘How long will our waffles take?’ my son asked. Like most children mine have developed a strange but understandable assumption that I know everything, that I am somehow tapped into a deeper understanding of the space time continuum in a way that they are not yet able to access. To them it must seem like I have my own internal WiFi connection and I’m not sharing the password. This connection, they assume, allows me to answer questions that are otherwise impossible to answer. In this case I clearly have no way of knowing how long the waffles will be. I’m not working in the kitchen, I’m not employed by the café, I don’t know how many orders are before us, I don’t know how long it actually takes to plate up the waffles and carry them out to our table. But of course they think I should know.

 

It’s at these moments I see I have a clear choice. I can 1) get annoyed and be cranky or 2) I can make them think. If I’m doing my job as a parent correctly, then I should always choose to make them think.

 

‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘Do you have a stop watch on your phone?’ I ask.

 

‘Yes,’ my son replies.

 

‘Then start it now and when the waffles arrive you will know how long it takes.’

 

My daughter at least is amused and starts her stop watch. My nephew smiles with an expression of understanding that I’ve said something that makes sense but frustration that it doesn’t answer his question and my son rolls his eyes but starts his stop watch anyway.

 

I relax as my coffee arrives and we all wait expectantly for the waffles. Occasionally they glance at their stop watches but they don’t ask me again how long it will take now they are in charge of measuring the reality. We are free to discuss other topics and I begin to wonder if this is a one-time winner for me or if I can add it to my parental war chest for future use. Only time, measured on a stop watch, will tell.

 

Evan Shapiro

Author - Road To Nowhere