My Philosophy of Life and Death

December 30, 2022 by

Today, I am will-you-still-love-me 64.

As I anticipate facilitating a local grief support group, I have became aware that addressing grief requires a deep, existential dive, not just into the meaning of life, but into the meaning of death.

When I was in my 30s, 40s, and 50s, I wrote philosophies of life. This past year, the death of my father, the death of a dear friend, my own potential death from a fall and concussion, plus over 6 million deaths from COVID-19, all call me to break a taboo and speak of death.

This causes understandable anxiety.

100 billion humans

I am not alone. For the nearly 8 billion people alive on the planet today, anxiety – unease about things that may be ahead – may be legitimate. Indeed, global rates of anxiety have risen. According to some researchers, anxiety is considered useful and motivating, an indicator of threat, that something’s not right. In January, 2023, death may well be more likely than it was in January 2020.

I considered the deaths of my father and friend devastating losses. I felt hit, bereft, disoriented. Then, a home pull-up bar failed and I truly got hit in the head. I began to wonder. What is the ground beneath my feet? I’m already among the one-third of Americans over 60 who – if I didn’t rent rooms to international scholars – would live alone, no partner, no children, with a small extended family. What would hold me up if I were to lose everyone and everything? What holds me up when I realize that I, ultimately, will lose everyone and everything – including my own life – when I die?

Iverach et al. tell us, “Awareness of mortality and fear of death have been part of the human condition throughout recorded history. According to [Irvin] Yalom, human beings are ‘forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and inevitably, diminish and die.”

Death anxiety is considered a central cause of human distress.

What is the ground beneath my feet? What is real? What is true? How are those terms even defined? What can I count on? How do I make sense of all this? What is my philosophy of life and death?

In the 300,000 year history of Homo sapiens, in the story of the 100 billion people estimated to have ever lived, I have a paragraph.

In the photo album of the 100 billion, turn enough pages – past the photos of the famous and the infamous, your loved ones and mine – there is a glossy shot of you, then of me. Paragraphs and photos came before us and, for an unknowable amount of time in the future, will come after us.

I am human and humans die – maybe now, definitely later. I may not like it, but I accept it. People important to me have died and will die. Pets die. Death is a fact.

Right this moment, I am alive.

  • I will, at times, validly feel powerless and helpless about the biological fact of my inevitable death.
  • I may often have some level of anxiety and sadness about the anticipated end of my life, both for myself and those I care about who will have to do without me.
  • Significant anxiety-buffering factors – such as reliable, shared world views and social interaction – have been compromised by the pandemic.
  • I might believe things should be different, and longingly wish they were, but, given the complexity of reality, I can’t know if a difference would have made things better, worse, or had no impact.
  • I am astonished by my belief that I could accurately read and predict another person’s mind and heart, given the human brain holds an estimated 100 billion neurons and perhaps a similar number of glial cells.
  • I am astonished by my belief that, if I felt something ardently enough, or believed it fervently enough, it was a fact.
  • I am astonished by the amount of influence, power, and control I believed I had and how little I ended up having. I thought the extent to which I could control my life would determine its quality. I didn’t know that, again, given the complexity of reality, uncertainty would be natural and normal, a condition to be navigated, not fought.
  • But I long for certainty! In his poem, “Noreen,” Peter Meinke writes, “How much we need reasons! How reasons make us feel better!” Probabilities and possibilities can be estimated. Certainties cannot be determined.
  • What’s done cannot be undone. What happened cannot be made to un-happen.
  • I did my best to help things go in ways I thought would be best for everyone.
  • I did not realize how exhaustingly I tried to be all things, to all people, at all times, and secretly feared I was nothing, to anyone, at any time. Oh, my! Neither is possible.
  • I did not realize how much thinking I, they, things should be different has caused my suffering.
  • I might sometimes get frantic trying to prevent what I interpret as disaster, however much what’s happening results from facts and reality as they are.
  • I thought I was helping myself when I recoiled from inevitabilities. It brought a bit of relief in the short-term, but caused more suffering than bravely leaning forward and seeing things as they might be, are, or were.
  • I didn’t know that, paradoxically, seeking reassurance can actually escalate anxiety. For many realities of the human condition and human life, there are no reassurances.
  • I believed reprimanding myself was corrective and motivating. I didn’t mean to turn into my own predator and forsaker. Now I keep close to myself. I meticulously help myself with challenges.
  • The personnel changes. People come and people go: neighbors, co-workers, family members, partners, bosses, on and on. Beings come and go: the family dog, the beloved cat, on and on.
  • I acknowledge whom and what I’ve lost irreversibly.
  • I acknowledge whom I can’t see and what I can’t do.
  • I acknowledge with whom I will not get to continue.
  • I can fret over possessions if I wish, but, ultimately, I don’t get to keep them. When I’m gone, boxes of my things will join the boxes in my basement of my grandparents’ and parents’ things. Lovingly, my family members were trying to protect me and help me. Items, however held to be valuable, can become useless.
  • I acknowledge that I can write an advance directive, attempting to narrate how my dying must go and not go, but I am a biological organism and biology will unfold as it will.
  • I may be in such unbearable psychological, physical, mental, or existential pain that I may take action to end my own life, or take actions that might risk or hasten my death. Others cannot know what it is like to be me or to see what I see. I will not consider these acts of illness or brokenness, but of self-love, mercy, and humanity.
  • I did not realize that seeing and acknowledging reality as it is, seeing the reality of what I can and cannot do, and accepting what is mine and not mine to do, all bring me a sense of the way things are that, in turn, bring me a sense of some peace and freedom.
  • I can co-travel with loving my life and grieving it at the same time.

“Find meaning and purpose” is advice often given to those asking existential questions. However, researchers have found that “meaning in life” may not do the trick.

When I was explaining what a triathlon was to my 101-year-old grandmother, she said, “Run while you can!”

Surrounded at our school by frightened students after we learned of attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11, I asked our head of school, Gordon MacLeod, what we should do. He answered, “Carry on!”

After all that’s happened, all that’s lost, all these feelings, all these limits, all these risks, and the certainty of my life ending, might I carry on? If so, how?

To start? Kindly. I got born into the human condition with “the wound of mortality” without being consulted and without warning. My Homo sapiens-ism, my DNA, got meaninglessly, randomly assigned to my family, in my country, in my birth year. I have made the best of things, the best I can. I scrutinize my past efforts and conclude that, if I could have done better, I would have. Altruism is as old as humaniy itself.

Logic holds that reality-based strategies are more likely to produce desired outcomes than belief-based strategies.

Given reality as it is, my feelings and thoughts, my values and priorities, my strengths and preferences – after all that’s gone down – what will be my strategies for living in the time I have left? Shall I run? Take next steps?

Such questions! Such tasks! Kindness is merited.

image: iStock

All content on this site is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, professional, and/or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for personalized medical, professional, and legal advice.

Filed Under: Autobiography, Grief

Ahead of His Time: Obituary for Robert H. Giles, Jr.

May 6, 2022 by

Robert “Bob” Hayes Giles, Jr., of Blacksburg, Virginia, 88, seeing he was too ill to be of further service to his family and others, died bravely on May 5, 2022 from voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED). He suffered from neurodegenerative diseases resulting in symptoms commonly termed “dementia.” He donated his body to science to help researchers further understand these disabling disorders. He had no other illnesses.

Robert H. Giles, Jr.

Bob was preceded in death by his wife of 56 years, Mary Wilson Burnette Giles; his mother, Anna Rinsland Giles Trevey; his father, Robert Hayes Giles, Sr.; stepmother, Edith Lohr Giles; aunt Katherine Rinsland Irvin; grandmother, Lena Bosserman Rinsland, grandfather, George Herman Rinsland, father-in-law, Wilbert Glenn Burnette, and mother-in-law, Mary Thigpen Burnette. He is survived by his brother, George Giles and his wife, Lena, and their children and grandchildren; step-sister Susan Lohr Hudson; brother-in-law W. Gaines Burnette and his wife, Peggy, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; cousins Kay Hughes and John Irvin; daughter, Anne Giles; daughter, Margaret Galecki; son-in-law Dennis Galecki; former sons-in-law Mark Wiley, Brad Rimbey, and Iain Clelland; grandson Alan Wiley, his wife, Mary “Woo” Wiley, their son, great-grandson Beau, and their daughter, great-granddaughter Dottie; grandson Ben Wiley; granddaughter Mary Teague and her husband, Chad, and their daughter, great-granddaughter Raine; grandson James Galecki and his wife, Renee, and their sons, great-grandsons Logan and Liam; granddaughter Caroline Galecki; and granddaughter Catherine Galecki.

Bob was born on May 25, 1933 in Lynchburg, Virginia. He attended E. C. Glass High School, during which he was awarded a Bausch and Lomb Science award for studies of the ring-necked pheasant. As an Eagle Scout, he was awarded the W.T. Hornaday National Award for Distinguished Service to Conservation and the James E. West Scouting Conservation Scholarship. During his undergraduate years at Virginia Tech, Bob was an editor for several magazines and the president of the V.P.I. Corps of Cadets of 6,000 students. He was also a member of seven national honorary societies.

Bob was a Professor Emeritus of Wildlife Management at Virginia Tech where he taught for 30 years. His Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Master of Science degree in Wildlife Management were from Virginia Tech. His Ph.D. in Zoology was from The Ohio State University. He was a recipient of The William E. Wine Award, given for a history of university teaching excellence.

In the early 1960s, Bob was a pioneer in envisioning use of computers for natural resource management. He and his graduate students meticulously recorded data about the land by hand, then used computer programs on decks of punched cards to analyze it. This process is now done through satellite imagery and is known widely as Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In 1968, he learned of general system theory and became a systems thinker. He believed that problems are interconnected and that a system of problems must be met with a system of solutions.

During his time as a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Virginia Tech, Bob was known for his innovative applications of computer programming. With the support of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), he created the woodland resource management system of TVA, once used on 300 farms a year. With staff and students, he created the first wildlife information base (BOVA – Biota of Virginia database). He chaired the Blacksburg planning commission, consulted with the National Wildlife Refuge System, aided the State Cooperation Commission, and wrote the first plan for wildlife other-than-game for Virginia.

Bob was a speaker at the first Earth Day at Virginia Tech on April 22, 1970. When challenged by a student in the audience, “What are you doing about zero population growth, Dr. Giles?”, Bob held up his hand in a peace sign and answered, “Two children and a vasectomy!” He was unafraid of challenging taboos for the sake of others.

At his retirement party, colleague Larry Nielsen said, “Giles has more ideas in an hour than most people have in a lifetime.” When she was a teenager, his daughter Anne remembers her father asking what she wanted written on her tombstone. She returned the question. He answered: “He contributed to science.” Bob lamented hearing often that his ideas were “great” but “ahead of their time.” Recently, a former student remembered thinking in the 1970s that Dr. Giles’s ideas were “out there.” He said, “They’re now standard practice.”

Bob began working on the concept he termed “Rural System” in the early 1980s, and in earnest after his retirement in 1998. He envisioned Rural System as a GIS-informed enterprise to improve the social, economic, and environmental health of regions through optimal use of resources via a system of for-profit, citizen-owned entities of multiple, small, natural resource-related enterprises. He was aided in completing his final research work by Risa Pesapane, now a Ph.D. and professor at The Ohio State University, and Laurel Sindewald, now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado, Denver. His final work, “Rural Future: An Alternative for Society Before 2050 A.D.,” was edited by Laurel Sindewald.

Raised in Southwest Virginia, Bob knew the struggles of people in Central Appalachia, impoverished after the collapse of the coal and tobacco industries. To further his knowledge, after retirement, he visited rural areas of Africa – Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda – China, and India.

Bob was friends for nearly half a century with Airport Acres neighbors Mills and Betty Jo Everett, and Bill and Lois Patterson. During his final years living at his beloved house on Rose Avenue, Bob recounted with laughter and wonder his local adventures with friend Caleb Flood.

Bob spent the last years of his life at The Heritage House with two other residents under the care of Hugh Bowman and his staff. Bob considered Hugh a friend. Perceiving his fellow residents to be treasured graduate students, he read the newspaper to them and tended them as he could. Bob’s family thanks Hugh and Kim Bowman, devoted members of the staff at The Heritage House, Andrea Hendricks, Clidia Lewis, Kathy Merideth, and kind companion Jo Burks, for the gentle, respectful, well-tended days they gave him. Bob’s family thanks Dr. Gregory Beato for his compassionate medical care.

Bob was known for his ability to look realistically at problems, but to see vast systems of solutions in radical, unprecedented ways. He championed science, facts, reason, logic, and humanity. He could be counted on for principled living, courtesy, and kindness. Some considered him valiant, noble, and saintly. Bob mentored and corresponded with former graduate students into their own retirements. To the last, he grieved the loss of his understanding and lamented being unable to protect his daughters from the hardships of his illness and these times. Before he lost the ability to articulate his thoughts, however, Bob said, “It’s been a grand adventure.” With nearly all of his brain function gone, unable to speak and barely able to move, within hours of the end of his life, he found the wherewithal to smile at his daughters.

As to his legacy, as former graduate student Bharat Bhushan, now a professor in India put it, “I only know, even as I am so far away, that his mind reaches out to me and many others, and talks to us. I was, am, his student, forever.”

Bob often signed his letters, then his emails: “Pax.”

In memoriam, when you open the next door for someone or bring in your neighbor’s bins from the curb, please think of Bob Giles.

A visitation with family members will take place on Tuesday, May 31, 4:00 – 6:00 PM, at McCoy Funeral Home in Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A.

To honor Bob’s life and work, you are invited to contribute to the Robert H. Giles, Jr. Scholarship at Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech Foundation, 902 Prices Fork Road, Blacksburg, VA 24061.

The biography and CV of Robert “Bob” H. Giles, Jr. were last updated by him in 2018. They originally appeared on his website, “Rural System.” At the end of his working life, he self-published Rural Future: An Alternative for Society Before 2050 AD, edited by Laurel Sindewald. His daughter, Anne, wrote a tribute to him, Letter from the Universe, in March, 2022.

“Meanwhile, the gratitude I’ll have this Thanksgiving will still come: from having had the chance to know this love, even in its pain.”
– Sarah Wildman, writing about her daughter, 11/19/2023

Filed Under: Autobiography, Dementia Caregiver

Letter from the Universe

March 1, 2022 by

To: Robert H. Giles, Jr., Ph.D., Virginia Tech Professor Emeritus

From: The Universe

Robert "Bob" Hayes Giles, Jr., Ph.D.

Dear Bob,

This is to acknowledge your extended service to The Universe.

First, we want to affirm your understandings. For all meaningful human purposes, you are correct that the universe is so complex as to appear random and chaotic. Within that complexity, however, reasonable probabilities can be calculated. Therefore, we confirm that your idea to use a systems approach with natural resource management, and then to apply a systems approach to pretty much everything, was sound.

Your genes, your choices, and your luck determine your life span. Your luck ran out and your brain began to degenerate. You were correct that life without a functioning brain is a limited life, indeed. Your wish to The Universe was to contribute to science. You have done so and, as you surmised, can contribute no more. We await the donation of your body to science as your final act of service.

That said, on the rarest of occasions, for no reason we can or will convey to you, The Universe sometimes senses tiny, flaming bursts of on-going anguish. We noted this in one Anne Giles, your eldest daughter, resident of Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. She was caught home alone, partnerless and childless, during a global lockdown, during a pandemic. There is a level of despair that does not cause death, but creates a living death. She was on the precipice.

Although we sensed your anguish and your despair, we also sensed that you sensed your daughter’s distress. Simply put, she may have needed you in order to make it through.

We are not sure how you did it, but, perhaps as an Eagle Scout, as a past-President of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, as an Army Ranger, as a Wine Award-winning teacher and scholar, you felt called to service beyond your own needs and wishes. In the context of random chaos, we cannot know one way or the other if she would have been able to gather herself without you. Given the 300,000-year history of Homo sapiens, among the 100 billion people who have ever lived, the odds of her life making a difference are nearly zero.

The secret about despair, though, is that a person has to love her life to care enough to despair for it.

Do you or your daughter deserve notice from the universe? You neither deserve not do not deserve it. This letter may seem real but the data suggests this is a work of the imagination and not real at all. We cannot know for sure.

Nonetheless, in a rare commendation, The Universe thanks you for sacrificing your peace for hers. Her memories from the pandemic are anchored in what appeared to be her greeting and parting hugs every time she visited you in your assisted living facility, but were really her holding onto your thinning shoulders for dear life.

Of all the people left on the planet, you were the one she had known and loved – and been loved by – the longest. Instead of toppling end over end in our chaos, she held onto you.

In the midst of the direst time in the last 100 years of human history, you were unable to speak in ways that made sense. Yet, you still showed her and gave her what lasts and what matters, at least in the human universe: Deliberating choosing values. Deliberating living by them. Choosing what one says and does, even in the end. Love.

When you were a young man, The Universe heard your musings, while your young daughter also listened, about the measure of one’s love. “To love unto death?” you asked, looking up at our moon and stars.

Bob, mission accomplished. In the context of your sacrifice and love, you gave your eldest daughter time to find a new inner strength and presence that will carry her through to her end.

The Universe usually is neutral, neither caring nor not caring about the 100 billion humans who have lived on one of its planets. But, Bob, truly, really? With only strands left of who you could be, you chose love? We take note.

We see no more for you to do, Bob. You are welcome to stay or go, your choice. Yours has been a life nobly-lived.

With respect,

The Universe

Filed Under: Autobiography

I Am Still Here

January 26, 2022 by

My 90-year-old neighbor supervised me while I dug up the lawn along our fence to plant a shared garden during lockdown. He shook his head and said, “My wife was strong. But you’re about the strongest woman I ever did see.”

Anne Giles

At museums, I have recognized only one other female figure shaped as I am, a Roman statue of a wounded Amazon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I have been strength-training since I was 13. That’s 50 years.

These days, who I am seems only to exist in a Zoom screen. Who I was has been pulled like so many weeds from my father‘s memory by dementia. I have been attempting to learn Mandarin Chinese. If I speak aloud and no one answers, am I still here? Am I still me?

When I saw Debbie Smith had captured the true and beautiful selves of my friends in their “40 Over 40” photos, I asked if she would see me, too.

“I am still here.” That’s what these photos say to me. In spite of living in isolation during a pandemic, in spite of my identity as my father’s daughter eroding hand-in-hand with his own identity, in spite of the diminishments of aging, I am still myself.

Like a colored plate in an illustrated specimen book of plants and flowers, I am just one among the 100 billion humans estimated to have ever lived.

On my page in that history – the first and worst tragedy in my life – my hips were never widened, my breasts and belly never softened by childbearing. These photos document what a face and a body with this bittersweet story look like.

What I feel for myself as I look at these photos – and for all 100 billion of us – is deep compassion and appreciation. How exquisite and tragic this being human is! How brave we all are!

Anne Giles

Photos by Debbie Smith

All content on this site is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or professional advice. Consult a qualified health care professional for personalized medical and professional advice.

Filed Under: Autobiography

Looking for Evidence-Based Love

September 24, 2017 by

I seek ways to do better by myself and others in ways that feel rich and meaningful. At 58, with probably more than half of my life over, I would like to use what’s left of my mind, heart and body to give less time to trial-and-error discoveries, and more time to ways that research reports are likely to work well.

 

Research experiments are literal trial-and-error attempts to draw conclusions about what’s true most of the time. When the research is about people, the results report what’s true for most people most of the time, more than something else, and more than nothing at all.

Given the complexity of each individual – a veritable universe unto each self – the evidence from research can’t speak to what works for all individuals all of the time. But it’s simple economics to go with what science says is more likely to be effective, rather than bank on the chance my individual case might be the exception to the research results.

Here’s more about my thinking. Given a finite resource – the length of time I have left in my life – I did a cost-benefit analysis of continuing to do things as I have (likely to produce the same results, many of which have been disappointing), or to try something different as suggested by research. Then I did an opportunity cost analysis. I considered opening one door, all the while knowing I don’t get to open the other doors.

Shall I continue to choose what I have chosen in the past? If not, on what basis will I make a different choice? Whim?! Tempting in its wild freedom! But so pricey if the results of my choice cause harm. Research? Not whimsical or sexy, at least in the short-term. But I increase the likelihood that I achieve my intended objective: to do well by myself and others.

That’s why I study the research literature on love. Single at 58, with two marriages ended, I’m not shy about acknowledging I need to do things differently.

“Success” in relationships tends to be measured by researchers in terms of “relationship satisfaction.” Components of relationship satisfaction include “measures of love, sexual attitudes, self-disclosure, commitment, and investment in a relationship.”

Those are vague terms. Let me see if I can elaborate.

Based on my studies, paired with my professional training and experience, and adding my personal anecdotal data, I’ve attempted to derive a reasonable plan for applying what research reports might result in good lovin’ during our last years.

Read the groan-inducing article on the difference between love and “limerence” by David Sacks. If you can still find the wherewithal to even consider going on a date again, even for coffee, keep reading.

Read Love Cycles: The Five Essential Stages of Lasting Love. Linda Carroll’s observations, supported by neuroscience research, aptly described the spirals, then crash landings, of my own marriages and relationships with partners. As a result of her straightforward recommendations, I felt gently informed, respectfully challenged, and newly capable of adult loving.

Read Naked at Our Age, or one of Joan Price’s other books about sexuality for mature lovers. (You know why.)

On the first date, follow Alain de Botton‘s suggestion and take turns asking and answering, “And how are you crazy?”

On the second date, try the first of The 36 Questions That Lead to Love.

Co-create an imaginary conflict that might come up within the relationship and talk through it. Perhaps the topic is a potential mismatch noted in the reports on craziness, or a feared future difficulty from a past relationship.

According to relationship researcher John Gottman, relationships high in satisfaction provide safe havens for each individual and for the relationship. Life happens, however, disagreements occur, and keeping relationships safe requires conscious effort. In “The Science of Togetherness,” Gottman writes, “Based on carefully observing couples and coding their responses, we’ve found that the key requirements for a safe haven are: (1) physiological calm, which is built by physiologically self-soothing and soothing one’s partner; (2) trust, which is built by attunement; and (3) commitment, which is built by cherishing (positive comps) and by turning toward bids for emotional connection.” (“Positive comps” are favorable comparisons of one’s partner to other potential partners.)

That means that I can calm myself, contribute to you calming yourself, trust that you and I are both trying to sync how we’re being with each other, consciously prefer you to other partners, and respond to attempts to connect rather than ignore or reject them. And you do the same.

Co-create a “fake news” event that both would find stressful and talk through how you would cope as a couple. Couples who cope together stay together.

The idea is to do an imaginary walk-through of the potential “safe haven” and see how it might withstand the winds of both internal and external stressors.

Read and talk about Mark and Mandy’s signed relationship contract. Become aware of feelings of ambivalence about freedom vs. belonging. Talk through the pros and cons of individuality vs. conformity. Talk about the possibility of the in-between, the I-Thou in which intimacy happens and synergy can occur. I have felt it enough times and seen it more: two individuals can truly, together, be more than the sum of their parts.

I learned that Cinderella and The Handsome Prince, Barbie and Ken, all lived happily ever after. I didn’t realize that the pumpkin carriage wheel broke a spoke and the toilet clogged in the Dream House. I thought problems didn’t happen or magically repaired themselves. I know now that the magic is in being turned towards each other while doing what needs to be done, handling what happens, and co-creating chances for contentment, intimacy, and joy.

At 58, I realize I’m looking less for a handsome prince than a savvy pumpkin carriage wrangler. He rides up to my 1944 cottage driving an obscenely fast pumpkin and waves a toilet plunger. I feel a shimmer of limerence. I laugh. He laughs. Then he says, “Babe, I read what you wrote about how you’re crazy. Can you summarize that for me?”

And I say, “Ooh, baby, that’s attunement!” Then neuroscience happens and I literally lose my mind. My prefrontal cortex is flooded with feeling and all I can remember about love is what I read in Joan Price’s book.

And he says, “Say, I saw your post on love. Are those your pumpkins in that photo?” I giggle. And he and I – we – laugh together.

Filed Under: Autobiography
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