20002000
"How To Want What You Have; Discovering the Magic and grandeur of OrdinaryExistence" by Timothy Miller, Ph.D. Henry Hold and Company NY 1995,paperback $12.00, 259 pgs.
Like most deaf people I have been approached more than a few times by well meaning, kind-hearted people anxious to let me know how "brave" I am. "I could never do what you do" they exclaim with glittering eyes and faces alight with good intentions. I often wonder at such times if perhaps they think I volunteered to be deaf. Certainly, they see me as someone laboring valiantly in the valley of misfortune.
It wasn't that long ago that I did see myself that way; ranting against fate, filling up time with regrets, which in turn filled up my life up with negative experiences and feelings which rode my shoulders with unremitting weight day in and day out.
In "How To Want What You Have" Dr Miller takes dead aim at this mind set, formulating his theories of life around the premise that rather than constantly demanding "more," as we all do, what is needed is an awareness of what we already have, appreciation for the moment and understanding and kindness to our fellow travelers in this world.
It all sounds terribly elementary and rather boring, and I can imagine a whole lot of you are thinking just about now of flipping the page in hopes of finding something more interesting to read. But stop a moment. Think about it. Think about how much of our lives are devoted to wishing we had something other than what we have: a new house for example, normal hearing of course, or perhaps something as small as a package of spaghetti for dinner.
All of us do this, but the problem is that in doing so we forget the roof we do have that keeps us warm and dry and the joys of the world apart from sound- not to mention the can of baked beans in the cabinet.
Fundamental, easy, simple you say with your hand poised over the page corner- hardly worthy of a whole book's worth of space. Wait though, and consider that it is often the simple things in our overly complex lives that give us the most trouble, and so it is with the ideas put forth in this book. It is in it's very simplicity vastly challenging; calling forus, as it does, to make fundamental changes in life long habits.
Reading through this book for the first time, I scanned quickly and then tossed it aside, with few thoughts other than "that's nice," and went on with my rather unhappy and desire-filled life. Three years and four reads later I began to really understand what Dr Miller is getting at in the visceral sense that is necessary if ideas are to be life changing catalysts rather than intellectual playthings.
Several years ago I wrote a poem titled "Celebration" in which I listed all the things I could do - feel the grass between my toes, run through the snow on wind filled days and smell fresh cut hay. A recurring line in the poem was that I would "celebrate my deafness" in these acts. At the time the poem seemed just an enjoyable burst of creativity, but now, after reading and working with Dr Miller's book I see that unconsciously I had come to the realization that life situations, no matter how trying they maybe, can be celebrated; in gratitude for what we have, rather than anger at what we have been denied.
This is a book which will greatly reward the motivated reader in search ofa new world view. I still don't WANT to be deaf, but I have, courtesy of Dr. Miller, learned that everything does indeed, as the old saying goes, depend on your point of view- and celebration is a heck of a lot more fun than ranting against what cannot be changed.
A personal word:
I want to take a few moments to tell you how much I enjoy sharing my love of reading with you all. Recently however, I have been thinking of the fact that my own taste does not necessarily reflect that of everyone else. It must be painfully apparent to those who have followed my ramblings that I personally stick pretty much to non-fiction. Yet I know that the majority of people prefer fiction. To attempt to even the scale of coverage I would like to invite those who have recently read a good book, whether fiction or not, to write to me (wicwas@wcvt.com) and tell me about it BRIEFLY in three or four sentences, which can then be included in future issues of the newsletter.
A famous quote of a man of letters, engraved on his tombstone:
The Body of B. Franklin, Printer, Like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Guilding, Lies here, Food for Worms.But the Work shall not be wholly lost:For it will, as he believed, appear once more,In a new and more perfect Edition, Corrected and ammended by the Author.