It's Complicated

How did things get so complicated all of a sudden? I've done my best to avoid complication, to avoid even thinking about complication, and all the same I'm confronted by a set of difficulties that won't go away by ignoring them. - Greg Garrett in "Cycling".

Day 132. Logging on to the website tonight was an arduous process to say the least. I've boldly been to screens I've never seen before. Somehow I got to my White Screen of Blog, so - mission accomplished. It still startles me that novices such as myself can traipse around in cyberspace in absolute confusion and still end up at their destination. Though they say it's about the journey . . .

When I read I turn down corners of pages and underline passages (if there is a pencil handy) and write down phrases that stand out for me. I am enamored with words strung together well. I was looking for the quote I wanted to use tonight, knowing it was somewhere in the novel I'm reading. As I looked it up, I realized there are a dozen or more dogged-eared pages with words strung by Greg Garrett that I wanted to remember. Very cool. I will be reading more of him.

I suspect I am not the only person saturated with news on the BP oil spill. It is heartbreaking, devastating, infuriating, and incomprehensible. I am irritated with the redundant repetition of the reporting. This many gallons leaked, this particular method for stopping the leak failed, this many jobs lost, this many claims filed, this much money spent on cleanup and payment on claims, this many birds and animals and acres impacted, these safety precautions dodged or minimized, this many lies and defenses and rationale told, these sanctions being considered.

It reminds me of the way obesity and the associated medical complications are reported in the U.S. This many people overweight, this increase in diabetes, stroke, and heart attack, this much money spent on weight loss programs and products, this congressional study and that latest report from the ADA, this newest diet promise, that new exercise regime, those new supplements and fat burners, this new school lunch program. Numbers and statistics don't tell the story, and they certainly don't solve the problem.

All phenomena involving human behavior is complicated. Period. It is impossible to avoid complication, whether or not we are comfortable thinking about it. I have treated eating disorders for over twenty years. If recovery from disordered eating, including obesity, was as straightforward as telling people how much they should eat and how much they should exercise, a third of our population wouldn't be obese and one in five young women wouldn't have disordered eating. We spend billions of dollars on nutritional and exercise information each year; it's not that there is a lack of information about how and what and when and how much we should eat. It's more complicated than that.

Eating is human behavior, just like running a business for profit is human behavior. The current buzz in understanding the etiology of disordered eating is grounded in the BioPsychoSocial model. That is, there are biological, psychological, and sociological variables that interweave and interact with one another to produce complex behaviors. To further muddy the waters, these variables operate as predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating influences. That means things that affect us do so by rendering us biologically vulnerable, by triggering or catalyzing a reaction aimed at adaptation, and/or by creating circumstances that reinforce what we're doing so that we keep doing it. We no longer explain eating disorders as rich young white girls with controlling mothers striving to be exceptionally thin. It's more complicated than that.

The average citizen doesn't tend to comprehend things determined by such complex causes. Media reporting is aimed at condensing information to simplistic, understandable reductions. The problem with this is that we get lazy in our comprehension and reductionistic in our conceptualization of solutions. Then we get angry and look around for who to blame when the simplistic solutions fail. Most of us are too busy calibrating the color scheme on our high definition TV's and streaming the latest Tweets to bother with a more thorough analysis of daily events. That's too bad, since thorough analysis is often the precursor to effective problem solving.

The BP debacle is obviously a catastrophic environmental, social and financial event. It is about so much more than spilled oil, ruined wetlands, and failed attempts at capping the leak. Underneath the obvious implications and consequences is a terrifying reminder that horrific risks are taken in the quest for financial gain. That profit overrides safety and adherence to rules and complying with standards of professional conduct. That individuals in positions of enormous power and influence believe they are above being policed and receiving consequences. That the emerging level of moral decision making comes down to, "Let's do it if we don't get caught." Congruent with current culturally-sanctioned values, business is increasingly being conducted with the absence of accountability, responsibility, and ethics and the presence of flagrant ego-driven, profit-centered disregard for the well-being of the planet and its occupants. What's mine is what matters. What's right isn't even considered.

I'm going to stay Buddhist. I'm going to keep studying the Eightfold Path, which provides guidelines from which to live. I'm trying to remember to care less about what's mine and more about what's ours, and how do we take care of it. The interrelatedness of all events and people on earth is indisputable. I hope it rises in the collective consciousness. Whether we like it or not, we are being confronted with a set of difficulties that won't go away by ignoring them.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc