Civil disobedience as a moral act: quick thoughts after reading Crito by Plato

At the opening of the short dialogue Crito, Socrates is found sleeping peacefully in his jail cell as his execution day draws near. When his friend Crito arrives (after bribing the guard), Socrates greets him joyfully, and Crito is surprised by Socrates’ serenity in the face of death. Crito then passionately attempts to convince Socrates to escape with him. Crito makes it clear that with his wealth and influence he can easily sneak Socrates out of prison and whisk him away to a foreign land where he can live out his days in safety, far from the Athenian authorities who wish to see him dead. It will be no trouble at all to escape, if Socrates will only allow his friends to save his life.

Crito offers a variety of arguments for why Socrates should flee, chief among them that Socrates has been unjustly convicted by the state and wronged by his countrymen, so therefore he has no obligation to submit meekly (perhaps even shamefully) to their judgement. The honorable action would be to disregard Athenian law and escape while he still can. He could then continue his teaching as a fugitive and exile. One additional perk to this plan would be that by staying alive he would allow his friends and students to have more time with their beloved Socrates, whom they honor above all others.

Despite his friend’s urging, Socrates remains unconvinced. He proceeds (in his typical fashion) to thoroughly dismantle Crito’s arguments, and instead posits that the truly moral act is to stay in prison and face his impending death. Along the way, Socrates makes an argument that has sparked 2,500 years of further debate among political philosophers: it is a moral and just act to obey the laws of one’s country at all cost, even if those laws appear unjust; to disobey an unjust law is in itself an immoral, shameful, and unjust act.

Socrates argues the following: If one is born in a country and chooses to live there rather than flee to a foreign country, he is bound by a sacred vow (or at least, an implied contract) to obey the laws of that country. This is like an early and extreme version of the social contract: if one chooses to live in a country and reap the benefits of citizenship, one thereby agrees to obey all laws, decrees, verdicts, and orders issued by the government of that country, regardless of whether they are just or moral. If one does not consider the laws of his country to be just, he should renounce his citizenship and move elsewhere. Since Socrates had lived his whole life in Athens, married his wife and raised his children in Athens, fought in the Athenian military, and never once thought of renouncing his citizenship all those years, he must not turn his back on his country the moment a judgement doesn’t go his way. After everything the city had done for him all these years, it would be dishonorable to disobey and abandon her in the end, simply to save his own life.

At the same time Socrates argues that one’s country is like one’s father. He raises the child up and nurtures him, directs the child’s education (both moral and scientific), and gives the child a share of his own hard-earned wealth; the child in return must obey and honor his father, thereby acknowledging the debt he owes to the man who raised him. So it is with one’s country, which nourishes and educates its citizens, and therefore deserves the same honor one bestows upon his father.

My first thought upon reading Socrates’ argument that any citizen who chooses to live in a country enters into an agreement with that country to obey all laws whether they are just or not was that this line of reasoning would render all forms of civil disobedience immoral. If a citizen (or second class citizen) falls prey to a discriminatory or persecutorial law (for example a Jim Crow or Apartheid law), Socrates might argue that this citizen is morally bound by justice to obey the discriminatory law, simply because that citizen failed to flee to a new country when he had the chance.

In a world where some citizens are treated differently than others (due to poverty, ethnicity, social status, employment status, etc.), and various groups of citizens fall victim to discriminatory laws, it seems absurd to argue that those most harmed by such laws are morally required to obey them, and that by choosing to live in a country one forfeits his right to publicly object to or protest whatever injustices might be baked into that system. Would it have been a moral act for an African American citizen living in the southern United States in the 1950s to silently accept the gross injustices of Jim Crow, and immoral for him to disobey a racist law? One could argue the opposite: it is shameful to acquiesce to unjust treatment, and honorable (moral) to protest such a system, even if (especially if) that system was legally created by the duly elected parliamentary body (the body that also, of course, makes the rules on who gets to vote on the members of that body).

Socrates was unjustly convicted, but his conviction was done in a lawful fashion. Thus Socrates believes he must obey the sentence and give up his life. But what if an entire legal system or economic system are inherently unjust or imperfect, as all such systems are to various degrees? How could obeyance of such an imperfect system be a perfectly moral act, so moral in fact that the morality defies all context: no matter how unjust the law may be, it is always moral and required that citizens obey it? It seems to me that it can never be a 100% moral act to obey any human institution, since every human institution will be flawed or corrupted in some way and to some degree. There is always nuance, always context. Perhaps it is moral to obey a law that orders one not to kill his child, but it is immoral to stand silently by while an innocent man is sentenced to death because of his ideas, as Socrates was.

Perhaps by protesting such a verdict Socrates could have introduced the idea to the public that one should not be sentenced to death for his ideas, that there should be protections for free speech that even the government (even the democracy) cannot override. And perhaps by spreading this idea, Socrates could have persuaded enough of the populace to actually initiate some reforms. Though this is far-fetched, it proves a point: in this example Socrates would have made his legal system more moral by disobeying the law. This shows that there are examples where it is more moral to break a law than follow it. After all, if by protesting or disobeying an unjust system we make it more just, how could that protest be an unjust act? In this light, civil disobedience can be a moral act, since it can help a country shed some of its more egregiously unjust laws. (Then again, perhaps by martyring himself Socrates accomplished the same goal: to spread awareness of just how grossly unjust and absurd it is to execute a man for his ideas).

Oftentimes (even in democracies) minorities are left with few options when the laws are stacked against them. When the duly elected legislature fails to dismantle these laws, perhaps because of economic/racist/sexist/religious/political motives, it is up to the citizenry to take action. But if a majority of the citizenry supports discriminatory laws, the minority may find themselves in an impossible situation. When all the mechanisms of power are locked away and all the “legitimate” avenues of change are blocked by an elite (or by a majority) determined to keep certain groups out of the halls of power, citizens who are oppressed by the laws have little recourse other than to protest, to disobey, to interfere. Rob them of this tactic (by branding their protest as inherently immoral or even illegal), and they are left only with silent acquiescence. They are to become slaves.

One might argue that if a law is truly unjust it should be left to the democracy to legally overturn it (and therefore we do not need civil disobedience at all), but this leaves minorities at the mercy of the majority. If a black citizen in Mississippi has been “lawfully” convicted by a racist jury and condemned to die by a racist judge (following to the letter the laws written by racist legislators, who were voted into office by racist voters), it is not shameful or unjust for that man to flee in the dead of night (if he is able to do so) and evade his executioners (as Socrates might have done). One only has one life to live. By living in a given country, one does not automatically agree to silently forfeit that life in the event some powerful, entrenched elites wish to see him dead.

It is of course difficult to objectively state which laws are just and which are unjust. A gun lover who believes it is unjust for the state to tell him he can’t bring a rifle to a preschool might believe it is a moral act to protest that law by bringing a rifle into a preschool. Without a clear conception of “justice” we easily sink into relativism: anyone who disagrees with a law can label it unjust and disobey it, and by doing so he is acting justly (from his point of view). I am not trying to argue that an individual has the moral right to disobey any law he wishes, nor that any law a person disagrees with must be an unjust law. Clearly we need a clearer picture of the difference between a truly unjust law and a regular law that certain citizens disagree about.

I’ll have to save the laborious process of defining justice for another day. For now I’ll just say this much: breaking a law is not an inherently unjust act. Laws are human institutions, not some higher, heavenly ideal before which we all must bow. If a law is wrong it must be fixed; if the democracy refuses to do so, then the democracy absorbs the immorality that was formerly localized in that unjust law. In this situation, the oppressed citizen might be acting morally by working (in a legal or extra-legal fashion) to purge the injustice from the system.

The context is key: what is the law, who is affected by it, why was it created, who benefits from it, and who is harmed? We mustn’t ignore those questions when assessing the morality of a political action, as Socrates does. Also: do those affected by unjust laws have any legal remedy, or are all legal and “legitimate” mechanisms closed to them, leaving protest or civil disobedience (or even violence) as the only options? If so, then we should hesitate before calling their attempts to overthrow systemic injustice “immoral.” The real key here is that context matters; questions of immorality are never black and white.

I believe that those who are abused by the state (as Socrates was) have no moral obligation to silently obey their abuser, just as an abused child has no moral obligation to obey an abusive father (to use Socrates’ own metaphor). The state, like a parent, needs to earn our loyalty by acting justly towards us. If a father acts justly some of the time, a child acts morally by obeying in those moments; when a father acts unjustly (for example, by beating his child), the child is not immoral to disapprove of or disobey or flee from his father. The shock of this protest against injustice may even prove to be a learning opportunity for the father (or the state, in the event of a protest against an unjust law). It is difficult for me to see how the very act of protesting injustice could, in all contexts, be unjust.

Socrates makes a further argument: a man who disobeys one of his country’s laws seeks to destroy his country. In other words, any single act of disobedience against the state is the same as declaring war against that country’s entire legal system. Socrates conflates the protest against one single unjust law with the complete destruction of the city, as if recognizing the injustice of one law automatically makes one a traitor to his country; so if Socrates were illegally to flee from his unjust execution, this action would actually be an attempt to destroy Athens itself, just as a child who disobeys his father one time must be trying to kill his father. And since it is usually wrong to seek the destruction of one’s own country (or the death of one’s father), we must therefore offer up our complete submission in all matters to both city and father. Even if one’s father is insane, we must submit; even if a country’s laws are insane, we must submit.¹ We must be slaves to both, because to ever disobey either would be the same as treason and murder.

This is a common conflation in Plato’s work: we are forced to consider the city as a whole, rather than thinking clearly about its component parts (which are single laws or individuals). In Republic Plato tells us we are supposed to aim for the happiness of the city at the expense of the individual. Individuals are asked to sacrifice their freedom, political power, and social mobility all for the sake of making “the city” happy, whatever that means. The component part is asked to sacrifice all for the good of the abstract whole; the component part (in this case, a human individual) does not matter at all, only the city matters. In Crito we are asked to accept the entire law code our city puts forth, or else accept the premise that we hate the city and wish to see it destroyed. Again we must ignore the component parts (the individual unjust laws) and focus all of our love and devotion on the abstract whole (the city). An attack on one part is the same, in Plato’s eyes, as an attack on the whole. This is faulty reasoning that demands we only take notice of abstracts, and completely ignore the concrete component parts that actually affect our real lives as humans. We know from experience that this way of thinking is dangerous: a country’s legal code can be full of both just and unjust laws, but if we label as treason any attempt to improve those unjust laws, we will fail ever to innovate, to improve, to grow. The injustice within the system will breed and grow, safe and sheltered from all harm by an ideology that makes citizens too fearful ever to question the morality of any single law, since those citizens will be labeled as traitors and city destroyers. Socrates seems to believe that instead of protesting unjust laws, the best remedy for an oppressed person is simply to renounce one’s citizenship completely and seek citizenship elsewhere. Afterall, as Socrates argues, if one stays in the country with unjust laws, he tacitly agrees that all the laws in that country must be just. It’s all or nothing for him.

Side note: Can I just mention also that it is pretty cavalier for Socrates to state that if one wishes not to follow the laws of his country, that he should simply pack up and leave it. He makes it sound so obvious that one who disagrees with his country’s laws can easily uproot himself, abandon his family, friends, and career, and set off for a new land in search of laws that are more just (and that the persecuted citizen must flee before he has been officially convicted of a crime; once convicted he is bound to stay put and face his sentence bravely). In reality not everyone has the option to flee if one’s country has unjust laws. David Hume once wrote: “Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artizan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires? We may as well assert, that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean, and perish, the moment he leaves her.”² Socrates seems to forget, or not notice, that most people who are oppressed by the state don’t have wealthy friends like Crito who can simply whisk them away to safety, and that choosing to become an emigrant is an uncertain, heart-breaking, and dangerous adventure that most people choose only out of sheer desperation. Emigration is not the handy solution that Socrates makes it out to be. By ignoring this reality, he finds it easy to condemn anyone who refuses to either leave their homeland prior to a conviction or to obey unjust laws.

Then again maybe I have this whole thing wrong. Maybe Socrates isn’t making a grand statement that following the law is always a just act if one loves his country. Perhaps instead he is only making a personal statement: for him personally, it would be unjust to break the law because of his own unique feelings about his country and his own unique situation. Perhaps for Gandhi civil disobedience was a just act because of his own unique situation. In other words, maybe Socrates isn’t making a blanket statement, but instead arguing that justice is in the eye of the beholder. Therefore it isn’t universally unjust and immoral to flee from prison; it is only unjust for Socrates to do so because of his own beliefs and intuitions. According to this view, we each choose our own version of justice and live our lives accordingly; we will all be judged according to our own internal metrics of justice.

I don’t really think he’s arguing that way in Crito. His language in the dialogue suggests he has a more universal view of law and morality (disobeying the laws of one’s country is always immoral), not that he’s just sharing his own personal take on his own unique situation. In fact the “eye of the beholder” argument is an argument for relativism, which flies right in the face of Plato’s theory of forms (expressed in other dialogues such as Republic and Phaedo). This theory states that there are certain ideal and perfect phenomena (such as Justice) which are more real than our own reality, and pre-date our reality. These ideals provide the meaning behind the words we use, even if we often use the words incorrectly (for example by labeling an unjust act as just). They also demonstrate just how hollow and paltry man’s real-world understanding of justice truly is, and how often we fall short of the ideal. In fact, humans never experience ideal Justice in the real world; the only reason we have any understanding of this concept whatsoever is because of a deep-seated memory of the ideal from a past life, when the world was younger and humans were closer to the gods (this is part of Plato’s proof that the soul is eternal, in Phaedo). It is the philosopher’s job to contemplate the true meaning of Justice and teach others to seek objective and universal truth as well. Philosophers must avoid getting wrapped up in day to day situations and particulars (the way most people do as they go through their daily routines and the challenges of life), and instead keep their eyes aimed up toward the heavens, always seeking universal understandings and higher truths. Since Socrates seems to think of himself as just this kind of philosopher, it seems out of character for him to apply the word “justice” to the narrow context of his own execution, while leaving room for others to follow a different standard and remain just in his eyes. No, when Socrates uses the word “just” he is making a universal claim (he’s no relativist). Therefore disobeying the laws of one’s country is flat-out wrong; civil disobedience is immoral.

Yet I still hesitate to believe that Socrates really thought this way about the law. In another dialogue, The Apology, Socrates argues that divine authority (and Socrates’ own quest for truth) supersede the laws and decrees of Athens. The authorities wish him to stop being a philosopher, but he refuses. That version of Socrates makes it clear that even if the government legally enacted a law banning him from philosophizing, he would be compelled by a higher power (perhaps his sense of justice?) to disobey that law. His purpose on this earth is to help men discover truth, to question, to teach; through these actions he lives a moral and just life. So in this case he is willing to ignore the man-made authority of the city in favor of his own sense of what is right and moral: he will never cease to question authority, search for truth, and practice philosophy, no matter what the laws of Athens may require. It seems then that Socrates does not consider civil disobedience to be an inherently immoral act, since he would in fact be willing to disobey a law if, by so doing, he was honoring his commitment to moral behavior.

So does he contradict himself between these two dialogues? Maybe so. But I think we should let him off the hook. After all, how consistent and calm would I be if I was put on trial for my life, found guilty, and sentenced to death, all because of my personal beliefs and ideas. I find it difficult to judge a man for his beliefs on justice when he has been unjustly condemned and faces his own immanent death. But due to this contradiction, maybe we shouldn’t try to pull some timeless truth about morality and law from Socrates’ words; perhaps it’s pointless to take ideas that are over two thousand years old and attempt to make them seem relevant and true today. Perhaps instead the point of reading Plato is just to allow our thoughts to be provoked. If it gets us all thinking and questioning, that’s worthwhile!

Notes

This paragraph was inspired by Leo Strauss’s essay, “Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito,” in Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), 61-62.
David Hume, “Of the Original Contract,” in Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1777), paragraph 24, accessed online at https://davidhume.org/texts/empl2/oc.

December 26, 2021December 26, 2021

Leukemia Journal 5: Home for Christmas

Today we are home. Yesterday was Christmas, and we were finally all together at home again, the four of us, after nine long days apart. Charlie just got home from a lengthy hospital stay, just in time for Christmas (it was really coming down to the wire). The children could wake up Christmas morning in their own beds, and race to the living room to find that Santa had come. We could all open our presents and cook brunch and watch Christmas movies and listen to the rain falling outside, cozy at home and very much together. In so many ways we are very very lucky.

Today Charlie looks today like a happy, healthy little boy. As I mentioned in previous posts, the doctors were able to put his Leukemia completely into remission within a couple weeks of treatment. All the subsequent treatments (over the course of the next two years or so) are meant to hunt down and eradicate the teeny tiny remnants of Leukemia hiding here and there in his body, in order to permanently prevent relapse down the road. So for the past month Charlie has been essentially cancer-free, which means he no longer has to deal with the bone pain, extreme fatigue, and the generally yucky feeling that comes with having Leukemia. Now that he isn’t in pain any more, his personality has come roaring back. He is goofy and quirky and hilarious most of the time, a ray of sunshine and joy who lifts the spirits of all who come into contact with him. He’s also been gaining strength, and making real progress on his mission to walk again. He’s plump and rosy-cheeked and precocious. These days he really resembles a happy little puppy, crawling and wiggling around the house, hopping up on my lap for a belly rub, happy to be alive.

We have officially entered the second phase of treatment, called Consolidation. I’m not sure what exactly is being consolidated, but I do know that this phase is supposed to be an intense one. It lasts for eight weeks or so, and during that time Charlie will have to endure multiple sessions of chemotherapy (the medicine kind, not the radiation kind), and stay at the hospital for at least four different stretches so the doctors can monitor him while the chemo works its way out of his system.

On Dec. 13 we entered the hospital for the first of these four stays. Each time we go in for a session like this, it’s always a bit of a bummer because we know that the chemo is going to knock Charlie down a bit, and erase some of the progress he’s made. The drugs make him feel pretty bad, sapping his energy for a while and bringing on waves of nausea. It’s only temporary until the medicine is out of his system, but it still isn’t easy to watch him suffer. Personally, there’s a part of me that feels like it’s wrong to give my child medicine that makes him feel sick (it’s not the cancer making him sick right now, it’s the treatment), almost as if I am choosing to bring on his suffering. However I also understand that we have to proceed with this course of treatment in order to actually cure the cancer. If we stopped treatment early, in order to spare him this discomfort and expedite his return to normal kid-life, the cancer would definitely return in short order. To make it worse, if we leave the cancer cells alone and allow them to rebuild their population, they will adapt and become resistant to treatment, since only the strongest and most wily of the cancer cells have survived these first rounds of chemo. If those survivors are allowed to reproduce and spread, they’ll create a new generation of super-cancer that would be impervious to the chemo. So we have to see this through, even it makes Charlie sick.

This most recent stay was a long one, nine days. It was supposed to be four days, but the chemo just wasn’t leaving Charlie’s system quickly enough, so we had to wait and wait. Predictably, the chemo made Charlie feel gross for a few days. Since the oncology unit practices very strict anti-germ protocols, Charlie isn’t allowed to leave the 5th floor of the hospital during his stays, so we can’t go outside for a walk or explore the hospital or take him to the cafe. Unfortunately Charlie’s life becomes a bit one dimensional when he’s admitted for long stretches. But we try to mix it up however we can. As Charlie slowly got his strength back and started to feel better again, as the chemo left his system, we set up a play mat on the floor of the hospital room and played with cars and puzzles. We watched the Cars movie a hundred times, and watched the hospital helicopter take off and land outside our window. We took a stroller walk around the 5th floor and tried to find all the Christmas trees (we found two).

During that time, as we creeped closer and closer to Christmas, we started to get nervous that we would need to spend Christmas apart. During the hospital stays, Erica and I alternate who stays at the hospital and who stays home with Jack (he isn’t allowed to visit Charlie due to Covid protocols). We really wanted the Christmas magic to be there for the boys this year, we really wanted them to be together. As the big day approached, and the doctors still told us we’d be there “a few more days”, we were working out the logistics of who would stay home Christmas Eve to wrap all the presents and make sure Santa came.

Then, the day before Christmas Eve, they told us we can go home. It was such a narrow window of home time – we return for the next chemo session tomorrow, on the Dec. 27th – but it just so happened that we got to be home right on Christmas. It timed out perfectly, four days at home that landed perfectly at Christmas. We are so grateful for that time at home with these boys. And to top it all off, Charlie looks better than ever, a happy healthy little puppy. After just a day at home, he had bounced right back strength-wise. We know that the next chemo session might last another nine days, and that it will likely make him sick for a little while. But now we also know that he bounces back, that he’s resilient. We used to struggle with administering his daily medicines; now that’s just part of his routine. He used to struggle to sit up on his own; now (after much practice) he can pretty much stand up on his own again. Charlie has demonstrated that he can do hard things, that he can get through the unpleasant parts, which is a skill that will transcend this stage in his life and allow him to survive (and hopefully even thrive) through all the difficult phases that come throughout a long life.

At least for this moment, the day after Christmas, Charlie isn’t dealing with anything particularly difficult. Today there’s no pain or yucky feeling or chemo. Today he’s surrounded by Christmas presents and people who love him. His only job today is to crawl and wiggle around the house, to play and laugh and eat, to live a care-free lifestyle, the way a three year old should. We’ll go back to the hospital tomorrow, but today is all about fun. Every life is full of these oscillations, where one day is fun and another is hard. We all have to learn that when it’s time to work we must work, and when it’s time to play we must stop working and go play. It will never be all fun all the time, but if we are resilient and clever, hopefully it won’t always be work either. I wouldn’t expect a three year old to understand this lesson, but Charlie has miraculously already learned it. His joy for life is contagious, even when he has to do hard things. I can’t think of an individual better suited to deal with the difficult road ahead than Charlie.

November 13, 2021December 26, 2021

Leukemia Journal 4: Slow Gains

It’s been almost a month since Charlie was diagnosed with Leukemia.

The first two weeks after the diagnosis were spent at Stanford Hospital, where the oncology team used a combination of chemotherapy and steroids to put the Leukemia into remission. The chemo destroys cells that rapidly reproduce, and nothing reproduces faster than Leukemia cells. This is why the chemo works so effectively against this type of cancer, and why Charlie was essentially Leukemia-free at the end of this first two weeks. We’ve heard that in the old days, once the Leukemia went into immediate remission the children would be taken off chemo and sent on their way. But inevitably within a certain span of time the Leukemia would come back again at full strength (apparently microscopic amounts of Leukemia can hide out inside nerves or some other secret place within the body), so now the oncology team’s protocol is to continue treatment for years in an attempt to hunt down and kill every last Leukemia cell in Charlie’s body. This is how they intend to cure him for good.

So after two weeks they sent us home with a bunch of meds and a schedule of recurring hospital visits. Twice weekly Charlie would return to the hospital to get chemo (and undergo other treatments), but after each one he would return home so he could sleep in his own bed, see his brother, and get back to his comfort zone. Unfortunately just four days after being released, Charlie had to be readmitted to Stanford so the doctors could treat some of the unfortunate side effects of the chemotherapy. We spent three more nights at the hospital, at which point the doctors felt that he was ready to re-return home.

We have now been home a full week since that second release from the hospital, and Charlie is showing real progress. On the medical side, the doctors are all quite excited by Charlie’s test results, which seem to indicate that the treatments are working. At home, we have watched Charlie gain more strength day by day. He generally wakes up in the six o’clock hour and asks if he can eat spaghetti (the steroids give him intense hunger and occasional roid rage), then after his morning pasta he usually wants to watch a movie, work on puzzles, maybe take a stroller walk or go with me to get coffee, and usually by 9am he’s ready for second breakfast. His strong appetite is a great sign, since it means he isn’t nauseous from the chemo, and it’s giving him lots of good calories. The doctors told us they never want to see a cancer patient losing weight, but Charlie is doing the exact opposite; his double chin is becoming more pronounced by the day! His hair has also started falling out, and when you combine that with his pasta gut he kind of resembles a very cute 50 year old man. The point is Charlie is showing multiple signs of progress.

Charlie’s next big challenge will be regaining the strength to walk. One side effect of Leukemia is bone pain, and we suspect that in the weeks leading up to Charlie’s diagnosis he was feeling a lot of pain in his legs. Now that the Leukemia is out of his body, the bone pain has likely gone away, but the memory remains. Pair that with the long hospital stay where he was confined to a bed, and the general weakness that Charlie feels from the chemo treatments… and pretty much all Charlie wants to do is sit in a comfy chair all day. So he’s got some physical therapy appointments coming up to try and bring him out of his comfort zone a bit and build those legs back up. Now that I’ve seen how strong and brave and resilient Charlie is, I don’t see that walking goal as something overly daunting. At first the large number of medicines Charlie had to take each day seemed very daunting, but over time we were all able to work out better systems, and Charlie got used to taking lots of meds. I’m not saying that the meds are a fun part of his day, only that he gets it done, and it is no longer daunting. I’m pretty confident that, so long as Charlie keeps recovering as he has been, he will approach the physical training the same way he’s approached everything else about this process: he’ll work at it and get the job done.

November 1, 2021November 1, 2021

Leukemia Journal 3: Returning Home

Days since Charlie’s diagnosis: 14

It has been exactly two weeks since Charlie was diagnosed with leukemia. For most of that time Charlie was stuck in a hospital bed, while various nurses and doctors administered chemotherapy, steroids, blood transfusions, and other treatments in an attempt to put the leukemia into immediate remission. It seems that those treatments have been going well because we have learned that there is no more leukemia visible in his blood (when viewed under a microscope). For this reason (and due to the fact that Charlie is starting to get some of his energy back), the doctors informed us two days ago that we are clear to bring Charlie home and continue treatment there. So that’s what we did.

Charlie is not yet cured; he still has two years or more of treatment ahead of him. But he’s no longer in critical danger or in need of constant transfusions just to stay alive. So now he can be back in his home, where things are familiar, and continue treatment from there (and at the out-patient clinic). Apparently just one week of chemo is enough to put the leukemia into remission, but it will take two additional years to ensure it is completely killed off (so it doesn’t ever return). Charlie will return to the hospital at least twice a week for chemo treatments, spinal taps, and other procedures, but (assuming he stays healthy) he will always be able to return home each night.

The biggest risk to Charlie’s health right now is no longer the leukemia, but instead infection. Though the leukemia is largely gone, the continued chemo treatments will demolish his immune system, especially for this first six weeks home when the chemo treatments are most intense. Charlie is entering the winter with a severely weakened ability to fight against viruses and bacteria, so we have to be ever vigilant for signs of fever or infection of any kind. Unfortunately the biggest infection risk comes from the bacteria within his own body (which we can do nothing to prevent), not from outside sources (which we can attempt to protect him from). The “friendly” bacteria that lives in our gut and helps us digest is usually kept in check by our healthy immune systems. But for Charlie this bacteria might decide to try a jailbreak while the guards are asleep, and start attacking other parts of his body. What is frustrating about this is that we have no control or ability to mitigate this risk. It’ll just be a matter of luck. So Charlie’s winter goal is to survive long enough for his immune system to grow back.

Another challenge for the poor little nugget is that he has to take a pretty massive assortment of medicines multiple times a day. He’s got steroids which make the chemo more effective, antibiotics to fight infection, drugs to help his low blood count, anti-nausea meds, anti-fungal meds, and other things too. They don’t seem to taste so good, and it’s clearly giving him anxiety that there’s so many yucky meds that we keep putting in front of him throughout the day. We haven’t yet figured out a way to deliver these smoothly. In fact I’d say that getting him to take his meds (without causing him to gag due to the quantity/taste) is the primary challenge of this week. If we can engineer a solution to this one, his life will be much more pleasant. The constant meds are his biggest source of suffering right now. And on days when he has a spinal tap (and therefore anesthesia), he’s not allowed to eat or drink anything in the hours leading up to the procedure, but we are still expected to give him meds (some of which are supposed to be taken with food to prevent nausea). This is a real puzzle. Trying to give a ton of meds to a three year old with an empty tummy just seems cruel… but we all soldier on.

In conclusion, the highlights are Charlie is home! He can go on walks and take baths and sleep in his bed and hang with his brother and play with all his toys and cuddle on the couch. That alone is worth a million bucks. The lowlights are he has to take tons of horrible medicine, abstain from food/water every few days, and somehow hide from invisible harmful bacteria that already lives inside his body.

This is going to be quite a journey for the little guy.

October 24, 2021December 7, 2022

Leukemia Journal 2: Meds!

Days since Charlie’s diagnosis: 6

Charlie takes a lot of strange medicines.

First and foremost are the highly toxic chemotherapy drugs that target and destroy cells that reproduce quickly. Since Leukemia cells are very rapid dividers, these chemo drugs are very effective at making Leukemia cells explode all over the body. When these Leukemia cells explode they release their contents into the bloodstream, which can wreak havoc on the liver and kidneys, so Charlie has to take medicine to flush all this stuff out of his body quickly. Blowing up all the naughty cancer cells and flushing them out is the primary way the doctors plan to put Charlie into remission. Of course it is a bit strange to see my toddler taking cocktails of medicine that is so toxic the nurses wear full body protective clothing any time they handle the stuff. But really what choice do we have?

Charlie also has to receive a lot of fresh blood and platelets just to stay alive. This is because Leukemia cells crowd out the hemoglobin (and other helpful things) in the blood, which essentially renders one’s blood unable to process oxygen or fight against bacteria. When we brought Charlie into the Emergency Room last week, he was in the process of dying from this. The constant infusions do not fight the underlying problem (too many Leukemia cells), but instead they stabilize Charlie so he can stay alive long enough to receive the chemo (which does fight the underlying problem). At first all this blood was more liquid than Charlie’s little body was used to (his heart had grown accustomed to working with scarce resources), so some of the liquid backed up into his lungs and gave him a wet cough that kept him up all night. But more recently the blood has clearly recharged Char and brought back a lot of his former strength. He’s been joking and acting silly these past couple days, wiggling around the bed and getting up to come sit by the window. Seeing the smiles, watching his personality bloom again, seeing him have the energy to eat and chat and laugh… it’s been so very precious. Gotta live in the moment these days.

And then there’s the steroids. Steroids are a big part of the treatment because they help the chemo more effectively destroy leukemia cells, and they reduce the allergic reaction the body has to toxic chemotherapy drugs. Char is getting roided up, so of course he periodically experiences roid rage (roid rage + moody toddler = ridiculous behavior). Even without the steroids, who wouldn’t be mad at being trapped in a hospital bed for days, feeling depleted and yucky and weak, pumped full of strange meds that make you feel weird, poked and prodded by strangers all day and night? From my perspective, it’s very tough to see my little baby suffering with these weighty problems. He’s being given a course in resilience right now, but he’s still so little that I’m not sure he’s ready for such a lesson. But ready or not, here it is.

Tomorrow Charlie will get his second of many spinal taps, where the doctors will check his spinal fluid for Leukemia and inject chemo into his spine. When I type it out it all sounds so wrong, so cruel, so backward. But if we don’t do this thing, the leukemia cells will continue to overwhelm his body (no matter how much fresh blood he gets), and he will die from it. So he’ll take all the chemo drugs, and fluid flushing drugs, and anti-nausea meds, and steroids, and spinal taps, and fresh blood, and other things too, because that seems to be the only road to a cure. The American Cancer Society says that with the new drugs and treatments available today, “the 5-year survival rate for children with [Charlie’s sub-type of leukemia] has greatly increased over time and is now about 90% overall.” In a strange way, that makes Charlie lucky to have gotten this cancer instead of another one, because the doctors at Stanford know how to kill this disease. It can be done by giving my baby a whole big bunch of poison for a long long while. So that’s what we will do.

Side note: Erica and I have been rotating in and out of the hospital each day, so that one person stays with Char at Stanford and the other person stays home with Jack (who is not allowed at the hospital due to Covid). A massive rain storm pummeled the whole Bay Area all day, knocking out the power in our home from 7am all the way until 8pm or so. It’s my night at home, so Jack and I sat there this afternoon watching our house grow colder and darker as the hours passed, sat there in the gloomy and quiet house, listening to the violent storm, thinking about Char and the strange, eerie quiet, and how not too long ago it was summer and we were all out on the open road camping and exploring and being noisy and living life. I know that summer will return again in the future, and that Charlie may in fact heal and go on to live a long and happy life, that there are real reasons for hope, and that we are so blessed in so many ways…. but tonight, when the rain is pounding and the house is so cold and Charlie is so far away, and I know that tomorrow Char won’t be able to eat all day because of his procedure, and that he’s going to be so miserable and confused, and that he will face so many hard days coming up… when I think about that stuff, well, I just get pissed off.

October 21, 2021December 26, 2021

Leukemia Journal 1: The Beginning

Days since Charlie’s diagnosis: 3

My son Charlie (age 3) has leukemia. We found out three days ago. He was lying in his bed all day long, not wanting to move, not eating, just looking weak and miserable. We video conferenced the doctor, and she said go to the ER. We got to skip the waiting room and go straight to a doctor, as if every medical professional that set eyes on him could tell something was seriously wrong. They drew blood and came to tell us, with absolute certainty, after one look at his blood, that he for sure 100% had leukemia. They could see the leukemia cells right there in the microscope.

Charlie has been exceptionally brave and stoic throughout this ordeal. He’s already been poked and prodded and examined and checked at all hours of the night, tied to tubes and wires, stuck in a bed in a strange place far from home, surrounded by strangers, feeling sick and exhausted and confused. Yet he’s still his goofy self, especially as the treatment starts to give him some energy back.

The first step was to stabilize him by giving him multiple blood transfusions. Those aggressive leukemia cells have been crowding out the other cells in this body – like the ones that carry oxygen to the brain or fight against bacteria – leaving him weak and sick. So the doctors started by giving him blood and platelets to bring him back up to baseline so that he would be well enough to begin chemotherapy. And it really did work; he really did have his energy back today! He was cracking jokes and making silly faces and pretending to be a doctor. Watching him play and be silly reminded me that he has been pretty lethargic for the last month. Now it makes sense why our energetic boy was suddenly so tired and fragile all the time, why he had stopped running or riding his bike, why he just wanted to be held all day.

Today he also took his first dose of chemo. If I am not mistaken, he will now continue to take chemotherapy medication for the next three years. The doctors (here at Stanford) seem to be preeminent experts in treating this very illness, so it appears we are in the best possible hands. They are kind and confident and experienced. I am attempting to find hope in their confidence.

When Charlie is frustrated or confused or in pain, I find it very challenging to stay strong. When I have to wake him up at 4am so a nurse can poke him with a needle, or when he can’t leave the bed for days on end, can’t cuddle the same way or see his brother, when his confusion and pain turns into rage…. that’s when I feel my facade slipping. Charlie needs us to be strong and confident like the doctors are, but sometimes the fear is overwhelming. Fear that we will lose him. Fear that the way of life that we loved so much (before he got sick) is gone forever. Fear that he will be in pain every day for a long long while. Fear that he will never get to live a life, that it will be taken from him, that he won’t understand why, that he will suffer for a time and then be gone forever.

But dwelling on this fear does not seem to carry any benefit. Yes I need to plan for these contingencies, but already I can sense that the fear and sadness are not beneficial emotions, as natural as they might be, They do not clarify my thoughts, nor do they help me navigate difficult moments better. I do not necessarily believe that suppressing the fear and sadness is beneficial (and I am not a trained therapist); I am only observing that I do not find those emotions particularly helpful while I’m down here in the trenches. If they could be gotten rid of, this process might be much more manageable. Charlie is clearly feeling a lot of fear, and wouldn’t it be nice if I was confident like those doctors, so that I could absorb his fear and help him feel secure and supported. Is this possible, is this wise? I don’t know, everything is still so new. It has not yet sunk in that this is our new life, our permanent life. Once that sinks in, once Charlie survives this first month, this first year, maybe the fear will go away on its own.

We can do hard things.

June 12, 2021December 20, 2023

Everything in your life should be active except your ego: tips from The Bhagavad Gita

How can I live my best life? What are some strategies that will help me reach for fulfillment in life? Here are some of the lessons I picked up from reading one of the world’s oldest self help books: The Bhagavad Gita.

Strive to do your best in all things you attempt, but do not attach yourself emotionally to the consequences of the actions you take. In other words, you can control an arrow only up to the point you release it from the bow. From there, it is beyond your control what happens to it. So put all your focus into aiming true. Release that arrow as perfectly as you can, but once it’s been released do not be attached to what happens next, because it is out of your hands. Feel free to observe how it lands and adjust your next shot accordingly, but do not become emotionally invested in the results. You goal is to improve, and therefore you must practice and hone your craft. But see if you can do this without letting your ego get involved in the process. As you prepare to release that next arrow, remember that your sense of self-worth does not need to hang in the balance

This is useful in so many ways. In the business world, you should try your best to be a productive part of your team or organization. However once you’ve finished that business presentation and sent it out, you no longer have control over what happens to it. It may be judged harshly, it may be ignored, or perhaps unforeseen forces outside of your control will cause your presentation to fail. These things can and do happen; when they do happen, gather whatever data helps you grow from the experience, and move forward. Likewise, in a family you should be a generous and caring participant in your loved ones’ lives: do your very best to guide them and love them, and teach them important life lessons, and give gifts, and give them your time, and make as many things special for them as you can. But once you’ve done all that you can’t control how they will respond, or the people they will ultimately become. Do not invest yourself emotionally in the result, but do your best and focus on continuing to improve your own performance.

This may seem like an impossible or even a distasteful goal (“Why on earth would I want to become emotionally detached from the outcomes of my parenting?!?”). Remember: this sort of “detachment” does NOT mean withdrawing from the world, nor does it mean acting in a callous, distant, aggressive, loveless, or harsh manner, or refusing to care about the consequences of your actions. Be active, be a participant, show love, give gifts, build something, engage! Just don’t let your pride (or even worse your sense of self worth) hinge on the results, on the consequences, because the consequences are beyond your control! Be your best self and you WILL make a better world, but understand that there are so many things you simply cannot control. If you try your very best, and learn from your mistakes, and make active improvements in yourself and how you treat others, you’ve done all you can do. You must then be at peace with whatever outcomes may come (while still learning from them, so that you can continue to grow and improve).

While it is wise to be at peace with outcomes, this does not mean that one should live a “passive” life, where we simply let the waves of life crash over us while we feel neither joy nor sadness, while we sit motionless and inactive, detaching ourselves from all warmth and love and connection, seeking some inner knowledge while the world passes us by. In fact, a good life is a life of action! There are countless paths that lead to enlightenment and fulfillment, but most require some form of action. One can seek deep knowledge in her field or expertise in her craft, or focus on taking selfless action for the benefit of others to build a better and more peaceful world (Gandhi followed this path, among others), or one can dive into meditation and self reflection, or build a life that is centered on love and family and empathy. A person can venture down all of these paths at once if she likes, but note that all of these paths require action! Don’t hide in a cave like a hermit, and don’t renounce all earthly joys like an ascetic, and don’t shut out the world or detach from loving other human beings. Go be active in the world and do good work, love people, build connections, get out there and do something. The message here is this: yes live a life of action, while also working to become emotionally detached from outcomes beyond your control. Another way to say it is this: everything in your life should be active, except your ego.

This is easy to talk about but very difficult to put into practice every day. Even as I write this, I picture in the back of my head a day far in the future, when my (adult) sons discover that their father created music and wrote articles about interesting ideas, and how proud they will be, how they will think I was so cool, how they will then be inspired to expand their own minds, etc. etc.! You see? It is my pride and desire and need for affirmation that drives this fantasy, and it’s a clear example of my emotional investment in other people’s future opinions of my life’s work, an example of my ego at work, an example of how much I really do invest my self worth in the outcomes that I cannot control.

Instead, I should write this just because I feel compelled to write it, because it brings me joy, because writing this is me playing my part in the greater whole of humanity; I should not write it just to get future praise and admiration from my sons. Even as I write about detachment from these sorts of desires, I am so very very attached.

This is really about suspending one’s ego, and resisting the urge to expect a quid pro quo in all things. I should not parent well BECAUSE I expect future praise from my children. I should not strive to be a good teacher BECAUSE I hope students will tell everyone what a great teacher I am. I should not write beautiful music BECAUSE I need everyone to know what a gifted musician I am. I should do these things well because it is right to do them to the best of my ability. That is how I play my part, how I contribute to the great human story. I parent, I teach, I write music, and I strive to do those things well, because that is what brings me joy. But once I complete a task, I must detach myself from the consequences. As long as I am doing everything to the best of my ability, and learning from my mistakes, then I have played my part well.

This is also about not caring what people think of you. As long as you are doing your best in everything you attempt, and living virtuously by trying to do good (because emotionally detaching oneself from consequences is not a free pass to be a jerk to everyone), then you can ignore other peoples’ opinions about you. Again, I don’t teach well because I need the other teachers to think I’m great. If I teach well, a likely byproduct will be that other teachers respect me, but that is not guaranteed, and also that is not the purpose of teaching. If I indeed teach well, then I really don’t need to care what the other teachers think, because I genuinely give it my all and do my best to bring quality to my classroom. Beyond that, I actually have no control. All I can do is my best. I need to be at peace with whatever comes after that.

Of course if another teacher or a student offers me constructive criticism, I should not ignore it (“Sorry I don’t listen to feedback because I am so detached from the outcomes of my actions”). Quite the opposite: I should listen and use it as a growth opportunity, a way to improve. But I should not let my self worth crumble because somebody saw things in a different way than I did, or because I made an error and didn’t realize it until a peer pointed it out. Take the feedback and grow, but don’t obsess over the mistake itself (which is in the past); instead focus on doing better next time, and remove the ego or the stung pride from the equation. Nobody lives a mistake-free life, and nobody can ever please everyone all of the time.

Even more importantly: if life ever throws you a real curve ball, and places you in a lose-lose situation, a situation completely out of your control, a situation that tests you and puts you under pressure, these same lessons apply triple fold. Pull back your arrow, aim it as best you can, and fire. Then, pull another. In other words, do your best. And once you’ve done your best, don’t rake yourself over the coals because your best didn’t match up to some unreachable standard. Sometimes you might get battered by the waves, and face challenges far beyond your control. Sometimes no matter which path you choose you will wind up paying a high cost.

A typical example: an elderly parent suffers a debilitating long-term illness that requires many hours of your care and attention every day for many months, but at the same time your new position at work requires extra time for meetings, managing teams, due diligence on new topics, and long-term planning. Meanwhile you have two young children who need your love and attention, and a house that is in need of some repairs. If you sacrifice time with your parent in favor of work, you neglect someone who needs you, someone who is suffering a profound personal crisis, someone who cared for you when you were so small and weak, who loves you dearly, who wants nothing more than to spend as many precious few moments with you as possible. But if you neglect work, you will lose your chance to build your team, squander the opportunity to build on what you’ve already worked so hard to achieve, maybe even lose your position. Not to mention that this schedule leaves no time whatsoever for self care. In these moments it’s so crucial to be kind to yourself: emotionally detach from outcomes beyond your control and just do your best. When life gets real there are so very few things that you actually can control. Focus on doing whatever you must do to survive, to get by. Keep paddling, keep shoveling, keep trying. As long as you do as much good as possible with the limited resources you have at your disposal, you are free to accept the outcomes without self-judgement, even if they are not optimal.

This focus on intentions rather than consequences aligns well with philosopher Immanuel Kant's deontological approach to ethics, which emphasizes the importance of acting ethically and following the rules of morality at all costs, consequences be damned. In other words, pay no heed to outcomes, and instead be sure to obey your moral compass (or your moral duties) regardless of the context of the situation. Personally I find Kant's expression of this ethical principle too forceful and one-sided, since it seems to completely discount the idea that ethical action can ever properly be defined by the consequences of one's actions. Consequences do matter in the real world; in fact they matter very much, and they must be taken into account when determining which course of action is most ethical (or which ethical duty we must follow). However the Bhagavad Gita's expression of this principle is more subtle than Kant's, perhaps because its focus is less on finding the optimal moral behavior, and more on achieving fulfillment in life. In essence, one should strive to become emotionally detached from consequences not because this is the key to the most moral possible behavior, but because this behavior allow a person to live a happier and less-burdened life. What if we were to pair this emotional detachment with a duty-based moral system such as Kant's (or even with a moral system that aims to maximize a particular outcome, such as utilitarianism)? If it is possible to follow a strong moral code, but also not allow one's ego or sense of self-worth to hinge on the uncontrollable outcomes of one's actions, we may in fact have just hit on the ultimate combination of fulfillment and moral action. See Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals for Kant's take.

Another facet of the Gita’s message about personal fulfillment is the argument that freedom comes from discipline. By discipline I do not mean disciplining others, but instead “self discipline”. For example, if you want to become so talented at playing a musical instrument that you can improvise with complete freedom, perform music that leaves listeners breathless and fills their hearts with emotion, experience a sense of total control over your craft, and create timeless with your own hands, the only way to achieve this is through years of disciplined practice. Without self discipline, one will not sit still long enough to learn anything, and will not practice when practicing becomes hard. Whether practicing a skill, parenting, reflecting on one’s own actions, building a professional skill set, or building a love-based relationship with someone, discipline leads to focus and improvement and growth and a better life.

We sometimes are taught (especially in the USA) that freedom is the opposite of discipline. If only we had no rules to follow, then we would be truly free! One can easily imagine a Libertarian fantasy where we all enjoy perfect freedom, total liberty to live exactly how we please, and everyone lives a fulfilled life. This premise that real freedom comes from a lack of discipline is most likely wrong (dare I say utopian) when applied to society as a whole (after all, wouldn’t the local warlord with the most guns and money simply take advantage of this lack of structure and seize power?), but it is especially wrong when applied to self-discipline. Without some kind of self-discipline in place, freedom can never be achieved. One could even go so far as to claim that a total lack of discipline leads to slavery, because a person with no hard-won skills or knowledge will be at the utter mercy of those with skills and know-how.

It is worth noting that this particular take ignores the materialist notion that what truly makes people into slaves or pawns or oppressed peons is not lack of inner discipline, but instead the material forces one faces from birth (i.e. one's class). Those in poverty do not have the time or resources or capital to focus on self-cultivation and skill-building, while those in higher classes do, and that is what determines whether someone will end up a leader/owner/master or a peon/proletarian/slave. It has almost nothing to do with one's own work ethic, since hard work and self-discipline will only get you so far when one starts out in poverty (i.e. if work ethic mattered more than one's original class position, there would be a lot more millionaire fruit pickers out there). See Marx's and Engels' The German Ideology for a classic exposition of this materialist position. I find this position highly convincing, and therefore I need to make clear that this Gita message about the power of self-discipline should be applied solely to personal growth, and not warped into an argument that claims those who are in poverty are there because they lack self-discipline. This is a conservative distortion of the Gita's message that destroys its meaning, and turns it into a tool to distract us from the problems caused by capitalism. This warped message blames the poor for their poverty, rather than addressing the systemic causes of poverty. The Gita's message is certainly not "the poor are only poor because of their own choices".

Ok back to self-discipline. Lets picture a classroom metaphor. If a teacher is a disciplinarian, the students may crave the freedom of having no rules. But abolishing all rules and discipline creates not freedom but chaos. Imagine a classroom that lacks all discipline. Some students ransack the classroom, others casually chat, others attempt to teach themselves something, and others simply leave. The majority of the students will not learn anything nor gain any wisdom from the experience. It seems that when everyone just does whatever he or she wishes to do, the classroom stops being a classroom and becomes something else (a hang-out spot, perhaps). In the end all the students will just wander away from the school, leaving only an empty building. The school is thereby rendered useless. It has failed to fulfill its purpose, and the students who expected to gain knowledge there only wasted their time. Chaos, not freedom, was created in that place.

Imagine that your mind itself is the school. Do you want this kind of chaos (this kind of “freedom”) in your mind? Is this the proper way to cultivate skills and learn long-term lessons? In this metaphor you are the teacher and also the student. You must possess the discipline to teach yourself, to practice, to stay focused, to learn lessons, to grow. When one does not possess the control to do these things, no skills are gained, and our base desires rule us while we live in ignorance. When one exerts discipline over oneself, specifically when aimed toward perfecting a skill or craft, and when we combine it with a certain detachment from the consequences of the good work we do, the results are a kind of freedom that can only come with mastery, can only come with detachment from the opinions of others. It is the freedom to create, to innovate, to improvise, to push boundaries, to rise to ever higher levels. Picture a performer who appears to play piano effortlessly, but that “lack of effort” is actually the result of years of diligent practice, and a mind that is willing to work hard.

It is so easy in our modern world to let the chaos take over, to jump from one task to another, to try a thousand things but master none, to let ourselves be constantly distracted by texts, emails, videos, Tiktok, and so much else. To cultivate a skill, you must possess the discipline to shut those distractions out, and set your mind on a single track for a nice stretch of time, to sink slowly into practice, and explore/probe/investigate one single topic, even as the whole wide world tries endlessly to crash down the doors of your concentration and destroy your focus. You are the gatekeeper to your own mind, you are the teacher of your mind’s classroom, you are the master of your own focus.

All things of quality require time and discipline and hard work. This is true of art, it’s true for those who seek knowledge, it’s true of fidelity and maintaining open communication in a marriage, it’s true of cultivating a skill or talent, it’s true of building strong friendships, it’s true of raising children, and it’s true in business.

Ideally, I strive to make my life and my art and my relationships the best that they can be, and all of this takes much practice. Of course simple repetition is not “practice”. To practice, one must reflect on one’s actions and adapt one’s technique over time in order to overcome barriers and gain new skills, and stick to the cause of self-improvement even when it becomes challenging to forge ahead. One must be present and engaged, not zoned out (the difference between practicing piano versus simply noodling, or the difference between being truly present with one’s children versus staring at the iphone while the children play at one’s feet). Being present takes focus and energy; life moves quickly and it’s easy to just coast or tune-out or “get through it” without reflection, especially when one has children and work and so many other things to juggle. So many times my wife Erica and I have commented how we feel sometimes like we have become parenting robots, delivering love and care to the children but completely hollow inside. This is not healthy or ideal. Striving to be the best I can possibly be (as a parent, etc.) is a daily challenge, and I easily get burned out.

Therefore, don’t overdo it with self-discipline. A lack of discipline may create less freedom, but that does not mean too much discipline creates maximum freedom. Go easy on yourself when you’re feeling burned out. A burned out parent should go (if she can) away from the children and grab some time for him/herself. Even a few hours can make a big difference. This is also true of practicing piano or any other skill. Take breaks, but stay conscious of the goal and always return to it when you are ready. Remember: rest is just as important as discipline, and in fact it may require some discipline to make yourself rest. The body and mind must recharge if you plan to stay healthy in this challenging and difficult world. Therefore making time for rest is in itself a form of personal growth.

So stay disciplined and focus on personal growth, and strive to do your best in all things, and to do good. But do not concern yourself with what happens once you complete a task and send it out into the world. Don’t let your pride hinge on the praise/condemnation you receive from your loved ones and contacts. When life becomes difficult and times get tough, just do your very best; that’s all anyone could ever ask of you. Aim your arrow as well as you can and let it fly, then focus on the next arrow, content that each time you fired you aimed it as well as you could. And if you do watch the arrows fall, it is only to gather data so you can make your next shot even better.

February 4, 2019February 27, 2022

A Letter to My Father

This evening I added the finishing touches to a piece I composed back in 2008, “A Letter to My Father.”

“A Letter to my Father” from Jackdaw

This piece is actually the third movement from my string quartet “Jackdaw.” Therefore at its heart it is based on the life and writings of Franz Kafka, like all the other music in that quartet. However this music has special meaning for me as well (also like all the music in that quartet). It feels especially meaningful during this current time in my life, when my own interactions with my father have become so very strange.

Kafka’s Letter to his Dad

When Kafka was about 36, he wrote a nasty letter to his dad. Apparently his father Hermann was a pretty difficult guy, constantly ridiculing Kafka for being a weakling, while refusing to care one bit that his son was a genius. Kafka’s stories are real mind-benders. The realities they portray are just “off” enough that they feel like they could be real life. One can recognize the landscape, envision oneself living in that world, but something in the reality is very wrong. Sometimes it’s hard to put one’s finger on… but impossible to ignore. Like the work of H.P. Lovecraft, the stories have the power to make one doubt one’s own world, to make one doubt mankind as a whole. It’s delicious writing, and frankly still horrifying to this day. Despite young Franz’s clear talent, Poppa Kafka just didn’t respect his son, and he made that known at every opportunity.

By age 36, Franz was tired of Hermann’s crap. He busted out some paper and really let Dad have it, for 45 hand-written pages. In his own way, Kafka believed that this letter would help heal their relationship, but in reality the letter was full of complaints, accusations, and invective. He plumbed the depths of his own hurt, and wrung the emotions out onto the page. If the letter is to be believed, Hermann was a toxic and narcissistic hypocrite, an abusive tyrant who never gave his fragile son even a kindly word or friendly look in all his life. The writing is heart-breaking and so very relatable, ripe as it is with a certain timeless pain that has been felt by so many sons across so many generations.

In one episode, Kafka describes a traumatizing experience from his childhood: one evening at bedtime he was begging his father for some water (perhaps even being a bit bratty about it), when his father, always a large and intimidating man, burst into his bedroom without warning and, in a rage, grabbed the small boy and locked him outside on the balcony with nothing on but his thin cotton sleep shirt. Kafka writes:

I was quite obedient afterwards at that period, but it did me inner harm. What was for me a matter of course, that senseless asking for water, and the extraordinary terror of being carried outside were two things that I, my nature being what it was, could never properly connect with each other. Even years afterwards I suffered from the tormenting fancy that the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority, would come almost for no reason at all and take me out of bed in the night and carry me out onto the balcony, and that meant I was a mere nothing for him.
Franz Kafka, from Letter to His Father

Not only is this a sad story of parental mismanagement and emotional scarring, but it is also such a great insight into why so much of Kafka’s writing features nameless, faceless authority figures who carry out irrational sentences with a total lack of empathy or emotional connection. Moments that feature characters like that are some of the more disturbing vignettes from his stories; they make it all too easy to picture oneself being dragged away by faceless agents of the state who have no sense of human morality or concern for life. Kafka was able to translate his tragic daddy issues into terrifying metaphors for what it’s like to live in modern society. Now THAT’S how to cope with a bad upbringing.

Let’s all write letters to our dads!

Funny story: I had to send a letter to my own father recently. Mine was not as nasty as Kafka’s, nor was my father anywhere near as abusive as Hermann. But father-son relationships can be all varieties of strange, and mine definitely falls on that spectrum. I won’t go into the details here, but suffice it to say that at pretty much the same age as Kafka when he wrote his letter, I felt compelled to write a letter to my dad that I wish I didn’t have to write. It delivered the message, though I’m not sure it did anything to heal our relationship.

When Kafka completed his letter, he hand delivered it to his mother, and asked her to bear the letter to his father. Her mother read it once and immediately decided to hide it forever. As much as Kafka might have hoped his manifesto would help heal old wounds, his mother felt differently, and refused to take any part in provoking the monumental explosion that would likely follow should Hermann ever read it. My own letter was delivered directly to my father, though I’m actually not sure he read it. One can never know these things when direct communication becomes impossible.

Long story short, this music ain’t just about Kafka. I hope someday someone writes about how I skillfully took my familial pain and transformed it into timeless art we can all relate to. Whether or not that ever happens, I will say this: writing the music always makes me feel better.

October 13, 2018February 4, 2019

Today my son was born

Early this morning the stork paid us a visit, and he gave us the most precious gift. My second son, Charlie was born today.

He’s a strapping boy with dark brown hair and powerful lungs. Today he had to learn some important lessons: how to breathe air, how to eat, how to cry; crucial skills to survive in this world. But since it was his birthday, he got to spend most of the day lounging around on his mama, listening to her heartbeat (which he was so used to hearing from the inside) and smelling her familiar smells.

Charlie also met his older brother Jack.

Jack is a really great big brother. He put stickers on Baby Charlie, and rubbed his head too. Charlie popped his wrinkly little arm out of the blanket, and Jack rubbed the tiny fingers. They were like two old pals.

Two boys, two sons, my progeny, my little family, complete.

November 16, 2017February 4, 2019

Jack’s Sonata

My first piano sonata took me over a decade to complete. Then Jack showed up and POOF, it was done! Strange how that happens.

I always call this piece “Jack’s Sonata”, but half of the music actually predates Jack by some time. In fact, the last two movements are my earliest completed piano music. I was working on the first drafts all the way back in 2006, maybe earlier, when I was still living in the dorms at Cal Poly, a time when I knew I wanted to be a composer but had no idea how to actually write music. I remember so clearly the frustration of having music in my head, but lacking the skills to notate it. Hence, I started this music with the best intentions, but quickly became frustrated when I couldn’t finish it and tossed it in the ash heap. Luckily my ash heap is just a folder on my laptop, so the music was easily resurrected. By the time I picked it up again 10 years later, I was more properly equipped to complete the task.

So why does this music belong to Jack if it was begun long before he was born? Because Jack got me to finish it. I write such better music when I have something meaningful to write about, and there’s nothing more meaningful than the birth of my first child. The gaps I had left in the music over the years were suddenly filled in by the waves of emotion I felt as a new father. Usually I write slowly and methodically, but Jack’s presence in my life lit a fire under me and kicked off an avalanche of creative activity. Jack gave me so many new things to think about, new ways of looking at the world, new experiences. Holding a newborn brought on such a strange combination of intense love and intense uncertainty, and all of that worked its way into my music. So even though the music is older than Jack, in a certain way he owns it. I’m not sure I ever would have finished it if it wasn’t for him. His little face is imprinted on every note.

Paul Dab, my former piano teacher, also owns a piece of this music. When it comes down to it, I had fallen out of love with the piano, and Paul rekindled that fire. He made me excited about the instrument and showed me new ways to explore it. That excitement drove me to finally finish this sonata (including the composition of two brand new movements from scratch). Paul showed me how to think like a pianist again. I put my hands back on the instrument after a long hiatus, not just to tinker with chords but to play, play, play! He gave me the tools to improve my technique, both as a performer and composer, and he showed me how to write idiomatically for the piano, something that is often forgotten when writing music directly into the computer. This work would not exist in its current form without his guidance. Therefore, even though I always call it “Jack’s Sonata”, it is officially dedicated to Paul Dab.

The Four Movements

Movement 1: Allegro con brio

Here’s what the first movement sounds like (computer rendition):

You might be thinking, “hmmm that sounds a little minor. I thought he said it was about his newborn son.” Well, yes and no. It was written right after he was born, but it’s not really ABOUT him. It’s really about me! It’s my musical reaction to some crazy-ass change happening in my life. It’s a burst of creative energy as my whole life gets flipped upside down. I think it’s fear of the unknown. It’s everything I felt when I held that precious, tiny, fragile, little nugget and pondered my place in the universe. This is an example of some music that just poured out. I had a lot of things to work out, and writing music is excellent therapy.

That being said, I still had to put a whole lot of thought into this movement. I spent hours and hours at the library hashing and rehashing ideas, experimenting and prototyping and testing ideas and staring blankly at the wall. Originally I had written an entirely different first movement way back in 2006. But when I picked this music back up in 2014, I realized that that whole thing had to go. There may have been some salvageable ideas buried in there, but I couldn’t help but see the whole thing as student work. I tossed it in the trash and started with a blank page. The music that came out of my brain belonged entirely to Jack.

This movement is highly structured, though it might not seem that way at times. Straight-forward, good old-fashioned sonata form. Ok, maybe not too old-fashioned. But really, it follows the same basic structure as the first movement of most Beethoven sonatas: Theme 1 in tonic, theme 2 in either dominant or (in this case) mediant, followed by an unstable gobblety-gook of the two themes all mixed around and intertwining, leading finally back to the first theme again in the tonic, and the lastly the second theme now transposed to the tonic. So though it may sound at times as if it contains a hundred different unconnected ideas, I assure you it is firmly rooted in classical forms.

For a first movement of a sonata, the music has got to be catchy, a bit flashy (but not decadent), and something the listener will want to hear again. For the first theme I got hooked into this angsty minor bluesy vibe that keeps falling into a mellow waltz. It can’t really make up its mind on what it wants to feel. The slightly slower second theme is cleaner, with a bass line reminiscent of a rock riff. I often find myself absent-mindedly humming this theme. It’s chipper, skippy, but never entirely major. Slices of it almost give off a pop vibe, though I made sure to end it on a sour note. These two themes are a microcosm of my psyche at the time.

Movement 2: Largo, but freely (“Jack’s Song”):

Here’s a computerized version:

And here’s a live performance from pianist Jun Cai, a student at the SF Conservatory (notice how much more flexible Jun is with the rhythm than the computerized version. There are infinite ways to interpret a piece of music):

This second movement truly does belong to Jack. As this music began to take shape, I was thinking a lot about what it means to be a father, which means my child shaped it. This music is a projection from my mind at the time, a reflection of my emotions and questions, my fear and love. The music fades in and out of coherency, at times directionless, until it finally lands on solid ground. It’s asking a question, and just as the answer comes within reach, it slips away again. This movement is tough to pin down, difficult to categorize. The music is searching, searching… It emerges slowly, pops in and out of view, like a distant ship in the mist. Sometimes it’s a love song, sometimes a lament, sometimes a hopeful look toward the future, and sometimes a lonely figure grasping for something in the dark.

I wrote a good chunk of this music in libraries, specifically the Richmond Library in SF and the Shaw Library in Washington DC. The whole ambiance of the library worked its way into this music. Libraries are bustling with activity: people walking around, searching, questioning, writing, working; children running around and older folks quietly reading the newspaper. Yet it’s also an environment where quiet reflection is of paramount importance. It’s a perfect mix of energy and silence, and I find it a very inspiring atmosphere to write music. This piece also feels to me like it is a mix of quiet and activity. I think this movement is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written… though when I first wrote about this music in my composition journal, I clearly wasn’t sure what I thought about it. (See below for the composition journal).

Speaking of my composition journal, reading the entries for this piece reminded me of how crucial sketching is when developing a new piece. I started this movement by jotting down various ideas without editing, then seeing where those ideas led. This was a period of time when the music was coming out rather quickly, and I think sketching had a lot do with that. When I’m feeling something and just need to write music, it is so important that I don’t edit myself, but instead just get everything out. Sometimes I don’t have the time or wherewithal to plan an entire piece in advance. Sometimes I just have to throw paint on the canvas then step back and figure out what shapes I created.

For example, this improv led to an important section in the piece:

And this one became the main theme (listen for Baby Jack in the background):

Movement 3: Minuet and Trio – Andante con moto

Here’ s what it sounds like, computerized:

This movement may very well be the earliest completed piano piece I ever wrote. I’m not sure exactly when I started it, because it predates my habit of keeping a journal. But I think I have a memory of working on it in 2004. I can’t be sure, but it was definitely in a semi-complete form in 2006.

Senigaglia — The earliest draft of the minuet, undated but probably 2004 or 2005.

When I revisited this music in 2014, I mainly focused on adding some subtle touches to it (integrating some of the motifs into the fabric of the piece, rethinking dynamics, making it more playable). I originally picked it up again because I was looking for a piece I had written that I might actually be able to play well. This is why I give Paul Dab a lot of credit for inspiring this whole sonata. Once I started tinkering with this old nugget again, I realized I was ready to complete the entire sonata. This is the movement that jump-started it, even though it’s the simplest and more straight-forward movement of the four.

This movement is in a truly classical form: minuet and trio. A short set of Baroque dances, usually inserted into a sonata or symphony, allowed the composer to construct a stately, graceful, low-key moment of rest before the rush of the final movement. Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn and all those dudes used it many times. I really didn’t add much to the structure or push the envelope with this one. It is truly a classical piece, fairly conservative. The form looks like this:

Conservative does not mean bad though. This entire sonata is full of traditional harmonies and forms, yet it still expresses what I wanted to express in that moment. This minuet is more traditional than I would probably write today, but when I started it in 2006 and finished it in 2014, that felt right in those moments. Sometimes going back to basics can unlock all sorts of new ideas.

This piece has a slight drunken quality to it, almost like the music is slurring its words. It gets a bit heated, but in a restrained way. The Trio is a bit angelic, very light, with just a flash here and there of tension. Overall, I don’t want to read too much into this one. Not all music is strictly progammatic music. When it comes down to it, this is a simple minuet and trio. I think I was playing more with form here than with emotion. This little dance is really just a calm interlude before the energetic and weighty final movement.

The minuet is nice to play though:

Movement 4: Rondo – Allegro Molto

Here’s what it sounds like (computerized):

This piece is a classic. I have a vague memory of starting it way back in 2003, but I only wrote a few measures before I couldn’t find my way forward. That was when writing a simple chord progression was an uphill battle for me, so this piece was born from pure gut and intuition. Those tools will get you only so far, before technical skill is required to turn a fun little building block into an actual piece. Though I could vaguely hear this music in my head (or at least feel the emotional direction I wanted to take it in), I couldn’t figure out which chords I should use to actually express those vibes. In other words, I couldn’t compose my way out of a paper bag. This tiny nugget was all I had, so I put the piece down for a couple years and focused on learning.

I used to call this music “Tempestates”, I think because I wanted to write a series of pieces about Greek gods or something along those lines. Instead I forgot about this music until 2006, when I was about to begin work on a final project for one of my composition classes. My professor, Meredith Brammeier (who is more responsible for my love of classical theory than anyone else on Earth) suggested that I write a medium-length piece with a clearly discernible form. After pondering my options for a bit, I rediscovered this musical fragment and thought it might make a decent rondo.

Rondo form is another classical form, usually appearing at the end of sonatas and symphonies. It goes something like ABACA, otherwise known as the deli sandwich of classical music.

This piece is very classical-sounding, or early-Romantic to be more precise. Essentially it’s in the style of Beethoven, since that’s who I was obsessed with (still am) when I was writing most of this. Back during that time, when I was still working at the Cal Poly library, I would push the cart of books around the different floors, listening to the entire catalog of Beethoven sonatas on my iPod over and over and over again, until I could hum every movement of every sonata. This Beethoven binge gave me a very strong appreciation of classical form and harmony, but also how to stretch those forms to express something deeper, how to turn form into art. Form is absolutely crucial in classical music, but it can’t be everything.

This movement probably leans more toward form for the sake of form than it does toward pure expression. As a young composer, I think I had to become proficient at form before I could wrap my head around pure expression. But built into this very structured piece is a nice dose of angst, nervous energy, and questioning, the same turbulence that guided the first two movements.

The C section is a soft interlude that plays with a couple motifs we heard earlier in the sonata. But this was not the original C section. I composed the new one mostly over Christmas break 2014 at Erica’s parents’ house in San Diego, on quiet evenings next to the giant Christmas tree, while Erica chatted quietly with her parents in the next room. The old one from 2006 was short, jolly, and fairly tight (not a lot of room to breathe). When I picked this piece up again in 2014, I probably could have expanded that old C section and gave it a bit more flair, but I decided to scrap it and start over. I wanted to write something restrained, quiet, and a bit jazzy, exactly what I wanted to listen to on those chilly winter evenings when the house was quiet.

Here’s the old C section on its own:

It’s got a bit of pep to it, but it doesn’t quite tickle me. I might salvage that one day, but for now it’s on the ash heap with so many other forgotten musical fragments.

Just for fun, here’s a video game version I made a while back:

So that’s about it for my first real-life piano sonata. Is it a perfect piece of music? Absolutely not. The final movement is too tightly wound for my taste. Were I to work on it now, I would stretch it out and let some of the ideas (and the listener) breathe a bit. I do love the first two movements, as they match my more current writing style. But as it stands they don’t exactly fit with the final two movements. This is a lesson I learned while listening to Ozma’s “Double Donkey Disk”: two very different EPs jammed together don’t exactly create an “album”. The two halves of this when taken as a whole do not feel organically written; but instead they resemble a slightly awkward arranged marriage. Which makes sense, considering the two halves were written a decade apart from each other. They are, however, united in one important way: I finished them all at the same time, motivated by the changes fatherhood brought to my life. So though the two halves aren’t necessarily united thematically, stylistically, or even artistically, they are forever united in my memories, and therefore they will remain together for eternity.

Below you will find my composition journal entries for this sonata: