The Calisthenics of Multiple Intelligences

The pandemic/retirement combination has given me the time and leisure to turn my formerly occasional diversions into daily practices. On one level, they seem frivolous, but on another serve as calisthenics of the multiple intelligences. Those capacities of the brain to experience and understand the world through the separate (but always intertwined) lens of language, logical mathematical constructs, visual spatial imagery, musical sounds, physical manipulations, emotional responses and social connections. It struck me that my little hidden “vices” are all ways to keep the synapses of those different intelligences firing, exercise their muscles with their particular form of deep knee bends and keep their cardio-vascular systems vibrant and pumping. 

 

Solitaire, especially the one I play that depends upon intelligent choices and patterns perceptions, helps awaken the logical-mathematical capacity of the mind. 

 

Crostics gives the linguistic intelligence its daily workout. 

 

Jigsaw puzzles light up the visual-spatial centers of the brain, fitting pieces together according to shape, color and the context of the whole image. 

 

Then each day I take a giant leap from these pleasant (but muscular) diversions into the world of Bach and jazz on the piano. Here the logical mathematical world of rhythmic divisions and elongations, melodic flights inside the I, IV , V and more chords, intricately connecting lines weaving together joins with the spatial voicings of harmonies that each give different colors to sound and sometimes is married to the poetry of song. All three of the above-mentioned intelligences exercised in partnership with sound (the musical intelligence), feeling (the intrapersonal intelligence), social connection when I play at the Senior Homes (interpersonal intelligences) and kinesthetic intelligence as the hand searches for the right touch and practices the intricate finger coordination. 

 

Thus, music as one of the highest human capacities because it depends on a mastery that includes all seven intelligences. If I had to choose just one daily routine, one discipline, music would be a good choice.

 

Luckily, no need to choose. And so I happily greet each day with my daily Solitaire, crostics and off and on jigsaw puzzles. As well as a walk or bike ride through the park, a book to read or listen to, a friend to meet occasionally for lunch. We humans have many different parts to exercise!

 

And you? What are you favorite diversions that help you stay both amused and mentally exercised?

Breaking the Cycle: III - Congressional Opposite Day

Before we deal the cards, we shuffle the deck. Before we roll the dice, we shake them.

If we always kept the cards in the same order or laid down the dice to the same numbers, the game never changes. 

 

So in this third installment of game-changing ideas, let’s consider “Opposite Day.” In Part I, I wrote:

 

Imagine …the Senators/ Congress-people (paired as Democrat/Republican) discussed with their partners one of the bills on the floor. Each pair would then report back to the greater body, but speaking their partner’s point of view.

 

That idea deserves more attention. To begin with, mark one out of every five days in Congress as “Opposite Day” where we have to listen and speak in a different way. We— and here I mean all of us— so often speak from our fixed point of view and when discussing or arguing with someone who disagrees, listen to them only to find the points of rebuttal. Their words become ammunition to shoot down their “obviously wrong” ideas and the level of actual listening is low. 

 

On Opposite Day, opposing forces would partner up for a face-to-face discussion and whatever the issue at hand is, each would present their point of view following these rules of the game:

1) Each gets an equal amount of time to speak (agreed on beforehand) marked with a timer.

 

2) The partner listening may not interrupt or even ask questions (yet). Simply listen.

 

3) The partner is encouraged to shut down the argumentative voice in his/her head that is shouting, “That’s not true!” /”Yeah, but what about…?!” etc. Simply listen.

 

4) After each has presented, the other can ask some clarifying questions. 

 

5) Each now speaks back to the other the opposing point of view as they heard it. They don’t have to agree with it, simply speak it back as if they were in the other’s shoes and advocating for it. The other may interject clarifications or corrections. 

 

6) Each then reports back to a larger group  of 8 to 10 people. 

 

7) Each of these groups reflects on whether the process helped them understand more clearly their opposition’s point of view and from that place, begin to brainstorm compromises as needed. 

 

The key to the above or the children’s voices idea or the musical pre-talk experience idea is the a priori agreement amongst our Congressional Representatives that things as they are are broken and need a new perspective, that their shared mission to serve a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” is the North Star guiding all conversation and that the determination to build an identity and maintain an identity based on the demonization of others has no place in the halls of Congress. In the “takes two to tango” model, those who refuse to dance are subject to impeachment.

 

So there you have it. My three ideas that are unlikely to catch hold, but nevertheless, are worth saying out loud. What are yours?

 

Breaking the Cycle: II -The Children's Congress

During the pandemic, a road in Golden Gate Park that was closed to cars on Sunday was closed every day, much to the delight of the people who love to walk, jog, skate, bicycle in the park. Now that things are opening up, there was move to re-open it to cars. There was an open meeting of the Board of Supervisors and people were invited to express their ideas and concerns both live and by phone. Good, listening, responsive democracy in action.

 

My wife chose the phone option and listened for three hours to people’s one-minute points of view before she had her turn. One of them was an 8-year old child, who testified how much she loved to walk on the road and notice the animals and how without the cars, there seemed to be more of them. How refreshing was that? To hear a child’s voice amongst the adults saying something so heartfelt and simple and true. 

 

Having listened to kids at my school both speak and write about their concerns around the daily news, I already knew that children’s voices are important, insightful, honest and often much more to the point than the adults who are already ensconced in party positions or thinking with their head only or speaking from the brainwashed part of their mind. 

 

And then the obvious thought struck. Why not include children’s voices in Congress? Let them weigh in on every decision before it’s to be made? After all, the decision is likely to impact them more than the old Congress-people who will be gone before the effects of bad decisions show up in the future. Might we actually listen to the children and hear what they have to say? I’m not just talking about the Greta Thurnbergs and David Hoggs and Emma Gonzales’s (latter two from the Parkland Shooting in Florida), but include 5^th graders and 1^st graders and even pre-schoolers. 

 

For the younger ones, the adults would have to explain the issue at their level, which already would be a great exercise. Without the gobblygook of Foxnewsspeak, how would people explain things like “We want the gun industry to keep making lots of money and let anyone who wants get an assault rifle” to a first grader who had just heard about the latest school shooting? 

 

Then they’d have to sit back and really listen to the kids. Also listen to their comments like “Why is that man yelling at the others? Why won’t he answer the question? He sounds like he’s lying.” And all those other fresh perceptions of the young ones. 

 

In short, inviting children’s voices into Congress to at least be heard, if not eventually granted some votes. Listening to children, before they are brainwashed and taught to obey instead of think and kept away from the books that help them hear other perspectives, would change everything. It would teach them to be active citizens in the future by being active citizens in the present. The idea that they’re too young to think clearly is blown out of the water by adult Congress people talking about Jewish space lazers and convincing other adults that Democrats are pedophiles who also eat their young. When well-prepared by adults who share ideas without imposing them, children, in my experience, turn out to be remarkably intelligent. (The quotes I gave a few posts back about the power of music is a case in point.)

 

So alongside the Orff workshops before each session of Congress, inviting children who are concerned about specific issues to have their say is another game-changer that no one considers. 

 

Consider it.

Breaking the Cycle: I- The Musical Congress

 

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

-      Albert Einstein

 

Imagine two people playing a little clapping game together a la Miss Mary Mack  or Pat-a Cake. They face each other, look into each other’s eyes, co-ordinate their hands in a common rhythm and their voices in a shared song. The game helps organize the rhythms of the body, the pattern coordinates the connections in the brain, the teamwork connects them to each other in a common purpose. They’re standing in a circle with other people playing the same game at the same time so their joint venture is united with yet a larger harmony. At the end of the game, each turns around and repeats the game with a new partner, whoever is behind them. They don’t get to choose the partner and thus, prepare themselves to be stranded on a bus with a random group of strangers and figure out how to solve their predicament and learn to enjoy their teamwork in the process. 

 

After playing the game with two or more different partners, they then have to make up a new version. New words or new motions or a new choreography of the given motions. The partners share their creative solution with another set of partners and then all four create a new version combining ideas. Each group of four then shares with the group as a whole, with comments from their peers about how to improve it and further ideas about how to integrate their creations into a yet larger group choreography to be shared in performance with a yet larger audience. All are united in a common venture and amidst the small disappointments or disagreements are the compromises that allow them to achieve the goal of creating something intelligible, expressive, dynamic and beautiful. All of which will be practiced and rehearsed and refined for a performance that brings all those qualities— intelligence, energy, beauty and happiness— to the greater community. 

 

Sound good? This is no airy dream or vision, but a description of the kind of work I and my Orff music teacher colleagues do every day.  The children playing are happy and the younger or older students, teachers, parents and general school community are all uplifted and refreshed by the performance. The world suddenly seems a slightly rosier place. 

 

Now imagine that the circle of partners playing the game were not children in a school music class, but Republican and Democrat congress-people. They play as described above, but being inferior beings to the open-hearted children, we’d have to make some strict  rules.

 

1) Everybody must play. No one can opt out or filibuster the game. 

2) Each must try their best. No one can purposefully derail the game simply because they feel uncomfortable playing it. 

3) No bullying or insulting other players. 

4.) Each player’s partner must be from the opposing political party. 

 

Imagine that after going through the entire process as described above, the Senators/ Congress-people then discussed with their partners one of the bills on the floor. Each pair would then report back to the greater body, but speaking their partner’s point of view. (Extra-credit if they turn it into a song or a rap!) After a brief recess when all partners had lunch together, they then came back to business as usual to discuss and vote on the bill.

 

But could it be business as usual having gone through the process described above? Can you feel how the whole toxic atmosphere of us and them, of demonizing the opponents, of thinking as a block following the party line rather than considering the points as individuals, would change? If not, back to music class.

 

And on to group circle dances, mixers dancing with different partners, choral singing in parts, drum circles and instrument ensembles (xylophones for those without other instrumental skills) where opposing lines join to create beautiful harmonies and counterpoints. The whole nine yards of people united vibration by vibration for a common goal and purpose, not only for the deep pleasure of this most essential of human experiences, but for the metaphor that reminds them all that they were elected not to serve their party, but the people. Their job is not to win while the opposing party loses, but to work together in service of the common good. 

 

If they still need help understanding this, there’s more. The Oxdansen dance in which partners playfully (and artfully) pretend to slap each other around. The beanbag game where all walk around the room balancing beanbags and have to freeze if one falls off, to be unfrozen only if others notice and put the beanbag back (at the risk of dropping their own). The songs that stir us to the beauty alongside the duty of social justice. Active, physical, tangible practice of what it feels like to share this precious planet with others, to work together, to play together, to create together. All the things that help a society function, keep a culture vibrant and healthy and make its citizens happier and well cared-for.

 

If you agree that our governing system is deeply broken to the point of insanity as we do the same things over and over again with the same result of rancor, division, ineffective government, why not try something different?  How else can we break the cycle of insanity? If we try it and it doesn’t help, so be it. But if we don’t try it, we’ll never know. What’s to lose?

 

I’ll await the call from President Biden and see if I can fit this into my workshop schedule.

 

 

The Misunderstandings on the Stairs

 

“How it was I don’t understand, but we always seemed to be getting, with the best of motives, in one another’s way. When I wanted to go upstairs, there was my wife coming down; or when my wife wanted to go down, there was I coming up: And so we passed five years of misunderstandings on the stairs.”       - The Moonstone:Wilkie Collins

 

Let’s face it— conflict is the state of the human condition. Not deviance from the norm of peaceful co-existence, but a constant misunderstanding on the stairs. In the face of that truth, it’s remarkable that we are so ill-prepared to deal with it. 

 

At the lowest level, there is war. But as others have commented, “war doesn’t determine who’s right, only who’s left.” And as poet William Stafford noted, “every war has two losers.” A very bad idea that we keep repeating, though some signs that perhaps we're beginning to re-consider — the world response to Putin’s current atrocities with collective outrage, economic sanctions and open doors to Ukranians. 

 

The judicial system is a step up, a complex process to determine who’s right and who’s wrong and who has to pay for the transgression. One person or institution “wins” and receives a settlement and/or the pleasure/ safety of seeing the transgressor locked up. I watch courtroom dramas the way that I watch basketball games, with a certain pleasure in the tension between two sides and hopes that my side will win. Accompanied with the pleasure that the bad guys get their just desserts and the better team wins the game. The law and sports share in common our fascination with conflict and the former is certainly a necessary safeguard in a healthy society. But in the end, there's still a winner and a loser and in the case of the law, the “losers” in the conflict still share the planet with us.

 

So I find myself looking for a more win-win structure, something more akin to music where two bands at a concert can each offer some kind of healing to the listeners without one having to be declared "the winner." In the next three posts, I propose a conflict resolution revolution that could go further than we have collectively gone before to consider new ways of a more harmonious co-existence, to come to terms with our misunderstandings on the stairs. Two of them we have never tried as a species and one in only some fledgling form. 

 

Intrigued? Stay tuned. 

The Notes of Life

At the end of the school year, I always had the 8^th grade write an evaluation of the year and ended with this question:

 

“You are a parent at a school that has just decided to drop its music program. Based on your experience here, what might you say to convince them otherwise?”

 

The answers are invariably articulate and heartfelt and often much better than any adult can do. Below are some answers I recently uncovered from 2012.  I particularly love the line “each key press gives children hope and happiness.”

• Music is important to the soul, body and mind. Music is the notes of life, each key press gives children hope and energy Music is a way to relax and to express your emotions. Music is everything, everyone and music is everywhere. Children tap their pencils and stomp their feet. This is music. —Jake

• I felt that this music program educated all students in a wide range of music. Students without any musical background and students with ample background still took a lot out of the class. The Orff program was great and it expanded my knowledge on how to play in a large ensemble. —Gabriel

• The music program at SFS helped me get through a lot. It was a safe place where I could try new things, take risks, express myself, be creative and forget about my stress and problems. It definitely was one of the main things that made me who I am today.-Yma

 

• Music was one of the main things that kept me in check, kept me happy through my years in school. If you take away music, you take away childhood. —Sam

 

• Music meant a lot to me because even though I wasn’t very good, the teachers still respected me and gave me a lot of love. —Kobi

 

• Music helped calm me down on tough days and cheered me up when I was down.-Andres

 

• A music program is essential in children’s lives because when I was a child, it helped me be proud of myself after finishing a song. And it gave me the energy to continue through the day.  -Crystal

 

• Music has been a way for me to escape from it all. With all of the pressure that schools put on the children nowadays, you need one class just for a release. -Tessa

 

• I would not only talk about actual music class, but also the experience that comes from performing and being part of an ensemble. I would also talk about how singing brings communities together. All the ceremonies and singing time made my school a family to me. Looking back, I’ll remember that most. -Naomi

 

 

Shelf Life

 

Upon the advice of a travel nurse, I got a Hepatitis B vaccination today. The nurse told me:

“You’ll need two more shots, one in a month, one in six months and that should last the next 20-30 years.”

 

It’s time to get our house painted and the painter predicted the job would last another 20 to 25 years. 

 

I’m due to buy a new bottle of tabasco sauce.

 

And so the alligator with its ticking clock came closer and announced, “According to our shelf life predictions, this will be your last shot, house paint and bottle of tabasco sauce.”

 

Though my Zen teacher lived until 108 and I’ve known a few others to surpass 100, I suspect that’s about right. More and more I’ll encounter these shelf-life predictions in my daily life. Not yet at the green banana stage, but the numbers will have their say.

 

Meanwhile, my sixth day of music class subbing yesterday, each as glorious as the last, a shelf life that has yet to expire. Tick tock, tick tock.