Episode 10: Dealing with Tragedy

Welcome back to wisdom from the area of view, a podcast dedicated to Dr. Mark Klein's book by the same name, a book and podcast dedicated to what is really important in life and how we can find that superpower that changes our lives and this world. Today, I wanted to do something a little bit different. And that was, I wanted to talk about something that is not specifically mentioned in the book, but is paramount, think nowadays. And it's about healing. I saw a quote that I thought was fascinating. said, healing doesn't mean that damage never exists. It means the damage no longer controls your life. And it's true. I think about, the reason I even got involved in this notion of healing was because I was thinking about you. You have been a physician and a physician is a healer. And so I wanted to start, Seriously, we've been doing these podcasts and getting to know the book, but I think it's important to get to know little bit about you. You chose a healing profession. Tell me why. What made you go into medicine?

You know, a lot of people have asked me that. I'm sure most doctors get asked that question at some point. Short answer is usually your mother. But in my case, it just always felt right. The idea to be able to have people trust you, open up to you and give you the opportunity to help them in some way, it just always appealed to me. Now, obviously, there are lot of ways to do that. Medicine is only one.

Yeah.

But I like science, I like biology, I like figuring things out. So it just really seemed natural. And honestly, I didn't entertain a lot of other things by the time I got around to being of the age where I had to think about what I wanted to do. I mean, when I was really little, I wanted to be an electrician. That would have come in handy now. Darn. Let that boat sail. But then, yeah, never too late. But there's a...

Never too late, never too late.

There was always something about medicine. I remember my pediatrician, he was an elegant guy. And I just thought this ability to combine the knowledge of medicine, the hard science, with the opportunity to assist people in the most important, one of the most important ways, to me was just, I won't even say irresistible, it just seemed like the natural thing to do.

Talk about to me, if you can, the notion of healing. I mean, you're healing people on many different levels. Not only are you healing them physically, but you know it because I know you. You heal people emotionally as well. And I think too many doctors don't do that, but you do and you did and you continue to. But this whole process of healing, Paolo Coelho said that what hurts us is what heals us. And I can't... help but think that you are a healer and you've been a healer your whole life. And you chose to do that. And you talk a lot about in the book about your dad, your dad's illness and how that impacted you. And did it impact you in a way that you felt I can't heal him or I wanted to heal him? I tell me about that.

I tried to heal my father. Remember I was young, I was 19 when he got sick. And as I said before, for me, that's when we lost him because he never really recovered. He died 18 months later, but he never really recovered from that illness in the sense, mostly psychologically. He had a few good months physically or okay months. I never really asked him because in those days one didn't ask one's father those kinds of questions as much. Even though I spent a lot of time with him when he was ill.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But clearly, psychologically, he was done pretty much right after he was diagnosed. So I did want to heal my dad. And I remember, I don't think I've ever told another soul this. Here I am telling it to anybody who wants to hear. I used to lie in bed at night and I would close my eyes and think these thoughts that I thought perhaps there was some supernatural way that my thoughts could travel through the ether. and enter his body and cure his disease. I'm sure, you know, one of the themes of this podcast and one of the themes of life is that if you have an idea, a thought and emotion, probably a billion people are having it pretty much simultaneously. Maybe not a billion, but hundreds of millions. There's no thought or feeling that you have that's unique. It's happened to people since the dawn of man. It will continue to be so. And now again, I find that comforting because it means

Yeah.

We're not nearly as alone as we think we are. I'm sure a lot of people would call it prayer. I guess it was prayer, right? But for me, it was even more than prayer. was like I was trying to generate this electromagnetic wave of some sort. I don't know. Just this idea that I could somehow miraculously affect the biology of his abnormal cancer cells. Of course, it didn't work out very well. And of course, I never really believed it would, but I just felt like many people, do you have to try and do something?

Mm-hmm.

Healing as a physician is very interesting because you can give somebody an antibiotic who's sick if they're a bacterial infection and they get better. Wow. Or my favorite thing when I started in internal medicine, I was an intern, and one of my favorite things is when patients would come in with congestive heart failure. So congestive heart failure is a situation where the heart muscle, it's a muscle, no longer is up to the task, can't pump well enough.

And they get better. Wow. Or my favorite thing when I started in internal medicine, it was an intern, and one of my favorite things is when patients would come in with congested heart failure. So congested heart failure is a situation where the heart muscle is a muscle, no longer is up to the task, can't pump well enough, and it literally fails. And so it can't circulate blood properly, you won't have problems in that muscle, breathing problems, and so on. And so we get these patients to come in.

and it literally fails. And so it can't circulate the blood properly and you have all kinds of problems from that, mostly breathing problems and so on. And so we get these patients to come into the hospital who had gotten off their medications or hadn't taken care of themselves and gone from being okay to now in congestive heart failure where they were short of breath, they couldn't walk, they couldn't do very much of anything. And you tune them up with certain drugs and now the drugs are even better. And you give them these drugs and within 24 hours they were like,

and you tune them up with certain drugs and have the drugs make them better. And you them these drugs and like within 24 hours they were like boom, magic, they were back to their old selves. that was the coolest thing. I love that. Now, it sounds weird to say I love people with digestive heart failure because a lot of people can't, don't recover.

Boom, magic, they were back to their old selves. And I thought that was the coolest thing. I love that. Now, it sounds weird to say I love people with congestive heart failure, because a lot of people don't recover and die of congestive heart failure. But the people who are just kind of slid off the scale a little bit and they're not, like I said, not taking their medicines appropriately or something else has changed in their life medically, so their heart is no longer compensating. But you can do these magic little interventions.

Yeah.

and poof, they pop right up and they're fantastic. And that's a metaphor, I think, for many things in medicine where you quote, heal the patient, whether it be surgically, medicine, antibiotics, things like that. But that's a very specific type of healing, very concrete. We call it very concrete method of healing. But of course, a lot of people we can't, we're not so successful. And especially the patient, people who have emotional issues, who have mental health issues, you the drugs. Some work for a while, most of don't work forever. And that's a very frustrating thing to want to be able to help these people. you don't have your... You look in your quiver, you don't exactly have the right arrow to fix this. But that's one of the things about the aerial view that is so unbelievably great. Now, I know I proselytize about the aerial view all the time. And I talk to people every day about the aerial view, not just with you on this podcast. I talk to people about this every day. And it is unbelievable. It affects everything. We were talking about the politics, our current state of politics. And some significant portion of the country is very upset and they're beside themselves and whatever. And nobody needs to be like that. There is a way. We talked about it last time. If you understand how the world works and you can get yourself into the aerial view and get that perspective. It's quite calming and quite easy to take a deep breath and just say, okay, this has happened before, it will happen again. Let's see how it plays out. Most of the time it works out okay historically. It has, not always. Sometimes it doesn't work out very well, but it's going to play out one way the other and recognizing that this is just... another cycle of the sine wave of history is very helpful. And that's one of the things the aerial view gives you. It gives you that perspective, not only in politics and the health of the country or the world, but probably more importantly, in your own personal life. To understand what life really is, that it's this finite thing we call lifespan from the moment of your birth to this.

to the day of your death, those records that you're on in the jukebox of time. When you get that perspective, and that's really what the aerial view is, it's a perspective. It's quite helpful. And so in healing, which is what we're talking about now, the best thing to do is teach an individual how to heal him or herself. That's way better. That's way better.

Okay, let's talk about that. Okay, that's and that's why I wanted to talk about this because I I I'm stressed in the current political situation, etc, etc It drives me crazy. But I think the reason I really wanted to talk about healing today was help us heal Well, we have to heal ourselves and maybe in so doing we can help heal the country. Tell me how we get to the area of view because a lot of us are very stressed right now about what's happening in the country politically. And you're not. And I think that's amazing. And I applaud you, wish that I could be there. Help me to get there. How do I get to the area of view where I can heal my inner soul right now that is hurting with what's going on in the country? Tell me how do I do that? How do I get to that area of view?

Well, people like you, I find in terms of the political issues, I find very interesting. And I look at somebody like you who is a wonderful, kind, generous person. I you are the salt of the earth. And I think poor Enid, why is she torturing herself about something so not irrelevant, but expected in the world? In other words, we are going to see these cyclic events in the world. We are going to see wars. We are going to see democracies come and go. We are going to see leaders or even dictators come and go. You know, just step into the aerial view and take a look at all of time. Because remember in the aerial view, you're not focused only on the moment you're in or even the moments around the moment you're in. You're looking at the whole thing from the first record of that jukebox to the last. And of course, we're talking about an infinitesimally tiny sliver. of that all that time, we talk about a presidential term, four years. mean, it's hardly worth mentioning in the overall discussion of time because it's so insignificant in the sense of time, but it's very significant to the people who living through it in the street view. So if you're stuck in the street view and that's all you see, then this four years could be an eternity for you. Every time something happens, just knocks you right off that stone. I like to say that

Right.

What we don't want to be in our lives is balanced on a single stone. We don't want a brisk breeze or any event to just knock us off. We want to be firmly set in that ground. We want to have one leg in one set of concrete, the other leg in the other set of concrete, and you can blow that wind as hard as you want, and we're not going over. And that's what you want. You don't want the wind to blow you over. And so a presidential election, which you have, you will one vote out of

and we're not going over. And that's what you want. But you don't want the wins while you're over. So a presidential election, you have, you will one vote out of, I think it was like 150.

I think it was like 150 something million people. Don't expect so much of yourself. mean, you're one of 150 million people. A, your opinion could be wrong. We're going to talk about that at length in a future podcast about why being right is overrated. A, you could be wrong. That's the first thing people have to realize. No matter how adamant and sure you are that you're on the moral high ground, as soon as you get that sense that I'm right and they're wrong, the bells should go off in your head. Because there's a good possibility. maybe less than 50%, but there's some significant possibility that you're wrong. Which is why I am much more interested now in my life in listening to people's opinions. People ask me my opinion, I go, no, no, I wanna hear your opinion. My opinion, I'm not really that interested anymore. I wanna hear what other people say. Mostly, maybe if I can help them. not be stuck in that single stone where the wind's going to blow them over. So the first thing is to understand that you don't want to be balanced on a single stone. You want to have a much firmer foundation so that when these things occur. So how do you get that firmer foundation? Well, from the aerial view, it's incredibly obvious that our life spans are short, our effect on the universe is essentially insignificant, that the universe will go on no matter what happens. The universe isn't going anywhere, no matter what happens on planet Earth. It doesn't matter. The universe is going to continue. In fact, planet Earth is going to continue. It may have life on it, it may not, but it's not going anywhere either. Planet Earth, I can assure you, will get very, very hot at some point, and it will get very, very cold at some point, and all the continents will merge together again, like they started in Pangea, and then they'll separate again. All these things are going to happen again and again and again, no matter what you do. You don't have control over any of that, but here's what you have control over. One, how you interpret the world, how you feel and react to what's happening. Remember, we've talked about this. That's a superpower. You get to decide how you feel about things. Everything, every emotion, every reaction you have is a result of an interpretation of a heard or visualized event and your brain has assigned some type of value to it. Your brain assigned that value. It has no value by itself. You've assigned it. Number two, besides the fact you have control over things, over

your brain has assigned some type of value. Your brain assigned that value. It has no value by itself. You've assigned it. Number two, besides the fact you have control over how you react to everything, everything is temporary. Your lifespan is limited, right? So you can't be worrying about that. What you have to worry about is how am I doing? Am I doing the best I can? Am I making that evolution for self?

You have control over how you react to everything. Everything is temporary. Your lifespan is limited, right? So you can't be worrying about that. What you have to worry about is how am I doing? Am I doing the best I can? Am I making that evolution from selfish to selfless? Am I helping people? Am I being kind? Am I being generous? Am I learning to get my accomplishment factory in order by... recognizing that accomplishments are essential for personal happiness and concluding that evolution. Everything else is second. So they're not irrelevant. We do live in the street view. But to have that perspective that you cannot control the universe, these things are going to happen again and again and again and again. One of my good friends, I might have mentioned this before, very smart guy, very successful guy, and he He's probably at least as upset about you as the election, maybe twice as upset, who knows? He's pretty upset. He writes emails regularly and he's a very smart guy. He's a very good writer. And I read these things and I watch and I'm thinking, you know, if you only spend your days in the street view and you don't recognize the totality of what happens in time and... and the relative significance of a human life, you're going to be upset. You're going to let these winds knock you off that single stone, but they shouldn't. You do the best you can. You understand that you may be right and you may be wrong, that other people's opinions, even though you don't want to think about it, are probably, are in some ways just as valuable and important as yours. Because remember, reality's control is created by each individual. Every individual decision

relative significance of a human life, you're going to be upset. You're going to let these winds knock you off that single stone. But they shouldn't. You do the best you can. You understand that you may be right and you may be wrong in other people's opinions. you want to think about it are probably in some ways just as valuable and important as yours. Because remember, reality's control is created by each individual. Every individual decision, we'll repeat this again in a future podcast, but each individual decision has an equal effect on what happens in the world. It doesn't seem that way, but that's how it works.

We'll repeat this again in a future podcast, but each individual decision has an equal effect on what happens in the world. It doesn't seem that way, but that's how it works. I know we've discussed that previously. We'll get back to it a few times. So anyway, the point is you have to keep in perspective who you are, what your role is, what you can control, and that all these things are going to happen again and again and again, because that's the story of human life. That's the great clue that all we can control is what we're doing while we're here, how we react to it. how we treat people, how we make that evolution. If you focus on that, the rest becomes very easy to handle.

Well, I guess two things come to mind. One is that living in the street view, which we are, you see what's going on around you and you see people losing their jobs and you see people losing all sorts of things, people not being able to afford eggs or whatever. And so in the street view, that to me is something that becomes a trauma to me that I'm witnessing. But as you're saying is, if I can get If I can get into the aerial view and look at it in a different perspective, it might not be so harmful or it might be able to heal me. I get that.

It's not that it will heal you. It's that you don't need to, you won't need to be healed. There's nothing to be healed from. So look, people have been losing, you do everything you can to help that person and that's what you do. So if it's a neighbor and they've lost a job and you want to help feed them, which you feed hundreds of thousands of people in your life through your career and otherwise, then you feed them and you help them. people are, look, there are people all over the world who are,

But what about the person who losing their jobs? What do we do about them?

jobless, who are homeless, who are hungry, who are lonely, who are sad. So wrap your head around that. You won't get out of bed tomorrow morning because you can't fix all those things. You can't fix those. But each one of those people is going through a journey. And this is a very important fact to keep in mind. There is no such thing as an event or an action that has 100 % negative consequences. Zero.

Yes.

So, put your head against around that. You won't get out of bed tomorrow. I had a hard time this morning, yeah, yeah, right.

doesn't exist. Nothing. Some good, some positive, some hope, some benefit comes out of everything. Now, it may be extremely asymmetric. It might be 99 % bad and 1 % good, but it's never 100 and 0. And the reason for that is because the story of human life is what never changes. We start off ignorant, we start off dependent, and our goal is go from that demanding, selfish person to the selfless person who is focusing on other people. And as we've talked about, and we will talk about a hundred times, that if you want to feel good and you want to feel better, go help someone else. That's where the magic of life is. So if somebody's lost their job or is hungry or homeless, you do what you can personally. And I know you are, you are the poster child for this, which is probably why you get so upset because you recognize that as much as you've done, it can't change the overall, it hasn't changed the overall trajectory of the world. You've done what you can do. So you feed a hundred thousand people and there's another hundred thousand who is still hungry. Or you help somebody find a job and remember you've helped somebody find a job. That job's now off the market. Somebody else is getting a job. Okay. So you see, there's only so much you can do. So when you have the perspective, okay, so what can I do? You can focus on the things that are under your control. How you feel, how you react to what happens, how you feel about things. That's the Viktor Frankl model. That's so critical. And

or you help somebody find a job and remember, you help somebody find a job, that job's now off the market. Somebody else is getting a job. Okay, so you see, there's so much you can do. when you have the perspective, okay, so what can I do? You can focus on the things that are under your control. How you react to what happens, how you feel about things. That's the Victor Frankl model that's so critical. And then to do what you can to help each individual person and to make...

then to do what you can to help each individual person and to make that evolution to caring more about other people than you do about yourself. When you do that, then those concrete pillars surround your legs and you're not getting blown over by whether President Trump or President Biden or whoever the heck you don't like, because half the people don't like one, half don't like the other. You're not going to get crushed by that. You're going to understand that this is how the world works. so the story of life cannot be

that evolution to caring more about other people than you do about yourself. When you do that, then those concrete pillars surround your legs and you're not getting blown over by whether President Trump or President Biden or whoever the heck you don't like. You're not gonna get crushed by that. You're going to understand just how the world works. And so the story of life cannot be who is the president or what the weather is or what event occurs across the globe. You can't control those things. That's not your job. Your job is to individually do what you can to make that happen. So then let me pivot a little because you do have a chapter in the book on tragedy.

who is the president or what the weather is or what event occurs across the globe. You can't control those things. That's not your job. Your job is to individually do what you can to make that evolution.

And when I look at the notion of healing, I have to think about where does tragedy fit in? So you have a whole chapter on tragedy and it's a poignant chapter. Tell me then, how do we handle tragedy?

we did brush on this in one of our earlier episodes, but it's certainly worth revisiting because it is troubling. You the worst thing about tragedy is that it's unavoidable. I mean, it's relative. Obviously, some people have tragedies that are beyond description, you know, whether you're a hostage in Gaza or whatever the situation might be. mean, there are some very horrible tragic situations. And then, of course, when we lose somebody we love, that's tragic. Everybody feels that, right? So tragedy, it's like the day you're born,

Yeah.

You know you're going to run into tragedy somewhere. It's just not avoidable. Okay, 100 % of people are going to run into tragedy, 100 % for sure in their lives. What does that tell us? That tells us if it's like a lot of things we talk about that happen to everybody every day and we don't make a big deal about. So we have to accept that it's going to happen, but it's all part of the story. You can't avoid it. If you decide If you're going to live a human life and you decide not to check out, you don't take your own life, which I highly recommend against because so many cool things are going to happen in your life along the way. Don't cut it short. Don't cop out. I understand why people do. I don't judge people. I try not to judge people, but it's a really bad idea. You're going to miss out on a really lot of good stuff and you're going to miss out on the preparation you need for what comes next.

understand what people do. I don't judge people. It's a really bad idea.

So tragedy is going to show up. So how do you deal with it? I focused a long time on how to become mentally tough because I was anything but. I've told a lot about my childhood. I was small. I didn't think much of myself. So I didn't have, not only did I have a lot of self-esteem, but I certainly wasn't mentally tough. So I spent a lot of time thinking about mental toughness and how do you get to be mentally tough? And if I had to give somebody a definition of mental toughness, it would be that the likelihood that you would be unsuccessful in a situation would come as a surprise. Meaning that you expect to overcome, you expect to succeed. That's really mental toughness. And that comes in handy with tragedy. And the way it makes tragedy easier to handle is to say, it happens to everybody. 100 % of people will experience tragedy. It will happen in every single life. It's unavoidable. Therefore,

will happen in every single life. It's unavoidable. Therefore, I must look at it in perspective that it's something it's one page of my novel. We've talked a lot about the metaphor of the book. Another critically valuable metaphor when talking about the area of view. Look at the difference between the protagonist in the book in our lives, we're the main character, we're the protagonist of our story, we're on the page, we're stuck on the page, we're in the street view. The person observing our life or reading our story, holding our book in

I must look at it in perspective, that it's something, it's one page of my novel. We've talked a lot about the metaphor of the book. Another critically valuable metaphor when talking about the aerial view. To look at the difference between the protagonist in the book, in our lives, we're the main character, we're the protagonist of our story, we're on the page, we're stuck on the page, we're in the street view. But the person observing our life or reading our story, holding our book in their hand,

to them, they're the disinterested observer. They're in the equivalent of the aerial view. They're just watching all this happen. And when the book is over...

To them, they're the disinterested observer. They're in the equivalent of the aerial view. They're just watching all this happen. And when the book is over, no reader says, do you remember page 177? That was like the most important page of the book. No, they go, page 177 was part of the story. Turns out something tragic happened, but if that hadn't happened, what happened on page 357 wouldn't have happened. They're all tied together. You can't pull a single event out of a life.

no reader says you remember page 177 that was like the most important page of the book no they go oh page 177 was part of the story turned out something tragic happened but if that hadn't happened or happened on page 357 wouldn't have happened they're all tied together you can't pull a single event out of a life and because it no longer makes sense all these moments so the tragedies are part of it you know i i have said many times and again this is generally not consumed well

And because it no longer makes sense. All these moments, so the tragedies are part of it. You know, I have said many times, and again, this is generally not received well, there is no difference in the significance of a moment of tragedy as there is in a moment of joy. In the jukebox of time, these are indistinguishable. They're all the same. And from the arrow of view, you can understand why. They're not as much fun. Tragedy, you're crying, you're sad, you're distraught. for whatever, and hopefully you can limit that time by recognizing that it's for what a moment of tragedy is from the area of view. That's very important to be able to limit that. But you keep it in perspective that you understand what this is. It's just another page of my life of that novel that's my life. It's just another page. And when the story is over and somebody recounts the story of our lives, right?

important to able to limit that. But you keep it in perspective, that you understand what this is. It's just another page of my life, of that novel that's my life. It's just another page. when the story is over, and somebody recounts the story of our lives, right, they're gonna read the stories of tragedy in the same tone of voice as the moment.

They're going to read the stories of tragedy in the same tone of voice as the moments of joy and success. They're not going to raise and lower their voice to correspond to that event. They're just going to read it because they're all equal.

So you brought up the hostages in Gaza. Let's talk about that if we could. Yes, well, we do because that's tragic. There's no question. And then the hostages are getting released one by one. then they do interviews and they talk about what it was like. And I keep thinking,

Do we have to?

And it's astounding to me how we have a tragic event, and I get back to this notion of how do they heal from the tragedy that they have just lived for 500 days? How does one do that? How do they go? Are they, when they are held in captivity, are they in the street view? And then are they, maybe the way they can exist is that they've gotten themselves, without even knowing it, into the aerial view? I mean, how did they exist? for 500 days in captivity come out and be able to function in a society that needed them, wanted them, desired them, but won't understand them. How do they do that? How do they go from that to that?

Well, the same thing happens to people who are in wars, soldiers who were in wars, so many people who go through these different types of things. Look, don't want to, you know, it'd be presumptuous of me to tell somebody who's been through that event that I haven't been through how to behave, how to react. All I can say is that the way out of this is to remember two things. One is Victor Frankl's message that you're in complete control of how you feel and how you act. This guy was in a concentration camp. He saw the worst of the worst of the worst. If he can do it, anybody can do it. And that's his message. You get to control how you react. One thing that cannot be taken from a man or a woman is their interpretation of the world, how they feel about anything. And the second way is to hop up into the area of you and keep your perspective that this is part of the story of your life. When your life is over, there's going to be a short chapter, because it seems like a lot, 500 days, mean, God, these poor people. Most of them are going to live thousands and thousands and thousands of days because they're going to have, say, let's say to live 100 years. That's right. So that's 36,500 days. I think that's right. Is that right? Something like that. It's a lot of days. 365 times, yeah, something like that. I think that's right. Anyway, a lot of days. So the way to look at it is to keep that in perspective. This is part of the story of their life, an extremely unpleasant side, a horrible side, a horrible section.

You're asking me, I flunked my F, I don't know.

But it's like a little chapter. It's a small chapter. That's the only way I think you can really manage to get through this. If it becomes the chapter, then you're doomed. There's a guy, you and I talked about this. There have been journalists who've been injured and civilian injured and killed obviously in combat zones. And there was one guy who wrote a book, this guy, Benjamin Hall, who was in Ukraine and he and his driver and his... photographer, there were three of them, two men and a woman, were hit by a rocket, a Russian rocket. I think they were hit twice. Anyway, he managed to pull himself out. He lost at least one limb. He lost an eye. It's amazing that he recovered. He was really almost torn apart. The other two people were sadly killed. This guy lived, but with tremendous injuries and loss of function and so on. And he writes this book that it's the greatest thing that ever happened to him in a lot of ways. And you go, what, how could that possibly be? Because he's in the aerial view. He gets it. He understands what a life is. Life is an evolution from being dependent and innocent and selfish to making that evolution to become selfless and outward focused. He gets that. Now, what a guy. I mean, I'd love to meet him one day. I have tremendous respect for him and all people who go through that. You know, so it's easy for you and I to sit here and talk about it. How well we would do if, or let's talk about me, how I would do in that situation. I hope knowing what I know I do okay, but I don't know. But I'm really impressed by the people who have walked the walk, right? And that a guy like him has done that. So it is possible. If it can happen to one person, if one person can get that perspective, that tells you it's universal. Anybody can do that.

Yes.

Yeah, this has been an enlightening conversation for me. I've been thinking maybe too much about it, but I appreciate an openness and a frankness and a perspective, that your perspective on things are just eye-opening for me, and I appreciate it. Our producer's telling us we're running out of time, so I want to end this, as I usually do, with a reading from your chapter. This is a... something you've written on tragedy, if I might, and you say, quote, all who have experienced tragedy will have noted that despite one's loss, life for everyone else disrespectfully goes on as if nothing had happened. The universe is indifferent to what transpires in our lives. That need not concern us. We are not here to change the universe. We are here to evolve, to transition from selfish to selfless, from inward to outward focused. No matter the circumstances, that is always the mission. And that's what you've taught us. And you continue to teach us that we need to continue on that path toward self, from selfish to selfless. I'll let you have the final word, doc.

You've already used my final words. I would just say thank you to everybody for listening. one thing, if you're interested in sending questions for us that we can discuss during one of our episodes, you can send an email to question at wisdomfromtheaerialview.com. All one word. So it's question at wisdomfromtheaerialview.com. We look forward to your comments and questions and we'd be happy to address them. Thank you, Enid. Thank you, everybody.

Say that

Absolutely. Thank you, Mark. We look forward to seeing you next time. Peace.