Loss is Inevitable. Here's How to Handle It | Kathryn Schulz
Pulitzer Prize-winner Kathryn Schulz discusses her book "Lost and Found," exploring how humans experience grief and the unstoppable flow of gain and loss. She shares insights on finding love, navigating relationship challenges, and the importance of attentiveness in a world of constant contradiction.
Deep Dive Analysis
18 Topic Outline
Introduction to the Eight Worldly Winds and Impermanence
Kathryn Schulz's Background and Book 'Lost and Found'
The Inciting Event: Loss of Her Father
The Challenge of Processing Death and Grief
The Chaotic and Unpredictable Nature of Grief
Helpful Elements During Grieving: Love and Support
The Broad and Capacious Category of Loss
The Humbling and Awe-Inspiring Aspects of Loss
Contemplating One's Own Mortality
Meeting Her Partner: The Story of 'Finding'
The Joy and Challenges of Finding Love
Learning to Navigate Conflict in a Relationship
Two Relationship Communication Tips
The Existential Meaning of the Word 'And'
Life as a 'Perpetual And Machine' and Living with Contradiction
The Importance of Attentiveness and Cherishing the Present
Our Role as Caretakers and Stewards
Tools for Staying Present and Paying Attention
4 Key Concepts
Eight Worldly Winds
This Buddhist notion refers to eight dualities in life: praise and blame, success and failure, joy and sorrow, and gain and loss. The idea is that by relating to these inevitable ups and downs as natural flows, one can develop greater equanimity.
Capacious Category of Loss
This concept highlights that the word 'loss' encompasses a vast range of experiences, from misplacing car keys to the death of a loved one. All these instances share the property of reminding us about the fundamental ephemeral nature of life – something was here, and now it isn't.
Grief as a Scrim
Grief is described as a 'scrim' or a dimmer switch on the world, affecting how one perceives reality. While acute pain eventually subsides and the 'light goes back to full wattage,' moments of grief can still return unexpectedly, even long after the initial loss.
Life as a Perpetual 'And' Machine
This idea suggests that life is characterized by a constant conjunction of simultaneous, often contradictory, and sometimes unrelated experiences. We live with love and grief, joy and anxiety, all crowding in on us at once, requiring us to navigate this inherent 'and-ness'.
7 Questions Answered
Grief does not unfold in an orderly fashion like a timeline; it's more like a chaotic, changeable landscape. While there are 'stages,' experiences of grief lurch forth and recede, constantly changing rather than steadily progressing.
Love, both the memory of the person lost and the steadfast love of those around you, can be an anchor. Looking beyond oneself, remembering the joy the lost person wished for you, and being open about your grief to allow others to offer compassionate support are also helpful.
Yes, a little humbling is good for the soul and very healthy, as it reminds us of our lack of control and the grand mystery of existence, connecting us to a sense of awe.
Not necessarily. Kathryn Schulz admits it hasn't made her more at peace with her own mortality, but she hopes wisdom gained with age might eventually lead to less alarm about the end of things.
'And' is unique among conjunctions because it connects things without implying a necessary relationship, order, or causality. This reflects a deep truth about the universe: much of life consists of unrelated experiences happening simultaneously, full of contradiction and randomness.
Our role is to be caretakers and stewards of everything around us – one another, ideals we believe in, and the world itself. We are here to give, like a tree gives shade, and to cherish what we can.
Being a parent, as babies constantly demand and reward focus, is a powerful reminder. Also, engaging with the natural world – streams, mountains, animals – can restore attentiveness and make us 'sit up and look.'
17 Actionable Insights
1. Cultivate Equanimity with Life’s Flow
Learn to relate to life’s inevitable ups and downs (praise/blame, success/failure, joy/sorrow, gain/loss) as natural, like the wind or part of nature. This practice helps develop more equanimity in the face of life’s vicissitudes.
2. Embrace Life’s “And-ness”
Accept that life is a “perpetual and machine,” full of constant contradictions and unrelated experiences happening at once. This mindset helps navigate the fundamental texture of adult life, where things often crowd in without discernible order.
3. Embrace Role as Caretaker
Bear witness to life, honor what is noble, tend to what needs care, and recognize your inseparable connection to everything. Our brief time here means our job is to be temporary caretakers and stewards of one another, ideals, and the world itself.
4. Practice Present Moment Awareness
Focus on the present moment, fully engaging with and noticing what is happening right now, such as ’eating the sandwich.’ This is because the present moment is all we truly have, despite the difficulty of not getting distracted by the past or future.
5. Learn from Loss’s Reminders
Allow loss to serve as an “external conscience,” reminding you to notice, cherish, and defend. Loss fundamentally reminds us that time with loved ones and the world is finite, urging us to make the most of our finite days.
6. Embrace Humbling Experiences
Embrace moments of humbling by the universe from time to time. This is good for the soul, very healthy, and reminds us of our lack of control and the grand mystery of life, putting us in our place in the cosmic sense.
7. Support Grievers by Naming Loss
Say the deceased person’s name often, mention thinking of them for a specific reason, or share your own experiences of missing a loved one. This is a real gift to people who are grieving, offering comfort and solidarity.
8. Understand Partner’s Conflict Style
In a relationship, learn how you and your partner operate during problems, recognizing their impulses (e.g., craving space vs. connection, logical solutions vs. sympathy). Be generous towards these differences, even if they vary from your own, to build a healthy and functional relationship.
9. Reduce Fight’s Existential Stakes
In a committed relationship, recognize that most fights are not existential threats to the relationship. Lowering the perceived stakes removes the ‘fuel to burn up’ in conflicts, diminishing their severity and allowing for a more loving resolution.
10. Directly Ask for Attention
When you need your partner’s undivided attention, simply say “pay attention to me.” This is a straightforward and useful way to communicate a common underlying need in relationships, helping to restore balance.
11. Yield When Compromise Impossible
In situations where compromise is impossible (e.g., different strategies for a task), sometimes just yield and do it the other person’s way. This is very useful in a relationship because some things can’t be split, and it’s better to cede the point, especially when both partners are committed to each other’s happiness.
12. Embrace “Enjoy Every Sandwich”
Appreciate and love cliches that remind you to enjoy the moment. There is no deeper and more useful truth than to fully experience and appreciate the present.
13. Look Beyond Self in Hardship
In hard moments, look beyond yourself, up and out at the rest of the world. This helps remember that life is rare, precious, and beautiful, and that others need you to be present and compassionate, which can also help heal yourself.
14. Allow Space for Pain
Allow yourself to sit with your pain, sadness, suffering, or even whining. It is important to indulge these feelings sometimes for emotional processing.
15. Restore Attentiveness with Nature
Engage with the natural world around you, observing streams, rivers, mountains, or even unexpected animals. The natural world can restore attentiveness and make you “sit up and look at this” incredible place we live.
16. Children as Attention Reminders
Use the presence of children (or loved ones) as a reminder to pay attention. Their constant need for focus and the joy they provide can restore attentiveness and remind you of the pure, belovedness of humans around you.
17. Run for Restorative Attentiveness
Engage in running (or similar activities) to achieve a state of curious attentiveness where the world drops away. This is a beautiful and restorative feeling that helps you be purely “in the world and of the world,” sustaining attentiveness beyond the activity itself.
6 Key Quotes
I remember the way my mind absented itself immediately so that the few cool syllables to which I had access seemed almost to have formed outside of me. So this is it. I remember feeling simultaneously heavy and empty, like a steel safe with nothing inside.
Kathryn Schulz
It's not that it diminishes grief. I tend to think of grief as a very pure reflection of love. You know, we grieve people in sort of the exact proportion and in some ways in the exact ways that we loved them.
Kathryn Schulz
I do think it's the obligation of the writer in some sense to remind people of why they're right or give them some kind of new little suit to wear out into the world so they look fresh and dapper.
Kathryn Schulz
Loss, which seems only to take away, adds its own kind of necessary contribution. Disappearance reminds us to notice, transience to cherish, fragility to defend. Loss is a kind of external conscience, urging us to make better use of our finite days.
Kathryn Schulz (read by Dan Harris)
We are here to keep watch, not to keep.
Kathryn Schulz (read by Dan Harris)
The wonderful thing about babies is all they say is pay attention to me. They need your focus all the time, and they deserve it all the time. And best of all, they reward it all the time.
Kathryn Schulz
2 Protocols
Relationship Communication Hack: 'Pay Attention to Me'
Kathryn Schulz- When you genuinely want your partner's undivided attention, simply state, 'Pay attention to me.'
- The partner should then put aside distractions and engage fully.
Relationship Communication Hack: 'Just Do It My Way'
Kathryn Schulz- In situations where true compromise is impossible (e.g., putting a comforter into its cover) and one partner has a strong preference, that partner can say, 'Just do it my way.'
- The other partner, remembering their commitment to the other's happiness, should cede the point and allow it to be done their way.