Too Insulated?

Some older homes, even today, have so little insulation that you can feel winds blowing indoors, near (closed) windows and doors. New homes, on the other hand, need air-exchange units to prevent problems caused by being air-tight - overly insulated.

Many of us in the "first-world" are surprisingly insulated from most common forms of human suffering. Many of us even feel that a constant state of "happy, happy", especially during holidays like Christmas, New Years & Thanksgiving, is de rigeur - a constitutional right! Since being constantly "up" is unattainable, many of us self-medicate or otherwise delude ourselves to further try to insulate ourselves from reality.

Wise people point out that avoidance is not just ineffective, but actually harms us!

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen "Anthem"

Hob tells us that the so-called "handicapped" residents of L'Arche communities have an enviably high quality of life with respect to their depth of loving engagement with people & life, precisely because they've not been insulated from suffering.

“These people had one thing in common; they’d all had their hearts broken, often and regularly. There’s great beauty in the wound that opened up – the wound of the open heart.”

Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle. “Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows. A Couple’s Journey through Alzheimer’s.” Penguin, NY, 2008.