September 8, 2025

    I just received an invitation to our 60 year graduation reunion at the Albert Einstein College Of Medicine Alumni reception in the Bronx, New York for next month. Many of the participants I have vague associated memories but some more feeling of attachment and interest in communicating with. Some have responded with attached shortened curriculum vitae describing their academic and professional accomplishments including continued work. We're all in our 80's yet continued influenced by the culture of activity, curiosity, and research participation that influenced us in our beginning careers. Some of us are deceased or seriously cognitively impaired. The toll of time has been here. 

    I just returned from a trip from Kailua Oahu to Glacier National Park with the Road Scholar Tour Company. Besides the adventures in the great outdoors, our lectures and times sharing with over thirty interesting mostly retirees and the history of the First Nation in Canada and the wild west adventurers and settlers stimulating my mind. I visited a college friend in Massachusetts after a fifteen year absence, had my stuffed lobster dinner in Boston where I had spent three years of my life studying Psychiatry many years before, visited my wife's daughter in Zebulon North Carolina, and spent a few days visiting my sister and relatives in Temecula, California. My sister is in assisted living, almost completely blind from macular degeneration, wheel chair bound, and ill with a number of doctor and rehab services yet a sweet heart. 

    Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius is quoted "  ‘Human life. Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting fame: uncertain. Sum up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion.’    I'll have some fun dissection his observations and conclusions. My duration in 86 years. Depending on comparison timeframes this can be viewed as momentary yet from the viewpoint of my awareness of the here and now I'm a familiar consciousness and my consciousness is home to me over the years. My nature has changed over the years so for example I'm a more cautious driver and much less prone to be exacerbated by others driving habits. I appreciate my friendships, family interactions, and good fortune in having these riches more than I used to. So my nature has changed in a positive direction. My perception in some ways is dimmer with retinal issues, poorer vision, hearing deficit improved with hearing aids, peripheral neuropathy causing imbalance, footdrop, and less strength. All the health issues are currently managed by a plethora of medications which have sometimes sapped my energy and a coterie of doctors to visit more frequently yet I am well aware that when in more top form in the past hiking the trails and mountains of the world my perceptions are influenced by my expectations, past experiences, and antinomies of thinking (Kant). I don't experience my soul spinning around but more appreciate my kinship with this life associated with all that is in it and that I have learned, and have taught and shared with others. My wife Ann died from pancreatic cancer 10 years ago. Sometimes I converse with her to bridge my solace. Yet with my wife Rebecca now married 8 years I have a partner who I can enjoy our company and act to give her pleasure and companionship. I don't need lasting fame. 

    One of my pleasures is to play the piano which I started when 9-10 years old but quit then restarted in my 60's by taking two years of piano at our our community college. Recently I have opened a music book of Barrelhouse and Boogie Piano by Eric Kriss which I enjoy banging away on my Roland Piano and learning about the Creole history and lives of some of these brilliant creators who enjoyed their shorter lives under horrible discrimination. 

    Throughout our home are paintings of my wife a very gifted artist and some of my photographs of the adventures in various parts of the world and especially here in Hawaii. My wife's art brings back some of her history and experiences at the times of their creation as do my photographs. Sadly I can no longer carry the cameras I enjoyed on my previous adventures since my balance requires two hiking sticks to stay upright. I'm adjusting to snapshots from my Iphone recently. I recently printed a series of photobooks of photographs 13x19 inches in color which pleased me revisiting the past adventures, sights, and friends and family. Learning new skills in these arts has been very enjoyable. So Marcus Aurelius I left out joy, sharing, and learning as human pursuits that life offers us. In some ways life is a warfare and a journey far from home. I get this experience when reading our news and considering the state of our governments and conflicts. I have had a group of very interesting friends with differing points of view that meet every Monday at my home to talk, share, debate, and learn from each other. 

    Since I will not attend my 60th reunion I will share some of my life as a doctor. My career as a psychiatrist was greatly influenced by Einstein's emphasis on our first year group meetings, my time on the psychiatric wards in our training, my three month experience in Abeokuta, Nigeria, my residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and my experiences at the National Institute of Health. What I just wrote means little to you my readers but much to me since I had so many formative and peak experiences while making some contributions to others. The field of psychiatry can be so challenging or boring depending on one's approach. To me I was challenged by the difficulty to have meaningful conversations and provide useful interactions and suggestions to my patients.  My interest in community psychiatry grew with my elective experiences in Nigeria and then Roxbury Boston where I met a great mentor a minister at the United Church of Christ George Thomas. My group therapy experiences were enhanced by women participants who shared their lives with our group. Many were children of and people who emigrated from the segregated south to Chicago, New York, and then Boston. Here in Roxbury I began my journey researching how trauma and deprivation shaped social groups and how social changes in community mental health may improve this groups mental health. This interest of mine continued with my volunteer work at a community health clinic near Bethesda Maryland. I became a researcher in sleep and psychosis at the National Institute of Mental Health but my interest after this two year fellowship brought me to Hawaii where I became an administrator to a large mental health center in Honolulu. I stayed in this position trying to serve this multiethnic community but after eight years I took my sabbatical to Jerusalem for 10 months as a visiting professor. 

    My experiences there deserve another blog so I'll demur for now. On my return to Hawaii I worked with the health department to start a new program for the state, the Crisis Response Program, that had half way homes, outreach workers, and the authority to screen many admissions to Hawaii State Hospital. This half time position allowed me to have a community clinic for my private practice in Kailua and up at the north shoe in Kahuku. I became a consultant to an adolescent substance abuse residential program and a children's residential program. Lastly I then became a forensic mental health expert for the courts and did independent evaluations. For a number of years I was the psychiatric director of a health care provider to welfare recipients in the state of Hawaii.  My professional life was full with APA Hawaii involvement’s including President, community hospital committee chairmanships, etc.

    My passions to achieve better understanding and skills brought me to treat very complex cases of people traumatized in horrific ways. I realized that I was challenged by these patients to assist them to move past retraumatizing themselves. Along the way I joined the Hawaii Medical Association Physician Health Committee and was chairperson for over ten years assisting mostly physicians and dentist mostly with substance abuse and alcohol problems but also problems with ethical violations. 

    That's enough of my professional side. I'm bless with three very caring, perceptive, interesting and successful children, five grandchildren that are thriving, a circle of friends and colleagues. Is life Oblivion? From my brief descriptions you must glean that perspective of Aurelius is in part true depending on your yardsticks. I share these words as a testament that my life has meaning and significance yet realize that this is true and may be grandiose at the same time.  

    I have wondered what I would do if starting over again. I only know my interests. A musician no I'm not adept. These last few years I've read a lot about cosmology, epistemology, and quantum mechanics, sociology and various forms of fiction. My photography interests have blossomed as far as as I need. If I could start over I would like to take more courses in some of these subjects and even see myself doing teaching and research in some of these fields. 

    Se La Vie to me an apt saying. The roads we take in life are shaped by our times, culture, guidance, and even choice. The world of quantum physics is understood mostly through educated guesses rather than cause and effect. If cause and effect then there is no free choice. I'm satisfied with my choices. Yes, of course, my present knowledge affords me a newer perspective so some of my past choices I see as incorrect, even wrong with some feelings of regret.

    We're all in the same boat as far as I'm able to discern.

    Aloha,

Leonard 

      

Welcome to our adventure and sharing of this beautiful world

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