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Don’t Turn Your Back on the World

Before we continue with the main article of this newsletter: our latest OPS typing class is out now. This time, it’s on singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen.

Our next class, will be on actor Natasha Lyonne (highlight to see). The class comes out on December 27th at 9 pm UTC on the Practical Personality YouTube channel.

Without further ado, here’s this issue’s article on how Leonard Cohen's worst fears came true and how he dealt with it.

Don’t Turn Your Back on the World

A broke monk

A famous musician goes into a Zen monastery.

He's on a spiritual quest to dissolve his ego.

A self-centred sense of anxiety has plagued him all his life.

He turns his back on the world, his career, and his fans to focus solely on himself. He removes himself from the chaos and the unpredictability of life.

Five years later, he leaves the monastery as an ordained monk—perhaps a bit closer to enlightenment. But definitely much closer to being broke.

He hadn't been paying attention to his wordly affairs.

While he was meditating on a mountain, someone close to him had started stealing his money. His ego had played a trick on him. He had aimed to dissolve it, but instead, it made him hide from his biggest fear.

Anxiety had been waiting for him outside the monastery all along.

This little story may sound like a weird parable, but it happened to legendary singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen in the 1990s.

When he entered the Mount Baldy Zen Center in California in 1994, he had already been influenced by Zen Buddhism for decades. Driven by a yearning for spiritual clarity, he decided to submit himself to the rigorous discipline of Zen.

During this period, he assumed he could rely on royalties to provide for his modest lifestyle.

Unbeknownst to him, his manager had begun embezzling money from him and his estate as early as 1997. In 2004, Leonard discovered some irregularities in his accounts. His funds were reduced from $4.7 million to a little under $150,000.

His retirement money was gone. At 70 years old, it was time to go back on the road again.

A failed poet

Born in Montreal in 1934, Leonard Cohen started out as a poet and novelist in the 1950s. But his career as a writer never took off.

Disappointed with his lack of success, he moved to the United States to pursue a career as a singer–songwriter in 1967. His first album Songs of Leonard Cohen was published in December of the same year, and included evergreens like Suzanne and So Long, Marianne.

It was the beginning of one of the most celebrated and prolific careers in popular music, which would last until his death in 2016, only three weeks after he released his album You Want It Darker (my personal favourite).

But for the longest time, he was plagued by a deep-seated sense of anxiety. Throughout his life, he struggled with depression and used various substances to cope with his inner turmoil.

Leonard looked for answers in Zen Buddhism.

He understood his ego was the problem. He was in his own way, unable to feel a sense of being at home with himself.

Maybe he was unable to feel at home living in this world.

At age 60, Leonard knew he had to take a break from writing, recording, and performing to submit himself to the stern study of Zen all the way—before it was too late, and he’d be too old or too fragile.

A tennis player

Zen is serious business. It’s physically and mentally demanding.

Getting up at 3 o’clock in the morning, sitting in meditation for hours, cooking, cleaning, communal service, and studying. However, Leonard didn’t struggle as much with these rigorous routines as most people would.

Leonard is controlling by nature. His Objective Personality type is MF-Ni/Ti-SB/C(P).

As an IxxJ with sleep and blast as his saviour animals, he has a strong need for control and predictability. He clings to his saviours, same as everyone. His greatest fears are chaos and uncontrollable circumstances.

Leonard’s greatest blindspot is his worldly affairs.

By default, his mind pulls him away from the external world into an inner world he can control. A world that makes sense to him, that makes him feel safe. He thrives in rigorous routine.

Life as a Zen monk would be tough on anyone, including Leonard, but the strict regime of the monastic life overall suited his mental make-up.

So much so that the people around him noticed, too. Even the Zen monks saw that Leonard needed to loosen up, so they sent him out of the monastery to play tennis. Of course, they knew nothing about OPS types, but they recognised his comfort zone.

Zen is all about letting go—and the monks helped him do just that.

They helped Leonard to incorporate more play into his daily life, more openness and spontaneity, and more of the real, physical world.

They helped him let go of his attachment to his saviours.

A friendly fellow

The older Leonard Cohen felt remarkably different.

If you compare his earlier interviews to the later ones, post monastery and post his personal financial crisis, he seems friendlier and much more laid back. He smiles and jokes more, and doesn't seem to take himself as seriously as he did as a younger man.

However, I'm wondering what phase helped him more to let go of his ego. The monastery or the financial crisis?

In a way, meditation is a formalised practice of something Leonard does by default: processing and organising his inner world. You sit, and observe what comes up. You acknowledge it, and let it go.

Without a doubt, meditation can be incredibly beneficial for your mental and physical health.

However, for the introverts among us, meditation can be a way to cling even more strongly to our introverted saviours. Instead of doing the scary thing of engaging the outside world, we flee into our bedrooms—or Zen monasteries—to hide in our inner safe zones.

At the same time, meditation can show you why you’re doing what you’re doing. It helps you recognise your default tendencies—like going inward and neglecting the external world.

In this way, meditation motivates you to embrace the world and live more fully.

To play a game of tennis, now and again.

A celebrated musician

I don't know why Leonard left the Zen monastery in 1999.

Maybe he realised he wouldn't find what he was looking for sitting on a mountain. Maybe he managed to find it after all. Maybe it was something in between.

However, I know that more spiritual lessons awaited him outside the seclusion of the monastery.

In one of his later interviews, Leonard said: “Money has a way of disappearing if you don’t watch it closely. That’s a certain wisdom I acquired. I wasn’t absolutely certain of this, but now I am. It’s enough to put a dent in your mood.”

He continued by saying he wouldn't recommend the experience of having your financial survival threatened to anyone.

But he also expressed gratitude for the lessons he had learned.

When everything was gone, Leonard’s adult son told him he wouldn't need to worry about him and his sister: “We're going to be alright, we can take care of ourselves. You do whatever you need to do to take care of the situation.”

Hearing this relieved Leonard’s anxiety. An anxiety he had carried with him since his children were born. An anxiety for the welfare of the people he cared most about.

Sometimes chaos knocks at your door and your worst fears come true. But sometimes, this is merely the prelude to wonderful news coming your way.

Your loved ones can handle it—and so can you.

Leonard handled it tremendously well. Forced by misfortune rooted in his own neglect, he went back into the world and gave it his all. He faced his fears and thrived—and the world was better for it.

He was better for it.

He put a band together and went back on the road for his first world tour in 15 years. From 2008 to 2010, he played a string of widely celebrated concerts that allowed him to reconnect to other musicians and his fans alike.

Three critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums followed until his death in 2016.

Could all that have happened without spending years sitting in silence on a mountain?

Maybe not.

Could it have happened while sitting on a mountain for 15 more years?

Definitely not.

Maybe it all needed to happen in exactly this order.

Personally, I'd recommend meditating to introverts and extroverts alike. But you know what I'd also recommend to any type?

Don't turn your back on the world, and please look after your fucking money.

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