Healings FAQ No. 18, Brock Keeling
Healings FAQ No. 18, Brock Keeling
"I couldn't describe what or who God is — only that I have faith in it, it is inside of me, and it happens all around me."
When I first started attending AA meetings and raising my hand and telling bits and pieces of my story, I often shared that part of the reason I drank was because of the professional milieu I was in — journalism and music. “Everyone else drank!” I’d say, ergo I became an alcoholic. I eventually learned that this was bullshit. One’s propensity to misuse substances has very little to do with one’s career choices. It’s not that “everyone drinks,” it’s that we alcoholics are very good at seeking one another out. If you’re an alcoholic school teacher or bricklayer, I guarantee you will find the other alcoholic school teachers or bricklayers.
This goes some way toward explaining why so many of my favorite colleagues from years past are now fellow Friends of Bill. One of those people is today’s Healings FAQ guest, Brock Keeling. Brock and I met as newbie writers at an alt-weekly in SF, twenty years ago, and we both covered local music. And while we ran in different crowds, I’m sure we both recognized in one another the kind person who’d never turn down the offer of “one more round,” who considered working fiendishly hungover a point of pride, who romanticized the idea of being able to do one’s job in a stupor.
But that was a long time ago. Since then, we’ve both sobered up, and Brock has gone on to have a lovely writing career, including full time stints at Curbed and New York Magazine, with work appearing in places like Vox, Dwell, Bloomberg, and lots more. Brock is currently the food and restaurant reporter at the Orange County Register, and was a two-time finalist this year at the Southern California Journalism Awards. Fancy!
I’m so thrilled to welcome Brock to our modest FAQ series. In addition to unconsciously recognizing one another as alcoholics-in-training two decades ago, I also immediately clocked him as someone who was kind, curious, thoughtful, and funny as hell, all of which is on evidence in his answers below. Big thanks to Brock for his friendship and for sharing his insights below. Keep coming back!
What happens when we die?
I'd like to think that, shortly after our physical death, our essence continues in some sort of form (a diaphanous wisp, perhaps) for some sort of other purpose. Ideally, a higher purpose. What I hope happens postmortem, should we continue on in said form with consciousness intact: No more eating. No more defecating. No more sebaceous filaments to control. No credit scores. No anxiety. No job titles. And possibly, for better and for worse, no desire.
Raised without structured religion, also for better and for worse, I'm unclear as to what the many teachings and scriptures say about the many alleged landscapes of the afterlife. What happens when we die isn’t something I give much thought to, despite losing friends and family over the years. Maybe we stick around, either in this dimension in spooktacular fashion or in an Interstellar-like tesseract banging on bookshelves or flicking the seconds hand of a watch to communicate with a loved one.
Whatever happens, I hope there’s choreography.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being terrified and 1 being it’s never crossed your mind, how afraid are you of dying? Explain.
I've run the gamut from 1 to 10. There have been times in my life where I didn't want to live and thought that, with a little effort, I could make that happen. There have been times where I was in immediate danger and feared my life could end at that moment (getting jumped, overdosing). And there was a time in my life when I wanted to live slightly more than I wanted to die (a solid 6), which is when I got sober.
As I grow older the fear of dying dissipates in relation to how happy I am getting to walk on this earth. Not sure what the alchemy of that is all about, but there you have it.
What’s the closest you’ve come to death? What did you learn, if anything?
The first time it happened it was all in my head: One day, when I was five or six years old, I accepted that I would die in my grandfather’s pool. I couldn't swim well, fell into the deep end, gave a slight struggle for a few seconds, sank to the bottom, and accepted that I was a goner. I stood at the bottom of the pool waiting to die. No fear, just acceptance. I was only down there for roughly 10 to 20 seconds, I think. Then an arm reached down and grabbed me, pulling me up to the surface. "Why were you just standing at the bottom of the pool," my dad shouted. I learned that I was okay dying, which, as a child, frightened me but also gave me relief.
Also, consuming more alcohol and drugs than my body could handle on a regular basis. That almost did me in.
Do you believe in God? Explain.
Yes, I do. I believe in a power greater than myself, which I choose to call God. It has a solid ring to it. One syllable. The hard D at the end is a nice finish. Outside of describing the word I use, I couldn't describe what or who God is — only that I have faith in it, it is inside of me, and it happens all around me. I maintain a daily spiritual practice that allows me to grow closer to what I consider to be God and to the people around me.
Other than that I have difficulty offering any interpretation of God that tracks. These days, I suspect written/spoken language is too young in the grand timeline to convey it with any accuracy.
Give me an example of a sacred text, for you personally—a work of some kind (book, album, song, painting) that’s essential to the formation of your spiritual worldview. Explain.
The final scenes of Three Colors: Red, the last installment of a trilogy, helped form a spiritual view for me – namely, everyone is connected, coincidences might not exist, and people die because that’s why.
I do wonder if Red would affect me today the way it did in 1994. (I developed a faint and unattractive sneering disposition over the years.) But the film, which remains astonishing decades later, has all of the markings of a work that would have spoken to a younger me, a sensitive liberal arts college student in the Bay Area with a fondness for what some people might call pretension: beautifully shot, directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, red hues, acclaim, and a woman with a severe bob.
In recent years, “The Four Agreements” has helped me become a less self-centered and more thoughtful person. I find continued relief and new discoveries with each reading.
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Healings is written by Garrett Kamps and edited by Tommy Craggs. Ayana H. Muwwakkil provides art direction.
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Really enjoyed this interview. Thank you.