We tend to think of mental illness as something that only happens to the few. We like to think that way, due to the real difficulty we have of confronting our own emotional and spiritual problems. Yet, from an anthropological point of few, the idea that only a few people will suffer from serious mental illness at some point in their life is absurd.
We all get physically sick. We get chicken pox, german measles and an array of unnamed 'bugs'. We do not treat these with any sense of embarrassment. Human beings, however, have real difficultly confronting emotional pain head on. This, I believe, is a big part of the trouble when dealing with mental illness.
To offer one example, someone in the mist of Romantic Love displays all the traits of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (OCD) The individual can forget about long standing friends, their credit card bills and their course or work responsibilities. Nothing else matters apart from what is in the centre of the obsessive's gaze. In addition to this - is it possible that two people can reinforce each other, both suffering from the same disorder. This 'double lock' - reinforces the compulsion.
At some point, however, 'real life' will click in. Maybe the bills weren't getting paid and the house is repossessed - or maybe a baby is expected, throwing the courtship off course. Three is a crowd after all.
My argument is that all obsession is a devious refusal to get well. When we avoid the real challenges that life throws at us, it is easy to regress into a fantastic fantasy - the rest of the world becomes like a phantom as what persists is a sense of unreality in our everyday lives. This 'unreality' litters the history of western philosophy. To question what is real, is to ask about the nature of Being - the fundamental task of all philosophy. Note that this task is also closely connected with love.
When I say that Romantic Love is one form OCD can take, I don't mean to suggest that all love is an obsession. When we truly care about another person, we are able to look beyond our own needs and recognize that the beloved is a separate human being, with an unique outlook and journey to take. Sometimes, this might mean letting someone make their own mistakes. Or, it might mean letting go of a friend we have known for years.
Nothing ever stays still. Life is painful. By accepting this pain, we learn how to grow and become wise. By rejecting this pain, we try to become children again, playing games of make believe.
We get to choose every minute which path to take.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
A delusional frame of mind.
It is amazing the lies that we tell ourselves.
There are those who believe that they are members of a very select few, who have been granted immortality by the author of all creation.
There are those who believe that they are destined for stardom, to be adorned and adored by millions across the globe.
There are those who convince themselves that their words will be discovered years after death, to be celebrated and discussed for millennia to come.
There are the pitiful loners, who delude themselves that when the stars align, their beloved will come rushing home.
We all on occasion need affection and recognition. Yet, when this is lacking, it is so tempting to self-mythologize, to lie and convince ourselves that our day will come.
On that day, all pain will be forgotten and all history wiped clean.
There are those who believe that they are members of a very select few, who have been granted immortality by the author of all creation.
There are those who believe that they are destined for stardom, to be adorned and adored by millions across the globe.
There are those who convince themselves that their words will be discovered years after death, to be celebrated and discussed for millennia to come.
There are the pitiful loners, who delude themselves that when the stars align, their beloved will come rushing home.
We all on occasion need affection and recognition. Yet, when this is lacking, it is so tempting to self-mythologize, to lie and convince ourselves that our day will come.
On that day, all pain will be forgotten and all history wiped clean.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
St. Valentine's Day Blues
It is only right that single people respect this day as a special day - a day for couples to make a point in reminding each other of their love.
One could go on for thousands of words writing about how crass and commercial this day has become. The lovely dovey marketing of the marketeers, is like a waiter who has a wind problem at an intimate dinner date. There will always be those who seek a profit in what is beautiful.
This day can be difficult for single people though. For those whose love has passed away, betrayed them or simply been unable to love back, it can be heartbreaking. One can be reminded constantly about what is absent. The ultimate sin is for 'good intentioned' couples to try and give their single friends advice, as if they possessed some higher understanding of the Platonic sun.
The truth is that there is no secret formula. It is only possible to be connected to someone, when you recognize what is special and individual about them. Then there comes acceptance, which is really only the by-product of such a connection.
Still, for many single people this day can pass like any other. Individuals can be content in their own company and do not always crave company. Such singletons are blessed.
One could go on for thousands of words writing about how crass and commercial this day has become. The lovely dovey marketing of the marketeers, is like a waiter who has a wind problem at an intimate dinner date. There will always be those who seek a profit in what is beautiful.
This day can be difficult for single people though. For those whose love has passed away, betrayed them or simply been unable to love back, it can be heartbreaking. One can be reminded constantly about what is absent. The ultimate sin is for 'good intentioned' couples to try and give their single friends advice, as if they possessed some higher understanding of the Platonic sun.
The truth is that there is no secret formula. It is only possible to be connected to someone, when you recognize what is special and individual about them. Then there comes acceptance, which is really only the by-product of such a connection.
Still, for many single people this day can pass like any other. Individuals can be content in their own company and do not always crave company. Such singletons are blessed.
Monday, 16 February 2009
Art and the unrequited.
There is perhaps nothing as damaging than unrequited feelings for another person. Feelings are not like thoughts and it is difficult to rationalize with them. You cannot decide to like someone just as one cannot decide not to like a person. Feelings are pre-rational.
You can control your behaviour and act honourably or dishonourably. It is always possible to say nothing when one wants to speak or to lie to save someone else's feelings. Yet, you cannot 'convince' someone to like you. Nor should you be too disturbed when someone you do not really care much about, expresses unwanted feelings. All you can do in such circumstances, is to act with respect and give a polite but firm 'no.'
When you feel strongly for someone and they do not return these feelings, it can be very hard to deal with. The first response is to feel that one's pride has been undermined. This can then develop into feelings of injustice. It takes a lot to leave oneself vulnerable and risk rejection. This is why repect is of the ultmost importance.
One cannot make oneself unfeel the other person by making a decision. When someone says, "It is time to move on..." it is never that simple. While such advice is often given with concern from a friend, one cannot simply wish the other person and their memory away. All one can do is live with the pain until the feelings die a natural death.
To try and force this issue can lead to damage. One can drink oneself into an unfeeling state. Or one can learn to hate themselves and then the beloved can become a victim of nasty remarks or worse. Socially, the best one can normally do is to remain silent.
But this is when the therapeutic value of art becomes apparent. To write a novel, love poem or song- to paint or make a film is an activity closely connected with bereavement. One both learns to remember and forget slowly in an act demonstrative of love.
You can control your behaviour and act honourably or dishonourably. It is always possible to say nothing when one wants to speak or to lie to save someone else's feelings. Yet, you cannot 'convince' someone to like you. Nor should you be too disturbed when someone you do not really care much about, expresses unwanted feelings. All you can do in such circumstances, is to act with respect and give a polite but firm 'no.'
When you feel strongly for someone and they do not return these feelings, it can be very hard to deal with. The first response is to feel that one's pride has been undermined. This can then develop into feelings of injustice. It takes a lot to leave oneself vulnerable and risk rejection. This is why repect is of the ultmost importance.
One cannot make oneself unfeel the other person by making a decision. When someone says, "It is time to move on..." it is never that simple. While such advice is often given with concern from a friend, one cannot simply wish the other person and their memory away. All one can do is live with the pain until the feelings die a natural death.
To try and force this issue can lead to damage. One can drink oneself into an unfeeling state. Or one can learn to hate themselves and then the beloved can become a victim of nasty remarks or worse. Socially, the best one can normally do is to remain silent.
But this is when the therapeutic value of art becomes apparent. To write a novel, love poem or song- to paint or make a film is an activity closely connected with bereavement. One both learns to remember and forget slowly in an act demonstrative of love.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
On Graham Greene: 'The End of The Affair'.
Consider the following two passages. They are written by the same author, in the same book and as the same narrator:
"When young one builds up habits of work that one believes will last a lifetime and withstand any catastrophe. Over twenty years I have probably averaged five hundred words a day for five days a week. I can produce a novel in a year, and that allows time for revision and the correction of the typescript. I have always been very methodical and when my quota of work is done, I break off even in the middle of a scene. Every now and then during the morning's work I count what I have done and mark off the hundreds on my typescript. No printer need make careful cast-off of my work, for there on the front page of my typescript is marked the figure- 83,764. When I was young not even a love affair would alter my schedule. A love affair had to begin after lunch, and however late I might be getting to bed- I would read the morning's work over and over and sleep on it...It needed Sarah to upset my self-imposed discipline... When she left the house I couldn't settle or work...But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly."
(Graham Greene, The End of The Affair, pp.24-25)
Then contrast this passage:
"The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem to be aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and no one other. But happiness annilates us: we lose our identity...The act of love itself has been discribed as the little death and lovers sometimes experience too little the peace. It is odd to find myself writing these phrases as though I love in fact what I hate."
(Graham Greene, The end of The Affair, p.36)
What an apparent contradiction! The first passage indicates that the writer is able to write in most circumstances and that this only became disturbed when he began to hate his lover Sarah. Only when he wanted the relationship to end, did his work pattern become disrupted. The second passage says something different. The argument here indicates that it is only through pain and hatred that one can press one's identity, that in love one becomes lost at sea, dissolved in an almost religious moment of loss.
Yet as one who has been trained in scholastic method, I am not willing to leave it there. Can one, reach a 'higher' understanding that does not make these two positions contrary to each other?
Certainly, the first passage speaks more about 'work' and 'habit.' It focuses on the formal aspect of writing, of the excerise of a technical ability. The second passage deals more with the content of the art. What is written about can become clearer when one hates or wants to assert one's identity. It might be a stretch to far to suggest that this is an outcome of the authors reported bi-polarity. Rather, what it demonstrates is that for great work to exist, there needs to be several sittings on the one peice, so that these two aspects can become entwined. When one swings to the technical extreme, the raw material of words is produced. Then at the other end, something more beautiful is produced when the content of the work can become visible. Surely this an indication that great writing- and indeed great art, cannot be the outcome of one brilliant moment of divine intervention. Instead, different treatments need to be considered and worked upon. Only then, can the masterpeice become possible!
"When young one builds up habits of work that one believes will last a lifetime and withstand any catastrophe. Over twenty years I have probably averaged five hundred words a day for five days a week. I can produce a novel in a year, and that allows time for revision and the correction of the typescript. I have always been very methodical and when my quota of work is done, I break off even in the middle of a scene. Every now and then during the morning's work I count what I have done and mark off the hundreds on my typescript. No printer need make careful cast-off of my work, for there on the front page of my typescript is marked the figure- 83,764. When I was young not even a love affair would alter my schedule. A love affair had to begin after lunch, and however late I might be getting to bed- I would read the morning's work over and over and sleep on it...It needed Sarah to upset my self-imposed discipline... When she left the house I couldn't settle or work...But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly."
(Graham Greene, The End of The Affair, pp.24-25)
Then contrast this passage:
"The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem to be aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and no one other. But happiness annilates us: we lose our identity...The act of love itself has been discribed as the little death and lovers sometimes experience too little the peace. It is odd to find myself writing these phrases as though I love in fact what I hate."
(Graham Greene, The end of The Affair, p.36)
What an apparent contradiction! The first passage indicates that the writer is able to write in most circumstances and that this only became disturbed when he began to hate his lover Sarah. Only when he wanted the relationship to end, did his work pattern become disrupted. The second passage says something different. The argument here indicates that it is only through pain and hatred that one can press one's identity, that in love one becomes lost at sea, dissolved in an almost religious moment of loss.
Yet as one who has been trained in scholastic method, I am not willing to leave it there. Can one, reach a 'higher' understanding that does not make these two positions contrary to each other?
Certainly, the first passage speaks more about 'work' and 'habit.' It focuses on the formal aspect of writing, of the excerise of a technical ability. The second passage deals more with the content of the art. What is written about can become clearer when one hates or wants to assert one's identity. It might be a stretch to far to suggest that this is an outcome of the authors reported bi-polarity. Rather, what it demonstrates is that for great work to exist, there needs to be several sittings on the one peice, so that these two aspects can become entwined. When one swings to the technical extreme, the raw material of words is produced. Then at the other end, something more beautiful is produced when the content of the work can become visible. Surely this an indication that great writing- and indeed great art, cannot be the outcome of one brilliant moment of divine intervention. Instead, different treatments need to be considered and worked upon. Only then, can the masterpeice become possible!
Monday, 9 February 2009
Winning the Devil's Confidence.
The devil or Satan remains within the popular imagination a strange figure. Even physically, we think of a red being with horns, a tail, a chiselled chin and a mischievous smile. This figure also acts in the same way the Greek gods must have for the ancient Greeks. The Devil, as a quasi-mythological entity, tells us much about ourselves. As any psychologist will tell you, human beings often project aspects of themselves onto others. When someone says, "You are like this...," they are often discribng an aspect of themselves that they think they may share with you.
Human beings are not straight forward. No matter how open and honest you may try to be, there is always confusion, jealousy, love and hatred to stumble across and mess things up. We are not perfect. And when we identify such imperfections within ourselves this can spawn great loneliness. Feelings of unworthliness can isolate and then there is a real danger of decent.
If the devil existed he would not be a straight talker. He would says things like, "Look at so and so, she is standing happily by her husband's side while all this time she is banging his best friend." What a disastrous and devasting thing to say!
First, it makes complicated things simple. When things seem simple, action is more likely. There is no longer room for understanding or even empathy.
Second, it creates doubt. Can I really trust myself and my own judgement when someone can be so completely fooled?
Third, when we start listening to this satanic figure, what develops is dependency. A conspiracy can therefore be cultivated, fuelled by the passions of hatred so that the hypocracy of supposed 'moral' persons is pointed out and dissected.
Finally, a permissive attitude can become the norm. "These people may say that it is wrong for me to behave in such a way but they don't behave that way themselves..."
In English, the word 'confidence' tends to have two separate meanings. The first is associated with high esteem. The second, is about a trusting attitude towards a close friend or associate. In the case of the devil as I've outlined- both go hand in hand. The only way to overcome such decent (as far as I can tell) is to have confidence in oneself and to be one's own council.
Human beings are not straight forward. No matter how open and honest you may try to be, there is always confusion, jealousy, love and hatred to stumble across and mess things up. We are not perfect. And when we identify such imperfections within ourselves this can spawn great loneliness. Feelings of unworthliness can isolate and then there is a real danger of decent.
If the devil existed he would not be a straight talker. He would says things like, "Look at so and so, she is standing happily by her husband's side while all this time she is banging his best friend." What a disastrous and devasting thing to say!
First, it makes complicated things simple. When things seem simple, action is more likely. There is no longer room for understanding or even empathy.
Second, it creates doubt. Can I really trust myself and my own judgement when someone can be so completely fooled?
Third, when we start listening to this satanic figure, what develops is dependency. A conspiracy can therefore be cultivated, fuelled by the passions of hatred so that the hypocracy of supposed 'moral' persons is pointed out and dissected.
Finally, a permissive attitude can become the norm. "These people may say that it is wrong for me to behave in such a way but they don't behave that way themselves..."
In English, the word 'confidence' tends to have two separate meanings. The first is associated with high esteem. The second, is about a trusting attitude towards a close friend or associate. In the case of the devil as I've outlined- both go hand in hand. The only way to overcome such decent (as far as I can tell) is to have confidence in oneself and to be one's own council.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Promiscuity
When we think of promiscuity, we most often think of sexual promiscuity. This word, however, can have a wider significance and can also be applied to musical tastes or intellectual endeavour. It is possible for instance, to think of someone as intellectually promiscous. The very existence of the word tells us something very significant about our place in the world and our mode of being. It can also demonstrate what Martin Heidegger means by the often quoted line: "Language is the house of Being."
Within this word there are several related associations. One of the most important is that of faithfulness. When one is faithful to a wife, one is generally not thought of as being promiscous. Within the academy, an academic will tend to stick to the topic matter that she is deemed to have expertise. And likewise, all but the most brave musicians will stick within a specific genre of music once they have established themselves and have a fan base.
I have a real issue with this. To start with, it is generally not accepted that a man can love more than one woman at a time. How many times has the following line been said in the heat of martial battle: "If you loved me..., you wouldn't have slept with her!" Human society has also developped various schools of thought with named subjects, to deliniate lines of influence and control. What can a geographer know about the sociology of post industrial society? And within the history of modern music, several genres have sprung up and cliques established. Is there not something fundamentally dishonest about this way viewing things?
The harsh truth is that it is possible for a man to love more than one woman at a time. This may be a taboo thing to admit but it does make sense. Love does not of necessity imply exclusivity. It is also possible that a geographer can know a great deal about sociology- and for individuals to make more than one type of music. We only need to refer back to the great polymaths of the past as evidence of this. In my mind at the moment is Aristotle.
Now, this does not imply that people should not choose to make a commitment of exclusivity, say in a long term relationship. That is up to the individuals involved. Nor is there anything wrong with someone pursuing painting for the rest of their life without feeling the need to pick up a guitar. It is impossible to experience everything in life and one does have to make choices.
But that is not the issue. Rather, when we tend to see people as types: (The married man, the heavy metal singer, the geographer)- we divest them of their complexity and the latent possibilities therein. There is an attraction to this way of thinking because it is easier. It is also more dangerous for we understand the world less. The people we associate with can also let us down in ways we find hard even to imagine.
Within this word there are several related associations. One of the most important is that of faithfulness. When one is faithful to a wife, one is generally not thought of as being promiscous. Within the academy, an academic will tend to stick to the topic matter that she is deemed to have expertise. And likewise, all but the most brave musicians will stick within a specific genre of music once they have established themselves and have a fan base.
I have a real issue with this. To start with, it is generally not accepted that a man can love more than one woman at a time. How many times has the following line been said in the heat of martial battle: "If you loved me..., you wouldn't have slept with her!" Human society has also developped various schools of thought with named subjects, to deliniate lines of influence and control. What can a geographer know about the sociology of post industrial society? And within the history of modern music, several genres have sprung up and cliques established. Is there not something fundamentally dishonest about this way viewing things?
The harsh truth is that it is possible for a man to love more than one woman at a time. This may be a taboo thing to admit but it does make sense. Love does not of necessity imply exclusivity. It is also possible that a geographer can know a great deal about sociology- and for individuals to make more than one type of music. We only need to refer back to the great polymaths of the past as evidence of this. In my mind at the moment is Aristotle.
Now, this does not imply that people should not choose to make a commitment of exclusivity, say in a long term relationship. That is up to the individuals involved. Nor is there anything wrong with someone pursuing painting for the rest of their life without feeling the need to pick up a guitar. It is impossible to experience everything in life and one does have to make choices.
But that is not the issue. Rather, when we tend to see people as types: (The married man, the heavy metal singer, the geographer)- we divest them of their complexity and the latent possibilities therein. There is an attraction to this way of thinking because it is easier. It is also more dangerous for we understand the world less. The people we associate with can also let us down in ways we find hard even to imagine.
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