Some things I have appreciated this week

Some things I have appreciated this week-

The breeze, the sea, the 10 mile bike ride into town, Belfast's industrial heritage, solar panels, good coffee, being healthy enough to jog for miles, Tom's laugh, the various shades of green outside the front room window, respect from a client who knows exactly how I feel and has been through worse than me, paternal skills as taught to me by Ruby, a bank holiday weekend, a decent snog, the sun, wasps, the power of a good film ("Blade Runner", directors cut), homemade bread, medication, insight, agronomy, the bedroom light against the wallpaper that looks like the moon through a forest, in-laws who trust Claire's choice of husband, making a bicycle with a friend, introspective silence, freedom of speech, very loud heavy metal, Schoenberg, my parents, the ability to read and having had a free education, that same cyclist every workday morning who nods and smiles, that first gin and tonic on a Friday night, nuzzling into Claire when I crumple, expertly crafted kitchen knives, the science of glass, ASIMO, the supercomputer that is a smartphone, cut wild flowers, soap.

Contentment, not happiness

I got a blazing white hot flash of crystal clear understanding today. Having thought and thought and thought over the months about attaining happiness throughout my life I came to a startling realisation- I don't want happiness. I want contentment not happiness. Contentment is deeper and more complex than happiness (which is fickle and ephemeral). I need to have meaning and purpose to achieve contentment and so my focus should be aimed towards significance of action. I guess this is one meaning of what Aristotle called "living flourishingly" or, I think, "eudaimonia".
I think this is what is meant by some humanist ideals, thoughtfully addressing ideas of how to live with one goal being constructive, significant action (maybe other goals address ideas of personal and societal growth, ameliorating distress, encouraging the strengths of others).

Now, how do I achieve non-happiness?!

Claire and I are walking a sponsored 20 miles on Ruby's 13th birthday in four weeks. Three people have independently told me they think this is an admirable thing to do on Ruby's birthday- to think of others on a sponsored walk. The truth is, what else are we to do? Sit around and mope, feeling sorry for ourselves? Fingers crossed Claire's recently injured ankle holds out.

Make the Road Your Friend

Just one of those weeks. I was a wobbly wreck for days and useless to everyone. So I did what I have to do at times like this, I took care of myself- time off work, wrote, cycled, ran, slept, cried, talked. I had to treat myself to things I enjoy and things that I know help. This is a necessity for my recovery.

I was thinking again about the nature of grief and how we have evolved this useful mechanism to help us cope with such adversity. The emotions I experience and will continue to experience are there to help my mind get through its trauma and to enable it to make some sense of this loss. My experiences are not "natural" in the sense that it is unnatural for a child to die before their parent although, of course, what can be more natural than death? But I know from professional experience working in mental health that humans can cope with the most amazingly stressful situations and trauma.

The idea of grief existing in a set of clean cut chronological phases has virtually no acceptance in modern counselling. It is instead a truly personal process with no linear route. There is no "right" and "wrong" way to feel or way of doing things. Some people find this lack of prescriptive method initially difficult to fathom - they might need direction and identified emotions to feel- but, in the end, it essentially means we can all make our lives what we want them to be.
My process of recovering has been on one major condition that I have had to follow which is that I have had to respect my grief and know that I have to go through it- it will ultimately be a help not a hindrance. There has been no point fighting against it because it will bite me in the end and, by then, the distress and damage will have increased. Like trees bent over in the wind I have had to be akin to my grief, to be flexible.
A cyclist friend once told me to make the road my friend when I am on those long runs and I find the going hard. This is exactly what has helped me a great deal- I haven't fought that long road, I have tried to make it my friend, tried to understand it, tried to ride with it and trust it will take me to where I need to go. Even if the journey will throw unexpected challenges in my path, even if it is rocky and I have to slow down and walk for parts of it, even if it is misty and the road is winding and I feel like I might career off the edge at any point, it is still MY road and I trust it to take me where I need to go. And now fifteen months down the line the road is a little straighter, I can see a little further ahead, it winds a little less sharply round the bends. There will always be potholes such as my early week "meltdown" recently but I know they are temporary and that the road is still there, relentless, dependable, my friend.
At times when there has been emptiness and no visible escape there is always the road under me.

I Am Mostly Not Sad

Sometimes the sadness lasts for a few seconds within a minute, sometimes for minutes within an hour. Occasionally the sadness lasts for a morning or an afternoon or an evening. Sometimes the sadness lasts for a day or two within a week. Always, there is some sadness there but I am mostly not sad. Mostly.

Few Things Matter but They Matter More

I have come to realise that most things are irrelevant. There are a lot of wasted thought and unnecessary worries used up on spurious bullshit. Fewer things matter than I had previously thought. But the things that matter matter more than I had thought. So:
Fewer things than I'd thought matter. But the things that matter matter more than I had thought.

I always need to remind myself:
Ruby is as unalive now as before she was born. My grief is mainly about what I have lost not about what she is. The Stoic idea holds true that in time I will have control and mastery over my own emotions and, hence, my grief.  I understand that the Stoics did not like optimism or pessimism but were realists. I take this to mean one needs to be honest to oneself about one's true emotions- being upset when sad, joyous when happy and not lying to oneself and others by covering things up.

Having stated the above, today I had moments of acute sadness thinking of what could have been and what Ruby has missed out on. Fortunately I am rational enough that these type of thoughts do not last long.

Some Lovely Poetry

I met the philosophy teacher again at the museum for a coffee. I was less nervous and greatly enjoyed our conversation.

I found this beautiful and accurate poem by James Fenton.


For Andrew Wood

What would the dead want from us
Watching from their cave?
Would they have us forever howling?
Would they have us rave
Or disfigure ourselves, or be strangled
Like some ancient emperors slave?

None of my dead friends were emperors
With such exorbitant tastes
And none of them were so vengeful
As to have all their friends
Waste quiet away in sorrow
Disfigured and defaced.

I think the dead would want us
To weep for what they have lost.
I think that our luck in continuing
Is what would affect them most.
But time would find them generous
And less self-engrossed.

And would time find them generous
As they used to be
And what else would they want from us
But an honoured place in our memory
A favourite poem, a hallowed chair,
Privilege and celebrity?
And so the dead might cease to grieve
And we might make amends
And there might be a pact between
Dead friends and living friends.
What our dead friends would want from us
Would be such living friends. .

This haiku is by Chiyojo:

My little dragonfly hunter
I wonder where he is
off to today

Her son died young and after writing this haiku she wrote no more and left the literary world in which she was celebrated and became a nun. I find it so heartbreaking because of the weight of the answer she was forced to provide herself after posing such a buoyant question she had no doubt asked herself hundreds of times when her son was alive.

And this too:

Not Waving but Drowning
by Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way
they said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.