Connection and separation

Grief has connected me to more people than any other experience. I don't know how anyone else feels but I can get close by empathising. Empathy is useful in that it places me imaginatively in their position but it doesn't let me know how they actually feel. If I have experienced loss of almost any kind I can exprapolate that experience to a level similarly experience by others. Everyone has had a broken heart or been let down or refused a job or lost a relative and therefore everyone has a shared human experience with every other human.

Grief has enabled me to experience varying depths of separateness. It ranges from shallow, short-lived rifts to sharp-edged fissures that travel all the way down and will never reconnect. 

Daily, I experience little stabs of detachment that jolt me away from my immediate surroundings for a few seconds. Sometimes I become aware I have disengaged only after I come to, a minute into wandering nostalgia. This mostly happens when I am in the busiest company- in my office at work or a bustling shop. 

At its worst my severence is an absolute negation of human connectedness as if I am forcibly caste out to a faraway desert. It can last hours or days. It is dry, forbidding, simultaneously too hot and too cold, a killer of growth. I imagine pariahs in enforced solitary confinement or interns in a gulag isolated by cold and distance. I think I can feel despair but during those times of deep disassociation I try to remember I have great connection to others through universally shared experiences. 

  

Loss and Armistice Day

I attended Belfast City Hall's war cenotaph at 11am on 11th November. It was a focal point, I guess, to concentrate the mind on death and war. The sky was uniformly battleship grey and the multitude of umbrellas encouraged the rain to break the silence throughout. There were hundreds of us but most appeared to be alone. I thought of Wiłfred Owen's "old lie, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" and tried to imagine traumatised non-patriots aiming their rifles too high, the conscientious objectors rotting for years in barren and disgusting jails, teenagers too young to fight but the old dispassionate generals looking the other way, the mothers without sons.

I never really paid too much attention to Armistice Day until this year. It has a greater resonance with me now because I understand the concept of loss in a deeper and more personal way than before. I do not need to empathise with parents who have lost their children to war because I can sympathise- I know, as far as one can, how they feel. Watching documentary clips of the time and reading personal accounts and poetry of the experiences of that generation is surprising in its ordinariness. Far from feeling dated it feels of my time as if these are my streets and my friends and my neighbours. Their desires, severences and anger is the same as mine- the desire for peace, severence from those I love and anger about disempowerment- and, as such, connects me to them in a deeply human way irrespective of chronological and geographical differences. 

Grief has taught me many things. One valuable perspective it has afforded me is that I should raise my head over parochialism and into a more universal view- to proactively search for connections with others and the identification of the narrative arc in the human story- universalism equates to unification, the commonalities shared by all of us.  I do not doubt that war has had similar effects on those who are forced into its violent sobriety and might be lucky enough to reflect- maybe they can also identify tendrils, valued alliances, across time and continents.

And those old generals who look the other way, cancers that they are, should hang their heads, weap with shame and tearfully beg our forgiveness. 

Letter to a Young Man

Brothers and young men,

I am over fourty and drive a bloody caravan. I am still a nurse after twenty years and yes, it is still worth it. I am still with the same woman after nearly two decades and yes, it is also worth it- I have never had an itch, never really argued and have no regrets. I have broken a heart, had a broken heart, experienced poor health and good health and I have been through every parents worst nightmare- the death of my child. 

For whatever value it may have, here is a little advice. 

Remain anti-authoritarian forever, it will always be worth it. No-one has greater authority over you than you. In these regards you are always correct. Assume all authority is wrong and must prove itself. If it is robust it is worth your respect. Develop your contrarian skills because the ineptitude of youthful disputation catches up with you surprisingly fast- be contrarian to develop and forward discussion. Weigh, consider and understand opposing arguments and search for interlocution, don't wait for the opportunities. Expect to lose arguments and, when you do, lose them respectfully and with insight. Apologise if you need to but know that no-one has the right to not be offended. Be abusive if necessary but make sure you can back it up. Learn when to apologise to keep the peace even if you are in the right. Read, read, read- your brain and life will be enriched greater than you can suppose- it will get you places. Question even the knowledge. 

When it comes to arguments, women, friends, work, self-determination, autonomy and freedom of expression punch above your weight. If you become the most intelligent person you know, you need new friends. 

Don't smoke. Admittedly there are times you are sat outside in the bright sunshine, wrapped up snug in the wintry icyness, Raybans and wool, cup of strong black coffee and cigarette in the same hand, surrounded by smoke and misty breath, feeling like the cafe king or an extra from a Nordic jazz club at 4am. At those times you will feel sophisticated and desirable but they will happen less frequently than you can count on your nicotine-stained fingers. Also, the woman who said she loved the smell of beer and cigarettes on you loved it on every other man and this is as far removed from a universal desire as loving the smell of old sweat. She was a one-off. Give up. 

Don't take anything too seriously because austerity is overrated. You will face off abstemious conservatism as others' camouflage for ineptitude. Don't brush off the challenge, it is always worth confrontation. And then dismiss its ascetic rigidity with the disdain it deserves. Everything worth something has flexibility. Accept anything serious with a little comedy (and take your comedy seriously). You will learn there is light in the darkest places and that when you peer over the edge of the abyss it is often humour that connects you to others. This connection, in the most human way, will draw you back to the community. It is love and laughter that will save you. 

Take opportunities as they show themselves. You will naturally pave avenues of interest but a spontaneous tangent will offer itself here and there and you should always take them seriously. They are the free kisses, the lime in the gin and tonic, the strangers' flattery. A chance opening, the pleasure of the unexpected journey, will take you to new geographical, emotional, corporeal and professional rewards and you will have no serious regrets. Give everyone you meet, and every opportunity you receive, what you should give a new painting- the advantage of a good light. 

Love more. You can be a habitually poor friend but also acutely connected at times. Consider the middle ground, the mean between disconnectedness and emotional profligacy. You can be loyal, reinforcing, supportive, funny, someone who can walk into a party and be seen by friends who might say "oh, it's all going to be fine now". But you need to maintain this because it is beneficial to the point of virtuousness. Love your friends and tell them. And, for Christs sake, phone your mum. 

The love you have for your children will be mountainous. It will overshadow everything else and will provide the framework for all necessary prioritisation in all aspects of your life. Nothing else comes close. If you are concerned that you might not have space in your heart to love anyone other than your partner, don't worry. There will come a startling realisation at the birth of your first baby that you have unlimited love and that such joy isn't slave to quantitative subjection. 

Love your family as if you may not see them again because, in reality, you might not. When you are wondering if they are sleeping well, but don't want to disturb them, go and check anyway. Even when you are not wondering go and stare. If they are away, check. If you think they are out of your sight and you are afforded the merest glimpse of them, glimpse. Know everything about them. Suffuse yourself with your children. Ingest them. 

Work to live. If you initiate a vocational career put the effort in early, thereafter your work/life balance is easier to maintain. Do a job you enjoy, there is no reason to consider otherwise. Never be afraid of failure because you have much less to lose than you irrationally think. Don't let perceived economics or the capitalist status quo chain you to an undesired, thankless and unrewarding life. Don't let money direct you, it is ultimately insignificant.

Know that life is meaningless. It is meaningless insofar that it has no pre-ordained logic or fatalism which should be a great relief because you can therefore make your life what you want. What is the meaning of life? The meaning of your life is what you make it. Rise above provincialism (your position wasn't asked for) into a more universal perspective. Consider your life, think about it, consciously reject and accept premises, learn yourself, be vulnerable and modest, don't mess about, don't presume. You get only one chance so live well. 

Value aesthetics. They matter. Beauty and art can save you at the very worst times. 

Be good. 

With love,

Ben