Art as saviour

In previous posts I have written about the importance of connections between people via the identification of shared experiences and the rewards from successful endeavour. Appreciation of art can do all this. 

Before Ruby died 19 months ago I would get frustrated at art that tried too hard to force me to think. I would rapidly dismiss anything I considered wasteful of my time- novels were abandoned half read, paintings glanced at, photographs were either pretty or interesting or, if neither, a waste of ink- and didn't appreciate the artistic skill in creating an aesthetic inquiry. But I think I understand this now. 

I now appreciate how art can connect me to others and can gently force an unconscious empathy. I understand how it feels to have a blank canvas and be forced into considering what I am to make of it. I have had to work, sometimes exhaustively, at creating a future picture of my own, setting a scene within which I may find solace and calm. I have had to shape my own landscape- hills that roll just so, rivers that flow slow and deep, variations of boulder, shingle and trail paths- as an artist creates theirs. It is unimportant whether they and I have had similar experiences that have shaped our creations, the point is that they have consciously designed and brought into existence a previously non-thing. They will have had to reflect on their weaknesses, jealousies, desire, rage and all other beautiful and ugly qualities that make them who they are and how this will impede and instruct their landscape. 

Art that is worthwhile forces considerations and it arouses my curiosity rather than quenches it. Good art, as the maxim goes, poses more questions than answers and there are great rewards from the exertion involved in deeper analysis.

I have been moved to tears more than ever before by the poetry I have read and the art I have seen over the last year and a half. Instead of dismissing some art as superfluous and trite, as I have done in the past, art and aesthetics have been a saviour. 

Recent aesthetic appreciation:

War poetry. 

The availability of plentiful aluminium to craft bicycle frames. 

An intuitive and very pretty computer operating system running on an equally pretty laptop makes it a joy to touch and look at. 

A metal corner of a shelf. It took thousands of years to learn how to efficiently extract, smelt and craft that stainless steel into a perfect right-angled corner piece, a shape and material unlike anything seen in nature. 

My mass-produced, bent wood Ikea armchair. It is perfectly utilitarian, millions have been produced and it cost pennies.

Rothko. 

Hiking boots and weatherproof jacket. 

Staedtler pencils. 

Bell whisks. 

Philip Glass piano etudes. 

Drain covers. 

Plywood.

People writing Rubys name in Xmas cards. 

The International Space Station. 

Empathy

It is our connections to others and a recognition of sameness that encourage cohesion in our human community and this can be achieved with warmth and empathy. Here are some tips learnt through my work in mental health:

 1. Imagine how the other person feels. This sounds obvious but is rarely practised. It can be distressing to create a mental picture of the psychic pain and upset someone else may be going through but your imagined sadness is organised and controlled by you and it won't be destructive to your emotional state. How, do you imagine, might it feel for you if a close relative, a friend or a lover dies? How, do you imagine, does it for feel if they suddenly disappear and you can never, ever see them again? Consider this. Weigh it up. Cry, be upset and sad, be affected by it, you can handle it. The humanist proximity and the connections you will have created in the relationship with this person you are talking to will have been worth the emotional investment.

2. Use your personal experiences to place yourself in their position. Everyone will have been through sadness, jealousy and anger and you know, at least to some extent, how these emotions may feel within someone else. The key is extrapolation.  

3. Don't sympathise. Expressing sympathy means making an emotional reaction to a communicated problem and, although it has its place, it can be a liability by clouding judgements. A natural expression of sympathy can provoke an immediate attachment to someone but it is short-lived and shallow. 

4. Be warm and genuine. It is obvious if you don't care.

Shining light in dark corners

Each day, for days, I have considered whether to write about suicidal thoughts. It has taken a while to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages to publishing my thoughts but the deciding factor was the use a reader might find from a shared experiences. As a mental health worker it would be hypocritical to be dishonest to myself about my thoughts although in no way do I feel compelled to be open about them and I need not be. For what it is worth I have professionally and personally addressed this by now and want to discuss it only with those of my choice- this is a blog not an open invitation for discussion to my nursing governing body, my colleagues, my family or anyone else.

I have been having a low time recently and needed to confront some troubling thoughts so recently scaled Belfasts' highest peak, Cave Hill, to think about things. It was uncharacteristically warm and bright for autumn and the path was steep and shingled. There were many other walkers but on my ascent I was too lost in thought to acknowledge them. 

One side of the absolute peak is a sheer drop for hundreds of feet. I looked down at the faraway rocks beyond the edge, I thought of Ruby and I cried for my loss. And then I looked down again and asked myself the worst question anyone should have to ask themselves. The answer arrived immediately as two thoughts: one was a memory of a refugee client who had been through truly inhumane experiences and had told me that where there is despair there is always hope. The other thought was that there wasn't a tiny, dark, dirty little germ of an idea that wanted me to jump off that ledge and, actually, I wanted to continue to face my grief head-on and say "no, fuck you, I'm in charge". I was genuinely startled by this revelation. 

I took some great photos and walked down the hill at a terrific pace saying hello to every passer-by and exchanged normal chat about the unusual weather and the beautiful view. Then I went for a 10 mile run. 

Rumination and depression may have a self-preserving basis. After two months of particular symptoms- the above thoughts have been orbiting my consciousness and hiding in the shadows of my mind for a while- I realised I am depressed. Now I know this I have been able to confront things head-on and actively consider my next move. Will I need medication, psychotherapy or maybe nothing at all now that I have simply recognised the problem (a common exprience for me- often I just need to maintain an openness with myself and recognise an issue for its pain to dissipate)? These thoughts were a sign of something at greater depth. They were a symptom of a well-known and treatable illness about which exists centuries of research and a huge medical knowledge-base. In the parlance of mental health support I had no serious thoughts of ending my own life, I have no plans, no desires to end anything, there are no risks related to my type of thinking. But those satellite ideas cast shadows here and there and, most importantly, were a warning sign not to be ignored. I wonder what thoughts cross other people's minds that seem so out of place and character they should be considered anathema to their daily well-being? 

I felt compelled to push myself out onto a metaphorical and literal ledge and I confronted some of the most difficult ideas that exist in my psychic space. There are still clouds in my sky but, for now, I know the sun is behind them. 

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

 

The Pragmatics of Grief

-The tears can flow spontaneously and surprisingly so it is worth having a few quiet spaces, a private nook, to quietly slink off to for a quick blub. Have you adventured into every room and cupboard at work? At home do you cry where you drop or is there a target tear space?

I have evolved a gravitation to two spots at work where I can comfortably be alone for a few minutes during those times the tears are beyond my control. At home I always seem to end up in the same room. Always carry tissues. 

-Your closest friends may not be the ones to contact on every occasion. Someone else might be the most appropriate company at certain times. 

-Learn the signs that things are awry. When my breathing begins to labour or when I shiver on that spot between my shoulder blades I know it is the right moment to be alone. 

-Drop everything. You have to prioritise and if you are not in control it is difficult to look after others (or work on that spreadsheet or cook the dinner or pay for those groceries). You should often be your primary concern. 

-Try something new. There is calm and security in familiar routine but one has to actively consider the new normal. This consideration includes adventuring some into unfamiliar places. 

-Expect unexpected emotions. Be prepared to not want to communicate for days or weeks. Be prepared for unanticipated bouts of disproportionate mediocrity. Be prepared for self-induced pathos. Be prepared for laughter and acute sadness that can occur within seconds and be prepared to get used to it. Be prepared for rage and rejection. Be prepared. 

-Keep busy. Bit obvious this one but being occupied is a great distraction. What's less obvious is that busyness usually involves setting small, achievable goals which has a subconscious side effect of increasing your own feelings of self control and empowerment. 

-Eat regularly. Your appetite might be low and eating small, easily made, regular meals will keep your blood sugar stable which can have a knock-on effect of improving your mood. In addition it is likely you will feel lethargic and, put simply, food equals energy. Also, feelings of stress have been shown to reduce an effective immune system and increase the time it takes to heal wounds. Ingesting decent nutrients can counter this problem. 

-Sleep well and rest well. Stop when you need to, nap when you need to, go to bed early, no screens in the bedroom (they play havoc with your circadian rhythm), don't be afraid of medication if you need it, the room needs to be dark and the right temperature, no caffeine within 6 hours of bedtime, no exercise late at night. 

-Stretch those legs. I cycle and jog enthusiastically and get tearfully cranky if I go three days without exercise. A full cardiovascular workout is not demanded every day but a short, fast walk can work wonders and help you sleep deeper. 

-Do what you normally do. You know your own coping mechanisms when used for previous stressors so consider them and adjust as necessary. 

-Be kind and gentle to yourself. Obviously. And being kind and gentle to others helps too.