A Difference Of Reading

Weighing machine, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris
Image: Wikimedia Commons

A strange thing happened to me this week. I'd gone for my annual medical check-up at the doctor's surgery round the corner. The nurse read my blood pressure, took a blood sample, asked about my alcohol consumption — that kind of thing. I told her I'd been on a diet and had lost a stone quite easily, but was now finding it almost impossible to drop below 14 stone. She weighed me — and announced that my weight was 13 st 4 lb! And this is with clothes on (obviously I didn't want to frighten her by suggesting I removed them). Earlier I'd weighed myself at home with clothes off and the scales had read 13 st 13 lb. The nurse insisted her own scales — a hefty, industrial-sized model — were correct, and were regularly and rigorously calibrated. Who was I to disagree?

Delighted, I left the surgery in a state of euphoria and made a bee-line for the supermarket next door, where I bought some celebratory cakes, chocolate and a couple of bottles of wine. However, as soon as I got home, I began to have some doubts. What was going on here? We have two pairs of bathroom scales at home — one mechanical, one digital — and both always read the same. How could they both not only be wrong but also be so far out? I took 5 cans of baked beans, which I knew weighed 2 kg, and placed them on each pair of scales in turn. Yes, 2 kg exactly. How very odd all this was becoming.

I did eat the cake and chocolate, and I did drink the wine, and enjoyed them a lot, though I must admit my pleasure had been very slightly tainted. I'll have to try to weigh myself somewhere else for a final, cast-iron verdict. And that's another thing. Where have all the public weighing machines in Britain gone? They used to be outside every chemist's and in every public park. (And when did you last hear the word 'chemist's' rather than 'pharmacy' for that matter?)

I must be honest and say I do actually feel more like 14 stone than 13 stone. An okay weight for someone 6 ft 1 in tall, and I feel good, and all my trousers now fit beautifully. But I'd still rather lose another stone if I can. (Or if I haven't already, according to the nurse!)

Writing Myself Positive

Image: Wikimedia Commons

I'm approximately a third of the way through my self-imposed regimen, so I thought I'd better assess my progress.

Diet: This still goes well. It's not that I ate unhealthily before, but this time I really am cutting back on sugary, fat-laden and processed foods, and concentrating on natural and organic as far as possible. As far as sweet things are concerned this wasn't too difficult, as I have a naturally savoury rather than a sweet tooth. Though everyone craves sweetness now and then — and I find fruit or small quantities of chocolate or ice cream fit the bill. This diet does seem to suit me, I must admit, and I feel fit, healthy and full of physical and mental energy. My ban on alcohol wavered once or twice recently, but I haven't fallen back into the habit. My weight this morning was hovering between 13 st 12 lb and 13 st 13 lb, so I've broken the 14 st barrier. Therefore, roughly speaking, in a month I've lost half of what I set out to lose in three months. The rest sounds easy? Well, no — as I predicted, my weight loss rate has now slowed considerably.

Exercise: Because of the pulled hamstring, exercise was on hold for a while. But I'm now back to doing 20 min to half an hour stretching and various resistance and cardiovascular exercises each day. I haven't any expensive exercise equipment; in fact I have no equipment at all except for a Bullworker and a skipping rope. I find that the free props we have around us in the home — the wall, the floor, the chair — work perfectly well. I'm also walking again each day. In fact, the other day I walked 6 miles into the nearest town, and yesterday I walked 3 or 4 miles through the surrounding countryside. Soon I'll begin some very gentle running in combination with walking.

Meditation: I suppose I'm practising this on my walks rather than putting aside any special time or place for it.

Reading: I'm still reading a fair amount, but not as much as I was when recovering from my cyst and my muscle injury.

Computer: Hopeless! I'm grazing on it at every possible opportunity.

Thanks to everyone for your continuing support. Rereading the above, I hope I don't sound too smug and pleased with myself. In attempting to hide and cope with the problems in my life which were the impetus for this new regime, I sometimes may come across as more self-satisfied and in control than I really am. I'm just trying to think and write myself positive.

Cold Tea And Winter Dreams

The last few weeks summarised in a word cloud.

Created with Wordle.

So Far, So Good

I was overjoyed to do a circular walk round the village this morning, a distance of about one and a quarter miles. This felt strangely exciting and liberating as I've been forced to rest my leg at home for a couple of weeks because of a strained hamstring muscle. Although painful, it was obviously only a very minor sprain, since I can now walk perfectly normally.

In the gardens I saw the fat red seed heads of climbing roses and the papery brown seed heads of dahlias, and also many signs of spring's coming resurrection: purple and yellow crocuses, multi-coloured primulas, yellow jasmine, aconites, snowdrops, catkins, the buds of flowering currant; and tulips and daffodils were pushing up through the earth.

The diet still goes well: my weight is now 14 st 1 lb, so I've lost 12 lb in three and a half weeks, which is good going. The weight loss will slacken off now my body has stabilised — perhaps 1-2 lb per week. But my target of 13 st by the end of April is quite achievable, I think.

I've started exercising again — but I'm taking things very gently indeed. I'm still probably spending too much time on the computer but, hey, you've got to do something, and I enjoy it. And I've been reading loads — Rimbaud, Verlaine, Graham Robb, Jean Giono, Jostein Gaarder.

So far, so good.

Progress (Of A Sorts)

The strained hamstring is slowly improving, and the bird's egg-sized cyst on my chest is shrinking, but it's slow progress. I'm now off all the pills (painkillers and antibiotics) — they were beginning to upset my stomach. I've been forced to slow down over the past couple of weeks, which is probably no bad thing. Usually I'm rushing about here and there far too much and doing stuff far too quickly. At first I had the strange illusion I was actually living in slow motion. Pretty soon, however, I grew to relish the enforced stillness and slowness. Many books have been read (from Lawrence through Thomas Merton to Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu), much music listened to, many radio programmes heard. Now I just want to get on the move again.

The diet goes well. I'm taking in around 1500 calories per day or less, and a typical day's meal consists of muesli or a boiled egg with a slice of toast and Marmite for breakfast; salad or a low-calorie soup for lunch; and a fish (sometimes white, sometimes oily) / meat (often chicken, sometimes red meat) / vegetarian dish in rotation for dinner, with plenty of veggies, followed by something like three fruits with either yoghurt, sorbet or ice cream for pudding. Three meals, no snacks, no alcohol. If I'm hungry in-between meals, and I rarely seem to be, I'll eat some fruit or a crispbread with low-fat Philadelphia cheese or marmite.

The weight. Started out at 14 st 13 lb on 28 January. Am now 14 st 5 lb. Target weight: 13 st.

The exercise. Practically non-existent because of the leg. Though I have been doing some routines involving non-upper thigh body parts from a supine position (ooh, err!)

The meditation. Nothing specific, but many contemplative moments throughout the day.

The computer. Hopeless. I'm on it all the time!

I'll end with my poem Slowing Down, which seems appropriate.

I slowed right down today,
Just slowed right down.
How little we see most of the time!
So I slowed right down.

And saw a fork-tailed kite circle then drift
On a blue highway, until it was no more.
I cracked a sunflower shell between my teeth
And curled the seed out with my tongue,
The taste intense and bitter-sweet.
It hit my palate like a burst of sun.

Today I listened to a stream
Trickle then rush from Extremadura
Into Castilla y León.
I heard the hollow clunk of cow bells
Jangle like Tibetan wind chimes.

I smelled a cistus bush today.
It reeked of incense. And I sniffed
The fragrant, bitter scent of thyme,
The aromatic tang of eucalyptus.

Today I felt a mat
Of soft, green moss under my hand,
And, underfoot, crunched oak leaves, crisp and brown,
And spiky chestnut husks, like tiny hedgehogs.
I fingered the jagged edge of stones,
Felt the smooth roundedness of rock.

I slowed right down today.
I slowed right down.
How blind we are to what is happening!
How quickly we walk on!

But, for today,
I slowed, I slowed right down.
I slowed.
I slowed.
I slowed time down.

I slowed myself

Right

Down

Setbacks

"Februalia was the Roman festival of ritual purification. The festival, which is basically one of Spring washing or cleaning (associated also with the raininess of this time of year) is old, and possibly of Sabine origin. According to Ovid, Februare is a Latin word which refers to means of purification and derives from an earlier Etruscan word referring to purging." WIKIPEDIA

It's par for the course, isn't it? No sooner have I begun my own physical, mental and spiritual Spring cleaning than I've had to visit the doctor twice in a week.

The small sebaceous cyst (not dangerous) on my chest had grown larger and was becoming painful. I'm now on penicillin, and if that doesn't do the trick it will have to be surgically excised.

The second problem was the niggling muscular pain at the back of my upper left thigh which I developed after my walk along the Viking Way last Thursday. It suddenly got a lot worse, and the upshot is: I have a strained hamstring. I'm astonished how painful and debilitating this is. I've pulled muscles before, and although they were painful in certain positions, and although they took longer to heal than I hoped, the whole situation was bearable. But this strained hamstring is painful all the time no matter what posture I'm in (though some positions are better than others) and seems to affect my whole locomotion. I can't get comfortable in bed — lying on my side is out of the question. It's difficult to put on trousers and socks, and to get up from a chair. And when upright I can hardly walk (without groaning and general melodrama). The co-codamol I've been prescribed hardly cuts through the pain.

So my new exercise regime is on the back burner for a while. However I've already lost a fair amount of weight, which I'm pleased about, and this state of relative immobility is a good excuse for meditation, for reading lots of books and for listening to lots of music.

I'll give more details about my weight and the type and amount of food I'm eating in my next post. In the meantime I'll groan my way upstairs and go back to bed!

New Beginnings

I have some unbelievably difficult and seemingly insoluble problems in my life at the moment. In fact they've persisted for a while and I don't think they'll be going away any time soon. Sometimes I feel I'm losing it. Sometimes I feel that life is pushing me about, that I'm not in control.

I need to change things, to cope with the stress, to realise that there will always be problems, and that life is full of difficulties, but it's the way you handle them that's the important thing. Over the past few months I've tried turning things around, but with little success. Now I am absolutely serious about sorting things out and have formed a strategy, a three-month plan (Feb-Apr).

I have rather an addictive personality, and it's all too easy for me to deal with problems by doing things I enjoy to excess: eating, drinking, blogging, you name it. But of course doing all these things in an undisciplined way just leaves you feeling wretched, out of control, a piece of flotsam pushed this way and that by the stormy tides of life.

A sea change is needed. So this is my plan. First of all I need to lose weight. I've gradually been putting on weight for a year and am now nearly 15 stone. I don't actually look particularly overweight — I'm 6 ft 1 in with broad shoulders — but I know only too well that I should weigh more like 12 and a half stone. At between 12 and a half and 13 stone I always feel great and full of energy. I want to get back to that state. So my goal is to weigh 13 stone by the end of April — which means I have to lose around 2 lb per week. And then stay at that weight. I've done this before, and know it's doable, but it will mean a balanced, calorie-controlled diet of healthy food. Fortunately I eat healthy food anyhow, and am not tempted too much by sugary snacks, cakes, biscuits, chocolate and suchlike. I will be giving up alcohol, though.

Secondly I need to get more discipline back into my life. Therefore, as well as the diet, I'm returning to my old regime of daily exercise and meditation. Also I intend to read more mindfully (well, I tend to do this already, but my reading has become a little haphazard) and walk and/or run every day. Re. blogging and computer time I'm confining myself to one slot in the evening, rather than dipping in and out throughout the day.

I've decided to document my progress in cyberspace because I think it will be a massive incentive knowing that the world is my witness (hopefully you don't think I'm being too narcissistic). It's a bit like promising things to a sympathetic audience, then not wanting to let them (or myself) down. Also it may help others in their own pursuit of physical and spiritual transformation, an energetic and healthy lifestyle and a life in which you can control difficulties to some extent, rather than be overwhelmed by them. I'm sure it won't always be easy, but to know that at least a few others may be walking alongside me each step of the way will be a great encouragement.

I'm beginning now, but my official start date will be 1st February. I'll be blogging once or twice a week about the experience. As usual any comments are most welcome.

The scales this morning showed my unclothed body weight was 14 st 13 lb.

The Sound Of Silence

“There are many types of silence. There is a silence before the note, there is a silence at the end and there is a silence in the middle.” DANIEL BARENBOIM

Neon sign by Tracey Emin

Silence, the pause between the notes (even in the middle of the notes according to Barenboim) and between sections and movements is important in music. When you think about it, without the pauses, without the silences, there would be no individually distinct notes at all, only an unbearable, endless wall of sound. The apotheosis of the concept of silence in music has to be John Cage's 1952 composition 4' 33". In this revolutionary piece the musicians do nothing at all with their instruments; not a sound is heard. (Or rather — and this is important — the only sounds heard are those which come spontaneously from the environment of the performance venue.) It's also noteworthy that Cage's first book was called Silence: Lectures And Writings (1961).

The use of creative silence is not confined to music. Indeed, it is employed in all the arts. In poetry, the intentional, significant spaces between words, between lines and at the end of lines, are crucial. If poems did not contain silent (though pregnant) spaces — in the form of blank lines, line breaks, enjambments, ellipses and caesuras — many poems would resemble the demented rants of some breathless Whitman or Ginsberg wannabe.

Sculptures by Barbara Hepworth in the Kröller-Müller Museum sculpture garden, Otterlo, the Netherlands.

Substitute "silence" for "empty space" and it's the same thing in painting, where the use of "negative spaces" or "negative shapes" is essential to the depiction of "positive" forms, just as in architecture one talks of interior and exterior "architectural space" defining a structure. In sculpture, too, the holes, gaps, chinks and spaces in and around an artwork are absolutely essential to its overall meaning: just look at the works of Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Anthony Caro.

Bedford Square Pavilion, London

Ok, so silence is important — but what's going on in these silences, these empty spaces? Quite a lot, actually. Total silence or a completely empty space is a rare thing, as Cage demonstrated in 4' 33". To put it crudely, there's always someone coughing or scraping their shoe; there's always some fly buzzing at the window or an aircraft whining in the distance. Even the state of peace and tranquillity you could reasonably expect to find in the depths of the countryside is far from silent. There's always something going on, some sound to hear: the birds tweeting, a stream gurgling, the wind tearing through the trees. Perhaps you could then speculate that these sounds of nature do in fact reveal the true silence of nature, in the sense that behind and beyond these real, physical, natural noises you might faintly detect the hidden, metaphysical pulse of nature, the barely discernible rhythm of the universe, the mystical reverberation of deep silence. Which some have identified as a low hum. Ha, we're back to sound again!

I suppose true, unadulterated silence or empty space is utterly airless and featureless: a vacuum, a black hole, a nothing. In other words, completely boring — without interest, without substance, without definition, without meaning, without any possibility of change or transformation.

What's intriguing, I think, is Barenboim's recognition of a silence not only before and after the note, but in the middle of it as well. Is this the contemplative zen silence at the heart of all things, at the heart of the atom, at the heart of the universe, at the heart of music, at the heart of poetry, at the heart of ourselves? And what does this silence sound like?


in Just-
spring          when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman


whistles          far          and wee


and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful


the queer
old balloonman whistles
far          and             wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
and


         the


                  goat-footed


balloonMan          whistles
far
and
wee


EE Cummings

Emotional Intelligence (8): Jealousy

Jealousy and Flirtation by Haynes King (1831-1904)

Jealousy — along with her equally twisted twin sister, Envy — is one of the strongest, most unpleasant, futile and all-encompassing of emotions. There are two types of jealousy I'd like to consider. The first is that all-too-common envy we can feel at times towards others. Whether we are jealous of another person's perceived or imagined health, wealth, happiness, status, success, talents, good fortune, family, car, house or garden, it's all the same: the bottom line is that we become insecure, frustrated and bitter, wondering why others seem to have all the luck, and resenting life's injustices. And envy tends to be a state which breeds more envy, just as maggots multiply on rancid meat. No matter how many times we may satisfy our cravings for what our neighbour already appears to possess, more cravings inevitably take their place. There is always something else to be envious of.

Fortunately I learnt long ago about the ugly mechanics of envy, and I am so relieved not to be in its cold, life-denying embrace. It's a great freedom and liberation not to be tied to that ceaseless emotional treadmill. Acceptance of what one is and what one has, gladness at being oneself and not another, contentment with one's lot no matter how unfairly the cards have been dealt — these are the secrets of a happy life. Now, I'm not saying that I'm always content, and cheerful about the way things are, and overjoyed that much of life seems to be a succession of pain, tragedy and disaster. And I'm not saying either that we shouldn't have the ambition to change things, to improve our lives in whatever ways we feel are right. But if such desires are for shallow or impossible things, and if they are fuelled by jealousy and envy, than we are heading straight down the road of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

The other type of jealousy which comes to mind is, for me, much more difficult to restrain: that is sexual jealousy. I've met a few people who have insisted they do not understand this emotion, and have never felt it, but I don't think this is the case for most of us. Like all kinds of jealousy, sexual jealousy can be a destructive, consuming passion — based, I believe, on insecurity, and a fear of rejection and abandonment. I have felt sexual jealousy at some periods in my life, sometimes obsessively, and have always found it pointless, demeaning and a waste of time and energy — yet this strong, unreasoning emotion always seems to override logic.

Astrologically I am a Scorpio, and "Scorpios are known for their possessiveness and jealousy but on the other hand, they are extremely loyal", according to this Zodiac Signs website. Be that as it may. Shakespeare, however, has more elevated things to say on the subject. In Othello, Iago famously describes jealousy thus: "It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock / The meat it feeds on: that cuckold lives in bliss, / Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger; / But, O, what damnéd minutes tells he o'er / Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet soundly loves!" And Othello's misplaced jealousy gets out of hand: " ... Yet I'll not shed her blood; / Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, / And smooth as monumental alabaster. / Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men."

How does one come to terms with sexual jealousy? The issue is far too complex for me to deal with here in a few words. Suffice to say, I think the trick is to recognise that we are all independent beings in the end, that we are all existentially "on our own", and that we do not possess anyone else, even partially. Possession implies power over someone, and that is not good; it is not our right to expect or exert this. Our loved ones are human like we are and they are not perfect. They are not our property. They are separate beings. They change, they evolve, they may hurt or betray us. Their minds are not our minds. Other minds may contain unshareable secrets and depths we can barely guess at. If we can look at things in this way, with a more realistic kind of balance, we can then begin to differentiate between love and sex, and realise that, although sex may be an important part of love, it is not love itself. Real love should transcend human failings, disappointments, sex and sexual jealousy.

Emotional Intelligence (7): Guilt

Michelangelo's depiction of God, the Father, on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. 

All this talk of emotions and how to manage them is fine in theory, but how do things work out in practice? I'd now like to examine some "challenging" states of mind, using examples from my own life. And "guilt" is a particularly pernicious feeling I've had continuing experience of.

Born into a God-fearing, Methodist family ruled by a strict and domineering father, I was soon acquainted with the notion of guilt and its effects. Although there are differences of emphasis and interpretation, all Christian sects and denominations believe in the concept of "original sin" — the belief that at birth we enter a world already contaminated by sin, the result of the Biblical Fall of Man and our expulsion from the Garden of Eden. From a rational, emotional and instinctual standpoint, I've now believed for a long time just the opposite: that we arrive in this world pure and innocent, and that it's the flawed human world which corrupts us. However, dubious attitudes and ideas drummed into us from early childhood are often hard to dispel. Or, more precisely, we may be able rationally to reject these attitudes and ideas, but the emotional toll they exact on us is often more difficult to reverse.

My parents, especially my father, dinned into me that I would be damned and rot in hell if I sinned.  My youthful crimes and misdemeanours were, on reflection, pretty mild and ordinary: telling lies, swearing, chasing girls in the school playground, masturbation, drawing rude cartoons of my father's lorry driver (which led to the lorry driver reporting this to my father who gave me a beating), being cheeky at Sunday School (again this led to a beating when my father got to know of it). Yet, despite the innocuous nature of these little vices, the corresponding guilt I felt was hugely disproportionate, and hung over me like a black cloud for much of my childhood and early adolescence. I don't want to exaggerate things, as I remember many happy times too: playing with mates, reading books, Christmas, holidays by the sea. Periods when this feeling of "guilt" seemed to subside, when I could overcome it by escaping outside my self. But I would always return wretchedly and with a sinking heart to what seemed at the time to be inescapably my "default" condition, a permanent background state of fearful guilt and anxiety.

Since I was brought up by my parents to be wary of the rough and godless village children, I also found it difficult for a while to mix in with most other normal kids of my age — though I always had a small circle of close friends. All this caused further debilitating feelings of shyness and acute self-consciousness. Much of my school life was therefore a bane to me. Luckily I was intelligent and assiduous, and retreated into my school work, which I found relatively easy. Which begs the question: was I hardworking out of fear of the teachers, out of a desire to please my father, out of an anxiety I might fail, out of guilt? As though hard work and "doing well" would help assuage my constant, irrational guilty state of mind? Because I knew that my father's leather strap was always waiting for me, lurking on a hook behind the tea towel in the kitchen?

I am glad to say that life improved dramatically in my early to mid-teens, and I changed unrecognisably — gaining confidence amongst my peers, with girls and with adults, and claiming my rightful place in the world. At the age of fifteen I walked and hitchhiked through the Swiss Jura. I stood up to my father and informed him that no, I would not be going to chapel with him on Sundays any more. I grew my hair. I read Orwell and Jung and books on Existentialism. I developed, I matured; I side-stepped as best as I could the tyrannical influence of my father. I asserted my true self. I did everything that is "normal" for an adolescent, and I began to love life with a passion and intensity which has never left me to this day. Yet even now — often, ironically, when I am engaged in transparently blameless activities — residues of guilt persist, like ancient dust still clinging to the bottom of a spring-cleaned wardrobe. Fortunately I have been able over the years to deal psychologically with these childhood traumas and irrational guilts and fears, though it has been a gradual process. I think that the seeds of all such long-learnt destructive feelings and emotions remain hidden somewhere deep within us, ready to germinate again if given the opportunity.

Emotional Intelligence (6): Flowing, Transient States Of Mind

It seems natural to follow my last post with some insights from Buddhism. These ideas we've been discussing about standing back a little from our emotions, examining them, not identifying with them completely, recognising they are an important part of us yet not us . . . are fundamental Buddhist concepts.

The twelfth chapter of David Brazier's The Feeling Buddha ends: "This ability to be both in and aside from the feeling at the same time is something that the Buddha taught his disciples to cultivate. He did not teach them to not have feelings. He taught them to allow the process to flow whilst also being able to observe it. The flow of feelings gives us essential information about our lives. To cut them off would be one extreme — the extreme of asceticism. To abandon ourselves to their control would be the other extreme — the extreme of indulgence. The Buddha taught a Middle Way between these extremes, a middle current where life flows effectively. This teaching of observing feeling while in the feelings is given time and again in the Buddha's basic instructions on mindfulness."

Having lived some parts of my life at both of these extremes, I for one now gladly embrace the Middle Way. Mindfulness is the key here, I think — though I'm not going to go into that right now, as many other writers and bloggers have explored it at length, and I've talked about it myself on my other blog The Solitary Walker, particularly with reference to Jon Kabat-Zinn, Steve Hagen, Eckhart Tolle, Krishnamurti and other Buddhist, Zen Buddhist and Buddhist-influenced thinkers.

Stephen Batchelor, in his book Buddhism Without Beliefs, writes: "Much of the time we are driven by a relentless and insistent surge of impulses . . ." (For impulses also read feelings and emotions.) He then goes on to consider randomly one emotion in isolation, the emotion of "hatred": ". . . to embrace hatred does not mean to indulge it. To embrace hatred is to accept it for what it is: a disruptive but transient state of mind. Awareness observes it jolt into being, colouring consciousness and gripping the body. The heart accelerates, the breath becomes shallow and jagged, and an almost physical urge to react dominates the mind. At the same time, this frenzy is set against a dark, quiet gulf of hurt, humiliation, and shame. Awareness notices all this without condoning or condemning, repressing or expressing. It recognises that just as hatred arises, so will it pass away. By identifying with it ('I really am pissed off!'), we fuel it  . . ."

Emotional Intelligence (5): We Are Not Our Emotions

My jumping-off point for this next post about feelings and emotions is Bonnie's wise and helpful comment on my last post. I think it's so important that I'd like to quote it in full:

"With time and attention we can learn not to become identified with our feeling states. We can learn to let them wash over us, giving us the information we need without attaching to them. One of the keys to a balanced, open, healthy emotional life is to relate TO our emotions and not FROM them. E.g. 'Of course I am feeling over-wrought considering the trauma I have just experienced.' You acknowledge the emotion, give it room to be without allowing it to 'rule'.

E-motions are meant to move through us. Our goal should be to not allow them to possess us. Easier said than done, but with practice we can allow the emotion, glean the information it is giving us, and then move on to the next emotion that will surely follow. Feelings are essential to the flow of a human life — adding richness and depth — we just don't have to drown in them as we do when we become identified with them. E.g. 'I am experiencing angry feelings right now' rather than 'I am an angry person'."

Yes! The prime insight here, I think, is the recognition that we are not our emotions. They are closely involved with us but they are separate from us. This perception allows us to distance ourselves from our emotions slightly, to consider them from a more objective standpoint. You could perhaps say that it's our complete self, our whole psyche, that's the essential thing, and emotions take their valued but secondary place within this framework — or rather, as Bonnie states, they move right on through the frame, as feelings always seem to be in flux. Feelings do indeed give richness and depth to our lives, and we would be less than human without them. But we ourselves are more than just our transitory feelings, much more.

In a way, we are the sum of all our emotions, all the feelings we have ever experienced or anyone has ever experienced, just as we are the sum of all our thoughts and actions, and the sum of all anyone has thought or done. We are all connected to a kind of Jungian Collective Unconscious. We are unique individuals, but at the same time we are universally bound together. We are all carbon, all stardust. We all have bodies, brains, thoughts, feelings. And if I'm unable to achieve something in one area of my life, someone will realise it for me in theirs. And vice versa. In this sense, we are all saints and we are all sinners, and everything in-between, and if we truly understand what this means, then it may help us extend empathy towards the whole of mankind.

Emotional Intelligence (4): A Myriad Of Emotions

Grieving (possibly Isis mourning Osiris). A rare piece of Egyptian terra cotta in the Louvre Museum, Paris.

Happiness, sadness, frustration, irritation, humility, pride, confidence, uncertainty, joy, depression, misery, defeat, hope, cynicism, anger, kindness, jealousy, fear, patience, impatience, boastfulness, grief, laziness, listlessness, delight, ecstasy, love, hatred, contentment, envy, greed, ambition, rapture, optimism, pessimism, self-possession, lack of control, melancholy, despair, fondness, passion, sorrow, bliss, embarrassment, contempt, vitality, self-awareness, elation, boredom, guilt . . .

Fifty feelings, emotions and states of mind. A list we could easily extend to one hundred, two hundred more.

I want to thank Amanda for this astute observation:

"It's certainly possible that we can examine the thought itself, but to address the core emotion, respect it for what it is telling us, and then choose wisely our response to the emotion is another path to consider. I don't believe there is such a thing as a negative emotion — emotions themselves are pure. Again, it is how our human mind is domesticated to respond to the emotion in often kneejerk behavior which gets us into trouble."

And I also want to thank Am for her remark that "sins" (or "vices" or "negative qualities") are "part of what it means to be a human being."

I've been thinking about both these comments. We are assailed by feelings and emotions much of the time: some strong, some diluted, some welcome, others not so welcome. They overwhelm us daily, if not hourly — at least they do me. As Am says, feelings and emotions are part of the human makeup.

I know I can seem perhaps unusually emotional for a man (if we accept the cliché that women are more emotional, or show their emotions more readily, than men — though who really knows what's going on behind that male machismo and that stiff upper lip?) I feel a need to express my own feelings, and try to be sensitive to the feelings of others. I cry quite easily while watching romantic films and hearing emotive pieces of music. And so on.

These feelings, and the core emotions from which they come, seem to well up naturally, and, as such, are pure, and to be honoured — as Amanda states. To categorise feelings and emotions simply as positive or negative, good or bad, is a crude and inaccurate shorthand, which does not reflect and respect the complexity of those feelings and emotions, their naturalness and their purity.

I think we are wise to tune in to our feelings, to listen attentively to them and discover what they are telling us. Again as Amanda says, we often seem programmed to act on our feelings with some thoughtless kneejerk reaction — which can be at best unhelpful and at worst destructive.

Speaking for myself, I don't want to be constantly buffeted this way and that by a helter-skelter of emotions, by a tangled, undifferentiated mass of feelings. I don't wish to hide or suppress them, as this can lead to difficult if not dangerous psychological problems. (Anyhow, I like and relish my feelings, on the whole. To feel is to be human, to be alive!) But neither do I wish to be completely ruled by my feelings, to be at their mercy, to be dominated by them so much that I feel powerless and out of control.

So how do we achieve a balance — if balance is what we are agreed upon — of thought and feeling, reason and emotion? How do we integrate emotion into our lives in such a way that we have some control over our feelings and are not totally controlled by them?

Eros and Psyche's kiss.

Emotional Intelligence (3): The Seven Deadly Sins

Don't worry — this is no Catholic tract! I just thought it would be fun to put the medieval Seven Deadly Sins (and their virtuous opposites) under the microscope and discover what they may or may not have to teach us — again as background to our exploration of feelings and emotions . . .

(1) Lust/lechery (luxuria): excessive sexual thoughts and desires. Corresponding virtue: chastity (castitas).

(2) Gluttony (gula): excessive desire for food and drink leading to over-indulgence and over-consumption. Can result in illness, and the deprivation of the genuinely needy. Corresponding virtue: temperance (temperantia).

(3) Greed/avarice/covetousness (avaritia): excessive desire for wealth, status and power. Can result in betrayal, treason, bribery, corruption, trickery, deception, theft, violence and murder. Corresponding virtue: charity (caritas).

All these first three "sins", if taken to excess, may be considered self-centred, lustful appetites, demonstrating a lack of self control which can be dangerous to self and others.

(4) Envy (invidia): closely related to and often resulting in (3) greed. We are certain to cause ourselves torment and may also hurt others in our envious thoughts and pursuits. Corresponding virtue: kindness (humanitas).

(5) Sloth/acedia (socordia/acedia): or laziness, neglect of duties and responsibilities, listlessness — which may lead to melancholy, despair, depression, misery or even, in extreme cases, suicide. Corresponding virtue: diligence (industria).

(6) Anger/wrath (ira): associated with feelings of impatience, hatred, lack of self control — and can lead to acts of revenge, violence, even murder. Corresponding virtue: patience (patientia).

(7) Pride/vanity/vainglory (superbia/vanitas/vanagloria): boasting, hubris, an inflated view of oneself, an unhealthy preoccupation with and love of oneself, narcissism, a condescension even contempt towards others. Bob Dylan called it "the disease of conceit" in his eponymous song. Corresponding virtue: humility (humilitas).

First of all, I suppose one could say that some of these "vices" are pretty good in moderation — I'm thinking of lust, gluttony and sloth in particular. Personally, I couldn't think of anything better than lying in bed all day eating, drinking and having sex. But to do that the next day, and the next, and the next? Perhaps not . . .

Secondly, a certain amount of anger and pride may be viewed as a good thing: anger at injustice may provoke us into trying to remedy the injustice; and if we have pride in our home, our family, our achievements — well, that can't be so bad, can it?

Even a little envy can stir in us a desire to improve our lives . . .

Though the more I look at these Capital Vices — which came to us via The Book Of Proverbs, The Epistle To The Galatians, the fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus, Pope Gregory I and Dante's Divine Comedy — the more I'm convinced they really are things to avoid.

I think what I'm really saying here is that a light sinful touch can be ok, even beneficial, but take that soft fingering to the level of heavy groping and you're in for trouble.

Emotional Intelligence (2): Thought, Feeling, Behaviour

The Dharma Wheel, representing Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path

The counselling technique of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is founded on the belief that it's our preconceived / learnt / inculcated thoughts and ideas which strongly influence our emotions, and that it's our emotions which strongly influence our actions. Did not Shakespeare's Hamlet say to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:  ". . . for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so?" If this is the case, then it follows that our emotions and therefore our actions can be reshaped by rethinking our thoughts and views about ourselves / others / the world. Not always easy — but it can be done, as the success of this counselling approach has proved (it's particularly effective in dealing with problems such as phobias, addictions and depressive illnesses).

Even though emotions often seem to arise independently of thought, thought can be used to reconfigure these emotions and thus our behaviours. (To me this at once brings to mind Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path of Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action etc. According to Buddhist teaching, the random, involuntary stream of thoughts and feelings which runs through our minds much of the time can be consciously stilled and controlled with a little effort, practice, mindfulness and meditation.)

Let's now look at some actual feelings and emotions . . .

Emotional Intelligence (1): The Brain

Diagram of the brain (circa 1300)

According to an established neuro-scientific model it seems that we are possessed of three brains: an original "reptilian" brain — or autonomic nervous system — which controls our visceral, bodily functions and our primal, automatic instincts (e.g. the "fight or flight" response); an amygdala, or "mammalian", or "feeling" brain, which developed at a later stage and is responsible for memory and emotions; and a more sophisticated prefrontal cortex, or "thinking", rational brain, which was the last to evolve. (I'm simplifying here — things are more complex than this, and brain functions much more interrelated. However, this basic pattern will serve my purpose.)

All these three brains come into play, either together or separately, at different times and in different situations. For instance, in states of extreme trauma, the autonomic nervous system can shut down all the other parts of the brain completely. And, as another example, the "thinking" brain is able, to a greater or lesser extent, to control the "feeling" brain and temper extreme emotions. Conversely, the "feeling" brain can at times (e.g. in the throes of a passionate love affair) override the "thinking" brain. A balanced, fully functioning person may be regarded as having a balance between the "thinking" and the "feeling" brain: too much "thinking" may stultify one's emotional and empathic capacity, and too much "feeling" may compromise one's rational mind to a worrying degree.

The reason I'm mentioning all this neurological background stuff  is because I feel a need to write a series of posts about feelings and emotions, particularly negative feelings and emotions: how they arise, how they adversely affect our lives, how we deal with them. I hope you will join me on this emotional journey and perhaps share some of your own personal feelings and experiences along the way . . .

Liminal

" . . . you lift very slowly one black tree / and place it against the sky . . ."

Entrance

Whoever you are: in the evening step out
of your room, where you know everything;
yours is the last house before the far-off:
whoever you are.
With your eyes, which in their weariness
barely free themselves from the worn-out threshold,
you lift very slowly one black tree
and place it against the sky: slender, alone.
And you have made the world. And it is huge
and like a word which grows ripe in silence.
And as your will seizes on its meaning,
tenderly your eyes let go . . .

RAINER MARIA RILKE (From The Book Of Images translated by EDWARD SNOW)

The excellent Pilgrimpace featured this poem of Rilke's recently, and it struck me at once that there could be no better totem-poem for this new blog. "And you have made the world. And it is huge / and like a word which grows ripe in silence." I wasn't thinking of these lines at all when I gave my blog the title words and silence and when I chose to quote Rilke's idea of "the bees of the invisible" and his poem It Is All About Praising in my third post, Lodestones. All I can say is that mysterious things happen in the unconscious, and that our blog world is full of such synchronicities.

As to the meaning of this poem, I really don't want to diminish it by analysis — and Rilke does say in the last two lines: "And as your will seizes on its meaning, / tenderly your eyes let go . . ." (Letting go tenderly! That word "tenderly" here moves me so much, and I can't quite explain why.) I think the poem's about writing a poem, reading a poem, creation, birth, death, weariness, renunciation, acceptance, discovering the new, seeing the old through fresh eyes, embracing the unknown, letting go, seeking a deeper significance to life, exploring death while still alive. But all these interpretations reduce it to cyphers; the "meaning" is in the whole way it's created, in each word, in each space and silence between each word, in the manner each word and space and silence uniquely fit together. Words and silence . . .

Here are some more of Rilke's words, words about praise:

Say, poet, what it is you do. — I praise.
How can you look into the monster's gaze
And accept what has death in it? — I praise.
But, poet, the anonymous and those
With no name, how do you call on them? — I praise.
What right have you though, in each changed disguise,
In each new mask, to trust your truth? — I praise.
Both calm and violent things know you for theirs,
Both star and storm: how so? Because I praise.

RAINER MARIA RILKE (Translated by CLIVE WILMER)

Praise! Unwilled, spontaneous, inevitable, necessary. Perhaps our whole lives and the whole of creation depend upon it . . .

Are we able to leave the house of the familiar and enter the house of praise? Or are we still standing at the "worn-out threshold"?

All of this brings us back full circle to my third post again — and also to Ruth's praise-poem, which you can find here.

Other Worlds But The Same World

Reader of Novels by Antoine Wiertz 

Between my mid teens and late twenties I read a great many novels. There really is no better way in which to explore the heads and hearts of other people, to discover their strengths and weaknesses, their vices and virtues, their ambitions and motivations, their doubts and desires, their hopes and longings, their faults and failings, their dreams and aspirations, their innermost thoughts and feelings, their secret interior spaces.

Some of the best novels nudge us towards thinking about ethics and morality, and may help us work out our own personal mode of living. They can also be historical documents, capturing a society, a culture or a world of a quite specific time and place.

Although I still read novels, I don't read as many now as I used to, as my scope of interest has widened as I've got older; and I now intersperse novels with books of biography, poetry, travel, natural history, philosophy, religion and spirituality.

However, there are many novels I would still like to read — too many. I still haven't finished Tolstoy's War And Peace, Proust's In Search Of Lost Time or Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. I love all these epic works, but sometimes other things just seem more pressing.

Reading novels makes you feel more human and less alone, I believe. It's a way of linking hands, albeit temporarily, with the rest of humanity, and realising that other people are quite like oneself, with the same problems, the same inadequacies — and the same desire for transcendence.   

The Magic Of Poetry

A Pandora's box of poetry

If The Story Of Mankind introduced me to history, and if As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning revealed the delights of long distance walking, then Louis Untermeyer's Golden Treasury opened up a magical world of poetry. I found this book in my stocking one Christmas and was immediately entranced. Although my parents used to lull me to sleep at night with stories and poems, although I was used to seeing poetry books around the house — Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden Of Verses, AA Milne's When We Were Very Young, John Betjemen's Collected Poems — it was this book which really stirred my imagination, awakening a love of words and rhyme and rhythm and illustration which has continued to the present day. Who could not possibly be charmed by this lovable doggy poem by Ogden Nash?

Doggy poems: click to enlarge

Or fail to be moved by Elizabeth Bishop's fish with "his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper" and by the boat's engine oil spreading out "until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow"?

Fish poem: click to enlarge

Or startled by Emily Dickinson's original and lovely way of seeing?

I'll tell you how the sun rose —
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
"That must have been the sun!"

But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.

And this description of fog by Carl Sandburg is pure perfection:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking

over harbour and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Endpapers illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund

The Story Of Mankind

There are certain books encountered in childhood which accompany you all your life. One of my own such seminal books was The Story Of Mankind by Dutch-American historian Hendrik van Loon. In fact I'm reading it again at the moment.

   

It's a children's history book, nearly five hundred pages long and of ambitious scope, charting the history of the world from the formation of planet Earth ("In the beginning, the planet upon which we live was, as far as we now know, a large ball of flaming matter, a tiny cloud of smoke in the endless ocean of space") to the First World War (the book was published in 1921). My copy is the 1922 Harrap edition, printed on thick, yellowing paper, with blue, gold-blocked boards and a rough-trimmed fore-edge. It's illustrated with the author's own crude but rather sweet maps and drawings. After the Foreward and Contents pages, and a "List Of Pictures And Animated Maps", the book begins like this:

"High up in the North in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock. It is a hundred miles high and a hundred miles wide. Once every thousand years a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak. When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by."

I used to think this imaginative attempt to visually describe eternity and the vastness of time was incredibly humbling, awe-inspiring and mind-expanding — and still do. I still contemplate these four, simple sentences with a feeling of wonder. They are clear and vivid, but describe something mysterious and almost ungraspable. They have the quality of an ancient myth or fable.

Near the end of the book, on page 466, just before strip diagrams of "An Animated Chronology 500,000 B.C. — A.D. 1922" and "An Historical Reading List For Children", you find "these wise words of a very great Frenchman" (the Frenchman is Anatole France):  

"Irony and Pity are both of good counsel; the first with her smiles makes life agreeable; the other sanctifies it with her tears."