“One thinks of Isaiah — ”Thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling” — and of Psalm 137: ”By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept as we thought of Zion.” The great poems remind us that grief cannot be avoided, nor forgotten, but can be incorporated into a deeper understanding of the human condition, as in Emily Dickinson’s ”After great pain, a formal feeling comes”:
This is the Hour of Lead —
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —
It is that union of experience, insight and the simple beauty of language that helps us to give our own grief a name, that gives us a kind of company, that extends a wise hand. Many experiencing intense, even unbearable personal loss have found redemptive meaning in the famous poem Ben Jonson wrote in 1603 at the death of his son, the one in which he declares, ”My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.” There is no full consolation for a parent who loses a child, and indeed Jonson does not offer consolation. But he at least gives a form to what most of us only dimly understand: that the source of grief is the intensity of the hopes that have been lost, and that without the possibility of grief there would have been no joy.”
I have not seen forsythia glow so bright The flowers exult in yellow on the shed Even in the darkening of the light
For many days my mind has been upset I did not know where I had lost my head I have not seen forsythia glow so bright
My eyes were focussed where our terrors bite Without love’s consolations in my bed Even in the darkening of the light
Barbaric words of humans hate incite As the Prophets sadly have long said I have not seen the sun glow quite so bright
The dirty look, the eye so sly, the night The terror in our dreams, the bloody heads Here they come, in darkness, in our flight
Come my dearest,take me as I’m read By words expressed, the dangers have now fled I have not seen forsythia glow so bright Now the darkness dances with the light
The agent is the one who makes the choice
Who are we and how do we decide?
If we’re passive, we will lose our voice
Consolation comes in many ways
The love of other people is a guide
The agent is the one who has the choice
Consolation visits, cannot stay
Will not come if we are stiff with pride
If to power we’re passive, we must pray
A wife was once a slave, though well embraced
Her unique self and agency denied
The agent is the one who makes the choice
Now the unemployed dwell in disgrace
The monsters in the government deride
If by power disabled ,find a voice
Christian armies thought God on their side;
As if he cared what they meant by their lies!
The agent believes he’s in charge,has choice
We feel lost , where is the still,small voice?
What did all those sermons do? Did they say he was a Jew? Oh, Jesus. Did he want the First Crusade It is his blood the priest creates Lord Jesus. I don’t like the way things are I am getting tired of war Kill Jesus. What has human wisdom done From Wittgenstein to Abraham? Cripes, Jesus! Does research improve our lives As for grants, the scholars strive? Ask Jesus. We may have chemotherapy Radiation, history. Where’s Jesus? You’d think that after all the years We’d have used up all our tears Sweet Jesus. Love your neighbour as yourself Give 10 % of all your wealth Aye, Jesus .Do what’s better, not what’s worse I see another fragrant hearse. It’s Jesus. See the plastic Crucifix See him dying with dry lips Bend your knees, confess your sins Otherwise, the Devil wins Not Jesus .We destroy the good we hate Envy writhes and with pride mates. The progeny will wreck the earth Eden’s burning as drones pass. No, Jesus.No Jesus. Know Jesus.
Jack had just taken early retirement from his old job as a maths researcher. in Knittingham university.His large collection of books was overwhelming the home he shared with his excitable French wife Simone.
Simone was still working at the university cleaning computers heads all day long.Now she was hoping that she and Jack could do more entertaining.If only he would get rid of some of the many books he owned!
Simone left for work wearing her new pink cord trousers and a dark blue denim knit jumper with a long lasting beige foundation from Max Factor covering her red complexion.
Jack gave the cat,Louisa, a hot bath in goat’s milk.Now instead of being grey she was cream coloured!
I’ve been dyed,she shrieked politely but Jack never replied.
He pondered,as he dried her what to do with all his maths books.He had thought of making a large collage but who would want it?
Or he could donate them to the university or have a fire in the back garden.
Suddenly he looked up and saw a very charmingly pink faced woman peering into the window.
It was his neighbour Kim whose husband had disappeared last year,possibly inside a wheelie bin,though no-one was sure.
Hello,Kim,did you want me?” he cried nervously
I thought you might like some company for morning coffee.What a pretty cat.what is her name?”
Louisa was wary of Kim,Maybe the purple trousers and orange jumper might give the cat an epileptic fit… she was a sufferer, just like St Paul.She hoped to be converted but so far was disappointed.She longed to see a vision of heavenly cat food in the sky.
Can cats go to Mass? she mioawed to Jack.
Yes,but they can’t have Communion,he responded furtively
Well,we don’t eat bread but I love wine!
I’ll mention it to the Pope next time I see him,Kim said with a roguish smile.Her make up looked to be waterproof as the drip in the ceiling was right above her head and heavy rain was falling yet her face did not change at all.Was it plastic coated?
But Louisa,you would have to confess your sins.All your sins
I never did a thing wrong in my whole life ,the cat replied haughtily.
Well,you know the Church is only for repentant sinners,so if you never sin,you can’t repent. so it follows indubitably that you can’t join the Church!i studied Aristotle once so
I get all logical with emotion.I only wish I’d got to Wittgenstein..I could have loved that man….though now I seem to recall he was gay…still,who knows?
If that were true about the Church,would Jesus be allowed to join?
Certainly not.He was perfect and also he was Jewish.So why would he want to join a Christian church?
As he began it, he might like to see its holy life,Louisa purred loudly.
Really,I think this is a very odd conversation murmured the parrot,Felix Semper.
Not so odd,responded a tall dark man who just appeared from nowhere.
I am called Jesus he said,but I’m from Malaga.
In Spain many men are called Jesus,he continued mellifluously.
Is that so, cried Kim murmured tenderly.
I never met a Jesus before.If you married me it would give people a shock if I said I was married to Jesus! she whispered loudly behind her hand.
Marry you! Is it leap year? Women have never proposed to me before.
I was just thinking out loud,she replied demurely in her soft voice.
Nuns used to be married to Jesus and wore a silver wedding ring.
I was educated at a convent school.That’s why I’m so very neurotic.
Are you really neurotic? Jack,screamed neurotically
I have a whole shelf of books by Karen Horney here.Self Analysis, is just one.
I could give it to you now….
Not in front of Jesus,she muttered chastely.
Have you no moral feelings?
No,I’ve never had any feelings of any sort in my entire. bu life t it’s done me no harm.
I’ll ask Simone when she gets back, we’ll see if she agrees!
I’m just like a computer with a human body.
I sometimes think I’d like a suit of silver armour.
Bless you,my child,Jesus murmured.
When they looked up the tall dark man was gone.
They looked around but he had left no footprints.
Should we call the police?He came in with no permission!
How disgraceful.
How dastardly.
How disgusting
How damnable.
How divine.
How dumb.
How deplorable.
So on they murmured until it was time to cook lunch. for the cats and birds.What a morning,what a life.
Wasting life when we would like to dance Walk in ferny woods. exchange a glance Can we have a decent person at our head? Jesus Christ,no b*gger understood
Why be happy when you could feel mad? Glad that Donald Trump is not your dad Don’t let logic, reason or plain thought Sell you something Mother never bought
Why not let the police take all control? They know how to score a self made goal They can kill a man and wound a child Yet kneel down in Church along the aisle
Holding a black Bible in one hand
Will not take you to the Promised Land Cain and Abel,Jacob and Esau Does he hope to start another War?
As the old man fell towards his death They offered us a handrail for the bath
Shattered by their honest,wilful lies I could not speak, my saliva had all dried
He was walking albeit slowly when at home When they took him off I heard the groan Lost inside his head, no wife nearby Even Satan would have wept that night
Gabriel and Satan, hand- in -hand Neither one will ever understand We humans waste so much,we’re almost blind Full of envy,hate and so unkind
A bird taps on this window every day,
Frail as flying leaves are in a gale.
But now he perches on the potted bay.
He feels the weather like the blind do braille.
This bird is faithful and I hold him dear.
He’s fearless as he pecks upon the glass.
We hope he has a modicum of fear,
For who knows when a sparrow hawk will pass?
I see him like a human soul forlorn
Struggling to discern his fateful way.
For soon he may be taken by a storm
But blithely he will eat, and after play.
The smallest bird has trust in the Unknown
By his example, our own way is sho
Air,bitter they call it,whispers to the sweet planes of my face,
Shrieks shrill to my cavities,ears,mouth and nose;penetrates all that’s open;
Probing like a surgeon’s knife,to see what healing damage it might do.
A frozen finger touches my heart;
Seems like the ice is inside me sending urgent warnings.
On that high inner mountain,you’ll feel nothing at all…
You’ll be the snowman, a bloody icicle;
An Old Testament of Endurance;
A legend like the pale polar bears, snuffling uneasily around the summit
Touching a woman’s heart is the quickest way to gain her attention
I’m looking at you;you’re in pieces.You’re a puzzle,a jigsaw with two double dynamos;
A broken racing bicycle crossed with two ice skates.
Ten motorboats crashed into a yacht and abandoned on a Swiss lake in winter.
Can I leave you scattered like this?
You’re a man in a penguin suit;
Diplomatic, attached with the coldest reserves.
You’re a spy from the court of the Vatican City
A screaming Pope;
An unbaptized demon.
A lost angel with no hands;
A half hung side of meat;
An unbroken rampant horse deluded by winds east.
We were split,one from another;
Split in ourselves too–thoughts and emotions
Are raw like meat,weeping as they are pulled apart into islands.
I see there’s a cold window between us.
I rub it with my damp coat sleeve,like children do,licking on it;
And see your eyes gleam in hope like greenish diamonds.
Yet I can’t touch you, until we learn how to melt glass.
Are you trying too as you smile weakly,
desperately holding onto this impossible slippery glass?
We’ll try to reach you at the bottom of whatever frozen ocean you sigh in. to
Here you are,a flat and two-dimensional Prospero.
You rise like a non-U-boat already firing at the upper orders.
Here you are walking through what seemed like ruins
And you are not just alive, but burning.
“We are great fools. ‘He has spent his life in idleness,’ we say, and ‘I have done nothing today.’ What! have you not lived? That is not only the fundamental, but the most noble of your occupations. ‘If I had been put in charge of some great affair, I might have shown what I could do.’ Have you been able to reflect on your life and control it? Then you have performed the greatest work of all. To reveal herself and do her work, nature has no need of fortune. She manifests herself equally at all levels, and behind curtains as well as in the open. Our duty is to compose our character, not to compose books, to win not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live properly. All other things — to reign, to lay up treasure, to build — are at best but little aids and additions.” Montaigne.
The doctor says I’ve got the sickest jokes ever My blood tests were superlative. I’ve got diabetes, pernicious anaemia and a virus. in the computer. I have got bow legs as well, but no double bass I think I’ll get married but the doctor won’t approve,I want to marry the dentist. I believe that if I learn Russian I won’t get dementia just detentia. I dream in other languages especially Latin. Quo Vadis? Tantrum virgo? Why don’t we give 10% of our money to the poor? They would waste it on food? My mother and father were very intelligent.Yet my IQ is only 65..I must have brain fever Do we really have any IQ? Plato didn’t! So many new diseases it seems unfair.
But life is unfair
Is it not?
Happiness is compulsory at this time Xmas parties,alcohol and drugs Inebriated,I can never rhyme I sit and watch the mating of the slugs
But surely nothing mates in winter cold I’m For slugs don’t own a coat like humans do Perhaps ,despite appearance, they are bold Need no injections to prevent the flu.
On balance would you rather be a slug That lives a life of freedom in the grass Or do you live because you write and blog And in the evening play a double bass.?
A slug can’t sing a song nor speak kind words This idea is foolish and absurd.
Now the evening of the day before
The wedding and the guests not yet estranged
Then I a dress of golden satin wore.
It was the evening
The priest he prayed and love was emphasized
Which looking at that world seems now so strange
Like hatred of the Jews who Christ provide.
They provided him
We took Communion, sang the hymns of praise
The wedding feast was already arranged
Thank God for Jesus whom he did not raise.
We took Communion
Like an absent father of the present day
God let Mary raise his child dismayed
Impregnating her then going off to play
An absent father
If God did choose a Jew to be his bride
He must have liked her profile well displayed
Who knows that, his ways are not our ways?
His Jewish lover
Strangely, Catholics cannot marry Jews
Though would a Jew desire a Nazi’s heirs?
In their lairs in souls of Europe, Nazis brood
We’re Nazis below deck
We think the Shoah was sickening just for Jews
But it’s we who’re sick and need a great repair
Europe’s down the chute, just watch the News.
Watch the News.
A wedding day should have both joy and care
For all of those who have affect to share
When all of humankind can watch the play
On a scream near you, they want to say
No affect dare
Mary and Anny were looking in the wardrobe trying to find things to give to the charity shop . What’s this, cried Annie Oh my goodness, that is the shirt that Stan wore for our wedding It is very bright said Annie. Still in the 60s that was what people wore even men. and what is this black jacket over it? That is the jacket that I wore for Stan’s funeral. Goodness me .I hope it doesn’t make you feel sad to look at them now that you are all alone Well I’m not really all alone. I have got you and Dave and Emile.And several penfriends and my ex- work colleagues not to mention my sister and her offspring who are all very kind But that’s not the same as having a husband, Annie responded sadly. I should know I have lost three Where did you lose them, asked Mary.I know that your last one died mysteriously but what about the others? Well my first husband was a coal miner and I got tired of washing all his clothes because in those days there were no automatic washing machines. I left him and I married a builder who built was a very nice house out in the Peak District . He refused to have any children and I wanted children.I decided to leave him. then I am married my last husband, James. He didn’t die. her ran away with his sister-in-law but I did not want people to know that so I pretended he had died whilst on holiday Some people think you killed him and put him into the wheelie bin ,Mary I told her stupidly How ridiculous he was much too big to fit into a wheelie bin and I could not have lifted him up when he was a dead weight Ahahaha that’s very funny, the cat mewed , a dead weight. Did you kill him? No but I will when I find him again. I can’t get a divorce without revealing his sinful deeds and so I have to be a mistress and not a wife. Since Stan died I have no one to be a mistress to. I keep hoping that Mary will get married again but so far she has not bothered That is not as easy as you seem to think , said Mary Why not ?You are still very attractive you have lovely clothes and big blue eyes. you can do French provincial cooking and plain English cooking; you can speak 4 languages and explain quantum theory to anyone interested, and you are very good at playing the piano. Well if I am so wonderful where are all the men queueing up to offer me their hand in marriage? I don’t think men like clever women even when they are as beautiful and gorgeous as I am. I suppose that men don’t like women who know things that they don’t know. Well I know things nobody else knows like when I had my last menstrual period when I first used Tampax; when I lost my virginity which I’m still hoping to find again. How I set my hair on fire opening the door of the oven when I’d not cleaned it for 5 years ——-there’s lots of things I know that nobody else knows What are the things that someone would want to know , Annie asked her ? Well who knows what men want to know? Do they want to know that I have bought a pair of size 9 Nike trainers in pale lemon and I have darned the hole in a brown pleated skirt …….by the way, why do moths make the holes on the front of skirts? I am sure that a moth does not know the back from the front on your skirts maybe it’s the direction that you hang them in . perhaps you should hang them in the bathroom and throw some Dettol on them How do you throw Dettol. Mary said quizzically, do you mean spray? Oh,let’s not get bogged down in details. you know what I mean you need to clean the wardrobe Well you’re wrong there,Annie because when preparing a moth free environment what I should really do is bring in Emile’s offerings from the garden where he is burying them and put them in the wardrobe Oh my God meowed Emile I couldn’t bear to put my crap in the wardrobe I quite understand st. Mary and I have no intention of putting anybody’s crap in the wardrobe as it is full of clothes thaty are already mostly crap . I don’t agree with you said Annie; you have got some beautiful clothes on you always look really glorious Well everybody has a different taste and it’s unfortunate if you get married to somebody whose taste is the opposite of your own Did Stan like the way you dressed? Well when we got married we were very poor and so I could not do anything about it I had one skirt which I bought for a shilling in a jumble sale at a church in Holland Park; it was extremely short and Stan and liked it very much. then a blouse with long sleeves that I bought for sixpence in the same jumble sale.I had a pair of black trousers from Marks and Spencer’s and a big white jumper from up north and a grey dress that my landlady in Oxford gave me when she was collecting jumble . In North Oxford they have some very good quality jumble. I’m telling you I’ve never been so well dressed in my entire life as I was then .The only problem was that most of the dresses that she gave me were too big for me but I didn’t really worry about that I had a black dress which I wore to have dinner at the High Table in Hertford College I was about a size 6 and the dress was a size 12 but it is very good fabric and quite formal so I thought it would do Then I had a black dress with long sleeves which did fit me but it was very very short and showed most of my thighs; it was rather foolish of me to wear it to a mathematical conference in Dundee in April 1970. You see I didn’t think people would look at me I didn’t exist I was a blank I was nothing but when I saw people staring at me, at me I realised my error When Stan and I had more money I did have some clothes and he liked me to wear bright colours and good cloth that hung well so I did try to please him now and then otherwise I wore jeans with woollen jumpers over the top for warmth,Mary whispered silently I think you are the best dressed woman in Knittingham now .You look better than any middle class woman Go on, which class am I in as Mary humorously. Don’t say that I’ve got to marry somebody in the royal family as I can’t stand Balmoral You’ve never been there. No I don’t want to go there it’s full of midges and blackfly and the Queen goes riding on a horse. I have never ridden a horse in mylLife Mary said sadly How about the Rocking Horse that you had in the nursery That’s not quite the same as a real life horse is it ,Mary said angrily? Don’t upset me ;it’s not my fault that your mother couldn’t afford to buy you a horse’ it was very rare in those days to buy children horses especially when they lived in a two bedroom house with no bathroom inside I don’t think the horse would mind no bathroom as they don’t tend to get washed in the bathroom .I could have washed the horse in the backyard near the toilet and the Coal Shed Or by the air raid shelter Your parents couldn’t afford to buy the food for a horse; they need more than your leftovers That’s true, muttered Mary sadly, but you know I never really wanted a horse I did want a bicycle. Mum would not listen;l so I had to go to Oxford and that was very hard work studying mathematics for years and years so I got in to that course . Then I was able to get a bicycle like everybody else . Now I wish I just stayed at home and got a job working in a supermarket. Why screamed Anny you would have been very bored. not to mention the money I am never bored said Mary because my mind is very rich and I should have been able to daydream and lose myself in reveries while I was serving customers Well God serves those who serve themself Annie said ,to finish the conversation Wat rubbish said Mary;she stalked into the house and put the kettle on to make some breakfast tea even though it was supper time. What we need is a good hot drink and to keep quiet and stop talking all this nonsense. if God wants me to get married again then he will send men to find me and even though I have all these problems like I am very neurotic I am obsessed with details,I write poetry while others eat their dinner. I like mending holes in people’s clothes even if they don’t want me to mend them. I like to go to the toilet once every 4 hours and every 2 hours on Sundays or Good Friday.I like Jews and Muslims and anyone else who seems decent My God I think there’s something wrong with you ! So you’ve only just noticed replied Mary I’ve had something wrong with me ever since I was born But you wouldn’t know that when you were a baby. I suppose not said Mary wildly, but you know being a baby is not always a very pleasant experience,to put it mildly And so say all of us
Overspend on your credit cards getting presents that nobody really wants and and then buy ing things you do really want in the boxing day sales
Why not get all your relatives together in an overheated room have a lot of alcohol and have a great big row.
Watch sorts of rubbish on the television just because it’s Christmas when you would like to spend a time doing something that you really want today but you think it’s rude so you make yourself comply after all it’s only once a year.
Jack opened the door and saw his elegantly thin wife Simone riding her bicycle along the pavement without even holding the handlebars
That is absolutely and utterly wrong, he told her rudely yet patiently.
You are giving a bad example to the cat and to many other people who may be looking out of their windows or driving along this intriguingly bland suburban road
Louisa grinned like a Cheshire cat would
Don’t be so ridiculous she cried, cats can’t ride bicycles. Their legs are not long enough
You’re missing the more subtle point that you are breaking the law in a particular way Now the cat or any cat, a dog or a human being may not be able to ride a bicycle but they can break the law.
Well of course they can because we all have free will or we are just too lazy to think she cried merrily.
So if you ride a bicycle along the pavement especially when there are people about you are giving the impression that you do not have any thought for the good of others. In modern terminology you are a narcissist or in Christian terminology you are a sinner although it’s not a mortal sin unless you kill somebody deliberately and wilfully. Who knows who is guilty of mortal sin ?
Don’t ask me I’m only a writer
Oh dear Jack you are so scrupulous. I have never done it before but it was so inviting when I came around the corner I felt like a child. I thought how lovely it will be to ride along the pavement
It’s very sad Jack sald that people see being an adult as a deprivation of pleasure. There are adult pleasures of course that we can’t talk about those in front of the cat can we?
Why not, the little cat wondered to herself. I would like them to talk about is in front of me.
The elderly couple rolled into the sweet little kitchen on their milk bottle like legs and their cruelly deformed feet and rolled onto the wooden bench behind the kitchen table. But close to the grand piano as well
What are we having for our tea?
Jack said, I found a teapot in the dining room so we can have tea in the pot instead of in mugs with tea bags I think you will enjoy that my dear
I definitely will. I love a nice teapot. And have you made a cake?
I’ve made a lot of cakes but they are potato cakes!
Well my mother used to make those in the 1950s or was it the 1960s ? We still had a coal fire with an oven at the side. Those were the days.
Jack put the potato cakes on the table along with some co-op best butter.
Then little Louisa climbed onto the table and licked the butter with her red tongue.
See I told you that you were leading the cat into sin and now she’s been licking this butter. I will have to throw it away m
A cat can do something wrong but is it a sin?
Are there cats in hell?
But she didn’t see me riding on the pavement, his beautiful brave wife exclaimed with a subtle yet obvious hint of violence.
Unfortunately the cat has got second sight being half Irish and she definitely did see her mother riding the bicycle along the pavement breaking the law with every turn of the pedals
What the cat was thinking was this:
is doing something illegal automatically a sin and is something legal always good?
The second question is easier to answer because we know that in world war two many things were done in Germany that were legal under their leader Hitler but they were definitely not good to put it mildly
To be plain they were evil
But breaking the law by riding a bicycle along the pavement is not in the list of sins in most Catholic missals
I suppose in the time of the Apostles there were no pavements and there were no bicycles so you would have to look for a general principle.
Give unto Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s
After that Jack got some fresh butter from the fridge and he and his wife demolished the potato cakes along with some bacon and egg
Great Bardfield and Dunmow by meadows of blue
Linseed and poppies delight
Narrow lanes curving are leading us to
The Essex of Constable ‘s sight
At Manningtree swans jostle near the stone edge
I recall we have seen them in flight
Like a god might descend to fulfill an old pledge;
A humbling and marvellous sight.
In Dedham, all’s still and wisteria hangs
From a house with the door painted white.
The church was quite empty and no bell was rung
But a prayer could ascend to its height.
After the quiet of the village out here
The A12 was revealed as a blight
We crossed it then turned down a lane that was near
We drove home in the cool of the night.
Windmills not turning and churches not used
Yet a beauty to charm and delight
No mills as in Yorkshire,no hills to denude.
Long Melford and Eleigh ,oh wait!
When I cannot tell you how I feel
When I want your presence without speech
I talk about the weather like a fool
Sometimes when I’m tired I feel unreal
Or life seems lost and meaning outward leaks
Then I can not tell you how I feel.
Some months have their winds to make misrule
Others throttle throats and freeze the cheeks
I talk about the weather , as its cool.
We must keep moving or our blood congeals
So sheep must on moorland frosty, bleak
I don’t want to lie , for life is real
When winter mocks our age I find it cruel
Yet you are old and for amusement look
I talk about the sunshine like a fool
Oh, happy snowfalls keeping us from school
As on the ice we tumbled with loud shrieks
When I cannor tell you how I feel
The weather stands for what I have concealed
The need for some simple source of relaxation can be seen in the initial surge in popularity of the adult colouring book, as well as last year’s 13.3% increase in sales of books providing spiritual guidance on how to live in a hectic world, and the mindfulness “mega trend” seen in Hehadspace, the meditation app that has been downloaded more than 15m times. Those of us who spent our money on these products were presumably searching for answers to some of the same questions – and many of us are still looking. The bottom has now dropped out of the colouring book market, with Forbes declaring it “dead” in May, and, in June last year, Headspace laid off 13 staff members.
According to a report by Ofcom this summer: “Most people in the UK are dependent on their digital devices and need a constant connection to the internet.” It found that 78% of us now own a smartphone – rising to 95% of 16- to 24-year-olds. We check these phones on average every 12 minutes of our waking lives, with 54% of us feeling that the devices interrupt our conversations with friends and family, and 43% of us feeling that we spend too much time online. We can’t relax with them, and we don’t know how to relax without them. Seven in 10 of us never turn them off.
The clinical psychologist Rachel Andrew says she sees the problem every day in her consulting room, and it is getting worse. “I’ve noticed a rise in my practice, certainly over the last three to five years, of people finding it increasingly difficult to switch off and relax. And it’s across the lifespan, from age 12 to 70,” she says. The same issues come up again and again: technology, phones, work emails and social media.
Kicking back in front of one screen or another does have its place, says Andrew – but it depends how you do it. “Sometimes people describe not being engaged in what they’re looking at – totally zoning out, not knowing what they’ve done for the last half-hour,” she says. “You can view this almost as dissociation, periods of time when your mind is so exhausted and overwhelmed it takes itself out of the situation. That’s unlikely to be nourishing in any way.” Maybe that is why, after I have spent an evening staring emptily at Twitter, or dropping off in front of the TV – less Netflix and chill, more Netflix and nap – I wake up feeling as if I have eaten a load of junk food. I have confused feeling brain-dead with feeling relaxed.
The psychoanalyst David Morgan, of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, believes that for many of us this deadening retreat to our screens is both a reason for and a consequence of the fact that we no longer know how to relax and enjoy ourselves. Our screens and what we use them for are all techniques of distraction, he says. “People have got so used to looking for distraction that they actually cannot stand an evening with themselves. It is a way of not seeing oneself, because to have insight into oneself requires mental space, and all these distraction techniques are used as a way of avoiding getting close to the self.”
Some of her patients, Andrew explains, simply never get around to thinking about how they want to spend their time. “People say they are so busy doing the ‘shoulds’,” she says – whether that is working, caring for family or being a part of demanding friendships – that by the time an evening or weekend comes around when they might do what they want, there is no energy or motivation left for anything but “flopping out”. She adds: “That’s a difficulty – because how is life enjoyable or satisfying in the long term if you’re only doing what you should do the whole time?”
For others, the notion of being in touch with their own needs and desires is totally alien, says Andrew. People who grew up in a family environment that centred around the needs of a sibling or a parent might have spent their whole lives never being asked about what they wanted to do. “It might genuinely be something they’ve never considered before,” she says. For those people, identifying something they might find enjoyably relaxing, and pursuing it, can be a huge, life-changing shift. “It can be quite dramatic.”
Another problem is that it can be tricky to untangle our own wishes from those of the people around us, says Nina Grunfeld, the founder of Life Clubs, an organisation that aims to help people live more fulfilling lives. It can take a lot of effort to discover where your enjoyment ends and your partner’s begins. “When my husband and I were young,” she says, “we went to Rome on holiday, and he wanted to go to every church, every restaurant, every everything. And I got home completely shattered. It was only after coming to know myself, after thinking about my life without him and what I like as an individual, that I realised that for me to enjoy a holiday and to come back feeling relaxed and refreshed, I need to read and be still. Now we’ll go on holiday and he goes off to do the churches by himself, but I’m very happy just lying by the beach, pool or fire and reading. It’s a real treat. I might join him for the restaurants, though.”
Speaking to Grunfeld and Andrew, and hearing their advice (see ) on how to identify different occupations that might relax and reinvigorate me, I begin to feel optimistic. I think back to how I liked to pass the time when I was young; the quiet times sitting reading a book, the rowdier times baking with friends. I resolve to make more time to do the adult versions of these things over the next year – then realise I am making excuses. If I could redirect the evenings I am already wasting on screens, that would be a good start.
The fact is, I do already do all those ideal things occasionally, but sometimes it feels as if being in the world is too much, and I need to disappear from it by losing myself in a screen. It is as if I crave that brain-dead feeling, even though I know it isn’t good for me.Having psychoanalytic psychotherapy is helping me to think about the reasons why I might do this – and for Morgan, therapy can be an important pathway out of being stuck in a screen-gazing rut, because it is somewhere a person is encouraged to use his or her mind. “The therapeutic space is the opposite of distraction – it’s concentration,” he says. “When people come into my consulting room, they often tell me it’s the first time they have ever felt they have had a space where they can’t run away from things.”
I have found that not running away from things, but confronting them and reflecting on them, can feel as exhausting as the running itself. It is difficult, disturbing work. But in a room with someone who can listen and help me to make sense of things, it can also be a relief. Morgan tells me: “We have all these various ways of distracting ourselves from the most important fact of life – that we live, and then we die. Having a mind to help you think about things, having a person who can think deeply about things with you, is a way to manage this very frightening fact of life.”
The flip side of that frightening fact is, of course, the realisation that since we don’t have much time on this planet, it is a shame to waste any of it voluntarily making ourselves brain-dead.
Top tips: rediscover the lost art of relaxation
• If you are spending time with family or friends over the festive period, Nina Grunfeld recommends assigning each person one hour in which they are in charge of the group’s schedule, when they can choose whichever activity they consider most relaxing. “One of my children might decide we all have to play a video game; another will decide we are all going for a walk; another will make us all bake cakes. That way you all get a bit of ‘me-time’, and you can experience someone else’s – and it’s very relaxing not having to make decisions for the whole day,” she says.
• Try to remember what you most enjoyed doing as a child, then identify the most important aspect of that activity and find the adult version. Grunfeld says: “It might be that you can’t remember, and you have to ask friends or family, or look at old photo albums. There are normally themes in all of our lives, and if we’re missing those themes as an adult, it’s almost as if we’re not a whole person.” If you loved playing in the sandpit, you might want to try pottery, or if you liked building things, you might want to make bread.
• Experiment with looking at the world in a new way. “Allow yourself to explore. Just walk around wherever you are and see what you can find that is completely new. Try to get lost – whenever you get to a turning, ask yourself do you want to go left or right, and see where you end up,” says Grunfeld.
• If you have no idea how to start relaxing, look at the science, says Rachel Andrew. “There is a growing body of research to suggest being out in nature is uplifting and nourishing.”
Q
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I once became interested in virtue and perception.It began when I read a little Aristotle about virtue being a habit.That was quite recent.Before that for many years I believed virtuous acts would follow from being able to perceive well.But when we are fraught our minds and eyes tighten up and so we perceive only what may be a danger to us.To perceive others well we need to be in a position to trust others and we need to feel secure.How is this possible?
From my studies I read that our ability to trust begins with a trusted caregiver in infancy,[See” atttachment and loss “by John Bowlby reference to come] We may be able to become more secure later by good fortune,friendship and love.
If not,I seem to get the idea that if we are insecure and nervous we cannot truly perceive others and they may be in the same position.If we are very afraid then virtuous acts may be hard to accomplish. The reason is obvious… when. we are concerned with mere survival as a person , in that state what we do to others may be impossible for us to consider.We cannot truly see them and so we cannot act well towards them except by good luck.
Or if we are able to tolerate great anxiety,we may see better…. if not we are incapable…. Those whom we cannot see properly we cannot truly consider with feeling and act on this feeling.We see them partly or mainly in terms of the fearful fantasies in our minds and cannot see them as other and interesting.When we make a friend online we may feel safer but in fact we are more likely to misperceive them.
When we are from a sad a or difficut background it may help greatly if we have some friends who might point out our errors if we trust enough to tell them.Or we may pretend to be hard and tough.Neither leads to virtue.
If we trust God it may help but I believe we see God through the lens of our parents.. which is not good…depending on the parents. When we live in fear,we cannot see what is there before us.We cannot let go.We cannot accept grace and love nor give it.We will try to live by will power.Ironically people who are fearful inside can develop a shell of toughness and pride and so are not seen as vulnerable and/or lovable.Tbey may seem frightening to others. This account may help to explain why politics is the way it is and also we see that arguing is not persuasive when the other is not able to open up and see things more broadly.Arguing makes us tighten up and see less well.And it can be frightening too though some cultures find it more acceptable than others.
How my heart sings 