Mapping The Territory - Elegy (1)

MAPPING THE TERRITORY - ELEGY (1)

'Now it's clear, my dear, for all who can see; it's nigh time you started confiding in me.'

'I keep my confessions for curates and shrinks. That excludes - woe is me - a Priestess who drinks.'

'Tut tut, dear child, where's your etiquette? Just because you run wild pray, please, don't forget there's a reason we're heading this way. . .

'Are you so very dull that you really can't tell that this walk will decide if it's heaven or hell? It wasn't free-will, it was mandatory; this hiking you're doing's called purgatory.'

'Really?'

'Yes.

'A heart only has so much pain it can take before it stops beating. (They call it heartbreak). I'm sorry to say that your days are now numbered, but, some of us care that you die unencumbered by feelings that might leave you bitter and twisted and so (I'll come clean) we've petitioned - insisted - you're given a chance to repent all you hate before you drop dead (as they say, become 'late').

'Ok. Where should I start?'

'How about at the beginning?'

Mapping The Territory (3)

MAPPING THE TERRITORY (3)

So, we walked on together; the sun on our backs. And, she's wily that woman; I shouldered both packs.

Her sack was quite heavy; 'what is it you carry?'

She answered, 'just hand me your flask'.

But, between breaths (and stumbling) she managed a grin. 'I always prefer to add tonic to gin. My bag, dear child, is crammed full with tins. I want only ice and some limes.

'Don't you miss the old days, those good times?'

I said nought; and, the Priestess opined:

'So, I see you've attempted ten steps to nowhere; let's consider them, child. (Quit that look of despair. You're much prettier when you smile.)

'To begin with you opted for optimism. It failed, so you coveted pessimism. Then (regrouping) you tried being enthusiastic. Well, when that didn't work, then, you made yourself sick. You found yourself bloated, and came out in spots so you gave up on eating and drinking: the lot. You got terribly thin, I remember.

'Four steps to nowhere.

'You decided to study; exceeded the best. But, fast-forward to jobs and you failed the test. Teamwork, it would seem, was anathema to you. So, you tried going freelance; were lonely and blue.

'Six steps to nowhere.

'Meditation is fine if one clears the mind, and, yoga is good for one's haunches and hind, but you always forgot that you had to keep breathing; your brain never stopped, your emotions kept seething.

'Eight steps to nowhere.

'The wine-tasting club only left you a lush. And, your time with the shrink - well - I see why you blush.

'Ten steps to nowhere.'

I stepped up my speed and left her behind.

'Now, child,' cried the Priestess, 'pray, don't be unkind.'

The Sub-Editor - Day Of Reckoning

DAY OF RECKONING

'The thing to remember is that nothing has changed. Except what I thought was the case. But my case was a myth and a fantasy; a lie combined with bad faith.'

My brother turned to me and asked, 'what do you mean by this?'

'The day of reckoning is, in fact, a re-positioning. A case of seeing the facts. A case of seeing the reality, and adjusting the way that one acts.'

My brother turned to me and suggested, 'perhaps you are pissed?'

'To believe in God is surely a vanity, but I must say I'm sad we've discarded Greek tragedy. The thought of the Underworld is strangely life-affirming. Posthumous reunion strikes me as quite charming. And I have to confess that the thought of love is calming. The thought of not having love is certainly disarming.'

My brother turned to me and said, 'can I offer you an olive or, maybe, a crisp?'

'Yes, it's one thing to hypothesize, it's another to enact. I, for one, can intelletualise, critique, interpret, analyse, but it's altogether different to behave as if you're wise.'

My brother turned on the TV.

'You see, emotions are immune to self-control and censorship. They're disruptive and subversive and, at times, are quite seductive; to be immersed in something abstract but so vicsceral, persuasive. Though I'm somewhat loath to say it, I would say it's quite addictive.'

My brother turned off the TV and shouted, 'so what you gonna do about it?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'You tell me. After all, let's face it, it's your reality.'

Emotional Insecurity Alarm (Batteries Not Included)

Burglar alarm
Car alarm
Smoke alarm

False alarms?

So precious is our property.
This God-forsaken society;
Driven by insecurity.

But, it's the emotional,
Not the material,
Attachments that concern me.

An aside:
I confess
It's quite disarming
To discover
Time's alarming.

To be woken from my dreams
And things.
A plastic clock:
Vibrates and rings

Reminds me
That it's time for work.
Work like a Turk.
(A Capitalist quirk.)

Alarming, Darling.

Now

There's a strategy
Not yet patented.
Indeed, I have
Created it.

It delivers us
From psychic harm.
Permanently levelled,
Balanced and calm.

Whenever I am feeling blue
Tired and depressed.
When bed's my only sanctuary;
When I just can't get dressed,

I tend to have
A little bounce.
It cheers me up,
Helps shed an ounce

Or two,

Too.

Yes, there's nothing better:
A skip and a jump
To overcome
That melancholy hump.

But what society is lacking
(Beyond compulsory slacking)
Is a mechanism
To read the signs;
The furtive onslaught
Of those desperate times.

I offer that, when once made
It's as essential to the modern home,
As was the Teasmaid
For those who live alone.

It should need no batteries,
Gas or electricity.
Be informed by Mindfulness
(Buddhism combined with CBT):

The Emotional Insecurity Alarm.

Song Of The Undressed Crab

I'm yet to get dressed,
I'm safe in my shell.
Don't consider me sadly;
I'm feeling quite well.

I'm legless, I'm stranded;
The tide is now out.
But, the sea will return,
Of that, there's no doubt.

And, while some may deem
I appear denuded.
Let me venture a thought.
(Please don't think me deluded.)

Of course, there are problems
Incurred by separation
Of the limbs from the torso,
But, I call it liberation.

(Encore)

So, I'm yet to get dressed
But, I'm free from the swell.
Don't believe me depressed,
I'm feeling quite well.

The Health Lottery

From No Id To Just Say No

The Id is driven by the pleasure principle, which strives for immediate gratification of all desires.

If these wants are not satisfied, a state of tension and/or anxiety results. 

A baby's impulse to cry when its needs are not immediately met ensures -  in the right (mother's) hands - survival. 

In time, the young child develops the Ego (the reality principle that enables the individual to attempt to obtain what it needs by means which are deemed socially acceptable); and, later, the Superego (a sort of moral map, gauge or guide).

In adulthood, the Superego can become highly-developed, usually as a consequence of childhood needs being ignored, or of some terrible trauma. The adult no longer screams and wails (as a baby would do); instead, she may become pathetically compliant or mute.  Simultaneously, she loses touch with the Id, except through nightmarish dreams where death and destruction reign.

Despite the chronic condition (both causes and symptoms) of an over-developed Superego, the disease is neither progressive nor terminal. Indeed, an external trigger (such as a sympathetic, long-term companionship or collaboration) can jolt the Ego back into action and within months, the individual will find an increased ability to articulate, once again, her desires and wants.

The subsequent articulation of what is - to all extents and purposes - self-presevation manifests itself in numerous ways, according to various controlled experiments and psycho-analytic case-studies.

The Ego may speak eloquently and subtly or more bluntly and simply; expressing itself by a vehement 'no' to all unreasonable and selfish demands. This act of defiance further enhances the Ego's growth: a pleasure in itself.

Positively Negative, Or, Press And Marketing Oxymorons

'Well, I've never been one for positive thinking. I prefer to see clearly when drowning or sinking.'

'So you've seen the latest from Press and Marketing?'

'Of course. I'm an avid follower of its erudite emailing.'

'So, according to them (it), we should look on the bright side. Life's a roller-coaster, an up-and-down ride. But ignore the 'downs', it's the 'ups' that matter.'

'The problem with contentment is one tends to get fatter.'

'I thought it was comfort-eating that made you put on weight. Couch-potato, watching TV, eating chocolate, very late.'

'You get fat if you eat too much; your state of mind doesn't count.'

Pause.

'So, let us return to the missive in hand.'

'Have you noticed how banal these people are; how powerful, yet bland?'

'Yes, of course, but let's analyse just exactly what they're saying.'

'What they're saying is this: it's your wage that they're paying, and they won't carry on if you don't play by the book.'

'So, they've got us by the balls, like a fish on a hook?'

'And, positive thinking, well it only ends in sadness.'

'Yes, while our PL endorses it, I think it's close to madness.'

'I agree with what you say, and I've been doing some reading. It's apparent, it would seem, that depression's down to breeding. It's the innately positive-thinking that succumb to the disease. According to new research, the negative amongst us are generally better at ease. The people who think that everything should always be bright are the ones who get ill when all things are not right.'

'Likewise, the ones who expect the worst can only be impressed by the fact that life has high points despite the fact that it's a mess.'


In anticipation of reading Oliver Burkeman, 2012, The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Edinburgh: Canongate

Watching Myself Waiting

Is Waiting A Waste of Time?

As a child I would wait, every other weekend, for the time when I was allowed to go home, hallucinating the moment when I could return to my mother. But, like Roland Barthes waiting for his lover, this proved 'futile, or immensely pathetic': damaging, traumatic.

'There is a scenography of waiting: I organise it, manipulate it, cut out a portion of time in which I shall mime the loss of the loved object and provoke all the effects of a minor mourning'. (R Barthes, 1990, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, London, Penguin, 37)

As an adult, this early-learned state of waiting became a space I would often inhabit: stasis, limbo. It became my chosen habit.

Marcel Proust describes habit as a 'heavy curtain' that 'conceals from us almost the whole of the universe'. Habit diminishes our senses and faculties, forcing them to lie dormant.

What I was too blind to recognise is that waiting constitutes this thing we call life. Life is the waiting game we play to distract ourselves from the reality of our mortality; that we're all going to die.

But, waiting - life - is also rich with experience. Its fabric is comprised of myriad incidents. External to the body or originating in the imagination, life is the product of one's daydreaming and reflection.

Waiting need not be synonymous with stagnation. As with boredom, it should not be sabotaged by banal, rehearsed distraction. Unobscured by that 'heavy curtain' of habit, waiting can provide the room in which one learns to see clearly; to understand what it means to be: authentically me.