Stories make the world go round

Stories make the world go round. Not money. Not love. It's true - look around you, there are stories everywhere. On TV there are soap stories, films, news stories. There are newspapers full of stories, there are countless novels and short stories in bookshops and magazines full of true life stories. The internet is full of all kinds of stories, videos and blogs. People relate to each other through story, 'I went into town today and you'll never guess what happened...'.

Your life is a story. History is a story. We are the heroes and heroines in our own stories, our own protagonists, kings and queens in miniature eclectic kingdoms.

There are a million and one diaries out there with the hidden thoughts, feelings and records of individuals who have the patience to see their life in terms of a story, a sequence of significant events. Some of the stories are honest, some are lies, some are true, some are exaggerated. Some are more believable than others.

If life is a story, it isn't too strange that no chapter can be repeated in exactly the same way. Past chapters can be romanticized.
'It was better back then.'
How?
'Those were my glory days'.
Can't they happen again?
'There was less fear in the past'.
Honestly?
'It was safer'.
The past is always safe.

Sometimes characters in the stories leave us. New characters appear. Sometimes there are antagonists. There are challenges and themes and ironies. There has to be a plot. It has to be something - even history is a plot full of particular events.

How are we supposed to enjoy the present scene and characters when we are still thinking about the past or wrapped up in the future? Or if the present is intolerable, how are we supposed to be proactive enough to give ourselves our happily ever afters?

By acknowledging that the fear will always be there. By acting even when there is fear. By not romanticising a past which was never as good as it seemed.

After the second world war there were two kinds of people who came through it. There were those who looked back on the war-days with a kind of rose-tinted nostalgia.
They would say: 'People got together, communities worked together, everyone was in the same boat, we had good friends and we were united.'
Then there were others who said: 'It was a scary time and we were afraid'.
Who was being more honest?

Stories make the world go round.

Write yours well.

A Sketch of the Time

A Sketch of the Time 1 (June 2010)



Outcasts and heretics were buried in far off wild places – separated from people both in life and death.

The fear of death came almost constantly at that point. The news items on the bulletins seemed twice as serious, twice as awful as before. The city became three times as cold and alienating, people seemed meaner, stranger, more selfish than ever. And late at night, that was the worst time – when the fear of death, its sheer severity and finality crept into his heart like an unwelcome guest.

The elderly showed almost no wisdom – people swore loudly or were drunk in the morning on the trains. Implied violence was everywhere. And sometimes real violence. It reminded him of being back in the hospital, where a false peace would descend for a while, a kind of truce during which everyone would be waiting for the next awful event, the next violent outburst. 'It was good training, the hospital', he thought, 'not so different as here outside'. Peace does not equal surrender.

If ever there was a time when people would faint from terror – this was that time.

That he had expressed this fear of death made him feel guilty, as if he had somehow effected their morale, or betrayed them all. Like a crow singing its raw, shrill song among the more harmonious, sweeter-sounding birds. He wanted to sing a healing melody, to speak of beauty, true peace and love, but it eluded him at that time. There was nothing of the kind to be observed, or else his eyes were darkened and he found only what he was seeking. Fear, violence and darkness.


A Sketch of the Time (2) Nov 2010

Outcasts and heretics were buried in far off wild places – separated from people both in life and death.

As he sat taking notes in the morning psychology lecture, the wind howled outside as it hit the side of the university building. At the front of the lecture hall, there were models of a take-apart human head with an exposed brain, a giant ear and a heart (probably from some previous medical lecture). It was an overcast day with drizzly rain. The wind seemed to mock those in the lecture theatre:

'How is all your study going to help you survive, here, outside in the real world?
How is learning how to construct a psychology article with appropriate standardised referencing going to help you survive?'

The wind increased in volume and frequency, unnerving and irritating some students and the lecturer.

He imagined that we were all seated in Thor's Cave – the medical models becoming fossilized bones while the wind howled outside the entrance of the cave, shouting:

'Folly! Folly!' Come out of your ivory cave!
In years to come what will you remember about your lecture? It will not help you to survive!'

The laughter and conversation of the students during a break drowned out the wind's voice for a while – a sort of counter-attack against the real world of survival and grey skies and drizzly rain and howling winds which cry 'Folly!'

But when the laughter had died down the voice of the wind remained and increased in its insistence on being heard.

And he imagined that they were high up on a bleak cliff-face, hidden inside the cave – and despite the strange fossils it was a comfort, a kind of peace to be safe and warm, hidden in the crevice of the university, sheltered from winds which cry 'Folly!'

They say that is true peace – to be sheltered, like a dove, while the storm rages all around. Rather than to be surrounded by sunshine and warmth (while the storm rages inside).

Then he went outside.

Nostalgia

There is nothing which is quite so bittersweet as nostalgia. It seems to cause a longing which is as intimate as the sound of blood pulsing to the brain.

Nostalgia is often linked with 'a longing for home' (and some people say with 'a longing for God'). It is a constant theme for writers like Hermann Hesse. Hesse's fairy-tales are littered with references to an elusive return to a 'home', often symbolized in a mother figure. His writing is quite haunting because of this. Can home be found in the past then? Or is it an attempt to return to a mythical Eden which is now guarded by an angel with a sword?

In Christian circles, people will often look down on those who indulge in nostalgia. There's even a scripture quoted to defend this perspective, from the great apostle Paul: "One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

This was from the same Paul who would continually tell those who would listen to him, about what he was like in the past and about his road to Damascus experience. Maybe he didn't think about his past excessively. But I like to think that later on, locked up in prison, with time on his hands, he finally thought more about his childhood and the people he used to know at the start of his 'race'. After all, when did Paul's race really begin?

We can never go back, no matter how much we may wish to, and that is the bitter part. Those moments from childhood which were good and happy can't be returned to. Unless someone invents a time machine they are going to remain as memories. Maybe they are romanticised anyway. The past is safe, secure, a place of refuge. The fears and the pain of those times can be forgotten or minimised.

But the sweet part is in the possibility of a meaning behind those events. Whether it is a first crush, or music, or a half-forgotten computer game, or a film, or a favourite old story - these things can have a meaning. They were character-forming events which have been given significance by us. There may well be a meaning beyond that - why would they leave such a lasting impression otherwise?

In the meantime, the events which take place now may be the cause for future nostalgia. And the present, as scary as it can seem, will also appear safe in the future.
.

Gratitudemania

I often feel an intense pressure to be content with what I have rather than wanting more. Either that, or a pressure to simply count my blessings (because I could be bed-ridden, because I could be blind, or deaf or unable to walk, etc. etc. etc.)
I even feel bad (and ungrateful) for writing about this. Because I'm sure it is a veiled complaint, and I should just be counting my blessings. Not whining about how trying to feel content or putting myself in the shoes of suffering people often feels like dying. I overheard a little boy say to his mother recently: 'No-one likes whingers and I'm a whinger aren't I?' (he was so upset about this that he was crying about it).

Anne Frank once wrote in her diary about how her parents urged her to be grateful and to think of those in worse positions than herself. At the time she was in hiding from the Nazis in an overcrowded annex. With childlike innocence she asked something like: 'What's the point of thinking about those worse off than you when you yourself are suffering?'. I can't remember her exact words, but that was the general jist.

I think the whole, 'being content/thinking of those worse off than you' thing can get out of hand. I know there are plenty of people who can't be bothered to think of others and who are never content or grateful. But there are also plenty of people who will do it almost all the time. And then there are those strange people who simply tell others to be content and think of those worse off (all the time).

So really, there needs to be a word for the phenomenon of excessively thinking of others and overly trying to be content in the English language. The best I can come up with is: 'Gratitudemania' (and for people who never count their blessings it would be 'Gratitudephobia').

They are, I suppose, three separate things – being content with what you have, counting your blessings and thinking of others. These three remain. And the greatest (and worst) of these is 'being content'.

There isn't really much choice for us anyway, when the newspapers and TV are full of stories of people in unenviable positions. Maybe they are the victims of the latest crisis or disaster (and there is always a crisis). Maybe they are severely ill and are not getting proper treatment. Maybe they are just plain unlucky.

Obviously I do count my blessings and try to be content and think of others. I'm just not sure of the purpose of it if you have to do it all the time (unless it really does spark you into action of some kind). I've been known to take myself off to a darkened room, lie down and simply count my blessings. Sometimes, I admit, it does make me feel a little better. But the 'trying to feel content' usually just makes me feel like I'm dying. It always feels better to be wanting something than not to want anything. The self-help writers put it this way: ''You have a right to your desires and needs” (within reason).

Maybe there is always going to be that tension between wanting more and being content with what you have. And a tension between thinking of others and thinking of yourself. Maybe you just have to accept these tensions in life.

But I'm still suspicious that some people would tell a minority, oppressed girl in the third world, who had no arms and no legs, who has just lost her entire family in a war - that she should think of those worse off than herself and count her blessings.

Je ne regrette rein

What I've learned in life is that I usually regret the things I've said rather than the things I haven't said. I shall probably regret writing this blog entry for instance.

But there are two times I really regret not speaking up when I should have done.

Regret 1

Date: Four years ago
Place: Birmingham Council House
Regret details: I had been reading the notices on the council house and was lingering by the pillars at the entrance there. The only person nearby was a young homeless woman. She came up to me and asked for money (I attract beggars all the time). I can't remember if I gave her any or not and that wasn't the regret. What I remember is that she went off to light up a cigarette, as homeless people often do.

Suddenly one of the council house workers came out of the building. The building, in some ways, is like a fort - there is even a gateway which looks a little like a portcullis through which the councillors drive their plush cars. It is as if they are holed up in their garrison, safe from the people on the streets.

The council woman was dressed smartly in a power dress. I didn't recognise her and wasn't sure if she was a councillor or not. But I watched as the homeless woman went up to the council worker and asked for money too.

"Do you have any spare change please?"
The council worker's face contorted into a sneer and she pointed to the cigarette.
"If you didn't smoke you would have money!" she shouted (many council workers can often be seen smoking undisturbed near the pillars there).
The homeless woman just stood there.
But the council worker was unrelenting:
"Why don't you get a job? You're just a lazy scrounger!"
The irony, of course, was that Birmingham City Council had it in their power to help her get accommodation, and from there a job.
"You're not getting anything from me! Don't smoke!"

I should have said something and defended the homeless woman. But I didn't.

Regret 2
Date: Six years ago
Place: A midlands job centre
Regret details: I was looking for work and used to go to a certain job centre. At the job centre worked a man with a ponytail. He used to guard the reception area and walk around the job centre and stare at the job seekers making sure they were all looking for work. I often felt like a slave chained to an oar being forced to row a boat when the man was watching us on the job points. One day a man turned up to sign-on but he was a few minutes late. Ponytail man/slave driver said:
"You're too late to sign on."
"I'm only a few minutes late" pleaded the man, "how will I live for the next two weeks without any money?"
If he wasn't allowed to sign on he would have no income at all.
Ponytail man grinned and said: "You should have thought of that before you turned up late!"
Even though the man continued to plead, ponytail man wouldn't show any mercy.

I should have said something then too.

These, weirdly, are the only two times I actually regret not speaking out at the time. Usually, I just regret things I have said.