Beautiful Interruptions

We’ve just spent a fortnight in the amazing city of Edinburgh. The city is crowded with tourists, locals, performers and Fringers like us. For me these teeming streets exhale inspiration. Anything is possible. Thousands of people have crafted their shows, ready to entertain, shock and enthral. The creativity seems to ooze out of bodies and buildings, just waiting for bystanders to absorb.

We make a point of travelling down the Royal Mile (even though it can be at a slow and frustrating pace) because there are so many opportunities to chat with strangers. This is not something we generally do back in our home town (although I think we’re getting better) but it is something we look forward to as part of our Fringe Festival experience.

This year we met a girl called Alice, she was performing in two shows and we ended up talking to her for quite a while. We heard about some of her previous Edinburgh experiences, the tour of her show in Australia, her boyfriend and of course the shows she was promoting at the festival. We ended up going to both of her shows and enjoyed them. I happened to bump into her again on our penultimate day in the city. She was delighted to see me and keen to discover what other shows we had enjoyed. She then excitedly shared with me that her boyfriend had proposed and they were now engaged. She then thrust her hand with the ring in my direction. There is something both beautiful and intimate sharing moments like these with complete strangers.

Yeats wrote ‘There are no strangers here, only friends you haven’t yet met.’

A stranger we have befriended (some might say stalked) since our first visit to the Edinburgh Festival was performing his seventh fringe show. We were thrilled to discover his show had sold out both times we tried to see it. It meant a lot that he arranged to get us in anyway.

The atmosphere and the fact that a number of people are trying to get your attention (to give you their flyers) means it is easy to start up conversations. I know I find this much more difficult back at home. I am convinced that it is worth making the effort locally as these moments shared with strangers will be treasured just as much as the shows we have loved this year.

We’ve been trained to be wary of strangers and to obey public transport etiquette: eyes down, only speak when absolutely necessary. As a result we miss out on little joy moments in our day. These bring happiness to others too. One guy, handing out flyers, would start his patter ‘Hi, how are you?’ when we responded by asking how he was, he was taken aback and said ‘no one normally asks how I am.’

I am as guilty as the next person for rushing through life, particularly on journeys whether it’s walking or on public transport. We’re reminded to stop and smell the roses but there are people out there too; people who would love to be acknowledged and receive a smile. All too often we can feel invisible amongst a sea of faces. When someone smiles or takes the time to say a few words we feel acknowledged and connected. It is the start of community to acknowledge and recognise the people around you. It feels strange that a city has become another home to me. Even though it is 380 miles away and I have never actually lived there, it holds a piece of my heart. I think part of the reason is conversations with strangers. Even though they, like me, may not be locals, our shared experiences in the same location create a temporary community.

So next time you’re out and about or waiting in a queue, try starting a conversation with a stranger. Who knows where it could lead?

Can You Handle the Truth?

Captain Fantastic is a film that explores family, death and the American Dream. I loved this film. One of things that stayed with me was the father’s decision to tell the truth to his kids. There is an uncomfortable scene when he (Ben) and his six kids are having dinner with members of his wife’s family. One of the children asks a difficult question, the other adults answer in clichés and metaphors, but Ben responds with honesty. This is the way he has chosen to parent, with candour, even when it hurts or could be embarrassing.

This goes against the general rules for truth-telling. On the whole we believe we should tell the truth but we also might bend the truth or tell a small white lie to protect others. Clinical Psychologist, Jo Lambe defines a white lie as ‘a lie that if your friend, partner, parent or child found out, they would understand why you told it.’ Sounds reasonable and no doubt we can all think of situations or examples that would fit this definition. Lambe goes on to say ‘a dangerous lie is one we tell to protect ourselves, to stop anyone thinking badly of us.’

This makes it all more complicated.

Truthfulness, honesty and integrity are all highly esteemed by philosophers in all three major ethical theories: utilitarian, virtue and deontological. The first two allow for some caveats. If the consequences of lying lead to a better outcome than if the person told the truth, then the lie is permissible. This allows for the person to draw their own conclusions about the possible consequences of the truth and therefore potentially lie about situations that we would not consider morally ok. For example, by this logic Sally* could lie about the affair she is having because the truth will hurt her husband and their children. However, I am more interested in the less extreme lies we tell. Lies that cover up the disgusting dinner or the boring new boyfriend.

In considering my own lies, if I am honest (?!) the motives are not clear. I do not want to cause any hurt or offence, but underlying this motive is the desire to protect myself. I do not want you to think any less of me. I do not want to damage our relationship. Are these justifiable reasons to lie? Perhaps lying is a lazy form of communication. We cannot be bothered to deal with the issue or circumstance thoroughly and so we take the quickest or ‘easiest’ way out. Ultimately it could be more offensive to you that I choose to lie to you than tell you the truth. It suggests that I think you cannot cope with the truth, that you cannot handle a weaker, selfish me. Instead I have to feed you something that you will find palatable, that will make me look good (or a least not bad) in your eyes.

If we are to rely on our own motivations as a measure for how much truth we should tell, we are on dangerous ground. The lie that potentially protects you from harm, almost certainly does the same for me. The problem is this relies upon me making correct assumptions about you and the information you can handle. In my experience, people are surprising. My assumptions are not a good way of measuring whether or not I should tell a lie to protect someone. I am best at deciding lies that will protect myself. Is there really such a thing as an altruistic lie? Rather than thinking up white lies, perhaps we should become better at how we tell the truth.

* Some names have been changed.

Patience is a virtue!

I have been without my car for the last ten days. A problem I thought would be solved by my friendly RAC man proved too complicated for roadside assistance. It has perplexed the mechanics at my garage too. So I was left changing plans stranded at home during the days.

It was not so much the inconvenience of not having a car that rankled but the not knowing when or even if I would have the car again. The not knowing and possible outcomes clouded my thinking. The frustration at having to say ‘No’ to people and feeling out of control of that choice led me to realise how losing control in this area of my life was affecting my well-being. I’m sure there were other factors at work too, there always are – it’s never just one thing that goes wrong.

The day my car was returned was a total surprise. There was no proceeding phone call, just a ring on the doorbell and there was my car back on the driveway. There was a great sense of relief (both my husband and I had thought we might have to find a new car) and a sense of childlike excitement. I was surprised at how fun it was to get back behind the wheel. The pleasure was heightened by putting the roof down and turning the music up! Philosophers would argue that this is one of the benefits of patience; having delayed gratification the enjoyment of the end is that much sweeter. I don’t know that I practised patience particularly well. I didn’t have too much choice in the matter, but the waiting definitely renewed my appreciation for driving in general and my car in particular.

In the middle of the not knowing and the disappointment I began to think about what I had been learning during these months of stillness and waiting. I had been trying to listen less to the negative thoughts that would bring a halt to everything and trying to listen more to the positive. I had reached a self-imposed deadline in my writing, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t more to be done. Being at home meant jobs that otherwise would have been delayed, got done.

This change in pace brought a different kind of thinking and for the first time in a while I had a completely new idea, not related to either of the two books I am currently writing, it  was exciting and refreshing to dream about something new for a while. It had become all to easy to forget some of my early thoughts about giving time for creativity when creating narrative and characters have become daily habits.

Being ‘on pause’ has been a recurring theme of this year. It goes against my natural instincts and common sense. It is not a passive inactivity but more a restful quietness that allows for envisioning and inspired ideas to come to the fore.

This week has taught me that there is always room for more. The creative well is deep. Sometimes obstacles and tedious waiting allows for that space and time for new ideas to grow.

Emotional Health Check

Public exams are over. Speaking to an eighteen year old who had sat his last exam this week, he shared his feelings of relief but also worry. He was already thinking about results day; wondering if he could have done more, if he had failed.

I have experienced my own failure this week. The knowledge that nothing had really changed as a result was not as comforting as it should have been. There’s a horrible feeling that comes with failure, that sense of stupidity, of being a fool for thinking you could do better or even for trying in the first place. The feelings triggered memories of failing my driving test (a number of times) and the disappointment I felt seeing my A level results. Neither of which has prevented me from doing anything I wanted to. Those small feelings of defeat this week evoked strong feelings of inadequacy.

It is easy to find motivational quotations to help move on from failure. As a teacher it was fairly regular practise to educate pupils in the short comings of other ‘Greats’ in order to inspire and comfort. Examples like ‘I have not failed 10,000 times. I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will work.’ (Thomas Edison)

In order to adopt a positive perspective one must first acknowledge the distortions that failure often brings. Guy Winch, a psychologist, thinks that it is time that we close the gap between our physical and mental health. He makes the point that we spend more time taking care of our teeth than our minds.

When we experience emotional pain like rejection, failure and loneliness we are likely to go into our default setting, which for most of us is a negative place. We start to re-live past hurts and somehow convince ourselves that this current hurt is no surprise; we probably deserve it. Our inner voice is often so negative, if we spoke out loud those thoughts to a friend, they would be shocked. We are mean, hurtful and rude to ourselves in a way we would never be to a friend. One step towards emotional health is speaking to yourself with compassion. Take a step back and see yourself as a friend you care about, what would you say to them?

 

Another common response to emotional pain is rumination – going over and over the situation and dwelling on the consequences and feelings. This can easily spiral downwards and out of control. It is effectively like having a fall and cutting your knee, only to get a knife and start stabbing at it. We would never do this to a physical wound, why do we do it with our emotional ones? Distraction is one way of dealing with over-thinking. Guy Winch reckons just two minutes of distraction is enough but we have to keep making that choice when the negative thoughts come to do something distracting. It takes time and practise.

A quotation that I have found helpful this week is: ‘Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.’ (Zig Ziglar) It has been helpful to separate myself from the process and to acknowledge that event was in the past. Today is a new day, with new opportunities and challenges.

Be More Columbo

Back in November I wrote a post about learning and how this is an integral part of living the good life. At the time I had started learning Italian, reading books about writing and trying out new recipes. Now with my two major writing projects underway, these other projects have fallen by the wayside. An outing with children caused me to re-think my priorities with learning.

I was out with a friend and her children earlier in the week. She is home-schooling them and so each activity is turned into an adventure for learning. A walk to and from the park was filled with questions and imaginings; we discovered the place where the fox met the mouse (in the Gruffalo), we compared what streets are like in two different countries, searched for mushrooms, named wildflowers and helped a spy baby (a doll) make contact with her spy boss. The experience made me think how natural my friend is at drawing out the curiosity and creativity of her children.

As adults we question far less. Some would say this is the result of parents and teachers telling us to stop asking so many questions. Richard Saul Wurman (the original creator of TED conference) says ‘In school we’re rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question.’ There might be other reasons that people stop questioning; laziness, fear of looking weak and ignorant and the desire to succeed overwhelming our desire to finish well. As I write, I am aware that I have succumbed to all three.

Philosophers are those who do not tire of asking questions; ‘Philosophy may be defined as the art of asking the right question…’ Heschel. It was Socrates, the father of Western Philosophy, who believed that questions were both the beginning and the end of all learning. He taught others, his most famous pupil being Plato, through the art of questioning. These were not just any questions but those that would pursue thought in many directions and for many purposes. This has become known as Socratic questioning and has been adopted in education and psychology as a tool for gaining insight into the world and ourselves. 

When we stop asking questions one of the consequences is that we fill the gaps of knowledge with assumptions. We make assumptions about the world, but worse than that, we make assumptions about people. Strangers become little more than stereotypes and we diminish our nearest and dearest by not using our words to unravel more of who they are. Instead we begin to create them in our own image.

If successful businesses are those that rely on questioning innovators then perhaps good lives are those spent being questioning listeners? Those who dare to ask the difficult questions because they recognise this is the path to greater truth and awareness. I don’t like asking questions of others, I fear putting them on the spot. I think that if you want to tell me, you will. Maybe that’s true, but maybe I miss out on discovering more of who you are because I have made a choice for you. I have decided that there are parts of your life that you want to remain hidden rather than simply asking you the question. It is a challenge to consider whether I’m prepared to risk having my curiosity rejected or pursue a deeper truth about you.

My favourite TV detective Columbo was forever asking questions, from the seemingly irrelevant to the downright indelicate. Perhaps it is time we also resolved to ask just ‘one more thing.’

Finding Your Voice

As I have immersed myself into writing, I have found that many writing advisers put forward ways to help emerging authors to find their voice. One of the obvious ways is ‘simply’ to write. This can be done once you have overcome the fear of the blank page, your internal editor “Don’t write that!” and found a topic or story that you feel compelled to write. It all sounds so easy, yet the practise alternates between sluggish sentences and whirlwinds of notions fighting for their space on the page.

For me the process has involved more than just a discovery of my writing style (and that is still developing.) There has also been an uncovering. This has been an internal peeling of layers; finding out what is important and a greater sense of who I am. Not all of it has been pleasant and much of it has centred on voices - whose voices am I listening to? Am I allowing my voice to be heard? Which voices will I choose to follow?

The three most helpful activities that have helped me through this process are finding time for silence, talking with trusted friends and making writing a regular discipline. There are so many voices filling up the spaces of our lives. Thanks to social media, everyone now has their opportunity to share. It is in the silence that I able to fully reconnect with myself and to the One who created me. It has been so precious to have regular times connecting with friends who know and love me. This blog came out of the decision to write regularly and to set myself a weekly deadline. Nine months later, I am revising my first non-fiction book and working on the voices of my characters for my novel.

It is not just writers who need to find their voice, we all do. To find and accept those passions that make us unique. To dig deep inside and discover the gold that lies within. Each one of us has it. Each one of us has value to bring to our families, friends and communities. So often our voice remains a whisper. When it does, people don’t hear it and we run the risk of being ignored, overlooked or shouted over. Your voice deserves to be heard. Not more than any other voice, but we need to hear yours.

When you’re aware that the other person in a conversation is wearing shoes or even boots because your words are being trampled on, your voice is not being heard. It’s the indecision between saying what you really think and saying what you are expected to say. It’s being sure that even if you come across as a selfish slob, you are not one. All too often I fear my voice will be too loud, too demanding or misunderstood. I am learning to recognise that even among the millions of voices vying for attention; mine has the right to be heard. So does yours.

It might help to ask yourself “Where am I holding back?” “In what instances am I biting my tongue and then regretting doing so?” “Where could I speak up a bit more?” You may think you are only one small voice, but lone small things DO make a difference. A lit candle in the darkness, impacts upon ALL the darkness not just the area closest to its glow. The darkness is changed by the light of one flame.

The Heart of the Matter

‘Love isn’t a memory. It’s so much more than that. Love is a world of it’s own that lives in the heart not the head.’ (Spencer, Criminal Minds)

During Mental Health Awareness week I came across a questionnaire by the Mental Health Foundation for assessing a person’s mental health. It was a series of statements that required a response as to how much you agreed with that statement over the last two weeks. Two of the statements in the questionnaire are ‘I’ve been feeling useful’ and ‘I’ve been feeling close to other people’. The isolation that comes from not feeling these two statements is deep and all too common.

We live in communities, physically close but failing to truly connect. Recent experiences of tube travel etiquette demonstrated this reality to me. The carriage becomes more and more crowded but interaction with fellow passengers is to be avoided at all costs. All too often we carry ourselves around protecting our inner selves with fake smiles, make-up and busyness while our inner-self wanders through life unsatisfied, cold and alone.

It’s great that so many are breaking the silence that surrounds mental health. It’s even better when someone struggling with their mental health is able to say so and is met with a response of love and acceptance. These declarations often occur once the individual is feeling robust. Their self-disclosure happens on a ‘good’ day when they feel that can deal with the responses that may come their way. What about the less good days? What about the ‘mean reds’? Many who suffer from depression or anxiety say that accepting them for who they are in their suffering makes a huge difference.

The quotation from Criminal Minds was part of a conversation between a mother and a son discussing her Alzheimers. The mother is worried that soon she will not remember her love for her son. He responds to her worries. Spencer’s conclusion is that love lives in the heart not the mind so their love will be unaffected by Alzheimers. All too often we feed on the stuff going on in our minds rather than on the truths and experiences of our hearts.

Our human experience is often a litany of hurts, rejections and failures. As children we learn the rhyme ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’. The truth is often the words do greater and longer lasting damage than sticks or stones could ever do. Our words and actions have a profound impact. Having read the responses of some who regularly suffer from mental health problems, it was encouraging to learn that regular responses of love, understanding and acceptance did make a difference.

We have an amazing tool at our disposal – words and acts of love. Enabling another to feel useful, creating a memory and atmosphere of closeness could make a world of difference, not just to those suffering with mental illness but to anyone’s mental wellbeing. It may be a simple as telling someone you are here for them. It could be as grand as planning a special treat for someone. This is not love in a gooey romantic sense but love as Aristotle described it. He said, ‘to love is to will good to another for the other’s sake’.

I plan to keep taking steps towards acts of love for the good of the other. I choose to dwell on the experiences of my heart rather than the doubts and questions of my mind.