Saturday, August 23, 2008
Meeting yourself...
I asked a friend who had been in the convent but left – one of many women who had done that at roughly the same time – why she had come out. She explained that she couldn't speak for anyone else, but what had turned her off was that the novices had been constantly encouraged to be introspective, to look at what was wrong with them in order to correct it, to see their weaknesses and faults, so much so that everywhere she turned she felt she was "meeting herself". It wasn't an experience that she liked, so she left. Not long after she got married and started a family, and could then lose herself in concern for her husband and children. That, she preferred. It reminded me of a joke that I suspect was told to me by my counselor, a wonderful old priest, now translated. A man went to a psychiatrist and poured out his problems. The shrink listened and said to him at the end of the session: "I want you to go home, lock yourself in a room, sit quietly without interruption, and stay there for a whole morning. At the next session, we'll talk about the experience." The man went off and returned for his next session a week later. "How did it go?" the shrink asked him. "Oh very well!" the man replied. I read this terrific book, and the time flew by." "That's not what I said you should do," the doctor replied. "Now I want you to go home, and do as I said. Lock yourself in a room, sit quietly without interruption, and stay there for a whole morning." So off the man went. ""How did it go?" the shrink asked him when he came the next week. "Oh very well!" the man replied. I listened to a new recording of Beethoven's fifth. It was wonderful. The time zipped by." "Those weren't my instructions," the doctor countered. "I asked you to go home, lock yourself in a room, sit quietly without interruption, doing nothing at all, and stay there for a whole morning." The man became extremely agitated. "You can't possibly mean that," he replied. "You want me to keep my own company for an entire morning? That would drive me nuts!" I empathize with my friend who left the convent. Nobody wants to have their nose rubbed in their faults. But it's how she put it that made me think: "I was meeting myself at every turn." Is that something that we ought to be able to do? How important is it that we be able to keep our own company for long periods of time? Know ourselves, faults and failings really well? Because if it is important that may well explain why we need to be on Facebook and Myspace: we can't bear to encounter ourselves.
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14 comments:
Too much time in isolation will drive a person mad.
Or, in the alternative,
what happens when we have nothing to say to ourselves?
Hi fsjl: I don't think we were meant to live in isolation (depending on the precise nature of that solitude) but, insofar as it's something we deliberately do to one another, in various ways, at various times in our lives, oughtn't we to be at least able to survive it? We put prisoner's in solitary confinement, for example. Is that meant to drive them crazy? Teachers and parents put children to stand in the corner as punishment. We 'drop' our friends, give them the cold shoulder, isolate them from the group – behaviours that begin at a very young age. Might it be good if we had met ourselves often enough, and knew ourselves well enough, to survive these ordeals and punishments? Some of us have even found isolation to be a salutary thing – hermits, gurus, mystics, for example, have sought and treasured it. I'm finding myself increasingly taken by the notion, not of our being isolated, but of our having more than a nodding, "Hello, it's time to clean my teeth before breakfast/bed..." acquaintance with ourselves. Indeed, it might make a very useful aim for education! For starters, it would certainly demand a diverse curriculum, tailored to the needs of individual students...
Pam: I see what you mean. We all need some solitude in order to cope with the world, I think. But my question still stands. What happens when we have nothing to say to ourselves?
There are people who are made for solitude, natural eremites and isolates. But we are a social species, and we use isolation, solitary confinement, sending to Coventry as punishment for a reason. For most of us, separation from our fellows for more than a short period of time is unpleasant, and unhealthy. You're right that we need to learn how to handle isolation, and how to tap our inner psychic resources. That's one of the attractions of hallucinogenic drugs, after all.
What the Rasta sees when s/he is communing with the aid of the Holy Herb is deep inside his or her own psyche. And the same is true for the Native American using peyote.
fsjl: It's not just the solitude, though there's some things that simply can't be accomplished in a group – reading, for instance – it's very much the meeting of oneself, getting to know who one is, acceptance of that person, failings and all, and a good working relationship with I&I. That Rasta affirmation of the self (I recently saw it explained somewhere as meaning "you and I", which I'd never, ever, heard before...) is brilliantly insightful. There was an article in one of the papers not long ago about recent research that studies the results of the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, in a controlled setting, of course. There were some astounding findings, with the article reporting effects on subjects' moods that were for the most part very positive, and in some cases, long-lasting, so much so that the mushrooms were being considered for use with terminally ill cancer patients. One ought to be able to find it on the net somewhere...
Rasta use of language is a bit more complex than that. Velma Pollard explores Rasta languange in detail in Dread Talk. There's an interesting explanation of it in Barry Chevannes' edited volume Rastafari and other African-Caribbean Worldviews. That has a couple of good quotations from Rastas explaining their use of I-tesvar language in mystico-religious terms.
The use of mushrooms I hadn't read about. I know Freddie Hickling had some success some years back in using ganja to treat some mental conditions, but I don't know what became of that project.
fsjl:I'm not sure what you mean by "Rasta use of language is a bit more complex than that." Velma worked at the Faculty of Ed when I was PO there, so I knew of DREAD TALK as it grew and became. I've been meaning to send an e-mail to Velma to ask her. My point is that I've never heard of "I&I" explained as "you and I". Though it no doubt means other things, "I-and-I" does affirm the I/Eye-self as insightful and visionary, I've no doubt of that. If I find the mushroom article, I'll let you know.
interesting post. in my experience many people cant stand being with themselves being by themselves, trying to know themselves.
the notion of being alone with one's thoughts scares them.
i guess its part of the world we live in that if we are alone we are either sleeping or constantly doing. sitting contemplatively no tv, no radio, no newspaper, no phone, no internet, no chores just in meditative silence or even just talking to yourself just worries folk. you start to think about how you think or your character traits and other scary stuff.
Pam: I see what you mean. The 'I & I' locution in its denial of the existence of a 'you' is meant to assert both human community and the identity of human and divine. 'Tell no man dat thou hast seen I' is a lot more than the punchline of a joke, it's a real claim to transcendence.
I read a bit years ago, when I was young and impressionable about the psychological value of LSD and psylocibin in understanding what goes on inside our skulls. Some people these days have taken to calling hallucinogenic drugs 'entheogens' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogen) because they see them as connecting us to the divine (whatever that is conceived to be).
Hi jdid: Glad to hear from you, and to have your response to this last blog. I think you are entirely correct when you say, "..it's part of the world we live in that if we are alone we are either sleeping or constantly doing..." In my more cynical moments, I think that those who control our behaviour (through the media, advertising, education, etc., etc.) plan it this way, because as soon as we stop the rushing about and start to get to know ourselves, and so to trust ourselves, and so to think for ourselves, we become much more difficult to control. And they don't want that, do they?
fsjl: A contemplation of I&I would be both a challenging and a very fulfilling exercise. I think, as you say, I&I posits human community without othering ('you-ing') any I's. It also embraces that community as one with and in the I-self, a divine self ("through Him, and with Him, in Him"), and therefore easily able to take in all I's. Haven't entheogens , the 'tripping drugs' of the sixties, been known long since to connect us to the world of the spirits, good and bad? Hence hippie references to 'good trips' and 'bad trips'? Gerald May's ADDICTION AND GRACE – he worked with addicts – has surprising things to say about this. What I find increasingly interesting is that, these days, what some of us call prayer (e.g., centering prayer) is now used for mainstream healing. And now the mushroom, used by native peoples since long, long time in sacred ritual, is now being examined by the researchers for its therapeutic effects. As far as I know, here in Canada, ganja can be legally used in palliative care. Slowly, it all comes together. Selah.
I don't know about the world of the spirits (as opposed to those spirits marketed by Messrs Wray & Nephew), but what those drugs do is open up the unconscious mind to the conscious mind -- which is not always a good idea given the kind of stuff we shove into our unconscious minds over the years. We are not fluffy bunnies, after all.
fsjl: Naps, dreams, daydreams, nightmares, all open up the unconscious mind to the conscious mind. Some kinds of meditation do as well. The drug business goes a bit further: don't believe me, believe the considerable literature of those who have been drugged, or who have drugged themselves, into altered states.
True, we access the unconscious in our sleep. Not, usually, in any very controlled way. There is a practice called 'lucid dreaming' which some people can achieve with practice which is fascinating.
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