207: "water is not dry”

 A very interesting article: The secret to good relationships? Accept family and friends for who they really are | Life and style | The Guardian

The writer writes that, 'It can be painful to discover people are not who we want them to be. But once this is grasped, we can form much more meaningful bonds'.

'Because, if you have not yet acknowledged this fact, you might unconsciously be labouring under the assumption that, if you just try hard enough, you can make water whatever consistency you like. You might be exhausting yourself to the point of ill health to get through a impossibly long to-do list at work. You might be diligently trying to please a parent in order to receive love from them that they do not have the capacity to give. You might be seeking to turn or nudge your partner into being more ambitious, whether through subtle manipulation, bribery or domination.'

'It is only when we understand the fundamental differences between us that we are able to meet each other as separate individuals with our own thoughts, feelings and character. That is essential to forming meaningful relationships with respect and dignity at their core, rather than control.'

'It may sound defeatist to say the world is the way it is, but in truth it is a liberation. Because acknowledging the reality in front of you does not necessarily mean tolerating it; it means seeing it clearly and responding in freedom.

'If you are able to recognise and then relinquish the desire to shape your water/universe/job/love interest to fit a precise hole in the jigsaw puzzle of your mind, you are then free to make your own choices (once the wailing has run its course). In turn, your love interests – and my husband – are free to grow and develop in their own way, rather than into our dolls.'

'You can say to yourself: I have an impossible job that I cannot do well in the time I’m paid to do it and my manager won’t listen, so I will try to get another job, or I will choose to devote more of my time to my work than I am paid to do. You can decide: my partner is the way he is, so I’m going to leave him. Or you might decide: my partner is the way she is, so I will see what love can grow around and through these difficulties and differences. You can choose whether you prefer to have a wet toy car, or a dry one that you can play with before and after a bath. You can choose to build a better life – one that is not stuck and stagnant because you are pouring all your energy into pretending to yourself that you live in a reality you prefer, rather than the one you are living in.'

In my case, it is not that I have tried to 'shape' her - it is complementary skills that make a team. However, there is, perhaps, just a mismatch. For many years I kept changing my side of the equation to match her's - and she might say the same in converse. I have not succeeded - and I will not without turning into a vegetable.

It is not easy, of course, to 'be free to make your won choices.'

This, though, also reminds me of a letter I wrote to an agony aunt - Confidant: 195: Writing to an agony aunt (dear-confidant.blogspot.com)

And her advice, 'Hi there A., 

 You have a choice, it seems, between resentment or guilt

 "How do I get past the guilt and sense of duty? What is the thought process I can cultivate?"

 In that situation, choose guilt every time.'

Captain of my ship. master of my fate? We'll see.

206: Readying for a book club

 A friend of mine runs a book-club and we take it in turns to facilitate a session. The subjects are varied - from business to sustainability to systems thinking and much more. This posting is notes.

I was asked to do another one and my choice has been to think about 'the next phase.' I went back to one of my earlier entries - Confidant: 110: Mid-Life - another common story (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) - and we have decided to title it something along the lines of 'Achieving the U'.

I will use this entry to consider things as they go.

As a starter, I came across this, 'I often find myself thinking about the famous question that ends Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? in this article: The one question we all need to ask ourselves – and how to tune in to the answer | Life and style | The Guardian

And the poem in question is: Poem 133: The Summer Day

In a sense, as I wrote in the last entry, Confidant: 205: Going out with a friend and the end of days (dear-confidant.blogspot.com), this is a first world problem. If you are hungry or living in a war zone or incapacitated in another way, if you have many dependents, this is not a question you are addressing. 

Each one of us is 1 in 8 billion and so, nobody actually cares. Come in to land to a city, drive along neighbourhoods and each light behind a door is a universe. And yet, and yet, grand or small surely we matter too. Also as I wrote in the last entry, each of us has our journey and we, if we can afford it, perhaps deserve to give ourselves the chance to be ..... free? content? without fear?

In the future I am not looking for any self-actualisation, the mythic perfect other, I am not trying to 'find myself' or 'be my best self'. I have had a lucky life and been nominally useful to family, friends and employers.

Is it a level of peace? 

In an earlier post - Confidant: 133: Good enough - a philosphy (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) - there was a passage 'For a while now, that hyperbole has been losing ground to a spirit of anti-utopianism – of accepting yourself as you are, building a good-enough life, or just protecting yourself from the worst of the world outside.  At the core of Gawdat’s “formula for happiness” is the venerable observation that happiness equals reality minus expectations: in order to feel distress because your life is lacking something, you must first have had some expectation of attaining that thing. (My life lacks a 70ft yacht, but this causes me no suffering, because I never imagined I’d have one.)'

For work, my expectations and desire changed over time and so I have been content most of the time. I have not been a high achiever through a combination of lack of effort, a focus on the home front and a lack of talent - my wife would say entirely because of the last.

In my personal life, I have not had any 'expectations' with friends - who does (?) - and have a wide and varied group who have been my lifeline.

With my son, the expectations have been on myself - can I be a good, present father. He will know that and answer that in his own time.

With my wife, again, I had no huge expectation. As I quote in an earlier post Confidant: 199: Casual Callousness (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) 'I could say that when I think about my dream partner, what I want in that person is so basic, so low-bar, I’m almost ashamed to say it out loud: someone who’s happy to see me. Someone who smiles when I walk into a room. Someone who can be happy with me and for me ...'

And I remember the post where I quoted Hanif Khureishi Confidant: Entry 26: A Maudling Post (dear-confidant.blogspot.com)where he writes about a student of his, 'My student didn't wish for anything like 'total liberation' - a revolution, a new social set-up - just for a satisfying marriage. And it is worth noting about the classic heroines of literature, Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary, or even the characters in the David Lean's Brief Encounter, that they are not compulsive transgressors. They are asking for very little, and for everything, which, for them, is a fuller, more satisfying love.'

Maybe her expectations were higher. Maybe I have not measured up and hence the continuous unhappiness and anger. In the world of project management there is stress on 'lessons learned' which, actually, no one does. But I do not want to end up like my parents - bitter to the last in their own way. Is it wrong to consider a change? I am not imagining stuff: Confidant: 67: Clearly A Failure (dear-confidant.blogspot.com)

There was another session with the book-club earlier this week and we were talking about potential. And about personality and character: 'Personality is your predisposition your basic instincts of how to think feel and act - it's your tendency. True test of character is whether you stand by those values when the deck is stacked against you. It’s not about the traits you have its what you decide to do with them.'

And, you know, while I say that I have lived for others and need to have time of my own, I also believe that, mostly, I have been fortunate enough to be able to live up to my character. I considered some of these thoughts before Confidant: 156: Looking back - a moment of reflection, with help from Primo Levi and others (dear-confidant.blogspot.com)

I stated that, of course, we all rationalise and I am the hero in my own story. But, while I never reached corporate heights, I have provided a good life for my wife and son while also being a present father. Before the days of family, I was nominally successful and did not stay in one function but moved and tried different things - when it would have been 'better' to stay in one function in terms of promotion.

And I never considered it a sacrifice to put my wife before my professional career - going to the CEO and saying I needed a move so she could work, not moving to South Africa as the head of a unit - or focusing on being a dad and a fully committed partner. These were my natural instincts and what I wanted to do.

But there was another line that caught my eye. 'Focus on the next step, making it immune to regret and full of possibility.'

That is where I am and where I must move.

And this from entry 211 - ‘I was in a kind of ecstatic freefall’: artist Miranda July on writing the book that could change your life | Miranda July | The Guardian

This is a book about menopause and change but this passage resonated: 'Talking to these older women, she started to consider time in a new way. As a young person she’d thought ahead to the family she might have, the fantasy, maybe, of being a star. Now at 50, “When I look ahead the same number of years, then it’s death at the end. You start setting your goals.” To my polite open mouth she says, gently, “I’m giving you the sense of the headspace that I was in when I was writing, which was, ‘Who do I want to be as a dying person?’” Here is, maybe, the hidden, spiritual element of the book. “So much of what you thought was you was maybe really other people. That starts to become more clear. And the weird part is,” she chuckles earnestly, “there can be discomfort, but I think there’s a kind of psychedelic joy to it, too.” And this is what the novel, All Fours, revealed itself to be about.'

205: Going out with a friend and the end of days

 A very pleasant evening gong out to a stand-up show - with the friend that I have in the past been accused of having an affair with - Confidant: 62: Is this a balanced person? (dear-confidant.blogspot.com). (not true by the way - have not had an affair!)

Our son passed his driving test a couple of weeks ago. A huge (and not huge) thing this - as he had failed a few times last summer. He is also coming up to the end of his school life.

I turned 55 last December.

None of the above are really connected but, somehow, it seems like the 'end of days'. Some sort of phase is coming to an end. I was - partly - sharing this with my brother in law (a physicist) and he said that, in physics, ends of phases are associated with what are known as 'critical points'.

A big six months coming up - important but, in the grand scheme of things, not important as well.

Son and his school finals? How will he do, where will he go for university?

What will I do?

Will I be successful in getting an assignment abroad? Will I have the courage to make the break and move out?

Not important because comfortable first world problems and non-health problems - one friend is going in for a prostrate cancer operation and another lost her life to cancer recently - are not problems at all. But, at the same time, they matter because each has our journey and we, if we can afford it, perhaps deserve to give ourselves the chance to be ..... free? content? without fear?