228: Another week

 Another week is down -  I've been away for work Monday through Thursday.

Met up with some soul friends whom I have known for close on 30 years now - and we discussed what had happened. And how I appear to have done most things ok but that never stopped the anger and the apparent dissatisfaction: Confidant: 226: I've been a bully ... and are you gay? (adult themed content!!)

Have come back now for the Friday and things seem peaceful enough - might go to a film this evening.

Had a book club earlier this week - Confidant: 206: Readying for a book club - on the subject of Confidant: 110: Mid-Life - another common story

During the conversation, came across this passage that I had made a note of at some point:

'Leonard Cohen said his teacher once told him that, the older you get, the lonelier you become, and the deeper the love you need. This is because, as we go through life, we tend to over-identify with being the hero of our stories. 

'This hero isn’t exactly having fun: he’s getting kicked around, humiliated, and disgraced. But if we can let go of identifying with him, we can find our rightful place in the universe, and a love more satisfying than any we’ve ever known.

'People constantly throw around the term “Hero’s Journey” without having any idea what it really means. Everyone from CEOs to wellness-influencers thinks the Hero’s Journey means facing your fears, slaying a dragon, and gaining 25k followers on Instagram. But that’s not the real hero’s journey.

'In the real hero’s journey, the dragon slays YOU. Much to your surprise, you couldn’t make that marriage work. Much to your surprise, you turned forty with no kids, no house, and no prospects. Much to your surprise, the world didn’t want the gifts you proudly offered it.

'If you are foolish, this is where you will abort the journey and start another, and another, abusing your heart over and over for the brief illusion of winning. But if you are wise, you will let yourself be shattered, and return to the village, humbled, but with a newfound sense that you don’t have to identify with the part of you that needs to win, needs to be recognized, needs to know. This is where your transcendent life begins.

'So embrace humility in everything. Life isn’t out to get you, nor are your struggles your fault. Every defeat is just an angel, tugging at your sleeve, telling you that you don’t have to keep banging your head against the wall. Leave that striver there, trapped in his lonely ambitions. Just walk away, and life in its vastness will embrace you.'

I once 'walked away' from work ambitions and striving to try to build a balanced life which supported me and others. And through good fortune, 'life in its vastness' did embrace me through the journey that I shared with our son.

Now, I walk away from the marriage to who knows what - is it the U, W or L to come? Only time will tell but, for the moment, I feel that staying would be an L.

My preparation note for the book club:

Trying to achieve the ‘U’

Context

Some years ago – 2017, just turned 49 – this article piqued my interest and I have remembered it ever since. Now, approaching 56, son away at university and me heading for separation, many of the issues are, perhaps, even more pertinent now than they were then.

But this is not intended to be a counselling session for me! These are universal themes, and Jo and I considered that it might make an interesting topic for discussion.

The Book

In a sense, the book is less interesting than the article in that the former is significantly focused on relationships rather than the wider aspects of life. But let’s go with the initial thoughts anyway ..

Themes / Thoughts to begin

40s and 50s can be a difficult time, it says – 40-59 are, reportedly, the most anxious age group. Career can feel like you are marking time, or the corner office is not the promised land, friends seem more successful and happier, one is taken for granted in the family and taking care of generations above and below! ‘Is this all there is?’ and ‘What’s the point?’

But this is not a crisis. Stopping and taking stock is not only necessary but crucial for a happy and satisfying second half of your life.  Who am I? What are my values? What gives my life meaning?

A quote that’s funny and sounds impressive, if not necessarily accurate: ‘A midlife crisis is what happens when you climb to the top of the ladder and discover it’s against the wrong wall.’ (Joseph Campbell)

There is this idea of the ‘middle passage’ – the time between our first tentative steps into adulthood and the second half of our life. The toughest part of life is the middle passage – when, often, also, the optimism of your early twenties has been tempered by new realities.

 In youth – whatever the circumstances – we are resilient and start in a positive place – the beginning of the U. What happens after?

The ‘U’

Research – and an article - suggests that life satisfaction increases from 60+; more confidence, wisdom. Meaning. This is the ideal – a glorious upswing, a brilliant late bloom. Learning from the middle passage and building from there.

Shapes to be avoided – the ‘W’ and the ‘L’!

The W: The reaction to ‘lives of quiet desperation.’ (Thoreau) can lead to an affair or reckless moves or something drastic in an attempt to find meaning – a short upswing followed by an inevitable fall back – the ‘dead cat bounce’. Reacting to the questions arising from the middle passage, maybe not healthily.

The L: The worst option. Never engaging with the issues of the middle passage. Anesthetize against the desperation through drink, gambling and cynicism – give up.

Do we engage with the important questions or distract with short-term pleasures? Take a fresh look at ourselves or just keep busy? Change or rail against the system? Quick fix or hard work?

At the other end of life

My son left for university three weeks ago, and I wrote to him about how much he has meant to me and how, ‘You have been everything that I / we could have ever wanted, and I shall be eternally grateful that you have been part of my life’s journey.’ I shared with him Tim Minchin and Wear Sunscreen and this passage by Joseph Conrad that I have always admired:

‘Only the young have such moments. I don't mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.

‘One closes behind one the little gate of mere boyishness - and enters an enchanted garden. Its very shades glow with promise. Every turn of the path has its seduction. And it isn't because it is an undiscovered country. One knows well enough that all mankind had streamed that way. It is the charm of universal experience from which one expects an uncommon or personal sensation - a bit of one's own.

‘One goes on recognizing the landmarks of the predecessors, excited, amused, taking the hard luck and the good luck together - the kicks and the half-pence, as the saying is - the picturesque common lot that holds so many possibilities for the deserving or perhaps for the lucky. Yes. One goes on. And the time, too, goes on - till one perceives ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too, must be left behind.’

William Shatner reportedly said that at 92 he knows that none of this matters – but that if he’d known that at 18 he would never have got out of bed!

Personal

If I am to ask you to be open, then I must be also – never ask others to do what you wouldn’t do yourself. With the caveat of rationalisation, I feel that my ‘ladder’ has indeed been against the ‘right wall’ but perhaps it has not been high enough for others or it has had the wrong paint or deficient in some other ways.

Who am I? Perhaps someone who is ‘good enough’ and happy in that state – challenge: where does good enough cross the border into laziness and self-rationalisation?

What are my values? Trying to be an ‘ok’ person, focusing on the fundamentals. Perhaps as the book says, I became a ‘people pleaser’ happy to be wrapped up in ‘delivering’ – for parents, for employers, for my family.

What gives my life meaning? 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 just a level of peace - from not feeling like a backstop? Can ‘meaning’ come from peace and simply appreciating the daily existence?

To finish – other points to seed some thoughts

I came across this article: '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 is this a first world problem? If you are hungry or living in a war zone or incapacitated in another way, if you have many dependents, is this even a question you are addressing?

Each one of us is 1 in 8 billion and so, nobody actually cares; coming in to land at a city, driving along neighbourhoods of an evening, and each light behind a door signifies a universe. And yet, and yet, grand or small, surely, we matter too. 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 one of Kate’s book clubs there was a resonant line: ‘Focus on the next step, making it immune to regret and full of possibility.’

Over to you! Looking back at the middle passage, what is your tomorrow?!